The reason I'm moving it is that we had a meeting on February 7 and we had the minister appear, as well as Mr. Anson from the CBSA and Chief Superintendent Burchill from the RCMP. In that testimony and in questioning, they indicated the following. It was questioning by Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe. Mr. Anson responded to a question specifically about cartels, organized crime and visa abuse to Canada. This was the response Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe received:
I don't, unfortunately, have a yes-or-no answer. I would say, in terms of organized criminality exploiting visa-free travel, that is something that seldom surfaces in evidence related to prosecutions or in the line of investigations related to IRPA. I would say it is something that, in theory, we know exists. Visa-free travel is exploited in all circumstances, and there are always criminals and organized criminals and organized crime groups that are typically involved or associated with those types of illicit movements.
Then, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe continued with the RCMP chief superintendent. The superintendent confirmed, “There was no internal information that would indicate that they were exploiting any situation in particular”, and then he said he basically agrees with CBSA.
This is the meeting where the minister refused to answer when the visa requirement would be reimposed on Mexico.
Two things have happened since that meeting.
Marie Woolf, a journalist with The Globe and Mail, wrote an article that said it seems there were “recent operations linked to organized crime to smuggle Mexicans and others into the United States, according to the head of intelligence at the Canada Border Services Agency.” How could Mr. Anson say that there was no documentation, no proof, and that it was just theory, when there was obviously an ongoing operation that resulted in this article? The article had the headline, “Canada investigating cartel members smuggling Mexicans over border to America”. The subheading is, “Canadian officials, RCMP are working to investigate smuggling of Mexicans who fly to Canada and then enter the U.S. through Canada's southern border”.
How is it possible that the RCMP agrees with the CBSA at this committee, saying that there are no such documents—there's a theory—and now there are ongoing operations and we get into this article? In fact, the person from the CBSA being quoted is Mr. Anson. He's the one being quoted. This is all during that whole one hour with the minister when we were told that he would not reimpose and he wouldn't say when he would reimpose it. He tried to deflect every single time I asked him.
The article continues on to say, “He said no particular Mexican cartel was known to be running the smuggling operations. But members of organized crime groups have been identified as being involved.” However, they just told us at the February 7 meeting that it was merely a theory.
This article continues on to say that the Prime Minister “said last week that organized crime is playing a role in bringing some asylum seekers from Mexico to this country.” If there are no documents in these two departments, how could the Prime Minister know that? How would he be informed? Why wasn't the immigration minister better informed? Why couldn't he answer our questions?
It goes on even further and actually quotes Minister Miller. It says that he's “considering whether to impose a visa requirement on Mexican visitors after a sharp increase in asylum claims from Mexicans, most of which have been denied.”
Mr. Anson is then quoted as saying, “We have noticed that there are patterns and people that will try to exploit a lawful ability to enter Canada and then proceed southbound”. Now, if there are patterns of people who are trying to exploit the lawful ability to enter Canada through the eTA, then there would be documentation, but we were told insistently that there were no such documents provided to committee.
Statistics Canada put out a report on February 23—on the same Friday—that shows that in 2023, “[r]epresenting 36.8% of all overseas residents arriving in Canada in December 2023”—so as of that last month of the year—residents of Mexico were 69,300.
If you go on the IRB's website with updated information from the CBSA, over 17,000 claims are being made by nationals with Mexican national documents. That would mean almost a quarter to 33% have made a claim at an air border after they landed in Canada. I would think there would be documentation somewhere and Minister Miller would have been able to provide a much more fulsome answer at the committee to explain himself.
Just so the analysts have it, this is “Travel between Canada and other countries, December 2023”, which was released at 8:30 a.m. eastern time in “The Daily” from Statistics Canada, on February 23, 2024. It just highlights travellers from different countries and who they were.
I just want to make sure I give Marie Woolf her credit here. Her article goes on to quote Mr. Anson indirectly, saying, “He said a division specializing in identifying fake documents is helping spot people with links to organized crime trying to enter Canada at airports, ports and border posts.”
Coming back to my point, Mr. Anson appeared before committee and claimed there were no such documents. Then a superintendent with the RCMP said, “I would echo the comments of my colleague from CBSA that organized crime” and then he was cut off, Chair, by yourself. He continued on just a little bit more, saying, “I would just underline the fact that organized crime will find vulnerable folks and exploit them regardless of the circumstances around that.” That's probably the most accurate statement he made during that entire meeting, because before that he seemed to agree with the CBSA when the CBSA said that no such documents exist.
Minister Miller was insistent he wouldn't tell us when he would reimpose the visa requirements, but if officials in his department.... His officials are also quoted substantively at the top about how closely they're working with Mexico and about how they're feeling the pressure from the Mexican government not to make any changes. There must be documentation.
This article continues on and on, so I have serious concerns that the testimony given by CBSA, the RCMP and IRCC on February 7 was less than accurate. I would go so far as to say that perhaps some of the points may have been misleading—perhaps unintentionally—but there are documents because otherwise it would be impossible for media like The Globe and Mail to be reporting that Canada's border officers have successfully disrupted recent operations linked to organized crime to smuggle Mexicans and others into the United States, according to the head of the intelligence at the Canada Border Services Agency.
