In a forceful address at Retail West in Vancouver, Aritzia founder and executive chair Brian Hill has called on the Government of Canada to eliminate the de minimis duty-exemption on low-value e-commerce imports. Brian Hill said his company is at a 20 per cent duty disadvantage on e-commerce orders to Canadians valued at $150 or less. Hill warned that current federal policy is placing Canadian retailers at a pronounced duty disadvantage and voiced concern over cross-border trade imbalances that have become more glaring since the United States ended its own de minimis policy this August.
What is the De Minimis Exemption?
Under Canada’s system, imports shipped to consumers from the U.S. or Mexico with a declared value of $150 or less are not subject to Canadian duties, while goods with a value of $40 or less are free of taxes, according to trade law expert Daniel Kiselbach of Miller Thomson.…
In contrast, after an executive order signed by the U.S. President, the United States no longer provides duty-exemption for any commercial shipments from Canada or Mexico and now requires full compliance—including duties and taxes—even for the lowest-value parcels. “We Should Be at Zero”—Calls for Policy Reversal “If the U.S.
is at zero, we should be at zero,” Hill insisted to the crowd, criticizing the policy that lets foreign e-commerce shipments into Canada without paying comparable tariffs faced by homegrown companies.
With a measured but pointed tone, he asked, “Why is it advantageous for foreign retail, foreign product companies, foreign retailers, or whatever, to be able to ship into Canada duty-free, and we are having to pay duty on it?“ Hill said that Aritzia previously shipped 70 percent of its online U.S.
orders directly from distribution centres in Toronto and Vancouver. That portion of their U.S. e-commerce—worth millions—has now gone to zero almost overnight following U.S. policy change, as it is no longer price-competitive for Canadian retailers to ship across the border without the exemption…
Discussion
0 Comments
No comments yet
Start the conversation
Share your take on this story and help shape the discussion.
Sign in to join the discussion.