Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2012

Evidence of meeting #52 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 information.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Standing on Guard for Thee: Ensuring that Canada's Immigration System is Secure

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Benjamin Muller Professor of Political Science, King's University College at Western University, As an Individual

Mark Tyndall Professor, University of Ottawa, and Head, Division of Infectious Diseases, Ottawa Hospital, As an Individual

George Platsis Program Director, Centre of Excellence in Security, Resilience, and Intelligence, Schulich Executive Education Centre, As an Individual

Rear-Admiral Retired) Donald Loren (Senior Distinguished Faculty, Centre of Excellence in Security, Resilience, and Intelligence, Schulich Executive Education Centre, As an Individual

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON

—because it certainly sounds like an evolution of technology.

October 3rd, 2012 / 5:30 p.m.

RAdm Donald Loren

But in the same vein, if you really want to circumvent the system, then I'm going to ask for ten prints, I'm going to take a retinal scan as well, and then hopefully, as perfected, I'm going to do cheekbone measurement as well. You're really going to have to go to some effort to change all of those things.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON

Thank you.

We had a couple of witnesses mention the infamous Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. They talked about the problem with profiling. Apparently this person fit every profile that should have raised all the bells and whistles, and in fact it did, but he was still allowed to board a plane.

Now that we know who he is...and if he had provided biometrics at some point after he was arrested, charged, and convicted, would he be able to easily walk into your country if you were also using biometrics and he popped up in your database as being the shoe bomber?

5:30 p.m.

RAdm Donald Loren

Well, that gets back to the previous question: would it be easy? I don't think so. Would it be infallible? Of course...it could be fallible. It's not infallible.

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Vice-Chair Liberal Kevin Lamoureux

At this point we're going to adjourn the meeting. The bells are ringing and it's 5:30.

Thank you for your presentations.

The meeting is adjourned.