International Trade Committee on March 19th, 2024

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Madam Chair, I'm going to move the following motion:

Given that,

(a) the carbon tax puts Canada in a competitive disadvantage on the global market;

(b) jurisdictions such as the United States do not have a carbon tax, giving them a competitive advantage;

(c) this competitive advantage could draw businesses to the U.S., hurting Canadian business; and

(d) the federal government is planning a 23% carbon tax hike on April 1st;

the committee report to the House its recommendation to spike the hike and axe the tax.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

What has that got to do with what we're dealing with right now?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

We're in committee business, so I'm allowed to move a motion. That's my motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We're not in committee business. I'm so glad we have an efficient clerk. You can wait a little while and do that afterwards when we deal with other issues.

You still have one minute left, if you'd like, Mr. Seeback.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I would just finish by saying that I don't think Mr. Gallivan's answer to my question that it's going to be a success is going to give a lot of stakeholders and Canadians confidence, because it was not an answer that filled me with confidence that the rollout is going to go well.

I hope for the sake of Canadians and for the sake of our economy that this rollout goes well on May 13, but given what I've heard from stakeholders and what I've heard today, I fear that's not going to be the case.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

Madam Fortier and Mr. Sidhu, who would like to take the remaining five minutes?

Mr. Sidhu.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

One of the biggest changes here for the importers of record are the businesses doing importations. They are now required to get a customs bond or a release bond. For the release bond, the calculation used to be just duties, but now I hear from industry that GST might be added when you're calculating how much of a bond you need to get on a monthly basis.

Are there considerations for CBSA not to include the GST portion, like many other countries are doing?

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

We have been looking at that, and we will be including the GST in the calculation. As you know, duties and taxes owing need to be secured, and this will be one of the primary mechanisms we can use to secure Crown revenue. I understand it has caused some concern, but we are moving to that model.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

I have a question for you on the ticketing system. I know importers and businesses can submit a ticket if there's an issue. What I'm hearing from industry is the response time is not 24 hours and it's not two days. Sometimes tickets can go as far as 14 days, and that's a long time for a business to justify things and get some answers for their clients who are importing into Canada.

Is CBSA working to get that sped up a bit to ensure there are no issues?

[Ted Gallivan]

We set up a 10-day response time. We did receive a representation, maybe from the same business, that we were serving them in seven days, which was actually faster than we had planned to serve them, but that wasn't good enough. We've just been made aware of that, and again, we're taking it back. We had set up a commitment to respond in 10 days. I took some comfort that we were responding within the standard of seven days, but we've also heard from business that seven days isn't good enough.

Some prioritization perhaps between critical issues and more interpretive ones could be set up. We're looking at how we can respond to the requests so we change our service standard from 10 days to something faster.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Yes, that would be great, because I understand that you get a late penalty fee or something like that if you don't file accounting within those five days. Seven days is beyond the five-day time, so importers and businesses will then start having to pay penalties if they don't hear back from CBSA.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

That's the end of this.

Thank you very much to our witnesses. That was amazingly valuable information for the committee.

We will suspend while they switch the system so we can go in camera for a brief discussion. Please ensure that you have looked at the document the clerk has circulated for travel.

[Proceedings continue in camera]