Tax & Trade Blog

The Customs Act (the “Act”) requires all persons arriving in Canada to report their imported goods brought into Canada. Accordingly, travellers arriving in Canada can expect to be investigated by the Canadian Border Services Agency (“CBSA”) who has been mandated to detect and apprehend violators of the Act. CBSA officers are vested with broad search and seizure powers.

Those in contravention of the Act may face enforcement actions including seizures, ascertained forfeitures, penalties and even potentially criminal smuggling charges!

On the civil side of things, CBSA’s enforcement actions can usually be challenged by acting timely and taking prudent steps such as, by engaging an experienced professional!

Canada’s beef industry has been no stranger to difficulty in the past few years. COVID-19 has required many slaughterhouses and meat processing plants to shut down because of outbreaks, while knock on-effects to the restaurant industry, supply chains and international trade further disrupted long-standing patterns of supply, delivery and demand.

A recent, atypical case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (commonly known as ‘Mad Cow Disease’) detected on an Alberta farm has compounded these issues and exposed the sensitivity of Canada’s international export industry in this space.

International Trade continues to be a hotbed of action for governments and businesses around the world. We previously wrote in July 2021 about complaints made to the Canada Border Services Agency (the “CBSA”) that Mexico and Austria have been “dumping” certain Oil Country Tubular Goods (“OCTG”) into the Canadian marketplace.

An oft-forgotten point in Trade and Customs disputes is the lack of legal weight courts will give to CBSA Administrative Policies (i.e., D-Memos) which set out CBSA’s interpretation of customs laws and procedures.

The recent case in Entreprise Robert Thibert Inc., 2021 CanLII 122329 (CA CITT) (“Entreprise”) serves as a useful reminder for importers that there is real risk in relying on these policies, especially in the tariff classification context, even when the CBSA’s published administrative position appears to be clear and unambiguous.

In our prior blog on World Customs Organization (“WCO”)’s five yearly revisions to the Nomenclature of Harmonized System or HS Codes, we discussed the possible amendments to the Canadian Customs Tariff. 

Effective January 1, the Canadian HS Code of tariff classification is being amended!  The Canadian Border Service Agency (“CBSA”) has recently published the proposed changes in the 2022 Customs Tariff.  These changes prompt importers/customs brokers to re-evaluate their tariff classifications and HS Coding systems to avoid any penalties associated with incorrect reporting and plan in advance by requesting validation of any existing CBSA Ruling!