Finance committee  Thank you, Gauri. Go ahead.

Finance committee  Very few children have been officially detained over the past few years. We don't actually have reporting on people with disabilities or, for example, pregnant women.

Finance committee  No, Canadian law has no limit. There is a review by the Immigration and Refugee Board on a statutory time frame: after 48 hours of detention, again seven days later and, after that, every 30 days until the person is released or removed from Canada. Canadian law has no time frame, no limit, whatsoever.

Finance committee  If they're in a mental health crisis, there's nothing stopping somebody who's detained for immigration reasons from being taken to a mental health-specialized hospital, for example. They remain detained while they receive the care and treatment they need for a mental health crisis.

Finance committee  I believe the timing is creating—and this is why it's in a budget bill—a sense of urgency. For example, Ontario is where we see the most number of people detained in provincial jails, and that will no longer be possible after June of this year. I think this urgency may be causing the Minister of Public Safety to want to allow this measure.

Finance committee  The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows the administrative detention of foreign nationals, and sometimes of permanent residents. Canada has three centres administered by the Canada Border Services Agency. In addition, provincial prisons have for a long time been used to detain persons considered high risk, but also others who are not.

Finance committee  That's right. What's needed is a program with a wider range of alternatives. There could, for example, be training, mental health support and addiction programs. All kinds of less expensive and more appropriate measures could be introduced.

Finance committee  That's it exactly.

Finance committee  The statistics are available on CBSA's website. Before COVID, it was in the range of about 8,000 people. It was much lower during COVID. We've seen a gradual ramping up. I don't have the latest numbers in front of me, but we can send them to you. As I said, they're on CBSA's website.

Finance committee  Again, there are quite detailed statistics on the CBSA website. I'm just looking at—

Finance committee  I would add that this is not the first time it has happened. In 2019, for example, the government proposed, in a federal budget implementation act, measures in response to the number of people who were crossing the border in order to seek asylum in Canada. The end result was that people who had applied for asylum in the United States were from now on deprived of access to Canada's refugee determination system.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. As well as being vice-president, I'm also the detention program coordinator at Action Réfugiés Montréal. A major preoccupation of the bill is the creation of immigration stations. It's deeply disturbing that the government is proposing expanding places of detention on immigration grounds to federal correctional facilities when all 10 provinces have clearly expressed a rejection of the practice of immigration detention in jails.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for the question. We have multiple suggestions. One of them is that the Canada Border Services Agency should adopt an updated and public code of conduct. That's extremely important. We're also concerned about the commission possibly refusing to handle a complaint when a parallel process is under way.

Public Safety committee  The CBSA itself has talked for quite a few years now about the need for culture change at all levels, from frontline enforcement to policy development and management decisions. However, we don't see the culture change coming. Having an independent review mechanism, I think, will make positive changes in terms of that cultural change, especially when there are consequences.

Public Safety committee  I think that to work with refugee claimants and other vulnerable migrants is to bear witness to the real fear that comes with not having status. I think that this adds a dimension to complaints—possibly some related to the RCMP, but far more to the CBSA—when status is an issue, as is the precariousness of even being in Canada.