Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 20th, 2026

[Ted Gallivan]

Yes.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

I see. You could say that the process was still a long one before you changed your practices.

[Ted Gallivan]

I don’t know the timeline, but I would say that following the Auditor General’s report, it was important for us to take action this year, in 2026, to address all of its recommendations.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

All right.

Madam Chair, I believe I only have a few seconds left, don't I?

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

That's right, you only have 10 seconds left.

Thank you, Mrs. DeBellefeuille and Mr. Gallivan.

We now will begin our second round.

We have Mr. Menegakis for five minutes.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you and welcome to our committee. It's very kind of you to spend two full hours with us today.

Mr. Gallivan, of the 800 confirmed issued permit holders who either used fraudulent documentation or misrepresented information on their applications, 105 were approved for permanent residency. What was the government's justification for rewarding fraudulent study permit holders with PR?

[Ted Gallivan]

I'm going to turn to Tara to explain the demographic and the analysis of the 800. As I said in French previously, I have obtained no explanation for why the 800 were not pursued. I don't know, but I do know going forward that these kinds of cases will be acted on.

Tara, can you talk about the 800?

[Tara Lang]

Not having seen the detailed cases themselves, I would have to assume.... Let's back up.

The 800 were investigations that were a result of a quality assurance exercise. As the deputy explained, we take a snapshot of a number of cases and do a review. That found that 800—most of them were student direct stream applicants—had some kind of fraudulent document as part of their application.

On the question of how they would become permanent residents, the officer who would have reviewed the permanent resident application would have had a conversation, a back-and-forth—what's called a procedural fairness letter—with the client to ask for the situation of the document and would have made a finding that either their response was acceptable or they got a new document. I wouldn't be able to postulate on each case, on the basis of its merit.

I don't know that it's a reward, but there are checks and balances, especially when we move into a PR stream, to check on the validity of those documents.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Were these 105 PR grants reviewed for relocation once the original misrepresentation was confirmed?

[Tara Lang]

I do not know. I do know that now every single case does have an info alert placed on it, and they are being reviewed currently.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

The Auditor General found that 110 of these permit holders filed asylum claims.

Given the department's backlog on asylum claimants, are these individuals now receiving taxpayer-funded health and housing benefits despite their pre-existing record of misrepresentation?

[Ted Gallivan]

The IRCC would flag in our system when there is a case of misrepresentation, and let's be clear about the misrepresentation we're talking about. It's academic credential fraud. Someone claimed to have science degree or a master's degree when they had a bachelor's, so let's understand that.

Our reaction is to flag the applicants account with an indicator. As Tara explained, that indicator gives rise to questioning. Through the questioning, the decision-maker satisfies themselves with the answer to that question. My sense of the process is that a flag is placed on the system, indicating that there has been misrepresentation, which alerts people to ask better questions.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

I'd like to turn to our Auditor General. Would you agree that these are just small misrepresentations, as the deputy minister just said, or would you think that the problem is a bit more egregious than that?

[Karen Hogan]

The applications in question didn't have any flags, so none of this exchange would have occurred on these. What I'm hearing from the deputy minister and other officials from the immigration department is that this is their position now, but in these 800 cases we did not see any flag appear on these files.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

I want to ask you something, Mr. Gallivan, about the communication between your department and CBSA. In previous committee meetings here, we've had the CBSA testify that your department overruled decisions that they had made. Specifically, when they had identified somebody who needs to be deported from the country, the department overruled the determination that the CBSA had made.

Can you explain why your department feels that they should have that right to overrule the law enforcement agency that is on the front line, where people come into the country?

[Ted Gallivan]

I have more than three and a half years sitting in that chair as the associate deputy minister at the CBSA, and not to dodge the question, but I do have questions about the legal standard.

I would just offer that it is a question that I'm actively pursuing. I do believe part of the longer answer, which I can't give now, relates to legal standards, thresholds and what information people have. However, I too share the concern, and if the concern is broader than the authorities that I have now, then I'll certainly make the representation to foster some kind of change.

I appreciate the question. I appreciate the concern.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Menegakis.

Thank you, Mr. Gallivan, although we can continue with the answer in other questions.

We now have Mr. Fragiskatos for five minutes.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the officials for being here.

Auditor General, it's good to see you again.

Mr. Gallivan, congratulations again on your new role.

I will begin with you, Mr. Gallivan. Conservative friends are free to litigate the past if they want to. That's fine, but Canadians live in the present and they're concerned about the future. With respect to the immigration system, you talked about control in a previous exchange. You talked about.... You didn't use the word “integrity”, but ultimately that's what you're talking about. I want to ask a general question relating to those points.

How is the government moving ahead to ensure control and integrity generally in the system? Can you point to some examples?

[Ted Gallivan]

I'll start with the student visa program, which I think is an example of what's happening more broadly. You can see hard caps and a decline in numbers, so there are fewer people across a broad range of categories, which allows for greater focus and a reduction in numbers. Second, I think there's a hard cap, from around 1% to 5%, in terms of the total number of people being accepted or in the country at any one given time, so that we have managed sustainable migration into this country, because that's essential. I would say that again, proper to this audit, there was the discontinuation of a direct program that was seen to be open for abuse and targeted for abuse by others, and you saw that program being cancelled.

With the recently introduced Bill C-12, you could see a process in which thresholds are being established around claiming asylum at the 12-month or one-year mark, and rapid action on that. In fact, there was a significant amount of media attention that, just days after receiving royal assent, IRCC began taking action.

I have more than 30 years in public service, and it was one of the first times I can recall being criticized or taken to task for acting too quickly on the implementation of legislation. We want to be compassionate. We want to be fair, but in cases in which there is abuse—I think I've given you some examples of that happening—proper to this report, again, when you have a large number of flags, you have a responsibility to parse them and put them into buckets. To go back to the earlier question, no, the 110, the 800 or the 150,000 are neither all small typographical errors nor all cases of people with a propensity to violence. There's a mixture, but it's our responsibility to more methodically put them into categories and then give the right treatment. That's what the OAG didn't find when she arrived at IRCC.

The crux of our management action plan in response to this audit is that by the end of this calendar year, we will show that we understand the categorization of the people who are being flagged and will apply the right response. Taking no no action is rarely the right response. It's certainly not the right response when it's flagged as high risk.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

I will go into that.

As a matter of fact, you talked about categorization. Ultimately, you're talking about responding to the concerns raised by the Auditor General.

How exactly from an administrative point of view will you be moving ahead? What areas of the report and which flags raised by the Auditor General are you most seized with responding to? How will the department respond?

[Ted Gallivan]

I would talk about managing the end of a visa as a management objective and something for IRCC to validate. It's to be more proactive, aggressive and thorough on the expiration of a visa.

Simply put, we need to know whether people are leaving or not. It's our responsibility to seek that information and to build a picture of whether people are leaving or not. I think it's our job to manage towards that goal. Yes, we'll try the lighter-touch efforts but in complement with tougher consequences. I would say managing the end of the visa process more proactively and systematically would be one that is a key shift in terms of how IRCC is looking at this problem.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Just very quickly, do you plan on looking at what other countries, for example, G7 partners or like-minded countries, have been doing to ensure integrity in their systems? I'm speaking specifically here on this point about visas.

[Ted Gallivan]

That work is already ongoing and, yes, we continue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Thank you, Mr. Gallivan.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to congratulate the interpreters, who are here in person today. It makes a big difference for me, since I always rely 100% on the earpiece. I really want to thank them for being here. It makes things much better.

Ms. O'Gorman, usually I ask you questions about container clearance at small ports. We're going to change the subject today. I'm sure you're pleased about that.

I'm having a little trouble understanding your connection to the study. The Canada Border Services Agency isn't necessarily the subject of the Auditor General's report, but it is an important partner of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

I know from personal experience that there are students who are unable to cross the border, even when they have their study permits, because the agency sometimes detects fraud at border crossings.

Can you tell us what your role is in relation to what we are examining today? Are you awaiting best practices from the department? What can you do to improve the department's response in the matter we are discussing today?