Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 24th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

Welcome, everyone. Bienvenue à tous.

This meeting, colleagues, is called pursuant to the Standing Orders to deal with chapter 7, “Detention and Removal of Individuals—Canada Border Services Agency”, which was included in the May 2008 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.

The committee is very pleased to have with us today, representing the Office of the Auditor General, Mr. Hugh McRoberts, Assistant Auditor General, and Mr. Gordon Stock, principal for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada. From the Canada Border Services Agency we have the president and accounting officer, Steven Rigby, accompanied by Kimber Johnston, vice-president, enforcement branch, and Barbara Hébert, vice-president, operations branch.

On behalf of all members of the committee, I want to extend to everyone a very warm welcome.

We will proceed with the opening comments from the Office of the Auditor General.

Mr. McRoberts, the microphone is yours.

[Hugh McRoberts, Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting me to discuss chapter 7 of our May 2008 report, “Detention and Removal of Individuals”, an audit of the Canada Border Services Agency.

With me today is Gordon Stock, the principal of the public safety audit team responsible for this chapter.

Following a review of chapter 5 of our April 2003 report, the public accounts committee requested that we conduct this audit and report back on whether the management of detentions and removals had improved under the agency since 2003, when we audited those activities as part of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's control and enforcement program.

I should note that the work for this audit was largely completed in December 2007 and I cannot comment on actions taken since then.

The Canada Border Services Agency plays a key role in maintaining the integrity of Canada's immigration and refugee programs. The agency may detain permanent residents and foreign nationals who have or who may have breached the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Individuals may be detained if they pose a danger to the public, if their identity is in question, or if there is reason to believe that they will not appear for immigration proceedings.

The agency is also authorized to remove people found to be inadmissible to Canada. In 2006-07, the agency removed 12,617 persons, including 1,996 criminals, who posed a high risk to Canada.

Since our last audit, the agency has made a number of improvements in its management of detentions and removals. It better estimates the number of individuals with removal orders and has set up processes to help it remove higher-risk individuals. As of September 2007, the agency knew the whereabouts of 22,000 individuals who had been ordered to leave Canada; however, it did not know the whereabouts of a further 41,000 who had been ordered to leave and some of whom may already have left the country.

Improved case management systems would enable it to better track and prioritize removal cases to help ensure the consistent and timely removal of priority cases at the national level.

The Agency's policies and standards for detaining individuals are broad and give substantial latitude for decisions. We found that the Agency does not adequately monitor whether individuals, regardless of their location, receive consistent and fair decisions on their detention or release. Nor does it monitor compliance with its standards for the conditions and treatment of individuals detained.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Canada Border Services Agency and Citizenship and Immigration Canada clearly articulates their respective accountabilities in detentions and removals. At the time of our audit, both organizations were in the process of determining whether improvements were needed to better support program delivery.

In the majority of cases, the Agency manages the removal of individuals on the basis of risk and has made progress in recent years. However, the backlog of individuals to be removed from Canada, who may present a lower risk or whose whereabouts are unknown, continues to grow. This growing number of individuals who might still be in Canada illegally undermines the integrity of the immigration process.

In our chapter we recommended that the agency improve its analysis of progress on detentions and removals to ensure that risks, situations, and individuals are treated in a consistent manner. You may wish to request that the agency provide an update on its action plan to address our recommendations.

Mr. Chair, that concludes my opening statement. We will be happy to respond to the committee's questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. McRoberts.

Now we're going to hear from Mr. Rigby, the president of the agency.

[Stephen Rigby, President, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the opportunity today to address the committee on our progress in addressing the Auditor General's observations and recommendations on our responsibilities for the detention and removal of individuals from Canada.

In today's uncertain world, Canada is respected as a welcoming nation and a haven for those seeking a new, safe, and better life. Canada accepts about 250,000 new immigrants each year and thousands of additional claims for refugee protection. This, together with the more than 97 million travellers processed by the CBSA in 2007-08, makes for a very active border operation.

In discharging our mandate to enforce Canada's immigration laws, the Canada Border Services Agency's central challenge is to strike the appropriate balance between facilitating legitimate flow of persons and closing our doors to people who are inadmissible.

The detention and removals programs are key to maintaining the integrity of the immigration program and to protecting the safety and security of Canada.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides the authority to detain an individual who is believed to be inadmissible and who poses a danger to the public, who is unlikely to appear for immigration proceedings, or whose identity has not been established. This responsibility falls to the CBSA.

The CBSA's removal priorities continue to be focused upon individuals who pose a threat to the security of Canada, such as those involved in terrorist activities, organized crime, and crimes against humanity. In order to protect the integrity of Canada's immigration program, the CBSA also removes refugee claimants whose claims have been denied and other inadmissible persons.

In her report, the Auditor General outlined a number of key issues, such as the growing number of illegal persons who may still be in Canada, the need to improve monitoring of detentions and removals to ensure that risks, situations, and people are consistently treated, and the need to improve data and data analysis to manage programs and costs in a better fashion.

The report also recognized that the CBSA has made considerable progress in its ability to identify risks, track people for removal, and focus removal efforts on higher-risk individuals.

The government accepted the Auditor General's findings and recommendations, and in the past nine months the CBSA has undertaken a number of actions to respond.

With respect to the issuance of temporary residents' permits, the CBSA and Citizenship and Immigration Canada have reviewed existing procedures and agreed on the need for clearer policy direction, enhanced training, and a monitoring framework as the means to improve on the quality of this program. Implementation of these changes is expected to commence early in March 2009.

The Auditor General also noted that no national procedures exist to address excess capacity at detention centres. Accordingly, the CBSA undertook a review of regional procedures adopted in the event that capacity is reached and ascertained best practices upon which to develop national procedures. The target date for implementation of these national procedures is June 2009.

Additionally, a national reporting requirement has been implemented to record when detention capacity has been exceeded. This reporting mechanism will assist in monitoring how well regions adhere to the national procedures and in turn whether national procedures regarding excess capacity require adjustment.

To better monitor regional adherence to our national detention standards, the CBSA has developed a quality assurance plan which is targeted for implementation in September 2009. In addition to existing agreements with British Columbia and Alberta, the CBSA is also negotiating agreements with the provinces to govern the terms and conditions under which high-risk immigration detainees will be referred and detained so as to promote consistent treatment and cost effectiveness. Agreements with Ontario and Quebec are expected to be concluded this year (2009), and the remaining agreements concluded by 2011.

To ensure consistency across all regions in carrying out the removals program, the CBSA has reviewed and revised its removal policy manuals to ensure they are relevant and up-to-date.

The agency has also launched a process monitoring framework, which identifies removals and detentions activities to be monitored for consistent application. Regional reporting began late in 2008.

We are also conducting a pilot project in early 2009-10 to track individual removal cases and costs in our greater Toronto region, with a view to implementing such a tracking mechanism nationally. The objective is to compare the costs of different removal cases, to identify best practices, and promote better program management nationally.

With respect to the removals warrant inventory, the Auditor General noted inconsistencies in warrant cancellations across the country and limited investigative efforts to find individuals under warrant.

In response, the CBSA is revising its warrant issuance and cancellation policies. The new policies, based on investigative merits and risk management principles, will encourage a more consistent approach and a more accurate and manageable warrant inventory.

We are also improving our investigative capabilities by enhancing data mining of additional databases to better detect the whereabouts of individuals under warrant.

As noted by the Auditor General, due to delays in systems upgrades beyond our control, the CBSA's ability to track detentions and removals cases has been limited. However, the restricted development imposed on the national case management system was lifted in June 2008, and some improvements have since been made. By June 2009, for example, we will be able to provide detailed reports on those individuals in detention as well as on the associated costs.

In the longer term, the CBSA is conducting an in-depth architectural review to identify additional systems changes required to address the remaining findings and recommendations of the Auditor General's report.

We will assess these upgrades in light of our current budget constraints and in light of other systems requirements within the agency.

In summary, Mr. Chair, the findings and recommendations of the Auditor General's Report have been valuable in allowing the CBSA to better manage the detentions and removals program, and we will continue to implement measures such as those I have outlined today.

These issues and efforts are critical to the success of Canada's immigration program.

I thank you for the opportunity today to discuss this progress with you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rigby.

We're going now to the first round, which is seven minutes each.

Ms. Ratansi, you have seven minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you all for being here.

As you aptly mentioned, Canada has a very open policy on immigration and refugees. And the world is in conflict, so there are a lot of issues we address, or try to address, through our humanitarian efforts. Sometimes we don't get it right. Sometimes we get it very right.

My question is on detention and removal, and this is in regard to permanent residents and foreign individuals who are illegally in Canada. The agency's policies and standards for detaining individuals are broad, the Auditor General states, and allow for latitude for decision-making. Could you explain to me whether this latitude has led to any unavoidable circumstances? Has it led to some risks being posed, or has it led to any unfairness or improper detention?

Number two, it says that the agency does not carry out certain aspects of detention and removal with due regard to cost. Could you explain what you mean by that? Because you say that few controls are in place to ensure that decisions to escort individuals being removed to their destination countries are based on risk. Could you explain that to me? Then I will proceed with other questions. Thank you.

My question is for Mr. Stock.

[Gordon Stock, Principal, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, Justice, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the first one, on the latitude for decision-making, when an individual comes to a port of entry, the officers may ask questions, and if they do not receive correct answers and are unable to determine the identity of the individual, they may detain the person until they have the answers. In other cases, if they believe that the individual does not pose a risk, they may release the individual with a promise to appear at a later date. So there is latitude in between, and that can be a broad range, in some aspects.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

So it's subjective rather than objective. Is that what you're trying to say?

[Gordon Stock]

It depends on the individual officer, but each individual officer receives quite a bit of training to try to ensure that there is a consistent approach. But there is a range of responses, depending on the individual's actions.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. In the second instance--from page 2, again--it says that it doesn't carry out certain aspects of detention and removal with due regard to cost. What do you mean by that?

[Gordon Stock]

Basically, as we state in the chapter, there are different areas, especially on the subject of escorting individuals. While those decisions are made based on the risk the individual may pose and on restrictions the airlines or airports may have on the transfer of those individuals, the regional offices may adopt slightly different approaches. What we found in our audit was that they did adopt slightly different approaches, depending on the number of people being removed and on the number of officers. Because of that, one office might send three people, whereas another region might send one person.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Your flow chart on page 6 identifies the complexity of the detention process. For your audit--generally you take a sample for an audit--did you take a sample from the land portion or the air portion?

[Gordon Stock]

We examined both land border entry points and airports.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Which one poses a lot more risk? As I look at this chart--and I am a consultant by background--which is my major point of risk? Perhaps Mr. Rigby can also answer that. Where do you feel the major exposure to Canada comes from for illegal immigrants or undesirables or whatever? And how do you mitigate those risks?

[Gordon Stock]

Our audit did not examine whether land border points posed greater or lesser risks than airports.

I would suggest that Mr. Rigby might be in a better position to answer that.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Fair enough.

[Stephen Rigby]

In terms of people arriving at either the land border or at airports, our officers would conduct the same level of rigour, the same sorts of questions, and make the same sorts of determinations in terms of how we are going to treat refugee applicants, as an example

In terms of the comments the Auditor General has made, I think there are some improvements we can look to--and that we have made up to now--in assuring that we are looking at consistent policy, consistent procedures at a couple of our land border points, and I think most notably that we're doing the right sorts of monitoring. In the nine months since the auditor has concluded her report we've made some inroads on that front.

In terms of where the risk lies, that will depend quite honestly on the location. We know that at certain locations in southern Ontario and the southern Quebec border, for example, we see more refugee claimants coming in. On a volume basis there tends to be a higher consequent risk that goes with that.

We also see a lot of refugee applications from Mexico coming in through the Trudeau Airport in Montreal. Again, on a volume basis we try to align our program and the number of officers and officer training to make sure we have the right sorts of skills and response to deal with the volumes we face at those individual places.

We also see time trends, quite honestly, where the level of refugee claimants will go up and fall. I think we have to be able to ensure that we can move resources to those locations to respond to the flows we see at any given point.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I have two more questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You have 30 seconds, regardless of how many questions you have.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I thought there was a policy change whereby airlines were not supposed to let people embark on their airlines unless they had a visa. So where is this risk?

And number two, when you were talking about costs you said that there was a risk that the airlines wouldn't take them.

You can answer my questions because he'll give you the time. He'll give you the time, but not me.

[Stephen Rigby]

Thank you.

Not all countries have visa requirements. Mexico, for example, is one of those countries. Nonetheless, we do work with both visa and visa-exempt countries through what we refer to as our migration integrity officers. We have officers posted abroad who work with the airlines to try to determine who's getting on the flights and whether they are properly documented, etc.

At the same time, if airlines allow people on the plane with improper documentation, there is an onus on those airlines to pay for their removal from Canada back to their country of origin. One of the points raised by the Auditor General is that we have to make sure we're tracking and assigning those costs properly. There are improvements that we've made in that regard.

There's a significant difference, obviously, in terms of how we do our business and the responses we have between countries that have a visa requirement and those that don't.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rigby.

Thank you, Ms. Ratansi.

Monsieur Desnoyers.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, you say that the Agency deported approximately 12,600 people from Canada, including 1,900 criminals, in 2006-2007. In another connection, it says here that some 22,000 individuals are being monitored, while 41,000 are not. Could some of those 41,000 be high-risk individuals?

Does that mean that the Agency is lacking major resources to monitor these people? This is a net that is being opened; we're leaving the door wide open. Other countries can criticize Canada for all kinds of things; they say it's a kind of sieve. If we're the cause of that, I believe that's important.

I also want to go back to paragraph 7.29, concerning holding cells. The Toronto facility is overcrowded. There are 10 individuals in a cell that can hold three. I find that a bit dramatic, even if these are refugees or individuals who are not necessarily high risk. Our detention centres have non-standard criteria. Why?

Once again, are we lacking resources in terms of infrastructure? We talk about Kingston, which is about to shut down because there's virtually no one there. What is the Agency going to do with that building, whereas institutions are glaringly overcrowded elsewhere?

Institutions should meet the standards of the Canadian Red Cross. Have you checked to see whether we're at least meeting that kind of standard? We're talking about the availability of beds, accessibility and provincial holding centres. What's being done with the 41,000 individuals who are walking around? Perhaps they've left the country; we don't know where they are.

[Stephen Rigby]

Thank you very much.

First of all, on the issue of the 40,000 warrants, for the most part these are individuals who have been in the immigration system and at an appointed time they have not presented themselves for a hearing or some other process within the normal immigration process. So when they do not present themselves appropriately and legally, we issue a warrant for their arrest. The vast majority of them would subsequently be removed, although there are some who would be found, arrested, and then brought back into the immigration system.

What we have done in looking at this situation is three things. First of all, we conducted a pilot study in our northern Ontario region to determine what exactly the demographic potentially of the 40,000 has been. What we found was that in the sample we looked at upward of half of the sample were individuals who had left Canada. It is very difficult for the CBSA to make these determinations, as the Auditor General has said, in the normal course of events absent exit controls, because there is no requirement for anybody to present themselves upon exit from Canada. So we have a very large potential component of the total inventory who in all likelihood have left Canada for the United States, or back to their home country, or to another country.

Second, we have begun to look also at how we examine the demographic constituent parts of the total inventory. For example, if you have somebody who is 75 years old, it may well be that sustaining a warrant for them is not the most cost-effective approach for the agency to take, so we're looking at what we refer to as our warrant cancellation policy.

Hopefully as we complete this work it will give us a more structured view of what the really core number is within the total warrant inventory of 41,000 that we have before us now. We know for a fact that within that warrant inventory approximately 2,800 to 2,900 of these individuals have some criminal affiliation. And criminal issues, organized crimes issues, etc., people who fall into gang affiliations when they come into Canada, are consistently our priority in looking at where we can find these people, how we find them, and making them a priority in terms of our removals.

If you look at the 12,000 or so removals we have consistently done over the last two or three years, you'll see that about 16% to 17% of those removals are consistently people with a criminal background.

We've also initiated the pursuit of a couple of other things. Number one, we need to work more acutely with our American colleagues to make determinations as to when people have left Canada for the United States. We believe there is some fertile ground there that we can pursue in terms of getting information from the Americans for people who have entered the United States so we can basically take them off our inventory.

At the same time, we want to make our investigative techniques a lot more acute. When we get down to that refined number in the total gross inventory we want to make sure that we're doing proper data mining. We want to make sure we are contacting the proper authorities, working with law enforcement, working with provincial authorities, working with municipal authorities. For the most part, these people have dropped out of public view.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

You didn't answer my question on the holding centres. In some centres, 10 people are put in one cell, whereas Kingston is virtually empty. In other places, people are piled up—I won't say like cattle—but it's nevertheless questionable.