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.
Conservative
Tony Baldinelli Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
We're spending $500 million; that's half a billion dollars. Would you suggest we have another ArriveCAN or Phoenix pay disaster just waiting to happen?
National President, Customs and Immigration Union
I certainly hope not. We all lived through ArriveCAN. We're still living through Phoenix. They were absolute disasters. I hope this doesn't turn into that. Again, though, our members are worried that it is going to be that, because as of now—this is launching in about four weeks—we don't really know what we're doing with it.
After I got invited to this committee on Friday, I spent the last few days speaking to people to try to gain information so I could provide meaningful answers to the questions you have. No one seems to really know how to use the system, and we are going to be the ones on the line expected to help people using the system, so it's very concerning.
Liberal
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thanks to our witnesses for taking the time to be here today.
We did hear from FedEx and UPS way back in the spring, and I would like to follow up with Ms. Bilodeau about readiness and how many customers of yours are now on board. I think last time we heard that there weren't that many, or not enough for you to feel confidence.
Can I get an update now?
Tammy Bilodeau Vice President, Customs Brokerage and Compliance, UPS Canada
From a UPS perspective, we are now fully certified, which we were not at that point in time. We have been fully certified on the 30 scenarios, but not a lot has changed, unfortunately, with respect to our commercial importers in terms of their registration. Only about 20% of our customers have registered in the CARM client portal at this point in time.
Liberal
Renate Jalbert Managing Director, Regulatory Affairs, Federal Express Canada Ltd.
The situation is similar to what Ms. Bilodeau stated for UPS. Federal Express is fully EDI-certified with the CARM program, but the uptake from the importers is very difficult. About 55% of our customer base of Canadian importers are registered, and less than 30% of U.S. importers and less than 20% of rest-of-world importers are registered.
It's very challenging for importers to manoeuvre within the portal and manage the different roles within the portal. There has been a great deal of outreach in communications and marketing in order to communicate globally with these customers.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
What are some of UPS's and FedEx's apprehensions as regards the CARM launch date? What's hindering your ability to sign up more customers? What do you have in mind in terms of the launch date for CARM and the blackout period?
Managing Director, Regulatory Affairs, Federal Express Canada Ltd.
My concerns are not about the back end of the CARM process—I think the modernization was long overdue as far as the entry processing. They're all about the front end and the complications of the CARM portal. It's not that we're hesitant to onboard customers; customers are hesitant to onboard themselves. We have comments from importers who say they tried 10 times to get registered on the portal; they can't get the right documentation and there are issues with global customers, so it's just the challenge of the portal having security delegating the broker that makes it complex.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
When [Technical difficulty—Editor] in terms of duties and calculations from your tests with CBSA, or with the customers that might be live on CARM, what's the response time like from CBSA when you raise an issue with calculations?
Managing Director, Regulatory Affairs, Federal Express Canada Ltd.
It's only been in tests at this point, and there's just one other point I'll make about that: The provincial taxes are not calculated or validated by CBSA; they're calculated by the brokers, so there's no validation of that number. However, for response times in the test scenarios, CBSA was very supportive in ensuring that everybody was onboarded.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
I'll cede the rest of my time to Mr. Badawey on timelines.
Go ahead, Vance.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
As just a quick question to that question, what are the turnaround timelines? What's the expectation on your end of what the turnaround should be, in comparison to what the turnaround timelines are for CBSA?
Vice President, Customs Brokerage and Compliance, UPS Canada
We're experiencing a wide range of turnaround depending on what the issues are going to be. We're going to be dealing with thousands of transactions and importers in real time, so the four-hour turnaround time likely will be sufficient if we can get that 100% of the time. Our experience at UPS was not aligned with what Mr. Gallivan indicated—that 80% of the time they're responding within four hours. We still have several concerns that go several days without response.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
With that said, number one, what has your experience been? Second, what implications will this have—how volatile can it be if it's taking that long—with respect to the margins and the expectations of what your returns are going to be?
Vice President, Customs Brokerage and Compliance, UPS Canada
Certainly it's resulting in additional cost for industry, for business and for importers as well, as we're tying up their and our time in trying to resolve discrepancies. As Ms. Jalbert reported, there's a lot of time that has to be invested just to get onboarded onto the portal, calls to the CBSA helpline.... All of that is adding significant expense not only to industry trade chain partners but to commercial importers, most importantly.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good afternoon, Ms. Campbell. Thank you for your testimony.
I am pleased to see you, as I have the impression that we are witnessing more or less the same scene as last spring. We hear officials tell us that everything is fine and dandy, that everyone has been consulted, that everything is ready, that everything is finely tuned, to the smallest detail, and that there won't be any problems. Then we hear from almost all the organizations affected that there was no consultation, that everything is not going well and that nothing is ready.
You said earlier that your organization had not been consulted on a potential emergency plan. Have you taken part in the tests and simulations since your last testimony, that is, since your very critical brief was submitted last spring?
Past Chair, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
We have not. Many of our members have, but again, it's a very defined number of people. We don't disagree with the reflection in terms of those who are participating, but remember, they're only the certifiers of software. There were only 40 companies allowed to even test in the CES, so that means, on October 21, that around 200,000 people, importers and service providers are seeing this interaction for the first time—and not just the portal. I think we get very fixated on the portal from a CBSA perspective, but the vast majority of transactions are going to be going through the EDI processes, and we're all still learning about that.
I don't know whether I answered your question completely.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
That's very clear.
In your testimony in the spring, you pointed out that some processes had not yet been automated and that things had to be done manually.
Is that still the case?
Past Chair, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
Yes, it is, and even big pieces of it still haven't been tested. We talk about the RPP, for example, the release prior to payment, and every importer is going to have to have a bond. We're hearing from the sureties that none of that has even started yet, so we don't even have a clue how that's all going to work and feel. We just heard from our career colleagues, and although customs is giving us some deferred periods to get ready—they punted it six months—those things are not even working now, so we're not really sure what's going to happen, even in six months.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Weber, as I understand it, your organization was also not consulted on what you were criticizing at the time. You said at the time that there was a consensus on the lack of adequate training for border personnel on CARM. Just a few days before the system was supposed to be implemented, that was still the case.
What is your assessment of the training this time? I would hope that its postponement was to make improvements.
National President, Customs and Immigration Union
I would love to be able to report that things have changed. The level of training that we have now is pretty much where it was before. Our members really don't know what to expect, what they're going to be doing or how to assist any of the importers who are going to be arriving at the border. When the launch was delayed last time, it was blamed by the CBSA on a strike vote.
I'm trying to be measured in my words, but there are some questions around integrity. That's the federal agency equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”, to be honest. Our members were furious when they read that. That had no bearing whatsoever on their not being ready to launch CARM. They're still not ready.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
What you are saying is very interesting.
My question is for both of you, Ms. Campbell and Mr. Weber. You've heard the exchanges between members of Parliament and CBSA officials. There was actually no testimony. I don't know if you've had a chance to read the witnesses' notes since we didn't have time to hear their presentation.
Is there anything else that you would wish to see rectified, as you did last spring?
