Evidence of meeting #46 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
There's a sport in India known as Kabaddi. I'm sure the members are aware of it. There were special circumstances given to players coming to Canada. I wonder if you can tell us what's happening this year with Kabaddi players.
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We had some difficulties with that program, and I'll ask Madame Deschênes to speak to that.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It wasn't a special program. We were trying to work with the federations to make sure that we could process them in an efficient manner. Unfortunately, not all the federations were reporting back to us. When we did some research, we found that there was some fraud. People had come to Canada and had not returned. We've gone back to the normal processing and asked that people apply normally, because the federations weren't prepared to take the additional steps to help us risk-manage.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That is a visitor visa.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
If a member of Parliament, or other members of Parliament, were approached by Kabaddi players or organizations in Canada, we're to advise them to apply for visitor visas?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's correct.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Okay.
The MI-1 makes reference to skilled workers. The record high was in 2008, correct?
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
MI-1, or ministerial instruction one, did that not add to the backlog substantially?
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The intake through ministerial instruction one was higher than we had anticipated, yes.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Right.
Wasn't the actual number 120,000 or something of that nature? Am I correct?
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We'll have to check that number for you. We can provide that, but it was in excess of 100,000 applications.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Yes, I'm sure you would have the numbers. What I would appreciate also is the number of applications received through our different collection sources in regard to skilled workers over the last six years. If that number could be provided through the clerk to committee members, that would be beneficial.
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, certainly.
Conservative
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
I wanted to mention something on ministerial instructions. They are an extremely flexible tool that helps the minister respond to developments in events and backlogs, so that backlogs don't grow beyond a manageable level.
I know that this minister, Minister Kenney, is one of the most responsible, honest, and effective ministers we have. All you have to do is go to any community in Canada and they'll tell you that.
I'd like to talk to you about the report on plans and priorities. One of the department's goals in the RPP is the security of those who enter our country. That's a laudable goal, and I think all MPs can agree with that, but how important is the implementation of biometrics going to be in helping you achieve that goal?
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Biometrics changes the entire security regime for us and for our partners at Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP, and CSIS. Having access to fingerprint data and digital photographs allows for case-matching with people who have been in Canada and with our partners. As an example, we've been doing biometric data-matching with the United States on refugee claimants in a limited number of cases. We have been testing it out, and we've had a match rate of about 42%. And that includes people applying in the U.S. as well as people applying in Canada using different identities, false documents, and so on.
It's a powerful tool for us to be bringing on board. Many of our partner countries already have these kinds of regimes in place. Certainly the U.S. has them, so it will give us access to other databases that are much bigger than what we have in Canada. It will alert us to problematic cases in a way that we can't do right now.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
I think a 42% uptake on a brand-new implemented technology is hugely significant over what we have now, because it's a 42% improvement over what we have now, for sure. As we've seen in case after case, criminals have re-entered this country many times. As the minister had talked about earlier when he was here last hour, there are extreme cases of crimes that were committed and perpetrated against Canadians by criminals who were allowed to re-enter several times. There are lesser cases of robbery and theft, and all sorts of other things that happen in our country.
How will biometrics vastly improve the tools we have presently? Can you describe what we're doing now and how the implementation of this is going to be achieved overall?
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes. I'll start, Chair, and then maybe turn over to Madame Deschênes.
We're starting with what will be a targeted group of visa-required countries. Key issues, of course, will be where we have security concerns. Basically, when people apply for a visa, they will be required to provide biometric information. So that information will be collected. It will be reviewed against a number of different databases and then considered as part of their visa application. Then it will also build up a database of these records for us in Canada. We're also working with our country conference partners that the minister mentioned—the U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand—to develop data-sharing agreements with them that will allow us to have access to a much larger set of databases.
Do you have anything else?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The only thing I would add is that after we have all that, when someone arrives at a port of entry we'll be able to match the photograph. If we have any doubt about the identity, we'll be able to check the fingerprint to make sure the fingerprint they gave us is the same one they're giving us now. From an identity perspective, we'll be able to lock in an identity, which will mean that the concerns we might have that someone is returning under a different passport, a different name, will be addressed.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
What benefit does that now provide us, though, with our American neighbours, in terms of how this secures our common border? Can you comment on that?
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes. In terms of our work with the United States on “Beyond the Border”, this is a hugely important piece for giving us comparable levels of security screening to what the U.S. already has. From their perspective but ours as well, as has been noted, the intent is to move the screening out to the North American perimeter. In order to do that, we need a biometric regime in place so that we have a comparable system to that available right now in the U.S.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
What limits will there be on how we use biometric information?
