Finance committee  The tariff has in total 7,400 tariff items. Approximately 1,200 have a benefit under the general preferential tariff system.

Finance committee  I don't know. It's not something we looked at in the context of the amendments to the travellers' exemptions. We certainly think this will have a great impact on relieving border congestion, particularly at peak times and in summer months.

Finance committee  Absolutely. I think there was a number that was associated with the border vision action plan. It may well have been that number. I know it's a significant benefit we're speaking about.

Finance committee  There hasn't been in the past when similar changes were made. The trips have been steady. If people are making those purchases now, we assume they'll continue to make them and there will be a larger amount of duties and taxes.

Finance committee  No. We're saying there hasn't traditionally been an impact. What this is going to do—

Finance committee  We've done an internal analysis to assess the cost of this measure.

Finance committee  I think I can share how we've looked at this. I don't think their internal department calculations—

Finance committee  There haven't been significant changes in the patterns when these have been adjusted in the past. What happened was that people were lining up to pay duties and taxes. In our view this will simply wave through more people who are already making certain purchases. It's not going to incent people to travel to shop duty- and tax-free.

Finance committee  Sure. I think it's a good point. The $50 exemption hadn't been raised since 1995, so it was certainly out of date from that perspective. The way the law was written previously, there was a $50 exemption after a 24-hour absence. If you spent over $50 you had to pay duty and taxes on the full amount.

Finance committee  Thank you. My name is Dean Beyea. I was here earlier. I am the director of international trade at the Department of Finance. I'm here with my colleague, Patrick Halley, and Alec Attfield from the Canada Border Services Agency. Division 44 amends the Customs Tariff. There are two primary changes.

Finance committee  With respect to travellers' exemptions, what has traditionally been the most sensitive item for border communities are cross-border shoppers. Most of the trips are less than 24 hours, and there is no change to that exemption. There is no exemption for day shoppers, if you use that term.

Finance committee  We've looked at travellers. There are very distinct patterns, I think you would say. The variants seem to be in trips. The trips between one and six days are very constant. They have been for a considerable amount of time. There have been changes to the travellers' exemptions that haven't shown an impact on trips, most recently the greater-than-48 hour trips in 2007.

Finance committee  Thanks, Chair. First, my name is Dean Beyea. I'm the director of the international trade policy division at the Department of Finance. Division 32 amends the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act. The Canadian International Trade Tribunal is a quasi-judicial institution within Canada's trade remedy system.

Finance committee  The only difference between the role of the vice-chair and that of a regular member is that a vice-chair can undertake the duties of the chair. The amendment would be that now the regular members can decide amongst themselves who would replace the chair in that situation. There are currently no other duties that the vice-chairs perform.

Finance committee  It's a saving. It's part of the deficit reduction action plan. It's a saving of just under $100,000, which represents about 1% of CITT's budget. It's a very small organization.