Evidence of meeting #11 for Public Accounts in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tax.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
During the pandemic, are you succeeding in adding staff to deal with the huge number of parcels, given that there are all kinds of health and public safety procedures to follow? What are you doing to protect additional staff at the moment?
12:15 p.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
My officers are used to working in this type of environment. They are very well trained. They have all the personal protective equipment available to them. Some stuff, such as these types of activities, can be managed electronically, so you don't necessarily have to be physically present. It depends on the mode, but we have an excellent workforce that is very diligent in doing what they can to manage these volumes, and they are flexible to adjust as required.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Thank you very much.
Madam Chair, I'd like to turn over my remaining speaking time to Mr. Webber so that he can ask a final question.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Ms. Hogan, looking at your document here and the scope of your audit, there were products outside the dollar figures, high-value prices above $2,500. That was outside the scope of your audit. How come? Do you feel comfortable that CBSA is able to track the higher-priced items?
Give me an explanation for why that was outside your scope.
12:15 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I'm going to ask Philippe Le Goff, who led that audit, to answer that question. As you can appreciate, this study was launched and completed well before my appointment—
12:15 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
—and I don't think I asked all those details, so I'm going to ask Philippe for an answer.
12:15 p.m.
Philippe Le Goff Principal, Office of the Auditor General
Good afternoon.
Madam Chair, we decided to scope this audit very narrowly, focusing on the CLVS, because at the time we had insight that there was maybe a problem with that program.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
No problem.
Within that program with the lower.... Oh, I see. That's why you....
The reason I ask is that a few months ago I was online and I registered to be a bidder in an auction in the United States for a vehicle. I'm curious. If I were to buy a vehicle online, Mr. Ossowski, I'm sure that for people who bring large items like that through the border, there are people in place to catch individuals smuggling vehicles into other countries. Maybe you can clarify some of that.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Yes, we have thousands of officers out there in the field to make sure that vehicles are imported properly and that the appropriate duties and taxes are collected.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly Block
Thank you both very much.
We will now move to Ms. Yip for six minutes.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you all for coming in for a second time. My question is to Ms. Hogan.
One of the new measures introduced in the fall economic statement proposes that “ foreign-based vendors selling digital products or services to consumers in Canada be required to register for, collect and remit the GST...on their taxable sales to Canadian consumers.”
Does this bring us in line with the recommendations of the OECD on digital economy?
12:20 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Yes, what we found in our audit was that there was an inequality if you were a foreign vendor versus a Canadian vendor. The measures that have been proposed are in line with the recommendations of the OECD.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you.
My next question is for Mr. Gallivan.
In the CRA's detailed action plan, there is a compliance strategy, and it looks as though it's being finalized this month. Could you provide an update on the compliance strategy?
12:20 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Programs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Sure. I'll start, and my commissioner might want to come in.
I would say that for us, it was to understand the sectors and the specific problems. For example, social influencers are generating a lot of money. In online gaming, if you can imagine it, people are paid to play video games online. What we're doing is understanding these different pockets of non-compliance and then what works. In some cases, a simple letter or an education campaign can bring them into line. In other cases, we have to go to third parties to get data to show them that we know that there's some tax leakage. In other cases, we need hard audits. Even though the strategy is just being finalized, we've done a number of demonstration audits in each of these areas to understand where the pockets of risk are and what combination of education, nudging or hard audits is needed to get people to pay their taxes.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Could you expand on what type of income we would be looking at for social influencers and gamers? Is it through their sponsored advertisers?
12:20 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Programs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes. In some cases, with the social influencers, first of all, the income ranges are quite surprising. We started in the one-million or half-million-dollar income range. Yes, they receive compensation from the people whose products they support. That's correct.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
How would the demonstration audits be used in that respect?
12:20 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Programs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
One of the benefits of the social influencers in particular is that, by their definition, they're somewhat transparent, so our auditors are able to monitor. It's very surprising what people post on their Facebook pages and their Twitter pages, and so there's a lot of open-source intelligence that has led us to contact certain vendors. I would say the very transparency of their interactions has facilitated some of the targeting in that space.