Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You're correct, of course, that it's very difficult to get good information due to the nature of smuggling and trafficking. It's one of those things that the harder you look for it, the more you tend to find. We do in fact have a certain level of overstaying within the country.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would say that the overall package is intended to deter. The detention is probably not the major part of it. The major aspect is the three years of temporary status, and then the restrictions on wider family sponsorship. I think it is true that detention in and of itself prob

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is particularly focused, I think, on the security aspects. Its major focus is on enabling us to ascertain the identity of people. One of the issues, of course, which I understand Canada has experienced, is that if you have a mass arrival, the crew, the people who are organiz

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. The situation with Australia is very different, of course, because they're much closer to their nearest neighbour. Indonesia is a couple of hundred kilometres away, so it's no distance at all. It's much more straightforward for people to get to Australia in small boats.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think all problems are real problems within their own countries.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The global financial crisis means all problems are problems for governments at the moment, I think, but yes, I probably can't comment—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Less than in some other countries; possibly a greater proportion than in other countries. I don't know. Sorry, I have not done the comparison.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. It's part of the vote for immigration overall, which is between $200 million and $300 million, so it is a proportion of that, and it's not the biggest proportion of that vote, but I can't tell you.... I can find the information for you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We collect some biometric information and we have the capacity in our act to collect more, but we're still in the process of implementing that because we're getting a new computer system that will be able to deal better with biometrics than the current one. So our current act e

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My understanding is that we have found it to be very useful, particularly in the determination of asylum claims. Subject to very strict controls that have been bilaterally agreed upon with our five country conference partners—Canada is one—we can do bilateral sharing of fingerpri

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Not for biometrics, but we do have very strict entry and exit controls. It's the big benefit of being a country that has such specific borders. We've maintained entry and exit controls forever, as far as I'm aware, certainly for the last few decades, and our computerized matching

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We do share considerable information with the Australians but not strictly. We do not collect biometrics at the border, and even if we did, I don't know if we would share it. That would have to be subject to a protocol that was agreed upon by the privacy commissioners in both cou

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Unfortunately, Stephen has had to leave, and he could have spoken to this with more knowledge, I think. But my understanding is that the refugee status branch will prioritize some individuals. In particular, people who are being held in prison will be interviewed as a measure of

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Good afternoon.