International Trade Committee on April 14th, 2016

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

So by “coverage“ you mean staff shortages, that there weren't enough staff there?

[Nicholas Swales]

We mean that nobody was looking at the parcels going for export.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Okay.

There's no mention of locations of export. Is there an export point in Canada that is more vulnerable?

[Michael Ferguson]

We didn't get down into that level of detail so I couldn't tell you which port was the most at risk. That's something that perhaps CBSA could give you information about.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Okay.

You also mentioned sanctions and that we could impose sanctions based on this. Have we ever had to impose sanctions on an exporter or a country, and if so, under what conditions?

[Nicholas Swales]

There are sanctions that have been imposed on a number of countries. Most recently of course there were a number imposed on Russia, or business interests in Russia, so that's the kind of thing that we're talking about; whereas, as a result of a public policy decision, certain organizations' freedom of action commercially with Canada is restricted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Time is up, Ms. Ramsey.

Mr. Fonseca.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you for your informative presentation.

This committee is studying the TPP, and we've gone through CETA, etc., and the potential ratification of those agreements with Europe and with the Pacific Rim. I don't know if this came up, the extra work the CBSA would be doing on these export permits, so looking to the future in all of these other countries where we may be doing a lot more trade. Are they looking towards their horizon? What is coming down the pipeline?

[Nicholas Swales]

We didn't look at it from that perspective. Our concern was that even with the current volumes, the systems and practices they had in place were, in a number of ways, not able to keep up.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

So in knowing that there is potentially a lot more work coming along, you'd see this as a pressure.

[Michael Ferguson]

Mr. Chair, the issue is very much that there are controls there or expectations that Canada control some of its exports. Again, based on international agreements, based on our own laws, there are expectations that we put reasonable controls in, not to look at everything that's leaving the country, but to have a system that's based on risk, that's based on sampling, and that type of thing so that it is not predictable where the gaps are in that system.

Regardless of all of those things on the horizon—and there may be things that add more pressure to the export system in Canada—I think it's very important that they have a system that's coherent from beginning to end that is not predictable and that will allow them to get a sense of whether things are leaving the country that shouldn't be.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Did you look at global best practices, or how we stack up on the global scene, when it comes to these export permits?

[Michael Ferguson]

No. The short answer is no, we didn't.

But I think, again, these types of controls are very much dependent on the international obligations that Canada has signed on to, the laws that Canada has created for itself. It would be difficult to compare one country with another, because all of that environment would be different.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you very much.

That finishes up our questioning.

On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank you, Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Swales, and all your team, who work so hard, having their eyes and ears out there for things that sometimes we as parliamentarians don't see. Thanks again for your submissions today and all the good questions.

Right now we're going to suspend and go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]