CIFFA Committee Meetings – August 2026

CIFFA’s national committees meet several times a year to discuss relevant issues or developments that may affect member companies. Following is a look at what committee members discussed and decided at their most-recent meetings.

Airfreight Committee – Chair Bill Gottlieb

• At the scheduled September meeting of IATA’s Canadian Air Cargo Program Joint Council (in which six members of the Airfreight Committee represent freight forwarders in discussions with representatives of six airlines serving the Canadian air cargo market), CIFFA plans to discuss several issues. These include:
  • Transport Canada’s requirements for supervision of employees certified to handle dangerous goods
  • IATA’s recent change related to forwarder liability in direct air waybill shipments
  • The impact on CASS associates of the direct air waybill change
  • The airlines’ actions in terms of providing consistent emissions information in line with IATA’s Recommended Practice (RP) 1678 for Cargo CO2 Emissions Measurement Methodology
• CIFFA responded to Transport Canada’s recent call for feedback in its consultation on strengthening transportation security clearances for the One Canadian Economy Initiative. TC is looking to introduce new supply chain legislation in the fall. CIFFA will continue to be involved in high-level discussions as this develops.

Customs Committee – Chair Nelson Cabral

• On behalf of the committee, CIFFA has reached out to the CBSA to understand the obligations and restrictions that freight forwarders have in communicating to importers and others in the trade chain about health, safety and security-related examinations.
• The committee has asked CIFFA to seek clarity from the CBSA on the agency’s recent communications that call for a tariff-rate quota (TRQ) to be in place before steel imports enter a bonded warehouse. Steel importers have been using bonded warehouses to defer payments of duties and taxes. This change from CBSA is catching people in the industry off guard. In addition, if Canada does not allow steel importers to delay duty and tax payments through bonded warehouses, it could create a disadvantage for Canadian importers in relation to U.S. competitors, who can use free trade zones for that purpose.

Customs Regulatory Committee – Chair Kim Campbell

While this committee normally meets each month, members chose not to meet over the summer. The following items are from the committee’s June meeting; they have not been previously shared.

• The CBSA has said that the Electronic Low Value Import System (ELVIS) will be launched before the end of this year. It is on a cloud-based platform. The moratorium on CLVS will be lifted in phases, in a controlled environment within current conditions and restrictions.
• The CBSA has said that CARM Release 5 (R5) will be implemented in the spring next year.
• The CBSA updated D-memo D8-1-1: Administration of Temporary Importation (Tariff Item No. 9993.00.00) Regulations. Since CARM was implemented, the process covered by this D-memo has become more difficult, and committee members felt that the draft D-memo update did not solve any issues involved in the process. The importer is required to have a business number, which most non-resident importers (NRIs) bringing in temporary imports will not have. While carnets are available to be used, they’re expensive and paper-based in Canada at this time. (Electronic carnets are due to be implemented globally by January 1, 2028.)
• The executive order on customs enforcement signed on June 3 by President Trump will impact Canadian companies acting as NRIs into the U.S. Some surety companies have indicated they may not have the capacity to provide the newly required security.
• CBSA posted a notice in the CARM Portal indicating that it would begin nudging importers as of June 17 if they needed to increase the financial security in their accounts. One committee member noted that a customer’s account was not being updated by CBSA when it made payments. This, along with the fact that the process for an importer to increase its financial security with a surety provider can take many months to complete, could create a significant issue for importers.

Drayage Committee – Chair Chris Ford

• At its Brampton terminal, CN Rail recently introduced a service at its ingate that enables drivers to reach a customer service employee when they need help. The Drayage Committee had been pushing for this service and is pleased that direct access to help is now available on site.
• When trains were unable to run in July in northern Ontario due to wildfires, CBP allowed import trains to divert through the U.S. thanks to the availability of cargo commodity descriptions and piece counts. Export trains, however, were not permitted to divert because the same information was not available at the time of shipment; it is filed later, around the time of arrival at destination. CN contacted CIFFA, seeking help to implement a process change that would enable export-train rerouting when necessary. The Drayage and Seafreight Committees will work together on this initiative, with CN and the CBSA.
• CN Brampton has begun charging trucking companies’ credit cards daily for storage fees. The companies are now having to carry that cost until they’re paid by their customers a month or two later.
• Ocean carriers in the past sent emails to dray companies about approaching free-time cutoff. These messages would alert the companies if there was an issue. Now, most carriers have discontinued this practice, leading to more storage fees for the trucking companies.
• Termont and MGT terminals at the Port of Montreal are not open for container pickups on weekends, but they charge for storage on Saturdays and Sundays. CIFFA will contact the terminals to dispute this policy.
• A new restriction in Termont’s reservation system leaves dray operators unable to prebook reservations to return empties without container numbers. While dray companies used to prebook a few slots based on their expectations of empties coming back from customers, Termont no longer enables that, saying that trucking companies weren’t cancelling unused reservations. And, because it can be a challenge to book a same-day reservation to return an empty, dray operators are having to store the containers until an appointment can be made.

Freight Brokers Committee – Co-Chairs Tim Drake, Gary Nicholson

• After the Montgomery v. Caribe Transport decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, CIFFA updated its freight broker–carrier service agreement to up the protection for brokers who use it.
• As a result of that court decision, the cost of insurance is rising for freight brokers, increasing their prices to shippers.
• There are indications that higher rates are pushing more shippers to intermodal service, which will affect trucking companies’ ability and appetite to invest in equipment.
• A member of the committee reported that some brokers are now asking for so much information on carriers and drivers that the carriers are declining the business.

Seafreight Committee – Chair Martin Schultz

• A committee member reported that customs inspections in Halifax are taking up to three weeks to complete, and an examination in Vancouver resulted in a $5,000 bill. CIFFA members should expect inspections to increase, on both imports and exports. Committee members asked CIFFA to discuss with CBSA the need for more marine ports in Canada with equipment to do examinations.
• Ocean carriers are applying large surcharges on the fuel component of their rates, as a result of the situation in the Middle East. Some are making substantial profit on the surcharges.
• The Roberts Bank terminal expansion at the Port of Vancouver is expected to double capacity from 2.4-million TEUs to 5-million TEUs by 2036. There is also a feasibility study underway to increase capacity by 2-million TEUs at Prince Rupert. Committee members are concerned that trade chain partners may not be prepared to handle this large increase in cargo, and want CIFFA to continue to raise this issue in discussions with both industry and Transport Canada.

Sustainability Committee – Chair Christina Fisker

The Sustainability Committee met in July and August. Discussions from both meetings are covered here.

• CIFFA’s ESG Award, which will be presented at the 2026 conference in October, will recognize the efforts of a member company in one or more of the following areas: environmental impact, social responsibility, supply chain sustainability, innovation and governance. Members of the committee will review applications and select the winner.
• The committee is planning a webinar for CIFFA members on AI and sustainability.
• The Government of Canada announced on August 21 that it has signed the Belém Declaration on Sustainable Public Procurement, joining about 40 other countries. The declaration was launched in November 2025 at the COP30 meeting in Belém, Brazil. Signatories commit to progressively integrate environmental, social and economic sustainability in their purchasing decisions.
• The federal government launched on August 24 a national engagement initiative for Canadians to shape Canada’s third voluntary national review (VNR) on the Sustainable Development Goals progress. This report will highlight Canada’s progress toward the UN’s 2030 Agenda. CIFFA will contribute to this review.

Technology Committee – Chair Marc Bibeau

• The Technology Committee is planning a series of events focused on AI.

If you are interested in participating on any of the national committees, please send your request to either [email protected] or the Regional Chair for your area, whose contact details can be found in the National Board of Directors listing on the CIFFA website.