Thank you, Toby, for your answer.
I agree that this is an area in need of review. It's a tax fairness issue that should concern the committee. There are several ways in which online players, particularly multinational online players based outside of Canada, have an advantage over domestic market players. In our view, that is unacceptable. All of these examples of foreign-based companies that can sell into Canada digitally and avoid GST, HST, and provincial sales taxes, need to be addressed.
The other major concern of course is that online retailers based in the U.S. will often ship products to Canada that will come and hit Canada, even though there is supposed to be a collection of import duties or GST/HST, especially when it's delivered by Canada Post, and that doesn't happen. That is deeply unfair. If you're trying to sell a pair of running shoes for 100 bucks and a big online player in the U.S. can have them shipped to you through Canada Post and avoid the 15% in Atlantic Canada or the 13% in Ontario, you're dead before you even start. That needs to be addressed, and addressed very quickly.
A final point on this is that it's very worrisome to us in the current NAFTA negotiations, because we know the U.S. is asking Canada to raise the de minimis figure to its number of about $800. That's $800 U.S., I'll add. If Canada comes anywhere close to that and raises it in the NAFTA negotiations—if this gets traded away—that would cause major pressures on Canadian retailers and Canadian merchants of all sorts. We urge the government that this is an important provision. We really think the government is doing a nice job in the NAFTA negotiations, but we really don't want to see this provision traded away as we secure the agreement.