Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 5th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I guess we'll bring our committee meeting to order.

I want to welcome, on behalf of our committee today, the Auditor General--and I want to thank you for coming, Ms. Fraser; the Assistant Auditor General, Richard Flageole; and Paul Morse, principal. Thank you for your presence today.

I want to thank you as well for your correspondence of May 11, in which you sent along a copy of the chapters in your report that relate to CIC.

We have two hours. I think you have an opening statement, so I'll turn it over to you, Ms. Fraser.

[Sheila Fraser, Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We thank you for this opportunity to meet the committee and discuss our most recent audits on control and enforcement and the economic component of the Canadian immigration program.

As you mentioned, I am accompanied by Richard Flageole, the Assistant Auditor General in charge of this portfolio, and Paul Morse, who directed our two audits in 2003.

It is important to keep in mind that our comments will be based on what we have observed more than three years ago. Since then, significant changes have occurred, including the full implementation of the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and the transfer of all intelligence, interdiction and enforcement functions to the Canada Border Services Agency, which is also responsible for managing the Canadian borders.

In our April 2003 chapter on control and enforcement, we identified a number of problems with detentions, removals, and screening at ports of entry. For example, there was a growing but unknown number of people who remained in Canada, despite Citizenship and Immigration Canada having issued removal orders against them.

We reported that Citizenship and Immigration Canada had no current information on whether customs officers were referring the right people to immigration officers, or how effective its own secondary examination was.

We also commented positively on the work of CIC abroad to identify people attempting to travel to Canada with improper or false documents. Most of these activities are now under the responsibility of the Canada Border Services Agency.

In 2003 we conducted a follow-up audit of the economic component of the Canadian immigration program that had been audited in 2000. The aim of this program is to recruit skilled workers and business immigrants.

In 2000, we expressed many concerns about the Department's management and delivery of this program. For example, visa officers needed better selection criteria, training and tools to assess immigrant applications more effectively. There were significant weaknesses in medical assessments of prospected immigrants and serious constraints in establishing their criminality and security admissibility. There were also inadequate controls over revenues, visa forms and computer systems in offices abroad. Given the seriousness of these problems, we questioned whether the department had the resources and operational capacity to deal with the annual immigration levels set by the government.

In our 2003 follow-up we reported that the department appeared to be heading in the right direction, and that the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and its supporting regulations addressed many of the issues raised in 2000. However, it was too early to determine the full impact of the new act and some of the corrective actions. We also noted that the department needed to pay more attention to the medical surveillance of immigrants and refugee claimants.

Let me take this opportunity as well to let you know that we have initiated a risk-based planning exercise to help us identify future audit work in the areas of citizenship, immigration, and refugee protection. As part of this process, we would like to meet with some of you early next fall to discuss any issues that may be of particular interest to the committee and that we should consider when conducting our audit work over the next three to five years.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer your committee's questions regarding our previous work or any other matter relating to our role, mandate and audit work.

I thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you very much.

In one of your reports you mentioned that the immigration offices abroad were overworked, and some of the applications were taking up to three years. Has that improved? Is it a matter of throwing more money, resources, or people at the problem? What is the problem, and how do we deal with it? Has it improved any over the last couple of years?

[Sheila Fraser]

We unfortunately haven't done any recent audit work that would enable us to comment on the situation presently. When we did that audit, though, we noted that the department was having difficulty meeting the targets that had been established by government, and even with that there was a very long delay in processing. We do mention that they needed better tools, better information systems. We do have an audit under way now on systems under development; I think it's called the global case management system, which had been indicated by government as being one of the solutions to many of these problems, but which has had recurring problems and has been late, and will be part of that audit we'll be reporting on this fall, in November.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

In the 2000 report you noted weaknesses in the selection of immigrants. These officers needed better selection criteria, better training, and what have you. That was six years ago. Have there been any improvements in that area?

[Sheila Fraser]

I can ask Mr. Flageole to talk more about it, but, again, we haven't done a lot of follow-up work. We did more work on the enforcement more recently. We did some work on the medical screening, where we did note that there appeared to be improvements. But the new law was just coming in, which would have seemed to have addressed that, so when we did that last audit, in 2003, it was still too early to adequately assess whether the law was having the impacts. This is one of the questions we would like the committee's comments on: Which areas do you think are the most critical for us to begin re-auditing? Is it going back and doing a follow-up of some of that work, or are there new issues we should be looking at?

I don't know if Richard would like to add anything more, perhaps.

[Richard Flageole, Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Briefly, Mr. Chair, on the criteria, they've been modified in the new legislation, in 2002. So at the time they were really focused on occupations and now I think they're probably simpler to apply. They are really focusing on the general ability of immigrants to immigrate to Canada, but, as Mrs. Fraser mentioned, we didn't do any work to really assess what's the real impact of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

We will now go to questioning.

I'll go to you first, Andrew, if you have some questions.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Yes, thank you.

Actually, I've got two questions. One, the government has indicated that they're not going to set targets to the extent that the previous government set targets. Then there was something to judge performance against, which I found to be quite useful, because I noted that in 1998, when targets were set, they were missed, but then in the subsequent years the targets were met or exceeded.

So what are your thoughts about the government not setting targets, and how can it measure its performance against no criteria?

[Sheila Fraser]

I'm not quite sure how to respond to that. In part it's a policy question, and we hesitate to comment on policies. But there would have to be some sort of performance indicator set, be it time of processing applications or some way of assessing the efficiency and the effectiveness of the system. Those are obviously different measures, so we would perhaps have to look in our audit work, when we go into the department, to see how are they going to measure performance going forward.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

It seems to me that if you don't set targets you have a problem, because nobody knows what's being worked towards.

The other question I have for you is about something we were discussing--that is, not knowing how many people there are in Canada who are not supposed to be here. Essentially, depending on which stats you subscribe to, we have statistics of 200,000 to 500,000 people being in Canada, many of whom are undocumented workers who do not have the proper documentation for being here.

It's well known that if we were to get rid of all undocumented workers tomorrow we probably would have a major problem economically. I'm sure the United States would have a recession and I think Canada would probably have a.... We'd have a recession, and they'd have a depression, given the numbers they have. But one of the problems seems to be the point system. In essence, people who are needed by the Canadian economy, such as in the trades, can't get into the country, and then of course we've got an overabundance of professionals who have great problems with their accreditation.

Maybe when you're looking at further review, because it does touch the problem that you're mentioning, you could look at the adequacy of the point system that's in place, because it's obvious that the economy is not getting in people we need.

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, that would certainly be an interesting area for us to look at.

I'll just make the point that when we did that audit on control and enforcement, we were looking at the difference between removal orders that had actually been issued--so people who had been ordered to leave the country--and the actual confirmed departures. At the time we looked at that, there was a gap, quite a significant gap of 36,000, so we were saying that the department had to get a better way of enforcing the removal orders and getting better information.

But yes, we can certainly look at how the department measures the effectiveness of its criteria.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

But just going along those lines, on anyone they find, they end up issuing a removal order. So there's a whole subset of people--as I said, 200,000 to 500,000. I don't know if it's so much the question of the ones for whom they have a removal order, but just the magnitude of the problem, and is it realistic to try to address it the way it's now being addressed?

The other issue regarding that is that maybe we could have a differentiation between the kind of people we have here, such as undocumented workers, and then the 2,000 or 3,000 people where you have a serious problem of criminality. It would seem that a focus on finding and removing those folks should really be a priority, because that's pretty malignant, whereas the other one is pretty benign--as a matter of fact, helpful, I would say.

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes. Obviously, when we looked at that audit, I remember the various reasons for which people had been issued removal orders. Some of them were for criminal convictions. Some were failed refugee claimants. But we said there should be better information on that.

The whole question is that it's to maintain the integrity of the system. So if people come in, are here illegally, and are issued a removal order, and then there's never anything done about it, why would people, quite frankly, go through a very long process to come into the country if they can come in illegally and there's no consequence to that? So there's a philosophical issue around the enforcement part of it as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

For the information of committee members, we have a vote in about 20 minutes. We will have to be back by four o'clock. So I would think maybe at 3:55 we'll have to break and go back for the vote.

All right, Andrew, you have two minutes left. Go ahead.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

One of the other issues I want to touch on is the one you've identified, and it's one that's giving us all a hard time: visas, and people getting temporary permits coming into the country. It really puts a lot of folks into hardship.

I noted that you said there don't seem to be uniformly applied standards for the decision, and I wonder if you could perhaps go back and take a look at that again, because members of Parliament still find it a huge problem.

Also, could you look at it from the perspective of what happens when we don't allow people in? When somebody comes here for a visit, they become an economic stimulant in the tourism industry. Not only do they go and visit sites, but the people who are their hosts all of a sudden find themselves going to Niagara Falls or the CN Tower, which they probably wouldn't be doing. So it really is an economic opportunity lost. I wonder if you could take a look at that in the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, Madame Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Good afternoon, Ms. Fraser. It is always a pleasure to have you here with us. I would have liked to see you last year so that I could elucidate a number of things.

You say that the Act has been implemented in full. I believe that is not quite correct. The Department in conjunction with the IRB, has established a plan and is conducting studies to implement an appeal structure for refugees, but this never came about. It is an issue you could look at, because the legislation is the legislation, even for the government. In my view, delaying the establishment of the appeal structure by six years is too much. I am waiting for your recommendations on this.

In managing a department as large as Citizenship and Immigration Canada, people work with data that reflect reality as closely as possible. The problem — there was a writ of mandamus regarding this matter several years ago — is that the figures as presented do not exactly reflect the situation in operations abroad, at the Mississauga centre or in Vegreville. The 2003 and 2000 reports seem to express that concern. During a future meeting, I would like you to provide us with an outline of your concerns on this matter.

In the work I have done recently, I have come to understand that in achieving targets we were including people who had withdrawn. People who withdraw their applications are counted in the figures when we try to determine whether targets have been reached. We include withdrawn applications when compiling figures for the business class and skilled-workers class, as well as applications for landed-immigrant status. So someone who withdraws his or her application still contributes to the Department's success.

For applications by skilled workers, we include dependents in the statistics. So these statistics do not necessarily reflect the real number of skilled workers entering Canada. It is very difficult to determine whether there are needs in the construction sector by looking at the labour statistics, for example. So what do we do? What is the real picture?

I would also like to talk about Immigration Canada's sites. We use historical data when preparing statistics on backlog, but we don't mention targets. We do not tell people how long it will take to process their applications. That concerns me. If some people had known how long it would take to process their applications, they might never have applied for immigration to Canada and would have applied elsewhere instead. This way, they have been had. They realize that processing their application might take a very long time.

This is an issue I raise regularly at this committee because I find it troubling. We have a backlog in a number of classes, including parents and grandparents. This is something you should look at.

The other issue that concerns me are the ongoing infringements of the Financial Administration Act. A number of class action suits are before the courts. I would like you to audit the resources allocated to opening files that are currently at the Mississauga centre and in foreign offices, particularly those pertaining to the parents and grandparents classes, but also those pertaining to other immigrant classes.

I did not really have a specific question. Your reports always contain information that is relevant today. As you say, your observations must be brought up to date. The annual report we receive shows that a profit is made. I find it disturbing that the Department makes a profit.

When we see the fees required by the department, and when we see what it costs to process an application, it looks like the department always generates a profit. I would like to know where that money goes.

Lastly, I would like you to explain the issue of the appeal structure. What has the department done? Is it true that this flows from a policy decision? What is the Immigration and Refugee Board currently doing about the appeal structure? A number of people are being prejudiced by the way in which the department and the IRB supervise their employees to ensure that decisions are uniform. How do they ensure that the best decisions are actually arrived at? I would like you to tell me something about the way in which the department ensures that selection decisions and IRB decisions are appropriate.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you for your suggestions. The information conveyed to Parliament is generally something that we examine in all audits. In the 2003 audit, we pointed out problems in some figures. Mr. Flageole can perhaps indicate them to you. I remember that the issue was the accuracy of some of the figures submitted.

[Richard Flageole]

We raised the issue you mentioned earlier, the issue where the figures indicating numbers of people include dependants in all categories. In the 2003 report, we used skilled workers as an example. According to the figures, there were 137,000 skilled workers. But in fact, there were 58,000 applicants and 80,000 dependants. We recommended that the department provide details, or a breakdown of the figures. Otherwise, we are left with the impression that 130,000 skilled workers applied, when in fact they did not.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Last week, the department was saying that it had 800,000 skilled workers in its inventory. You are confirming that this is not the case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Our vote takes place in about 15 minutes. I'm in your hands as to what we do here. Will we ask the Auditor General to come back, or will we ask her to wait until we come back or have her appear on another day?

How is your schedule?

[Sheila Fraser]

I am at your....

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

Yes, Bill?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

We were scheduled to go until 5:30. I don't think the vote will take that long. So if you could stay, I'd appreciate the chance to have further conversation on this.