Yes, I would be happy to. It's a great question.
The perception is that small or medium-sized businesses are very savvy on customs import activities and legislation and on how to apply that legislation in the Customs Act. Truth be told—and Ms. Bilodeau made that comment—they're more concerned about running their business. They're small to medium-sized importers. They're not interested in doing the work they can have a customs broker do on their behalf.
There's a self-portal. There's a duty and tax tool that someone can go into and classify their own goods, if they choose to do that. However, if I don't have any experience or background in that, I can go in and select a tariff. Maybe it should carry a 10% duty rate, but I'll pick “other other other”, which is typically duty-free, so I'm not going to pay anything.
Where the onus is.... When we say there will be certainty in terms of duty and tax collection if we use the portal, nothing is further from the truth. Again, you have to be pretty savvy to determine the right amount of duties and taxes you are going to remit. E-commerce is a totally different environment. It attracts PST or HST, depending upon the provinces into which you're importing.
I will leave my comment at that. Thank you.