The Canada Border Services Agency reports a significant increase in cross-border traffic at the Lacolle crossing since consumer-exemption limits were bumped up last spring.  But it says it's too early to say how much of the traffic increase is due specifically to the increased exemption levels.

 "Our Canadian dollar is at par or close to the American dollar and there is also economic context that can perhaps motivate people to go down south" said Border Services official Dominic McNeely

As of last June first, travellers returning to Canada from the U.S. after a 24-hour stay are allowed to bring back 200-dollars in goods, duty-free. Until then, the duty-free limit was fifty-dollars. 
The exemption limit for stays longer than 48-hours was bumped up from 200-dollars to EIGHT-hundred.

McNeely says cross-border traffic at the Lacolle and St-Armand crossings coming into Canada this past June was up more than 7 percent from the same time a year earlier.

But McNeely says it's unclear how much of that traffic increase is due to the new exemption levels, and how much of it has to do with other factors like currency exchange rates.

Photo:  Margoe Edwards