Clearit.ca's Blog on Customs Brokerage and News Updates

The Government of Canada intends to propose actions on the labelling of toxic substances in certain products including cosmetics, cleaning products, and toxic flame retardants in upholstered furniture – and it wants to hear your comments and feedback. The Notice of Intent Consultation opened Oct. 29, 2022 and will close on Jan. 12, 2023. After which, the Government will release its product labelling strategy sometime in 2023. The purpose ...

The Special Import Measures Act (SIMA) has been amended and the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA)’s policies have been modified as a result of the Budget Implementation Act (BIA) receiving royal assent. This Act brought into force several legislative, regulatory, and administrative amendments to Canada’s trade remedy framework in response to recommendations from the Steel Industry-Government Trade Remedy Working Group (SWG). These c...

Starting Nov. 1, 2022, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will resume its regular enforcement of the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR) requirements for the manufactured food sector. Back in 2020, the CFIA made the decision not to prioritize compliance activities associated with the SFCR, which came into affect on July 15, 2020, in recognition of the challenges faced by the industry as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. During ...

The president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, Stephen Laskowski, is raising alarm bells over the acute shortage of truck drivers in Canada and its negative implications for the supply chain. “There is an old saying in our sector you may be familiar with, which goes back decades – if you got it a truck brought it,” said Laskowski, “But, the truth is that during the pandemic – and even still today – there are people who didn’t �...

The National Supply Chain Task Force, established earlier this year by the Ministry of Transport to identify ways to improve Canada’s supply chain, has published its final report along with 21 recommendations. The Task Force's mandate was to examine the key issues affecting Canada’s supply chain operations and then produce recommendations on how Canada can make its transportation supply chain stronger and ensure that Canadians receive affo...

Starting on Oct. 1, 2022, an excise duty or “Vape Tax” will come into effect on vaping substances that are imported into Canada with the intention of being used in vaping devices, as well as vaping substances that are manufactured in Canada. The vaping duty was first announced in the 2022 Federal Budget. As an importer, what do I have to do? If you import packaged vaping products into the Canadian duty-paid market, you must apply to ...

A tentative deal has been reached between railway unions and management, averting a freight railroad strike that had threatened to cripple US supply chains and halt the transportation of key Canadian imports and exports. The verbal agreement concluded after about 20 hours of talks between unions representing more than 50,000 engineers and conductors and railroads’ labour negotiators. At one point during the negotiations, US President Joe Bid...

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has initiated a re-investigation to update the normal values and export prices of certain concrete reinforcing bars (rebars) originating in or being exported from Turkey. The re-investigation is in accordance with the Special Import Measures Act (SIMA) and is part of the CBSA’s enforcement of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal’s (CITT) order issued October 14, 2020 in Expiry Review No. ...

The government of Canada has introduced a luxury tax on the sale or import of certain vehicles and aircraft priced above $100,000 and certain vessels priced above $250,000. The luxury tax, which was first announced on Aug. 10, 2021, came into effect on Sept. 1, 2022. Types of vehicles that qualify for the luxury tax A vehicle qualifies for the luxury tax if it is a motor vehicle manufactured after 2018 that meets all of the following cri...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has published a downloadable user manual for its Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) web portal. You can view the CTPAT user manual here. The manual explains how to navigate through the portal and complete your CTPAT application. It will also enable partners in the program to take advantage of CTPAT and foreign AEO cargo facilitation benefits. The CTPAT web portal is constantly cha...