Thank you.
We are very concerned about unlevel playing fields developing in the online space relative to domestic sales. By that I'm not trying to create it as a bricks and mortar versus online thing. There are a great many companies that are operating “.ca” sites in Canada that are also very big contributors and current investors in the Canadian economy. We have spoken before about the de minimis rate and urge this committee and the government not to create an incentive for Canadians to show up literally anywhere else but Canada. Obviously, that is a stance we've taken in the current round of NAFTA renegotiations.
There are a multitude of other challenges. Frankly, there are postal rates that were set back when China was a developing country. That's still obtained with respect to Canada Post. There are difficulties with the CBSA's enforcement of duty and tax collection rules on packages that are valued above the de minimis rate, but still in the $100 to $200 range and it's an extremely porous system that creates an advantage, and certain shippers and certain recipients know that the likelihood that tax or duties will be collected is relatively low. That is a problem in itself. The Province of Quebec has been really at the forefront of pushing back on this. I noticed that Peter Simons recently had something to say about that and I noticed that Mr. Péladeau of Quebecor had a fair bit to say about it in a broader context, so we think it's timely that this issue be discussed.