Government Operations Committee on May 27th, 2024

[Tony De Thomasis]

Sure. I appreciate that.

We appreciated the visit by your group. I think it was a good exercise in showing them the benefits of doing trade in Windsor with our proximity to Detroit and the heartland of America from a manufacturing perspective.

The feedback that we're getting from customers is that they love to bring cargo into Windsor, but the administrative support that's required to move that cargo piece by piece back into the U.S. and the amount of paperwork that's required is prohibitive.

We've offered to perform those duties as an all-in-one service that Morterm could provide the customer. We would exercise that paperwork. However, when we attempted that, we understood their challenges and the difficulties associated with that because it was very laborious and very intensive.

What we would propose to do is customs-clear the entire cargo once it lands in Windsor. Then the movement of those goods through a verified carrier could move those goods back into the U.S. for final destination. I think it would just simplify paperwork, but it would still track the different commodities going across the border. This would alleviate all those administrative tasks and the challenges associated with the movement of those goods.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That's excellent. I really appreciate your answer.

Mr. De Thomasis, do you think that this would be something that would be a good candidate for the regulatory sandbox approach? In essence, could we maybe conduct a pilot project in Windsor to see if it could be expanded later on throughout? Do you think that this would be a good candidate for a regulatory sandbox approach?

[Tony De Thomasis]

I think it would be a great pilot project for Windsor, leveraging the new Gordie Howe international bridge with all of the different capacities that are going to be increased at the bridge through the CBSA. We would be a willing partner in any of those exercises to see how we could increase trade across the border.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. De Thomasis, I would encourage and invite you to actually submit for this committee your thoughts in writing on some ideas to reduce some of that administrative burden and even on how we can incorporate a pilot project into a regulatory sandbox in terms of removing some of that paperwork, as you mentioned, that is onerous.

Minister Anand, the President of the Treasury Board, was in Chicago and Washington this month talking about reviving and strengthening the Regulatory Cooperation Council, which would help streamline and harmonize regulations that are cross-border. Of course, 3.3 billion dollars' worth of trade crosses our border every single day. This is important. About a quarter of that passes through our community in Windsor-Essex.

I want to ask you this: How important is it to revive the Regulatory Cooperation Council and make it robust, knowing that, again, cross-border trade between the U.S. and Canada is so important?

[Tony De Thomasis]

I think it's very, very important.

I would ask the committee to also look at other partners that bring trade into the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Those are different organizations, such as Hwy H2O and the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation. They would be more than willing partners to look at any type of pilot program that would increase trade through the Great Lakes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You're past your time.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'll let you do one more. You can take Mrs. Block's 45 seconds.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I appreciate that. Thank you very much. This is great.

I wanted to thank the chair again for bringing this issue to committee, because this is something that I think unites all of us here around the table. This is really a non-partisan issue. I just wanted to say thank you for bringing this issue here to this committee, because I really do think that it is central. It's very important. It is central to the work of this committee. I just wanted to say thank you, Chair, for bringing this forward.

I wanted to ask you, Mr. De Thomasis, this question as well. You mentioned that there already exists a foreign trade zone in Windsor. We know that there are many FTZs across Canada. Could you expound a little on where you think we could possibly expand the FTZ program?

In the same question, because you mentioned sufferance warehouses, and we know those already exist as well, can you speak to how we can build upon the existing sufferance warehouses and the foreign trade zones that exist?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Just answer quickly, if you can, sir.

[Tony De Thomasis]

Sure. I'll make it quick.

I think there are opportunities there that could increase trade and our competitiveness. There are some challenges with the current structure of the sufferance warehouses. I think it's a worthwhile effort to look at those current regulations that are associated with sufferance warehouses and see how we can bring them up to date to meet the customers' needs as of today. With all of the reshoring efforts that are going on, there may need to be some changes made so that we can increase capacity and competitiveness.

That's about it. I think it needs to be looked at once again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Great. Thank you very much.

Members, thanks for your patience as we dealt with some of the IT issues, and we owe special thanks to our clerk for juggling all of that.

Witnesses, thank you very much. It was very informative. I'm sorry that we had to cut you off so much. I do encourage you, though, if you have any further responses that you want to expand on, to please send them in to the committee.

Mr. Girard sent in a report in advance, and if you do have any reports that you wish to share with us, please feel free to send them. We'll find them very interesting, especially around dealing with—we didn't get into it—federal-provincial issues. We are a federation, and I know that those make up a lot of our issues. If you have any comments, suggestions or reports on that, I would highly appreciate it if you'd send them to the clerk.

Thank you once again, everyone. With that, we are adjourned.