Evidence of meeting #10 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was system.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Okay, so you have put some thought into how this would be used. What are some other situations where you would use this mass cancelling ability?
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
Again, I will go back to where I started. It is not designed to block people in need of protection from accessing the asylum system.
Conservative
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
It's the people who are going to be committing large-scale fraud. It will be done for safety reasons or public interest reasons, and those reasons would have to be.... Before the powers are used, they would be transparent because we would have to tell the Canadian public.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Do you have some examples of those you've talked about in your department?
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
Yes. If you go back to COVID, there were a lot of things that could have been done differently had this legislation been there.
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
Like stopping the intake of all the applications that were coming in, which we don't have the power to do at the moment.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
All of the applications would have been shut down. That's what you're saying.
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
The inventory kept going, but we were not able to bring anyone in. As a result of that surge...that's what happened after COVID. That's part of what we're living today.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
We have a similar problem now where we have nearly 300,000 asylum claims—a surge of inventory, as you would say.
Is that the method you're going to use to get rid of the massive amount of asylum claims?
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
Again, they're not designed to block people who are coming here and in need of safety. What they're designed for is to block groups of individuals who are really committing fraud.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Like the 300,000 asylum claims...? Should the people in that pool be worried?
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
It's not going to give the government any new powers to cancel asylum claims or affect an individual's status—
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
This section of the law—pardon me—doesn't actually give you any new powers. Is that what you're saying?
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
It gives government powers, but not on an individual, one-on-one basis, because that power already exists.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Mr. Redekopp, and thank you, Minister Diab.
Next, we have Ms. Salma Zahid for five minutes.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks, Minister, and thanks to all the officials for appearing before the committee as we go through this important legislation.
Minister, I have been hearing from my constituents about having to submit the same information multiple times, even within IRCC, from TRV to permanent residency to citizenship applications, adding time and complexity to their applications. Could you please outline how the information-sharing provisions in Bill C-12 would help address this significant issue?
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you.
In large part, again, the measures in this bill are to do exactly that. It's for information sharing, but it's also to make our immigration system more efficient for the clients, for the individuals applying, as well as for government. The proposed changes would close gaps in how we share client information, which would save time and money.
Federal, provincial and territorial partners have been asking for this, actually. They would get faster access to this information, which they can then use to confirm the identity of people who arrive in Canada through the immigration system, which is needed to deliver and give people access to a variety of public services. They can detect when people are defrauding benefit programs and other services by using different identities, and they can carry out law and border enforcement activities and investigations.
IRCC would also be able to share client information. I think this is what your question is specific to. It would cross immigration, citizenship and passport programs more easily. Believe it or not, they can't do that now. It would reduce the amount of information that applicants need to resubmit. If they've already applied, for example, to come in on a student application or a work visa or a visitor visa, and then later they want to apply for permanent residency, this will allow us to use the same information and to also check against what they're saying to make sure that the information is all the same. It lowers the risk of discrepancies between case files belonging to the same person and makes decision-making for immigration, citizenship and passport applications more efficient. It will help us both improve the integrity of the programs and detect fraud better, really.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON
Thank you.
There is one thing I want to clarify. You mentioned mass cancellations. Mass cancellations are not for asylum claimant applications. Can you clarify that those mass cancellations will not be for asylum-seeker applications that are within the system of IRCC?
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
That is exactly true. The mass cancellation does not apply to asylum claims. It applies to exceptional cases. It's not defined, because it will be looked into in the regulations. It's to give a maximum amount of discretion to the Governor in Council. It includes things like the pandemic, regional health crises and safety or national security threats that Canada might learn of, and, again, it responds to large-scale fraud.
The legislative package provides for immigration document cancellation, suspension or variance of applications for documents. Claims for refugee protection before the Immigration and Refugee Board are not applications for documents, and thus are outside the scope of these authorities. Any use of these powers, including their impacts on vulnerable clients, would be carefully considered as part of a rigorous process.
They're only intended to protect Canada's public interest, as I said, in areas such as safety, security and orderly migration.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you so much, Ms. Zahid.
Thank you, Minister.
Mrs. DeBellefeuille, you now have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Minister, pursuant to the bill, a person cannot apply for asylum after having lived in Canada for one year.
I have some questions about that. Some people may find themselves in a situation where, after one year, the situation in their country has changed, and returning could put their lives at risk.
What will happen to those people who, after one year, apply for asylum because their situation has changed?