Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 20th, 2026

[Ted Gallivan]

I think the first step is to understand the driver for that. Is there a greater propensity to fraud? Is it a system that we're just not familiar with? I think we first have to understand why there is a discrepancy.

When there's a discrepancy in a claim and it's not deliberate fraud or evasion, but just a mistake, again, we have IT systems that we can update on a weekly basis. Maybe we're not asking the question clearly or maybe we need to reframe how the form is designed. We now have IT systems that can do that.

Again, I think it depends on the reason for the discrepancy. If it's because we're not clear in our instructions or there's some kind of linguistic barrier that we have to overcome—

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Certainly, and I hope that the chair indulges me a bit, given that my time was taken up by a question that wasn't my own.

I hope that you're live to this issue about the differences from here on in, if you aren't already. Is that correct? I'm assuming there was interplay between IRCC and CBSA in terms of the evaluation of these visas, because there is some screening that must be done by CBSA before a student visa is issued.

[Ted Gallivan]

I appreciate that there's a question behind the question, that there's a concern with discrepancies between certain countries. I'm happy to take that back and take action on it.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

I want to now quickly ask one last question. If you are live to the concerns around foreign interference and influence as you are screening for students, please explain to the committee how you are actually live to those concerns.

[Ted Gallivan]

Our visa officers would have all kinds of indicia and indicators. They would have training. We're working on certification of our staff. There would be a series of discretionary and mandatory referrals across the suite of visa streams, and then they would make referrals to more expert security partners when those thresholds are met. Again, some of them are binary, yes-no, and others are more subjective.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Gallivan.

Thank you, Mr. Zuberi.

Go ahead, Mr. Champoux. You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Earlier, I touched on something that really interested me. I was going to ask you, Mr. Gallivan, why there hasn't been greater co-operation for so many years. It seems logical to me, at least when it comes to the sharing of such important information about people who are in the country without permanent residence or Canadian citizenship and who are awaiting status. I don't understand why there hasn't been greater collaboration between CBSA and IRCC. Can you explain to me why that has never been the case?

[Ted Gallivan]

As I understand it, the culture of the department I inherited was really focused on facilitating the arrival process and handling all the work related to it. There was a strong emphasis on the arrival itself, and that was where it ended. There was no further interest afterward.

There are also exceptions, but when we look at the percentages, we see that they constitute a small portion. Although it is a small percentage, action will have to be taken in these cases from now on.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Okay.

I just want to go back to one point. You said you received the report a month ago, so you're defending yourself for not taking more action. I just want to point out that you've been aware of the gist of the issue since 2023. The information in this report therefore wasn't a big surprise when it was submitted in March. You already knew about it.

Do you think your department has made enough progress since it has had the information, that is, since long before the publication of Ms. Hogan's report?

[Ted Gallivan]

In 2023, a four-year plan was implemented to restore rigour to the student visa program. The Office of the Auditor General came in at the halfway point in the process.

As I said at the outset, the Auditor General recognized that there had been progress from a numerical standpoint. As for the program where there were loopholes, that has been closed. With respect to letters of acceptance, the verification work has begun.

So I think there has been progress over the first two years. That said, there are still two years left in the mandate the department has set for itself.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Okay.

I'll be quick, because I don't have much time left.

Among the 153,000 cases that were fraudulent, appeared to be fraudulent, or raised concerns—some of which were investigated—was there any consistency or pattern that suggested the existence of an organized network or a coordinated fraud scheme? Are you able to say whether they originated from a particular region of the world, for example, or whether there were more cases concentrated in a specific area, which would allow you to be more vigilant with respect to these applications in the future? Have you drawn any lessons from this information, if such information exists?

[Ted Gallivan]

I don't think our work was sophisticated enough for me to be able to answer the question adequately. We would need to analyze the files in a more thorough and broader way in order to be able to respond properly to your question.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

So there was no consistency. To your knowledge, there was no—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Champoux.

Thank you, Mr. Gallivan.

We will have one and a half minutes for Mr. Redekopp and one and a half minutes for Mr. Fragiskatos, please.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Ms. Hogan, you've had a chance to look under the hood and see into the inner workings of IRCC. Are there other areas that should be looked at?

[Karen Hogan]

Within the immigration department, I would expect that the department would take some of the findings here and say, “We should act on integrity information we already know.” There are some really good systems. They have a great risk assessment unit, but they're not really acting on the information that comes out of it. I would hope that they would expand that and use it throughout the whole department so that the next time I come in and look at something, they'll be acting on integrity from start to finish.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Honestly, I think Mr. Gallivan should be ashamed and embarrassed that it took you and your team coming in and highlighting all of these situations and issues, which Canadians have known about for years, frankly, to actually find these problems and force the department to make some changes. I'm glad to hear there are changes coming.

Thank you, guys, for your work. I appreciate this. It's very enlightening. Of course, it's not just you. It's your team. You get all the glory, and they do all the work. I know how that works, but I appreciate you guys. Thank you for doing this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.

Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Thank you to all of you for your public service. I'll leave it at that.

I'm not sure that people being shamed and called out like that is very constructive to the purpose of this committee. Regardless, I have a minute and a half.

Mr. Gallivan, I was going to come back to the issue of universities, but I think you were clear in that answer. I want to go in another direction, in fact.

You talked about data and, specifically, analytics. Can you talk a bit further about how a focus on that realm will ensure greater system integrity in our immigration system?

[Ted Gallivan]

Briefly, one of the frustrations I have about the cases we didn't follow up on is that they are a rich source of criteria to apply to the screen up front. In other words, cases of suspected fraud that we didn't follow up on to understand the methodology or the pattern were intel that we couldn't put into the analytics system the Auditor General just said was quite good. We have definitely missed that opportunity.

That's an example of how analytics can work. We take any case of identified fraud that we find and follow up on, and we unpack it and then we put it in the front end so that all new visas going forward are screened against that fact pattern. If we find somebody trying to do the same thing.... Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice.... We're trying to stop the “fool me twice” cases.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Thank you, Mr. Gallivan.

I'd like to thank today's witnesses.

This is the end of our two hours of questioning.

I want to echo the thanks. Thank you, Ms. Hogan, Ms. O'Gorman, Mr. Gallivan and your respective teams, for the excellent and important work you all do and the important contributions you've made today to our study. Thank you for your patience in answering our questions.

Thanks, colleagues, for the great questions.

Before I adjourn our meeting, our meeting on Wednesday is going to have witnesses for our continued immigration study. Please make sure that you know there's a room change. It's in Wellington Building, room 415. Do not come here.

That is it. Thank you.

This meeting is adjourned.