Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 24th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. Chiang.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Can you provide this committee with some specific information about the current IRCC-CBSA task force. How many members sit on this task force from IRCC and CBSA respectively?

What is the frequency of communication between members of this task force? What does the transfer of information look like between the two agencies? Are you guys working in silos, or working—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Ms. Kingsley, and then Mr. McCrorie.

[Michèle Kingsley]

Thank you.

The agency and the department are working very closely together. The sharing of information, I would say, is heightened and very seamless.

The task force is composed of an assistant deputy minister at IRCC and an assistant deputy minister at the CBSA, and there are four directors general involved and, I would say, over 20 to 30 officers from both departments working really closely together.

The task force has been doing a mix of meeting in person, or through Teams, to discuss specific cases that are a little bit more complex, but the team is also doing a great job of triaging cases that are maybe a little more straightforward and that the task force is considering secretarially.

There have been 14 meetings so far. The work of the task force continues and the collaboration has been very good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. McCrorie.

[Aaron McCrorie]

I have nothing to add. We are in constant collaboration.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you.

Mr. Chiang, you have seven seconds to thank the members.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Now we will go to my dear friend, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, for six minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses.

To begin with, of the students who were deported, had any been studying in Quebec? Just a yes or a no will suffice.

[Michèle Kingsley]

I don't have the information needed to know whether there were any in Quebec. I could provide an answer later.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay. You can send it to the committee.

I have more questions. I'm going to ask them and if you don't have an answer, please have them sent in writing to the committee later.

If any students in Quebec were deported, I'd like to know how many there were. I'd also like to know how many among them were enrolled in anglophone institutions and how many in francophone institutions. I'd also be grateful for the number of deportations by province.

[Michèle Kingsley]

Okay. It may not be clear for the institutions because the name of the institution on the fraudulent letter of admission may not be the institution that the student is actually attending. We're going to look at the data we have and get back to you with an answer on this.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

All right. I'm not asking a trick question, because I really want as much information as possible in order to be able to document all of this and get an accurate picture of the situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. McCrorie, did you want to say something?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I'd simply like to add that some students who began their studies in, let's say Alberta, may afterwards decide to continue in Quebec. It's therefore not only a matter of students registered in a specific province, but across the country. Our discussions are intended to shed light on their educational history.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

If it were possible to obtain information that tracks the itinerary of students targeted by fraud, whether they arrived in Alberta and then went to Quebec afterwards, or anything else of note, it would help us. By analyzing all the variables, it might eventually be possible to obtain a more accurate picture of what is currently happening. That would help all of us here understand what is going on.

[Michèle Kingsley]

We are going to review all the data we have about any pattern to determine whether there's a simple way of giving you an answer. However, I understand that your interest is in students who went to Quebec at some point, and how many attended francophone and anglophone institutions.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Yes, but I'm also interested in something else. As part of this study on students being defrauded, we've spoken at length about the immense anxiety and stress they experienced, and the impact of all this on their mental health. What they went through was extremely difficult from the psychological standpoint. Do you know whether they were offered any psychological counselling?

[Michèle Kingsley]

No, I don't know if they were offered psychological counselling.

[Aaron McCrorie]

From my side of things, I can say that every time an officer has dealt with a student who had been defrauded, it was done compassionately and sensitively.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I understand. However, I don't think it would be asking too much to offer a service that could be provided by someone with specific training in mental health or psychology to students who have been victims of fraud.

I don't know if you remember, Mr. Chair, but some of the students who appeared here before us were in a dark place. We heard some of them speculating about perhaps committing suicide. As my colleagues have all discussed it on this committee, I believe I'm echoing their feelings by saying that offering psychological counselling to these students, or rather these victims, would be appropriate in the future, if it hasn't been done already.

How much speaking time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you have about a minute and a half.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay.

Mr. Fraser, the former minister of immigration, stated clearly in his government response to the report on the unfair treatment of foreign students tabled in May 2022, that there had been racism within the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, or IRCC. It wasn't only unconscious bias, but outright racism. If memory serves me correctly, the response came at the end of September 2022.

I am therefore somewhat worried for students from India who are required to comply with IRCC criteria for dealing with applications considered fraudulent. As I mentioned, there has indeed been racism towards francophone foreign students from Africa.

On a scale of 1 to 10, in which the number one means that there is no problem at all and 10 represents a major problem, how would you score the number of students subjected to racism in the issue we are looking into?

[Michèle Kingsley]

I believe that the root of the problem stems from unscrupulous agents operating abroad. There is no doubt about it, and you heard the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship say earlier during his appearance, that there were systemic racism problems.

However, in the matter we are addressing, the problem stems from the fact that some students did not know that their letters of acceptance were invalid when their applications were approved. I therefore have trouble understanding the link you are making, but we could look into it more closely.