Government Operations Committee on May 15th, 2008

[Mark Watters]

No.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Did you put the question directly to them?

[Mark Watters]

No.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I don't believe the repairs were costed out in the report. Several of the works of art are probably worth several thousand dollars. There may even be some exclusive works of art in thePrime Minister's residence. There is a cost associated with this.

The residences and federal buildings examined in the report are not universally accessible. By that I mean that they are not accessible to persons with reduced mobility.

Do you have an idea of what it will cost to carry out the repair work at thePrime Minister's residence? Was the state of repair of this residence identified as a major problem by the NCC?

[Sheila Fraser]

I don't know exactly what it would cost to make these premises universally accessible. Currently, 24 Sussex Drive is not accessible to everyone. Obviously, any scheduled repairs will have to satisfy the standard of universal accessibility.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

So then, plans are to make thePrime Minister's residence accessible to everyone.

I'd like to get back to my first love, so to speak, because I'm still concerned about something. I'm referring to the Canada Border Services Agency. You're familiar with my experience in this area.

Currently, there is a shortage of IRB members, as well as a shortage of decision-makers at the Immigration and Immigration Appeal divisions. Your report singled out people who have problems with the law. As a rule, these individuals are entitled to a hearing before the Immigration Appeal Division. Right now, it's impossible to get an appointment or hearing scheduled.

I'd like you to comment further on the reasons for the delays encountered. People are entitled to be represented before the Immigration Appeal Division. However, if there is a shortage of decision-makers, the delays will cost the provinces and everyone else money.

[Sheila Fraser]

We did not focus on this issue during our audit. Our focus was really on removals and detentions.

However, we are currently conducting an audit of the federal government's overall appointment process. Our office is looking at Crown corporations and some commissions. We expect to table our report to Parliament next February. We'll have more information to share with you about these matters in less than a year's time.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Some people have told me about cases that are excluded from the process under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. However, the individuals in question may be entitled to an appeal because false information was provided or additional evidence came to light.

The problem is that these individuals wait indefinitely. Several years ago, it was possible for them to have their case heard fairly quickly, but today, that's impossible. They have no idea of when they might go before a judge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you, Madam.

Mr. Merrifield.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being here and for the opportunity to question you, because it's quite timely. Tomorrow morning a group of members of Parliament go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to talk to our counterparts with regard to significant issues. Particularly the border issue will be the paramount issue.

Your report actually speaks to something that was all over the American media, which is the 41,000 who supposedly were asked to leave this country and yet we don't know exactly where they are. That's something we have to try to counter now, that kind of communication. I'm not blaming you at all, or saying you shouldn't do what you're doing. As Canadians, we certainly don't like to have people asked to leave and not know where they are. The interesting part about it is that Americans don't really realize that they have 600,000 of their own who have been asked to leave, which proportional to population is much higher than ours.

I'm wondering about the 41,000 and if your investigation took you to the place where you could discern whether they're actually in the country or they've actually left the country and we don't know it. I think that's something we have to address some place along the line.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you.

I would like to point out that actually we gave the agency credit for the fact that they actually do have this database now, which does indicate the 63,000 people. The last time we looked at this, they didn't have that. They didn't know how many people had warrants outstanding against them. As well, they hadn't really focused their resources on the highest-risk individuals. So they have actually made improvement in that area. And as the member pointed out, the number of 41,000 is likely high, because there are no exit controls, so some people may have left voluntarily and not informed the agency.

I believe over the last year the agency did go through an exercise where they kind of cleaned up their database. They did cancel a fairly significant number of warrants that had been outstanding for a very long period of time and it would indicate that the person had probably left the country. I believe they are trying to do more work and more analysis to be able to get a better sense of what is a possible number of people who might have left. So they will be refining that analysis over the next year, I believe.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I appreciate that, and I'm pleased to hear that, because it's really quite important with our relationship with America.

Secretary Chertoff commented about border issues in January and suggested in his statement a number of problems he had with Canada and the 49th parallel. In that document, the sixth paragraph, it was actually a statement on 1,512, let's say, illegal people, potential terrorist-types, who presented themselves at the border, in a document that talked about the 49th parallel.

We did a little bit of looking, to find out... Well, that seems ridiculous that we'd have that kind of a problem in Canada, wanting to go to the United States. The Canadian embassy tells me that they found 20 of the 1,500. So the rhetoric becomes really extreme. The rest were all from the southern border.

It really is important that we have our facts right on this, if we're going to fight the battles that we have with regard to educating our southern neighbour, who seems to be very phobic about the attack of 9/11 and the changing dynamics of what's happened there. I appreciate what you're doing, and I applaud you for it, because it's going to stimulate more work on our side to be able to get the right data.

There is something else I wanted to talk about in the report, which is public health. This takes me to a past life. I was chair of the health committee. SARS should have taught us more lessons than any other country in the world with regard to making sure that we know who's in charge when an incident of pandemic or a serious situation happens. I'm a little disturbed that your report shows that we still haven't got the communications right between the provinces and territories and the federal government. Can you tell me where the roadblock really is? I know Mr. Kramp went down this line a little bit, but this is startling to me.

[Sheila Fraser]

Again, we really think it important that there be the formal agreements in place. This is an issue we've been raising since 1999, so we would have expected to see much more progress, certainly, and we raised it again in 2003. So in four or five years we would have expected more than one agreement to be in place with the provinces and territories.

We do recognize that there was a fair bit of effort expended on establishing the agency and getting that going, but we also note in the report that there appears to be a real lack of priority-setting and strategic planning, so that could, I think, be one of the factors. Obviously it does take time to do these things, but we would have expected to see much more done by now.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Can you tell us where the roadblock might be, though? This is the issue. Is it a will or lack of will by the provinces to say “Get out of our backyards--our obligation is to deliver health care, and we'll do that”? Or is it that we don't have the right data to be able to put it into a central database?

[Sheila Fraser]

We don't see necessarily an unwillingness on the part of the provinces. In fact, they are giving the data on sort of a voluntary basis. There have been a number of issues raised by the provinces. One of the key examples is privacy concerns, how much information they can share. Those are the kinds of things that are really important to work out and that it be clear and that they be addressed. You know, I think these things can be done. They're done in other areas.

We weren't expecting all the agreements to be in place, but we were certainly expecting more than one. I think it's really simply making this a priority for the agency. I would say, though, they are getting most of the data they need, most of it, but again it's based on the goodwill of the provinces, and all of the roles and responsibilities, the clarity around the standards, all that is not in place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I happen to agree with you. As a former Minister of Health, the challenges in dealing with the provinces on issues such as this.... There has to be a bigger focus put on it. I think it's important for the country.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

We have to get this right before another incident happens; and we're told it's not a matter of “if”, it's a matter of “when”. So delay becomes a scary situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Part of what happens is you tend to forget. The person who is there at the time of the crisis wants to do something, but then there are changes and it sort of gets pushed over. I've seen it. And I'm glad the Auditor General points it out on a fairly regular basis, because it does help to focus the mind.

Mr. Silva.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I actually had a question on the issue of accessibility, but before I get into that question, I want to ask the Auditor General if she has any figures in terms of the numbers of people who have been deported in the last two to three years. The reason I ask for that is because there has been some concern in the last year or two that in fact there has been a larger number of people deported out of the country. I was wondering if you could actually share those numbers with the committee.

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes. In fact, on page 15 of the report we note that the number of removals has increased. In 2002-2003, it was about 8,700; in 2003-2004, 11,000; 2004-2005, 12,000; 2005-2006, 11,362; and in 2006-2007, 12,600.

So it has, from 2002-2003, gone up close to 50%.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

The reason I ask that question is because of the fact that when I was raising issues in the House related to undocumented workers, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration at that time repeated over and over again that there was no increase in numbers. But in fact you're stating by the numbers you have reported here to this committee that the numbers have gone up in the last few years.

[Sheila Fraser]

The number of removals has gone up, yes.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

That's an important statement, because it certainly flies in the face of the statements made by the minister when I've asked this question over and over again in the House. So I thank you for that.

I want to ask you another question. There has been a lot of discussion about the aging of our buildings and the maintenance of the buildings. Unfortunately, we don't see the historical significance.... Really, part of the patrimony of this country lies in these buildings, whether it's Parliament, whether it's the Prime Minister's residence. I think there's not attachment as there is in some countries in Europe. I find that very unfortunate, because if we don't have these national symbols we don't really have much then to offer Canadians in future generations.

In terms of the repair and the state they are in, I'm also concerned about whether our buildings are accessible to those who have mobility challenges. How do we make sure that when we do make the repairs, those issues are properly addressed?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you.

That is a consideration of the National Capital Commission, and you will see in the listing of the work that has to be done--there's a schedule in the report on page 15--that many of them do have to have work done to ensure universal access. These of course are properties that are quite old and were not designed at the time for universal access, and that is something that needs to be done, quite frankly, on just about all of them. So that is on the list of work that must be completed.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you very much.