Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am pleased to appear before this committee and to answer any questions you may have.
I am the Chair of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal. Accompanying me this morning is Ms. Sandy Greig, Director General of the Research Branch. Before moving on to questions, I would like to give you a brief overview of the tribunal's mandate, and the challenge we are facing.
The tribunal is a quasi-judicial, independent organization that reports to Parliament through the Minister of Finance. The tribunal is currently made up of seven members, who are all appointed by order in council for a specified length of time. The members are supported by 87 employees. Our workload is generated entirely through the number of complaints and cases that are brought to our attention by the governor in council or the Minister of Finance. Most of our cases must adhere to very tight statutory deadlines.
Our mandate is to conduct inquiries following the lodging of complaints, and to provide a ruling on economic, trade, tariff or commercial matters that are brought to our attention by the governor in council or the Minister of Finance. As a quasi-judicial institution, we carry out inquiries into whether dumping, from all countries, and in particular China, has caused, or is threatening to cause, material injury to a domestic industry.
Under the provisions of the Customs Act, decisions made by the Canada Revenue Agency, and the provisions of the Excise Tax Act, the tribunal hears appeals to rulings made by the Canada Border Services Agency. We conduct inquiries on complaints lodged by potential suppliers for federal contracts covered by NAFTA, the Agreement on INternal Trade or the Agreement on Government Procurement.
In cases of damage inquiries, appeals of CRA rulings and federal contract awards, the tribunal's rulings are binding. In cases of safeguard inquiries, the tribunal may provide a legal assessment of damages, and, upon request, forward recommendations on corrective measures to be taken. The CITT also plays an advisory role to the federal government on general economic and tariff matters.
The tribunal's workload is entirely externally generated. Our main challenge continues to be the allocation of our limited resources in such a way as to ensure that the statutory deadlines are always met and that the quality of the tribunal's findings, determinations, and recommendations is not compromised.
We must also ensure the continuity and renewal of our specialized workforce. Sufficient time must be provided for new staff to develop the required experience and competencies, which in some cases will take a number of years.
The tribunal remains committed to advancing government-wide priorities to improve the accountability and transparency of government operations, and to this end, the tribunal will strive to more fully integrate the principal elements of the management accountability framework.
The tribunal has a single strategic outcome and two activities.
The strategic is fair, timely, and effective disposition of international trade cases and government-mandated inquiries in various areas of the tribunal's jurisdiction. The first activity is the adjudication of trade cases, and the second activity is the general economic inquiries and references. The lion's share of the budget is allocated to the first activity, whereas only around $600,000 is spent on the general economic inquiries and references.
In 2006, the tribunal worked on 19 unfair trade cases. The tribunal finished its work on a textile inquiry referred to it by the Minister of Finance and its work on a request to initiate a safeguard with respect to apparel imports from China. We received 52 complaints related to the federal government's procurement practices and 64 appeals of decisions from the CBSA or the CRA. Notably, the volume of work on procurement cases increased in 2006-07 as a greater percentage of the complaints referred to us have been accepted for inquiry.
Throughout the year, the tribunal carried out consultative and outreach activities. First, through the bench and bar committee, the tribunal provides a forum to promote discussion with the bar on issues of importance. The tribunal has also met with representatives from industry, trade associations, and officials from government departments to brief them on our procedures. As well, we have offered training to government agencies in Morocco and Vietnam and participated in technical exchanges with officials from the European community and from Australia.
I would like to mention some initiatives the tribunal is taking to try to improve our accessibility and reduce the administrative burden to the public. We publish and archive all our decisions and statements of reasons on our website. We also issue press releases to inform the public at the time these are made. All notices are placed on our website and subscribers are advised what's new through e-mail. Our questionnaires are available on our website, and parties will soon be able to use a secure electronic channel to file them with the tribunal.
We will shortly be making public case files available to parties electronically. That file will also be searchable and constantly updated throughout a case.
Finally, I would like to talk about the variation in our main estimates from 2006-07 to 2007-08, a net increase being $677,000 in operating expenditures under code 20, and it's primarily attributable to a $620,000 increase in funding to cover the replacement of our audio system in two of our hearing rooms.
Other amounts are a $97,000 increase in collective agreements signed in 2006-07, a $20,000 decrease in contributions to employee benefit plans, and finally a $20,000 decrease due to public works procurement savings.
Those, Mr. Chairman, are my opening comments.
Thank you.