Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 7th, 2019

[Paul MacKinnon]

I think, Mr. Chair, it just brings clarity as to the objective of these provisions, and it aligns with similar existing objectives in IRPA and simply states that the purpose of this is to maintain the integrity of Canada's asylum system. It's a contextual type of statement that is consistent with other parts of IRPA.

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

So there wasn't something that was unfair or inefficient in the existing piece of legislation.

It's just a curious statement to make, but maybe you've answered it.

[Paul MacKinnon]

I think, Mr. Chair, that would be the answer.

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

I won't push it any further.

Mr. Chairman, the Auditor General has specifically called out the fact that the asylum claim system is inadequately resourced. I'm not one—nor is my party—to advocate for increased government spending, but we do have legal and treaty obligations in determining who is or is not a genuine refugee. That requires an adequately resourced determination system.

What efforts has the government made to come up with a more flexible funding model that responds to changes in the number of applications year over year?

[Lori MacDonald]

One of the things we've begun working on right now with our colleagues at Finance and Treasury Board is to develop a more consistent funding model to take into consideration the fluctuations we see in the system and ensure we have the resources available to us in a timely manner.

Of course, we do things all the time, as Mr. MacKinnon indicated earlier. When we see pressures in a certain area we move resources around; we talk to each other about how we can address them. That's not a sustainable way to do business, so part of the conversations we're having with our financial officials and Treasury Board is on how we can create a system that allows us to be more fluid in terms of our resourcing. We've begun those conversations and we're looking at the things that impact us, such as spikes in asylum claims or impacts in terms of movements, so that we can develop a formula that will help us do that. That work is under way now, and we hope to have something here in the coming months.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

You have about 20 seconds left, Mr. Tilson.

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

I'll pass, thank you.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

I just want to get back to the IRCC, the new stream that they will be undertaking for about 3,500 cases, the pre-removal risk assessment process. How many cases do they handle now?

[Louis Dumas, Director General, Transformation Office, Transformation, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Chair, we handle approximately 2,400 cases per year.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

You handle 2,400 now. You're expecting to have another 3,500 added to your case load. Where are the resources coming from to handle that?

[Louis Dumas]

Through IRCC, Mr. Chair, we have an extremely robust cadre of decision-makers across Canada and overseas. Recruitment is happening from within IRCC, people who have the experience and expertise in making those difficult decisions.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

How many people would you add to IRCC to be dedicated for this specific stream?

[Louis Dumas]

At the moment, Mr. Chair, I could not provide you with an exact answer, but we're looking actively at the different models and what would be required, as well as the training that would be required to ensure that these individuals make good decisions.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Previously, we were told that they were already trained. Now you're saying they need to be trained. You need to find the people, and you don't know how many people you're going to find to do this work.

[Louis Dumas]

At the moment we have a cadre of individuals who are making PRRA decisions. In addition to that, in order to answer the demand and the inventory that has been created, we are hiring extra people and will be providing training to those individuals.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay, so you're looking to hire. You don't have them yet, and you don't anticipate how many you'll hire to deal with this 3,500 case load.

I'm going to park that for a minute. I want to ask some other questions.

I see that the government has added—aside from the U.S., which is the obvious place—the Five-Eyes countries to this list of countries from which people won't be eligible to make an application. Australia is one of those. In 2016 the UN ruled that Australia's indefinite detention of refugees on Nauru island on secret security grounds was both arbitrary and illegal. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups have long spoken against this continuing practice. In 2017, the courts in Australia ordered the government to pay over $70 million to refugees and asylum seekers who had suffered physical and mental injuries while being detained in Manus Island detention centres. The Global Legal Action Network and Stanford Law School's International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic went to the International Criminal Court arguing that the treatment of refugees on these island facilities has reached the level of crimes against humanity.

Are crimes against humanity acceptable as long as we have an information-sharing agreement?

[Paul MacKinnon]

Mr. Chair, in that specific case, because those individuals would not have made a claim in Australia, because they're not allowed to make a claim there, they would go through the IRB process here in Canada. We would not put them through this process, because this cohort is all based upon the fact that they've actually made a bona fide claim.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

What if they've actually made a claim? If they somehow made their way to the U.S. and made a claim in the U.S., you would be making them go through the process. No?

[Paul MacKinnon]

If they made a bona fide claim in the U.S., yes. But to your specific example—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

No. Even if they did make a bona fide claim, even if they just made a claim, by virtue of the fact that they made a claim in the U.S. under this system, under Bill C-97, they would be rejected.

[Paul MacKinnon]

Yes. But in your previous example, if they attempted to make a claim in Australia, they would not be allowed to, in that example. So they would not come through this cohort.

If they were in the U.S. and made a claim, yes, they would apply to this cohort.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Let's say that they somehow left Australia, got to the U.S. and made a claim there, and then crossed over to Canada. They would be going through this process. I'm illustrating this point as a real issue with this process that the government has instituted and the potential flaws within it that put people at risk.

[Paul MacKinnon]

Mr. Chair, just to clarify a little bit, it is important to remember that when they come to Canada, we are assessing them under our international obligations. It's different from.... We're not sending them back to a country for adjudication. They are going through the PRRA process here, and we're confident that meets our international obligations.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'll just take that for a spin.

If, in that scenario I highlighted, you are saying to the person, “Okay, we won't reject you—you will now go to IRCC to be assessed under the PRRA process”, isn't that a duplication of work, when you already know that Australia has this history? Hence, I mention the point that's been raised by the Auditor General about duplication. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. You have people applying for an expedited process. In the meantime, they're still just being processed regularly. It turns out that the expedited process is not any faster than a regular process.

Here you are setting up another system to deal with this dedicated group of people, effectively, as far as I can tell, creating a duplication in process. I'm not quite sure how efficient it would be. Maybe in numerical terms, if we diverted 3,500 cases to this other process, it would seem to lessen the demand on the IRB. The IRB, even by doing that, still has over 40,000 cases before it, and the IRB isn't funded adequately to do the job. The whole point of the Auditor General's report speaks to the inability of the government to ensure that the IRB has rapid access to resources to process claims. This really doesn't solve the problem. The lack of resources does not really solve the problem.

I have another question that I would like to ask. I'm not sure if I missed it when I went to the bathroom.

You have a provision under this bill that would allow the government to bar the issuance of temporary visas to all citizens of a country if that country refuses to issue passports to some of its citizens. So, effectively, you would punish a group of people from a particular nation if that government is refusing to issue passports to some of its citizens.

Under what circumstances do you anticipate this being used? Why was this actually put in Bill C-97?