CSCB Chairman Tom Mountain and President Carol West today met with Denis Lefebvre, Assistant Commissioner of the Customs Branch of CCRA.  The priority item for discussion at the meeting was the Administrative Monetary Penalty System (AMPS),  and specifically the questions raised by the CSCB since AMPS was implemented on October 7th.  Although there were not specific responses to many of our concerns,  Mr.Lefebvre is committed to ensuring that AMPS encourages compliance in a way that is fair. We will continue to be
proactive in our pursuit of answers to these issues, on the basis of what we hear from your, our members, across Canada.

 
Here are some highlights of the meeting:

1.  CCRA will accelerate its review of policies around C274, and are exploring the feasibility of dividing the contravention between importer and carrier infractions. CSCB was not clear how that would better reflect business realities, avoid unnecessary delay of goods, or be more fair, but will continue to actively participate in the discussions with CCRA and the carrier/forwarder community about C274.

Between October 7th and November 3rd, 51 penalties were issued under C274 for a total amount of $117, 359 with 32 penalties assessed against importers, 16 against carriers and
3 against warehouse operators.

2. CCRA is specifically reviewing penalty amounts for anomalies and will make adjustments to ensure that penalty amounts are more than a cost of doing business, but  that they do not cause undue hardship.

3. CCRA seemed to agree with the CSCB’s representations that the compliance record of an importer should not be negatively affected by inadvertent errors made by the customs
broker. It was suggested by CCRA that perhaps the errors should be reflected in the compliance record of the customs broker.  CSCB pointed out that such an approach was
unrealistic without consideration of a tolerance or threshold (volumetrics), given the number of transactions handled by brokers on behalf of so many importers.

4. CCRA is monitoring the application of penalties which use the “whichever is greater” approach (some 90 out of a total 230).

5.  Policy with respect to the use of Y50s was clarified and CSCB requested feedback on the use of Y50s, by region, since the implementation of AMPS.  Simply stated, if a Y50 is
issued and the requirements are met, no penalty would be applicable. 

The policy response CSCB has received states that  “the implementation of AMPS in no way was intended to alter existing release processes.  The normal process of arriving
at a defensible point of finality prior to conducting an examination that could lead to enforcement action has not changed.  This means that the discovery of an apparent
discrepancy prior to release does not mean that a penalty is immediately issued any more than it did pre-AMPS.  The Y50 process assists us in coming to a point of finality – I do
believe this is a concept applicable to the issuance of an AMPS penalty just as it has always been for seizure action”.

6.  CCRA will continue its work to clarify reason to believe.

7.  National monitoring of AMPS is in place.  As of October 31st, there have been 942 penalties issued for a total amount of $659,677. The breakdown of these penalties is as follows:

8.  CCRA has already received requests for Penalty Reduction Agreements.

9.  Delegated authority to local/regional officers to handle requests for cancellation or correction of penalties is expected within the next month.

10.  With respect to concerns raised about CAED, and the requirement to produce hard copy documentation when data has been transmitted to Custom, Mr. Lefebvre confirmed that it is a CCRA priority to provide system access to their officers and that this should be done in 6-9 months.