Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Good morning, everyone.

I call this meeting to order.

Thank you, everyone, for coming in early in the morning, and special thanks to Ms. Kwan, because I know it's very early in British Columbia. Thanks to all of the members for accommodating this time.

Welcome to meeting number 16 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

To allow our services to prepare this room for the next meeting, we should adjourn this meeting no later than 10 a.m. Given the ongoing pandemic situation and in light of the recommendations from the health authorities as well as the director of the Board of Internal Economy on January 28, 2021, to remain healthy and safe, to all of those attending the meeting in-person, please maintain physical distance of at least two metres from others. Wear a non-medical mask when moving in the meeting room and preferably wear a mask at all times, including when seated. Maintain proper hand hygiene by using the provided hand sanitizers at the room entrance and wash your hands well with soap regularly. As the chair, I will be enforcing these measures for the duration of the meeting, and I thank all of the members in advance for their co-operation.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee is resuming its study of the immigration and refugee measures for the people of Hong Kong. Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants to this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted. For those participating virtually, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen, either French or English. With the latest Zoom version, you may speak in the language of your choice without the need to select the corresponding language channel. You will also notice that the platform “raise hand” feature is now in a more easily accessed location on the main toolbar, should you wish to speak or alert the chair.

For members participating in person, proceed as you usually would when the whole committee is meeting in person in a committee room. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer.

This is a reminder that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. When you are not speaking, your microphone should be on mute. With regard to a speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to maintain a consolidated order of speaking for all members whether they are participating virtually or in person.

With this, I would like to welcome our witnesses. Representing VFS Global, I would like to welcome Mr. Chris Dix, head of business development, and Mr. Jiten Vyas, regional, group chief operating officer, APAC, CIS, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

Mr. Dix, you have five minutes for your opening remarks. You can please start.

[Chris Dix, Head of Business Development, VFS Global]

Madam Chair, committee members, on behalf of VFS Global I'd like to thank you for the invitation to speak today.

I'd like to thank the committee also for accommodating the time difference, allowing us to appear today from our headquarters in Dubai.

Madam Chair, VFS welcomes this scrutiny. It's essential that Canadians have full confidence in the integrity and the security of their government's programs and services.

At VFS Global the security of personal information entrusted to our care is our paramount concern. We work with a range of world-leading cybersecurity providers and also very closely with our cybersecurity consultant, Conrad Prince, to ensure a very strong cybersecurity posture.

Mr. Prince was formerly the deputy head of the U.K. government's signals intelligence and cybersecurity agency, GCHQ. He led GCHQ's intelligence and cyber operations for seven years. After that, he was appointed the United Kingdom's cybersecurity ambassador. We work very closely with Mr. Prince and we take data security very seriously at VFS Global.

People around the world rely on us for visa and passport application services. Since we started in 2001, we have successfully received and transferred over 220 million applications, and 64 governments trust us around the world. We operate for them in 143 countries through nearly 3,500 application centres. They trust us with the secure handling of personal information. The members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, and virtually all European Union and NATO governments are our clients.

Our global operations are certified ISO 27001, 2013, the global gold standard for information and data security.

Our Canadian government client is IRCC. Our client applies stringent personal information protection standards and these are embedded in our contracts and we follow them strictly. We conduct deep identity, credit, criminal, residency, education and employment checks on all our employees before we hire them. All operations-related email and telephone communications of our staff are monitored. We don't store any personal data related to visa applications. Data is purged from our systems 30 days following a case being closed, in accordance with IRCC regulations. IRCC also conducts unannounced audits to review the integrity of our systems.

Madam Chair, I'd now like to address some of the specific issues that have been raised in recent weeks about our operations in China.

First, I'd like to make clear that our Canadian visa centres in China operate according to the same tough security standards we employ around the world.

All data servers transferring China visa applications to IRCC are located in Canada. We operate no servers for IRCC in China. All access to personal information is restricted to officials who have been authorized by the Canadian government.

Second, recent media reports have suggested that we have Chinese ownership. This is false. VFS Global is owned and controlled by EQT, a global investment organization and publicly listed company based in Sweden.

Third, It's been alleged that sensitive data we handle is vulnerable to abuse. This too is false. Yes, we work with Chinese-owned facility management companies, but virtually all foreign companies operating in China work with locally owned, often state-owned, facility management companies. For foreign companies, they are a fixture of the business landscape in China. Facility management companies provide us with office space and administrative staff—nothing more.

These companies do not operate our visa centres and they do not collect visa information. They do not set up or have access to our IT systems. They have no access to any data.

For all our centres in China, VFS Global uses the same security controls we rigorously apply globally.

Madam Chair, with that we are now pleased to take your and the committee's questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thanks for your opening remarks. You are exactly on time.

We will now go to our first round of questioning.

We will start with Mr. Hallan. You have six minutes for your round of questioning.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses and to VFS for being here today.

When did VFS Global become aware of the relationship between its subcontractor in Beijing and the Chinese public security bureau?

[Jiten Vyas, Regional Group Chief Operating Officer, Australasia, China, Africa and Europe & CIS, VFS Global]

Good morning, sir.

VFS Global has been operating in China since 2004-05. BSFSC is a facility management company that has been a subcontractor to VFS Global.

In China the regulatory environment requires foreign companies such as VFS Global and some of our competitors to have local facility management companies in order to operate. The reason for this is that these companies have the entry and exit licences—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

I understand that, sir. My question was quite direct.

When did VFS Global become aware of the relationship, in particular with Beijing Shuangxiong and the Chinese public security bureau?

[Jiten Vyas]

BSFSC, Beijing Shuangxiong, has been a partner to VFS since 2005. This is a named subcontractor with all our client governments, including IRCC. Since 2005, VFS Global—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, sir.

Was the Canadian government made aware of that at the time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Hallan, can you please allow Mr. Vyas to respond?

[Jiten Vyas]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Sir, to respond to your question, as far as VFS Global is concerned, the operations and the model of operating in China were absolutely made known to IRCC and to all our client governments. Every subcontractor—that is, the facility management company that we operate with—is communicated to the respective client government, and proper due diligence processes are followed, including notification to the host government.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, sir, for that, but you didn't answer the question about when they found out.

When was this information given to Canada?

[Jiten Vyas]

The information pertaining to our operations for IRCC was—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

In particular, I am referring to Beijing Shuangxiong.

[Jiten Vyas]

It's been open to the knowledge of IRCC right from the time we started our operations in China.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

What year was that?

[Jiten Vyas]

This is from 2011, and even earlier. VFS has been operating with this and a number of other FMCs.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you very much for that.

Other countries, including New Zealand, according to that report, said they were made aware of that. They were also saying they were made to use a subcontractor.

Was it the same case here? Was the Canadian government telling VFS that they had to use that particular contract?

[Jiten Vyas]

VFS Global's operations in China—across a number of cities and the 33 client governments that we work for—are operated through facility management companies. Every single facility management company that we deploy undergoes thorough due diligence, and the respective client government approves the use of the facility management company right up front. This is a named subcontractor, and due diligence processes are followed by VFS and the respective client government.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Sir, respectfully, again, you didn't answer my question.

Other countries, like New Zealand, have said they were told they had to partner with Beijing Shuangxiong, so they had no other choice. Was that the same for VFS and Canada?

[Jiten Vyas]

As far as VFS is concerned, in delivering a solution to a client government, VFS will put forth its operating model, i.e., a facility management company, to the respective client government, and it is the government that will approve the use of a particular FMC, or facility management company. That has been the case with New Zealand and a number of other client governments, sir.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

In other words, were you told to partner with that company?

[Jiten Vyas]

VFS was not told to partner with the company. It's VFS's operating solution that was put forth to the client government IRCC—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Sorry for interrupting, Mr. Vyas, can you please bring your microphone closer to your mouth.

[Jiten Vyas]

As far as VFS operations are concerned, sir, for every client government VFS submits a list of facility management companies in the respective cities or provinces. Following the due diligence, these are approved by the respective client governments.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

When did this happen in this particular case?