The United States blocking Canadian access to the southern Alberta County Road has long been based on
Along the Canada-US border manages a drop-down section that certain residents of the County of Warner in southern Alberta have used freely for decades.
There is only one problem. It is on the American side of the border.
Canadians have long been based on Border Road, even if he’s in Montana, because he believes himself with so many Alberta roads. For decades, the county had an agreement with the county of Tole, at Mount.
Residents have long been able to use the road without the need to go through a passage to the official border, even during the periods when the United States previously sought to strengthen its border security.
But from next July, Canadians will be linked to the use of Border Road without going through an official border crossing. After months of rumors that this change in the daily life of its county could be on its way, Reeve Randy Taylor of Warner said that the calendar to close Canadian road access had been confirmed at a meeting with US Homeland Security last week.
“No one likes change, but I think it has happened for a long time,” said Taylor.
“It’s unfortunate, but it will happen.”
In its place, the county plans to build a new gravel route on the Canadian side of the border.
Border safety efforts
The Alberta RCMP previously worked in close collaboration with American agencies, including American customs and border patrols, to secure the area, which had a high concentration of border surveillance technology. But the new restriction on Border Road is linked to increased efforts from Canadian and American federal governments to strengthen border security.
In December, Alberta unveiled a $ 29 million border security plan. Within the framework of this plan, he introduced the prohibition patrol team, under the command of the Alberta sheriffs, equipped with the power to make arrests without a mandate in a “red zone” of two kilometers located north of the Montana border.
The RCMP has also accelerated its border security, including an increase in black hawk helicopter patrols along the Alberta border.
US President Donald Trump continuously linked his plan to impose prices in Canada on an alleged flood of smoking fentanyl fentanyl in Canada in the United States.
Customs and the protection of American borders data Watch Canada fentanyl convulsions in total less than one percent of the total American crises of the drug. More specifically in the Havre du Montana sector, officials have so far seized just over 0.5 pounds of fentanyl during the 2025 fiscal year.
Darcy Wills, who runs a ranch of cattle in the county of Warner alongside the border, said that the road has long served an important objective for those who live in the region.
“On the Canadian side, people access the road for their daily activities. Whether agricultural activities or go to town, they use this road and it was a perfectly acceptable way to do business,” said Wills.
“But now they have this plan to force Canadians to build a road on the north side of the actual border. And it’s just an additional cost, the duplication of services.
“You will have two roads, side by side.”
Regarding the idea that this decision is made for security reasons, Wills said that he did not give him much weight.
“It’s false, in my opinion. People use it, they do not abuse it,” he said.
“Borders safety is important … But if there is strange traffic or people in strange places, we would see it.”
Local residents using Border Road have never been a problem in the past, Warner’s Reve said Taylor. And the partnership between Warner and the county of Tole worked well.
Warner residents are generally unhappy with the change, said Taylor, but he added that he is convinced that when the new Canadian road is built, they will accept new circumstances more.
“I think that it will be built and that everyone gets used to it, it will be fine. It will be better for the two law enforcement organizations,” said Taylor.
“The fact is that the United States is strong, that it close this road to Canadian traffic, so we have no choice but to put another route on the side of Alberta.”
Taylor added that the province had verbally agreed to pay the new road.
Alberta Minister of Transport, Devin Dreeshen, said that the county had already progressed in the design of a replacement road. Subject to the approval of funding, the construction of the new road will start late this fall or at the start of next year, he said.
“While the road is under the American jurisdiction, the government of Alberta accelerates with the county to explore options that will maintain safe and reliable links for residents, agricultural operations and local businesses,” Dreeshen said in a statement sent by email.
The RCMP refused to comment, referring to CBC News to customs and the protection of American borders. In a statement sent on Friday, this agency wrote that it worked with its Canadian partners to ensure “a minimum disturbance for residents along the border road”.
“The United States has an interest acquired in obtaining its borders.
“The United States and Canada both have an interest in national security to know what happens and beyond its borders, both by the entrance ports and what could try to enter between the designated ports.”
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