Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 3rd, 2018

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I have a point of clarification, Mr. Chair.

[Mike MacDonald]

—or in terms of what may be happening in the immigration streams.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I'm sorry this is—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Point of clarification, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

No, to your point of clarification. If you have a point of order or a point of privilege—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Sure, a point of order. Actually, I just have a question, because typically department officials don't provide policy statements, and we just had a statement—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

That would be debate. I get that.

Mr. Whalen.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I'm going to move to my next question anyway. I think I've got the confidence that it's being well monitored and that the United States is still considered to be a safe third country.

Ms. Benzvy Miller, when I look at some of the data around the number of cases you receive going toward the IRB and the number of cases of a regular border crossing that Mr. Michaud raised, I see there's a discrepancy of about 400 or so folks for Q1 of this year. I'm wondering if that is because sometimes people aren't apprehended irregularly and they declare themselves without having been apprehended, or are there other reasons why there might be slight discrepancies in the IRB numbers versus the RCMP numbers?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

There are no discrepancies. We only record cases that are actually officially referred to us, so people who do not actually meet the test for referral would not show up in our numbers. The numbers that we have are just the claims that we are seized with, and that's why they're always slightly less, but about 99% of all claims do get referred to the IRB.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I'm sorry Ms Benzvy Miller, but it's actually a little bit more, so in the first quarter of—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

There's a point of order—if it is.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I believe you've scheduled five minutes of this meeting for business, but that wasn't agreed to by committee, so I would like to have our round of questioning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Okay.

Go ahead.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

If I just do the math on your opening statement, I see it's something around 5,400 so far in 2018. Maybe it's because you're counting some April numbers, but the Q1 numbers from Mr. Michaud were 5,052, so it's actually almost 10% higher. I'm trying to understand that discrepancy.

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

It may be the March–April differential, because they're talking numbers in real time and I cut mine off at the end of March. We could get back to committee on that difference. I actually don't know because we didn't consult beforehand to know what data was being provided by what date.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Maybe by the 11th of the month we could have some information on that discrepancy level.

In any event, I'd like to move:

That the Committee undertake a study of Migration Challenges and Opportunities for Canada in the 21st Century; that the Committee start this study with four meetings in preparation for the previously approved Committee travel to Tanzania and Uganda; and that the witnesses for these meetings be suggested by the analysts; and, following the Committee travel, make a further decision about further meetings for the study.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

And this relates to migration in general?

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Yes, as I read, and I appreciate that this is just notice of motion.

Do I have any time remaining for my question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You have six seconds.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Don't we get to talk about the motion?

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

No, it's just notice of motion.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I thought he moved it.

He has finished, so I have the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I would take it as notice of motion.

Thank you.

Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. MacDonald, you just mentioned that we would welcome the DACA cohort through an economic immigration stream, as they are skilled. Who is “we”?