MEDICINE HAT, Alberta (AP)
Politicians and business leaders from southeastern Alberta will travel to Montana for a meeting Tuesday on getting a 24-hour border crossing opened. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg, who represents Medicine Hat, says the region is suffering economically because it doesn’t have a 24-hour crossing. Solberg will be part of the group heading to Havre, Mont., to discuss ways to get the Wildhorse Border Crossing open around the clock. The Alberta legislature unanimously passed a resolution in April calling on Canada’s federal government to have the crossing operate full time. Havre Mayor Bob Rice, who has long tried to get federal officials to consider opening the Port of Wild Horse for traffic 24 hours a day, today said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hasn’t been listening to requests to open the port roundthe- clock. “(The meeting) is to gain support for the border crossing, at least on a trial basis if nothing else,” Rice said. The meeting is set for Tuesday in the Duck Inn Olympic Room. Last November, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official rejected a proposal to establish a 24-hour border crossing at the port. In a letter to Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., Thaddeus Bingel said the lack of traffic at the port, along with necessary changes that would have to be implemented, stand in the way of changing the port’s hours of operation. Bingel is the assistant commissioner of the agency’s Office of Congressional Affairs. Harold Wilson, of the Economic Development Alliance of Southern Alberta, says now that local officials are on boardIt’s time for everyone on both sides of the border to pressure their federal governments to get the job done. Solberg says a better border crossing would encourage more use of Highway 41 as a northsouth corridor. “The east unfairly languishes, in part, because we don’t have that 24-hour crossing,” Solberg said. “If you think about it, anybody coming up to Alberta from the eastern U.S. would much more logically use the crossing at Wildhorse than they would at Coutts,” which is a 24-hour crossing. The process of getting a 24- hour crossing began two years ago when Rice and Havre Chamber of Commerce representatives visited Medicine Hat looking for support in their attempt to get the U.S. government to agree to the idea. Len Mitzel, who represents Cypress-Medicine Hat in the Alberta legislature, Medicine Hat Mayor Garth Vallely and Cypress County Reeve Jack Osadczuk will accompany Solberg on the trip.,
