Public Safety Committee on March 8th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good afternoon, everyone. This is meeting number 29 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. It is Thursday, March 8, 2012.

This afternoon we're continuing our study on the use of electronic monitoring in both the corrections and conditional release settings and in the immigration enforcement setting with a view to determining effectiveness, cost efficiency, and implementation readiness.

I want to remind our committee that towards the end of today's meeting we will have time to consider some committee business. Each hour is going to be cut back a little bit. We will end the first one between 4:15 and 4:20. The second one will begin at 4:20 and will end at 5:10. That will give us enough time for committee business.

In our first hour we have, from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, Claudette Deschênes, assistant deputy minister for operations, and Caroline Melis, director general of operational management and coordination.

I understand there is an opening statement. We look forward to hearing from you. Then we'll have a few questions for you.

Welcome to our committee.

[Claudette Deschênes, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Merci beaucoup.

Good afternoon. If you want to keep us for less time, we'll be happy too.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Claudette Deschênes, and l am the assistant deputy minister of operations at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Joining me today is Caroline Melis, who is the director general of operational management and coordination for CIC.

I am pleased to be speaking before this committee for the first time, and I hope that my remarks will be helpful to you as part of your study on electronic monitoring.

In order to discuss this issue in the context of Canada's immigration system, it is important that I give you a bit of historical background. I won't go back over ancient history, mind you, just one decade.

In 2002, Parliament passed the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, also known as IRPA. This legislation replaced the old Immigration Act as the main federal law governing Canada's immigration system.

Canada's immigration system, of course, is large and complex. It encompasses many different operations, policies, and activities. IRPA, the legislation governing that system, is equally complex, with many different parts and sections covering every aspect of immigration to Canada.

For the purposes of this discussion on electronic monitoring, l would like to focus on only two sections of IRPA.

First is section 4, which is “Enabling Authority”. Before IRPA came into effect, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration had a number of intelligence, interdiction, enforcement, and border security roles in the immigration system. But under section 4 of IRPA, these particular roles became the responsibility of the Minister of Public Safety.

About 18 months after the passage of IRPA, the government of the day created the Canada Border Services Agency, which reports to the Minister of Public Safety, and is now responsible for many of these enforcement and security roles within the immigration system.

Another section of IRPA, specifically section 56, pertains to the release of individuals from detention. It states that an “officer may order the release from detention of a permanent resident or a foreign national”, while also specifying that the “officer may impose any conditions [...] that the officer considers necessary”.

It is section 56 of IRPA that would govern the use of electronic monitoring within the immigration system. According to the act, this section clearly falls under the responsibility of the Department of Public Safety, not under Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

I would like to be clear that in the years since the CBSA was created, CIC and CBSA have developed a very good, effective working relationship, and we are all very proud of this relationship. As a matter of fact, both Caroline and I worked at CBSA for a period of time when it was created. We cooperate every day in many ways on countless different aspects of the immigration system.

What is critical to understand here, though, is that this cooperative relationship is made possible because of complementarity. We play different but strictly defined roles in the immigration system.

If l may, Mr. Chair, I would like to quote some of the language in the CIC-CBSA memorandum of understanding, because I think it clarifies those roles in very succinct ways.

The memorandum states that Citizenship and Immigration Canada is “responsible for attracting and welcoming people from all parts of the world, enriching the economic, social and cultural development of Canada while contributing to the health, safety and security of Canadians, protecting those in need of Canada's protection and providing for the granting of citizenship, through the administration of both the IRPA and the Citizenship Act.”

As for CBSA, the memorandum says it was created by order in council on December 12, 2003, and immigration enforcement and intelligence responsibility under the IRPA were transferred from CIC to the CBSA. CBSA is responsible for providing integrated border services that support national security, public safety, and trade, which is achieved through the administration and enforcement of various acts, including the IRPA, to facilitate the free flow of persons and goods to and from Canada.

This underlines the fact that when it comes to any issue of immigration enforcement, including electronic surveillance, the mandate for such enforcement falls within the purview of CBSA and the Minister of Public Safety, and not within the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

Mr. Chair, I thank you for inviting us to appear today. I hope that my opening remarks have been helpful to the committee. My colleague and I will be happy to answer any further questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll go to our first round of questioning.

Mr. Norlock, you have seven minutes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To the witnesses, thank you for attending today.

On this day of recognition of women in government, I'd like to inform the committee that we had three witnesses before the defence committee this morning. They were senior assistant deputy ministers from National Defence and Canada's foreign service, and they were all women. Today we have two women. So those people who think there aren't a good number of very able women contributing to the well being of our country would be mistaken.

Thank you for being here today.

My first question is based on some of the information you gave us, and there's a rhyme and reason to how I go down the questions. It's for either one or both of you.

Are you familiar with the statistics on the total number of people removed from Canada each year? If you don't know the exact number, perhaps give us an estimate.

[Claudette Deschênes]

I don't know if I could estimate it. In looking at those numbers—because CIC and CBSA share them—over the last few years there have been more removals from CBSA than in the past.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Is that a shared responsibility? Do removal orders come from both yourself and CBSA, or is that wholly a CBSA responsibility?

[Claudette Deschênes]

The action of removing someone is solely CBSA's responsibility. There might be instances where CIC would prepare inadmissibility reports of some type, but they would be rare.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

For the purposes of electronic monitoring devices, you indicated that this is the purview of CBSA. Does your department make any recommendations as a matter of course when you're dealing with persons who come under your purview? Do you collaborate with CBSA, or suggest to them that a person or group of persons may benefit from—or it would be a good idea if they would consider for them—electronic monitoring?

[Claudette Deschênes]

From an operational perspective, we would not be involved in suggesting that to CBSA, one way or the other.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

You say there's a very close, cooperative working relationship between yourself and CBSA, and the act is explicit. But did you say that IRPA covers both of your responsibilities or solely your responsibilities?

[Claudette Deschênes]

It covers both responsibilities. When CBSA was created, we actually had to sit down and look at IRPA and decide which minister was accountable for which section of the act. Each section has main accountability to one minister.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

This is a regulatory responsibility. Or is it just a protocol responsibility?

[Claudette Deschênes]

No, there's clear accountability to the ministers of which part of IRPA they deliver.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So it's regulatory.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Yes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Okay. That helps my questioning.

I'll pass the next question to Ms. Hoeppner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

Go ahead, Ms. Hoeppner.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, both of you, for being here and for your clear presentation of what your role is versus CBSA.

I'm wondering if the Immigration and Refugee Board falls under CIC.

[Claudette Deschênes]

The Immigration and Refugee Board is arm's length—

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

It's arm's length.

[Claudette Deschênes]

—so it reports to Parliament, and so on, through the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. But it really is arm's length in terms of its decision-making—

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Right, but it does fall under the purview of CIC, just as, for example, the RCMP would fall under the purview of Public Safety, even though it's completely at arm's length—I'm just saying in terms of the minister.

[Claudette Deschênes]

No, in terms of RCMP.... The Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has no role to play in terms of telling the IRB what to do. It's just that the reporting mechanism...their deputy minister at IRB would go directly into the minister, into—

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

To which minister?

[Claudette Deschênes]

The minister of CIC.