Evidence of meeting #158 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
President, Canada Border Services Agency
We're still having fruitful discussions, but it's a process. It's ongoing, and there's a lot of goodwill, but it's situated in a larger context of the bilateral relationship, so it could take some time.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
What process has actually taken place? Is it discussion with equal departments in the U.S.?
President, Canada Border Services Agency
Yes. In fact, I was down in the United States a couple of weeks ago, and I had discussions with Homeland Security about this. They expressed a lot of goodwill to look at the matter.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Do you think solutions to that should become part of division 16?
President, Canada Border Services Agency
I think that's a separate treaty we have with the United States. It would be separate from any legislative frame we would establish through this process.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
As an example, if a person in Canada were to cross the U.S. border between border crossings—between ports of entry—how would they be treated if they sought asylum in the United States? How would they be treated under the safe third state agreement?
President, Canada Border Services Agency
Are you talking about under the new proposed legislation, or currently?
President, Canada Border Services Agency
Currently, if they show up between ports of entry in the United States, and they had already started a claim process in the United States, they would still be able to initiate their claim here. Is that correct?
Jennifer Lutfallah Director General, Enforcement and Intelligence Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
That's correct.
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Mr. Chair, they would have access to the U.S. asylum system. They cannot send those individuals back to Canada, because the treaty works both ways. If they went into the U.S. at an official port of entry, they would, of course, be returned to Canada.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Mr. Chair, this Auditor General's report states that 65% of hearings were postponed at least once before a decision was made. Every time a meeting is postponed, it adds a lot of time—usually an average of five months, according to the Auditor General, as opposed to cases with no postponements. About a quarter of the claims were postponed multiple times, adding at least eight months to the delay—25% of the claims.
That wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, but it appears that in some cases, new claims were being dealt with before the postponed ones. It looks like a very high percentage of that.
Can you elaborate on why that would be? What process wasn't followed there, to allow that to happen?
Senior Director, Refugee Affairs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I can't comment in detail about how the scheduling and postponements are taking place, but cases are postponed for multiple reasons. It could be that security screening is not ready for the hearing. It could be for an actual justice and fairness matter, when applicants, claimants or their counsel are not able to come to a hearing, or for operational, internal reasons, such as if the decision-maker at the IRB is sick or unavailable.
Then the IRB proceeds with the postponement, and it's up to them as to how they schedule this, in light of all the other claims they have scheduled.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
A lot of those postponements, from what I understand, were due to administrative issues that were—according to the Auditor General's report—within the government's control. If you look at these boards' scheduling practices, it says the postponed hearings should be rescheduled within 10 days, but only 10% of them were. What's being done to improve that?
Acting Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Maybe I'll add a couple of pieces to André's comment.
One of the things we've established with our asylum management board is a specific conversational topic to look at what we call “pain points”—the kinds of things that are clogging up or blocking the system—and then peeling those back to determine where the root causes are. For example, say there's a delay in security clearances—why is that? Is it an information-sharing piece, or is it because it's with another department? Other things that we are—
Liberal
The Acting Chair Liberal Nick Whalen
Thank you, Ms. MacDonald. Hopefully, we can get some more examples in the next set of questions.
We move now to Monsieur Ayoub.
You have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to plunge right into the new directions.
Currently, when an asylum claim is made in Canada, the first step is to determine whether the immigration applicant or refugee claimant is eligible. The assessment must be done within three days.
Going forward, that deadline will be eliminated. What will the new process be? Why was the deadline eliminated? What will the next steps for these people be? Will they still be treated fairly?
Senior Director, Refugee Affairs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
What the bill actually does away with is the fact that a claim is automatically deemed eligible when the three-day deadline has not been met, even if it has not been assessed by a Canada Border Services Agency or Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada officer.
We still plan to assess the eligibility of a claim in a timely fashion, whether it be within eight hours, as Mr. Ossowski mentioned, or a few days, depending on the information we receive when the claim is made.
However, in the event of an influx of migrants at the border, we want to give officers the time and ability to properly assess the eligibility of a claim before it is automatically referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
It's an additional security measure, then, to provide the flexibility needed to manage a higher number of claims. Is that the rationale behind the measure?
Senior Director, Refugee Affairs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes. It will give our officers more time to assess admissibility to Canada and the eligibility of a refugee claim.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
How often are claims denied outright or immediately referred to another authority?
Senior Director, Refugee Affairs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
According to our figures, since January 2017, approximately 23,400 claims have been automatically referred to the board prior to our officers having completed their assessments. Of course, they keep working on the assessment, even after the file has been referred. At that point, we identified about 25 cases where we had to review eligibility and stop the process initiated by the board.
Director General, Transformation Office, Transformation, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's very important to point out that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is committed to processing claims quickly and efficiently. It is absolutely in our interests to identify those claimants, make sure they have access to health care and ensure they obtain a work permit so they can enter the workforce as quickly as possible.