Evidence of meeting #108 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was projects.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I realize that's a fairly lengthy question, but could you give us a short answer? You might want to send the committee a more detailed answer; that might be helpful.
I'd like a short answer if that's possible.
9:30 a.m.
Director, Port Policy, Department of Transport
Through the seaway review process, yes, we are under consultations. We are also having some discussions with some people in the Niagara region. So we understand the situation and we're moving through the process of the review right now.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Okay. If you have some further information to the question of the committee member, you could send it to the committee, please.
Mrs. Block, go ahead.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Ms. LaFortune, I quickly want to go back to a comment you made in regard to a question about the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative. I think what I heard you say was that we did not renew the mandates of that gateway and corridor strategy because we've moved toward a national strategy. I know it was a recommendation out of the Emerson report to renew the mandate for the gateway and corridor strategy. I'm wondering if you could tell us why the government, maybe on the advice of the department, decided to terminate the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative. If it's because we now have a national strategy, could you maybe describe for me why it can't be a both/and?
9:35 a.m.
Director General, International Relations and Trade Policy, Department of Transport
Actually, I think it is a both/and. I think it's actually even a both/plus. Some of the elements of the trade and transportation corridors initiative.... As I said, all of it builds on the regional strategies, but it's being looked at from a national perspective. It's not that we aren't doing anything Asia-Pacific ever again; it's just that it's been rolled into the bigger national strategy. In fact, the point of TTCI was to learn from the previous 10 years and try to improve it if we could.
One way we did that is that the Canadian port authorities are now eligible to receive funding, which they couldn't before. The small airports in the national airports system can now receive funding, which they couldn't before. As I said, the recipients list has grown as a result of some inadvertent blocks that were in the previous program.
So it isn't that we stopped this and started something entirely new. In fact, if you look at it, it's really a continuation. But what we were seeking to do was to make it a continuation that's even better and that learned from the history of the 10 years that we had.
Also, when we were doing the consultations across the country in support of transportation 2030, which is largely a response to the Emerson report, what we heard was that a national strategy was what the users of the system really wanted us to focus on, not just region by region, but how all the pieces fit together.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would quickly like to come back to the eligibility criteria for the national trade corridors fund.
The $2 billion figure may seem impressive, but don't forget that it is spread out over 11 years. Given the needs, we once again see that choices must be be made and that they are certainly not always easy to make.
For example, how to explain that a corporation as profitable as CN is receiving millions of dollars, while, according to the auditor general, infrastructure funding in the north is clearly inadequate?
Do you have any figures or a study showing the extent of infrastructural needs in the north?
9:35 a.m.
Director, Transportation Infrastructure Programs (West), Department of Transport
Thank you for your question.
The needs of the north have definitely been clearly articulated and identified in the national trade corridors fund. Northern projects were eligible under the first round of funding, and in fact there's a $400-million carve-out for transportation infrastructure projects in the north that address trade-related issues. That is going to be further developed through a call for proposals for projects only in the territorial north later this fall. We've allocated $145 million to projects already and there's an additional $255 million available.
In addition to that, through the Investing in Canada plan, there's a further $2 billion set aside for rural and northern communities that looks at specific infrastructure related to those communities' needs. We're the bigger-T transportation, and then that fund as well can support the localized transportation needs of communities.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Considering the lesson learned this summer, I would like to know whether funding has been allocated for consultations with aboriginal communities that will be affected by construction projects.
9:35 a.m.
Director General, International Relations and Trade Policy, Department of Transport
This summer Transport Canada had a series of consultations in the north with the users of the system, with the indigenous peoples in the north, in support not only of the northern call for proposals that, as Martin said, is going to be launched later this fall, but also in support of the development of an Arctic transportation strategy and in support of Transport Canada's contribution to the Arctic framework that the government as a whole is developing. All through the summer, from June until now—I believe they're done now—there were consultations that engaged the native peoples in the north.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
September 20th, 2018 / 9:40 a.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Yes, I have. Thank you for your indulgence.
To build on Vance Badawey's question at the very beginning, we're talking about provincial highways and so forth. The Trans-Canada Highway cuts across my riding. It starts as a two-lane road. It has a half a million heavy trucks and two million vehicles a year, and regular fatalities. For political reasons, the province has never invested in it. They're finally investing in a 10-kilometre stretch in the next 10 years. Are there any options from our side?
9:40 a.m.
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
Any options...?
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Are there any options to address these highly fatal, way over-busy highways? Highways with a quarter of the traffic are put in four lanes, and this one is not.
9:40 a.m.
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
Right. Thank you for the question.
It is something we are looking at with the provinces. We have a federal/provincial/territorial committee on trucking and highways. It is one of the issues that has been brought into that committee, and it's something that we are looking at currently.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
Thank you for all of that information. If you could follow up on various points the committee members wanted additional information on, we would appreciate that.
We will suspend for a few minutes to switch our witnesses.
9:47 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Now we have with us from the Canada Border Services Agency Martin Bolduc, vice-president, programs branch; Johny Prasad, director of program compliance and outreach; Scott Taymun, director general, transformation and border infrastructure and renewal directorate; and Denis Vinette, associate vice-president, operations branch.
I think we're missing one person, but we'll start right away. Who would like to go?
9:47 a.m.
Martin Bolduc Vice-President, Programs Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
Madam Chair, good morning. Thank you for having us this morning. We have provided a deck, and I plan to go over the deck quickly. Then we'll welcome all the questions you may have. It's a pleasure to be here.
Essentially the Canada Border Services Agency is responsible to provide integrated border services at all Canadian borders to facilitate the flow of people and goods while ensuring the safety and security of Canada.
Our daily challenge is to balance the facilitation of trade and people while ensuring the safety and security of Canada. It's a daily challenge because we're faced with increasing volumes and a changing environment.
Essentially we're a workforce of 14,000 people that works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We span the country and have a footprint internationally. We operate and have staff in all modes of transport: marine, cruise ships and container facilities, rail, land borders, and airports. We also have personnel in three mail centres across the country.
We manage the flow of people and goods and protect the supply chain. We protect the safety and security of Canada, essentially in three business lines: customs activities; immigration enforcement and refugee processing; and food, plant and animal, ensuring food safety and enforcing any legislation that has to do with food, plant and animal.
We do it essentially to ensure that commercial goods and conveyance are processed in an efficient manner. We ensure trade partners are compliant with applicable legislation requirements and measures. We increase the processing efficiency of low-risk, pre-approved trade partners. We have different programs whereby we pre-approve trade partners so we have an ability to have a low-touch approach when goods cross the border.
In the business line we have we process international travellers coming to our borders. We process commercial goods. We are also responsible for trade and anti-dumping activities. CBSA is the organization that's responsible for tariff classification, for the origin and valuation of goods that are imported, and for conducting anti-dumping investigations.
Our fourth business line is enforcement and intelligence, having an ability to focus on what we view as being high risk and expediting as quickly as possible what we deem to be low risk.
As I said, our daily challenge is balancing everything, but we are facing increasing volumes. Air travellers have increased in the last five years by 25%; commercial imports by 27%; postal imports by 151%—mainly due to e-commerce—and courier shipments by 10%.
We are seeing an increase in all modes. We have to deal with the complexity and facility of travel.
We don't deal with it on our own. We have many stakeholders: the shipping industry, the truck association, airport authorities, bridge and tunnel operators. We have a panoplie, as we say in French, of stakeholders with which we have, I would say, daily conversations, to be able to keep everything in equilibrium and make sure that the service expected by the trading community is up to par and to the level they expect.
Maybe I can turn it over to Johny to cover our commercial modernization, and then I'll try to wrap it up.
9:50 a.m.
Johny Prasad Director, Program Compliance and Outreach, Programs Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
Thank you, Mr. Bolduc. Thank you, Chair and committee. Good morning.
In regard to commercial modernization, there is a lot of information in one piece of paper in this presentation, but I'll keep it high level.
From a strategy perspective, risk-based compliance is where the CBSA is targeting and trying to focus its intent. It's broken into five different pillars, the first one being client identification. Within client identification, what we're trying to do is ensure that we have the right data at the right time and understand who our entities are that we're dealing with. Instead of having multiple disparate businesses, if we can consolidate that to one, we then can focus on whether they're compliant or non-compliant.
The second pillar is pushing the borders out. This is where we're working to get the right information in advance of the goods actually arriving in Canada. One of our key initiatives is the advance commercial information initiative, ACI, and this is where things link into the single window initiative, SWI, as well as pre-clearance and e-commerce. We're trying to make sure that the information is pre-assessed before they arrive at the border in Canada.
The third one is facilitating low risk. The key to this is the trusted trader initiative. We also work with U.S. CBP, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and their program is called CTPAT. Our program is called partners in protection, PIP.
If we can register certain high-volume companies, known traders, who are low risk, we can then give them some benefits. We can give them expedited clearance at the border; we could actually reduce their examination rates. We can, in some cases, also provide additional benefits overseas. This is through the mutual recognition arrangements. We will give equivalent authority to similar programs overseas, meaning trusted trader programs in another county. If they're validated by CBSA and then cross-validated by that country, we will then have reciprocal agreements.
From a revenue management perspective, the CBSA is working to have a brand new program called CARM. With it, we're going to be modernizing the way we work with our clients, having a single point of contact, single dashboards, where we can integrate a lot of the information that's coming in from multiple systems. That is obviously to generate revenue, and to also collect duties and taxes. This is key, especially with what Mr. Bolduc put down for e-commerce. The growth is very high. It has also increased our threat environment, with things like fentanyl and other highly toxic substances like synthetic opioids being illegally brought into the country.
The last piece is on strengthening our export compliance regime, and that's through regulation changes. We're increasing compliance through a brand new system called the Canadian automated export declaration system. That's run by Statistics Canada, but CBSA is a key partner in that.
The next slide is “Commercial Programs Overview”. I'll talk a little about the objectives.
Our objective is obviously to facilitate the import and export of commercial goods while ensuring our trusted trading partners can reach their destination with minimal interventions. We develop, maintain, and administer commercial policies, procedures, regulations, and legislation related to the movement of commercial goods into, through, and out of Canada. We also ensure that all importers and exporters understand and respect applicable Canadian trade laws and international agreements, as well as collect duties and taxes on imported goods.
In regard to the activities on the next slide, CBSA and the commercial programs focus in a couple of areas, starting with targeting intelligence collection analysis and security screening. A lot of these activities are done before the individual or the goods arrive within Canada, as mentioned. Trade facilitation compliance is also aligned with the placemat that I showed you. In it, we have things like anti-dumping and countervailing programs whereby we're trying to ensure that admissible goods, the ones that adhere to Canadian regulations—all the 90 acts and regulations that the CBSA enforces—are processed in the most efficient manner.
We can also ensure that our trade partners are compliant and processed expeditiously. From a trusted trader program perspective, it's obviously to increase the processing efficiency for low-risk, pre-approved partners. From a recourse perspective, we are trying to provide the business community with access to timely redress mechanisms. From a buildings and equipment and field technology support perspective—this is a key—we have numerous ports across our country, whether they be a land port, ocean to ocean to ocean, or the numerous airports that we service, as well as rail locations.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I'm sorry to cut you off. It's just that the committee members always have a lot of questions. Whatever else you have, you can try and get it in with one of our members.
Go ahead, Mr. Jeneroux.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
I can go first, sure. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much for being here this morning. Thank you also for providing us with the briefing in preparation for the work that we will undertake next week, part of the larger strategy to understand trade and trade corridors here in Canada and also with our trading partners to the south.
I know that back in 2013, the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States entered into an agreement to undertake a pilot project that would allow the United States Customs and Border Protection service to pre-inspect trucks or truck cargo in Canada. I haven't gone back to look at where that pilot ended up, or if in fact it actually informed and is continuing to inform the work that's done at the border today. Could you give us a bit of a lay of the land as to what's happening at the border in that regard?