Founder and Executive Chairman
Retailer from Vancouver
Aritzia Inc.
said Canada needs to follow America's example and lower the limit on
.
Brian Hill, whose family opened the first Aritzia store in British Columbia's largest city in 1984, also said:
costs him
luxury clothing manufacturing operation
some of the top talent during Wednesday's event.
Hill admitted that ”
The playing field is level. All our competitors have the same rates,” he said at the Toronto Real Estate Forum.
However, the same cannot be said for the rules governing the so-called de minimis exemption, which previously allowed international packages valued at less than $800 to enter America duty-free.
The United States revoked that exemption in August, and it costs Aritzia $100 million annually, he said.
“We ship about 70 to 80 per cent of our products from our distribution centers in Vaughan (north of Toronto) and one in Vancouver.
heading to the USA. We now pay tariffs on all products coming into the United States,” Hill said.
His problem is that Canada doesn't do anything similar. “We're always very late to the party,” Hill said, noting that while Canada's de minimis benefit is lower at just $150, it's still a level that
based on average transactions.
“Most fast fashion products ship duty-free into Canada,” Hill said, adding that this includes online companies from China as well as the United States. “If anyone knows the Prime Minister, we would appreciate getting rid of this or taking it down.”
In an interview with the Financial Post, Hill said his call for changes to de minimis exceptions in Canada was not about retaliation but about leveling the playing field domestically.
“We have
$1.5 billion business in Canada
and pay duty on every one of those goods that comes into Canada and that we give to our customers,” he said. “But most products sold in Canada through e-commerce channels come duty free because they don't have a warehouse here and they ship it duty free from China (or other countries). All of these Canadian retailers are at a disadvantage.”
Hill also called on the Canadian government to “get out of our way” of business by focusing on immigration issues. The federal government recently lowered its permanent resident enrollment target to 380,000 per year over three years, down from 395,000 in 2025.
“We are trying to build our teams,” he said, adding that Aritzia is not looking to tap into the market for temporary foreign workers. “We are trying to grow our business and try to become an international retailer.”
But immigration laws make it expensive for Arizia to find skilled jobs such as pattern makers, Hill said. “We can’t bring them in… We need these people to create beautiful products, and we don’t have them in Canada.”
According to him, the company lost candidates or at least experienced inconvenience.
“If we're really interested in someone, we're going to have to pay for them for a very long time and have them sit idle through the (immigration) process,” Hill said. “We need qualified senior people with experience.”
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