Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to ask a question of the parliamentary secretary, because I have a suspicion that this particular matter relates to the question of cost recovery. I see the parliamentary secretary nodding, so he's been involved with this file; I certainly was. In fact, the Minister of Public Safety in our mandate charged me with fixing this. We started the process, but it's a big challenge.
I'd like to explain some of the background for the benefit of the members. What happened around 1995 was that the government of the day, our government, took the decision that all the fees charged by Canada Customs was part of Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, so the customs fees were going to be grandfathered at that date. In other words, all the services that were provided free of charge would continue to be provided free of charge, but any new services beyond that would be provided on a full cost-recovery basis.
Prince Rupert was a good example. The Port of Prince Rupert came to us and said they wanted to put customs people in Prince Rupert but the Canada Border Services Agency, as it then had become, was going to charge a fee for having customs officers in the Port of Prince Rupert. That meant that the Port of Vancouver would have a cost advantage over them, so it would be hard for them to compete in bringing freight in from the Far East.
What happened was that the cabinet considered a whole package for Prince Rupert, and included in that they had to get approval from the government to exempt Prince Rupert from the cost-recovery proposal, and they did.
There's another example, Windsor-Detroit, where they wanted to increase the ferry service to take some of the pressure off the bridges because of the backlog in traffic. They had an entrepreneur there who said, “I can take a lot more trucks over to Detroit, but the customs people, because of cost recovery, say it's a new service. I'd have to pay on a full costed basis, and I can't make the numbers work.” Well, that was looked at.
In any case, what the government then decided--I don't know where that's at today, because it was a project in progress--was that the idea of grandfathering services doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. It might have been an imperative then, but what the Canada Border Services Agency should be doing is defining core and non-core services. In other words, define a package of services that will be provided by the Canada Border Services Agency for free, then define those non-core services that will have to be paid for on a cost-recovery basis.
So I can tell you that the process had begun. It was a really.... It's tough job to define those things. Plus you come along to someone in some port somewhere and say, yes, those services were free but now we're defining them as non-core.
Anyway, that's by way of background. The reality is that the government--and the government has done this in the past--can make an exception to this cost-recovery program. But they have to do that...and I think a preferable thing to do would be to come up with some solutions.
Mr. Parliamentary Secretary, there's a problem with cost recovery but it's not going to go away. We're going to get more and more issues like this.
I think to say of Mont Tremblant that the only reason they're charging them is because it's a bunch of fat cats.... I suspect that may not be entirely the reason why they're doing it. I think they're doing it because Mont Tremblant now is at a point at which they want to put on full customs programs. The Canada Border Services Agency can say, “Fine, we can put out a whole customs program and we can have people there 24 hours a day if you want, seven days a week. Oh, but there's a little catch. You're going to have to pay for the cost, 100%.”
I only give that by way of background. I mean, I think it is a bit unfair but it's really part of this broader issue. Perhaps the parliamentary secretary could comment on where this cost-recovery initiative is.
I know there was a heck of a lot of work going on--that we started--so I wonder if he could comment on where in the heck it is right now.