Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Claudette Deschênes. I am the Assistant Deputy Minister for Operations. Joining me today is Les Linklater, the Assistant Deputy Minister for Strategic and Program Policy.
We're a tag team.
I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to speak to some of the challenges we face in ensuring the security of our immigration system, as well as the measures we are taking to address them.
First I would like to touch on some of the measures CIC has already introduced to help increase the security and integrity of our immigration system. A key focus of the department in recent years has been to reduce fraud, since this presents our biggest challenge.
The global case management system has been in place at all of our missions since March 2011 and will be available at all of our in Canada offices by the end of February 2012. Rather than looking for pieces of information in several outdated systems with limited functionality—one that is 20 years old—with GCMS we can view an applicant's information in one location. This has made our processes much more efficient and has greatly improved how CIC shares information with our partners to prevent fraud.
For example, GCMS has been instrumental in some of our investigations into citizenship fraud, since it can identify when an address is repeated more than once in applications. The government is currently investigating 6,500 people for misrepresenting their residence in Canada. To date, CIC has begun the process of revoking the citizenship of up to 2,200 citizens who obtained it fraudulently. This is a lot in a short time, if you consider that the government has only revoked the citizenship of 69 people since 1977.
Legislation to strengthen the regulation of third-party intermediaries came into force in June 2011, and this will make it more difficult for crooked consultants to assist applicants in committing such types of fraud. These efforts were also bolstered by an anti-fraud awareness campaign that I'm sure you've all seen. As well, prospective immigrants and citizens need to understand that fraud concerns us all. They must know that they are the first line of defence and they cannot just rely on the government to protect them.
In addition, CIC launched a suite of videos on our website to provide prospective immigrants with information about the dangers and risks of immigration scams, including unscrupulous immigration representatives.
Moving forward, CIC intends to bring into force regulatory changes this year that would deter marriage fraud and strengthen the ability of the Canada Border Services Agency to remove individuals who engage in this type of fraud. While we have bolstered our efforts to reduce fraud in recent years, we remain concerned about the growing prevalence and sophistication in identity fraud and identity theft globally.
In the immigration context, identities are most often stolen or concealed in order to help an applicant overcome their inadmissibility—to disguise their criminal past, for example—or to help them gain entry into Canada when they would be denied for other reasons.
To protect the health and safety of Canadians, it's critical that we stay on top of new technologies and the new methods used by fraudsters to manipulate our immigration system. Biometrics is an important step to stay ahead of the game and reduce fraud and identity theft.
Beginning in 2013, certain foreign nationals who require a visa to visit, study, or work temporarily in Canada will be required to provide fingerprints and have their photographs taken as part of their application.
With the introduction of biometrics, it will therefore become much more difficult to forge, steal, or use someone else's identity to gain access to Canada. Biometrics will also make it easier to prevent known criminals and previous deportees from entering Canada, and it will prevent failed refugee claimants from re-entering Canada by using false identity documents.
On the other side of the coin, biometrics will also help us to facilitate legitimate travel. A key challenge we face is in accurately identifying applicants each time they apply to come to Canada. An applicant may have changed their name since their last entry, for example. Linking an individual's biometric data with their biographic data will help us to identify applicants more quickly and ensure that the person coming to Canada is in fact the same person to whom we issued a visa.
Building on this, I'd also like to address our role in the Canada-United States action plan for perimeter security and economic competitiveness—a mouthful. Under this plan, the two countries will establish a common approach to record and share the entry and exit information of travellers crossing our shared land borders. While the Canada Border Services Agency will be the Government of Canada lead on establishing the entry and exit system, CIC will develop the legislative and regulatory policy changes to introduce the new entry requirements.
Currently, many travellers entering Canada at a land border may confirm their identity and status by oral declaration or by presenting documents of inferior reliabilities, ones that can easily be altered. Our new policy will simply require all travellers to present a prescribed document when entering Canada. The current patchwork of entry requirements has led to confusion at the border for travellers and commercial carriers. A more secure border will facilitate the flow of legitimate migration across North America while enhancing our security.
In addition to the new entry requirements, we plan to introduce a common approach with the U.S. for screening travellers before they begin travel and reach our shores. To achieve this, we will require that visa-exempt foreign nationals, except U.S. citizens, apply for an electronic travel authorization before flying to Canada. This means that anyone who wants to travel to Canada would first need to complete an Internet-based form to provide us with basic information. CIC would then issue an electronic document to passengers who pass the screening.
In the majority of cases we anticipate that applicants would receive confirmation of their travel authorizations within minutes. The U.S. has already successfully implemented a similar system whereby over 98% of applicants are automatically approved for travel, and we anticipate the ETA system will be in place in Canada no later than 2016.
Finally, we plan to share information with the U.S. in order to help establish and verify the identities of travellers. That will help us better detect fraud and enhance public safety through improved detection of persons who have a criminal history or who pose other risks to the public.
In addition to helping us address threats to North America, this approach will help us reduce the costs and resources involved in processing inadmissible persons in Canada.
By using a perimeter approach to screening, Canada will be able to identify and deny entry to inadmissible persons overseas, instead of dealing with them once they have reached a port of entry.
Immigration officers in both countries will also have better information on travellers to enforce and administer their own immigration laws.
For example, we will be able to expedite the departure of persons who have no right to stay. Conversely, information sharing will also help us to facilitate the flow of legitimate travellers by giving immigration officers greater confidence in the identity and immigration history presented by the applicant.
I would like to note at this time that rigorous privacy safeguards will be in place to ensure information is shared in a way that is consistent with Canadian laws.
In closing, I would like to note that CIC is first and foremost committed to protecting the health, safety, and security of Canada and Canadians while facilitating the travel of legitimate visitors, and we continue to explore ways in which we can better address the security challenges we face in our immigration system.
Thank you.