Evidence of meeting #15 for Public Safety and National Security in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was section.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
Yes, within a stand-alone set of regulations that are made under the powers of the Customs Act.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
That's good. Thank you for that clarification.
How about a farm? I own a farm and have boxes of goods in my house at the farm. It's not licensed as a warehouse in land use. In that case, is it a warehouse?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
In that case again, it would not be considered a warehouse.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
How about boats? I have a boat and I use my boat for some storage.
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
Again, it would not be considered a warehouse from my understanding, but there are obviously cargo ships, which are treated differently from private vessels. Just because you have a box on your boat, it would not be considered a warehouse under the construct of the warehouse regulations.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
In that case, is it possible that in this legislation you need also to spell out some exemptions or exclusions? As you said, the farmhouse, residential dwelling and yacht will not be classified as a warehouse. Can you have those kinds of exemptions or exclusions in the act?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
The provision itself only speaks to sufferance and bonded warehouses, which are defined already and, by definition, exclude those scenarios that you've already laid out.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Okay. That's very good.
Can you think of some defence that a person can use to defend themselves when they have been charged for the violation of the legislation as presented?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
I'm not sure that I specifically understand the premise of the question. The Customs Act does have a recourse process that people can go through if they have questions around the customs tariff that's been applied to their goods and a recourse process around licensing, etc. There are a number of recourse provisions that exist in the context of the Customs Act.
My first suggestion would be that they avail themselves of those particular recourse processes, depending on what violation they have apparently found themselves running afoul of.
November 25th, 2025 / 4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Thank you.
Those are my questions for now, Chair. I may have more questions later.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jean-Yves Duclos
Thank you, Mr. Au.
Let me go back to the previous discussion. As I understand it, current discussions could lead to this motion being moved, as long as it's unanimously accepted by committee members, to speed up the committee's work on Bill C‑12. I repeat that the committee has to give its unanimous consent first, or such a motion can't be moved until the business to be considered has been completed.
I'm going to suspend the meeting for a few moments to ensure that everyone has a copy of the motion that Mr. Caputo read a few moments ago. The motion has now been printed in English and French. The committee will then have to decide whether it unanimously agrees to deal with that motion right away, which could facilitate and speed up our work.
I will suspend the meeting for a few moments.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jean-Yves Duclos
I call the meeting back to order.
Are we ready to proceed with amendment BQ-1? Are there any further remarks?
Mr. Lawton, please go ahead.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Thank you, Chair. I believe Mr. Jackson is on the speaking list after me. I will try to be expeditious, which I'm known for in my interventions.
I want to return to the amendment that's been proposed by Madame DeBellefeuille. What is the view of our experts here on the need, or lack thereof, in your opinion, to add this amendment on the dwelling-house categorization specifically?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
We thought about this a little bit to try to come up with a scenario where this would be required. We couldn't necessarily think of one when we were considering this as officials. There are conditions within section 97 that talk about how the goods need to be there, or be just about exported, or the person needs to be in control of them, etc. We couldn't necessarily think of a particular scenario.
That's not to say that one wouldn't arise where this would be required and we would need to access a dwelling-house in this particular context.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
I don't know how tuned in you were when I was speaking about this earlier, but the language in clause 4 looks very expansive. Specifically, proposed section 97.02 states, “The operator of a sufferance warehouse or a bonded warehouse must, at an officer’s request, give the officer free access” and so on, “and open any package or container of goods destined for export or remove any packaging from those goods.”
The other proposed section under transportation says, “free access to any premises or place under the person’s control that is attached to or forms part of any place where any goods destined for export are reported, loaded, unloaded or stored”.
My reading of this is that there's no stipulation that the part of the premises being inspected has to be connected to the act of exporting. I mean, just to use an extreme example, would this authorize searching a bathroom at a warehouse?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
With the location itself, in terms of a sufferance warehouse or a bonded warehouse, as we have it under proposed section 97.02, the goods would need to be stored there for export. If we were going to go look at those goods, we would be able to access the premises that are considered part of that warehouse in order to do that examination authority.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Is the word “premises” here limited to only specific portions that are directly connected to where the goods are stored, or is it any office, any bathroom or any coat closet on those premises?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
It's the portion of the premise that is considered a sufferance warehouse or a bonded warehouse.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Thank you.
In the event of, say, digital products, by which I mean cellphones, computers and tablets, does the authority in Bill C-12 extend to searching contents of those devices or just the physical devices themselves?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
The examination authorities under the Customs Act fall under section 99. The ability to search digital devices would be contained under section 99 of the Customs Act. Section 97 would be about just having access to the location where those goods are stored.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
That's the physical ones. Okay.
What was it, in your view, that required the addition of proposed sections 97.01 and 97.02? What was missing?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
Do you mean within the Customs Act?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
Within the Customs Act as it's drafted today, section 21 deals with transporter obligations and warehouse obligations for imported goods, containing very similar language to what is being proposed under section 97. It's to mirror those obligations for goods that are about to be exported and to mirror the authorities that we have currently for goods that are being imported.