HALIFAX — Workers at Canada’s seaports, including truck drivers, will soon have to carry mandatory ID cards when accessing container terminals and other ports facilities, Transport Canada announced yesterday.

Canada’s three major container ports will start
issuing ID cards to workers and truckers this winter.

The security cards, which under the Marine Transportation Security Clearance Plan are meant to increase security from potential terrorist threats, will be administered this coming December to workers at ports in Vancouver, Montreal, and Halifax. Other ports will issue them in 2008, reports Canadian Press.

The $115-million federal program includes background checks for port workers who have access to security-sensitive areas like loading docks and fuelling stations.

The universal card will be accepted at each Canadian port, authorities say, cutting down on the number of port security ID truckers currently carry.

However, some port officials, shippers and trucking companies say the program will be costly — more than what Ottawa is prepared to fund. Those costs will be absorbed by terminal operators, and naturally passed down to trucking providers and shippers, hiking up the cost of goods.

For several years, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration has been trying to develop a similar port ID card. But the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC), as it’s called, is still not ready and its long-overdue rollout was postponed yet again last month.

The biometric card is to be given to about 750,000 port workers, truckers, and longshoreman.

— with files from Canadian Press