Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 31st, 2018

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

Just hiring more people and just spending more money actually shouldn't be minimized; it is a tool. When you have more decision-makers, they can make more decisions and speed up the processing. I don't know what the honourable member's hostility is towards hiring more people to speed up cases.

On top of that, though, the Immigration and Refugee Board has conducted an internal exercise to improve its ability to finalize cases. They had already achieved a productivity growth of 40% before the investment we made as part of budget 2018. I believe the money that is pledged towards the IRB will result in more decision-makers and faster decisions on asylum claims.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Has the IRB determined what the extra cost will be for the fiscal year to deal with these illegal border crossers? Is it the number you gave us earlier, or have you determined exactly what it will be for this fiscal year?

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

What I can tell you is that we are investing $74 million in the Immigration and Refugee Board—

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

The same numbers you have in your document.

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

—in order to allow them to process thousands more cases than they were able to in the past. Part of the reason they will be able to do so is that they'll be able to hire 64 new decision-makers.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

How many cases can each individual do in a year?

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

I can tell you that the Immigration and Refugee Board, as part of the investments we have pledged as part of budget 2018, will be able to process 17,000 more cases than they're able to do at present.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

How many of the 20,500 who crossed the border last year are still outstanding?

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

I don't have those figures, Mr. Maguire.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

You don't.

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

I can tell you what the investments will result in, which is far more cases—

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Another way of asking that is, what is the backlog? How many are in the backlog?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I'm afraid I need to end it there, but we can continue on this with the officials after the minister has left.

Mr. Whalen, you have just a couple of minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We've had plenty of opportunity now—all parties have—to ask a number of questions on the estimates. There were a couple of little things we didn't get to.

I'd like to thank the minister for providing some insight into some of the increases in specific program and project funding, whether we anticipate them to be year-over-year or whether the funding will expire. I'm just going to focus on a couple of them: the $5.2-million increase for the ministerial reviews and interventions pilot project, the $2.5-million increase for reforms to the temporary foreign worker program, and the $21-million increase for government-assisted refugees from Syria.

Are these amounts that we expect to be discontinued from the budget in the next fiscal cycle, or are these things that are going to be transferred to other projects or other categories of GAR?

[Christopher Meyers, Acting Chief Financial Officer, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

With respect to the temporary foreign workers, the $2.5 million is part of our ongoing funding going forward, so it is now permanent funding.

With respect to the Syria dollars, there is a reference in the main estimates to a decrease of about $58.1 million in funding, which represents the gradual decline in the delivery of the Syrian initiative. That funding will continue into 2020, and then fall off as that cohort integrates into Canadian society.

The ministerial reviews and interventions funding is also part of our permanent ongoing funding on a go-forward basis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I think we're going to end there. I'm going to suspend the meeting for a moment. Mr. Whalen will begin the next round with a few minutes to finish his five minutes, then Ms. Kwan will follow, and then we'll go back to the start. This gives the minister a chance to go to prepare for question period.

We'll suspend for two minutes, again with our thanks for your appearance, and the officials will continue until about five minutes to two o'clock. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I should get a special chair, since I keep coming back to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

We're going to reconvene.

Mr. Whelan, you have just over three minutes left. It's over to you.

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

Great.

I'll go back to the estimates with respect to the increased funding for biometric screening. Could the departmental officials provide us with some information on that project? I'm wondering whether the standards being adopted are international multilateral standards; how it interfaces with the biometric screening that happens, for instance, in Africa by the UNHCR for the asylum program; and whether there will be good integration on the refugee side as well as the visa and immigration side on these new electronic tools.

[Marta Morgan]

As you may be aware, the government already uses biometrics extensively in our visa programs in order to ensure identity. The biometrics that are collected can be used to confirm identity, for security screening processes, and in our work with international agencies.

The project here is really to expand the use of biometrics. This is an ongoing project for which we've been receiving funding over a number of years. We see biometrics as really a key element of our visa system and our immigration system, now and in the future, as we move forward.

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

As well, there seems to be an internal transfer from operating funding to capital funding on the technology side. Does that also relate to the biometrics, or is that relating to other IT initiatives that are ongoing in the budget? How does this relate to the government's overall information technology plan?

[Christopher Meyers]

I can speak to the numbers. Within the capital vote, which totals $21.8 million, the amount of $1.3 million is dedicated to the biometrics project specifically. That relates to information collection and verification solutions within the global case management system, which is the software in the system that's used by the department to handle its processing-related activities. That's included within the $21.8 million that you see in the capital vote.

[Marta Morgan]

Much of our capital expenditures is devoted to IT, because IT, particularly our GCMS, is really the platform for our operations. Everything we want to do, whether it's to improve client service or whether it's vis-à-vis processing and identity management, will all require IT investment. That's a really critical part of our operational footprint, and is key to our smooth functioning as a department.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Ms. Kwan, you have three minutes.