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.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Minister, thank you for coming.
In your short tenure as minister, and after the hearing today, I'm pretty impressed that we've been able to reduce irregular border crossings, I believe by 47% year over year, and this has been done without any special or separate legislation. In fact, it's been done by outreach, and efficient enforcement and processing by your department and the department under IRCC.
For me, obviously, British Columbia is an important constituency. Can you tell me how many irregular migrants have crossed over the Canada-U.S. border into B.C. in subsequent months...?
John Ossowski President, Canada Border Services Agency
For the calendar year to date for British Columbia, it is 67.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
For the calendar year of 2018, it was 479.
Liberal
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
How will this legislation keep curtailing an inflow of ineligible migration while protecting our international obligations and our compassionate and humanitarian history?
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
It will in a number of ways.
There is the measure that we've just recently put in place: that those who have already made a claim in another country, in the United States, a safe country, cannot subsequently make a claim in Canada as well and will not be referred to IRB. That rule is already in place for those people who would cross at a regular point of entry, so we're just ensuring...and this is on the principle of fairness.
People are subject to rules should they cross at a regular point of entry. We believe that people should be subject to similar rules should they cross at an irregular point of entry. That's to remove any incentive or advantage to crossing irregularly. We're trying to encourage people to enter the country appropriately.
There's also been a fairly significant outreach to those communities where people are, in fact, not in need of protection, but perhaps are desiring to migrate to Canada for economic reasons and a better life. A lot of it has been outreach, as well, to direct people to the appropriate way to make an application to emigrate to Canada, and I think that those efforts have proven successful as well. However, we also recognize that we need to be able to respond to whatever presents itself at our borders.
We've been building up our capacity because we want to be able to assure Canadians that, first of all, the safety and security of the country is being maintained and that, secondly and equally as important, we're upholding our international obligations and the Canadian rule of law. Canadians expect a fair and compassionate system, but they also want it to be well managed.
We're making sure that we are rightsizing, and we're working very collaboratively with our partners in the United States and other countries to make sure that proper intelligence is gathered, that people take proactive steps to manage the situation and that those who do come are given access to a faster system. I don't wish to characterize the system as fast enough currently; it's not. That's why we're making significant new investments in budget 2019 to increase the capacity of IRB to conduct timely determinations of eligibility.
We're also working hard to make sure that those processes and systems are efficient so that the CBSA can fulfill its responsibility for those who are determined to not be eligible, and so that they can effect timely removals for those individuals.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
What has the UN office for refugees' reaction been with respect to this proposed legislation?
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
We've had a very positive response. Of course, we consulted with them prior to the implementation of any measures.
Their concern was that—and exactly the same concern was expressed to us by Amnesty International—they wanted to make sure that any individual, before being removed to a situation of potential risk, would have the benefit of a pre-removal risk assessment, and that we would acknowledge the importance of the same decision in this country so that people would have the opportunity to have legal counsel, a proper hearing and a review at our federal courts.
We were able to provide that assurance, and UNHCR has strongly indicated to us that it believes that the measures we are putting in place uphold Canada's international obligations, are entirely consistent with principles of asylum primacy and afford people with what it believes is a world-class asylum determination system in Canada.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
For the record, this applies to people who have claimed asylum in countries like the United States, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and if they've claimed it there, they cannot reclaim it here.
By the same token, they would not be returned back to a country that is considered by Canada as at risk, where it would be unsafe to return them. Those would be protected, as I think Ms. Kwan—
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
First of all, the countries to which they've already made a claim—if they have—are those countries with which we have an information-sharing agreement, and those are the Five Eyes countries that you mentioned. An important part of this process is that, even if people were not eligible to be referred to IRB because they had made claims in one of those other countries, they would still be given the benefit of pre-removal risk assessments, and where there are determinations that they would be at risk, they would receive Canada's protection.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Do you have an idea of what this will affect in terms of volume? How much of our volume of refugee applications would this affect? Is it 10%, 20% or 30%? What cohort would—
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Of the 40,000 people who entered Canada irregularly at our borders, I understand that approximately 3,000 of them had previously made a claim in the United States.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's about at the 3,500 level over a two-year period.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
What's your understanding on the legalities of it? It was raised that it may be subject to the Supreme Court ruling in Singh v. Minister of Employment and Immigration. Has your department looked at it, have both ministries looked at it, to see if this would withstand a charter challenge?
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
I believe it would. Of course, everything is subject to the potential of a challenge, but it is our strong belief that this is constitutional. It's consistent with previous court decisions, and it upholds our legal obligations and our obligations internationally.
Liberal
The Acting Chair Liberal Nick Whalen
That's great.
As we move to our next round of five minutes, I do recognize that the time belongs to the members and they can use it however they wish, but I hope we can be respectful and try to keep the questions related to the legislation before us.
Welcome, Mr. Paul-Hus. You are not a regular member of the committee, but I'd like to hear your questions.
If you'll be speaking French, anyone needing interpretation should put in their earpiece.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Whalen.
Good afternoon to you, Minister, and to the officials here with you.
Minister, today the Auditor General's report came out on the management of immigration applications, specifically, the processing of asylum claims. It's quite a critical report.
Let's set aside the matter of those who come to Canada to claim asylum and talk about the government's administrative issues.
As far as dealing with the problem goes, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship couldn't do the job, and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness had bigger fish to fry, so the government opted to create a new position, Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction, to coordinate the response. You were appointed to the position last year.
Can you tell us how you've been effective in the job?
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Frankly, it was a little less than a year ago. In the responsibilities I have been given, I have been working very closely with senior officials. I think we've made some significant progress, as I've already iterated to you. We've seen a significant decline in the number of people who have been presenting themselves irregularly since my appointment, and frankly that had nothing to do with my appointment. It is directly as a result of some very effective measures that have been implemented by our officials and the work they have done internationally. It's very important to acknowledge that.
We've also brought forward a number of measures that we believe will continue to build upon the capacity in budget 2018 and now subsequently in budget 2019, and rightsize the ability of the IRB to do timely determinations of people's eligibility. And we brought forward measures that I think remove some of the disadvantages and perhaps incentives that existed in the previous system that encouraged people to cross irregularly. We made—
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
I have to stop you there, Minister. You're still talking about people who want to come to Canada and the fact that you're trying to discourage them. We all know changes need to be made to the third safe party agreement between Canada and the United States, but I'm talking about the problems we have right now internally.
The federal government invested more than a billion dollars over three years. That doesn't include what the provinces have spent to manage the cases. How do the bill and the funding being sought fix the problems internally?
Today, we found out that everyone works in a vacuum, without any coordination of efforts. The people at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the people at the Canada Border Services Agency each work in their own little corners and don't talk to one another. The backlog is huge, but the two institutions don't communicate. The Auditor General noted problems with the information technology systems.
You've been appointed and this is now your responsibility. How is the bill going to make things better?
Liberal
Bill Blair Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Yes, perhaps you are unfamiliar with the asylum system management board that has been established that brings together the senior officials of IRCC, CBSA, the RCMP, of all departments that have a responsibility to manage the issue of the refugee system, including irregular migration. That was formed in 2018. They have significantly improved the collaboration and horizontal integration of these services.
As well I think you'll see reflected in budget 2019 that we've identified where additional investments were required at IRCC, at IRB, at CBSA, at the RCMP, in order to support the important work that they do to maintain the integrity of our borders and to manage in an efficient, fair, consistent way—