Government committee recommends Arrivals Duty Free 14 DEC 2009: Canadian airports have applauded a key parliamentary recommendation and urged the Minister of Finance to implement the programme – cleverly dubbed “Arrivals duty free” - which would allow travellers to buy duty free goods upon arrival into Canada.
"Arrivals duty free is a long-standing request of Canada's airports, and we encourage the Minister of Finance to adopt the standing committee's recommendation on this valuable programme," said Canadian Airports Council president and CEO Jim Facette.
The programme will allow Canadian airport duty free operators to grow their businesses and repatriate duty free sales currently lost to foreign duty free operators, said Facette.
"ADF would be good for Canada's airports, travellers and the Canadian economy,"
In its sixth report to this parliament, 'Prosperous and Sustainable Future for Canada: Needed Federal Actions,' the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance made the recommendation as part of its pre-budgetary consultations.
Canada's airports now want the Minister of Finance to adopt the recommendation as part of the federal budget to be introduced in the spring.
The Finance Committee also acknowledged several other requests from Canada's airports, paticularly the development of foreign/free trade zones, a permanent solution for small airport funding, and the elimination of airport rent.
The committee recommended that the government should develop and implement proactive policies to expand key sectors of the economy and to support targeted high value activities.
The committee also drew attention to the CAC members call for the elimination of airport rents, noting that Canada is one of a limited number of countries that charge such rents.
The committee was informed that, with a number of shovel-ready small airport projects that have not received funding, the government should develop a permanent programme to fund small National Airport System (NAS) and non-NAS airports.
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