Public Safety Committee on May 8th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Is that all?

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Yes.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Ms. McKey and Mr. Oommen for joining us.

My riding butts up to international waters, but I don't have any major bridge crossings. I found Ms. Watts' questions very interesting, and I think there were some other ones with regard to some of these trial projects to speed up the process of goods that are crossing. With jobs and the economy hinging big time on that, I'm still not clear why, with those trial projects they had, we're not implementing it full time. Could somebody enlarge a little more on that?

[Jill Wherrett]

Sure. There are a couple of reasons.

As I said, part of the reason we did the pilot projects was to test the concept to see how it worked. We learned a lot of value from the specific project we did in Ontario, but also that some of the benefits in efficiencies can also be achieved through technology. It's important to look at what we can do through existing technology, what might require infrastructure changes that are fairly complicated, because you can speed up traffic moving to a bridge through pre-clearance, but ultimately if the infrastructure at that bridge is limited, there's a limited amount you can do in moving traffic quickly.

The other point is that we don't now have the authority to implement cargo pre-clearance under the current act. Those were pilot projects. Again, we require the legislation to move forward with cargo pre-clearance.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Are you getting any inclination in any way, Ms. Wherrett, that the government is going to implement that legislation?

[Jill Wherrett]

It would require passage of Bill C-23 on the Canadian side, and our looking at the different opportunities for cargo pre-clearance.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay, so it will be fully covered under Bill C-23 if—

[Jill Wherrett]

Yes. The Canadian legislation gives us the legislative basis that we need to do cargo pre-clearance. On the U.S. side, they've continued to say that they may need some other provisions, whether they're legislative or other kinds of agreements. Just as we have with all of the individual pre-clearance sites, we have the framework legislation, but then we have individual agreements to provide for the operations of pre-clearance at those sites.

Again, there may be some specific operational types of agreements that we would need in order to run cargo pre-clearance at different locations.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

You also mentioned technology, and of course, we have to keep up with that. With regard to the new Gordie Howe International Bridge that is going to be here eventually, I take it by your comments, then, that any new technology that can be implemented while that's being done will be implemented at the time of construction. Is that a fair assumption?

[Jill Wherrett]

I can't speak to the specifics of the new bridge. I don't know, Tom, if you can speak to that.

[Tom Oommen]

For the Gordie Howe International Bridge, the planning right now that's going forward is for the customs to be at the typical places, so classic clearance as opposed to pre-clearance.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay, but why not both?

[Tom Oommen]

That's not to say that in the future you couldn't do cargo pre-clearance. Right now, the way it's being set up is with the U.S. customs plaza on the Canadian side and the Canadian customs plaza on the U.S. side, which is your standard set-up for classic clearance.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Is there any hesitation from the American side on this? Are they basically good with it, or do they have any specific concerns that you haven't mentioned?

[Jill Wherrett]

With pre-clearance generally...?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Yes.

[Jill Wherrett]

They're very enthusiastic about pre-clearance. As I mentioned, they have a global pre-clearance strategy. They are rolling out pre-clearance. They have it in a number of other countries now. I think, if I'm not mistaken, it's in seven or eight other countries.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

So that shouldn't be an issue.

[Jill Wherrett]

They are very keen on pre-clearance, and they see it as very important for their security to push at the border.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

That's all I have, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Mr. Spengemann, and then, Mr. Dubé, you'll get another round.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will join the chorus for a moment on cargo pre-clearance and say that, first of all, in light of the current currency environment, I think it's crucial that we don't lose our competitive advantage vis-à-vis exports to the U.S. You're not the department that's monitoring the economics most closely. There are others. There are colleagues of yours who do that. However, is it your sense that it's an equally hard push from the corporate sector in the U.S. and Canada, or are Canadian voices louder in terms of the need or the interest in making this happen?

[Jill Wherrett]

I don't really have a sense of that at this point because we're still in fairly early days. We've certainly had some interest expressed to us, but I don't have a sense that it's stronger on either side.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

From your perspective, are you aware of or in possession of any economic studies that have looked at this problem and sort of taken a view of the net opportunity that exists for us, appreciating the fact that there are multiple bottlenecks? Even if we pre-clear, if trucks get stuck on the bridge, logistically that's an issue.

Just from the pre-clearance side, what would the economic opportunity be if we had it in place in all the different areas that would lend themselves to it?

[Jill Wherrett]

We've looked generally at the economic benefits of pre-clearance writ large. I don't know that we've drilled down into the specifics of cargo pre-clearance at certain sites, but we need to make a business case for cargo pre-clearance in different facilities and different locations, so that would be required.

I don't know if there's anything you want to add, Tom.