Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 24th, 2018

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

You describe as orderly an act that your government said was illegal. The Prime Minister and the minister who was here have said that crossing the border is illegal. I find it difficult to reconcile the words “illegal” and “orderly”, which you are combining today, and I think Canadians, 70% of whom believe your government has no plan, will agree. Earlier today, Ms. Rempel asked you which organizations report directly to you as minister. But you had no answer for her.

Given that you have since had the opportunity to study this issue at length, I would like to know if you can now tell us which organizations report directly to you, as minister.

[Bill Blair]

Again, at the present time no agencies report directly to me. I am working on this issue, working very collaboratively with my colleagues across a number of ministries, including the Minister of Immigration and the Minister of Public—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

The CBSA doesn't report to you?

[Bill Blair]

It does not.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

The RCMP does not report to you?

[Bill Blair]

No, it does not.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

So you're responsible for protecting the border, and the border agency doesn't report to you.

[Bill Blair]

Not directly, no.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

So, it reports to you indirectly.

[Bill Blair]

No, I'm working with the minister to whom it does report, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

If the agencies responsible for this issue don't report to you, then what do you do as minister?

[Bill Blair]

I have been given a responsibility to work across a number of different ministries to address the challenges we face in dealing with irregular border crossers—those who are seeking asylum—to ensure that we work collaboratively not only within our own government, but also with the provinces and territories, the municipalities, and other stakeholders to manage this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I'm afraid I need to end it there. Thank you.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

If I could just conclude, Mr. Chair, the fact that none of the relevant agencies actually report to you, Mr. Blair, suggests to Canadians that your appointment was actually more of a political statement rather than a practical fact.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. Poilievre.

Mr. Whelan, for five minutes.

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

This is a great place for me start because earlier in the day a question was asked, and it was sort of asked again, of Minister Blair, about what his role is. He comes with an incredible wealth of experience in intergovernmental relations. He's come off a huge file, helping shepherd the cannabis legislation through both houses of our Parliament, which was a huge endeavour.

Could you just explain to the committee what you are bringing to the table, what expertise you have, to further reassure Canadians that we're bolstering our team and how this is important for the Government of Canada to get right.

[Bill Blair]

Thank you very much, Mr. Whalen, for your kind words.

I have, frankly, four decades of experience, and 10 as a chief of police in a large metropolitan centre. I've had the opportunity over the course of that career—and certainly as you've already indicated—to manage rather complex files. The cannabis legislation, just as an example, was legislation that had an impact on multiple ministries. In that role I answered directly to the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Health, and the Minister of Public Safety, and also had a great deal of involvement with a number of other federal ministries. I worked with senior officials and the governments of all of the provinces and territories and with municipalities across the country, as well as engaged with first nations and other indigenous communities, because of the complexity of this file. There are a number of files that are managed within the government where it was felt that I could be of some assistance to the ministers in continuing to work and improve some of those processes to ensure cross-ministry collaboration on these important issues—and perhaps, most importantly, because these issue are important to Canadians. The issues that I have been tasked with relating to border security, the irregular crossers who are seeking asylum, and issues around organized crime and gun violence are all issues of concerns to Canadians, and which have, frankly, an impact on many ministers.

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

I think Canadians look forward to your contributions, and, of course, I think the opposition looks forward to your mandate letter, which I'm sure will be out soon.

Before I give the last word to the minister, I just want to thank the witnesses for coming today to help combat some of the misinformation and to help reassure Canadians that the situation is well managed, it's secure, and that we're meeting both our legal and our international obligations. I think that was clear from all of the testimony today.

I would also like to thank the guest members who joined the Liberal team today for their expertise on security, communities and housing, the issues in Quebec, and also international human rights. I think we needed to bolster our team today to make sure we took full advantage of who was appearing before us.

On the issue as to what report comes out of the study, I think we'll leave those important questions to the regular committee, which determines its own agenda, when we meet in the fall. We have now had nine great meetings on this very important topic, and in each case it seems that the department has been a couple of steps ahead of where some of the recommendations coming from this committee were going anyway.

In terms of the six-pillar plan of the government, I'm hoping that the minister could provide some final remarks on it, maybe focusing on a couple of issues that did come out today. One was modernizing the safe third country agreement. There were some discussions here about modernizing that agreement, and I'm wondering whether or not the government is open to modernizing it.

In terms of the timelines for processing, we heard a suggestion today of six months. The U.S. has 180 days for a determination—it's their benchmark—and 45 days to hear.... I know that the IRB is separate from your department, but if there are things that we're working toward in that regard, we would love to know about them and what the target is. Thank you.

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

Number one, on the issue of the safe third country agreement, it's a bilateral agreement. We have expressed our viewpoint to the United States. Like any other agreement that's almost a decade and a half old, it requires a second look to see how we can modernize it to take advantage of developments that have been made not only in technology but also in information sharing. How can we benefit from the full spirit of the agreement by harnessing those developments?

On the issue of what the government is trying to do, what we're trying to do and what we've effectively done is to make sure that we've learned the lessons from last year. We have a national operations plan in place, which has been tested on the ground with different players.

Number two is that we collaborate to make sure there's an orderly process in place.

Number three is that asylum seekers have come to Canada in the past. The opposition is suggesting or pretending that this is a new phenomenon. It's not. In 2008, under their watch, we had 30,000 asylum seekers.

The fact of the matter is that we have laws in place to deal with this. Our system is working. The IRB has invested to make sure there are an additional 64 decision-makers and more than 185 staff to further speed up the decision-making process so that Canada can continue to meet its obligations. Despite the rhetoric and fearmongering by the opposition, we remain committed to making sure that we have a place in our hearts and our immigration system for those who are seeking protection. We will not let fearmongering and divisive politics deter us from standing up for the rights of asylum seekers to claim asylum.

That being said, it's part of our law to make sure that if you have no claim for asylum in Canada, you're removed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Ministers.

Thank you to all of our officials.

Thank you to the staff and the members of the committee.

The meeting is adjourned.