I'm happy to start.
This has been going on for years, decades in fact, and it's long overdue. In fact, Canada's lack of investment in its own technology in the government is part of the reason it has taken so long. Certainly, the industry sector as a whole, the people doing the trading have long supported this. Companies like GM and Ford long ago eliminated their own paper-based processes and are using almost all electronic tracking. They're also on a system called customs self assessment, which eliminates pretty much all border reporting. It is a fantastic program.
The question I have—and certainly Matt would know about this—goes back to the border accords of the 2000s, beyond the border, and things like that. The idea of those was to eliminate border processing, not just to make it electronic.
What's the point in tracking this stuff? We're not shipping stuff to unknown entities. We're shipping stuff between Ford in Ontario and Ford in Michigan, or GM here and GM in Mexico. We know who they're coming from and who they're going to. What's the value of it at all?
We understand security and everything else, and the need to do that stuff, but to me, that is what it always comes back to. If we do a proper job on the perimeter, and we're securing the perimeter the way we're supposed to, then report everything after the fact. The border, frankly, is just a nuisance for most people and companies.
I guess what we're hoping for, through this NAFTA renegotiation, is that we go further than we have in the past and that we get the opportunity to cement some of the things that have occurred. Just saying “Well, let's make it electronic” doesn't eliminate the burden. We need to start eliminating burdens, not just make them electronic.