Evidence of meeting #117 for International Trade in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was carm.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Do you have anything to correct about what you heard from the officials?
Past Chair, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
I think we still have a completely different reality. What they're reflecting is not what we're feeling, and that is the reason we keep asking for a third party. At this point, we have too much of a he-said-she-said moment. We need somebody to come in and actually roll up their sleeves and find out what's going on.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Weber, do you have anything to add about the agency's excuse—which you referred to a little earlier—that is, the story of the dog that ate the homework?
National President, Customs and Immigration Union
Basically, the launch has to be delayed once again until the people who are working at the border, who are going to be able to assist these importers, have an idea of how to use the system. We can't replicate what happened with ArriveCAN.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
What do you think would be an appropriate time frame?
Is six months still useful if things don't change, the agency does not engage in more consultations and doesn't train more employees?
National President, Customs and Immigration Union
A time is difficult to provide when, as you say, there's no consultation and the training is really not happening in any meaningful way now.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you.
I'd like to just follow up on those questions, because I think that's what we're hearing right now. We heard a rosy picture from CBSA, and now we're hearing that nothing much has changed, even though we had that.... Things were put off.
If everything were working, if the training were there, if the training were happening, do you have any idea how long that might take in the best case scenario?
National President, Customs and Immigration Union
In the best case scenario, the amount of time depends greatly on what the training is and whether our members have the ability to practise with the system. A PowerPoint presentation is really not useful when the system itself is using language they're not familiar with. This is a system that was developed for the Canada Revenue Agency and is using terminology that is not necessarily familiar to importers or our officers. It is very confusing, and they're worried. They all lived through what happened during ArriveCAN. We became IT consultants for a large swath of time during that pandemic, when our job was really a constant struggle to use systems that we really didn't know how to use to try to help travellers, in this case importers, to do that paperwork properly, which we were really not successful in doing for the most part.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
I imagine you would have a list of things you'd like CBSA to provide in terms of training, in terms of all that. If we delay it another three months, six months, a year, I can see why we wouldn't want to just put it off indefinitely. If there can be something laid down stating, “We want to accomplish this in the next six months,” would you be ready to provide that to CBSA in terms of what your members need?
National President, Customs and Immigration Union
Yes, once we have the specifics of what it is that's being rolled out. Again, we don't really know that. We've not been consulted. I know from the members that they really don't know what to be expecting four weeks from now, so there's a lot.
Past Chair, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
Can I add a couple of comments?
I think that's a great and reasonable framework. However, again, I feel we need somebody to sit down with the two parties and work on a reasonable, agreed-upon framework to get us there.
The other thing I wouldn't mind sharing is this: I had the privilege of meeting with the executive acting commissioner for U.S. Customs on Monday, who manages their trade program. We talked about CARM. One of the things we still struggle with, which they also felt was interesting, is that we are going for a “big bang”. For the reasons we laid out, it's reasonable to bring people on in a graduated way, as we're all learning. U.S. Customs still runs parallel systems to this day. We've been hearing from Canadian counterparts that they did the same thing. No, they didn't. They have a completely different approach. They run parallel systems, and they are still maintaining legacy systems as they get everyone onto the newer, more modernized processes.
Does that give you any insight?
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Quickly, what are the incentives for people to get onto the new system rather than say that they're not going to learn a new system?
Past Chair, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
In the U.S. versus Canada...?
Past Chair, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
In Canada, there isn't that much of an incentive. I think that's been part of it. It's the heavy-handed part.
I will say that I agree with Mr. Gallivan when he talks about there being increased visibility. People will be able to see things online in one place. Those are great things. Some of the other processes that are paper-based today are going to be automated. However, it's very important for everyone to know that most of these things are already automated. There are very few things that are paper-based. However, even that will be more beneficial than what we have today.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Maybe you can expand on things you were mentioning that I don't recognize. There is a lot of jargon that's new to me, like “EDI processes”.
Past Chair, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
Yes, that's a great question.
On the portal itself.... This is the curious thing, and a lot of us are wondering. Customs is trying to push us all into the portal. The problem with the portal is that you have to manually go in and do stuff. As with most of our processes in systems today, we're exchanging information electronically among importers and service providers. They're pushing forward that information electronically. It's all been pretty seamless and electronic for decades.
Some of their decisions to change things are actually breaking some of those pipes we've been used to. That's definitely a big challenge.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
You have nine seconds, so I think we can leave it.
I have Mr. Baldinelli for four minutes.
Conservative
Tony Baldinelli Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The testimony of the witnesses here this afternoon is kind of surprising. It's distressing, to say the least.
I want to build on what Mr. Weber described while advocating for the launch of CARM to be delayed by about six months, as well as the notion that we can't have what happened with ArriveCAN happen again. That situation should not happen again.
Madam Chair, I'm going to propose a motion that I'd like to share with my committee colleagues here:
That the committee recommend that the federal government immediately suspend the implementation of CARM, currently scheduled for October 21, 2024, until at least April 2025, and that the system be brought into use only after all concerned industry and union stakeholders can provide another update to the Standing Committee on International Trade that demonstrates their improved confidence and readiness for CARM implementation and the Standing Committee on International Trade can complete its study on CARM and table a final report containing its observations and recommendations.
That's the motion I propose, Madam Chair.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Can I propose two amendments to the motion?