Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair and members of the committee, we are most grateful for the opportunity to appear before you.
Our point of departure for our presentation today comes from our involvement in the Centre of Excellence for Security, Resiliency, and Intelligence at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. However, for the record, our comments are our own.
Clearly, our current immigration policy has significant issues. As per the official record, some two-thirds of our current refugee applicants are found to be, by Canadian standards, inadmissible to Canada. However, the time between arrival and determination is not only a costly exercise to Canadians, but also a largely inefficient one, inasmuch as national interests are harmed, and legitimate claimants are adversely affected by this state of affairs.
The overriding fact of the matter is that the majority of people landing in Canada—excluding the majority of those travelling from the United States—either as legitimate visitors or as refugees are currently a product of a system that is based on discretion, intuition, and often by the determination of foreign nationals working for our embassies abroad. They are not, as the Auditor General observed, people vetted on the basis of sound, shared Canadian intelligence that would pre-screen any of those who potentially represent either criminal or security threats to this country.
Put simply, we do not have an elegant intelligence interface that allows us the benefit, in the age of information, of information that is the product of multiple vetted sources made available to those in our government who need it as the basis for sound decision-making.
In addition, those individuals within government who have an understanding of the differing sources of intelligence and how best to leverage these assets to not only support sound immigration policy, but also how to further our collective national interests, are often prevented from developing and implementing the necessary policies and initiatives. Accordingly, current policy is reactive rather than proactive.
As a result, individuals who represent various levels of threat to our national interests increasingly burden Canadians. Further, some of these individuals further threaten another critical interest and relationship, that of our neighbours and friends to the south. I would like to recall to members of the committee the damage done to our national interest by the mere perception in the United States, post-9/11, that a number of terrorists had come through Canada. What if our current policies lead to real threats to our friends and neighbours to the south? Might we not expect a significant tightening of what is effectively a critical component of our national economic interests? Might we not also expect other measures in what we have proudly seen as the world longest and oldest undefended border?
In the 21st century, the age of information, we need to force multiply and force protect our national interest by an aggressive and effective application of intelligence. In a time when a single individual can make war upon the planet, this is fundamental to our national interests. But, again, our interests are not limited to ourselves. Because we share a continent with a country that has been targeted by many and suffered much, we also need to think about our continental responsibilities.
With a view to that, I should like to give the remainder of our time to a great friend of Canada, Admiral Donald Loren. We have asked him to give you the benefit of his thoughts on these matters from an American perspective.