Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 8th, 2011

[Geoffrey Leckey]

That's a very good question. It will take a good year before those persons are hired, and then of course there will be on-the-job training. My answer is that they will be fully functional in two to three years.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Are you beginning the training already, or are you just collecting CVs?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Again, that's not really my area, but I want to give you the best answer I can. I believe we're at the stage of collecting CVs and recruiting.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you, sir.

With regard to the concerns around the delays in returning people and removing them, you mentioned that they're going to be aimed mostly at those particular people. How long does it take now on average from the moment that a refugee claim is turned down until the time you actually get around to removing them?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

It can vary. It can be in the range of one year to five years.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Do you engage with that process before or during the time their appeal is going on? If their judicial appeal is going on, does that delay your picking up of the case?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

No, we don't start a removals process until clients have exhausted all their legal avenues to remain in Canada. A removal order comes at the end of every possible legal avenue.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Once all those judicial appeals have been exhausted, the one-to-five-year window starts.

[Geoffrey Leckey]

When I say one to five years, the priority for removal is on persons with serious criminality, persons with violent histories.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you very much.

You referred to refugee claims made to the Immigration and Refugee Board at ports of entry. Those are a significant part of your role. How many points-of-entry refugee claims do you do each year, approximately?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

The total number of refugee claims received is in the region of 30,000. I believe it's been dropping slightly in recent years. It was 35,000 a couple of years ago. I think it's around 30,000 this year.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

You also talked about the fact that you're working with airlines to make sure that all the documentation is processed and the visas are in line and the passports are in line. How are those 30,000 people slipping past your control of documents at the airports, for example?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Well, there are two different processes. The refugee process does not affect only persons seeking to board aircraft and take a flight to Canada. The statistics on that particular program are actually quite encouraging, and if you don't mind, I'll take a moment to highlight them.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I don't think we have time.

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Monsieur St-Cyr.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

A little while ago, the Auditor General of Canada reported that several tens of thousands of persons, if I'm not mistaken, were banned from staying in Canada. She added that the agency was not looking for them or could not look for them because it simply did not know whether those persons had left Canada or were still here. She emphasized that that was due to the fact that there were no exit controls. So there is no way to determine whether they have left the country.

You limit yourself to enforcing the act, but we of the Bloc Québécois believe that this exit control issue should at the very least be examined. The fact that no western country does this may not be reason enough to decide that it would not be appropriate.

In view of the fact that your agency is responsible for enforcing the act, would your work be facilitated if Canada examined this issue and decided to impose exit controls for non-citizens, among others? To what extent might that be useful to you?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

You want to know whether our work would be easier if we had exit controls?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Yes, would it be useful for you to know which persons on the banned list are still in the country and which ones have already left?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Yes. With your permission, Mr. St-Cyr, I'm going to answer in my mother tongue; the words come to me more easily.

We don't have exit controls. Do we know how many people who entered Canada on a temporary resident visa have subsequently departed? No, we don't collect those statistics.

You also asked about the numbers of people subject to removal. There were tens of thousands of them. This is not my area—I'm speaking on behalf of a colleague who's not here at the moment. We've started an intensive program to find and identify and remove those people. This is linked with exit controls. Since most of the people who enter Canada and depart Canada come from the United States and go to the United States, we're in negotiations with the United States to set up a system where the one country would accept the other country's entry controls as its exit controls. I can't speak to you in detail on how far advanced those negotiations are.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Knowing who enters the United States, you necessarily know who has left Canada. That's a useful piece of information for you.

[Geoffrey Leckey]

It's extremely useful information for us.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Are people who are not allowed to stay and who leave Canada required to inform the agency of that fact? If those persons take an airplane and arrive at the border, must they say they're leaving Canada in order to comply with a deportation order or may they simply take the plane and leave?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

There is no obligation under the act.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

You don't know whether you have to look for banned persons to deport them, because you don't even know whether they've left or not. That's the dilemma you're facing, isn't it?