Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 3rd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Ms. Kwan, you have five minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a question on the issue around the U.S. being a safe third country. When individuals come through an official port of entry and they are returned because of the agreement, what assurances do you have that these individuals are being treated fairly and that they have full access to protection under the refugee convention in the United States?

[Mike MacDonald]

Those assurances flow, one, out of the actual treaty and the fact that we verify each other against the various criteria that are in existence, including the asylum system and how it operates; the adherence of each country to the refugee convention, the convention on torture, the credible fear—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt you there. I know what the agreement says and what it purports to do. In reality, though, in practice, how do you know that this practice is being adhered to?

[Mike MacDonald]

We conduct a review each year of the conditions in the country and the operations of their asylum system. That then verifies that the country is acting in accordance with the agreement.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay.

There have been numerous reports that asylum seekers who are returned to the United States under the safe third country agreement are being held in jail. We understand that you are doing these checks with our American counterparts.

In your discussions with them, what steps have you actually taken to investigate the reports that asylum seekers are being held in jail when they're returned to the U.S. under the safe third country agreement?

[Mike MacDonald]

Mr. Chair, I'm not sure there are any investigations. IRCC does not conduct investigations on allegations of what may be occurring in another jurisdiction, overall.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Then when you say that you do these checks, can you table documents of these checks that you have undertaken? How often do you do them, where are they are undertaken, and what are the findings of these reports? Can you table that information with the committee?

[Mike MacDonald]

We can table that information, but I will just repeat, Mr. Chair, that it is a yearly review that is undertaken, and then confirmed.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

All right. I would be very interested in getting this information on an annual basis, and on the safe third country agreement since its inception, so that we can actually have a bit of a comparison, going back year after year with all of your reports to see what the findings are. Is this something that you can do for the committee, and can you commit to providing that information to us?

[Mike MacDonald]

We'll take the undertaking, absolutely, Mr. Chair.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

On the issue around processing, turning to the IRB, given the rate of increase in terms of asylum claims that are here, while the government has indeed provided additional resources—$74 million—is that sufficient to deal with the situation?

In your presentation you mentioned that we are now receiving 2,300 cases a month, and that it is deficient to address this issue if we are really going to have a robust system to ensure that the backlog is not going to create legacy 2.0, as I would call it. Can you comment on what sorts of resources you would need to actually properly manage this?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Bearing in mind that we cannot actually predict what the intake will be, and how many cases will be referred to us, what I can tell you is that the additional funding will allow us to finalize about 17,000 additional refugee claims per year.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I understand that we can't predict, but—let's just assume—at the rate at which it is increasing at this moment, at 2,300 a month, at this rate as it stands, what kinds of resources would you need?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

The answer is not a simple one, partly because I don't know how much the efficiencies that we are putting in place, including the way in which we are triaging cases, the way in which we are improving our digital platforms, and the way in which we are improving the supports to members, will result in, in terms of efficiencies, so it's—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm just going to pause here for a minute.

As the system is right now.... I get that you're trying to find efficiencies, and the efficiencies you have found will be great—

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

But the system is changing enormously. In the one year since I've been there we have improved our productivity by 40%, so—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

When would you expect these efficiencies to be completed so that you know that—

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

I think it's an ongoing challenge. We are going to go from paper to digital at some point. We are putting digital platforms in place. We are doing pilots. We are testing various methodologies for the way in which the cases are managed, for instance, by ensuring that if—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I'm afraid I need to end it there.

We have time for about four or five minutes for Mr. Whalen, and then I need the committee for four or five minutes before the bells ring just to go over our next week.

Mr. Whalen.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and again, thank you all for coming.

Again, my questions really aren't for law enforcement, but thank you for the excellent work you do.

Mr. MacDonald, in terms of our relationship with the U.S. in managing asylum, has the U.S. law changed either in letter or practice for asylum in 2015, 2016, or 2017?

[Mike MacDonald]

There have been a series of changes going on in the United States, overall.

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

Maybe you can describe some of those changes so we can get some confidence so that Canadians feel they are still a safe third country, and that we are monitoring the types of changes that are occurring in their law.

[Mike MacDonald]

Mr. Chair, I'm far from an expert on these types of issues in terms of what's actually going on in the United States. There are a lot of motions going forward around those who enjoy temporary protected status. There are decisions being made by the Secretary of Homeland Security around ending with transitional periods. I think that's a key point.

We do know that the temporary protection status changes that are going on in the United States do not appear at this time to be a major driver of why people are coming. For example, only 10% of the Haitians who arrived last year actually had temporary protection status changes.

There are also changes on the floor, as all of you know, around what's called DACA and the dreamers. We are not seeing large movement of DACAs or dreamers wanting to move into Canada, though I will say they are very highly skilled individuals who we would welcome in a permanent resident-type stream.

We do monitor overall—at Global Affairs Canada, and ourselves—the various court challenges that are going on, what is known as the travel ban challenges that are going on, and we do monitor those with a sense of how they impact Canada both at the border—