As Trade tensions Between Canada and the United States to simmer, a small business operating on the border can see the opportunity in uncertainty.
Nestled between Dundee, qué., And Port Covington, NY, the transfer of house freight is in a building that rides the Canadian-American border. It was originally a hotel, built in the early 1800s.
“It was here before the line,” explains the owner Louis Patenaude. “This is why the line is there.”
The Patenaude family has had the building for 80 years. He served for several purposes: a bar, a hotel and, for a while, his childhood home.
Now it is a freight transfer company with two doors – an opening in Canada for customers and opening to the United States for deliveries.
This unique configuration places it in a kind of non-earth between the Canadian and American customs control points. The result is a legal gray area which has become an ideal logistics point.
Canadian customers have their orders sent to the American building address. When the order arrives, they can enter the Canadian side and collect their packages. They then go directly to Canadian customs to declare and pay all the applicable tasks.
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Halfway House is just meters from the border crossing of Dundee and customers are closely monitored.
Patenauade bill invoices, generally less than $ 10, but customers do not have to pay for cross -border delivery or brokerage fees.
Sébastien Savard lives outside Montreal and recently had truck parts delivered to Halfway House. It was an hour’s drive, but he said he probably saved a few hundred dollars.
“You don’t have to go through both sides of the customs,” says Savard. “It’s easier and it’s a good training.”
Patenaude’s father, Paul-Maurice, led the bar until 1990 and moved the company to take advantage of the unique location.
“Anything that can be shipped, we can take,” explains Patenaaude. “Amazon, eBay, Walmart – You call it.”
The company is small, but it serves a niche clientele and demand can increase when cross -border trade becomes more complicated. As the prices and trade policies change, the same goes for this unusual configuration.
Patenaude, now retired, says income mainly helps cover public services and land taxes – invoices from both countries. He jokes saying that he did not want the family business when he was younger, but now it is he who continues.
“I used to tell my father:” Do not build a business for me when I retire. I want to travel, ”he said with a smile. “Well, now I’m traveling from home to here.”
He admits that there is uncertainty to come, especially if the prices increase or that border policies change, but what he really dreams of is not a retreat or vacation.
Patenaude says that if she had made enough money with a lottery ticket, he put it back in the building.
“My dream is to rebuild it and come back,” he says. “It’s in my blood.”
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