Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 7th, 2024

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

What I'm saying is that those flows are significant. We as a government have the job of looking at the public measures we have to tighten the screws. Those come in many forms, including the announcement I made with respect to international students—which will have a significant impact on volumes—or any decision-making process that is currently under way with respect to Mexico. That is something that we are looking at. Clearly, however, we're not immune to the flows that we're seeing across the world.

You know this well. This is an area of interest to you. It's not something that Canada can escape completely. I think that, first and foremost, we have to have a humane and humanitarian approach to it, but as the government we do also have a job to do.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Minister, you're deflecting.

There are two of you now who are still commenting on immigration issues. You're the minister and then the senior minister for immigration is commenting, calling it a mess and tying it to housing. He's blaming international students in some situations.

There are provinces looking to the federal government and directing the fault at your ministry and, I would say, at your government. Since 2016 you have not taken any actions even though there's still a press release on the Prime Minister's website saying that you will prevent an increase in asylum claims or other irregular migration specifically in relation to the lifting of the visa on Mexican nationals. You haven't done anything.

Is Minister Fraser correct? Is it a mess? Are you responsible for that mess by not having done anything in the last six or so months to reimpose the visa requirement?

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

You've gone from a very general observation to a particular question.

What I would say is that I could point you to two measures that I have taken in the last few months alone that have moved to restore the integrity of the system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Honourable member, I'll give you 30 seconds to respect your time.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

It's not working, Minister. The numbers are still increasing. What else are you going to do?

On what date are you going to reimpose the visa if things don't change?

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

Again, you are a responsible member of Parliament. I will not be telling that to you or anyone else publicly.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Chair, the minister is obstructing. I'm asking a direct question on surging number, and he won't answer the question before a parliamentary committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Minister, you have five seconds.

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

MP Tom Kmiec asked me when and if I would reimpose a Mexican visa. I told him that I wasn't going to tell him publicly, and I won't. That's not obstructing. That's answering the question.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

The public has a right to know by which date he would reimpose—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you. I'm sorry, Mr. Kmiec. We're going to Mrs. Zahid for five minutes.

Please, go ahead.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing before the committee.

Minister, this last Friday, on February 2, I had the honour of standing with our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, as well Mayor Olivia Chow, when the federal government announced $143 million through the interim housing assistance program to help Toronto provide housing for asylum seekers.

This is great news for the City of Toronto, and Mayor Olivia Chow said herself at the announcement that the federal government has “fully delivered” for Toronto.

Could you please explain to the committee how this $143 million that was announced for Toronto will deal with the surge in demand for shelter spaces and prevent asylum claimants from experiencing homelessness?

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

The interim housing program is a very important tool in making sure, as the name portrays, that people have a roof over their heads.

Toronto, like most but not all cities, does have a balanced budget, and Mayor Chow has been quite responsible in saying that she has an obligation, just like her provincial counterparts, to help asylum seekers in a very humane and humanitarian way in the jurisdiction and has taken that on her shoulders and the shoulders of the City of Toronto.

The number we announced—that you attended—builds on the $100 million we announced earlier last year for the same thing. The City of Toronto has received hundreds of millions of dollars over the last little while to face an increasing flow of migrants who are coming to them—whether it's through Pearson, or through Trudeau airport, for that matter, or across the land borders—and gravitating to where their community members are or where they see the prospect of being able to get a job once a visa is issued. That's the federal government's responsibility. We also give interim health benefits while there is due process undertaken with respect to the asylum claims.

These housing initiatives are very important as well in terms of our ability to coordinate so that we can actually issue visas, track people and be able to reduce processing times. If people are all over the place, it's very hard to find them if they change addresses. There is an incidental effect over and above the obviously very humanitarian need to make sure people have a shelter.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Minister, in previous studies in our committee at CIMM, we heard a lot of testimony about the open work permit for vulnerable workers. Could you please go into more detail about the purpose of that program and what the features are of the open work permit for vulnerable workers?

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

For vulnerable workers—and this can be done on an ad hoc basis—there is a program to make sure they can get an open work permit so that they can leave the place where they are being exploited. It is a program that requires a number of parameters to be met, but it is one that is extremely important in making sure that we are stemming and preventing abuse and at least allowing people to be able to, at times, testify against their employers. In the context of being in a closed work permit, they would be disincentivized from that and in fact, at times, when they are truly being exploited, threatened with being sent home or fired. It is therefore extremely important.

It's a program that makes sense, and it's a program that I believe needs to continue. It has had, I will admit, some challenges at times, but it's one that we will continue to refine to make sure that people in a vulnerable situation aren't exploited.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much.

On behalf of the committee members, honourable Minister, thank you for being with us and for being accessible to our committee. I'm looking forward to seeing you here soon.

We will suspend the meeting for a few minutes before we get the officials going.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Welcome back. We will begin another round of questions and answers with the officials. The hard stop is at 7:05.

[An hon. member]

I thought the stop was at 6:30—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

No, it's not, because we have a full two hours. I'm going to 7:05. That is the decision that was made to make sure that, for the minister and officials, we had two full hours.

We will continue with the meeting. I will go to Mr. Redekopp for six minutes.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here.

The International Coalition Against Illicit Economies released a report a few months ago regarding the extent to which organized crimes, terrorist regimes and foreign national agents have infiltrated our country from places like Mexico, Iran and China.

One of the authors was Calvin Chrustie, a former senior officer of the RCMP. His conclusion is that since 2015, when the Liberal government took charge, these criminal networks have taken over the country. Officers are powerless to stop them due to the weak-kneed, catch-and-release policies of the NDP-Liberal criminal justice system.

Mr. Burchill, would you agree that Mexican cartels, Chinese triads and Iranian-backed organized crime networks are flourishing in Canada right now?

[C/Supt Richard Burchill]

Thank you very much for the question.

In response to the question, what I would say is, as the national police force, the federal policing border integrity program relies heavily on domestic and international partnerships to detect, deter and investigate organized crime.

I certainly am not in a position to speak to the author's conclusions that he has documented. What I can say is that we use all of our resources within the RCMP and our integrated efforts with partners to try to attack organized crime, and we investigate it where it shows up.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Would you not say that organized crime is increasing in Canada compared to, say, 2015?

[C/Supt Richard Burchill]

I certainly can't speak to whether it has increased or decreased since 2015. All I can say is that we currently have a position where we are fighting it with everything that we can, and I can say that, for our international and domestic partnerships and the kind of multi-layered approach that we have to the border, the federal policing border integrity program is very good at identifying organized crime and investigating it where it's detected.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

The commissioner of the RCMP, Michael Duheme, appeared at this committee when we were talking about Roxham Road. He painted a picture of a police department that was stretched quite thin.

I asked him at that time, “If Roxham Road weren't a priority, would that be better for the overall [crime rate] in Quebec and in Canada?” His response was, “You'd redistribute the resources within the other units that we have in the province: serious and organized crime, financial crime and national security.”

National security and organized crime mean fighting international cartels, drug traffickers and human trafficking. From your perspective, do you agree with your commissioner that the Prime Minister has hamstrung your ability to fight organized crime and these cartels of human traffickers in Quebec?