Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I appreciate that, but there were no national guidelines to deal with those occurrences with respect to the illegal border crossers.

Is that correct?

[A/Commr Joanne Crampton]

The Criminal Code would apply, so yes, there are.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Okay, and now you have those guidelines in place, and you're following them.

Is there any other contraband or areas of criminality where national guidelines are in place or need to be in place?

[A/Commr Joanne Crampton]

Everything that we would look at falls under the Criminal Code. Possession of child pornography would fall under the Criminal Code so we would process that as we would anyone else in Canada in possession of child pornography, or any other contraband, or anything that would fall under the Criminal Code itself.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

If you have those guidelines, can you please provide them to both committees?

[A/Commr Joanne Crampton]

Certainly.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I understand that resources have been reallocated from across the country to deal with illegal border crossers, and I understand that these reallocations are having negative impacts in some circumstances on the communities policed by the RCMP, and resources are being depleted at some border crossings across the country.

I have a two-part question. Do either of your agencies have an accounting of the service reductions and impacts these reallocations are having? If you do, great. Can you provide them in writing to the committee? If you don't, can you give us a timeline for when those impacts can be provided to us?

The second part of the question is, have your enforcement capabilities and the community expectations for policing been reduced for deportation hearings with inland enforcement officers at official ports of entry, such that it strains current resources or limits their normal enforcement duties and roles?

[Jacques Cloutier]

On this point, Mr. Chair, it's been the practice of the CBSA to respond by deploying resources in a way that does not jeopardize the operations across the country. Our approach has been measured, and it's been responsible. You will note that generally speaking, there have been very few issues at any of our ports with respect to border wait time, and that's because of the approach we've taken, being measured in the deployment of our resources to respond as required. I do not believe there have been issues such as the ones you've highlighted.

[A/Commr Joanne Crampton]

The RCMP has reallocated federal resources from across Canada as we would for any significant event, and this does not impact front-line policing because these are dedicated federal resources, and we already have several dedicated to border.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Okay. I have time for one more question.

As we know that CBSA handles the screening, evaluation, and deportation of illegal border crossers, I understand also that many times when it has been determined that a person is to be deported, you're either going to detain them in custody or they're free. Once a hearing has ordered them to be deported, how long until they're removed from the country? What's the average cost for an immigrant to be detained? What's the average cost for someone to be removed from the country to their country of origin?

If you don't have that data with you, can you please provide them to both committees in writing?

[Jacques Cloutier]

We'll certainly provide the information. But I think it's important to know in the very general sense that removals are prioritized depending on issues related to—

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I'm just going to interrupt you for one last one. Approximately how many illegal border crossers are currently deported?

[The Co-Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I appreciate your effort to extend your time, Mr. Motz, but it's not going to work.

Some combination of Mr. Tabbara and Mr. Fragiskatos. Whoever is lead.

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

Thank you from the committee for being here.

There's a notion, a myth, that asylum seekers entering Canada from the United States are taking away spots from other refugee claimants. I've heard this is a separate channel. Can you please describe that and clarify that for the committee?

[Michael MacDonald]

Yes. This is the myth, and we've been dealing with that on an educational level. Different kinds of refugees come to Canada or persons who would eventually be protected persons or asylum seekers. Those we select overseas and bring to Canada are on a completely different stream and a completely different processing way. Asylum seeking has always existed. We have systems set up to do this separate kind of stream. The two do not commingle. From a processing perspective, spots are not taken from each other.

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

Can you provide the committee with previous numbers of asylum seekers? Can you go from 2005 until now because I think some people are not understanding that maybe in one month you might have seen a high number, but if you take a whole year, you might see a larger number, which we may have had in 2007, 2008, or 2009, etc. If you could provide that to the committee, that would be beneficial.

[Michael MacDonald]

Chair, I can provide that right now, if you'd like.

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

Okay, that's excellent.

[Michael MacDonald]

I'll read off the numbers very fast.

Overall, the point is this. Asylum seeking in Canada has its natural ebbs and flows, even through the year. It is tied to things like visa regimes, and when we don't have visa regimes, it's tied to world movements, natural disasters, wars, civil conflict. So there are a lot of push and pull factors. That said, in 2004, for example, there were just over 25,000 asylum seekers. When we jump to 2007 that number goes up to 28,000. In 2009, you see it going up to 33,000, however in 2010, it drops down to 23,000. In 2011, we see a spike back up to 25,000.

What's interesting though is in 2012, we see 20,500 and a few, but then in 2013, that goes down to 10,400. We then see that climbing to 16,000 in 2015. What's key for us is in 2016, last year, 23,915 asylum seekers came to Canada. That number obviously is very different thus far this year. We are looking at just over 32,000 asylum seekers. In other words, this represents a fairly significant increase over last year's numbers. Where 2018 goes, again, you can see the historical comparisons. It's very hard to predict what happens, and the world stage has a real impact on that.

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

Thank you very much.

I'll be sharing the rest of my time with Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

You cited numbers, and thank you for doing that. A recent study was put forward by the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy that said that, based on estimates they've put together from the Department of Immigration, by the end of the year, 36,000 people will have sought asylum in Canada. Then they compare that to previous years. It's quite interesting because I think it's important to put things in context. None of you have a political role, and this might come as a huge surprise, but politicians sometimes take advantage of things for political gain and ignore the context.

Let's put things in context. According to this study, 38,000 people sought asylum in Canada in 2000; 45,000 sought asylum in 2001; 37,000 sought asylum in 2008. While the numbers are quite high this year at around 36,000, we've dealt with these challenges before. Obviously, the sky has not fallen, if I can put it that way.

Could you speak to this? I think there's a sense in the country right now that this is a unique crisis, but obviously it is not a unique crisis, we've met these challenges before.

[The Co-Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, Mr. MacDonald, Mr. Fragiskatos has used all but 10 seconds of your time. If you have a 10-second answer....

[Michael MacDonald]

I think you raise an excellent point about the migration of people. We also have to remember that the Canadian border is extremely long. Asylum seekers move through natural corridors; there are about four natural corridors across Canada. What is different about this year compared to other years, and this is the anomaly, is a large number of people using one specific corridor though Lacolle, Quebec. Otherwise, the migration patterns, as well as the nationalities are very much aligned with the historical trends.

[The Co-Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.

Mr. Bernier.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you very much.

I am pleased to be with you today.

I have some questions about the situation on the border, particularly in Quebec. We know that the situation will be quite expensive for the Government of Quebec in terms of social costs. The Government of Quebec has already begun to issue cheques to these illegal immigrants. Could you tell me if you are aware of an agreement signed between Quebec and Canada to reimburse the expenses that Quebec is going to have to incur as a result of this crisis?