Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2009

[Lillian Thomsen]

When Canadians are detained abroad there is international law, the Vienna Convention of 1964, that applies. The Convention has been signed by Canada and 174 other countries. Under article 36, a country is entitled to be informed by the host country that one of its citizens to have access to the individual.

So that's really where we start from. If we find out that a Canadian has been detained in a foreign country, the first thing is to ask the authorities for access to that individual. And if we don't get access, of course, then we use the tools of diplomacy, whether it's diplomatic notes, phone calls, or representations.

Where we run into difficulties—and my colleague alluded to this in her statement—is when the person is a dual citizen. We try to do a lot of outreach to Canadians who have citizenship in other countries. If you look at the statistics, approximately 250,000 people immigrate to Canada every year, grosso modo. Within three to four years, the vast majority of those people get Canadian citizenship, but that doesn't mean they lose their other citizenship. They are de facto dual citizens.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I have an extremely important question to ask. In the event of conflict in certain countries that I will not name, what takes precedence: the fundamental rights of Canadian citizens as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the local laws of the host country?

[Lillian Thomsen]

We tell Canadians before they leave the country that when they are in another country they are subject to the legal system of that country. It is the same thing in Canada. When foreign nationals arrive in our country, if they commit theft or drive under the influence of alcohol, for example, they are subject to Canadian law.

We try to explain that the legal system of Mexico, for example, is very different from ours. When people are in another country, they are subject to the laws of that country. What we can do is use the methods we are provided by the Vienna Convention to get access to Canadians detained abroad. It is not always possible to do that, particularly if the person in question has the citizenship of the country where they are imprisoned. If a person entered that country using the passport of their other citizenship, that is, a passport other than a Canadian passport, that tells the local authorities that the person agrees that they still have obligations, still have close ties with that country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madame Thomsen.

We'll move to Mr. Goldring and Ms. Brown.

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for appearing here today, ladies and gentlemen.

I believe it was you, Ms. Thomsen, who discussed some of the services provided to Canadians. We have seen some numbers on the subject. Perhaps you could explain the scope of it. I'm seeing numbers here of some 40 million or 50 million visits conducted by Canadians over a period of a year. Obviously many of those would be multiple visits. Our parliamentary secretary here may very well account for one a week.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

But for many others it might be one visit per year. What would be the number of persons conducting these foreign visits in a year?

[Lillian Thomsen]

First of all, we rely for statistics on Statistics Canada, which provides us quarterly reports. We also subscribe to services and research provided by the Conference Board of Canada. They don't distinguish between trips and individuals. The vast majority of trips continue to be trips to the United States. There is some indication that day trips to the United States have diminished somewhat as a result of the recent economic situation and of the imposition of the WHTI. But grosso modo, probably—I mentioned in my speech that there are 1.5 million travellers to popular destinations in the Caribbean—there are seven million or eight million who travel abroad every year.

We can't track, for example, dual nationalities: people who leave Canada and enter another country on their other passport, if they go back to their birth home. What we see is a changing profile in travel. For young people a generation ago, it was back-packing around Europe; now it's going to work for Habitat for Humanity in Guatemala, or it's doing all kinds of eco-tourism, and we have medical tourism and a huge growth in the cruise industry. So it's not just the numbers; it's also the profile of the services we have to be ready to provide.

I'll leave you with one last example. In the U.K., medical tourism, and this is in some cases for relatively minor surgeries, reached a volume of about 37,000 in 2007. You might say this is interesting, except that 16% of those, according to U.K. statistics, wind up back on the national health service in the U.K. as a result of complications, in some cases quite serious ones. This trend hasn't hit Canada yet, but we look at all these things, because our services, as my colleague Patricia Fortier explained, have to keep evolving. We have to be where Canadians are and we have to be ready to help them when they get into situations as a result of what they've chosen to do.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

We have also seen a huge growth in the numbers, according to the statistics, of people travelling internationally. Concerning the education component and knowledge level of the travellers among the cases you look into, is there a concern about the percentage of the people you're looking at who claim or state that they were not aware that they would be subject to the laws of the land? What kind of percentage level among these cases would you consider as involving people who, if there were perhaps more education before they left, might not be in the predicament they're in?

[Lillian Thomsen]

There can never be too much education. I couldn't tell you how many people say to us, “If only I had known...”. Sometimes decisions made abroad can be quite impetuous.

We think the penetration of our website is about 35% of Canadian travellers. We face particular challenges in reaching young people. And we also experience challenges in reaching people of dual nationality, who often think they don't need the Government of Canada to tell them anything about their home country.

Things are changing. For example, I discovered that bookmarking our website is “so last century”. Now you use a search engine and type in “Barbados driving”. You don't go to the Canadian government website any more. Now we're doing research on how we can write our travel report on driving in Barbados so that when you go into Google, we come up as one of the top three sites and not somewhere on page 2, because nobody is ever going to go to page 2.

Travel has become much less expensive. The once-or-twice-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe has now become every other year. You go to Thailand and the next year you go to Africa for a safari--not to mention high school programs. As early as grade 10, you can do a high school biology credit in Guatemala and throw in some horseback riding while you're at it.

The industry has changed. You now have a lot of self-employed, Internet-based travel providers working out of their basements. It has become an excellent way of supplementing your income. We have to reach out and train those people. We have a textbook that we ask travel planners to use, so we're constantly trying to adjust.

Another example is teaching English as a second language. A number of years ago, some Canadian students ran into difficulty in Japan and South Korea. When they got there, either the schools didn't exist, they weren't paid, or they weren't housed. So we have an online publication dedicated to Canadians who are thinking of going to Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea to teach English. In addition, we do outreach through the universities. We're physically present at the fairs in the universities to try to reach as much of our potential client base as we can.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

We received some instructional information that's going out to schools. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but there is very little mention of this document in the accompanying information. People travelling to other countries should respect our Charter of Rights, but they must be cognizant that in other countries it does not apply. Is there something more that can be done in our schools to assist in this? With the tremendous growth in the number of people who are travelling, it could be helpful.

[Lillian Thomsen]

Below high school age, most travel decisions are made by parents. You need to be 16 before you can sign for your own passport. But we try to reach out to the high schools and the universities. We're trying all kinds of new tricks. We now have a maze on our consular website where you can play a mini-computer game to see what would happen if you went to such and such a place and drove a car while inebriated. We're constantly learning from the experience of others.

We compare notes with other countries just to make sure we give good advice. Before the Jeux de la Francophonie in Lebanon, we had extensive consultations with the French government about our athletes, the Canadian spectators, family members, and coaches.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Thomsen.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and my thanks to our guests.

Ms. Thomsen, does the government have a legal responsibility to offer protection to Canadian citizens in distress abroad? Is there a piece of legislation?

[Lillian Thomsen]

No.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

There's nothing in a statute?

[Lillian Thomsen]

No.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Canadian citizens pay a $25 fee for consular services when they purchase their passport. Is that correct?

[Lillian Thomsen]

That's correct.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

How many passports were issued in the last year? Are you aware of that? If not, maybe you could provide that to the committee. It's kind of a pop quiz.

[Lillian Thomsen]

I can't pull the number off the top of my head. I could probably guesstimate. The revenue generated by the consular fee in 2008-09 was $89.1 million, with over five million passports issued.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

That's the number I was looking for.

[Lillian Thomsen]

That money, I just want to add, does not come to the department. It goes into the consolidated revenue fund of the government.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Exactly. I just want to make the point for the record that when this fee was brought in it was to provide for consular services abroad, and to date, that has never happened. I can say that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You can say anything.