Annual report March 31, 2020 - Chapter 1

The Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) is recognized, both here at home and on the international stage, as a centre of excellence in the fair and timely resolution of trade law matters. The Tribunal is a quasi judicial body that provides Canadian and international businesses with access to fair, transparent and timely trade remedy inquiries, federal government procurement inquiries, and customs and excise tax appeals. At the request of the Government, the Tribunal provides advice in economic and tariff matters.

History of the Tribunal

The Tribunal began operations on December 31, 1988, following the merger of the Tariff Board, the Canadian Import Tribunal and the Textile and Clothing Board. However, its history goes back to the time of Confederation and the Board of Customs, whose appellate mandate was transferred to the Tariff Board in the 1930s. In 1994, the Tribunal absorbed the Procurement Review Board. In 2014, the staff and budget of the Tribunal were transferred to the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada (ATSSC). Its staff is now part of the CITT Secretariat of the ATSSC.

Trade Remedy Inquiries

The Tribunal plays a significant role within Canada’s trade remedy system. Under SIMA, the Tribunal determines whether the dumping and subsidizing of imported goods cause injury or threaten to cause injury to a domestic industry. The Tribunal issued 17 trade remedies decisions and two safeguard exclusion decisions during the fiscal year—compared to 27 the year before. These decisions related primarily to the steel sector, but also concerned products such as unitized wall modules, silicon metal, aluminum extrusions, and nitisinone capsules. All the decisions were issued within the tight statutory deadlines. The report of the safeguard inquiry held during the fiscal year 2018-2019 was released on April 3, 2019.

Dumping occurs when a foreign producer exports at a price that is lower than their normal value (generally, either the domestic selling price of comparable goods in the country of export, or the constructed cost of production of the goods exported to Canada).

Subsidizing occurs when goods imported into Canada benefit from foreign government financial assistance.

Procurement Inquiries

During fiscal year 2019-2020, the Tribunal received 72 complaints pertaining to more than $550 million in federal procurement. The Tribunal issued 62 decisions on whether to accept complaints for injury. The Tribunal also issued 27 final decisions on merit where complaints were accepted for inquiry. Combined, this represented a total of 89 decisions compared to 92 the year before. All procurement review decisions were issued within legislated deadlines.

Customs and Excise Appeals

A total of 57 appeals were filed (47 under the Customs Act and 10 under SIMA) during the reporting period, and two extension of time requests were received. The Tribunal issued 40 appeal decisions and one remand decision under the Customs Act. Of these 41 appeal decisions, 39 (95 percent) were made within 120 days of being heard by the Tribunal.

Standing Textiles Reference

Pursuant to a reference from the Minister of Finance dated July 14, 1994, as last amended on October 27, 2005, the Tribunal was directed to investigate requests from domestic producers for tariff relief on imported textile inputs for use in their manufacturing operations and, in respect of those requests, to make recommendations to the Minister of Finance that would maximize net economic gains to Canada.

No requests for tariff relief have been received by the Tribunal for the past several years. The reference was terminated by the Minister of Finance on February 1, 2020.

Caseload

The first table below contains statistics pertaining to the Tribunal’s caseload for 2019-2020. The second table contains statistics relating to other case-related activities in 2019-2020. These statistics illustrate the complexity and diversity of the cases considered by the Tribunal.

Tribunal Caseload Overview — 2019-2020

Statistics Relating to Case Activities in 2019-2020