Southern Alberta officials push for second full-serve border crossing
Southern Alberta officials push for second full-serve border crossing
Southern Alberta officials push for second full-serve border crossing
New building coming for Port of Wild Horse, but with same hours
It is time to re-examine the Wild Horse border crossing as a potential second 24-hour commercial port of entry into Alberta, according to business groups in the province's southeast, along with the Montana and Alberta governments.
The aging station south of Medicine Hat will be replaced by the Canada Border Services Agency, with work beginning next month.
But it is not currently considering longer hours or better inspection services — features that advocates say could draw business activity to eastern Alberta and ease congestion at the busy Port of Coutts-Sweetgrass about 125 kilometres away.
"Having efficient, effective border access certainly has a business case for our region," said Lisa Dressler, the executive director of the Medicine Hat-based Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce.
"We are heavily reliant on the Coutts-Sweetgrass border crossing, and have been for quite some time … We know that there is truck traffic and commercial traffic going up the eastern Alberta trade corridor."
Dressler has worked on the file since the mid-2000s, when the provincial chamber of commerce first passed a resolution asking the Alberta government to advocate for the port.
That resolution has been updated four times since then, most recently in 2023, with little changing at Wild Horse, which opens at 8 a.m. year-round and closes at 5 p.m. in the winter and 9 p.m. in the summer.
The issue was raised by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Montana Governor Greg Gianforte in late 2023 when they signed a joint letter to their respective federal governments asking to create a second 24-hour crossing at Wild Horse.
The change, they argued, would increase trade and relieve congestion at Coutts while bolstering business in the eastern portions of the province and state.
Expanded border access is also part of a larger hope of regional economic development agencies to create alternate north-south routes along Alberta's eastern boundary to draw carriers and business activity away from the Highway 2 corridor between Calgary and Edmonton.
Coutts is Alberta's only 24-hour crossing
After this story published, the CBSA told CBC News that the volume at Wild Horse — about one transport truck per day in 2024 and 2025 — does not warrant additional resources.
"The CBSA receives many requests for new and enhanced publicly funded services ... [and] must determine, based on its existing financial and human resource availability, whether or not it is able to provide the requested service and whether the volumes warrant an increase in service."
The CBSA operates six ports in Alberta, but only Coutts operates around the clock and has a commercial inspection station for unscheduled loads.
At Wild Horse, only pre-screened commercial loads can cross the border on weekdays during business hours in the winter. This week it switches to summer hours, and closes at 9 p.m. until September.
That complicates commercial schedules, trucking firms told researchers in a 2017 study commissioned to develop a formal business case.
Arriving too late would mean a two-hour drive across southern Alberta or a three-hour drive across northern Montana to be processed at Coutts.
Local officials encouraged by investment
This summer, an aging outpost and garage at Wild Horse will be replaced as part of a general facilities upgrade for 12 minor ports across the country.
Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Justin Wright said he is encouraged that the work is moving ahead — the U.S. side received a new building in 2012 — and Canadian action could reinvigorate the conversation for expanded services.
"It is first steps of reinvesting in that port — something that we have not seen done on the Canadian side for quite some time," he said.
"It's sending a message that it's not forgotten about. They are making the necessary steps that we can continue to build off and continue to advocate for."
Wright says the "sub-national" governments are backing the idea of an expansion. The Alberta Transportation work plan includes repaving and widening the shoulders on parts of Highway 41 leading to the Port of Wild Horse.
The Montana legislature also passed a resolution in 2025 calling on the U.S. government to expand border services across the state.
Highway 41 begins at Wild Horse and extends 700 kilometres north to Cold Lake, crossing the Trans-Canada at Medicine Hat and Yellowhead Highway near Lloydminster.
A 2017 study by the Van Horne Institute at the University of Calgary meant to bolster the case for 24-hour services stated tonnage at Wild Horse could increase more than 30 fold — to 100,000 tonnes in 2040 from 3,000 tonnes in 2015 — with expanded hours as overall trade volume grows.
The study was commissioned by the Alberta regional economic development partnerships, the Palliser Economic Partnership in Alberta and the Bear Paw Development Corp., based in Havre, Mont., south of Wild Horse.
Online link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-second-us-border-crossing-9.7203558