Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 7th, 2019

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

It being 3:30, I call to order the 158th meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. Today we begin our consideration of part 4, division 16, of Bill C-97, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019 and other measures.

For this first session, we have Minister Blair and his officials with us. My understanding is that Minister Blair has a presentation of a little less than seven minutes. We will start immediately with that and, hopefully, we can get our full 51 minutes of questioning in.

Minister Blair.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll try to get through this as quickly as possible. I thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. I'm happy to speak regarding our asylum system and border enforcement proposals, which we have included in Bill C-97.

Mr. Chair, we are in a world that is experiencing unprecedented levels of migration. The United Nations Refugee Agency has estimated that there are approximately 258 million people who are now on the move globally, including economic migrants. However, 25.4 million of those individuals are deemed to be refugees, those who are fleeing war and persecution and are seeking protection.

Like many other countries in the world—almost every other safe country in the world—Canada has seen an increase in migration. The growth in global migration suggests that a higher number of asylum seekers is likely to continue, and points to a need to continue to ensure that our borders and asylum system are well-managed to meet our international and Canadian legal obligations.

It's imperative that we maintain a refugee protection system that is predicated on two important principles: fairness and compassion. Budget 2019 has proposed to invest $1.18 billion over a five-year period, starting in 2019-20, with $55 million per year ongoing to enhance the integrity of Canada's borders and our asylum system. These investments also support the government's border enforcement strategy. They will increase the asylum system's capacity to handle higher volumes of claims in order to provide timely protection to refugees and ensure that a failed asylum claimant is removed quickly and compassionately from our country.

The border enforcement strategy includes detecting and discouraging the misuse of our visa system by preventing travel to Canada by individuals who may not be legitimate temporary visa applicants. This means investing significantly in intelligence gathering and trend analysis to limit the number of Canadian visas issued to people who would use a Canadian visa only to establish themselves permanently in Canada.

We are also continuing to work with our international partners to share information and trend analysis that may impact visa issuance; are significantly increasing the interdiction of would-be irregular migrants abroad; engaging recalcitrant countries in support of removal operations by obtaining their co-operation in a timely way for the issuance of travel documents for failed asylum claimants after they have exhausted all legal recourse in Canada; and we are also discouraging would-be irregular migrants via targeted outreach, by correcting misinformation and providing the facts about Canada's asylum system, to make sure that people understand our laws and how this system works.

Mr. Chair, the border enforcement strategy will also maintain the integrity of Canada's border. We are investing in an ongoing building of capacity for interceptions between ports of entry as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police continues to increase its capabilities at key locations at the border and invest in new border technology equipment.

We are putting in place contingency measures to ensure that we are ready to respond to any potential increase in the number of irregular migrants, and we have introduced legislative changes, which we believe will improve our ability to manage flows along the border in the event of any increase and influx. This includes, for example, an amendment that will eliminate the three-day time period for officials to determine if an individual is eligible to make an asylum claim before the claim is automatically referred to the independent Immigration and Refugee Board. Removing this requirement will give the government greater flexibility to manage volumes at the border and will ensure that everyone is examined properly and in a fair way.

We are also putting in place measures to discourage irregular migration by those who try to make multiple claims in different countries—and this is described in the BIA legislative change. Just like other existing ineligibilities, these individuals will be barred from accessing the Immigration and Refugee Board. Instead, they will have access to an enhanced pre-removal risk assessment, or the PRRA, prior to removal, to ensure that they are not returned to a situation of risk.

Mr. Chair, I think it's very important to emphasize that no one who has been barred from accessing the IRB as a result of this new measure will be removed without a PRRA hearing. This proposed measure will also help lessen the caseload at the IRB, while ensuring that everyone receives fair treatment before any removals take place.

Mr. Chair, we maintain public confidence in our system by treating those who cross irregularly in exactly the same way as those who currently do so at regular points of entry, as a means of eliminating any incentive or perception of unfair advantage.

In addition, we're continuing to engage the United States to modernize and enhance the safe third country agreement. The Government of Canada has been in continual contact with the U.S. government on issues related to our shared border.

I also advise you that I have recently met with numerous stakeholders, including U.S. members of Congress, Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security officials, and we are seeking to enhance U.S. co-operation to address irregular migration challenges, including the modernization and enhancement of the safe third country agreement to the mutual benefit of both countries.

Canada and the U.S. share a mutual interest in ensuring the orderly handling of asylum claims while protecting the safety and security of our citizens and respecting the rights of those who are fleeing persecution.

We are investing in an asylum system that will be fast, fair and final. We are increasing funding for the asylum system as a whole to process higher volumes of claims. This will allow the IRB to make decisions on up to 50,000 asylum claims and 13,500 appeals by fiscal year 2021. With this additional funding the board will be able to finalize more decisions, thus reducing wait times for those in need of protection, and leading to faster, more efficient removal of failed claimants.

I would also note that in recognition of the increasing volumes of asylum claims, we're investing more in settlement funding as more people will be given protected person status. Given that protected persons are eligible for settlement services such as language training, this investment is an investment in the future of Canada.

In addition, we are increasing funding to allow for timely removal of individuals who are found not to be in genuine need of protection, and we are taking measures to expedite the removal of failed claimants who cross irregularly into Canada.

Finally, with the budget 2019 investments and the legislative proposal that I bring before you today, Canada will continue to respect its international obligations for people who are legitimately fleeing persecution, and will achieve finality in our asylum system.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I welcome your questions.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Thank you very much, Minister.

As members are aware, we'll do our best to restrict the questions and comments to part 4, division 16. But this is discussion and commentary on the budget, so people will appreciate that it might be a bit further ranging than that.

Mr. Tabbara.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

We just finished a study on global migration, and per the numbers you've given us, we do know that around 258 million people are on the move. Many of that number are refugees, as you mentioned in your statement.

You mentioned investing at the border—ensuring that our borders are secure, making sure that the men and women working at the borders have the proper tools and that the federal government is investing in that so that we maintain the integrity of our border. However, in previous years, $143 million was cut from CBSA. I want you to speak to that. When we're seeing this new global trend of 250 million-plus migrants on the move, we'd better be prepared to invest in our borders, or else we may see a situation that is hard to handle.

Since you've been in office, what are some of the changes you've seen? There have been cuts before; now we're investing. I want you to elaborate on that.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

We've been doing a number of important things.

I want to share some good news with this committee. We have seen significant reductions in the number of people who have been presenting themselves irregularly at our border and subsequently making a claim for asylum. So far, year-to-date, there has been about a 47% reduction in the number of people who have crossed our borders irregularly. That's a direct result of some very effective interventions that our agencies and officials have been undertaking—outreach into populations in the United States and elsewhere around the world to provide them with better information about our system. Unfortunately, there's a great deal of misinformation and people who would exploit those who are in a vulnerable position, which has I think contributed to that influx of people at our border.

We've also been working very closely with U.S. and other international officials with respect to the issuance of visas. We saw, for example, a significant number of people from one particular country in Africa who were issued tourist visas to come to the United States who subsequently presented themselves at the Canadian border seeking asylum. As a direct result of interventions made with U.S. border patrol officials and their visa issuance systems, as well as through investments made by CBSA, which put officials overseas to work collaboratively with the U.S. officials in the issuance of those visas, we've achieved a 73% reduction in the number of individuals coming from that country through the United States who subsequently present.

One of the things we found, and I hope this gets to the answer of your question, is that we also needed to significantly increase the capacity of the IRB to conduct timely hearings. Their ability to conduct those hearings was resulting in their falling further and further behind due to the volume of people who were presenting—and not just irregularly. We've also seen a significant increase in the number of people who are crossing regularly at airports, regular points of entry, and making inland claims. So we needed to invest in IRB's capacity to do timely hearings.

We made an investment last year of some $73 million to begin to build up their capacity. It significantly improved their ability to deal with that backlog, but we recognized that more needed to be done. That's why in budget 2019 we're adding over $207 million to the IRB, with the intent that by 2020 they'll be able to process 50,000 claimant hearings each year. As a result of better administration of those hearings, more timely results are being determined, and the amount of time it takes to resolve these eligibility claims is being significantly reduced. In achieving that reduction, I think we were able to create a system that is much more balanced and in which people have a reasonable expectation that if they are in need of protection, they'll receive it in a timely way, and if they are not in need of protection they'll be removed from Canada in a timely way.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Regarding some of these amendments that are being put forward, can you elaborate further on our international obligations and the global impact on migration referred to in the UN report? Are we ensuring that our immigration system is fair and compassionate to those who are coming to our borders?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I will tell you that among the pillars, the values on which I believe our immigration and refugee protection system is based, are both fairness and compassion and the upholding of our international obligations and the rule of law. We have ensured in every step of this process that we have complied with those requirements, not just with the letter of the international law, but with its spirit as well.

I am very gratified by the support and the comments made, for example, by the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, which has acknowledged that Canada, throughout all of these changes and investments we're making, at all times maintains and upholds its international obligations to provide people with access to due process and a timely determination of their eligibility, and that as a direct result of the investments we're making in the IRB, Canada is maintaining a world-class asylum determination system.

I've recently also had the opportunity to meet and spend a lot of time with Amnesty International. I explained exactly how our system was working and was able to provide them, for example, with reassurance that before any individual would be removed from Canada, regardless of whether or not they're eligible to have access to the IRB, regardless of the circumstances under which they have come, would be afforded an enhanced pre-removal risk assessment, and according to our laws, they would always have the opportunity to be heard, to have legal representation. If there was a determination that they were at risk, we would not send them back into a dangerous situation. Instead, they would be afforded protected person status.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

You referred to our system as fast, fair and final. Can you elaborate on that?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

To be a properly, efficiently managed system and to maintain a system of fairness, people must have an expectation of a timely determination of their application. As a result of under-resourcing and inadequate capacity at the IRB to come to a final determination, it was taking a long period of time.

That delay actually contributes to unfairness in the system. For people who truly are in need of protection in an unresolved situation, this does not contribute to their settlement and integration into Canadian life. At the same time, for those who were not eligible for our protection, the long delay has served as a bit of an incentive to make an application and to be engaged in that process. Making it faster is an investment that actually also contributes to its fairness.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Ms. Rempel.

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

Thank you.

I think maybe we should just cut the baloney.

You are sitting here, Minister, in an invented position with bureaucrats who don't report to you, but who, nonetheless, have the misfortune of working with you. We are in the final days of a Parliament where we've seen your government purposefully go out—again, regardless of your opinion on the American president—and poke the Americans in the eye with #WelcomeToCanada, then allow 40,000-plus people to illegally enter the country and claim asylum, while saying that the safe third country agreement upholds...and then putting in place a permanent tent city, establishing bussing programs to the GTA and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on hotels for people who likely, by your own colleagues' admission, don't have valid asylum claims.

Then you proceeded to vilify any Canadian who said that maybe people who are in upstate New York have not been subject to the same level of persecution as somebody coming from northern Iraq. Maybe we shouldn't be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on hotels and creating pulls into our system that result in years-long backlogs.

You've vilified anybody. Your colleague, the Minister of Immigration, and the Prime Minister himself tried to score cheap political points with #WelcomeToCanada and then calling people un-Canadian and racist if they questioned this, which has inflamed tensions. You sat here and you blustered that we can't call it illegal, and then you proceeded to spend hundreds of millions more dollars on this program. You ramped up the rhetoric until we started to get close to an election.

Then, all of a sudden, we have division 16 in the budget implementation act that includes measures that have been routinely panned by virtually every immigration professional in Canada and not likely to hold up to any sort of court challenge whatsoever. Frankly, people will testify during these hearings that these are likely to result in even more of an administrative backlog in and burden on the system.

You and your colleague then proceeded to blame this situation on Stephen Harper. Good on you; you've got to do what you've got to do, being paid to be a communicator. But the reality is that you inherited a 10,000-case backlog, which of course had been reduced from a massive backlog at the IRB under a previous Liberal government. We're now at a 71,000-case backlog at the IRB according to the Auditor General.

You said that the system is fast. Fast is five years-plus to have a refugee claim hearing.

You also added to the backlog by lifting the visa requirement on Mexico when your government had not done a formal review of the system. We've now seen, I believe, over 1,500 claims from Mexico in the last two months. We know that the about 22% of those claims will be determined to be valid. The average case load right now, or the average level, is about 55%, so we know that many of these are bogus claims.

I believe that we should have a strong asylum system. We should be allowing people into the country who have legitimate needs from persecution, but you've managed this system like it's a joke for votes. Fast? Come on, really? It's Stephen Harper's fault? When we form government in October, we're going to have to clean up a 120,000-case backlog left by you.

Now, in the dying days of this Parliament, when you have seen polling showing that your mismanagement of this is unpopular because people are saying this isn't fair, all of a sudden you now throw something into an omnibus budget bill. I had a colleague on this committee who had to fight to get it parsed out to review here—we only had one piece of legislation come through this committee in the entirety of this Parliament—and it's not even going to work. It's probably illegal and unconstitutional.

You haven't even picked up the phone to the Americans. Your department literally sat here and we asked them if the government had given them any direction to close the loopholes in the safe third country agreement. The answer, Minister—in case you weren't briefed—was nope. That's because you guys didn't even pick up the phone, saying that you don't know if the Americans can.... You didn't even pick up the phone and say that we have a problem here and maybe we should deal with this.

No. You had your foreign affairs minister go sit on a stage in the middle of a trade negotiation with the American president—again, regardless of how you feel about it—and compared him with Bashar al-Assad and the North Korean dictator. That's maybe not the best thing to do in the middle of a trade agreement while you're trying to negotiate asylum system reform.

This is incompetence. I've seen a lot of incompetence, but this is incompetence that has a human face, because the hundreds of millions of dollars that you've spent on the baloney you're peddling is costing Canadian taxpayers. It's costing people who are trying to come into this country legally, because you're redirecting resources to people who are abusing our system, and you're raising taxes on Canadians. This is not how to manage an immigration system.

Then, the government, to add insult to injury, hires you. They hire you to be a communicator on the file. You don't have authority over any of these bureaucrats. You don't have the ability to bring a memorandum to cabinet or instruct the RCMP on this sort of thing. You're a glorified mouthpiece for the Prime Minister on this stuff.

This has real implications. You guys have bungled so badly—so badly that it's embarrassing—and you should be held to account for it in the fall. We're just tired of it. This is a sham. This is a joke.

My question for you is this. Are you comfortable with your personal legacy—you've had a long career as minister—breaking Canada's immigration system for your, and the Liberal Party's, political gain?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I'm very comfortable. The job I was given included taking steps to more efficiently and effectively manage the issue of irregular migration and, as I've already advised this committee, I'm very—

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

I guess I'll take that as a yes, and I hope voters hold you to account for that in October.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

If you don't want the rest of the answer to that, Ms. Rempel, I'll defer to the chair.

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

I just—

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

You have about 25 seconds.

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

I just think the answer to that is yes. You know, I feel bad for you, Bill. I really do.

I do, so I wish you the best after October.

Thank you. I'm done.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Minister, and your staff for being here today. I could rant, but I won't. I'm going to ask some questions instead.

Jean-Nicolas Beuze from the UNHCR said in April in an op-ed that he was assured by the government that “no one” would be removed “without a hearing”. That is a quote. Currently, the pre-removal risk assessment does not guarantee a hearing. Is the government planning on changing the pre-removal risk assessment process and expanding it in use and scope to include a guaranteed hearing process?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

The answer is essentially yes. What we intend is that for people who have been determined to be ineligible for referral to the IRB because they have made a claim elsewhere—this is what is in division 16—in another country that is deemed to be a safe country, they will be given an opportunity to have a pre-removal risk assessment. That will not be just a paper exercise. There will actually be a hearing. They will have an opportunity to bring forward legal counsel, and it will be heard.

They also get the benefit of judicial review in a Federal Court. Just to facilitate that, included in these budget submissions is an increase in the number of federal judges—by three—in order to facilitate those hearings in a timely way.

Also, once they've had that hearing, if it is determined that they are at risk, they will not be removed.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay. You're saying that everyone will be guaranteed a hearing process. It will be conducted by judges through the Federal Court. Did I hear you correctly?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

No. It would be conducted by officials. The officials who currently conduct the pre-removal risk assessments will still have that authority and responsibility, but it will be a face-to-face hearing, not a paper exercise, in which an individual will have legal counsel—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm sorry. I'm going to interrupt you for a minute.