Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 18th, 2022

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

To be very clear, there's not just danger when people are crossing the border in an irregular way. There is danger across the migration journey for somebody who decides they may seek to come into one country or another.

The suspension of the safe third country agreement could cause a large number of people to come across, in both irregular and regular fashions, in different parts of the country in ways that we are not currently prepared to be dealing with, large influxes of people coming in to seek asylum claims.

If there are more people migrating throughout the course of their journey as a result of a pull factor that would be created by us saying that we're no longer going to have a safe third country agreement, there would potentially be thousands upon thousands of people choosing to put themselves in danger, not just between the Canada and U.S. borders, but at other points of their journey along the way. That's not a danger that I want to promote.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Just a minute, Minister. What you just told me is that people may be in greater danger—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

The time is up, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Just a moment, Madam Chair. He took a minute of my time earlier.

We've learned that there were professional traffickers who—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Yes, I gave that, so the clock is at seven minutes. We gave that extra minute.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you will have six minutes. Please begin.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the minister for appearing before our committee.

He just said in his comments that globally there is a crisis with people who are faced with displacement and are forcibly displaced in their country of origin. Canada's geography is such that we are actually quite sheltered from the impact of that. The one exception, of course, would be the U.S. border, hence the safe third country agreement.

Given the numbers relative to the rest of the globe in the face of this crisis, Canada is not as impacted as some of the other countries are by literally millions of people crossing over to seek safety, yet Canada has chosen to put a safe third country agreement in place, even though the minister admitted that people try to seek safety not because it's fun, but because they really need to do so. They enter into this perilous journey to get to safety.

The safe third country agreement puts them into this dangerous situation. It subjects them to exploitation, to smugglers and to other dangers as they are making this journey, whether they be weather-related or otherwise. Why not do away with the safe third country agreement so that people are not subjected to that, and then allow them to actually make their claims through a regular entry?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'm sorry, but did you say “regular” or “irregular” at the end of your comment, Ms. Kwan?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

It was for them to make their claim through a regular port of entry. Right now if they do, with the safe third country agreement, they will automatically be rejected.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you. I understand the question.

With enormous respect, I think we probably agree on the outcomes we want to foster, which are safer, regular migration pathways, but disagree a little bit on the impact of suspending the safe third country agreement. It's my view that a suspension of that agreement would create the potential for more and more people to make the decision not to leave their country—people are choosing to leave their country because they are fleeing vulnerable circumstances—but to continue their journey on until they get to Canada, specifically.

My view is that we should promote the principle of people choosing to make an asylum claim in the first place where they are safe, to limit the number of people who are further putting themselves in danger by continuing on a potentially perilous journey.

I see you've put your hand up to interject.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

The safe third country agreement, as the minister knows, predated the Trump administration. One might argue that during that period it was some of the worst times for people trying to get to safety in the United States. It predated the Trump administration. The U.S. has a mandatory detention policy upon arrival for asylum seekers. That was also in place prior to the Trump administration. The practice of detention for asylum seekers is deeply rooted in the core system of the U.S. immigration and refugee system. We cannot lose sight of the fact that the culture that they built up with ICE there is not going to go away overnight, even with the Biden administration.

This is the reality right now. Really, some of these asylum seekers are faced with an impossible situation. There are people who are faced with detention. There are people who are being sent back to the country of origin to face the dangers from which they had been trying to flee.

Given that this is the reality, if the minister says he wants to address the issue and he's sympathetic and compassionate, is it his view that he will never raise the question of even just suspending, if not doing away with, the safe third country agreement with the United States?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

There's a big difference between not suspending and never raising the potential to suspend. One of the things that we're actually required to do under the safe third country agreement is to monitor compliance with policies that protect human rights and treat refugees and asylum seekers with fairness and compassion.

We do this on an ongoing basis. The factors that we consider as to whether a country could be designated as a safe country for the purpose of the safe third country agreement include whether they're a party to the convention against torture and the refugee convention. Their policies and practices where this ongoing monitoring is particularly important are also considered, as well as the human rights record of a country. Because there is one particular policy that may be different from what Canada would like to see happen, it's not necessarily the case that that results in the automatic suspension of the agreement. We look at the sum total of these factors and make an assessment on a regular basis as to whether the country we're dealing with continues to meet that safe country standard.

Our government's view is that the United States, given the totality of these factors, continues to meet that standard, which is why we have not made any decision to suspend the safe third country agreement.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

At their worst times, we have to remember what the U.S. was doing during the Trump administration. They dramatically expanded the authority to arrest, jail and deport migrants in the United States. We can never forget, with their anti-immigration and refugee policies, the image of children being put in cages, being separated, being torn away from their parents.

They outright reject gender-based claims. That's the reality. Even in those circumstances, the government says, “Oh well, but the U.S. is still a safe country.” Really? How?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Look, some of the situations you described I was confronted with as a member of Parliament, long before I held these positions. I took it upon myself, with certain colleagues, to reach out to representatives from the United States to voice my concern about some of the images that I had been seeing. I actually published a statement through social media at the time to voice some of my concern, as someone who cared deeply about the well-being and fair treatment of people.

However, we still need to look at the totality of the factors to determine whether the United States actually still has a functioning asylum system that allows people to make a fair claim. We're not just dealing with the folks who are making asylum claims along the southern border, but people who've travelled to the United States and have the potential to make a claim in the U.S., and who may instead choose to come to Canada.

We constantly reassess the situation to determine whether they meet the standards of the safe third country. I would point out as well that even when some of these policies are initially adopted, the U.S. court system still has the ability to make decisions, where a given administration may run afoul of a particular rule, to actually undo some of those policies that would have caused a particular country—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Minister.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

—to fall out of favour with the safe third country agreement.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. I'm sorry for interrupting; time is up for Ms. Kwan.

We will now proceed to Mr. Lloyd.

Mr. Lloyd, you will have five minutes for your round of questioning. You can please begin.

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

On a point of order, Chair, it's Mr. Paul-Hus for the Conservatives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Okay, Mr. Paul-Hus will take the next round.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have five minutes. You can please begin.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, Minister.

I've been involved in the Roxham Road file from the very start, with my colleague Ms. Rempel Garner. The illegal migration situation became intense in 2017, when Mr. Trudeau posted his tweet.

There are two aspects to all that.

I listened closely to your speech, Minister. We hear what you say when you speak in your capacity as minister. Your position on the safe third country agreement is clear, as is your intention to control what goes on. You said the agreement would help ensure orderly immigration processing in Canada. I agree with you.

However, the questions my Liberal colleagues around the table are asking tend in another direction. It's as though Roxham Road were a normalized pathway for immigrating to Canada and one we would encourage.

We're saying, on the one hand, that people shouldn't enter Canada illegally or irregularly, but, on the other hand, that it's a good way to proceed. We're even talking about granting permanent residence and expediting the process.

What's our actual position?

What the NDP and Bloc Québécois are asking makes no sense. I'm in favour of the third safe country agreement, and I agree we have to solve the problems we're facing. On the other hand, I wonder what you, as minister, think is the right way to do it: is it what you described in your speech, or rather what emerges from the questions of your Liberal colleagues, or even from the position adopted by the officials who appeared before us? Listening to them, you'd almost think that people are welcome in Canada and that this is how you immigrate to our country.

What's the actual position?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

There is no logical inconsistency with promoting regular migration pathways and still demonstrating compassion towards some of the world's most vulnerable people who are coming to our country.

With respect to your commentary around the Prime Minister issuing a tweet a number of years ago, I would point out that people don't flee their home country because of a welcoming tweet from a country's leader; they flee their country because they are seeking to escape violence, war and persecution.

It's my belief, and I hold this firmly as a minister and as a human, that—

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I understand all that, Minister, and I'm going to interrupt you here. Hundreds of millions of people on the planet live in countries where living conditions are very difficult. That's why our immigration targets give us some flexibility in welcoming refugees. In the past few years, we've welcomed millions of refugees to Canada, particularly Syrians, Afghans and Ukrainians. We welcome refugees to Canada in an orderly fashion. These people have their place, we invite them, we welcome them, and we take care of them.

However, I think Roxham Road is a problematic immigration pathway. Consider the example of a person who comes from another country and tries to immigrate to Canada. He enters the United States, then travels to Roxham Road and hopes that Canada will take him in. I believe the acceptance rate is currently 50%. The remaining 50%, people who have left everything behind but are denied entry, are now even worse off than they previously were.

Don't those people, who were hoping to improve their lives, wind up with even more problems?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

One thing that's very important for committee members to understand is that when an individual crosses the border in an irregular way and makes an asylum claim, the merits of their case are considered on a case-by-case basis, based on the particular vulnerabilities they have. If they qualify to make an asylum claim, they will be granted asylum in Canada in accordance with our domestic and legal obligations that form part of our migration framework in Canada.

If someone comes who does not qualify because of their—

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I know that, Minister. Those people then face rejection—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Please speak one person at a time.

I ask all the members to let the other person answer the question because, if you speak over each other, the interpreters will not be able to translate. For translation purposes, one person should speak at a time. Once members ask the question, please allow the minister to answer.

Thank you.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Pardon me, Madam Chair. Thank you.

I understand the process, Minister. So let's talk about it.

In an article published in the Journal de Montréal early this year, Jules Richer reported that 25,804 persons who had crossed the border irregularly and whose asylum claims had been denied had completely disappeared. They're in Canada, but we don't know where, and they have no status.

Can you tell us how many of those people are wanted by Border Services to date? I'm talking about the people who have simply disappeared but who are somewhere in the country.

Ms. Fox or someone else on your team could answer the question if you don't know the answer.