Public Safety Committee on Oct. 19th, 2017

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with Ms. Dabrusin.

I want to thank the presenters for their very comprehensive submissions. It was very interesting to listen to both of you.

In our ridings, usually immigration and citizenship are the top issues for many of our constituents that come through the door. After those, I'd say it would be EI and OAS and GIS. Some of the border issues on trade that we're talking about, Ms. Todgham Cherniak, don't come up as often, but I have a couple of questions for you.

As these laws and rules change, it would be great, Ms. Boisjoly, to have a communications package for our constituency offices. As we hear more issues from our constituents who cross the border often, we need clear information and processes to address their concerns. I know I'm putting the cart before the horse, but it's just to keep us ahead of the game.

My first question is for ESDC. One of the Auditor General's studies was on the state of the information technology infrastructure at CBSA. Is ESDC ready for phase three of the entry-exit initiative? Do we have the proper cybersecurity measures in place to protect the information of Canadians on your end?

[Elise Boisjoly]

Having a good platform between the two departments is paramount in ensuring the protection of information. We already have systems that exchange information, so we have some history in building these technologies and exchanging information. As we are developing our plans to build a platform, we will ensure that we have the proper testing, the proper cybersecurity. We will also be doing a certification of security, an assessment, to make sure we have the right security measures in place before we launch a platform. To achieve this, we will be doing proper testing and monitoring of the information that is going to be in place. Everything has to be working properly.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Todgham Cherniak, the committee members heard from first nations representatives on the effects on snowbirds, exporters, national security, and criminality. On your website you wrote a piece called “What Businesses Should Know About Bill C-21 Amendments to Customs Act (Canada)”. Taking the lead from your title, what's going to be the effect of Bill C-21 on businesses?

[Cyndee Todgham Cherniak]

Small and medium-sized businesses are going to have more regulations to comply with. At the present time, however, small and medium-sized business don't understand their obligations under the Export and Import Permits Act. They don't understand the Special Economic Measures Act. They don't understand the UN Act. The new Magnitsky Act will be an issue for them. There are all the teeny-tiny little regulations that impose export restrictions, reporting requirements, and licence requirements on the exporting of goods.

Canadian businesses want to comply, but they don't know where to look for the information, and they can't always afford advice from lawyers and consultants on how to do things properly. In the face of creating a smuggling offence on a reporting requirement, they're going to want to comply, but they're not going to know how to do it. They're going to make mistakes and they may unfortunately get charged with smuggling when they never intended to do anything wrong.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

We're always looking for a smart, secure, efficient border, and sometimes there are competing interests. What would your recommendations be for providing straightforward, easy, streamlined information so that owners of small businesses can be in compliance?

[Cyndee Todgham Cherniak]

First and foremost, I'd recommend a consolidated list that is searchable and has a number of terms, because people may not use the same term to describe the same good. Some people might put in “live animals”; other people will put in “cow”, and others will put in “calf”. It would have to cover the various permutations. Have a list that's searchable. If you're asking if you need a permit or a licence to export something, search what you're exporting, and then be told what legal requirements are there. That would be extremely helpful to small to medium-sized businesses, and if we can link that to the SIMA consolidated list that just came out, add the UN sanctions to that list, and add the Magnitsky sanctions, you only go to one list for individuals and sanctioned goods. That would be a huge step forward. We just don't have the resources. We also don't have resources to answer every question that's posed by a small to medium-sized business. There aren't the government resources.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Cherniak.

I'll pass it over to my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ms. Dabrusin, Mr. Fonseca has generously left you with a minute and a half.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

My question is for Ms. Boisjoly.

It's come up a few times that we've had witnesses come from Akwesasne to speak to us about the challenges around the fact that they leave the country to get back into the country, but there's no check-in on the other side, so if there's exit information that goes in, it might not be clear how long they were gone.

From your department's perspective, is there any modelling that's been done to take into account what the impact could be or how that could be resolved to respond to that concern?

[Elise Boisjoly]

I think that's an excellent question. It's more of a border issue, which would be a little bit more difficult for me to answer, not having that particular mandate. Obviously, for us, working closely with the Akwesasne community is very important because they have certain different conditions. Our role has really been focused on building awareness around the rules and regulations of the program and making sure that they understand what their entitlement requires in terms of—

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I'll just jump in, because I'm short on time. The concern is more about turning in false positives, for example, because you will get the exit information but not necessarily the entrance information. You will only have half of that picture when it might track up into your department for an investigation. I'm putting it out as a flag. If there has been any thought on this, it would be helpful for us to have that.

[Elise Boisjoly]

I will say thank you very much for pointing out that flag to us, and obviously we'll do whatever we can from our perspective to look into this issue.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

As chair, I encourage you to read the blues from last Tuesday. I thought that the information provided by the Akwesasne nation was.... There's a rule in law called unintended consequences, and this was one.

Mr. Motz, you have the final five minutes in three, please.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, ladies, for being here.

I'm going to direct my questions to you, Ms. Cherniak, if I could. It's just a statement and then a request, with the indulgence of the chair.

I initially thought, as we reviewed C-21 and generally reached an all-party agreement on the gaps that this was going to fill—and we had some amendments that needed to be made to the existing legislation—that we were on the right track. After hearing you, I'm not so confident that we are. You mentioned that we're missing some key definitions, which don't exist anywhere else in legislation, to help identify and clear up some ambiguity. We know that those who play out the practical application of this legislation will struggle with it and have difficulty.

I'm wondering whether you would be gracious enough to provide us with some recommendations on amendments that we will take under advisement in addition to the report you've given us, recommendations specific to those issues you identified where we still have major gaps in this legislation, so that we complete the intent, which is what we want to do as a committee. You can respond if you wish. If you could provide that to the committee, I know I personally would appreciate it as we start going through this act clause by clause. These are things we could tighten up.

[Cyndee Todgham Cherniak]

I would be happy to. I will go one step further and say that I'll work with some of my export controls and economic sanctions and customs colleagues so that we have more than one viewpoint coming to the table to present a solution.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you.

If I have 30 seconds left—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have more than 30 seconds.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Great, I'm going to pass it over to Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'd just like to answer that.

I remember when we were in government, we passed FINTRAC. There were probably some people who were shooting some warnings out at that particular time too, and I think I was one of them. I thought, you know, I'm not a criminal and I don't have to worry about these things. That was until two weeks ago, when they froze two of our kids' accounts under that very legislation. You are absolutely right. Oftentimes we, with good intentions, pass legislation....

I read an article a number of weeks ago that emphasized how many laws we break every day unintentionally, so I commend you for what you are doing. I'm not a member of this committee, but, as parliamentarians, I think we need to have a really good look at this to see if there are safeguards.

Thank you for your information. I encourage you to keep on doing what you are doing, and we will do what we do.

[Cyndee Todgham Cherniak]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

With that very positive note, I want to thank both witnesses for their testimony. It was very timely, and we'll be taking it into consideration as we move on.

Our next meeting is Tuesday with our final set of witnesses, and the anticipation is that we will go to clause-by-clause study on Thursday.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.