Evidence of meeting #142 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 border.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Murray Hupman  President and Chief Executive Officer, Marine Atlantic Inc.
Michael Keenan  Deputy Minister, Department of Transport
Michael DeJong  Director General, Multimodal Strategies and Program Integration, Department of Transport
Scott Winter  Director, Trade and Tariff Policy, International Trade Policy Division, International Trade and Finance, Department of Finance
Andrew Lawrence  Acting Director General, Travellers Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
Evan Rachkovsky  Director, Research and Communication, Canadian Snowbird Association
Tim Reed  As an Individual
Mario Demers  Chief, Importation and Audit Inspection, Department of Transport

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much.

Thank you to everyone.

Now I have to read out the following: Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), the committee will now dispose of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2020.

CANADIAN AIR TRANSPORT SECURITY AUTHORITY

Vote 1—Payments to the Authority for operating and capital expenditures..........$586,860,294

Vote 5—Delivering Better Service for Air Travellers..........$288,300,000

(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to on division)

CANADIAN TRANSPORTATION AGENCY

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$31,499,282

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$678,526,078

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$134,973,337

Vote 10—Grants and contributions - Efficient Transportation System..........$593,897,864

Vote 15—Grants and contributions - Green and Innovative Transportation System..........$65,026,921

Vote 20—Grants and contributions - Safe and Secure Transportation System..........$17,842,681

Vote 25—Bringing Innovation to Regulations..........$10,079,959

Vote 30—Canada's Marine Safety Response..........$1,128,497

Vote 35—Delivering Better Service for Air Travellers..........$4,800,000

Vote 40—Encouraging Canadians to Use Zero Emission Vehicles..........$70,988,502

Vote 45—Protecting Canada's Critical Infrastructure from Cyber Threats..........$2,147,890

Vote 50—Safe and Secure Road and Rail Transportation..........$73,110,648

(Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50 agreed to on division)

MARINE ATLANTIC INC.

Vote 1—Payments to the corporation..........$152,904,000

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

VIA RAIL CANADA INC.

Vote 1—Payments to the corporation..........$731,594,011

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

Shall I report these votes to the House?

11:50 a.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you all very much.

Minister Garneau and your officials, it's great seeing you again. We've seen a lot of you in this last three and a half years, so thank you all very much. Have a wonderful day.

We will suspend for a moment, and then when we come back, we will deal with Mr. Aubin's request and Mr. Kmiec's motion.

12:03 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

I am calling the meeting back to order.

Before we go to the other work that we have to do, Mr. Aubin has a motion that is appropriately before us and that he wants to entertain.

Would you like to speak to it briefly, Mr. Aubin?

12:03 p.m.

NDP

Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC

I'll be quite brief, because I've already presented the substance of this motion at our last meeting. I am a little surprised by the previous vote.

My point is not related to any particular request. The point I want to make is that it seems to me that we are not engaging in partisan politics when we ask a minister to appear. With all due respect to officials, I would like to point out that they are subordinates. The ones who give the orders and come up with the vision are the politicians. If a minister cannot appear, for whatever reason, we should be able to meet with the parliamentary secretary. That makes sense to me. What we want to discuss is the vision of those who make the decisions, who lead and who give the directions.

For reason x, y or z, the parliamentary secretary may not be able to appear either. I would like the chair and the clerk to at least have the freedom, either to automatically invite the parliamentary secretary to save time and achieve the objective, or to have a discussion with those who make the decisions.

I do not think I need to reread the motion, it is clear enough. That's what I had to say.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Is there any discussion?

Would you like a recorded vote? Okay.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 9; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB

Excuse me, Madam Chair.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Yes?

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB

In light of our approving this motion now, it would seem to me that it should be automatic that the motion we asked for earlier would not even require a motion since the earlier motion asked for the minister, and the minister wasn't available. We've now passed a motion that says that the parliamentary secretary should appear.

I would ask you, as chair, to reconsider whether or not we have the ability to move forward with the original motion and have the parliamentary secretary appear, as was asked for in this motion.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

It's my understanding that we have already decided that, but just as a point, with regard to the particular date Mr. Jeneroux proposed in his motion, it would not have been possible to do that.

The committee has already decided that at a previous meeting, so we're not going to go back and reconsider it. Thank you.

All right, we're on to the Department of Transport. We're now studying the temporary use in Canada, by Canadians, of American-plated vehicles. This is brought to us by Mr. Kmiec, who has been working on it for some time.

The committee was kind enough to give Mr. Kmiec some time to introduce his motion and put it on the table. We were happy to accommodate that.

From the Department of Transport, we have Michael DeJong, Director General, Multimodal Strategies and Program Integration; and Mario Demers, Chief, Importation and Audit Inspection.

From the Department of Finance, we have Carlos Achadinha, Senior Director, Sales Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch; and Scott Winter, Director, Trade and Tariff Policy, International Trade Policy Division, International Trade and Finance.

From the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Andrew Lawrence, Acting Director General, Traveller Program Directorate.

From the Canadian Snowbird Association, we have Evan Rachkovsky, Director of Research and Communication.

As an individual, by video conference from Calgary, Alberta, we have Tim Reed.

Welcome to all of you. We are pleased to have you with us today.

We'll start off with the Department of Transport, please.

12:05 p.m.

Michael DeJong Director General, Multimodal Strategies and Program Integration, Department of Transport

Madam Chair, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss the temporary use of American-plated vehicles by Canadians.

I'm Mike DeJong with Transport Canada. I would like to take the opportunity to introduce my colleague Mario Demers, who's the Chief of Importation at Transport Canada.

I will briefly describe the current rules that apply to the importation of American-plated vehicles and provide a brief update on measures under way to improve this process.

With respect to the current process, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act allows for vehicles purchased in the U.S. to be imported into Canada if they comply with the Canadian motor vehicle safety standards. These standards set out minimum safety requirements to protect the travelling public, such as lighting and braking requirements and steering controls. The act also allows American-plated vehicles to be imported to Canada if the vehicle complies with the equivalent U.S. standards—the U.S. federal motor vehicle safety standards—and can be updated to comply with Canadian rules.

Both countries' motor vehicle safety standards are very closely aligned, but Transport Canada does have unique requirements in areas with proven safety benefits. For example, the Canadian standards include requirements for daytime running lights, a manual transmission clutch interlock and anti-theft immobilizer equipment.

Transport Canada manages the importation process through the Registrar of Imported Vehicles, or RIV. Under this process, an importer must confirm that their vehicle has no outstanding recalls and submit proof to the RIV before importation. Once in Canada, after paying the RIV fee, the RIV will tell the importer to present their vehicle for a final federal standards inspection. Before the inspection, the importer must make any modifications needed to bring U.S. vehicles into compliance with Canadian requirements.

The RIV is funded through user fees charged to Canadian importers of vehicles brought into the U.S. The fee pays for a series of tasks and services, such as pre-purchase compliance verification, importation documentation, and tracking and final notification to provincial vehicle registration authorities. The RIV also operates seven days a week and operates 500 inspection stations.

In the case of a temporary importation, the current safety regulations provide allowances for vehicles that do not meet Canadian safety standards. For example, these allowances cover circumstances that involve testing vehicles, evaluations or evaluating new safety features. To facilitate tourism and cross-border movement, U.S. citizens are allowed to temporarily import and export U.S. vehicles, including rental vehicles. The same is true for Canadian citizens exporting and importing Canadian licensed vehicles.

Currently, the existing safety regulations do not permit a Canadian citizen to temporarily import a U.S.-registered vehicle into Canada. Rather, the vehicle must be imported on a permanent basis. This is identical to U.S. law, which prevents a U.S. citizen from temporarily importing a Canadian registered vehicle to the U.S.

The federal safety regulations are currently based on an assumption that a Canadian importing a U.S.-registered vehicle is doing so on a permanent basis. Transport Canada recognizes that this is not always the case. As such, the department is working to amend the safety regulations to allow for a temporary importation of U.S. vehicles by a Canadian citizen when it is clear that the vehicle will be returning to the U.S.

These regulatory amendments are under way. As part of these regulatory amendments, there would not be any RIV fees applied to temporary importation of U.S.-plated vehicles into Canada. These proposed amendments were pre-published in the Canada Gazette, part II, on May 19, 2018. Building on this progress, the department is aiming to finalize the amendments and seek final approval, final publication in the Canada Gazette, part 2, by the end of this calendar year 2019. Pending final publication, Canadian citizens would immediately be able to apply to Transport Canada, with no registration fees, for a permit to temporarily import a U.S.-registered vehicle into Canada.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much, Mr. DeJong.

We move on to the Department of Finance, please.

12:10 p.m.

Scott Winter Director, Trade and Tariff Policy, International Trade Policy Division, International Trade and Finance, Department of Finance

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee, for inviting us here today to speak with you.

My name is Scott Winter. I'm the Director of Trade and Tariff Policy at the Department of Finance. I'm joined today by my colleague, Mr. Carlos Achadinha, who is the Senior Director of the Sales Tax Division.

I'd like to begin today by explaining the general policy goals of Canada's tariff regime and the goods and services tax—the GST—followed by a short description of the treatment of imported vehicles, including importations on a temporary basis, and how this treatment fits with those goals.

Customs duties are established under customs tariff legislation, and applied on imported goods, where applicable, for a variety of policy reasons, including domestic industry protection, as well as revenue generation.

The GST is Canada's national sales tax. It is a broad-based tax that applies to most goods and services acquired for consumption in Canada. The GST is generally levied on imported goods in the same manner as it is imposed on domestic purchases, in order that the imported goods do not benefit from a tax-based competitive advantage over goods sold in Canada.

In light of these considerations and principles, Canadian residents who import a vehicle into Canada are required to pay applicable import duties and taxes at the time of importation. There are certain exceptions to the general rule that customs duties and the GST apply to the importation of vehicles, including for those imported on a temporary basis.

For example, customs duties and the GST do not apply to vehicles temporarily imported by Canadian residents for the purpose of transporting their own household or personal effects into or out of Canada, or as a result of an emergency or unforseen contingency.

Subject to conditions specified by regulation, Canadian residents are also able to temporarily import, free of customs duties and GST, a foreign-registered vehicle to reach their destination in Canada and return directly to a point outside of Canada within 30 days. However, the vehicle may not be used for other personal reasons while it is in Canada.

The current framework was designed with the broad policy goals of avoiding competitive disadvantages or inequities for Canadian businesses, for example, vehicle dealers in Canadian border communities, as well as minimizing the risks of duty and tax avoidance that could negatively affect government revenues, and create an uneven playing field for Canadian businesses.

The collection and administration of customs duties and the GST on imported goods, as well as the exceptions for temporarily imported vehicles that I mentioned, fall under the responsibility of Canada Border Services Agency—CBSA. My colleague from the CBSA will outline how the agency currently applies and administers the customs duties and GST on temporary importations of vehicles.

Thank you, once again, for allowing us the opportunity to speak today. We welcome any follow-up questions the committee may have.

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much, Mr. Winter.

We will move on to Mr. Lawrence.

12:15 p.m.

Andrew Lawrence Acting Director General, Travellers Branch, Canada Border Services Agency

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

As the committee is aware, the agency's mandate is complex and dynamic. In managing the border, we administer and enforce over 90 acts and regulations on behalf of other federal government departments and the provinces and territories.

With respect to this study, on the feasibility of allowing Canadians to bring their legally owned and U.S.-registered and -plated passenger vehicles into Canada for a defined temporary period without having to pay any taxes, duties or importation fees, the CBSA can only speak to its enforcement of the legislation as it applies to the border. The CBSA first derives its authorities to examine, detain and/or refuse entry to any good or conveyance, in this case a vehicle, under the Customs Act, one of the agency's primary pieces of legislation. When a Canadian resident is seeking to return to Canada with their U.S.-plated passenger vehicle and they approach a land border or port of entry, a border service officer must consider a number of acts and regulations before the vehicle may be admitted to the country.

First, vehicles imported into Canada must meet the requirements set by Transport Canada under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The CBSA assists Transport Canada by ensuring that these vehicles can be imported, and will prohibit the entry of inadmissible vehicles. Second, with its broad food, plant and animal authorities, the CBSA will inspect motor vehicles entering Canada to ensure that they are clean and free of pests, soil or other organic material. Vehicles found to be contaminated are refused entry and ordered removed from Canada under the authorities of the Plant Protection Act and the Health of Animals Act, as well as their associated regulations. Third, on behalf of Environment and Climate Change Canada, the CBSA may, on ECCC request, detain shipments suspected of non-compliance pursuant to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.

Finally, on behalf of the Department of Finance, the CBSA must ensure that residents of Canada operating vehicles for which duties and taxes have not been paid are in compliance with the strict conditions set out in customs tariff item no. 9802 and the regulations respecting temporary importation of conveyances by residents of Canada. Vehicles imported temporarily will be on a duty- and tax-free basis so long as the conditions under the regulations are respected. For those vehicles that are admissible to Canada and that will be imported on a permanent basis, the CBSA must then assess the duty, excise tax and goods and services tax owed to the Crown.

lt should be noted that in situations of emergency or unforeseen circumstances, Canadian residents may be permitted, under these regulations, to temporarily import non-compliant vehicles. Currently, the processing of foreign registered vehicles is paper-based, and the CBSA does not track statistics or data related specifically to the subset of the population the committee is examining.

I hope I have clarified the CBSA's border enforcement role with respect to the temporary importation of vehicles by Canadian residents. I would be happy to take any questions the committee may have.

Thank you.

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

We'll now go to the Canadian Snowbird Association.

Evan Rachkovsky, please.

May 9th, 2019 / 12:15 p.m.

Evan Rachkovsky Director, Research and Communication, Canadian Snowbird Association

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the issue of Canadian residents temporarily using American-plated vehicles in Canada. My name is Evan Rachkovsky. I am the Director of Research and Communications at the Canadian Snowbird Association.

For the members of the committee who are not familiar with our organization, let me provide you with a brief overview. Founded in 1992, the Canadian Snowbird Association is a national, non-partisan, not-for-profit advocacy organization dedicated to actively defending and improving the rights and privileges of Canadian travellers. Today the CSA has grown to over 110,000 members who come from every province and territory in Canada.

To fulfill our mandate and provide meaningful results for our members, our association delivers timely travel-related information for our membership and works with government at all levels to pursue policies for the betterment of Canadian travellers. We not only provide our members with up-to-date information; we also have a government relations program that is wide-ranging and includes the defence of the Canada Health Act—namely, the portability principle; the provincial and territorial drug program vacation supply policies; residency requirements related to continuous health coverage; and a number of cross-border issues.

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

I'm wondering if you could slow down a little bit. The interpreters are having a hard time keeping up.

12:20 p.m.

Director, Research and Communication, Canadian Snowbird Association

Evan Rachkovsky

Of course.

With regard to the latter, most recently the CSA has been actively tracking the development and implementation of the entry/exit initiative, the information-sharing program between Canada and the United States that is scheduled to become fully operational by the end of this year. The entry/exit initiative is one program in the broader Beyond the Border declaration that was unveiled in February 2011 and aims to enhance the collective security and accelerate the flow of legitimate goods, services and people both at and beyond the Canada-U.S. border.

Another cross-border matter that impacts our membership, and is the current subject of study for this committee, relates to Canadian residents' temporary use of American-plated vehicles while in Canada. Under the current legislative and regulatory framework, Canadian residents are only allowed to bring into Canada a foreign-plated vehicle temporarily for the purposes of transporting household or personal effects into or out of Canada for up to 30 days. In all other circumstances, if you buy, lease, rent or borrow a vehicle while outside of Canada, Transport Canada and Canada Border Services Agency legislation do not allow you to bring a vehicle into Canada for your personal use, even temporarily, unless it meets all Transport Canada requirements and you pay the duty and federal taxes that apply.

In our opinion, the current arrangement is outdated and does not reflect the growing trend in both countries towards making the border experience as seamless and as timely as possible for low-risk travellers. This policy ought to be modernized because, in its current form, it places an unnecessary restriction on the travel options of Canadian travellers who own U.S.-registered vehicles.

Over 60% of our members drive from Canada to their winter destinations annually. Generally, as snowbirds age, they opt to fly back and forth from Canada to the United States rather than tolerate the multi-day drive to their winter residences. In order to have a mode of transportation while they are down south, many of them will purchase a U.S.-plated vehicle. This is permitted in all Sunbelt states, particularly Florida, Arizona, California and Texas, and vehicles can be registered and insured with a Canadian driver's licence.

In certain instances, these Canadian travellers may be required to return to Canada in their U.S.-plated vehicles. Under the current legislation, if they cannot satisfy the existing exemption, these individuals are required to import the vehicle through the RIV program, the registrar of imported vehicles program, and pay the necessary import duties, taxes and program fees. These requirements make sense for vehicle owners who reside in Canada for most of the year, but seem excessive for owners of U.S.-plated vehicles who reside in the United States for up to six months annually and eventually intend to sell the vehicle in the United States.

Once again, I would like to thank the committee members for their invitation.

I'm happy to take any questions that you may have.

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much.

Now, as an individual, we have Mr. Reed.

Welcome to our committee, Mr. Reed.

12:20 p.m.

Tim Reed As an Individual

Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for inviting me to address you.

I'd also like to thank my MP Tom Kmiec for his attendance and his valiant support for this cause, along with Mr. Badawey for his interest in the item.

By way of background, like hundreds of thousands of Canadians, my wife and I own a retirement home in the U.S. We also own two vehicles purchased and registered in the State of Arizona. Following the purchase those vehicles, I was surprised to learn that we would not be able to bring them into Canada for a temporary period. The only way under existing legislation, which I understand to be the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, would be to apply to permanently import the vehicle, as you've just heard from several other speakers. It would seem that the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, given its title and its preamble, exists primarily for safety reasons. While laudable and necessary, it seems the act would not apply to a U.S. citizen wishing to bring their vehicle into Canada temporarily. Indeed, we see this by the tens of thousands, I suspect, at border crossings.

While the legislation deals at length with the permanent importation of vehicles, you have to assume that when the legislation was passed it had not been conceived that a Canadian citizen would own a vehicle in the U.S. and wish to bring it temporarily into Canada. This results in the ludicrous situation where a U.S. citizen in this instance enjoys more rights in Canada than a Canadian citizen.

Why should a Canadian citizen wish to bring their vehicle temporarily into Canada? In our own circumstances, one of our vehicles happens to be a convertible sports car, which we would, in the occasional year, like to enjoy for several summer months on the roads in Canada.

Another example that my wife and I encountered was the proposal by Australian friends of ours to join us at our property in the U.S. and take a scenic drive north through the U.S. and through western Canada, from where they would return to Australia from Canada by air, and we would depart back to the U.S. with our van. As it turns out, the only way that was possible was through a costly car rental, and as a result, our proposed road trip was cancelled.

Interestingly, under this legislation, we would have been able to bring a rental car into Canada, but not our own. This begs the question: Why does a U.S.-based rental car company enjoy this right while Canadian citizens do not?

In another instance, my brother-in-law, unaware of these restrictions, intended to trailer his off-road vehicle temporarily into Canada, but was prohibited from crossing with it at the border. He had to leave the vehicle on the U.S. side of the border, drive to his home in Calgary, process paperwork to have it permanently registered in Canada, return to pick up the vehicle, and then return it several months later to leave it permanently back in the U.S.

These are actual occurrences. One can easily imagine other scenarios, too. For instance, should a Canadian citizen with her own U.S.-registered vehicle need to urgently return to Canada but be unable to fly, perhaps due to health reasons, being unable to book or afford an airline flight, or perhaps air traffic being grounded, they are further stymied from.... Let me just say I had understood that they would be further stymied from driving their own vehicle, and now we've just heard that, in cases of emergency, Canadian citizens could bring their vehicles back. I was unaware of that.

For almost five years now I've been investigating and communicating with government officials about this issue. During this time, a Department of Transport employee raised the problem of ensuring that a vehicle brought into Canada temporarily leaves the country. One might ask the same question about a U.S. citizen. Notwithstanding, I had offered a simple and easily implemented process to deal with this issue.

As my time in front of you is limited, and this meeting concerns a legislative problem, not an implementation challenge, I will defer going through this procedure I had suggested. Although, for your reference, you may find my suggestion and copies of letters to Minister Garneau dated January and September of 2019.

In 2017 Mr. Kmiec kindly offered to support a petition to Parliament concerning this issue. I was advised that as few as 25 original signatures of Canadian citizens would suffice. When this fact about petitions was explained, not a single person declined to sign. I easily gathered 100 signatures. Many of these individuals own property in the U.S. and many of them own vehicles in the U.S. It is safe to say that most were aghast to learn of the restrictions on their right. Mr. Kmiec subsequently read and entered our petition in Parliament in 2017.

In summary, I'm asking the committee to initiate the process of having this oversight in legislation corrected, thus restoring the rights of Canadian citizens that have been inadvertently eliminated for no apparent reason.

It is gratifying to see officials from various departments of the civil service in attendance. I am a retired corporate executive from the private sector with a long career in administrative functions. As such, I can fully appreciate the importance of the administrative process when it comes to implementing policy, or in this case, legislation. However, as I fully know from my own career, process and administration follow policy, and not vice-versa.

I acknowledge that this issue affects a very small part of our population. However, I ask, what is the calculus for deciding when to disregard a citizen's rights? I trust in your judgment as parliamentarians to do what is right regardless of the number of Canadians affected.

Thank you for your attention, and I can take questions, too.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much, Mr. Reed.

Mr. Reed's documents are currently in translation: hence, you have not yet received them.

Mr. Kmiec, it's on to your time, for six minutes, please.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Again, my thanks to the committee members, and the government side especially, for making this possible. As you've heard from my constituent from the great riding of Calgary Shepard—not the greatest, but a great riding, as I know everybody is going to correct me and say theirs is the greatest—it has taken five years to get to this point where I could get a committee hearing. That's the nice part.

Also to the officials, thank you all for being here. I know we've picked you out of your departments on a weekday to present what is—I admit it, and so did Mr. Reed—a very small niche issue.

Now I'll go into the more negative aspect of it. I have all the correspondence here, that back and forth with the minister's office that Mr. Reed has given me, as well as the petition response that I got, which was very unsatisfactory.

This is what happens when issues such as this are not dealt with immediately, when a resident of Canada raises an issue of private property, raises an issue that is very technical in nature.

Mr. DeJong, you said you are waiting, because at the end of the year there will be changes to the Motor Vehicle Safety Act regulations to allow Canadians to import their American-plated vehicles temporarily, but my understanding is that first they have to seek a permit. They won't just be able to show up at the border. They would apply for a permit ahead of time with the Canadian government. They would fill out the application with the licence plate information.

Could you tell me more about how that will actually function?

12:30 p.m.

Director General, Multimodal Strategies and Program Integration, Department of Transport

Michael DeJong

I'll start by just simply confirming the process, and I'll turn to my colleague Mario to talk about the specific permit involved.

Yes, there is a regulatory process that is now under way to remove the RIV fees, or the registrar of imported vehicle fees, associated with temporarily importing a U.S.-plated vehicle into Canada by a Canadian citizen.

Therefore, yes, there is a process still for this about respecting the safety requirements in the Motor Vehicle Safety Act.

Mario.

12:30 p.m.

Mario Demers Chief, Importation and Audit Inspection, Department of Transport

Currently, there are allowances for temporary importation. The changes in the regulation that will be put into effect by the end of this year in part II of the Canada Gazette are to expand on that. What's being added is an ability to do exactly what we're discussing today, to temporarily import a U.S.-registered vehicle.

Currently, there's a form online, or you can also get a paper form by reaching out to Transport Canada. You provide basic information, the vehicle information such as the VIN, the make, model and year, the date of importation, how long you think you're going to be here and the purposes for importation, and Transport Canada will then issue you an authorization certificate that you present to CBSA at the time of entry, to demonstrate that you've already cleared it as a temporary importation, not a permanent importation, and therefore, you are not to be sent to the RIV program and have to pay a RIV fee, and so on, and have your vehicle modified.

It just clearly identifies, and when you get to the border with the sheet, CBSA understands that it has been viewed and approved by Transport Canada.