With regard to the Canada Border Services Agency’s (CBSA) decision to have Employment Professionals Canada (EPC) as their permitted offload and reload service provider: (a) what are the details of the arrangement between the CBSA and EPC that requires truckers to use EPC’s services during examination, including (i) when the agreement was signed, (ii) what the terms of the agreement (financial and otherwise) are, (iii) who at the CBSA authorized the agreement; (b) is the CBSA aware of the reports alleging that EPC is engaging in price gouging and charging some truckers thousands of dollars for re-loading services that were previously available to truckers, and, if so, what was the CBSA’s reaction to these reports; (c) is the government concerned that the increased costs to truckers resulting from the use of EPC’s services will be passed on to consumers, and, if so, what action will be taken in response; (d) does EPC provide the offloading and reloading services itself in all cases, or does it subcontract these services to other parties; (e) if EPC’s services are subcontracted to other firms, why did the CBSA decide to pay a middleman rather than directly paying the vendor who provides the loading and offloading services; (f) does the CBSA pay EPC to be the provider or does EPC pay the CBSA for the right to be the exclusive supplier, and how much is being paid; (g) what measures, if any, has the CBSA put in place to ensure that truckers are not being charged more than the fair market rate for loading and offloading services; (h) prior to this arrangement with EPC, who provided these services and at what rate; (i) was there a conflict of interest analysis completed given EPC’s involvement with other businesses within the supply chain space, and, if so, what were the results of that analysis; (j) do EPC’s employees have the proper security clearance to provide these services, and who at CBSA is responsible for regularly ensuring those clearances are valid; and (k) was this a sole source contract?
In the House of Commons on June 12th, 2024. See this statement in context.