Evidence of meeting #26 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was applicants.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
Conservative
March 8th, 2012 / 5 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Cheema, thank you, first of all, for your very kind comments about our government and in particular Minister Kenney and how he is tackling some of these very complex issues.
I would make a comment to Mr. Bohbot, however, that the use of the term or the inference drawn about Canada possibly becoming an Orwellian state, I don't think is acceptable, quite frankly.
My parents came from places where they faced down two totalitarian regimes in terms of Stalinist communism and Nazi Germany where Orwell got his material. I spent most of my life in uniform preventing that from happening in our country. I don't think we're going to go there.
I think we do have a right in this country to defend our security with biometric and other data, and make sure we are a fair, open, and welcoming country. My parents came here after World War II because they could go nowhere else, and Canada provided us a home.
However, that doesn't mean that we need to be naive, because by your statistics, if we welcomed 254,000 people last year on average, as we have for the last several years, then 254 of them are problematic, if you use that one percentage. As my colleague Mr. Weston pointed out quite clearly, sometimes it just takes that one bad guy to get through that's problematic.
I think this government and our people have a right to make sure that biometric data is in place to prevent those kinds of occurrences, because we do have a responsibility to all citizens to make sure that the safety of this country is guaranteed, and that the people who do come to this country are the people we choose to have and that we want.
I would agree that 99% of the people out there are generally good people. They're not the ones we're targeting. It's the bad ones who can certainly affect us and our way of life. As Mr. Weston rightly pointed out, it just takes one.
Dr. Cheema, you talked about the labs and their recommendations and testing. Would you recommend that lab system you described be a part of a biometric initiative?
5 p.m.
As an Individual
No, I think that's a separate thing because the labs.... You know, the medical examination has two parts. One is the physical exam, and then the second part is the lab test and X-rays.
The lab tests are being done by labs that must be certified and they may be certified but people.... For example, if I send somebody to a specific lab, how do I know that person is the same person who is giving the urine or blood test? I think there is a chance for fraud or tampering with the results.
To make sure these things don't happen, that we don't give thugs a chance to cheat the system, we need to have a central lab or few collection places. Once you collect the blood and urine samples, they can be sent to, for example, New Delhi or Chandigarh, and those labs can be more effective and efficient, and there will be more accountability. We will know that this sample came from a specific person, the same person who is going to go to Canada.
How do we know that is true all the time now?
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Yes, I agree.
Now on the perimeter security, I think it was you who mentioned earlier sharing the data among some of our allies, and we do that. Under the perimeter security agreement, I think that's something that is going to become more prevalent as the biometrics systems align and come online amongst all of these nations.
Would you be in agreement with the sharing of data?
5:05 p.m.
As an Individual
Absolutely, but I just want to point out that what has happened....
If I have to get a security certificate, the Government of Canada says, “Mr. A, you are okay. Everything is okay with you. Your medical is good. Your history is good. Everything is good, but now we need a security certificate.” The security certificate, I think, is the most important thing to prevent any potential troublemakers or lawbreakers from coming to this country. If you send a strong message that getting our security clearance is of the utmost importance, the same as with the medical examination, that will send a great message. That will send a strong message.
Right now even the potential immigrants are aware of that, that the Government of Canada is serious about making sure these things don't happen. This will not only help our country but it will also help the country where innocent people are being exploited. You have all these ghost immigration consultants, and all these so-called money-makers, and they're using everyone else to come here. So we need to make sure that we have a strong message, a clear message, and the visa officers should be given the final authority.
Personally I feel very strongly that no one, it doesn't matter who it is, should be interfering once the decision is made by the visa officer, because if we have political interference, it sends the wrong message.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you very much for that. I also agree that people often don't pay enough attention to the fact that there's a lot of exploitation that happens to people in those source countries and there's a real negative impact on them, a violation of their rights, and a lot of other things that can occur to them as a result, all not good.
I've got about 45 seconds left, so I'm going to give you an opportunity to make a couple of recommendations to this committee. What would they be, sir?
5:05 p.m.
As an Individual
In my opening statement, I gave two recommendations, and those are very clear. I will make sure to e-mail my presentation.
I would highly recommend that we proceed on this as soon as possible. It can be done. It's cost-effective. It's not going to cost any money to us as taxpayers, but I think we'll be doing a service to the potential immigrants, and sending a strong message that if you are honourable and you want to come here, you are most welcome. If you want to come in a deviant way, you are not welcome.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to straighten out something that I think my honourable colleague, Mr. Opitz, just talked about. We talked about biometrics having a failure rate of 1% with fingerprinting.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
You said that? Well, we were talking about the figure 254,000 and 1%, and Mr. Opitz used the figure 254. It's 2,500 cases.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Yes, I was just making a point, in fact. That's okay.
Go ahead.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I understand. Of course, we're talking about fingerprinting people coming in on visitor visas from countries that don't have visas. We're not talking about fingerprinting permanent residents, I don't think, at this point. I just wanted to clarify that.
Nevertheless we have more visits to Canada than 254,000 entrants per year. A failure rate of, say, 2,500 a year, if we use that figure, would mean that in four years we might have 10,000 people. Well, 1% of 254,000 is 2,500. That's 1%.
So you would have 10,000 people who may have a problem every four years, and I would say that's a pretty significant concern. I would just ask Mr. Bohbot if he has any comment on that.
In particular, do you have any idea, Mr. Bohbot, of the cost of Canada implementing a fingerprinting system for every temporary visitor to Canada?
5:10 p.m.
President, Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association (AQAADI)
I'd just like to clarify that in Canada, according to the Immigration website, there are more than 920,000 visitors or renewals of visitor visas. So it's not 250,000. These are already permanent residents who came to Canada. The number is much higher. And 82% of these people have visas; about 18% have not received their visas.
On your question, I haven't seen a cost-effective assessment of what it would be to implement biodata or biometric information. I'm sorry I cannot help you with that.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
I'm just going to get some numbers. If we have 920,000—
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
What did you just say? I just wanted clarification. I apologize. You can have some of our time; I'm not trying to take that. If he could—
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
That's okay.
I will delve into the numbers. Let's use 920,000 visitors last year. If about 80% of those require visas, that's approximately 700,000 who will require visas. That's the group we're talking about in terms of implementing fingerprints.
If we have a 1% failure rate with that, it means that 7,000 people per year are potentially inappropriately identified. That doesn't sound like a very strong, ironclad system to me, if any one of those 7,000 people might not be who he or she claims to be.
Do you have any comment on that, Mr. Bohbot?
