Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 27th, 2024

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Half of those have left, or a third of those—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I understood that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Excuse me. One person at a time, please.

If you want to interrupt the minister, please raise your hand, honourable member, and I will make sure I stop the clock and get back to you.

I will give the floor to the honourable MP Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

What are the criteria to determine which name is added to the list?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Just a clarification to your earlier point: the number currently, to be precise, is 356. For the actual detailed criteria, I would pass it over to ADM MacIntyre.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Madam MacIntyre, please go ahead.

[Jennifer MacIntyre, Assistant Deputy Minister, International Affairs and Crisis Response, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you very much.

In terms of the process, before we provide a name to the Government of Israel, to COGAT, as the committee is aware, we are not able to do biometric screening inside of Gaza. However, in order to jump-start the security screening process, we are using an enhanced biographic form for applicants inside of Gaza.

As soon as applicants have passed the preliminary security admissibility screening, we provide those names to the Government of Israel and the Government of Egypt for exit. However, we are keeping families together, so once an entire family has passed through that initial stage, we provide those names to both governments.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Let's just say that of all the applications that have gone through the process, even the ones that have gotten the TRV, only 356 names have been submitted to COGAT. I get there's a rolling number because some of them have already exited, etc.

That number is really low—I would just say that—so there is a holdup with respect to the security screening processing, which is what I'm hearing from families as well. This is not necessarily to get a biometric. It's the pre-screening in order to get them onto that list. What is the holdup with the pre-screening from IRCC's side?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Again, we're dealing with complete families. Indeed, these are numbers that reflect the current status of the screening and the submission to COGAT, but again, very recently we received indications from COGAT that they would accept this program, and we were hopeful, but obviously events have changed since then.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

You didn't answer my question, but I'm going to move on because I have limited time.

The Order Paper question the NDP has put in indicates that as of April 24, 4,467 codes have been issued. On the announcement today of changing the cap from 1,000 to 5,000, how many more codes will be issued from the 4,467 as a result of today's announcement?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Honourable minister, you have 10 seconds to respond.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I'll leave you to do the math, MP Kwan, but that number from January 9 to May 20 is 5,250.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

The time is up, honourable member. I'll come back to you.

Now I will go to MP Khanna for five minutes.

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As we're discussing the special program for the Gaza and Sudan situations, my first line of questioning will be around the temporary resident program in general.

Minister, are all temporary residents who are entering Canada, including international students, required to submit police clearance certificates and criminal background checks from the country of origin before they're allowed to enter Canada?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Just to be clear, we are talking about Gaza and Sudan—

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Of course, that's my line of questioning—

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Hang on. Just to be clear, you want to now talk about international students?

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

To the honourable member and the minister, please, one person at a time.

Honourable MP Khanna, if you want to interrupt the minister if he's still speaking, please raise your hand. I will stop the clock, and I will not take it out of your time.

I will give the floor to Mr. Khanna.

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Minister, of course, it's relevant. It's a simple question, and I need a yes or no answer.

Are all temporary residents who come to our country, including international students, required to submit a police clearance certificate and criminal background checks before they enter Canada? It's a very simple yes or no question. It's black and white. Yes or no?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

First, let's make a couple of things clear. I don't tell you what questions to ask. Don't tell me how to answer those questions.

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

It's a yes or no question, Minister.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Don't tell me how to answer those questions.

[Arpan Khanna, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Let's hear your answer to the question.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Thank you.

First of all, we do criminal verification by doing biometrics on people. That means taking their fingerprints. We search partner databases, including security partner databases, as well as the RCMP's. We have a number of cascading questions for anyone who wants to come into Canada to assess whether they go to secondary screening.

On the issue of police certificates, we do not as a routine matter require those for our temporary residents.

The next question you should probably pose is how reliable those police certificates are. I think you would agree with me—