I then tabled a petition on September 25, 2017. The petition number is 421-01658. The minister provided only a four-line response. I was looking for information about this review being done by Transport Canada. As far as I can tell, there was no response. It's not much of a response; it just tells me that the motor vehicle safety regulations will need to be amended in the future in order to make it possible.
If you're a regular Canadian citizen, you can't do this, but if you are a Canadian business, like U-Haul, you can bring American-plated vehicles into Canada and use them for an expressly commercial purpose. That is because they have an apportioned plate system that allows them to be moved across states and also allows them to be used in Canada. This apportionment system already exists, and it could be a model used for Canadian citizens. This is where I have a problem with how the current rules are and the responses I've been getting from Transport Canada. If there is a specific rule for business and a different rule for Canadian citizens, that seems patently unfair; citizens should have the same rights as business.
U-Haul can do this right now, and we see these Arizona-plated U-Haul vehicles. If you've moved in the last 10 or 15 years, you've noticed they're all plated in Arizona. They are being used on a regular basis in Canada.
If I had a Jeep that's plated in Montana, at my cottage at the lake or just in a friend's driveway, and it needed to be fixed up with perhaps new tires and I wanted to put it on a trailer and bring it into Canada, I would pay an import fee as if I'm trying to bring it into the country and keep it here, which is not something I want to do.
I've looked at potential avenues. I thought I could do a private member's bill, and this would avoid having to come to the committee here. I could just propose a fix for this. I asked the Library of Parliament how this would work and whether I could make it happen. Their response to me was that I'm not allowed to do this, because the tariffs come under the Customs Act, and it's a certain provision within it. It's passed by an order in council. Private member's bills are not allowed to interfere with the determination of a tariff and whom it applies to. It would have to be done by order in council, so I can't do a private member's bill.
I did table motion 197, which addresses this issue. I thought it was an elegant way of dealing with it, but unfortunately, because we're running out of time in this Parliament, with the potential election as late as October 21, 2019, I've exhausted the means of getting to a resolution through this motion that would have instructed two committees of the House to look at this issue.
This is why I'm asking this transportation committee to devote no less than two meetings to look at this issue. This is really for government officials who could come here and explain the mechanics of how an amendment to legislation could be done. I would need that information. The committee could then provide recommendations and a report on how to address the matter and the types of legislative changes that would need to be made so that Canadian citizens would have the same rights as American Canadian-based businesses that have this right. U-Haul has this ability right now.