QUESTION PERIOD — Public Safety
NEXUS Program
April 16, 2024
My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate. Each week that I fly to Ottawa, I look with envy at the people who are in the Verified Traveller line. I am not in the Verified Traveller line. It has been a year since I applied for my NEXUS card, and it’s now taking 16 to 18 months for those applications to be processed. I can’t help but wonder how much sense it makes for Canada’s verified travellers to have to be approved first and only by the United States. I’m wondering if you can ask the government if they’d ever be interested in setting up a process whereby Canada would verify its own trusted travellers?
Thank you for your question, senator, and, of course, I will raise this with the minister. But, as colleagues undoubtedly know, there are multiple ways in which one can schedule an interview to obtain, for example, a NEXUS card. That would include a joint interview at a land enrolment centre in the U.S.; a split interview at Canadian and U.S. land enrolment centres, which do get scheduled on the same day; and, finally, through participating Canadian airports, in which the U.S. interview will occur before the individual’s next scheduled flight to the U.S., at a U.S. pre-clearance location within a Canadian airport.
Thank you very much, but that’s after you wait 18 months. You have to apply first, then there’s an 18‑month wait, and, even then, it used to be that you could make one trip to the airport, and if it was a pre-clearance airport, you could have that done. Now you actually have to purchase a ticket to fly to the United States, just to process your application to be a verified Canadian traveller. I understand that there’s a breakdown in relations between the two border service agencies, but can you tell us at what point we will return to a time when you don’t have to buy a ticket to the United States to be verified?
I will certainly add that to the questions I raise with the minister.
