Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 8th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

The time is up for Mr. El-Khoury.

The minister mentioned Ms. May. I've checked with the clerk. Either one of the members has to give their time, or we need unanimous consent from the committee members to have her ask a question.

Do I have unanimous consent from the committee?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

On this side, we are fine.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We don't have unanimous consent, so with that—

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

One of the members was willing to give his time, I believe.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

He took his whole time. Mr. El-Khoury took his whole time. His five minutes are done. I have to go with the way the rules of the committee are.

With that, I would like to thank the minister for his appearance before the committee. On behalf of all the members, I would really like to thank you, Minister.

We will suspend the meeting for two or three minutes, so that the minister can leave, and then we will go into the round of questioning with the officials.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call the meeting to order.

We have the officials with us for the second round, and we will go directly into the round of questioning.

Ms. Rempel Garner, you will have six minutes. You can please begin.

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

Thank you. I'll ask my colleague to time me.

Ms. Fox, on Thursday of last week, Senator McPhedran gave a speech in the Senate, which outlined some pretty serious allegations. In it, she said that there was.... I'll read it to you:

Key within the kinds of communications that were happening day and night was a small circle of high officials into which I had been invited by Minister Monsef, and I asked to bring in a consultant who had been working with me for a number of years because she was a member of a national team here in Canada. I had been asked to help hundreds—many more—athletes than I was already trying to help parliamentarians and human rights defenders, and I just didn’t have more hours in a day. That email circle—I have every email. They are dated and stamped. The authorities are named within them. I can tell you here tonight that template that we used to try and help—and we have succeeded—and when I say “we”, I mean a network from Denmark to Zurich to Australia to Canada to the United States, everyone doing their best. But we used what’s called a visa facilitation letter.

With regard to this, do you have any evidence, or have you investigated whether then minister Maryam Monsef was involved in producing the facilitation letters that Senator McPhedran described?

[Christiane Fox]

First, I would start by saying how, because of the Government of Canada's efforts and because of the time on the ground to get people to airports, the facilitation letters issued by IRCC and GAC to our clients helped get 3,700 people out. That's an important fact to raise at the committee. We needed to use those letters—

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

I'm asking if you have any evidence of whether then cabinet minister Maryam Monsef was assisting in issuing facilitation letters.

[Christiane Fox]

What I can tell committee is that I looked at the organization, IRCC, in terms of the review of whether or not any inauthentic letters came from our department. I can say that as a result of that investigation we have found no evidence that any inauthentic letters came from the department. The next step was to refer the matter to law enforcement agencies, and they take it from there.

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

Okay, so you haven't reviewed some of the claims that are in here that the then minister of defence's chief of staff was helping to produce these inauthentic facilitation letters. Is that correct?

[Christiane Fox]

That's correct. We've only reviewed IRCC internal.... Our investigation was limited to our department.

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

Are you aware of any investigation into whether or not the allegations that Senator McPhedran made are true as they pertain to then chief of staff George Young and then cabinet minister....

Actually, I'll ask a different question.

Do you have any documentation or awareness that Senator McPhedran, then cabinet minister Monsef or George Young had contacted IRCC to perhaps expedite certain cases?

Did Senator McPhedran ever reach out? Do you have documentation of her reaching out to IRCC, saying please help this list of people? Did Senator McPhedran attempt to do that?

[Christiane Fox]

I do not have any evidence that she sent any documentation to IRCC staff.

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

Okay. You have no record, within your department during this time period, of Senator McPhedran asking IRCC for facilitation letters or assistance with certain cases.

[Jennifer MacIntyre, Assistant Deputy Minister, Afghanistan, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Maybe, Madam Chair, what I would just add to what the deputy has said is that many members of Parliament, including senators, were reaching out to IRCC to see how they could help.

One of the honourable members has mentioned today that lots of folks had lists. Certainly, in terms of whether IRCC co-operated to help with facilitation letters, the answer is no, but we did talk to lots of members of Parliament during the crisis.

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

Okay. Thank you.

Why was this referred to the RCMP before there were questions?

In your internal review, did you ask Senator McPhedran what happened personally? Did you have conversations with her?

[Christiane Fox]

I did not.

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

Did anyone in your department?

[Christiane Fox]

Not to my knowledge, no.

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

Okay.

Why was the decision made to refer this to the RCMP as opposed to discussing this with Senator McPhedran or anyone she may have alleged was involved?

[Christiane Fox]

I think that when a matter of the use of inauthentic letters surfaces in a department, it is important to take the next steps. In our view, the next steps were to refer the matter to law enforcement in light of the fact that the use of inauthentic letters can lead to very difficult outcomes for the government.

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

Finally, my office was in contact with IRCC for over the course of a year with these letters. I'm just going to be really blunt. They fooled me. I've sat on this committee for years. I never once thought they could be inauthentic.

At any point in time when my office was corresponding with you on my file, when you reviewed this particular case, did anyone flag that these could potentially be false?

[Jennifer MacIntyre]

Maybe what I could add, Madam Chair, is that inauthentic letters started to pop up in the system—