Opening of a new container examination facility at the Port of Vancouver

CBSA will use facility for examinations of marine containers from the Deltaport terminal and Fraser Surrey Docks

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority (VFPA) and the Tsawwassen First Nation (TFN) officially opened on June 17 the CBSA Tsawwassen Container Examination Facility (TCEF) in Tsawwassen, British Columbia.

The TCEF is a new marine container examination facility designed to increase security and increase the examination capacity for goods arriving at the Vancouver marine ports of entry. It is located approximately five kilometers from the Port of Vancouver’s Deltaport terminal and will be used by CBSA officers to conduct complete offload examinations of marine containers, arriving mainly from the Deltaport terminal and Fraser Surrey Docks.

The existing marine container examination facility for the Port of Vancouver, located at an off-dock location in Burnaby, British Columbia, no longer meets the Agency’s needs.

The marine ports of entry in Vancouver receive 57% of the more than 2.5 million marine containers entering Canada each year. The TCEF will enable CBSA officers to conduct complete offload examinations of selected marine containers.

The new TCEF is 55,000 ft2, double the size of the Burnaby facility, with significantly greater capacity for the acceptance and examination of containers. TCEF is designed to increase security through improved risk mitigation, access to state of the art technology and to reduce border processing times for goods arriving at the Vancouver marine port of entry. The facility is located on the Tsawwassen First Nation industrial lands.