Auditor General of Canada: Border Agency's Import Assessment System Cost Over C$800 Million Without Delivering Expected Efficiencies
Ottawa, Canada's capital. On October 29, Auditor General Karen Hogan tabled a report in the House of Commons examining the Canada Border Services Agency's Assessment and Revenue Management system (CARM). The report concludes that the system effectively calculates duties and taxes using information submitted by importers, but did not generate the expected efficiencies and value for money.
According to the report, Canada has invested more than C$800 million since 2010 to develop and maintain CARM. Deployment was delayed by three years, and costs exceeded the overall budget for the system by about C$60 million. The agency had planned to eliminate manual workarounds within a year of launch, yet at least 38 remained at the end of the audit period, and employees spend about 92,000 hours a year working with them. As of June 2026, more than 4,000 user requests were outstanding, some for more than 500 days.
The report also confirms that CARM processed around C$42 billion in duties and taxes in fiscal 2024-25, with 99.65% of imports processed electronically. The border agency issued its own two-year update the same day, saying the client portal is online and reliable 99% of the time, more than 263,000 businesses use the system, and core development was completed at C$498.6 million, under the approved budget of C$526.8 million.
The report was one of nine the Auditor General tabled that day, covering areas including the Canadian Dental Care Plan, National Defence ammunition inventory and the national medical stockpile.
Source: Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：安大略省 Fort Erie 的加美边境口岸（资料图）。取自 Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 2.0。 / Photo: The Canada-U.S. border crossing at Fort Erie, Ontario (file photo). Via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
