Trucker blockade turns COVID-restricted trickle of U.S.-Canada border traffic to almost none at all

The outlook had already been bleak at Mason Peters' border-town business in Pembina, N.D., that serves as a shipping address and warehouse for goods that Canadians have purchased from U.S. companies.

Mike's Parcel, which Peters and his wife bought in 2019, had lost some 60% of its business since March 2020. Pandemic restrictions — from border closures to restrictive Canadian COVID-19 vaccine and testing mandates — slowed leisure traffic at the state's busiest border crossing at the nexus of North Dakota, Minnesota and Manitoba to a trickle. Peters estimates he's lost $250,000 in gross revenue the past two years. And the Canadian-born Peters has hardly been able to visit family members north of the line.

Then, in a continuation of the trucker protests against COVID-19 restrictions that have roiled Canada for weeks, 50 or so trucks parked themselves on the Canadian side of the border last week, blocking all commercial traffic from crossing into the United States.

There went the remaining 40% of Peters' business.

"Now the point we're at is, 'Where's next month's loan payment going to come from?' " said Peters, who pastored a Pembina church for two decades before buying the business, a common border-town trade that helps Canadians save on goods shipped from the United States. "There's no aspect to the Canadian government's response to COVID that hasn't damaged us. So do I get (the protesters') frustrations? Absolutely. Do I approve of what they're doing? Not particularly.

"But am I surprised it's come to this?" he continued. "Not really. I'm not going to scream and yell, but I've been pushed to the brink financially and personally."

Pembina residents confirmed those 50 or so trucks, farm equipment and other vehicles remained in place Tuesday, still blocking the crossing. Protests have also blocked roads and prevented traffic from accessing the Blaine, Wash., and Sweetgrass, Mont., ports of entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

A spokeswoman with the Canadian Border Services Agency said Tuesday that while the Pembina-Emerson crossing was open and still processing passenger vehicles, no commercial carriers were being processed.

Residents of Pembina said that was a distinction without a difference. Even if passenger vehicles are being allowed through, residents said, cumbersome Canadian COVID restrictions — a vaccine mandate for travelers from the United States as well as proof of a negative PCR test within the past 72 hours — meant that passenger vehicle traffic had all but evaporated before the trucker blockade.

The Canadian Border Services Agency said Tuesday that any travelers at the port of entry may experience significant delays due to the protests.

A 24-hour truck stop on the U.S. side of the border said it had zero truck traffic coming through Tuesday.

But at least one business owner said she has financially benefited.

Yet Needham sympathizes with those protesting Canadian pandemic restrictions. Sure, she'd be upset if a blockade disrupted her own travel, but the disrupted travel from pandemic restrictions has become a financial boon for her business, as travelers awaiting PCR test results to go into Canada stay in her motel. But Needham is tired of being cut off from her Canadian family and believes the protests are necessary. She's sick of the "rigmarole," she said. She hopes that the protests stay peaceful and that they cause politicians in Ottawa to loosen pandemic restrictions that have disrupted life for nearly two years.

"There's a big picture here, and it would be good to keep the big picture in mind," she said.

For Peters, the big picture is this: He has two kids in college and a third in high school. He is just trying to hold on for a couple more months before, he believes, business finally turns around.

On Tuesday, after unloading a rare new shipment — 3,000 pounds of fencing for a cattle ranch — Peters stressed that he's not a COVID denier. He said his vaccine status is a private matter, but disclosed that his wife, healthy and in her mid-40s, had long COVID just a couple of months ago. The virus put her in a hospital on oxygen and she nearly died. With his wife surviving, and with his business kept afloat with government help, he considers himself one of the lucky ones. He's counting his blessings, such as in January, when he and his wife didn't take a paycheck from their business — but two different friends showed up, unprompted, with envelopes. Inside was money to help them get by.