Thank you, Madam Chair.
I thank all the witnesses for being here.
As my colleague said earlier, we received a letter from the Canada Border Services Agency. This letter refutes the testimony from several witnesses the committee heard last week.
This is what is written in the letter:
… The Committee heard testimony that the CBSA’s commitment to respond to urgent program account requests within four hours 80% of the time was not being fulfilled—several cases were cited by Ms. Bilodeau from UPS Canada in which calls had gone several days without response. The CBSA’s reporting on the processing of urgent requests indicate that 85% of all urgent requests received have been actioned in less than four hours—this following a period of time in which over 35,000 requests for program accounts were received and during which the CBSA experienced a 500% increase in call volumes. Ms. Bilodeau also testified that only 20% of her customers had registered in the CARM Client Portal. This testimony does not take into account that some of her clients may have gone out of business, may have only imported into Canada one time, or may in fact be registered but as a client of another company.
Ms. Campbell, you have the opportunity to respond to some of the statements contained in this letter.
Ms. Bilodeau, would you like to comment on this refutation of your testimony?