Temporary border crossing opened near Cornwall

A temporary border crossing was opened Monday morning in Cornwall, Ont., six weeks after the crossing was closed amid a dispute with a local Mohawk community.

Cornwall Police Chief Dan Parkinson says things are going smoothly so far, noting that people in the city have looked forward to a "return to the previous normal" for weeks.

The Three Nations Crossing straddles Quebec, Ontario and the U.S. The official customs office had been on Cornwall Island, on the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve. The new temporary point of entry is on the north side of the Seaway International Bridge in the city of Cornwall.

The site is rather makeshift, bearing more resemblance to a police checkpoint than a border facility.

CTV's Graham Richardson says there was a tent set up near where the border guards are greeting traffic but it blew over, injuring one of the border guards who had to be taken away on stretcher.

Richardson said the new opening was set up quickly, as authorities wanted the element of surprise to avoid any confrontations.

He added there were no protesters at the new site as of Monday afternoon.

The border crossing had been shut since midnight, June 1, when a new federal policy kicked in requiring all border guards to carry 9-mm handguns.

The Akwesasne Mohawk said the gun policy violated their sovereignty and increased the likelihood of violent confrontations. When hundreds of Mohawks set up camp near the border on May 31, to protest the new gun policy, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) decided to pull the guards there.

The CBSA had said it would not alter its side arms policy for the Cornwall Island guards and would only reopen its facility "when border services officers can work there safely with all of the tools they need to do their job, including their duty firearm."

The Customs and Immigration Union, which represents the order services officers, has said its members will never work on the location again.

"People need to further understand that the events which led up to the office closing are such that the Officers can never work at the current location again, armed or unarmed," the union's national president, Ron Moran, said in a news release last week.

The union says that for decades it has been against the decision to set up the crossing on native land and says the office needs to be moved.

"A lot of people are saying, 'This thing has been brewing for a long time, and it's not just about the fact that officers are carrying sidearms,'" Richardson said.

The Agency said in a statement Sunday that it had met several times with the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne to discuss reopening the port of entry.

"While discussions are ongoing, the CBSA will open a temporary facility that will be stationed at the base of the north span of the bridge in the City of Cornwall," the statement said.

It gave no word on whether the crossing would open permanently. But the agency tells CTV Ottawa that their fully armed guards will work from the facility "until further notice."

Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Grand Chief Mike Mitchell said he only learned of the decision to open the temporary post through the news media.

"They're trying to play some kind of card here," Mitchell told the Canadian Press.

Mitchell said there are still details that need to be worked out to ensure the safety of his people and the border guards before any kind of new checkpoint is created. He added he felt a deal could have been reached.

As it is, relations could still be tense, he said.

"Traffic is still going to have to go through the island. If they don't watch out, something can go wrong here," Mitchell said.

Mitchell told ctvottawa.ca Sunday that the CBSA's decision to re-open the point of entry could relate to last week's news that Mohawk residents were returning to Canada from the U.S. without passing through Customs.

"Some of the Mohawk residents have been coming through from the American side and that's what they're concerned about. They told me last week that they might open earlier if they kept coming across. So that seems to be what's behind it all," Mitchell said.

The Cornwall border crossing handles more than 2.5 million trips each year with commercial and tourist traffic accounting for at least one million trips, according to the Chamber of Commerce.

Before the temporary border crossing opened Monday, travelers looking to cross at Cornwall Island had been rerouted to either Prescott, Ont. or Dundee, Que., making a simple cross-border trip to Cornwall an hour-and-a-half drive.