30 metre-long B.C. fence along stretch of U.S. border sparks international investigation
International Boundary Commission says it didn’t authorize the fence which has now been taken down
Update — Jan. 30, 2025: The Delta police department said the fence was taken down Thursday morning after the police chief and city manager met and concluded that it should be removed.
An unguarded, black chain-link fence erected in B.C. along the U.S.-Canada border is now the subject of an international investigation and could be in violation of a more than 200-year-old treaty, according to one immigration lawyer.
The fence, roughly 30 metres long, was put up at the end of English Bluff Road in Tsawwassen, a community within the Metro Vancouver suburb of Delta, B.C., on Jan. 16. That side of the border adjoins a park in the Washington state community of Point Roberts.
The International Boundary Commission, a bi-national organization responsible for regulating construction close to the Canada-U.S. border, confirmed to CBC News Wednesday that it did not authorize the fence and is now investigating the matter.
The Delta Police Department recommended the fence be built to prevent people from unintentionally crossing into the U.S. following a 2023 incident in which a Tsawwassen senior went for a walk and didn't return home.
He was found dead a few days later in Point Roberts after inadvertently crossing into the U.S. The police force said the fence was implemented in collaboration with the city's engineering team.
Monument Park in Point Roberts, which has grassy space that extends across the border into Canada, is a place where Canadians and Americans have historically been able to meet for picnics without going through border patrol. It became a particularly popular meeting place during the COVID-19 pandemic when the borders were officially closed.
War of 1812 treaty
In 1814, Britain and the U.S. signed the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, agreeing to return to pre-war boundaries, according to U.S. immigration lawyer Len Saunders, who interprets the treaty to mean no structures could be built close to either side of the border. (Canada was still under the British Crown rule.)
The fence in Delta is mere inches away from a sign that says "no construction or trees" within 10 feet or three metres of the international boundary.
"Whoever put up this fence was obviously not reading this placard," Saunders said.
"The Canadian government, directly through the municipality of Delta, has violated the Treaty of Ghent," he said, adding that he's surprised the fence has not yet been taken down.
Benjamin Hoy, an associate professor of history specializing in the Canada-U.S. border at the University of Saskatchewan, says treaties like the Treaty of Ghent still carry weight today as they define what the border looks like.
"When you have a community bisected by the border, any sort of attempt to handle community or local problems always butts up against this international border in sort of awkward ways," he said.
"It's pretty common across the history, across the last 100 years, that local people come up with solutions that don't mesh well with national or international aims."
But he says the treaty is vague and and that the fence likely violates a historic policy that requires keeping the area near the U.S.-Canada border free from obstructions.
"It's to make the border visible. If you build walls next to the border, you can't see the boundary markers themselves. Border guards can't see if someone is crossing the line. These were created very early on in the border's history, long before the kind of surveillance today," he said.
Rob Russo, a lecturer at the University of British Columbia's Peter A. Allard School of Law who focuses on immigration, said the Treaty of Ghent could apply to the Delta fence but added that it also appears that a municipality acted outside its jurisdiction in building a fence along the border.
"My guess is that it will be very rapidly taken down," he said in a statement.
Motion to bring fence down
Delta Mayor George Harvie said neither he nor the rest of council knew about the fence before it went up.
Harvie said a motion to take it down will be put to council on Monday. He told CBC News he expects a unanimous vote or at least for a large majority of councillors to vote in favour of the motion.
He said council will then immediately notify the International Boundary Commission of its actions and conduct an investigation to determine how a fence was put up without its knowledge to prevent it from happening again in the future.
The Canada Border Services Agency said it was not involved in the installation of the fence and referred questions to Delta police.
While there was previously no fence along this part of the border, there were and still are border patrol cameras that monitor the area. Many other parts of the short border are marked by a variety of private property fences or, as Harvie described, low barriers that prevent cars from crossing over.
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With files from Jessica Cheung, Andrew Kurjata and Tessa Vikander