Truck fleet managers who find themselves weighing a moral duty to accept tighter security measures against the impact on their business need only remember the name Nabil Al-Marabh.

Al-Marabh, arrested in the terrorism investigation following the attacks of Sept. 11, was found to have a commercial driver’s license with a hazardous materials endorsement. It was the first suggestion, in the mainstream media, at least, that terrorists might have been looking at using hazmat trucks as weapons of mass destruction.

If that was his intent, he was foiled when a prospective employer, a Chicago-based fuel hauler, performed a routine pre-hire background check and found that Al-Marabh had a traffic ticket, an unacceptable offence. Al-Marabh has since been linked via financial transactions to suspected terrorists. In June, he was caught trying to enter the United States from Canada using a fake Canadian passport. He was handed over to Canadian authorities and later released on bail, but didn’t show up for a Sept. 13 court appearance. He was arrested Sept. 19 on immigration charges.

Fears about bio-terrorism and reports that some alleged terrorists were planning to blow up large buildings, like the Sears Tower in Chicago, by driving tankers into parking garages, have sparked talk on both sides of the border about how to increase security measures among truck operators without choking off the free flow of crossborder trade.

Last month, the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it planned to visit hazmat carriers in order to offer advice about security. The U.S. Congress is considering a bill that would triple the number of customs and patrol officers along the Canadian border, and put biometric scanners and fingerprint processors at key border points. U.S.

Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner James Ziglar wants to revive a system to track the entry and exit of all foreign visitors by 2004. The system was postponed two years ago at the urging of free-trade advocates, who warned of massive delays at the border.

Canada so far has given no indication of similar measures here, except for calls among politicians and business groups to erect a North American security perimeter that would include Canada and the United States. This would tighten security measures at border points around Canada and the United States, which would then allow people and goods to move across the Canada-U.S. border with greater ease.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley, however, calls the perimeter concept a “simplistic” solution to a complex problem.

Moe Rivet, a dispatcher for Volume Tank Transport in Mississauga, Ont., a fuel hauler, doubts customs clearance will ever return to the ease of days past. Rivet says he tells drivers to make sure their tank is secure and their paperwork is ready before they reach the border.

He also wants his drivers to have their birth certificate ready. Rivet describes a recent incident where a U.S. border official was about to deny entry to a driver who wasn’t able to produce a birth certificate.

Glenn Dougan, director of operations for Calgary-based Mantei’s Transport, which also hauls fuel into the U.S., says delays at the Coutts, Alta., crossing have diminished from three hours in the days after the attacks to about 20 minutes. “We’re not seeing the same delays as what’s going on out East, but even at the border here they’re still obviously being more rigorous than before,” he says. “We might as well get used it.”

Those words provide little comfort for Rob Gaw, risk manager for Cloverdale, B.C.-based Coastal Pacific Express, a 170-truck fleet that transports fish to the southern United States. East Indian and Muslim drivers represent about one third of his company’s driver pool, and they drive in teams of two and sometimes three.

Gaw recalls how a Sikh driver was asked to remove his turban for inspection. Another, driving late at night was detained getting through into Canada. While waiting, the driver, still on the American side, walked to get a sandwich, at which point he was approached by a U.S. inspector and accused of trying to cross illegally. Despite the situation being clarified, the driver is not allowed to enter the United States until he obtains a waiver from the U.S. consulate, which can take six months. Gaw put him on a Vancouver to Calgary route-a run that pays far less than his usual trek to Los Angeles.

“From a moral standpoint, you have to say, ‘Do whatever it takes to keep us safe.’ But at what point does that start to wear thin?” asks Gaw, who now dispenses company-issued photo I.D. cards drivers can show. The cards have no official standing with customs or immigration officers, but they can’t hurt.

“We do background and criminal checks on employees,” he says, “but it’s still difficult for me to vouch for someone one-hundred percent. Not that I have anyone here I don’t trust, but how really well do you know everybody that works for you?”