Information & Ethics Committee on April 25th, 2023

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

There have been stories in the media. For example, Pierre Elliott Trudeau's file at CSIS and other prime ministers' files at CSIS have been destroyed because they didn't meet the threshold for preservation. I'm just curious. In 30 seconds or so, perhaps you can comment on how, when that's been some of the public's experience or exposure to the CSIS ATIP system, we can reconcile that with a system that is so fundamentally important.

[Dr. Nicole Giles]

One of the things we've been working really hard on is trying to increase and build trust with Canadians, because that social contract is absolutely essential to our ability to do our business. One of the ways we've been doing that is by increasing the communication we have with Canadians, as I outlined, as well as making sure our delivery of responses to requests is timely. We see that as a cornerstone.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Dr. Giles. I'm sorry I didn't address you that way the first time.

Ms. Lillico, in about 30 seconds or so.... I know this is really quick. We have a limited amount of time here. Technology is, I think, key to giving Canadians access to their documentation. I'm wondering if you could, in 20 or 30 seconds, outline some of the advancements we're seeing in technology that could help improve this process. As you know, according to the Treasury Board, the department is one of the worst offenders. Perhaps you could just touch on that technology, and then I'll hand it over to Mr. Gourde.

[Kristina Lillico]

Certainly.

Library and Archives Canada, like others, is working to improve all of the technology we're able to leverage, including onboarding and using the secure technology systems that the Government of Canada uses. We recently onboarded the ATIP online portal so that people can make their requests more easily.

You heard me say that we have to do a lot of digitization. Digitization costs money. It's a big endeavour. You have to have the right storage to manage, hold and migrate those things.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I apologize, but I want to make sure my colleague has time.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you. I will get down to brass tacks.

I am interested in two organizations, i.e., the Department of Immigration and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I was wondering if the two cooperate.

In the interest of Canadians' security, are you able to help the Department of Immigration do background checks on certain people who have an immigration file?

[Dr. Nicole Giles]

We have a very important role to play in the national security screening process, which is a joint responsibility of IRCC, CBSA and CSIS. Certain files will be referred to CSIS for analysis, and we analyze them in the context of national security admissibility concerns under IRPA, which is the governing legislation.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Ms. Perry, are these requests made systematically to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service? Or is it rather a committee that decides which files should be submitted?

[Dr. Nicole Giles]

The immigration officer makes the decision as to whether certain indicators have been triggered, thereby requiring that the application be referred to CBSA. CBSA, if they believe there's a national security admissibility issue, will then refer the file to CSIS. Then CSIS undertakes the analysis as quickly as possible.

We will frequently make a recommendation in terms of whether that individual would be inadmissible to Canada on national security grounds, but ultimately the decision about admissibility is made by IRCC.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

My last question is for Ms. Perry.

As you know, MPs' offices have practically become Immigration Canada outposts. We receive so many requests for help that it's a little overwhelming.

However, your people give us very little time to ask questions. We have to cobble together a lot of very personal information that also has to be protected.

Would it be possible for the Department of Immigration to be more cooperative and give us more time with its officers in order to be able to help people as quickly as possible?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Please be brief in your answer.

[Sylvain Beauchamp, Director General, Client Experience, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you for the question.

In my day-to-day role, I am in charge of the department's call centre as well as the ministerial centre for members of Parliament and senators.

We've updated our business model, as you know, and we are working each day to ensure that we have the capacity to deal with all requests, which are growing in number, from what we see. We are working in cooperation with members of Parliament to make sure that our business model meets all of our clients' needs.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Beauchamp and Mr. Gourde.

Ms. Hepfner, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being with us today.

We heard last week, I think, from the Treasury Board president that there's a lot of work being done on declassifying documents, but that there are also some challenges. I understand that at the Department of National Defence there is a declassification pilot project.

Ms. Bank, I was hoping you could give us an update on that project.

[Anne Bank]

I'm sorry. I'm not able to speak to that today, because that's not under my purview. That's under the responsibility of the director general of defence security.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Okay.

Ms. Lillico, perhaps from your perspective in Library and Archives, are there any challenges around declassifying documents so that they can be accessible to the public?

[Kristina Lillico]

Yes, as I mentioned in my remarks, we're fully supportive of putting in place a better solution for GC-wide declassification. We participated actively in the pilot project that was undertaken by the Treasury Board Secretariat and Public Safety to help inform how declassification could work across the Government of Canada in a more efficient way.

We'll continue to work to support these kinds of initiatives. Ultimately, this will be important for us in the long term.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

As you say, the ideal is that the information is there and the ATIP system is a last resort for extra information that people are looking for. The ideal is that people can go to the Internet and find information that's not sensitive.

Ms. Perry, you talked about the unique challenges in IRCC with the volume of requests. We've also heard, I think from the Information Commissioner, that you're working on some new digital processes that will make it easier, so that a lot of those requests will go away. People will be able to go online and get an update on their immigration process. They won't have to file an access to information request.

Can you give us an update and tell us about the new digital products you're using? How is it going with that project?

[Tracy Perry]

I'm going to turn it over to Sylvain.

[Sylvain Beauchamp]

The department launched, as recently as March 2023, application status trackers for a few select lines of business, including permanent resident and temporary resident lines of business. Clients can self-serve and have access to information at their fingertips to reduce their reliance on getting that information through an access to information and privacy request.

That is what we're doing from an investment perspective now as we're building the digital platform of the future, where that will be a concept that will be embedded in the new immigration system going forward.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I'm sorry to pressure you, but is there a timeline for that project rolling out?

[Sylvain Beauchamp]

Yes. We've launched, as we've said, I think upwards of nine application status trackers for nine different lines of business. The first phase of the digital platform modernization is planned for this fiscal year, 2023-24.

We're actually in the midst of developing the requirements to build that platform for the future. We should be seeing some of those early wins as early as the fall.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

What sort of impact do you think that will have on your access to information record and the number of requests you get?

[Tracy Perry]

Our hope, as Sylvain has said, is that the clients will be able to self-serve. They'll be able to access their information directly on their own as opposed to coming through the access to information system for that information.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

You don't really know yet until it's in place, basically, is what I'm hearing from you. That's perfect. Thank you very much.

Dr. Giles, you talked about the difficulty of being the security intelligence agency and having to go through everything to make sure you're not releasing anything that could compromise your operations.

We've also heard during this committee a call to change some of the exclusions in the act so that more things would be accessible to the public. Would you tell us how that would affect CSIS and ongoing investigations?