Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 30th, 2012

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

It would only be with the countries that you named. You mentioned that we presently share with the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K., I believe. Why have we chosen those countries? I think I know the answer but I'd like you to say it.

[Les Linklater]

Essentially, the five countries work in concert on a number of fronts. We have common interests in terms of maintaining our immigration systems. There is a common history, a common legal framework with a few variations.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

And maybe a common commitment to certain democratic values.

[Les Linklater]

Absolutely.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Walker, would you like to comment on this dialogue?

[C/Supt Chuck Walker]

It's a very interesting and topical conversation and it's something I dealt with a lot certainly in my previous role as the director general of the Canadian Police Information Centre, because we do have an established exchange with—I'll use the United States as the main example. Through this gateway that I described earlier we exchange information with them. It's not to say it hasn't been without some of its own challenges with respect to Canadians citizens at border points, because the U.S. is a sovereign country and they make their own decisions with respect to inadmissibility or admissibility. We don't have a great deal of control over that.

What I would say is that when we look at exchanging different types of information the best approach from a privacy perspective is always to create an opportunity for discovery, but not, as has been stated, to release the dossier if you will. So by creating an opportunity for discovery, then a specific conversation can occur between the interested parties, and the information that's being held by the originator can then be released appropriately according to the laws of the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you. We're out of time.

Mr. Leung.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, I wish to follow up on the question as expressed by Mr. Walker. It's my understanding that the whole purpose of using biometrics is to protect Canada's borders. What we're really addressing is people who are coming into our borders. For example, for Canadians going into the United States, we will also have to voluntarily submit our biometric data to their border authorities.

I simply want to make it clear that here we're addressing people who are not Canadian citizens. The purpose of using biometrics is complementary to entry and exit control, and is really for people who are not Canadian citizens coming into our borders. Is that correct? Would you comment on that, please?

[Les Linklater]

Yes, that is correct. There's no view here that we would need to, or should be, collecting biometrics for Canadian citizens.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Therefore, those who are Canadians.... Unless we're going into a country like the U.K., or Australia, they also have the right to request that information of us.

I need to know, from a technology standpoint, are we at the level where we have the ability to collect that massive amount of information of that 300,000 people who come in? I can see that being built upon at the same speed every year. Pretty soon we may have tens of millions of people in a database. Are we there, technologically, to handle that?

[Les Linklater]

Yes, we are there technologically, and we're actually working through the specifications of the technology that will be needed to be provided by the successful bidder who actually moves to implementation of the contract. As I mentioned earlier, we are looking at this as a fairly limited rollout, in the first instance, to make sure we are doing it right and that we have the platform to which we can then add, incrementally over time, to expand to the entire temporary resident program.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I see.

Is there an estimated cost that is associated with putting this technology in place?

[Les Linklater]

I don't have the figure at the top of my mind but I think Mr. Desruisseaux would have it.

[Alain Desruisseaux]

Yes, the budget that's been allocated for this initiative is $174 million over five years.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Actually, that seems like a fairly modest cost for the kind of security it provides for us.

You indicated this will not be rolled out until 2013.

[Les Linklater]

That's correct.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I see. Okay.

How much more time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have a couple of minutes, if you want it, sir.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Oh, I have a couple of minutes.

I want to go back to mass arrivals. When people come to Canada, if they come in by air, they come in across the border and it is easy to ask them for documentation. Let's say you're travelling from a foreign country to Canada, you have to show the airline a passport by way of identity.

If the person gets on the airplane with their identity, and destroys it on the plane and comes off the airplane, what happens then? Can you walk us through the process as to how we handle those undocumented arrivals at an airport?

Then the next question is, how do we handle the undocumented arrivals, the mass arrivals of the Sun Sea or other mass arrivals that have happened recently?

[Les Linklater]

Very quickly, if someone shows up off an airplane undocumented and they make a claim for refugee status, then the CBSA would interview them to determine, to the extent possible, how best to establish identity. They may actually cooperate and provide us with their identity, in which case they would be reported under IRPA and directed toward the IRB to follow through on their claim. That would be somebody arriving on an airplane after shredding or destroying their document.

For mass arrival, the process is actually the same. The legislative framework remains the same. The issue with a mass arrival relates largely to volume and place of arrival. If it's a boat arrival, for example, it may be at a place where CBSA and CIC are not actually located, or the IRB, so then arrangements need to be made to allow us to logistically house and medically examine the individuals for immigration purposes, and then go through the process of establishing identity.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Monsieur Giguère, you have the floor again, sir.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Great.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You can ask the question that I cut you off on.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you very much.

Let's talk about verification of this biometric data.

Do people under investigation have a right of review over the progress of their file and the transmission of the file to other agencies?

[Les Linklater]

Perhaps I can start and Mr. Walker can supplement me.

Everything that has to do with information sharing will go on in the backroom, as we say. Basically, clients won't know about the verification process with our federal partners, enabling us to make a recommendation or come to a decision regarding foreign agents.