Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have 30 seconds, Professor.

[Prof. Patti Tamara Lenard]

—is consistent with my claim that accountability and transparency are owed to Canadians.

Other key features of a fair appeals procedure are the following.

It must be rapid. The U.K.'s took eight months. It must be conducted by a centralized office so that trends can be monitored effectively and to ensure, crucially, that the appeal is not conducted in the same office where the original application was made. The fee must be returned to applicants where their case is overturned, and negative decisions in early applications cannot be held against applicants in the future.

To conclude in my final five seconds, I am proud of Canada's immigration history. Moves to make entry to Canada more difficult fundamentally threaten the integrity of our immigration system, as well as the equality among citizens that historically we have worked so hard to protect.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well done, Professor Lenard.

Mr. Bissett, it's a pleasure to see you again, as usual.

You have up to eight minutes, sir.

[James Bissett, As an Individual]

It's a pleasure to be back before the committee, and I thank the committee for inviting me again.

When I was a young immigration officer, one of my first jobs was working in the minister's officer as a liaison between the political side and the department. One afternoon the minister summoned me to her office and asked if I could get her the figures for the number of temporary visitors from the Soviet bloc countries. I said I could certainly do that, and I was able to get the information within a matter of hours. I went back to her and showed her the figures. The number wasn't very large, 700 or 800 people.

She looked the figures over and then she asked the next logical question. She asked how many of them had left. I said it was impossible for the department to say, because we had no system of exit control. People could come in, but we didn't register them going out. No one could answer that question. She was astonished at this and looked over her glasses at me and said, “My God, I hope the opposition or the media don't find this out”. They never did find out, out nothing has changed. Today it's the same thing. Over half a century has passed and we still don't have an exit control system.

Unless we have an exit control system, the integrity of our temporary visa program is compromised very seriously. You have to find out who has left in order to do any of the things that we've been talking about before the committee. We're getting closer, and I'll mention more about that a little later.

If there is no system of recording departures, as I say, no temporary visa system is going to work, and ours isn't working very well. The only real instrument we have is the temporary visa, and we've heard all sorts of problems with that. But imposing visas on friendly countries has all sorts of implications. It affects our bilateral relations, damages our trade, and damages our tourism. The citizens of those countries and their governments are highly offended, as indeed we have found out from the ambassador from Mexico and the ambassador from the Czech Republic, formerly the ambassador to Hungary. We're very upset about that, but it's the only defence we have.

The Auditor General reported in 2007 that there were some 60,000 asylum seekers who had been found not to be genuine refugees but who were still in the country, and the whereabouts of some 40,000 of them was unknown. They had addresses for the other 20,000. But we had no way of knowing if these people had left, where they were, and what their intentions were.

One of the strongest recommendations the committee could make would be to encourage the government to press on with its plans to have an exit control system. Otherwise, the temporary visa system is going to continue to be a real problem.

To be fair, from the days of Ellen Fairclough, who was the minister I was talking about, some progress has been made. We've heard about the ETA. That's a major step forward, and I gather that by 2014 it will be established in some 96 countries.

The other major step forward for improvement is the reform of the asylum system and the designated countries of origin. That's had a tremendous impact. The greatest threat of abuse of the temporary visa system was people coming here to claim refugee status who knew that once they'd made that claim, they were in for the duration. It was something like the Eagles' song, Hotel California; you could check in but there was no possibility of checking out.

That has been corrected, at least initially. I have some figures here. In the first 10 months of this year, there were only 8,300 asylum claims. Of those, 600, or 8%, were from people coming from Europe or the United States. Eight per cent; that's a tremendous drop. In the previous three years, about 25% of all of asylum claims were from the European Union and the United States. That has made a big difference in terms of nervousness on the part of departmental officials about issuing visas to people who might possibly make refugees claims when they get here.

The most important step forward has been the announcement by President Obama and Prime Minister Harper in February 2011 of the beyond the border concept. I'm not sure how many Canadians are aware of this, but it's a fundamental step forward in terms of establishing an exit control system.

The concept is entitled “Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness”. Among other things, it entails recording the departure of all permanent residents and temporary residents from one country and passing that information on to our neighbours in the U.S. They will have an exit control on temporary residents and permanent residents in the U.S., and vice versa. That's how the system is going to work, apparently.

Once that's in place, we will in effect have an exit control system, and our major problem will be resolved. We won't have to insult the Czech Republic or the Mexicans. We can eliminate temporary visas from a large number of countries, because if they are visitors, if they have a temporary resident visa, we'll now know when they leave. That's a major step forward. I would encourage the committee to keep an eye on that because it won't go ahead unless there's a bit of political push. My own reading is that the political push has slackened off a bit.

They have a committee that is supposed to be pursuing this objective, and by June 2014 all of the automated land posts along the Canada-U.S. border will have this system. There's a pilot project under way now with four posts, I think, to test the system. The initial reports say they're very successful.

By the summer of 2014, we should have an exit control system along the border, and that will then be pushed on to international air traffic, where all permanent residents and temporary residents will be recorded going out of Canada. The system is pretty well in effect. I think there is still slippage, though, at the political level. Whether or not the Americans are going to take enough interest in this to actually make it happen remains to be seen.

I'll stop there.

I do want to say that I agreed with everything Richard Kurland and Ms. Kane said in terms of their specific recommendations about what could be done.

I occasionally get asked to help someone come to Canada, and it's a dreadfully bureaucratic system. It's very slow, and it's not user friendly, and it's not transparent. Part of the reason, as Richard Kurland said, is simply lack of staff.

In addition to the massive number of visitors who need visas, so do all of the immigrants need visas, and—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you. We always appreciate your comments, Mr. Bissett.

I'm sorry, we have to move to Mr. Collacott, who has been here many times before.

Welcome to the committee again, sir.

[Martin Collacott, Spokesperson, Centre for Immigration Policy Reform]

Thank you very much, Chairman.

Chairman, could I request that you warn me when I have one minute left instead of 30 seconds because I have some points I'd like to make.

Thank you first for inviting me, and thank you to committee members. Since there are quite a few new committee members since the last time I spoke here, I'll tell you very briefly that I represent the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, which advocates changes and reviews of the immigration system, but I've been interested in immigration for a long time.

My parents are immigrants from Europe, my wife from Asia. I had a job with the Ontario government for several years as a citizenship adviser working with newcomers. Then later in my career when I was ambassador to various places like Syria, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka, I became very interested again in immigration and refugee issues because a lot of people came from there.

I must say that during my various assignments as head of mission, I was very impressed by our immigration officers. They were conscientious. They were well trained, hard working, and made good judgments. They are one of the best cadres of public servants I've ever worked with.

Having said that though, they had many challenges. One of them is deciding on whether to admit people on visitors' visas. For a number of reasons, which Professor Lenard mentioned, there are security issues, which I think you and I would agree is pretty serious stuff.

There was also, though, the possibility that some people might claim refugee status or they might simply overstay. That was certainly a high risk from some countries, particularly where there were high levels of misrepresentation or fraud.

The refugee issue is still there, although some of the reforms made to the refugee system.... Not everyone will call them reforms; some people think it's too tight. But they have tended to decrease the number of applications in Canada, which I like, because I think we should be concentrating on resettling refugees from abroad and helping those in camps. We never intended to become a country of first asylum. We still have to look at some cases.

That's an improvement, but we have to see how that works out because there is still a risk. A lot of people are still coming and claiming refugee status, and that's something we have to consider when we issue a visitor's visa.

The overstayers are also an issue. They haven't become a huge issue here. They have been in the United States; they estimate they have 11 million to 12 million illegals. I think it is something we have to watch out for carefully. Our immigration officers, therefore, have to make judgments as to what the risk level is.

We often do end up turning down people who may be quite legitimate. When I was high commissioner to Sri Lanka, I would have cabinet ministers asking me if I could issue a visa to their nephew. I said, “I'm sorry your nephew is an unemployed 22-year-old, and while he may be perfectly legitimate, there's a fairly high risk he won't come back. For that reason we have to be pretty tight on issuing to people who meet his profile.”

The comparison was made with the United States by, I think, Professor Lenard on refugee claimants and why the risk is any greater here than there. Well, it is greater here. A lot of people are not going to get refugee status or won't even be allowed to apply whereas we do; there are differences in the system that make it more difficult for us to refuse refugee claims or not to take them than it is in the United States. So there are going to be differences.

I like some of the suggestions made by Mr. Kurland and Ms. Kane. I think there should be some way of having a better look at where we refuse people who are marginal cases. Some are clear-cut one way or the other, but some are marginal, and some are important visitors. It would take some more resources, but I think we have to be prepared to allocate those.

We've made some major resource-saving measures that I think are very good, such as the electronic travel authorization, the visa application centres, the 10-year visa, multiple entry. I think those are good changes, money saving, but I think we have to be prepared to put some more resources into reviewing some of the trickier cases because the marginal cases really are the problem, and there are quite a few of them.

I think it's very important that we have an entry-exit central database reporting system so we know who's here. The guesses as to how many people are here illegally run anywhere from tens of thousands to half a million. We have no idea. Somehow or another the Americans have figured out they have 11 million to 12 million. We should have this. It's expensive. The Americans are still working on their system, particularly the exit screening, and it takes a while, but we should make that a priority.

At the moment though, the system is not working as well as I think it should. If a visa officer turns down an application, that's a lot more work than if they approve it. At one point, I know New Delhi would get 20 representations a day from MPs, plus a pile from lawyers and consultants. Then at the other end, MPs are getting deluged with requests. I’ve heard anecdotally that, in some constituencies, sometimes 80% of an MP’s time can be taken up dealing with immigration requests. I think that's a huge imposition on both of them.

When you continue to get representations at a visa office, you can't deal with new applications as expeditiously. I think we should be looking at any method we can figure out to at least review refused cases. I certainly think the current system of reapplying makes more sense than a complicated and expensive and lengthy appeal system, which many of my lawyer friends would like, but I think the current system probably works better. If we had some kind of other review system for special cases, I think that would help.

Those are my main points, Mr. Chairman.

I'll get on to my last point, which really isn't totally connected with this discussion, but it's my chance to mention it. I've appeared before this committee to discuss a lot of specific areas—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Collacott, you have one minute left.

[Martin Collacott]

Thank you.

What I've never been asked to talk about is some of the general issues of why we have the immigration levels we do, and whether they're working for Canadians. I would like to make a plea that sometime in the new year perhaps this could be raised. We're told, for example, that we have among the highest, if not the highest, net immigration per capita rates in the world. We're told it's essential to our economic well-being. There's no question that our economy gets larger with immigrants.

The key question though is, do Canadians benefit individually? On a per capita basis, are Canadians better off?

We're told among other things, for instance, that we have to have immigration because of labour shortages. Interestingly, just a few weeks ago, the Toronto Dominion Bank issued a report saying that widespread labour and skill shortages were a myth. This is a major bank. Whatever skill shortages exist are isolated, and likely no greater than a decade ago. Just a few months earlier, in April, the Bank of Montreal said that reports of labour shortages were highly exaggerated, and that actually the levels had gone down in the last 15 years. Now that's probably—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Collacott, we have to move on. I'm sorry.

[Martin Collacott]

May I ask that we have a review in the new year, if possible, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Indeed.

Mr. Weston, you have up to five minutes, and Mr. McCallum will be the last speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Today, we've seen witnesses who I think are characterized by their desire to improve our country, and I thank you all for being here. There are energy takers and energy givers in life, and people who horde their gifts and those who give them away. It's great that you're sharing your information and knowledge with us.

Mr. Collacott, I have three questions for you that reflect what you've said this morning. You speak and write with this inexorable logic. I'm going to ask you to use that same sort of approach in answering these questions.

First, you've talked about exit checks. Can you use a minute to say how exit checks might enhance our immigration system?

Second, you talked about the misrepresentation and fraud that makes it hard for our officers to assess applications. How do we deal with that, and make safety a number one priority?

Third, and I know this is ambitious, you said that turning down an application takes more time than accepting it, but that you're not keen on an appeal system. What is an efficient way to deal with some reconsideration?

[Martin Collacott]

Thank you for the question. The exit checks are important because they won't keep people from overstaying or claiming refugee status, but we at least will know what's going on and when someone has left. We have no idea how many people are here illegally. It may be a huge problem; we just don't know. It's predicted that in 2015, there will be a mass increase because the temporary foreign worker contracts will start to run out. A lot are expected to stay here. Again, it's expensive, but I think it is entirely necessary.

Fraud questions were related mostly to misleading applications and incorrect information in attempts to become accepted. There's no shortcut on that. In some areas, there's a very high level of fraud. It's not necessarily uniform throughout a country. In India, there's a much higher level of fraud or misrepresentation in Chandigarh than there is in Delhi. In China, it varies considerably in different parts of the country. There's no shortcut, though. If you get fraudulent documents, it takes you a long time to dig in to find out whether they're genuine or what's going on. It's very demanding work, and we get a lot of them. There's no way to shortcut it.

Your third question was on—

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

—reconsideration or appeal.

[Martin Collacott]

Well, I don't think the appeal is the best vehicle, based on the experience other countries have had. Australia has been cited. It's a very long, expensive appeal. A lot of these applications are time sensitive. There should be some way of reviewing. I like the simple resubmission of the application, because that results in a fairly high number of approvals. I think 48% of the decisions are reversed. There perhaps could be other kinds of mechanisms, and Mr. Kurland alluded to them. There could be some kind of review network so that particularly MPs and visa officers don't have all their time ground up in handling these things.

This would require some resources. I don't have a full idea of what I'd like to see, but I think it would be worthwhile exploring this further in this committee.

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

Can we go back to the misrepresentation thing? Once something is fraudulent, it's clear that it's going to take some time to deal with it, but how do you screen out the ones that are fraudulent? What would you recommend we do?

[Martin Collacott]

You get applications from China, for example—I can name specific countries, because I'm no longer a public servant—in which a lot of the education documents are fraudulent. All you can do is track them down. One of my first postings was in Nigeria, and students had to prove they had financial resources to support themselves. The American embassy did some research. They found that 74% of bank statements that said they had enough money were fraudulent.

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

Give us something specific. Are you saying that if there's a track record or a pattern that shows higher than a certain percentage...that there be a different approach used in those places?

[Martin Collacott]

I think there's an automatic assumption that you have to be more thorough. From some countries, there's very little fraud, and you don't have to double-check with the bank to find out if the bank statement was genuine or not. I think we can make certain assumptions, and you have to generalize. Some people don't like it. They say every country should be treated equally, but we do know there are much higher levels of fraud and misrepresentation coming from some places and even varying within countries.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Collacott.

Mr. Cash.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here and sharing with us your wealth of knowledge and experience. I have a couple of quick questions, because we have only a short period of time.

Professor Lenard, we've heard recently about a new government contract worth about $50 million to outsource visa application centres globally. The services will include the collection of personal information and biometrics and also will necessitate an extra cost to the individual applicants.

I'm just wondering if this concerns you, and if it does, what parts of it concern you. What things, in your view, should be top of mind for this committee as we oversee this new direction on the part of the department?

[Prof. Patti Tamara Lenard]

Thank you very much for your question.

I feel in general very wary of moving activities that are essential to state interests to private companies. I have a general reluctance to think that giving various visa companies, which are charged with basically just collecting the data a lot of authority over the immigration system. I know the government has already made decisions to have various visa-related information collected by private companies.

I have a general anxiety about making these kinds of moves. The privatization of immigration procedures is something that many countries are considering. I think it's dangerous, mainly for the reason that private companies are more difficult to keep track of.

In the U.K. experience, the U.K. also this summer started to withdraw from the use of private companies to evaluate and collect various kinds of data. The reason is that those companies do a very poor job of protecting the privacy of applicants, especially when those applicants come from countries where they might be dissidents at risk of political persecution in the case that their documentation becomes public.

That seems a really high risk, something that we don't want to take. That seems very dangerous. I think the privacy issue is paramount, and issues of transparency and accountability for companies that are not in fact government run.

Finally, there is an issue of equality. Those organizations are charging money, and they're charging extra money on top of what Canada already charges. It's already discriminating against immigrants who might come from poor countries but might nevertheless be a good fit for Canada.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Bissett, just to be clear, you said that some of the reason for the backlogs, in your view, has to do with staff cuts. Are you advocating a reversal of those cuts?

[James Bissett]

I think the immigration program is really highly pressed; there's no question about it.

Take the volume of not only the visitors, who are numbering in the hundreds of thousands, but also the temporary workers, the approximately 280,000 temporary workers in 2012, I think it was, in addition to another quarter of a million immigrants. You have tremendous pressure on the posts abroad to keep up with this. They're looking for ways and means of cutting, cutting work time, and shortcuts. In addition, many of the offices have been cut, staff cuts.

That's a very serious problem, and it does lead to Ms. Lenard's concern about privatization. I think that's inevitable, because we will not be able to handle the tremendous volumes of people who want to come.

If we get the exit control, it will open it up much better, I think, and wider, so that we will—

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Okay, thank you, Mr. Bissett.

I have one more quick question for Professor Lenard.

A recent Harvard study found that the current government's record of rejecting more and more asylum seekers has actually led to driving more and more of them towards illegal human trafficking. This is a study by Harvard that just came out.

What are the possible unintended spillover effects from the massive backlogs, as described just now by Mr. Bissett, and the extremely long wait times for visas and the lack of transparency? Can you sum up some of the spillover effects of this?