Certainly.
Mr. Chair, it is important to understand how the process works now for individuals who travel to Canada who don't require a visa. They are able to board flights from points of embarkation coming to Canada with very little scrutiny before they actually travel. The CBSA does receive advance passenger information, but only once, in common parlance, “wheels are up”, so once the plane has taken off, and then manifests with information, tombstone data, are provided to the CBSA so that they can have a good understanding as to which passengers are coming to Canada. Of course, they can only deal with the individuals once the plane has landed and they can see the individuals in front of them at the port of entry.
At that point, if there are issues of inadmissibility, individuals will be examined by the CBSA. Individuals may choose to make a refugee claim, at which point they are into the system and would be allowed to remain in Canada for that claim to be heard if they are found to be eligible. If there were serious criminality or security issues, they would be found ineligible for a refugee claim but still would be entitled to a pre-removal risk assessment and they would go into the system for that. In certain cases, if they posed a significant danger, they might find themselves in detention and the review processes that take place in front of the IRB.
What we are proposing with the eTA is to push the threat and risk of those types of cases offshore so that those individuals would not be able even to make it to a port of entry, unless of course they had been screened through the eTA prior to departure. Essentially, what will happen is that individuals will go online, they will put in some basic information with regard to their name, date of birth, country of citizenship, and that sort of thing, and the system will, I would expect, in more than 90% of all cases, be able to turn around a decision electronically within minutes. This is what happens under the U.S. system. It's what happens under the Australian system as well, where the information is fed back almost instantaneously.
With that eTA, then, airlines will be able to check before people board the plane, as people are checking in: “Do you have your eTA?” “Yes, here's the confirmation.” The CBSA's migration integrity officers could check again prior to actual boarding of the plane that individuals have a valid eTA. Essentially, we will have the assurance that there has been that level of screening taking place before individuals actually board a plane, let alone before a plane takes off or lands at a port of entry. We feel that for the population this will be focused on, in those countries where there is no scrutiny now because there is no visa requirement, this will help reduce costs and make the experience that much more helpful and efficient for legitimate travellers, while keeping any additional threats to be dealt with offshore.