Evidence of meeting #78 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was goods.
A video is available from Parliament.
10:35 a.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canada Border Services Agency
In some instances, yes. Depending on the nature of the infraction, there may be a zero-rated penalty, or it might go right to a dollar or monetary assessment.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
Okay.
Are you keeping data on who is committing these,, who you are warning? How many of these warnings are you issuing, compared to...? What are the averages? I'm not sure I saw the number of how many penalties are actually assessed. Can you provide us with those numbers?
10:35 a.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canada Border Services Agency
Sure. In 2016-17, the agency issued a total of 26,000 administrative monetary penalties totalling $11.4 million of revenue. On the trade-related side—so those linking to revenue evasion—we issued 709 AMPs, totalling almost $1 million in assessments.
10:35 a.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canada Border Services Agency
I don't have that breakdown, but we'd be happy to provide that.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
It'd be interesting to see that because, in essence, if we don't follow the first time or the warnings, and after that we say that we'll penalize them, how can we be sure that we properly capture the data?
10:35 a.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canada Border Services Agency
I will just clarify that if, in fact, we issue a warning, it is in the system.
10:35 a.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canada Border Services Agency
Yes, I just don't happen to have it with me.
10:35 a.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canada Border Services Agency
We would automatically, if there was a subsequent infraction, revert to a monetary assessment.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
This is my last question.
I would assume that an importer that has been assessed a penalty is more scrutinized going forward after that penalty.
10:35 a.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canada Border Services Agency
As all of you would be aware, the CBSA risks all goods entering Canada, and therefore, compliance records are taken into consideration.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
With regard to these six importers that were fined, that were found to have used this duties relief program, and that were obviously completely offside, how are they now treated as they import their goods? What has changed for them?
10:35 a.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canada Border Services Agency
Essentially, due to their non-compliance to the duties relief program, they have either been suspended or revoked from the program, which means that they cannot import goods without those relieving provisions. They now import goods by paying regular duties and taxes at points of entry. If, in fact, they can demonstrate that those goods were further worked and exported, then they would be eligible for the appropriate refunds or drawbacks.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
10:35 a.m.
Director, Trade Policy, Canada Border Services Agency
Of course, and they've lost privileges in terms of this program.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
I want to get back to the idea of whether we really know what the volume is of the potential revenue that we're talking about. It just strikes me that this collection of tariffs and so on is revenue to the crown. We'll miss some if we do increase the de minimis to $200, but we don't know how much it would cost us, on the other hand, to either enforce more or to enforce less. It seems to me there are some big questions still out there. I would like to hear from Finance and from the Canada Border Services Agency on that, because this is really a business proposition.
10:40 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, International Trade and Finance Branch, Department of Finance
I think, Mr. Chair, I'm going to defer to my colleague on this question, because, in essence, you're asking within the existing threshold what the leakage rate is of taxes that should be collected that aren't being collected. I'm not sure I'm in a position to be able to answer that. That is one factor that has to go into that kind of theoretic calculation.
10:40 a.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
As I mentioned earlier, I think for us to really give an estimate of what that number is, we'd have to do a far greater quantity of randoms to get a sense of what those verifications found, and then extrapolate from there about what the number might be.
