I'm going to do this committee a favour and probably not even use it all. I'll try to get us back on track, but I make no promises.
My question is for Mr. Shoan. I'm not going to keep repeating myself, but this, again, falls right in line with what I've been preaching all day. My riding is Essex, which is very close to the new, hopefully soon to be built, Gordie Howe International Bridge. As a matter of fact, just last week I got an update on that bridge, which for all intents and purposes is trending in the right direction, although it's never quite quick enough. Also in my riding, the transport industry is huge, as you are well aware, be it for shipping grain or for the auto industry. Another huge one for us is the produce industry. We are one of the largest ridings “under plastic” so to speak—the greenhouse industry. It's huge for our area, so I've kept myself relatively up to speed on that.
One interesting thing that came out of my update meeting about the Gordie Howe Bridge was specific to what you mentioned about the electronic process. I understand the paperwork process dearly, because for many years with our business, that's what I did. Friday afternoons were just lovely. What was worse was Monday mornings when I would get a phone call at three, four-thirty or five o'clock in the morning saying, “Chris, your temporary import bond doesn't go through.” I'd have people waiting to go to work who are sitting at the border. The reason I continue to bring this up today is that I know how many years I did it for, how many times things changed and how many of my owner-operators were less than pleased with the situation many times.
My question to you is this. Notwithstanding the fact that we—the government, so to speak—are very much going to the electronic process and getting away from the paper, at the end of the day it's of my belief system that unless our CBSA border officers are taught properly and are knowledgeable of the new tariffs, unless it's the people like me who sit at the desk and write all these new tariffs out, eventually it's going to fall in the lap of the person who's spending the most time away from home, the owner-operator. They're stuck at the border. What kind of provisions and/or concerns from your association have been brought up, and if not, do you think it's a good idea that we bring that forward?