International Trade Committee on Nov. 27th, 2025

[Alexander Lawton]

I assume this is with respect to the shipments that were re-exported after having been detained. In that case, generally, we are able to share information with our closest partner on our largest land border, with the United States. If the goods are being exported somewhere else to another offshore overseas, we generally don't have any information about the ultimate destination of those goods, so we're really not able to do any sort of liaison work. It's really the goods have left Canada, and we know they're not going to the United States, so where they end up is not necessarily within our sphere of knowledge.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

There's no global sharing?

[Alexander Lawton]

No, there's no global network for sharing information of that nature.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

When one of those ships arrives.... We see these large ships filled with hundreds or thousands of containers. I don't know how many containers are on these ships. How would you find this material? Would you randomly open up one of the containers, look at what's in there and then see if it has come from a particular region?

[Alexander Lawton]

No. Essentially, much like for a number of pieces of legislation we administer, we receive advance information with respect to commercial goods coming into the country. We're able to identify what's coming in before it arrives and make the arrangements necessary to detain the specific material, specific goods, that we're looking for within a much larger shipment or series of shipments.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

For that whole ship, it's not like every container would have that type of material. They can have all sorts of containers that have come from different sectors, different industries. Is it the whole ship, or is it just a particular container, or a number of containers?

[Alexander Lawton]

It's not necessarily a marine ship that's being detained, or the goods on a marine ship. At times goods can arrive via air, or even via land if it's been redirected from the United States.

When it comes to marine shipments specifically, it's the specific goods that are detained, not everything on a ship, not even necessarily everything within a shipping container. It's only the goods that we're looking at, that specific commodity, those specific goods. I'm trying to find a synonym, but I can't.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Ninety per cent of that ship could be unloaded.

[Alexander Lawton]

Provided that 90% of the ship contains something other than what we're looking for, what we've targeted, then yes.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Okay.

Simon-Pierre, you have about a minute.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

This is your study. Go ahead. You have two minutes.

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

Thank you. Again, it's very generous of you.

I don't think I'm going to get any real answers to my questions. I'm not criticizing you for not giving me answers. I understand that it's not part of your role.

I must say, though, in all honesty, I wasn't asking you whether you were in favour of my bill, or whether you thought it was a good or bad idea. Rather, I was asking you a hypothetical question about your operational capacity. In other words, would you have the data, staff and resources to implement the bill?

Even though I emphasized that I was asking you whether the bill could be implemented, not what you thought of it, you refused to answer a number of times. Therefore, I don't see what more I can ask you.

[David Hutchison]

Madam Chair, I feel like there was a question there that I would be happy to answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Please do.

[David Hutchison]

In my experience, particularly when we're dealing with proposed government legislation in which the public service would be supporting the preparation of that legislation, there's very intensive analysis done on the potential costs and resources required to implement a new course of action, or new legislation. I think any time the government or private members are considering legislation, it is essential to look at what the costs would be to government operations to implement an effective piece of legislation.

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

Actually, I have a good question for you. You just gave me an idea. This will be my last question.

The budget that was presented in March 2023 says in two places that the government would be introducing similar legislation to the bill I introduced a few weeks back. The bill seeks to establish a reverse onus and give the department the responsibility of establishing a list of entities presumed to have used forced labour.

The 2023 budget says that the government will introduce legislation by the end of the year. The following budget, which came out in March 2024, says the same thing. By the end of that year, the government was supposed to bring forward legislation. It didn't happen in either year.

Would you be consulted in a case like that?

If I come back to what you just said, the government consults the public service before introducing a bill, to make sure the resources are in place. The government seemed ready to move forward.

Were you told something was coming down the pike? Were you consulted on the feasibility of the legislation?

Any of the witnesses can answer.

[David Hutchison]

Madam Chair, for any piece of proposed government legislation, there's a very rigorous process that is undertaken: policy approval by cabinet, funding decisions by the Minister of Finance, etc. I'm not in a position to comment on those discussions during the last government, but suffice it to say that any legislation or government action that is considered does go through a rigorous process of considering all of those elements.

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

Now I'm going to ask Ms. Esdaile and the CBSA officials.

Were you consulted?

Did the government inform you that it would be bringing forward legislation soon and consulting you on its feasibility? This would have been a few years ago.

[Graeme Hamilton]

Madam Chair, I wouldn't want to speculate about advice that may have been provided to a previous government. I'll just leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Committee members, it's eight minutes to five.

Does anyone have any burning questions they would like to ask our witnesses?

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Madam Chair, I do have one.

This involves the auto thefts that we see in Canada. I understand that organized crime, on whatever documentation there is for export, will put something like “mattresses”, but the container will be filled with cars and then the container is shipped out to Africa or wherever. How is that stopped?

I know this doesn't have to do with forced labour, but I do want to ask the question. How does that happen? How do our ports allow for somebody who's putting...? In that case, on forced labour, could that not also be happening in other countries, where what they're putting on the documentation is not what's in the container?

How many containers are actually checked? How do you know what is in a container? When you've opened up containers, what have you found? Have you found that the product that is listed on the documentation is not the product that actually is in the container?

[Graeme Hamilton]

Madam Chair, it's an interesting question.

Alex is on the trade compliance side and less so on the enforcement side. There are challenges with export as well. Mr. Lawton testified earlier about the advance information that the CBSA is provided, advance commercial information before shipments arrive. That's the basis we use for targeting.

For shipments that are leaving Canada, I think members can appreciate.... Anyone who's driven up to the U.S. border, for example, they don't phone ahead to say that they're coming. You can just present and you can export, which provides challenges with respect to doing the same level of targeting in order to look at shipments on the way out.

I think SECU was studying, clause by clause, Bill C-12 earlier this week. There are a number of measures proposed in there that are designed to assist the agency with strengthening its capacity to do export-related examinations. I provided testimony on that earlier this week. I invite the member to look at that in terms of some of the activities the agency is doing in order to strengthen its ability to target exports, including those that are misdeclared to the agency, which, as he mentioned, is possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Mantle.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Based on the testimony we've heard, I think members are seized with this issue.

My question is actually for the clerk as to whether our request to have the minister appear has been sent and, if it has, has he received a response.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Grant McLaughlin]

Yes, the minister has been invited. I am still waiting for a response.