Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 7th, 2019

[Paul MacKinnon]

On the member's previous question, Mr. Chair, in the example of folks in Australia who are going off to one of the two islands, they don't actually make a claim in Australia. They're not allowed to make a claim in Australia. If they ended up wending their way to Canada somehow and made a claim here in Canada, they would get access to the IRB. They would not be part of this cohort because the key element here is that you have made a claim in one of those other countries for which we share information and, in essence, those individuals did not make such a claim.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Okay. Thank you.

I wonder if folks at the table could talk in more specifics about the significant amount of activity that has taken place—not as a result of the AG's report, but coming out of the Yeates report that was tabled a number of years ago—to help build up the capacity of the departments involved and the Immigration and Refugee Board, which the Yeates report clearly articulated was under-resourced and unable to deal with the demand on the system.

Could we maybe talk about the laundry list of activities that have increased efficiency and resources for the Immigration and Refugee Board to help process the demands on our asylum system?

[Paul MacKinnon]

I can offer a couple of comments and maybe others want to jump in.

Certainly there have been broad investments, Mr. Chair, across all agencies simply to keep up with capacity. Those investments have been made both in the 2018 budget and significantly over the billion dollars in this 2019 budget.

There have been investments in intelligence gathering and intelligence analysis that look at these cohorts broadly and determine how we can work with other countries, for example, on the issuance of visas. A lot of significant work was done, Mr. Chair, with our colleagues in the operations branch working with U.S. officials and officials in other countries on the issuance of U.S. visas to those citizens because, as you know, a big percentage of people arriving primarily in Quebec actually have a valid U.S. visa.

We've had significant outreach by members of Parliament and others, in particular right after the Haitian arrivals, which we think helped, at least in part, with those numbers of irregular arrivals. I might keep it there to be respectful of time. I don't know if John has other comments.

[John Ossowski]

I would simply add that the essence of the Yeates report was that we needed to look at it as a system and that we needed to make sure that we are better coordinated than we currently were. That's something we took to heart. We've referred to our asylum systems management board a couple of times now. That's the mechanism that we used to sort of work together without impinging upon the independent, quasi-judicial findings and processes that the IRB had.

There's still a lot of stuff that we can do to make sure that the scheduling is done properly and on how we prioritize our work, but it doesn't impede or infringe on their independence in making decisions.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

It might be helpful for people at this table to understand how the IRB is better triaging claims for asylum as a way to make the system more efficient and ensure there is finality and fairness in a fast manner. Could we talk a little bit about that?

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Respond very briefly, please.

[Louis Dumas]

I want to point out, Mr. Chair, that I've talked about the integrated claim analysis centre pilot that we had in Montreal. We are ramping up to have a similar centre in Toronto where most of the claims are being presented. They're working at the claims according to three phases, if I may. They're really looking at how we can stream some of those claims and be more efficient in their process. They're looking at the staffing, the hiring and the training that we've talked about. They're looking at IT solutions for the different entities participating in this centre—IRB, CBSA and IRCC—and having a more centralized registry that would assist in the process of the claims.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Perhaps you could go for four minutes if you would like, Ms. Kwan. Mr. Maguire and I will each take a minute at the end.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much. That's very kind.

I want to go back to the Australian example for one minute. For the people who came from Australia and somehow got into the United States to make a claim, if they then make the decision to cross to Canada, they would be subject to the IRCC process. That is the point. They will not go to the IRB; I want to say that very clearly.

If the IRCC's pre-removal risk assessment process provides the same standards and threshold as the IRB, then why set up another process? Why not just go through the IRB if it's effectively the same?

That's what I'm hearing from the government, the minister and officials. They say, “Don't worry, we will actually have due process afforded to them”. Why set up a different process if all things are being equal and they will just have to go through the process in any event?

[Paul MacKinnon]

The minister referred to the term “deterrents”. That part of this is also about potential deterrents in the system. People will not make a claim in one of these countries, then come to Canada and make another claim.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

In essence, this is a process to send a message to people, potentially putting them at risk, by saying, “Don't bother coming if you've already made a claim, even though you may very well have a valid claim.” Even though, under the international refugee convention, they may very well have a valid claim, we're just saying to them, “Don't come anyway.”

We're talking about this having an impact on 3,500 claims, which is what the government's projecting. Six months from an election, the government wants to make a political statement to people to the effect, “Don't come to make a claim”, thus really aligning itself with the Conservatives in saying to the refugee claimants, “Don't come to Canada to make a claim.” In essence, that's what I'm learning now in this process.

I get it. This is a political comment and not directed to the officials, but to the government. I wish the minister were here to hear this, because in essence, we're playing with fire and with people's lives just to send a message. At what risk? People who actually have a valid claim have nowhere to go. With nowhere to go, they are subject to this situation. That's what we're talking about. To me, I find it astounding.

We will have other witnesses come forward who will talk about the risks that people are facing, including being in the United States. I know that the government and UNHCR will say they are in a safe country, but there are a whole lot of other experts who say they are not. In fact, Amnesty International brought an expert that we had a breakfast reception for—with all the parties and senators—and the experts from the Americas told us that, in fact, people there are faced with the worst violence in the world. They are faced with sexual and gang violence. Those individuals, seeking asylum in the United States, will be rejected out-of-hand because the Trump administration has declared that it will no longer accept those claims. Those individuals are being forced to seek asylum somewhere else.

Children as young as seven to nine are being recruited by gangs, and the workers there were trying to negotiate with gang members. What were they trying to negotiate? “Please don't recruit the children until they're 13.” That's what they were negotiating. That's why people cross over irregularly, because they are absolutely at risk. What is Canada doing? We're going to throw up as many barriers as we can to say to people, “Please don't come to Canada”—just so that we can reduce our numbers. That is the political game that's being played, really catering to the Conservatives and the alt-right in a move to close Canada's border.

Frankly, I do—

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Thank you very much, Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

—find it shocking. Yes, these are my four minutes, so I'm going to use them accordingly.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Those were your four minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

It's unbelievable that we have now arrived at this stage.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Thank you very much, Ms. Kwan.

Mr. Maguire.

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

I wanted to make the point earlier, when I was raising the issue of postponed hearings, the 10 days.... It's a concern of people through the whole process, that those that were postponed were actually jumped in the queue by new claimants coming in and getting ahead of them, leaving the postponed to be postponed even longer. That was a point that needed to be made. We can read the conclusions from the report on the delays and that sort of thing. I was going to read it, but I won't bother reading the conclusion.

We're here to say that, in other words, it's not the bureaucracy's fault that all of these things have folded out into such long wait times, backlogs and everything else. It's just the fact that the government didn't give departments the flexibility or the resources to shorten the backlogs in a timely manner.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Ms. MacDonald, is the amount allocated in the budget for the delivery of this program the amount that was recommended by your department, or is it a lesser amount?

[Lori MacDonald]

It was the option we put forward to our government, taking into consideration all the various factors we were dealing with across the system.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Thank you very much.

We will recess for people to grab some dinner and recommence at the scheduled meeting time of 5:30.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Thank you for coming to this third round of the 158th meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, where we're discussing part 4, division 16 of Bill C-97, the 2019 budget implementation act. We just finished meeting with Minister Blair and ministerial officials on this part of the budget.

We'd like to thank Christian Leuprecht, professor in the department of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada; Nafiya Naso, from the Canadian Yazidi Association; and Jean-Nicolas Beuze, a frequent flyer to our committee now, from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and its representative in Canada, for being with us today.

Mr. Leuprecht, if you are well settled after your late train, I'll begin with you or we can begin somewhere else.

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht, Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual]

I'm ready to go.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Please, you have seven minutes.

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

Thank you for inviting me.

I will be pleased to answer any questions you have in either official language.

I'll provide some context and then give a sense of where we stand with the current bill and some of the things in it that I think could be remedied in a broader way forward.

To be clear, there is a whole series of pressures in the international context, everything from population growth of another three billion people in the next four decades, to climate change, social and economic disruptions, civil and religious strife and whatnot, that's going to put general and continuing pressure on migration, and in particular issues of war and civil war, and civil-war-like circumstances in some countries in South America. In that sense, we can expect the demand to remain the same or more likely to intensify.

Co-operation with the U.S. has been absolutely critical to maintaining the integrity of the system, and includes everything from enhanced travel authorizations to biometric travel documents and intelligence exchange. I cite as one example the co-operation with the U.S. authorities between mid-2017 and mid-2018 that has reduced the flow of irregular travellers, border crossers, from 87 to 42 a day.

It shows that demonizing our neighbour or calling into question the rule of law, circumstances and the integrity of our neighbour is strategic folly. Given the changes we've made to make it more difficult to come to Canada by air for people who might otherwise be inadmissible, we will continue to expect greater pressure along the land border, and so co-operation obviously is going to remain integral to...since we only have one bilateral partner on the land border.

Then there are supply issues that were already mentioned by the Auditor General and others, like Neil Yeates in his report on the system.

I also need to point out in context that there's a social contract with regards to immigration into Canada, and it has three cornerstones. First is a well-administered migration policy around rules and principles—a principled approach with the rule of law preserving the integrity and security of Canada's borders. The second component is the successful economic and political socialization and integration of migrants into Canadian society, and the third is that immigration is of collective benefit to Canadian society and to Canadian prosperity overall. Those three components are integral to safeguarding the integrity, the sustainability and legitimacy of the immigration system.

The Auditor General's report, as well as Neil Yeates' report and others, point out that there are questions from Canadians and others around how well-administered the system is. There are questions about being able to control borders to ensure a principled approach to migration. There are challenges around socialization and integration of migrants. At 1% of our population, we now have a legal immigration rate compounded by a surge in refugee claimants. There are serious challenges around whether the premise over the last hundred years of immigration and socialization of migrants is going to continue to sustain our society. I think there's also some question about whether we'll be able to sustain the collective benefits.

The broader problem is people taking advantage of the right to claim asylum without meeting the criteria for eligibility. The challenge then is to make Canada's refugee policies more timely and effective in distinguishing between persons who are genuinely in need of protection within the scope of Canada's international agreements from aspiring economic migrants who are seeking to exploit loopholes in Canada's border management system.

To that effect, we have had and we've been observing a trend towards what I might call a “libertarian” approach to borders that is essentially facilitated by the ease of transportation, communication, broad communication strategies, misinformation and disinformation through social media and otherwise in accessibility to Canada and whatnot. All of this is facilitated on a global scale by systematic human smuggling that is well-documented and amounts to some $10 billion a year. So by not ensuring that we have an integral system, we are also implicitly aiding and abetting the global human smuggling industry.

I also wanted to dispel the idea that somehow we can wait out the current political executive in the U.S. The phenomenon we're seeing might have been exacerbated by some decisions made by the Trump administration, but we can demonstrate empirically that it long precedes the advent of the Trump administration, so it will persist beyond the Trump administration and we will need to find a sustainable approach to this.

By way of example, two-thirds of the people who cross irregularly—

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Excuse me, Mr. Leuprecht, you're speaking fast, and it makes it difficult for the interpreters to—