International Trade Committee on March 21st, 2024

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Maybe there would be a workaround, then. If they want GST to be covered, they could come back to customs brokers and say, hey, if you can get this much more bond, we won't put the pressure on your clients or importers. There might be some type of workaround. I just want to throw it out there.

I have less than two minutes left. I know that a lot of recommendations were presented by all the panellists, and I'd like to quickly hear from all you guys: If you could pick just one recommendation, what would it be? What's the top priority for you for CARM?

[Tammy Bilodeau]

Ours would have to be an opt-in program for importer registration.

[Renate Jalbert]

Mine would be the same—an opt-in program for importer registration. The second one would be to have a steady system and more testing of the brokerage and importer community.

[Candace Sider]

From our perspective, to implement a system that is not fully functional is irresponsible, I believe. The benefits communicated at the onset of the project will simply not materialize. A lot of money has been spent, taxpayers' money, to implement a system that in its current state just does not work.

[Kim Campbell]

Mine would be a phased-in approach. We've never, ever, in all the history that I've been around, which is many decades, implemented a system big bang. I would say that it has to be a phased-in approach.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

What would a phased-in approach look like—10% of importers, the highest volume...? What would that look like to you?

[Kim Campbell]

Logically, at this point, if people are ready to go—and we heard from Mr. Gallivan that many are ready to go—they should be allowed to go on May 13 and then work toward getting people on. We've always had targets over the years working with larger-volume people.

At some point, once there's a critical mass—that's when we've made the decision that within a year we'll sunset. That's what we've been used to.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Within the broker system, there are two accounting systems now. They have two separate methods on the back end. You receive your ARL, I guess, or SOA.

[Kim Campbell]

Yes.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

You receive that on your end. Then you receive something on the CARM end, and you just add them together and pay customs. How would it be possible on that back end?

[Kim Campbell]

Today, most of us have systems where we know; the challenge now is that customs is doing the calculation, and we know that there are not correct deltas. That's the problem. Again, people could use SOA, or we could just use the systems that we have today to know if we're paying or not paying correctly.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

To our witnesses, thank you very much for your contribution today. It was invaluable on a very important initiative from the government. Thank you very much.

You are free to leave, if you choose, while we will continue with the committee business that we have to deal with.

We have Monsieur Savard-Tremblay's motion.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

No, we are doing it in public. We are not going in camera. By the time we go in camera, we'll lose the time.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I have already read the motion, so I will let Ms. Fortier propose her amendments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Fortier, would you please read it out?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to move an amendment to point A of Mr. Savard‑Tremblay's motion. I propose that we add the following: “and the transition plan for importers who are not registered with CARM by May 13”.

In addition, I would like to propose a very small amendment to the time limit. In point B, it says “15 days following the adoption of this motion.” I would like to propose that it be 20 days, because many documents have to be gathered, which could take a lot longer than 15 days. I think that replacing “15 days” with “20 days” would be a reasonable change, if my fellow members agree.

I therefore have two amendments. I wanted to propose them now so that we know which changes I'm proposing to make.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Monsieur Savard-Tremblay, [Inaudible—Editor] that?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

First of all, in the name of transparency, I am comfortable with adding a document. I have no problem with having that at our disposal.

Second of all, as far as extending the deadline to 20 days is concerned, it seems to me that the motion I moved two days ago indicated 15 days. Already we're going to receive a lot of other very relevant documents before the committee returns. I don't have a problem with extending the deadline so that the agency has time to produce the additional document, as long as we receive all the documents within a very reasonable time frame.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Is there any further debate?

(Amendments agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Mr. Seeback.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Given where we are, our schedule and the “big bang” launch date of May 16, I am going to request that we ask the analysts to deliver a report based on what we've heard so far. By the time we get these documents, review them and everything else, the big bang will have happened. We will have done all of this but not have done anything.

I think, from what we heard today, we could prepare an interim report with recommendations we can get to the government right away, which might have an impact and help with all the issues every single stakeholder has raised.

I don't know if I need to make a motion. I will if I have to, or we could have this discussion. I would like to ask the analysts to prioritize this and have a report for when we get back, one based on the viva voce evidence we've heard so far and the submissions received to date. Then we can do recommendations and get the report to the government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Savard-Tremblay.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I have no problem with that, as long as we all agree that we won't stop afterwards, and that there will be a final report in light of the relevant documents we are awaiting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, absolutely.

Is there any discussion on that?