Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Fox, thank you for still being here at this time. I know that you have to leave soon to teach basketball.
Correct me if I'm wrong. You said in your presentation that there were no longer many irregular border crossings, but that there were a significantly higher number of asylum seekers at airports. We're mainly talking about Pearson in Toronto, and Trudeau in Montreal, the two main airports for asylum seekers that have seen a massive increase in the number of asylum claims compared to recent years.
At the beginning of the summer, we learned on Radio-Canada—so I'm not making this up—that your department had issued a directive last spring about tourist visas for nationals of many countries, particularly African countries. This directive asks officers to no longer invoke the section of the law whereby an officer can decide not to grant a tourist visa to a person if they fear that the person will not return to their country. Now, all of a sudden, we're seeing a huge increase in asylum claims at Canadian airports.
Is this true? Did you issue the directive?