Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 20th, 2012

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Recently our government made an announcement, I believe it was in the summer, that we are actually going after some of these cases. I think there were 11,000 potential cases, 3,100 of which we're trying to revoke residency and citizenship and so forth.

I realize that electronic travel authorization is not the answer, but certainly if someone has been deemed to have participated in residency fraud and we've revoked their citizenship and so forth, the ETA, along with the use of biometrics, will certainly help to identify those people trying to get back into Canada.

[Richard Kurland]

It can, though with two caveats. It's sort of like tweeting. When you tweet or use social media, that information is captured by the world forever. Carved in stone is an old analogy; this is electronic.

What if you have the misfortune to have as your residential address in this system an apartment in Montreal around the Olympic Stadium, an area that was known in the past to be the residential headquarters of Algerian-based terrorists?

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Is this someone who has already been found to have been involved in residency fraud?

[Richard Kurland]

Some of my former clients resided there, and because the address was similar—

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Were they guilty?

[Richard Kurland]

They were not guilty, but they got caught in the net and it took a while to get them out. That's what you have to guard against with this stuff.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Can I ask how much time I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have less than two minutes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'm going to try to talk really fast.

Mr. Gordon, I'm going to direct my next set of questions to you. I thank you for sharing some of the stories. There was a passport that was discovered to be fake; he changed his story, turned to petty crime, fraud, went to Afghanistan, joined al Qaeda, all of these things, and then lo and behold, he was able to come back through the border, to Canada, the United States, and so forth. I thank you for bringing that particular case to our attention.

As you indicated, there were cases where serious criminals have been deported. You didn't mention deportation necessarily, but there are serious criminals who have been deported, failed refugee claimants, and then they've been allowed to re-enter Canada. I'm not sure whether you have the same problems as well.

Do you believe the electronic travel authorization, the provisions in the perimeter agreement between Canada and the U.S., will help prevent foreign criminals from abusing Canada's generous immigration system?

[J.D. Gordon]

Yes, I do believe that. It's an excellent question.

I think the electronic travel authorization is one more tool that we'll have between the United States and Canada, and our law enforcement and immigration authorities, to help prevent the type of fraud we've seen, to help prevent people who should not be in our countries, who could pose not just a threat, but who could also take advantage of the kindness of our governments.

We've set up terrific societies in the United States and Canada. Many countries around the world do not have those types of societies because of the failures within their own governments.

The ETA is just one more tool that we have to keep our countries safe, to make sure we can help eliminate fraud, and to make sure people pay their fair share of taxes as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Ms. Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I want to thank all three presenters, two for coming in person. I know one's left the balmy coast of British Columbia to come here. I want to thank you for video conferencing with us today as well, Mr. Gordon.

We started the committee's study of this piece of legislation yesterday. Just so that everybody knows, the NDP supports the principle of electronic travel authorization systems. Just so we're clear, we're talking about electronic travel authorization systems for people coming to Canada as visitors, except U.S. citizens. That's my understanding of the way it's going to be applied.

At the same time as we support this, we also share some of the concerns of the Privacy Commissioner, who submitted a brief to our committee because she couldn't appear in person. Jennifer Stoddart has said in her brief that her office is concerned about the ETA program's lack of transparency and the degree to which the details of the program are deferred to regulation. Once again, we as parliamentarians are going to be asked to vote in the dark, without having the full road map in front of us. We share these concerns. We continue to have these concerns despite our discussions yesterday.

I'm not sure if you have read them yet, but I would like to get your take on some of her specific recommendations. I'm going to direct these questions primarily to Emily, but please, others, if you want to jump in, you will get an opportunity to do so as well.

Ms. Stoddart recommends that a privacy impact assessment be conducted well in advance of the implementation of the ETA. She recommends that in the interest of public transparency, these changes be codified in statute rather than in regulations, because regulations can be changed at the whim of a minister. She indicates that clarity is needed around information sharing between agencies and parliamentary oversight. She recommends that CIC should implement privacy training and policies so its workers understand the sensitivity of this information.

Do you concur with these recommendations? Do you have any of your own?

I'm going to throw the second question in there as well.

These small changes to IRPA are linked to the broader issue of establishing a common approach with the U.S. to the screening of travellers and implementing part of the beyond the border action plan.

Can you provide more background on the changing politics of the Canada-U.S. border, and what this will entail for Canadians with respect to mobility and privacy issues?

If we could start with Emily, that would be great.

I have a very limited time, so I would ask everybody to be succinct.

[Dr. Emily Gilbert]

Okay.

I think the recommendations that the Privacy Commissioner has made are excellent. They will take us to having some of those safeties in place around the concerns that I raised around information sharing and how people will have access to the information that's being used against them. I think that will help.

Questions around appeal and redress need to be made clear. As we've already heard, that could be added into those recommendations. That's something we should also be looking at.

Having more public debate on these questions to see how the Canadian public feels about these changes would also be useful. We haven't seen that happen, largely because this is rolled into an omnibus bill.

I'm losing my other point here, but there was another really good one and it will come back to me shortly.

In terms of the changing background around mobility, what we're seeing in North America as Canada and the U.S. work more hand-in-hand around security and immigration issues is that we have more hierarchical forms of mobility. Business people get expedited access across the border through pre-clearance programs like NEXUS that have been made possible through programs like NAFTA. Those people get to move more quickly. We have more and more people coming in on more regulated forms of migration, temporary labourers, who are much more scrutinized in terms of their ability to come to Canada and the conditions under which they stay. This is just adding another layer in terms of the scrutiny that we are putting in place around people who are coming to Canada without any clear sense of its effectiveness.

The U.S. has had a similar program in place since 2007. I'd like to see the information that shows this is really addressing the concerns that have been raised by other people in this committee around things like terrorism, etc. As far as I know, there's no clear evidence that's the case.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Richard, did you have anything to add?

[Richard Kurland]

This is no silver bullet for terrorism. I don't see a rational, logical connection.

On the other hand, the point is well served regarding consumer protection. Mischievously I will add that I see a growing trend between two classes of traveller: the frequent more wealthy NEXUS crowd, and the hoi polloi. To get around the concern about security, pay $50 and go to the front of the queue, business class. For everyone else, it's economy, and we'll call you when it's time to board.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Point of order, Mr. Dykstra.

You're not going to attack Mr. Kurland, are you?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

No.

Just for the record, just because someone has a NEXUS card, I don't think Mr. Kurland can assume that we're all rich.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

That means you have one, Dykstra.

[A voice]

I know how much you make, and you are.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We'll start the clock again.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Okay, Mr. Dykstra, how much you make is not a point of order.

Minister Kenney previously announced that these changes would be part of the move towards an entry and exit information system with the U.S. Do you think that this is going to create some barriers, especially when we look at tourism? As we know, the requirement of a passport had a huge impact on our tourism industry. I know that in British Columbia we certainly felt it. Will this add another barrier?

I'm going to ask Richard and then Mr. Gordon to respond.

[Richard Kurland]

It certainly will. It's the closing of the Canadian box. Our entries and exits as Canadians ultimately will now be reported not just to the Canadian government, but, due to the matrix of information sharing, to other governments. I kept hearing from our witness in Washington the “tax” word raised again and again and again. I'll have more on that later.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Kurland.

Mr. Lamoureux.