Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 4th, 2014

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Can I weigh in on that?

It's very rare to encounter those kinds of cases for the first time at the border and for a border services officer to be able to distinguish the indicators that would lead to an ultimately founded suspicion that he's dealing with a fraudulent marriage, because the filtering is supposed to have been done in advance. By the time a couple shows up at the border with a permanent resident visa, all the checking has been done.

We are aware that certain programs have been particularly targeted for fraud. We at the CBSA, through our intelligence component, develop guidelines, papers, and indicators that are used by CIC visa officers abroad to do an initial screening.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. McCallum.

Mr. Leung.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I wish to establish some of the data collection methods, statistics, and trends on fraudulent marriages. I would group marriage of convenience, spousal sponsorship abuse, forced marriages, and polygamy in the same basket. I fully appreciate the fact that the pre-screening is done prior to the person's visa being issued, and then perhaps there is an inspection or review at the border. You may not catch all the cases other than those that are referred to you before, or at some point, to watch for them.

How will we determine, once they come across the border, if there's a case for any of those abuses of our immigration law? Once they're inside the border, if we can capture that, then we can have a better understanding of the trend of people using these fraudulent methods of gaining entry. Perhaps you can comment on that, and share with us some of the statistics over a period of a decade or so.

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Once couples have been admitted and are inside Canada, of course there is the potential for domestic abuse. If that happens, it can come to our attention through the CBSA's Border Watch line. It can come to our attention through CIC's call centre.

In the case of straight domestic abuse within Canada, those cases are referred to the local police. They have the jurisdiction. The cases may ultimately be referred to social services. That's not, strictly speaking, a CBSA concern. If spousal abuse that happens within Canada leads to the wife going to a women's shelter, the CBSA has a very strict policy about entering women's shelters. For example, only female officers are allowed to even approach a women's shelter, and those female officers have sensitivity training.

Of course, if marriage breakdown in the spousal sponsorship program is due to abuse, then the victim is not re-victimized by being sent back to the country of origin, as you're aware.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Should we not also be capturing that information as part of our statistics or data-gathering in order to give us the ability to do a post-coming-over-the-border review over a period of time?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Yes. We—

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Let me rephrase my question. What I'm trying to establish is that there's a way to prevent them before they enter the border. Obviously you wouldn't know the entire population of abuses, but there are those who do come across, so we need to capture that statistic to then correlate it with the total population of abuses.

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Yes. We can get back to you on that, on the four cases that you mentioned and that you bundled together as being fraudulent.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Essentially, yes.

[Geoffrey Leckey]

We can provide you with statistics on that, and then of course—

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

That would be helpful.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Leckey, that would go to the clerk, please.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Perhaps in that analysis you can also supply us with a little bit of commentary on the aggregate factors affecting that trend, and whether the trends are increasing or decreasing. Ultimately I guess what this does is it helps us review our legislation, or review the various gaps that we can stop, in that case.

There's also a lot of age discrepancy; it commonly happens in these cases. It could be a forced marriage or a marriage of convenience. Is that a factor in the evaluation by border services?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Yes. In the case of forced marriages in particular, the victims tend to be quite young, as young as 16 or 17.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Is it in the training of the CBSA to spot or to recognize that?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

Yes. We've developed products and we've disseminated them to stakeholders in the CBSA and CIC, the front lines being in this case the CIC visa officers abroad and the CBSA border services officers at our ports of entry.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

For younger persons, when they come across the border, are they usually accompanied by an adult or usually accompanied by the spouse? What are some of the cases that you can share with us?

[Geoffrey Leckey]

In the cases I spoke of, of forced marriage where predominantly the victims tend to be younger, of course when they enter Canada they are accompanied by an older person.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Culturally, I understand that the age of consent is very different around the world. Would you feel—I guess this is perhaps an opinion—that our Canadian age of consent is right now inadequate, or would increasing the age of consent help in mitigating some of these marriages of convenience or forced marriages?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I wonder if that's a political question.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

It is a political question.

I withdraw my question, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes. I think we'll pass on that one.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Do I have time, sir?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have about 10 seconds.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I will share with you, sir.