Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 14th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 71 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

I have a quick note before we begin. Although this room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to the interpreters and can cause serious injury. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too close to a microphone. We therefore ask all participants to exercise a high degree of caution when handling the earpieces, especially when your microphone or your neighbour's microphone is turned on. In order to prevent incidents and safeguard the hearing health of the interpreters, I invite participants to ensure that they speak into the same microphone that their headset is plugged into and avoid manipulating the earbuds by placing them on the table away from the microphone when they are not in use.

Today, we are beginning our study of the exploitation scheme targeting certain international students.

I would like to welcome the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

Thanks a lot, Minister, for appearing before the committee.

He's joined by two senior officials from the department: Christiane Fox, deputy minister, and Michèle Kingsley, assistant deputy minister, operations. Welcome.

The minister will be with us for the first hour. The officials will stay for the second hour to answer questions.

Minister, you have five minutes for your opening remarks, and then we'll go into a round of questioning. The floor is yours. Please begin.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

Thank you very much.

Just before we get started, I know we were a little bit delayed with votes. If you guys will have me for the full hour, I won't challenge you on the agreed-upon time. I'm happy to stay and make good on the commitment that we've made to be with you for the first hour.

In addition, I'd like to start by saying thank you. A number of you have reached out to me personally over the course of the last number of days, weeks and months on the very specific issue of the international students who were facing potential removals as a result of being admitted on the basis on inauthentic documents. To those of you who have been good advocates, I want to say thank you for the many conversations we've shared.

I appreciate, as always, the invitation to appear and to address some of the concerns around these reports of international students and graduates who are facing removal from Canada after these letters of acceptance were submitted as part of their study permit application and were determined to be fraudulent. I understand that the situation is extremely distressing for a number of the students who are engaged. I want to assure them and members of this committee, and anyone else who might be monitoring this situation, that the well-being of students who were genuine applicants to come and study in Canada is paramount for me and for the government.

The fact of the matter is that many of the international students in this cohort of individuals came sincerely to Canada with an intent to study and to pursue an education at the world-class institutions we offer here in Canada. Frankly, some of them were duped by bad actors who claimed to be helping them in their immigration application process.

There are other foreign nationals who we believe had no intent of pursuing higher education in Canada and who used the fraudulent acceptance letters to take advantage of Canada's immigration system. Within this cohort of individuals, some have been engaged in potentially criminal behaviour. There are potentially individuals who knew exactly what they were doing. They knew they were taking advantage of the system and knew it was wrong and did it anyway.

Because there are those who we believe were genuine in their application to come and study in Canada and those who were not, we've made a decision to establish a task force. IRCC is going to be working closely with Canada Border Services Agency to identify the victims of fraud. Further, we've directed the officials at IRCC to approach every incident on a case-by-case basis and to do so with expediency, flexibility and compassion where it's warranted. We need to deploy the necessary tools so that those who are or were genuine students who wished to come study in Canada can remain in Canada and not face additional barriers to the next step of their Canadian journey.

I want to be clear about this. Students who came here to study and did study will not face deportation. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides me, as minister, with discretionary authority, which I believe should be exercised in the present context. Therefore, if the facts of an individual case are clear that an international student came to Canada with the genuine intent to study and without knowledge of the use of fraudulent documentation or participation in criminal activity, we have provided instructions to officers to issue temporary resident permits to those individuals to allow them to remain in Canada.

This is going to ensure that these well-intentioned students and graduates can remain in the country. We're also going to make sure they are not subjected to the five-year ban from re-entering Canada that would normally follow a case of misrepresentation. While this process runs its course, preliminary temporary resident permits will be issued if they are required in order to prevent deportations that have previously been ordered.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, is working with its local and international partners to detect and deter fraud. We are continuously improving the systems to detect evidence of fraud. When fraud tips are reported, IRCC will always continue to look into each one.

To uphold our system, a full review of the International Student Program is under way. The review aims to strengthen program integrity and enhance protection to address student vulnerability, unethical recruitment and unscrupulous actors.

To crack down on dishonest consultants, and on the recommendation from a study done by this very committee back in 2017, we've regulated consultants in Canada, who must be licensed under the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. We've invested to improve oversight, strengthen enforcement and increase accountability.

IRCC also runs media campaigns both at home and abroad, to deter fraud and help people avoid becoming victims. As recently as March 2023, IRCC ran a campaign in India targeting potential visitors, students, and workers to decrease the misuse of permits and to reduce fraud.

As the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, it's my responsibility to protect the integrity of our immigration system and to ensure that it upholds legitimate cases and supports the victims of fraud but pays no comfort to the perpetrators of such fraud.

Madam Chair, I know that there are students who are watching the proceedings today, and I want to make sure that this message is communicated clearly. I'm committed, unreservedly, to finding a way to support them and to ensuring that they can remain in Canada with a valid legal status if they had a genuine intent to study and if they did not have knowledge that they were benefiting from fraudulent documentation. At the same time, I think we all need to agree and to understand that those who are complicit in the use of fraud to abuse Canada's immigration system will be held to account for their actions.

Canada is always going to be a welcoming land of opportunity for people from around the world, including those who want to come here to study and to work in Canada and who want to become upstanding members of our communities, but make no mistake: We have no room to tolerate people who attempt to cheat our system, and we absolutely have no intention of giving special treatment to those who commit fraud. We can protect the integrity of the system and demonstrate compassion to the innocent at the same time.

Thank you, everyone. I'm happy to take whatever questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Minister.

We will now go to our first round. We will start with Mr. Uppal.

Mr. Uppal, you have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be splitting my time with Member of Parliament Hallan.

Minister, you say, today, that the victims of the scheme and of the fraud will not be deported. I'm sure those victims, those students, are pleased to hear that, but we've heard about this whole situation for months now. People in the community, on YouTube and other media outlets, have known since last September. CBC picked up this news story earlier this year. All of these students have had deportation orders issued against them because the department realized their mistake. Their mistake was that they accepted these fake letters, and the department issued valid visas to Canada for them to come here.

Since then, those students have gone to school. They've been studying. Some of them started working. Some of them started a family here, got married and had children. They've essentially set down roots here in Canada, because this happened over several years. Then, when the department realized their mistake, it issued deportation orders. It was essentially a “shoot first, ask questions later” situation. It left the students with significant mental health issues because of the stress of that, and with financial issues as well, because they have already paid for their student fees and for everything else it takes to get to Canada, and now they're also paying immigration lawyers and others to be able to fight to stay here, when they were the victims of this whole scheme.

As I said, we've known this for months. Conservatives have raised this issue in the House of Commons. Our leader, Pierre Poilievre, had questions in the House of Commons about this issue. In this committee, we've had, at least three or four times, a motion that was presented to study this issue. Unfortunately, the Liberals and the NDP rejected that motion.

Minister, you've had the power this whole time to do what you're saying today. You had that power. Why didn't you do this before?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Chair, how much time do I have to answer that question? It had a number of elements, and I'd like to address each of them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

There are four minutes left for Mr. Uppal.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Okay, he is not sharing his time.

First of all, Mr. Uppal, thank you. I have always viewed you to be a reasonable parliamentarian. I have a lot of respect for you, and I enjoy our conversations.

The reality is that I became aware of this issue around the beginning of spring, not at the end of last year. When I first became aware of this, it was as a result of media reports that claimed there were 700 international students who were impacted by this. I wanted to verify the veracity of that reporting. It turns out that it was not an accurate reflection of what was going on.

It's really important when we're dealing with something as serious as a person's ability to remain in Canada that we know the facts we're dealing with, so we undertook a bit of work to understand what was actually going on. What we have determined—and I would differ, respectfully, with your assessment of a “shoot first, ask questions later” process—is that we're dealing with a cohort of people who have been referred to the IRB from CBSA, and there are now 57 individuals who have been subjected to a removal order. Understanding what was going on, after this process played out when people had an opportunity to adduce evidence, was very important. To the extent that I could communicate that we were working on a solution for people who were in fact genuine students, we tried to communicate online to demonstrate that we were working towards a solution.

To identify the right solution sometimes takes longer than people like—including me, on many occasions—but the reality is that I'm not just looking at the need to demonstrate compassion to those who I think should remain in Canada. We absolutely need to demonstrate compassion to those people who should remain in Canada, but we also need to protect the integrity of the system. When we're dealing with a widespread, potentially criminal element to people who are seeking to abuse Canada's immigration system, I start to think about the reputational risk to the international student program more broadly. This is an extraordinary program that brings people to our country who make an incredible difference.

Yes, we need to do what we can to protect the mental health and well-being of people who are going through this process, but we can't cut corners when it comes to developing a process that will ensure we protect the integrity of the system at the same time.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Minister, didn't you essentially treat everybody as a criminal first and then start a process later? Everybody was issued their deportation orders, so everybody was treated the same—as a criminal—and then you took this step, when you could have actually taken this step at the beginning, when you first heard of this problem.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

No. With enormous respect, suggesting that people were treated as criminals is a false characterization of what was—

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

They were being deported, so they—

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Let me explain, though. The only people we're dealing with who face a removal order have actually had an opportunity to present a case to the IRB, but we have a shortcoming in this instance, and that shortcoming is tied to the fact that there are individuals who didn't know they were taken advantage of, but the rigidity of the existing rules would have resulted in their removal.

That's why we've introduced this new process, for that narrow cohort of people who have been subjected to a removal order and who we believe demonstrate that there was no intent to abuse the system and that they instead should remain in Canada. This was a tailored solution that was developed after the existing process had run its course, and we expect there will be a few more people who have to go through this process. I think we've been able to develop it in a way that will both protect the integrity of the system and demonstrate compassion to those who certainly deserve it.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Do you know if anyone has been deported through this process?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

There have been some individuals who have been deported. It's not a large number.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

How many?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I believe there are eight people who have been deported. Those people, should they wish to take part in the process, will have access to the same program that we have now put forward.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Will they be able to come back?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

If they demonstrate that their intent to come to Canada was genuine and that they were not complicit in fraud—

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

The people who are here while you're doing this investigation, will they be able to get work permits? Will they be able to continue their studies? What is the process for that?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Chair, will you allow me the latitude if I can stick around for 30 seconds afterwards?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Uppal, perhaps when your colleague picks up, I can begin by answering your question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Minister.

We will now go to MP Ali.

MP Ali, you have six minutes.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the minister for appearing on such short notice on this important topic.

I have been contacted by quite a few constituents and several stakeholders who are concerned about the situation of these international students who are facing the possibility of deportation. First, I wonder if the minister could provide us with some idea of the number of students who are affected by this situation.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Yes. On the number of students, I believe there are 82 people who were referred to the IRB process. Of the 82, there are about 25 who are still going through the process. The balance would be 57 people who have actually been subjected to a removal order—clearly, that's different from the initially reported 700.

There may be additional cases that come through in the future, but as it stands now, there are 82 people who were referred by CBSA to the IRB, and 57 who have been subjected to removal orders as a result.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

There needs to be a fact-finding process to distinguish between those genuine students who had no knowledge of the fraud committed by the consultant and those who were complicit in that fraud. The minister has set up a task force of IRCC officials to work with CBSA for that purpose.

Can the minister provide us with more information about the fact-finding process and elaborate on what is meant, in today's statement, by the words “if the facts...are clear”?