Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 29th, 2018

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Oliphant (Don Valley West, Lib.)), Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I call this second half of our meeting to order.

We're now in a public meeting, welcoming two ministers: the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, as well as the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. We have one session on a briefing. This is continuing our briefing on the issue of irregular border crossings.

I want to check with the ministers before we begin. Do you both have remarks? Do you have any interest in shortening your remarks, or doing them quickly so that we can get right into the meeting? Do whichever you would like.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

I'm happy to shorten my remarks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Of the two ministers, who would like to begin?

Mr. Hussen, thank you.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm happy to appear once again before this committee on this important topic, and I'm very glad to be here with my colleague, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

I know we all share the view that the clear priority, when it comes to the issue of asylum seekers, is to ensure that all laws are followed and that the safety and security of Canadians are protected. Our government is committed to respecting domestic and international obligations when it comes to the asylum system. At the same time, we have consistently applied all of our laws and procedures to protect the border. These two are not mutually exclusive, as some would suggest.

Let me be clear. Asylum claimants are subject to a separate system and have absolutely no impact on applicants in other immigration categories, including refugees resettled from abroad. In addition, every asylum claimant who enters Canada undergoes medical and security screening at the border, including through biometrics and checked against various databases. No individual is allowed to leave the port of entry until they have passed the background checks. If they present a risk to Canadian society, they are immediately retained, do not get to make a refugee claim, and are then removed from Canada.

We have invested $173.2 million, including $74 million for the IRB, as part of our budget 2018 investments. This will be used to staff 50 additional decision-makers in the refugee protection division and 14 in the refugee appeal division, which will allow them to finalize an additional 17,000 claims for refugee protection and more than 3,000 refugee appeals.

I'm also pleased to inform the committee that members of the Immigration and Refugee Board are adopting a new approach that will allow them to dedicate a proportional number of resources to asylum claims of those who cross our borders irregularly.

With the additional investments, the change in scheduling, and the ongoing collaboration with our various partners and within different government departments and agencies, we've made significant progress in recent months in preparing for any potential influxes. We have closely engaged with the United States on a number of issues, including discussing modernization of the safe third country agreement. We've stationed senior officials in Nigeria to work with U.S. officials and ensure collaboration and sharing of information to prevent the abuse of U.S. visas for the purposes of claiming asylum in Canada.

I recently returned from Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, where I held productive discussions with representatives from the Nigerian government and Nigerian civil society and media to secure their collaboration on travel documents, on messaging, and on deterrents.

We do all this with six guiding principles in mind. There is no free ticket into Canada. People who cross our borders irregularly will be arrested and subject to thorough security screening. Canada respects its international obligations. Those who do not need Canada's protection will be removed, and we've increased funding to our security partners. We'll continue to work closely with the provinces—especially Quebec and Ontario—to ensure we have an orderly process for asylum claimants. We'll continue to work with the U.S. government, both in raising concerns about the safe third country agreement and on the number of claimants with valid U.S. visas.

Mr. Chair, in closing, while an increase in asylum seekers presents very obvious challenges, Canadians can rest assured that we are managing that challenge very well—with efficiency, with innovative practices, and with fairness.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much, Minister.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Chair, in light of the time—and I realize the committee had to start a bit late, and we have a hard stop at one o'clock—I won't deliver any formal remarks to save the time. I would like to introduce the officials who are with me for the information of the committee.

On my far right is Brenda Lucki, the new Commissioner of the RCMP. To my immediate right is Jacques Cloutier, Vice-President, Operations, at CBSA. At the far end of the table is Patrick Tanguy who is Assistant Deputy Minister for Public Safety Canada.

These are extraordinary public servants who work very hard to keep Canadians safe and to make sure our rights and freedoms are safeguarded at the same time. When extraordinary circumstances happen from time to time, such as the situation at some locations along the border, they are called upon to do the very difficult work right on the ground in dealing with people and circumstances to make sure that the situation is properly attended to.

They've had to make important adjustments in their arrangements over the course of the last year to make sure that the right resources are in the right place at the right time, and they have done an extraordinary job in the interests of all Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much, Minister.

We're going to begin rounds with seven-minute questions. This is just a reminder that I will give Ms. Kwan a little bit of generous time because she lost out in the last meeting.

We're going to begin with Mr. Anandasangaree.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

At the outset to both ministers, I'd like to thank you for your continued efforts in this and finding the appropriate balance in ensuring that Canada meets its international obligations under the refugee convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the convention against torture, and other international instruments. I think the manner in which both of your departments have handled this is extraordinary, and I'm quite proud to see this in action.

Also, Commissioner Lucki, it's a pleasure to have you here. The historical shoes that you've put on are not lost on us and thank you for that.

I want to start, Mr. Hussen, with respect to your visit to Nigeria. Could you outline what specific engagements you had there, and what messaging you had for the Nigerian community?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you very much.

My visit to Nigeria was very productive. I visited the capital city of Abuja, as well as the commercial capital city of Lagos. In Abuja I met the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Interior, and on the same day I met the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Nigeria. I was able to indicate to both officials what we were facing. I made it very clear that, overall, the number of Nigerians coming regularly to Canada is actually high. There are a lot of visitors and tourists as well as international students and people who come through the express entry system, as well as the provincial nominee program.

In fact, the number that is coming irregularly is smaller than the regular numbers. However, it is an issue, and I emphasized to them the need for that government to co-operate closely with Canada on the issue of reiterating the message that we are always making, which is that we welcome newcomers, but we want people to come through regular migration.

The second request I had of the Nigerian government was that they should work closely with us to expedite the issuing of travel documents for Nigerian nationals who have exhausted the procedures and are set to be removed from Canada. On both of those requests, the Nigerian government officials I met, including the foreign minister, were clearly supportive and indicated very clearly that they will work with us on both those issues.

Very quickly, I also met representatives of various media outlets in Nigeria to, again, make the point that we value the contributions that Nigerian Canadians have made to our country, but that irregular migration is an issue. I also met civil society organizations who were very kind to let me know some of the challenges, some of the misinformation that was being fed to some of these officials.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

With respect to IRB, the Immigration and Refugee Board, can you indicate to us the improvements in productivity over the last three years?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Even prior to the investments as part of budget 2018, the Immigration and Refugee Board had embarked on certain measures to ensure that they had improved their ability to finalize cases, and there was an increase in their productivity levels with respect to their finalization of cases. In addition to that, budget 2018 recognizes the importance of investing in the IRB additional resources to enable them to finalize cases faster. Budget 2018, therefore, pledges an amount of $74 million for the Immigration and Refugee Board to be able to do that.

In addition to that, the IRB has stated that they will institute a new scheduling system that would allow them to proportionally dedicate resources based on the proportional number of asylum claimants who are making asylum claims through the IRB who have crossed the border irregularly. For example, in the eastern region, 60% of the caseload is now people claiming asylum who had crossed the border irregularly. Based on that, they will then dedicate more than half of their resources to process those folks very quickly.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Goodale, I know we have spoken over the years, and you've confirmed it before, but can you confirm that, since the last time you were here, the directive with respect to the detention of children is still in effect with respect to those who are coming across and that we're not detaining children in the sense of overnight detention and longer detentions?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

The directive is still in full force and effect. In fact, if that were to change, there would be public notice to that effect.

But, yes, the changes we've made progressively over the last couple of years to improve the system around detention to ensure that it's used only in the appropriate and relevant circumstances, that the conditions of detention are improved, and that there is a supervisory function provided by the Red Cross, for example, all of those changes are fully in effect. I would reconfirm that we are working on the final element of the plan, which is the creation of a review mechanism for CBSA officials and procedures. CBSA is the one agency in my department that does not have that review function. All of the others do, but we're in the process of moving toward the review function for CBSA as well.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Minister, I'll ask you a very brief question, but I know it is going to take longer to answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You have 10 seconds.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Can you advise us on the implications of declaring the entire 9,000 kilometres of border between Canada and the U.S. to be an official—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you off. That question will get asked again, I suspect, but I'm going to go to Ms. Rempel.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On May 23, in the Stanstead Journal, the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie was quoted as saying, “We had [a lot of] calls from local businesses last year telling us they would gladly go pick them up there and hire them,” since Canada is short on manpower and the influx of people entering illegally through Roxham Road is welcomed by a lot of people.

Do the ministers share the opinion of their colleague?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

The fact of the matter is that the issue of issuing work permits to asylum seekers was something that was brought to us through the intergovernmental task force on irregular migration. It was brought forward by the Province of Quebec. They felt that it was important for the federal government to help the Province of Quebec and other provinces expedite the issuing of work permits so that asylum seekers can support themselves as opposed to relying on provincial social services, and we've done that.

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

The sentiment the Minister of International Development expressed is that it's a good thing that people are illegally entering the country, and that this was a way to meet Canada's labour needs. Is that now Canada's policy?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

The provinces have indicated their preference for asylum seekers to support themselves while they await their hearings, to work, and for us to assist them in expediting the issuing of work permits, which we have done, from three months to three weeks—

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

That's not even close to it.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

—instead of their relying on provincial social services.

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

I would argue that planned, orderly migration, where we anticipate economic migration and match it to labour force needs would be a better management of Canada's immigration system, especially since Quebec and Ontario have both expressed that some of the people who are illegally crossing the borders need to be diverted to other places in the country.

I will ask the minister very bluntly. Does he actually want to stop people from illegally entering the country at the Roxham Road border?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

The question is important because it gives me an opportunity to talk about the things that we are doing. We have consistently said that there is no free ticket—