Evidence of meeting #21 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
What percentage of increase can you do? Because I remember there was a huge backlog.
Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
We currently remove approximately 9,000 failed refugee claimants on an annual basis, and that number has been fairly stable over the last five years. Under the new proposed system, based on the calculations from Citizenship and Immigration, we're anticipating a requirement to remove about 13,000, so about 4,000 additional failed refugee claimants on an annual basis.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
And how long will it take for you to get rid of the backlog? Because I remember the Auditor General's report was that your backlog is really substantial.
Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
The backlog is substantial. The funding that is proposed to specifically address the backlog is provided over three years, and that would help to reduce the backlog, but it would not eliminate the backlog. So we're looking forward to the three-year evaluation, the evaluation of the entire program after three years, to have a better understanding of the performance of the removals program and to determine whether funding for the backlog is sufficient to meet the needs of the system.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
I remember during that report, it was something like 38 million or something of that nature in 2008. I don't remember. Has it now increased?
Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
What is that 38 million referring to?
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
I have this vague memory that's two or three years old. Was it a figure that had to do with the deportation? Am I way off?
Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
I think you may be referring to the number of cases in the removal inventory, and that was about 40,000 cases.
Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
In terms of dollars.... This is part of the difficulty. If you were just to take the traditional approach that we have today under the system and hire more enforcement officers, the cost could be quite astronomical. This is why we've proposed the idea of assisted voluntary returns, because it's more economical and more efficient as well as having other benefits.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you, Mr. Hill.
Ms. Chow, unfortunately, your time has expired.
We have Mr. Young.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Hill, what impact will the reform measures have on CBSA's operations and wait times at the ports of entry?
Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
At the ports of entry, we do not anticipate any significant impact on the work of our border services officers.
Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
That's correct.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Okay, thank you.
How does the refugee reform package address the current removals backlog, and is the number of failed refugee claimants in detention expected to grow as a result of the proposed changes to the asylum system?
Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
The proposed funding for backlog reduction would provide significant funds over three years to address the backlog. It would by no means eliminate the existing backlog. The funds provided for the new system will be directed to the new system only, so once the new system is implemented, there will be a last-in first-out approach, so we're ensuring that the new system does not accumulate any significant backlogs. To the extent that we're able to fully address the new system requirements, if there are additional resources remaining, they can be devoted to addressing the backlog.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Is the number of failed refugee claimants in detention expected to grow as a result of the changes to the system?
Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
Currently, we detain about 20% of individuals prior to removal. We anticipate that there would be a commensurate percentage, at 20%, but there would be no increase beyond the current rate that we're experiencing today under the existing system.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you, Chair. Mr. Dykstra is going to take the rest of my time. Thank you.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I just had a question regarding one of the other proposed amendments the minister spoke about, and I think it would be good to get some clarification on that. Could you talk about the transfer of the pre-removal risk assessment function to the IRB, Simon?
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Thank you very much.
It's our understanding that the bill will propose that the pre-removal risk assessment function be transferred to the refugee protection division approximately one year after the coming into force of Bill C-11. It would be our intention to integrate the PRRA function with the RPD function at that point. That's part of why we still have some work to do on our competency profiles and things like that, because we need to integrate those into our thinking before we can come up with our final refugee protection division work description competency profile, etc. Obviously, that would have to be integrated into the training package that would be delivered to them.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
The other aspect of this--and we've had a lot of questions and a lot of comments on this through our hearings--has to do with the information-gathering interview process. I think it's important to get on the record from your perspective how vulnerable claimants would be dealt with, or just a general overview of how the information-gathering interview or process will go for the first interview process.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I'll deal with the vulnerable persons first, perhaps, and then I'll focus more generally.
Under our existing guidelines, when we identify somebody as being vulnerable there is a requirement to identify a designated representative for them. That would normally be in two situations. One is where the person appearing before any division of the IRB, not just the refugee protection division, is a minor, for example, they would need a designated representative. Now, if they have a family member with them, particularly if it's a parent, normally it would be the parent who is the designated representative--not always, but normally. We can do the math on how old somebody is when the case is referred to us. But the other situation, which is sometimes a little more difficult, is with somebody who has difficulty understanding what's going on. In our current scenario the first time we would come across that would be when they appear before us at a hearing, which, as you know, in some instances could be 18 or 19 months after they've arrived in Canada.
We see the interview as an opportunity to identify that some people will need a designated representative earlier in the process, and this will allow us to trigger the designated representative process much earlier on.
Now, in terms of the interview process--
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Can I pursue that a bit further?
One of the issues we've had in terms of understanding it from a process perspective is that some consider this process to be somewhat.... I don't want to say it's an interrogation, but this is a judicial type of setting.
The way you just described how you're going to help an individual who is a minor or vulnerable, certainly from my perspective--and I think it's important for this committee to understand--is that you're there to look out for the individual in the first circumstance and to try in every way you can to make that a conciliatory process, not one that is seen as an interrogative one.