Evidence of meeting #72 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 irb.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
It would be very useful if you could table that with the committee.
Right now let's say the RCMP flags somebody with either a peace bond or an investigation, is that information shared either with your department or with the IRB?
Director, Asylum Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
What happens now is that there is a front-end security screening that's conducted by the CBSA. They do this in coordination with the RCMP and CSIS.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Afterward, let's say somebody is in the system....
Director, Asylum Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
When they find something that is of importance, they will advise and there will be an intervention that's done.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Is there anything further done after the initial screening? Let's say that somebody has gone through that initial screening and everything is okay, and then something happens. Is that “and then something happens” shared with either your department or the IRB?
Director, Asylum Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes. We have the authority to ask for a suspension of the procedure while this—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
But how is that information shared? How does that information get to you?
Director, Asylum Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It is CBSA that is the point of contact for any security matters. They are the ones who would ask for the procedures to be suspended while those—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
If an investigation is triggered, the RCMP would tell CBSA?
Conservative
Director, Asylum Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
You'd have to ask CBSA.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay. Are there cases where that information wouldn't be shared? Let's say somebody gets triggered for espousing extremist—
Liberal
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
On the backlog, there are 16,000 cases in terms of delays in the processing for IRB at the moment.
Deputy Chairperson, Refugee Protection Division, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
It's 1,400 per month.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
It's 1,400. Given the amount of delays that you're experiencing, how many resources would you need to actually process these delays?
Deputy Chairperson, Refugee Protection Division, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
There is no straight answer to that question.
Essentially, we are unlikely to ever be in a scenario where we have zero backlog.
NDP
Deputy Chairperson, Refugee Protection Division, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Yes, currently the wait time is 16 months.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
How did that compare to last year? What were the wait times for the IRB in terms of processing cases?
Deputy Chairperson, Refugee Protection Division, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
It depends which category of cases you were looking at. It's a little bit like—
Deputy Chairperson, Refugee Protection Division, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
For asylum seekers, I understand. Generally it was considered to be, for 50% of the cases, 6.5 months. Those were the cases that were within the time frames.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Is it a fair statement then to say that asylum cases are taking longer to finalize because of the lack of resources for the IRB on average?
