Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you may recall, I want to put on the record that I'm not here because I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here, but am acceding to the fact that due to the coercive motion passed by this and every committee, I must be here if I want to put forward amendments, which I have the right to do. Right now, under the Standing Orders of the House of Commons I would be entitled to put forward substantive amendments at report stage but for the motions that require me to be at committee.
With that out of the way, I certainly know that none of you personally intended to increase my workload and not allow me to make amendments to which I have the right at report stage, I'll dive right into Parti vert 1. They're prefaced with “PV” in the House's practice, so Parti vert 1, and I think by the way, Mr. Chair, it's because if we marked them as “G” for “Green Party”, everyone would think they're government amendments, for example, G-1, and so it's “Parti vert”.
This is a response to evidence that you have heard on, under clause 12 of the bill as currently drafted, regarding duties, taxes and fees that are collected. It's unclear whether a traveller has the right to seek a judicial remedy in Canada or in the United States for an administrative monetary penalty that's assessed by the inspecting party.
Under the review provision for Canadian customs matters, where penalties have been assessed by the Canada Border Services Agency, a formal review process gives an opportunity to a traveller to challenge the appropriateness of the penalty.
You will note from the evidence of the Canadian Bar Association and their recommendation that there should be greater clarity around those assessed penalties that are collected in the U.S. on admitting persons or goods into the U.S. that would not be subject to judicial review in Canada.
For greater certainty we've added suggesting after line 27 on page 5 another subsection:
(2.1) For greater certainty, any monetary penalties or other civil sanctions imposed in the course of preclearing travellers and goods are subject to any review provided for under the laws of the United States.
I hope this will be an acceptable amendment.