calling Canada?

Frank gave us a letter from some Chief Canuck that indicated we didn't need to call in each day as long as we didn't land or hang around other boats.

Looks like the other end of the country didn't get the memo?

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/...290/story.html

Canadian border officials fuel fishing flap on St. Lawrence

By Zev Singer, The Ottawa CitizenJuly 25, 2011

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say the boarding of American fisherman Roy Andersen’s boat by Canadian border agents has become an international incident. Not with all the other American fishermen now avoiding Canadian waters. And not with the involvement of high-level politicians and diplomats on both sides of the border.

It was on May 30 that 22-year-old Roy M. Andersen, of Baldwinsville, New York, was fishing with a friend in the Ganonoque Narrows. According to an account he gave the Watertown Daily Times, he was fishing less than 400 metres inside of Canadian waters when Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers approached. They asked whether he had phoned in to say he was crossing over into Canadian waters. He hadn’t.

At that point, Andersen was told he’d have to pay $1,000 on the spot to keep his boat. If not, he and his friend would have to lie handcuffed in the bottom of the boat while it was towed to shore. He paid the fine with his credit card.

At the time, Andersen had a valid Ontario fishing licence and one other thing: an understanding that, as long as he didn’t drop anchor on the Canadian side of the line, border officers wouldn’t enforce the technical requirement to “phone inwards” and announce his presence.

That’s been the understanding, on both sides of the border, according to Canadian Conservative Sen. Bob Runciman, “for generations.”

It didn’t take long before the Andersen story got out among American fishermen and sharply affected their plans.

Four weeks ago, for example, the New York B.A.S.S. Chapter Federation was planning a bass fishing tournament out of Massena, New York. Mike Cusano, the federation’s president, said that in the past, organizers insisted that all participants buy an Ontario fishing licence, which runs about $100, so anglers can search for big fish on both sides of the border. This year, the tournament was held strictly on the American side. As a result, interest was down, with 144 participants, where 200 is typical.

“We made the Canadian side off-limits,” Cusano said. “We just felt it was better and safer to keep everybody fishing on the U.S. side.”

From the boaters and small business owners near the water, the issue moved up to places like the city council of Ogdensburg, New York. A resolution by the council, passed June 27, calls for “a solution to the new interpretation of Canadian customs law on the St. Lawrence River.” The resolution says American boaters are being impacted in ways that are “unreasonable.”

The CBSA stance is particularly unwelcome in Odgensburg, whose civic leaders are trying to promote St. Lawrence County as the “Fishing Capital of the World.”

On the Canadian side, the Brockville and District Chamber of Commerce wrote Vic Toews, the federal public safety minister, who is responsible for the CBSA, and Maxime Bernier, the minister responsible for tourism. In the letter, of July 6, the chamber says they are “deeply concerned” by the Andersen case.

“Fishing is a huge tourism industry within our region and we depend on our U.S. visitors.”

From that level, the concern moved its way up to politicians like Leeds-Grenville MP Gord Brown and New York State Sen. Pattie Ritchie, who, in turn, raised the issue with Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“The residents of the St. Lawrence Valley and Lake Ontario on both sides of the international border have had a special relationship that dates back to the founding of our two great nations,” Ritchie wrote in a statement to the Citizen. “People have family and friends on both sides of the border.

“That’s why I was so surprised and puzzled when this happened, especially just a week before our tourist season begins.

“A lot of my constituents are telling me that they are just avoiding any travel on the Canadian side of the river. I am hoping that my friends in Canada will remember that we are their biggest trading partners and that friends don’t handcuff friends, especially if they want us to come by for a visit.”

The file also hit the desk of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, who not only represents the area, but who also chairs the United States Senate subcommittee on immigration, refugees and border security.

Schumer has written the heads of the CBSA and its American counterpart, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB), and copied Gary Doer, the Canadian ambassador in Washington.

“I very much agree with and support your mission of protecting our shared border,” Schumer wrote on July 8. “But that mission must also protect our border in a manner that is mindful of promoting vital trade, tourism and commerce between our nations.”

For its part, the CBSA has consistently said since the incident that the Andersen case was unremarkable and in line with the enforcement executed routinely by its officers.

“If it so happens that you’re caught breaking the law and one of our officers catches you then you need to face the consequences,” Luc Nadon, a CBSA spokesman told the Citizen. He said there has been no change in the way enforcement is done by his agency.

“That’s a crock,” said Runciman, who has a home on the St. Lawrence River.

“I’ve said ‘Give us a list of individuals who’ve been dealt with in a similar manner for fishing in Canadian waters — with an Ontario fishing licence, not anchored — and had to pay $1,000 to get their boat back.’ .... My guess is it simply hasn’t happened.”

The Citizen put Runciman’s question to the CBSA.

The initial response from the agency was that from 2008-2010 there were 117 cases of recreational fishing vessels and other pleasure boats seized for “failure to report inwards.” However, when the Citizen asked for further clarification on how many of those 117 cases involved boats that were, like Andersen’s, unanchored, the CBSA could substantiate only that there was “at least one.”

“This is not common practice, this has not been common practice,” said Runciman, who called the treatment of Andersen “outrageous” and has called for the CBSA to return the $1,000 and apologize. “You can see that by the reaction of the Americans, and by a lot of Canadians, that this is something new, out of the blue.”

If there was something unusual about the Andersen case that prompted officers to enforce the law, the CBSA certainly has not said so. On the contrary, the CBSA has only said that the Anersen case is normal and should not be surprising.

Runciman said if the CBSA was going to change the way it enforced the law, it should have been straightforward in doing so.

“I think there should have been a cross-border conversation,” he said. “There should have been some kind of understanding and agreement. There should have been some public notice and time for public input.”

Ultimately, the requirement for unanchored boats to phone inward, and the confusion surrounding the enforcement, which is not consistent from region to region, could damage an industry that has been steady through the challenges of the economic downturn and the more expensive Canadian dollar, Runciman said.

“Fishing tourism has been maintained pretty constant throughout that,” he said. “If that starts to suffer as a result of that, and certainly there are threats that that may occur, a lot of people are going to pay a price.”

On July 8, in response to the tempest on the St. Lawrence, the CBSA announced the introduction of a new protocol by which American boaters could phone inward using cellphones rather than being required to come to shore and use landlines installed at ports along the border. While that is seen universally as an improvement over the land lines, politicians on both sides still see it as unnecessary. Mike Cusano, of the New York bass fishermen’s federation, said the bottleneck of anglers trying to get through on their cellphones would still make the process impractical at a tournament.

For their part, the U.S. border agency, the CPB, does not have a requirement that unanchored boaters “phone inwards.” As long as they don’t drop anchor or go ashore, they are not in violation, Tom Rusert, a spokesman in the CPB’s Buffalo field office told the Citizen.

Runciman said if the CBSA keeps up its new practice, that could change.

“Now, we may get into a tit-for-tat kind of exercise here,” he said.

The issue also comes as Canada and the U.S. are negotiating an historic “perimeter security” agreement, which could be released as soon as the end of this summer.

Yet, a reversal on the CBSA’s stance could be on the horizon.

In response to the Citizen’s inquiries, Mike Patton, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, said the minister has now asked for a review of the issue.

“Ultimately, Canada sets its own border policies, just as the U.S sets its own policies,” Patton said. He added, however, that “Minister Toews has asked officials to review the necessity of calling CBSA where a vessel has not anchored. The minister’s priority remains the free-flow of legitimate goods and people across our borders.”

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/a...CO01/307219995

1909 Treaty Recalled In River Rules Debate

By MARC HELLER

THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2011

WASHINGTON - The recent flap over conflicting customs reporting requirements in U.S. and Canadian waters may call into question a 1909 treaty governing the nations' shared waters and prohibiting each from discriminating against the other's citizens in navigating those waters.

The 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty requires that navigation "shall forever remain free and open" and that while the nations may each regulate their own territory, those regulations must be consistent with free navigation and must apply "equally and without discrimination to the inhabitants, ships, vessels, and boats of both countries."

Current regulations as described by the United States and Canada require that U.S. citizens stopping to fish in Canadian waters on the St. Lawrence River without anchoring must report to the Canada Border Services Agency. But Canadian boaters in the same situation in U.S. waters need not report to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, officials have said.

As the debate escalated in recent weeks around the detention of a Thousand Islands fisherman, neither side mentioned the treaty that has governed policies along the waterway for more than a century.

And neither side appeared prepared for questions about it Tuesday. A spokesman for the U.S.-Canada International Joint Commission, which was created to implement and ensure compliance with the treaty, said the IJC would not become involved unless the nations asked for its advice on the issue.

The spokesman referred questions to the U.S. State Department, which did not return emailed questions, and to the Canadian Embassy, which did not have anyone immediately available for comment.

It is not entirely clear whether the treaty applies to such situations, as it has typically governed such issues as the use of water on the shared waterway and the management of water levels. But the treaty also plainly deals with issues related to navigation — although recreational boating was not the major economic driver then that is it today, and the St. Lawrence Seaway had not been built.

Rep. William L. Owens, D-Plattsburgh, Tuesday questioned whether each nation's rules really diverge. He said the guidance he has received from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is that Canadian boaters are, in fact, required by law to check in even if they do not set anchor. The issue, he said, is whether that requirement is enforced, which it is not.

"I think what's different is how it's being enforced," Mr. Owens said.

However, that conflicts with repeated comments that CBP has made to the Courier-Observer asserting that boaters who visit U.S. waters without anchoring, tying up to another boat or taking merchandise, are not required by law to report to Customs.

Both nations agree that boaters who transit through, without stopping, between two points in the same country, need not report.

Ultimately, Mr. Owens said, he hopes to introduce legislation prescribing that boaters in that situation need not report to Customs. He said he is working with Gordon Brown, a member of the Canadian Parliament from the Thousand Islands, to craft matching legislation in Ottawa.

"We hope that we can get the interest of a broad swath of people," Mr. Owens said.

The Canadian government recently announced that it would make the requirement easier to meet by allowing U.S. boaters to call the CBSA by cell phone from their boats, rather than reporting through an agency phone onshore. Had the onshore requirement remained, U.S. boaters would have had to report back to U.S. authorities upon return.