Our August 2008 mini truck stock arrived in Calgary on the 5th but is being held up by customs while they are working through a backlog of fumigation tests on marine containers. For those that are unaware containers shipped into Canada from other nations, mostly marine containers are subject to a toxic chemical test by the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) before they can be opened for inspection. Shipping companies typically fumigate containers before they are sealed to kill any foreign bugs that may have found their way inside. This is a good thing as it stops these creatures from entering our ecosystem, an ecosystem that may have no natural way to control them. Imagine if some of these made it here and survived.

Unfortunately it can delay things as the CBSA has to sample air from inside the containers through a porthole to see if they are safe for humans to enter. If not they must be vented with high volume fans and the test performed again. This is only compounded by a change in June 2008 of this year when formaldehyde was added to the list. Apparently the number of containers found to have formaldehyde in them has increased the CBSA workload substantially.

For more information please see the CBSA article on the Testing and Ventilation of Marine Containers.