What this will be
Governments hold records they never publish: enforcement data released only as totals, incident reports that stop at counts, inspection results buried in PDFs. Canadian federal law lets anyone ask for them — the Access to Information Act, a $5 fee, and a 30-day answer clock. Records Foundry asks, then turns what comes back into clean, searchable data that professionals can actually work with.
The first dataset — in production now
Every CBSA customs penalty of 2025: who was fined, how much, for which contravention, at which port, and how each case ended. CBSA publishes only yearly totals without names — the company-level version exists only through a records request. And 2025 was the first full year of CARM, the customs system that became the official record in October 2024: the year auditors and clients keep asking about, and nobody outside CBSA can currently see.
Each record will carry six fields:
- The penalized company — the business name as CBSA released it.
- The contravention — number and short description.
- The penalty amount — in Canadian dollars.
- The date assessed.
- The issuing port or office.
- The current status — paid, under recourse, reduced, cancelled, or zero-rated.
Where this stands — plainly
Nothing is for sale yet, and no data is on this page yet. The records request for the 2025 penalties is written and ready to file; it goes in the moment the $5 filing fee is paid. The law then gives CBSA 30 days to answer, and large agencies routinely take longer — a realistic wait is one to three months from filing. When the records arrive, every row gets checked against its source, and a searchable preview of the real table goes up on this page. We would rather tell you the product is not built yet than show you a mock-up dressed up as one.
What a seat gets — $149 a month
- The full national table — every 2025 penalty, searchable by company, contravention, port, and status.
- Client-name alerts — you tell us the names you watch; you get an email the moment one appears in the data.
- A quarterly refresh — we re-request every quarter, and subscribers get a plain what's-new list: new penalties, and every status or amount change that came out of an appeal.
- Traceability on every row — see the next section; it applies to everything a seat can see.
Where every number comes from
Every field in every row traces back to the released record it came from — file, page, line. Figures appear as released; when an appeal ends and a penalty is reduced or cancelled, the row is corrected and the correction stays visible. The dataset is compiled from records obtained under the Access to Information Act from the Canada Border Services Agency. We are not affiliated with CBSA or any government body, and nothing here is an official publication.
Who it's for
Customs brokers and trade consultants — checking which clients were fined, which contraventions spiked since CARM, and what an audit season actually looks like. Later datasets (drone incident reports, medical-device investigations) will serve insurers and plaintiff lawyers the same way. If your work depends on records a government holds but does not publish, this is being built for you.
Four short answers
- Why 2025 only? The request in production covers calendar 2025 — the first full CARM year. Earlier years are queued behind it.
- How often will it update? Every quarter we re-request and refresh; the what's-new list goes to subscribers.
- What does "status" mean? Where the penalty stands as CBSA records it: paid, under recourse (appealed), reduced, cancelled, or zero-rated.
- Will carriers be covered? Importers and customs brokers come first; carriers are the planned second cut of the same dataset.
Join the list
The service launches when the records land — likely a few months out. No form, no account: email us, say which ports or client names you would watch, and we will tell you the moment the 2025 table is live. Questions about coverage or licensing get a straight answer too.