Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 19th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you for your presentation, sir.

Mr. Bissett.

[James Bissett, Board of Directors, Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When we're talking about the electronic travel authority provision in the legislation, I think it's critically important to remember the underlying reason why this legislation has come forward. It stems, of course, from the tragic events that took place on 9/11 with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

That horrendous event, some have said, has changed the world. One of the things it certainly did was make both the United States and Canada suddenly realize they were vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Both countries moved quickly into action to try to do something about it. They were forced to enact a series of measures. A number of these have taken place since 9/11.

Perhaps the most important one was, in both countries, the passing of new legislation that enabled them to provide their security and intelligence forces with wider powers. Another was legislation that restructured the bureaucracy. Government departments were restructured so they could focus more carefully on security matters. They also provided security agencies with more power, particularly in the areas of surveillance and intelligence gathering.

But the events of 9/11 also led to more cooperative arrangements between Canada and the United States in recognizing that they had to work together to combat terrorists. The first of these took place two months after 9/11, in December of 2001, when both countries signed what was called the smart border action plan, which outlined a broad program of measures designed to develop, as they put it at the time, a “21st century approach to border management”.

It focused primarily on the secure movement of low-risk personnel and low-risk goods passing between the two borders. It also introduced a pre-screening of low-risk passengers and introduced the so-called NEXUS system, in which pre-screened people could enter back and forth between the two countries with minimum examination. It also involved the improvement of marine and highway infrastructure, such as new bridges and new facilities at ports of entry, and, more importantly, the sharing of intelligence and enforcement activities. It established four integrated enforcement teams, with Canadian and U.S. officers operating on both sides of the border.

All of this sounded good, and these were essential steps, but unfortunately they were not working very well, so that by 2009 it was realized that instead of facilitating the travel of goods and services across the border, the border had been militarized, in effect. We had customs officers armed, electronic and mechanical surveillance, and aircraft flying across the border. It became increasingly difficult indeed for goods and services to pass back and forth.

Mr. Collacott has already mentioned the damage this was doing to trade and to tourism. In 2009, for example, there were 21 million fewer same-day visitors to the United States from Canada. Also in 2009, on the U.S. side, the number of overnight travellers to Canada from the United States was at an all-time, 24-year low. There was a realization that something had to be done about it, as the border that we used to boast about as being the longest unprotected border in the world was beginning to look like the border at Checkpoint Charlie between East and West Berlin.

To address these concerns at a high level, Prime Minister Harper and President Obama met in February 2011 in Washington and issued a joint declaration entitled “Beyond the Border: a shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness”. The declaration was essentially a reaffirmation of what had been announced in the smart border plan, but this time it had high-level political support. More importantly, it committed both countries to the implementation of a common security perimeter.

A joint action plan on perimeter security was developed, and a Beyond the Border working group was established to study and to implement measures that were aimed at keeping the border open to legitimate trade and travellers and closed to criminal and terrorist individuals.

The eTA is part of the Beyond the Border initiative, and it deserves the support, I think, of all Canadians. Australia, as we know, has had the system working for many years, and it seems to be working very well. The United States introduced it in 2009. Fortunately, Canadians and Mexicans were exempt from having to comply with it, but it also seems to be working well.

It's a very simple concept: to try to identify and prevent people who are inadmissible under the law from entering Canada, because if they enter, it's extremely difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to remove people.

There are many reasons for this. One, of course, is that anyone who gets here does have charter protection and therefore is entitled to due process. Another reason is that very often to return a person you have to have their country supply them with passports, and very often the countries are not that keen to get them back. You can wait for months, if not years, to get a passport for someone who has already been ordered deported.

In addition to that, it's extremely expensive. The department estimates that to remove one individual, the cost ranges from $1,500 to $15,000. There have been cases where one individual cost over $300,000 for removal. If you have a very dangerous individual, you have to charter a flight to take the person back, and that is extremely costly.

The department also has estimated this year that they need $540.7 million over a five-year period to remove simply failed asylum seekers—not others, just failed asylum seekers. That's a lot of money.

So it's sensible to go ahead and try to stop the people who are inadmissible under the law from boarding aircraft and getting here.

Some people have expressed concern that sharing a security perimeter with our southern border involves a loss of sovereignty. I think that fear should really be put to rest. I mean, sovereignty is an expression of a state's ultimate power to decide for itself what should be done by the state in matters affecting national security and the national interest. Entering into a mutually agreed arrangement with another country that enhances security and gives more protection to Canadians is certainly not a threat to sovereignty.

So I'm all in favour of this very simple measure. As we heard this morning from my colleague Mr. Bell, it will have to lead on to biometric surveillance. The name check alone is a first step, but it's not very effective.

One other advantage, I think, of going forward with this measure is that from the very beginning of September 11, the Americans have thought of and looked upon Canada as being soft on terrorism—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Maybe you could wind up, sir. I notice you only have a few lines left.

[James Bissett]

Yes.

I just wanted to mention that many of them still do feel we are soft on terrorism. We have a wide-open immigration asylum system that they see as a definite threat. This kind of measure does restore that degree of confidence, and I hope it will open up the border to trade and tourism.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Menegakis has some questions.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing before us today. I was certainly very encouraged to hear in your testimonies your support for this very important measure. Over the course of doing a more complete study, we've heard things from several witnesses about the electronic travel authorization. Our primary objective of course as a government—and it is paramount for us—is always to ensure the security and the safety of our citizens.

If I might, I will quote Mr. Linklater from this morning. He is the assistant deputy minister of strategic and program policy at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. He called it an additional tool in the tool kit to help us identify people before they come into Canada and to keep out risks. Certainly we've heard some comments from members of the committee about how it might be difficult for some people to travel to obtain an eTA or how it might affect tourism and so forth. Of course, our primary objective is the security of Canadians. The privacy matters that have been brought up, particularly as they relate to foreigners, may be of some concern or of primary concern to some. For us, the safety of Canadians comes first.

I do want to ask you a question about travel, because it seems to be an ongoing theme, particularly for members of the opposition. Some who travel may be affected. Are you aware of any studies that have been done on the impact of tourism after an eTA system has been implemented, particularly in the U.S.?

Perhaps I could start with you, Mr. Collacott.

[Martin Collacott]

No, I'm not aware of any studies. The U.S. and Australia, of course, have the equivalent of eTAs. We do know what we think the impact on Canada of the lack of such a system has been. I cited a Fraser Institute paper that stated it could be in the range of $7 billion. The biggest numbers of tourists or casual travellers we get are from the United States, and the numbers have really declined solidly.

I don't know if you can see this particular chart, which was taken from the Fraser Institute paper, but there's been a steady decline since 2001. It's still much lower than it used to be.

In the case of the United States, probably their main source of tourist travel is Canada. Whether or not it has affected the tourist travel from Europe and Asia and the United States, I don't know, but I'm not aware of any study that has been made of that particular point, Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Collacott.

Mr. Bell or Mr. Bissett, would you care to respond to that? Are you aware of any studies that have been done to show it may have affected travel in any way?

[Robert Bell]

I'm not aware of any study.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Have any of you done any research or background on other countries that have an eTA? Perhaps if you have, you could share with us what you have found in those cases. Has it been successful? Is it working?

Maybe this time I'll start with you, Mr. Bell.

[Robert Bell]

My information is not based on studies, but is anecdotal. I'm in an environment where lots of people travel lots of places, and it's just not seen as an issue. Having heard this morning that our eTA would be for five years or for the balance of the term of your passport...I think it's not going to be viewed as a barrier in any way to travel. That's just a personal opinion.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Bissett.

[James Bissett]

I'm not aware of any studies, although I think it is clear that when the United States imposed the western hemisphere travel initiative, which meant that all Canadians and U.S. residents had to have passports to cross the border, that definitely had, and probably still has, an impact on tourism.

I grew up 16 miles from the U.S. border in Manitoba. We used to cross it every day, back and forth, and nobody paid any attention to it. If you wanted to, you could go a half mile and phone in to the U.S. customs and tell them you were coming. If you didn't want to do that, you just crossed over. Those days, unfortunately, are gone forever, and as I said, they've gone because of the terrible reality that the world did change on September 11 and we do have very serious security threats. Therefore, travel is never going to be as easy and as simple as it once was. That's a reality we have to face, I'm afraid.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Bissett, I listened carefully to your testimony. You referred to talks between our Prime Minister and the President of the United States that sort of precipitated some of the requirements that need to go into the perimeter agreement. I believe without question—maybe someone can argue it—that the border we have with the United States is the longest border any two nations share in the world. Certainly it is in our best interests to implement systems that will facilitate travel back and forth between our two nations.

Can you perhaps elaborate for us on what some of the consequences are if we do not implement the eTA system?

[James Bissett]

Well, I think we've already seen that. As I mentioned toward the end of my talk, the U.S. perception always has been, since 9/11, that Canada has been soft on terrorism. Many of them still feel that way. It started with Senators Hillary Clinton and McCain saying that a large number of the 9/11 suicide bombers entered from Canada. That has persisted. It was mentioned even by the head of the homeland security service—I forget her name now—a couple of years ago.

That perception still exists I think, and it's been extremely difficult for Canada to change that image.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

[James Bissett]

I mean until recently, when the Prime Minister and the President got together and said, look, we're serious about this and we have to have a perimeter security concept, as the Europeans do, or we're not going to make headway in freeing up the border.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Bissett.

Ms. Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you very much to all three of you for your presentations.

I'm going to return to the privacy issues that were raised by the Privacy Commissioner in the written submission she sent in. She questions very seriously the new system, its implementation, etc. Specifically, Ms. Stoddart says that the personal information from individuals coming to Canada, whether it's for tourism, business, or to visit family, will be retained for 15 years.

On the other hand, we're hearing loud and clear that eTA approval could be for two, three, four, five years—indeterminate yet—and yet we're going to collect people's personal data and keep it for 15 years, which seems exorbitant to me.

She also goes on to say that the Government of Canada should be more transparent about how it uses this personal information collected from travellers, and that there should be careful scrutiny of the new system.

If you were listening to the testimony earlier from the department, we did hear that they're working on questions on a form, but it hasn't been determined yet. They haven't decided. Right now there are no plans to share it with anybody, but clearly they're only saying “at this time”, and that could change any time.

My question to you specifically, Robert, is what recommendations would you make, given your technical expertise, to protect privacy and ensure proper oversight and scrutiny of the new system?

[Robert Bell]

It's not really my area of expertise. I do hear your concern about the 15 years. I know with biometric information generally there's a policy that you retain it for the period you need it and then you dispose of it.

I heard testimony earlier that this really is the spirit of the Privacy Commission overall, that if you don't need the information, you should be getting rid of it. That makes sense to me.

You mentioned more transparency. You'd like to have what's being done with the information to be more transparent.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Yes—so that people, when they're providing it, know exactly what it's going to be used for.

[Robert Bell]

I think most information systems now include a statement of the purpose of the information. In this case, though, there's not going to be an opportunity to opt out. If you want to come to Canada, you will have to provide this information—that's the way I would expect it.

You commented on plans to share the information. I have no knowledge of what the plans are. I can see that if we want to respect each other's eTA, ESTA, there may be some advantages to doing that, but I haven't thought that through.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Do you know if the Australian equivalent of the eTA is for non-visa countries or if it is for everyone who goes to Australia?

[Robert Bell]

It's for everyone.

It's a little simpler system. They request less information for the Australian one than for the American one.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

We don't know what we're going to request yet.