Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2017

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Oliphant (Don Valley West, Lib.)), Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Good morning, everyone. It is my great pleasure to be here today for the 72nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

We welcome our witnesses, some who are rejoining us from our last meeting and others who are new, to make opening statements.

We will begin with Mr. MacDonald.

[Michael MacDonald, Director General, Operations Sector, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the invitation to speak to the committee once again today on this important topic.

I'm joined by Paul MacKinnon, assistant deputy minister of strategic and program policy, as well as André Baril, director of asylum policy.

To address the recent influx of asylum seekers crossing into Canada from the United States outside of designated ports of entry, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has taken a number of actions. Most important, we are working in partnership with other departments as a member of the ad hoc intergovernmental task force on irregular migration as well as with agencies, other levels of government, and of course our external partners.

This whole-of-government approach is working well, including through the government operations centre, and we will continue to work together on this important issue. We know that the situation is in part a result of misinformation on various social media and other channels suggesting that those in the United States will receive preferential treatment if they come to Canada. This is, of course, incorrect. All claimants are treated according to existing laws.

The current process for asylum claimants is well established and effective. Asylum claims are governed in part by international treaties to which Canada, of course, is a signatory.

As such, we have a legal responsibility to assess all asylum claims and anyone claiming asylum in Canada has the right to due process. That being said, strict processes are in place for all those who seek protection, regardless of how they arrive in Canada.

Upon their entry into Canada, all asylum claimants crossing legally and illegally first undergo a rigorous screening and background screening to ensure that they have not committed serious crimes and do not pose health or safety risks to Canadians. A Canada Border Services Agency officer will then verify their identities using both biographic and biometric information. An interview is then conducted by a CBSA or IRCC official to determine an individual's eligibility for referral to the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Factors determining eligibility to claim asylum include whether the claimant has made a previous claim in Canada or if they have already received protection in another country. If someone is determined eligible, an asylum claim is then referred to the IRB for an independent assessment of the individual's claim based on the risks they face in their home country.

With the influx of asylum seekers through the summer in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, wait times for initial eligibility interviews had increased to several months. However, Mr. Chair, I am happy to report today that due to our increased efforts over the months of August and September, the wait time for such interviews is now reduced to a number of days or weeks depending on the circumstances.

Once an asylum claim is deemed eligible and referred to the IRB, the federal government covers the cost of eligible health services under the interim federal health program. Due to these exceptional circumstances, IFH certificates are now being issued to individuals after they have undergone security and background screening and have been scheduled for their initial eligibility interview.

After a claim is made, individuals may also apply for social assistance, which is the responsibility of provinces and territories. To help ease pressure on the social assistance budgets of provincial governments, IRCC has been fast-tracking work permit applications for all asylum claimants across Canada with a 30-day service standard.

In recent weeks, the government has also taken a number of steps to inform people in Canada and the United States of the facts regarding the asylum process here in Canada and to dispel false information. We are spreading the word that temporary protected status in the United States does not automatically entitle anyone to any status in our country. Some asylum claimants have believed this.

We have also launched an extensive outreach campaign with our partners, and are working with Canadian consulates to bring this message directly to diaspora communities in the U.S. who might be thinking about making the journey to Canada.

Mr. Chair, we feel it's important to continue to emphasize that while Canada supports managed migration and is a welcoming society, entering Canada irregularly can be dangerous for personal safety, and does not guarantee that you can then stay in Canada.

The same rigorous assessment applies regardless of how a person enters Canada and where they claim asylum.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Benzvy Miller, go ahead.

[Shereen Benzvy Miller, Deputy Chairperson, Refugee Protection Division, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning. My name is Shereen Benzvy Miller. As of early May, I am the deputy chairperson of the refugee protection division at the Immigration and Refugee Board, or the IRB. I'm accompanied by Greg Kipling, director general of policy, planning, and corporate affairs at the IRB. Thank you for inviting us this morning to discuss this summer's influx of refugee claimants in Quebec.

Several agencies are involved in dealing with this, so where does the IRB fit in? What does this sudden influx mean for the IRB?

The IRB is Canada's largest independent administrative tribunal. It only becomes involved in the process, as my colleague Mr. MacDonald suggested, once we get a referral from the IRCC or from the CBSA. They are at the front lines.

Before specifically discussing the influx of refugee claimants in Quebec and the response of the Refugee Protection Division, I would like to give you an overview of our mandate and the environment in which we operate.

Our mandate guides all the decisions we make in the processing of refugee claims and rulings on those issues, including with respect to the recent increase of refugee claimants in Quebec.

Our work essentially consists in determining whether a person has standing to be a refugee or whether they are a person in need of protection under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The Supreme Court of Canada, in the 1985 Singh decision, ruled that legal rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply to everyone—in other words, every person in Canada, including refugee claimants. In addition, the court stated that refugee claimants have the right to a refugee hearing when a serious issue of credibility is raised. That is why the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada was created in 1989.

Mr. Justice La Forest, in a 1995 Supreme Court of Canada decision, stated that the refugee status determination is “probably one of the most difficult judicial or quasi-judicial events existing in Canada”.

The adjudication of refugee claims is a complex matter for several reasons.

One, refugee protection division members are making profound decisions of life or death, often with incomplete or limited evidence.

Two, many of the claimants who appear before the board are vulnerable and suffer from mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, as a result of the trauma suffered in their homeland. So far in 2017, 93% of claimants required the assistance of an interpreter. We have the capacity to provide this service in 240 languages and dialects.

Three, in addition, the RPD members must be up to date on the developments of the law and must be experts on the country conditions of 126 countries so far in 2017, most of which are constantly in flux.

Last, the courts have consistently held that the RPD must ensure a high level of procedural fairness, due in part to the importance of the decision being made.

It is in that context that the Refugee Protection Division developed its approach to respond to the influx of refugee claimants crossing the Quebec border. The fact that many of those refugee claimants are living in temporary tents and do not have work permits has created a number of problems, both for the refugee claimants and for the Refugee Protection Division's processing of refugee claims.

First, since a large number of those refugee claimants were in a very precarious situation in Canada, fairness required that the Refugee Protection Division use all means available to process the refugee claims quickly. That means we have to prioritize the processing of as many cases as possible, to the extent that our resources permit, while meeting our overall mandate. Therefore, on August 11, we immediately created a response team, which will be active from September until the end of November.

We have appointed 17 of our members to that team and immediately took measures to hire new members so as not to impede our capacity to deal with the number of cases we normally receive on an ongoing basis.

The response team has both operational and adjudicative thrusts. I'd like to underline that this response has not diminished in any way IRB's ongoing commitment to one of the key objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which is the security of Canadian society. For example, the IRB has a publicly accessible policy that requires that the RPD not accept a refugee claim until CBSA has had a reasonable opportunity to complete its security screening. This policy remains in place for all claims, including those heard through the response team. There are other processes related to security matters that I would be happy to discuss during the question period, if they are of interest.

Since July 1, more than 8,000 claims were referred to the RPD. Before this, we were projecting an intake of 40,000 cases for this fiscal year. The strain on the organization to handle this many people's hearings is enormous, as our capacity to hear cases this fiscal year, following a plan of action for efficiency and internal reallocation of funds, is roughly 2,000 per month, or 24,000 per year.

Naturally, claimants whose hearings are not brought before a decision-maker of the response team in the next two months will wait to be scheduled like other claimants. Wait times before the Lacolle arrivals were already at approximately 16 months per person. Intake in the eastern region, in the month of September alone, was equal to the eastern region's intake for all of 2016.

To date, the response team has processed nearly 300 claims, and it expects to process up to 1,500 of them during its three-month term. Those decisions represent only a small portion of refugee claims compared to the thousands of decisions rendered every year, and they account for only a fraction of refugee claims that have been submitted to us since July.

In general, we will ensure to take advantage of all the opportunities and leverage technology, as well as our employees' expertise, to deal with the current situation.

Greg and I look forward to your questions. Thank you for having us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much, not only for this but for your ongoing work to help Canadians.

Mr. Anandasangaree.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, panel, for joining us. My first set of questions will relate to the initial screening.

Mr. MacDonald, can you advise us on the number of people who are detained as part of the screening process?

[Michael MacDonald]

Only the CBSA, and in fact the RCMP at the initial contact, would have the number of individuals who are detained and whether or not they move forward in the process. They will make the determination around their admissibility or inadmissibility into Canada.

That said, as Mr. Cloutier mentioned last week, the number of individuals being detained is very, very low.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Can you advise us, maybe just for the record, on whether any children have been detained, either as part of it being in the best interest of the child or because there are no alternatives? Has anyone under the age of 18 been detained as part of that process?

[Michael MacDonald]

I am not aware of the number of children who have or have not been detained. Only the CBSA would have those stats.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.

You mentioned that with respect to waiting times, 16 months is the current timeline for processing. We do have a number of cases that are in backlog, particularly the legacy cases. I understand that earlier this year, IRB outlined a process by which there would be processing of those claims dating back to 2012 and even before that.

Can you advise us on whether these claims will affect the program you have developed for the legacy files?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

For those who are not familiar with what we refer to as “legacy” cases, those are cases that are backlogged from before the time of the reform of the legislation, before 2012. There were originally close to 40,000 of those cases, but a little over 5,000 remain to be adjudicated. We refer to that as our legacy case backlog.

Those are being handled by a special team that was established in May and that started hearing cases just last month. They are expected to do the work to cover those 5,000 cases. They expect to be completed within two years. None of the activities that we are taking on now will affect that, because that is a stand-alone task force and initiative.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you.

With respect to the current 16-month timeline, that would pose a bit of a challenge with respect to the current legislation, would it not, in terms of the processing?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

You mean, in terms of legislation, are we still within the legislation?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Yes.

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Yes, we are.

We are within the legislation because the legislation does have timelines—30 days, 45 days, and 60 days—but it also allows for a fourth category of exception, which is for operational need.

We currently have over 40,000 cases in backlog, and essentially, the average processing times relate to the way in which we can schedule cases, hear them, and factor in all of the various streams that we need to bring to the fore.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

With the current 16-month timeline, do you expect that number to remain the same or do you expect it to increase because of the new numbers we received over the summer?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

I think it's safe to say it will increase. It's a mathematical calculation: the number of cases, the number of members and hearing rooms available to hear those cases, and the length of time it takes.

We have put efficiencies in place to ensure that we are effective in doing triage of cases. When cases only have, for instance, one issue to adjudicate, then that can be done in a shorter amount of hearing time, let's say two hours or less, as opposed to three hours or more.

We are trying to be as effective as we can in scheduling the timing, but the math is clear. Unless you put more resources into this problem, it takes longer times to schedule, so there will be longer wait times.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

What types of resources are we talking about? Are they additional members, additional staff, an overall dollar issue, and if so, what is the expectation?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

It is a dollar issue, and it is a combination, obviously, of members, hearing rooms, and staff. You need to support hearings. There's a lot of process around scheduling and other things to support the member's decision.

We're in the process now of trying to figure out what the gap is. Part of the problem is that all of our scenario-building is based on projections, and the projections, obviously, did not originally anticipate the kind of influx we had this summer. We've already had 8,000 referrals since July 1, which was wholly unanticipated.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. MacDonald, just in closing, with respect to the numbers you're dealing with, are there requirements for additional resources on the IRCC side?

[Michael MacDonald]

No, at this stage we are able to manage with all the resources we have within the department.

As I mentioned last week, we are moving individuals around, reassigning people, and taking very much the approach that we have in the overseas context where we send people out on temporary duty for six-week assignments from around our various processing networks. We're divided into networks. We're therefore able to move people around. We have, in fact, sent temporary duty people to Montreal to work at both the Complexe Guy-Favreau as well as Peel Street.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

I have a very quick question on that.

Does that reassignment affect any other operations with respect to processing times? If so, what kind of effect does it have on specific programs?

[Michael MacDonald]

There's always an impact when you move resources around. However, because we have multiple processing networks, we're able to disperse, and, in effect, diffuse any of the impacts. I've pulled some of the processing numbers and in fact our processing numbers are maintaining steady for different lines of business.

What's also advantageous for us is the fact that our domestic network in Canada, which is handling the asylum issues and handles only asylum issues, has only a few lines of business that it deals with, whereas our overseas network, for example, deals with the bulk of visitors, workers, and so on. Those lines remain unaffected.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.

Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to start with a context question.

Since January 2017, how many asylum claims have been made by people entering into Canada at unofficial points of entry?