Business people in Lancaster and Roseau, Minnesota are shocked by the announcement that U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to cut the hours at nearby border crossings. As of January 7th, the hours at Lancaster will be reduced by six hours to 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and at Roseau by four hours to 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Charlie Bernstrom of Bernstrom Oil in Lancaster says about 4,500 people cross into the U.S. at their port each month.

"Steinbach's big, Winnipeg's big, tons of Canadians use the road and I actually talked to the area port director in Pembina and he said 25 percent of the traffic is after 4:00 p.m. so 25 percent is a pretty big number."

He notes government statistics show 31,000 people crossed into the U.S. in the first seven months of this year and, if you do the math with the new hours, 8,000 of them would have been unable to do so.

Todd Peterson, Community Development Coordinator in Roseau, says, if anything, they need longer hours at their border crossing.

"We've always thought we needed a 24-hour crossing, so to restrict it back is really difficult, not only on the people on our side but on the people in southeast Manitoba as well. I know they depend on our hospital for emergency services and it just makes it difficult. The discussion they (Customs and Border Protection) have, that it's only 20 miles to the Warroad crossing, that's just one direction. In order to come back to Roseau, it's an hour. If someone's just right across the border in Manitoba and needs to get to the Emergency Room in Roseau, it would take ten minutes, but it would now take an hour because it's 9:00 p.m. instead of 8:00, that's a big deal."

Peterson adds a lot of people in the Roseau area use that border crossing to cross through Canada to get to the Northwest Angle and this change will be a big inconvenience for them.

Both Peterson and Bernstrom say they've contacted their federal politicians to try and have the decision reversed. They also encourage all interested people, including Canadians, to attend public town hall meetings this Thursday in Roseau and November 6th in Lancaster.

The Canada Border Services Agency says the hours at its crossings at Tolstoi and South Junction will not change from what they are now. South Junction is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight while Tolstoi is open from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.