OTTAWA — The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) sounded a little world-weary in its response to the announcement that Canadian and U.S. government officials have pledged to improve cooperation and coordination at the border.

In an editorial posted on its web site, CTA says it takes the news “with a well-earned and healthy degree of skepticism” since previous efforts to streamline the border have ended in few positive results.

“We have been promised a better balance between security and trade facilitation a number of times over the past decade, only to be disappointed by the results,” the editorial states. “We sincerely hope the outcome will be different this time and are prepared to work with the Government of Canada to ensure this is the case.”

CTA points out that trucking, more than any other industry has been greatly impacted by border delays in the “security-trumps-trade post-9/11 world.” So the alliance says it welcomes the news from U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the two countries will attempt once again to fix border problems.

“Canada and the United States, alone or in partnership, cannot hope to compete with the emerging economies and other trading blocs, unless we have a predictable, reliable and efficient supply chain. The current state of the border is not conducive to that,” the site says.

The “deal” that companies involved in trusted trader programs like FAST, C-TPAT, and PIP would get across the border more quickly than they were able prior to 9/11 – has not occurred, CTA points out.

“It is early days yet, but so far the level of consultation is good. I don’t want to dampen expectations, but for anybody in the industry reading this, it is unrealistic, in our view, to expect a dismantling of the plethora of measures introduced in the name of security over the past number of years.”

The association also calls upon Canadian officials to look at some of its own border security programs to ensure they are not even more burdensome than similar programs in the U.S.

“Our government also needs to ensure that, at the very least, its regulations and the enforcement of those rules create a level playing field for Canadian carriers.”