At the invitation of Public Safety Canada Minister Vic Toews, the CBAA made a pre-budget submission with a specific emphasis on recently-signed Beyond the Border agreement.  CBAA used this opportunity to draw attention to the contradiction between the goals of the agreement, Canada’s Economic Action Plan and the perverse and harmful results of Transport Canada’s overregulation and other challenges such as outdated customs procedures, telling the minister that business aviation requires a different regulatory framework from commercial aviation.

The detailed submission outlined the challenges and opportunities going forward with Beyond the Border, and also proposed a number of new approaches to improve business aviation border processes.  Sam Barone, CBAA President told the minister that “Customs and security for business aviation cannot be based on the airline terminal model.  Specific processes and technologies need to be developed that reflect the operational realities and profile of business aviation operations and terminals.”

The submission also provided an additional opportunity to address ongoing concerns, and Mr. Barone raised the issue of Transport Canada’s onerous regulatory regime that burdens business aviation with both a commercial-carrier type of regulations (similar to those in CAR704) compounded by an overlay of SMS, telling the minister that “proposed Transport regulations put us at a disadvantage compared to our US counterparts and excessive regulations offset the benefits derived from this government’s good fiscal, monetary and economic policy frameworks.”

Mr. Barone concluded by calling for bi-national risk-based security and border facilitation/clearance systems and moving towards “smarter” screening.

Click on the link below to read the CBAA submission (Visible only when members are logged on).