Canada Launches Trade Digitalization Task Force: “Tell Us Once” Plan to Cut Export Paperwork

Photo: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) — file photo of the Centerm container terminal in Vancouver, not from the October 30 task force announcement.

Picture a small food exporter in Mississauga with a truckload of product bound for a buyer overseas. Before that truck reaches a port, somebody in the office has typed the same shipment details into one government form, then another, then a carrier system, then a port form asking for most of it all over again. Every repeated entry is a chance to mistype a code or watch a container sit while paperwork catches up. Ottawa says it has had enough of that routine, and on October 30 it put a name to the fix.

According to Transport Canada, the federal government has launched a Trade Digitalization Task Force, a joint government-and-industry group that held its first meeting on October 29 and will hunt down the paperwork and delays slowing Canadian goods. Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon announced on October 30 that the task force had begun its work. It will hear directly from businesses about what trips them up, then recommend changes to how trade information moves across companies, departments, and borders.

Tell Us Once: file it once, stop retyping it

The idea at the centre of the announcement is disarmingly simple. Under a proposed “Tell Us Once” approach, a business would submit its information a single time and have it shared securely across federal departments and agencies, instead of handing the same facts to each office separately. Transport Canada says that would cut duplication, save businesses time and money, and make it easier to move goods inside Canada and across its borders.

The department expects four payoffs: faster and simpler processes, fewer delays and lower costs, more secure trade information, and shipments that arrive when they are supposed to. For a small firm, that is the difference between taking on an overseas order with confidence and turning it down because the paperwork looks like a second full-time job.

Who is actually sitting at the table

A task force is only as good as the people in the room, and this one casts a wide net. On the government side sit the Canada Border Services Agency, Finance Canada, and Global Affairs Canada, alongside Transport Canada itself. On the industry side are Air Canada, Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City, the Canadian Trucking Alliance, DP World, and the ports of Halifax, Montréal, and Vancouver, plus the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Livingston International, Digital Trust Canada, Payments Canada, Rio Tinto, Merck Canada, Sobeys, and the University of Ottawa.

That mix tells its own story: the railway that hauls the container sits next to the port that loads it, the trucking association that moves it inland, and the small-business federation that hears from firms too small to hire a customs broker.

Why Ottawa is in a hurry to sell beyond the United States

The timing is no accident. Canada has spent the past year scrambling to widen its customer base beyond its biggest trading partner, and the task force lands squarely inside that push. International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu tied the new group directly to the federal goal of doubling non-U.S. exports over the next decade, saying trade-enabling infrastructure is how Canada connects its businesses to global markets and the task force will strengthen connectivity and supply chains as Canada moves to diversify.

MacKinnon put the everyday version of the same argument in his announcement. “Canadian businesses should be able to spend less time navigating paperwork and more time growing, competing and reaching new markets,” he said.

The honest catch: no deadline, no new law yet

Here is where readers should keep their eyes open rather than simply applaud. The October 30 announcement sets no deadline for recommendations, proposes no new legislation, and gives the task force no power to force a department to change its forms. Transport Canada says only that the group will continue “for as long as collaboration between government and industry is needed” — wording that can mean sustained effort or slow drift, depending on what happens next.

So judge this by what actually changes for a real exporter. Does a firm in Winnipeg or Halifax file its details once and watch them flow, or does it still print the same form three times next spring? Those tests will take months to grade.

If the task force delivers, the payoff is quiet but enormous: cheaper exports, steadier supply chains, and Canadian firms chasing buyers in Europe, Asia, and beyond without drowning in forms first. If it stalls, it joins a long line of good intentions that never reached the loading dock. Either way, the paperwork problem is now officially on the agenda, and businesses will be watching to see whether “Tell Us Once” becomes something they can actually use.

Video: Scotiabank explains why Canada is pushing to diversify its trade and what that shift means for Canadian businesses.

Sources

Transport Canada / Government of Canada, “Canada launches new task force to make trade faster, simpler and more efficient,” October 30, 2026.

Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce, “Daily Update: October 30, 2026,” October 30, 2026.

Trendonomist, “Ottawa Launches Trade Red-Tape Overhaul as Canadian Businesses Seek Markets Beyond Trump’s U.S.,” October 31, 2026.