Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Mr. Ma, just to clarify, because you've asked a question to try to get information, you're trying to get information about whether there was advice given by an official at the department—

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Did the department—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

—to actually increase or decrease.... Can you just repeat the question that you would like the information for?

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Yes.

The question is, did the department provide the recommendation to the then minister on either increasing or decreasing the number for the foreign students program?

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

That was in 2022.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Ms. Park, is it possible for you to take that away and see if you could provide information within 28 days?

[Soyoung Park]

I could, but I guess I would add that in 2022 there was no cap on international students, so it would not have been a point of discussion, because we were processing the applications as they were received. That's part of the reason that in 2024 we moved forward with the cap.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Just to follow up on that, the department was following a process and approving without any sort of quota or targets. It was just a free flow, a free approval, and that's what caused this issue.

[Soyoung Park]

I would not characterize it as a free flow. I think the applications come in—

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

You've just said that there was no limitation.

[Soyoung Park]

There was no cap at the time in terms of the number of applications that we would receive. We relied very heavily on the fact that there are a lot of benefits to international students as well. I don't think that we—

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Did that include—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Ms. Park.

Thank you, Mr. Ma. Your time is up.

Now we go to Mr. Fragiskatos for five minutes.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Zafar, I didn't expect to ask questions about Bill C-2 today, but I think you focused on an area of great interest for this committee.

My friend Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe is looking at me and asking how this relates to international students, I'm sure, but it does, because it does speak to the integrity of the overall system, of which the international student program is obviously a part.

Could you go over that again? I think the millions of people watching on CPAC, of course, won't necessarily pick up on the point, perhaps. This is an area that you are working in. This is your area of expertise. How does the change proposed in Bill C-2 guard against the fraud that has been an issue with international students, or some international students, in the past?

[Aiesha Zafar]

The information-sharing provision in Bill C-2 isn't specific to international students, but it does provide us with enhanced integrity throughout the system.

Information is key. As we've said before, the officers are able to make an assessment only for admissibility and eligibility—which is key for a foreign national entering into Canada—based on the information that is in front of them. The information in front of them is information that's provided on the application. We collect biometrics. We do criminal assessments. We share information with our partners to see if there's any derogatory information.

As I mentioned before, one of the key pieces that is missing is our ability to share between our business lines on various applications, even if we're not talking about fraud and just talking about administrative errors. An individual filling out an application for a visitor visa may have incorrectly put in a place of birth based on what their passport said or didn't say at the time. As they progress through the process, it might be different on a permanent resident application, and we want to be able to identify that throughout the system.

We also want to be able to share information with provinces and territories, so that it not only helps facilitate for clients their ability to access provincial services and benefits, but also allows the provinces to determine whether somebody is abusing the provincial services and benefits.

Also, then, while we have information-sharing agreements with our international partners, we rely on consistent use and the Privacy Act to share with our federal partners. As we mentioned before, immigration and immigration enforcement and the borders is a joint responsibility with a number of different departments in the federal government. This would allow us to do that as well.

There are also other provisions within Bill C-2. One of them would be what we refer to as “mass authorities”. Generally, it would allow, through an order in council, an order to mass cancel, suspend or alter immigration documents that have been issued, for reasons in the public interest. “Public interest” isn't defined, because there could be various reasons that the GIC would determine that it's in the public interest. For instance, there could be a cyber-attack issuing fraudulent visas. We would want to mass cancel those. We currently don't have the ability to do that under the legislation.

It would also, finally, bring efficiencies to our asylum program. As it may pertain to individuals who are claiming asylum and are non-genuine claimants, we want to make the system more efficient and fast, and it would introduce two ineligibilities with regard to that as well.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

I'm remaining, Madam Chair. I'm splitting my time with Mr. Al Soud, who is a new member and is very passionate on immigration. He's subbing in today, but I'm sharing my time.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I'm proud to be subbing in.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all for taking the time to be with us. I'm mindful of how busy you are, so I truly appreciate your taking the time.

My question is on IRCC announcing digital modernization efforts to streamline processing and client interactions. Can you tell us how these tools will improve transparency and reduce processing times?

[Pemi Gill]

IRCC continues to make investments in modernization with the intent of two focused outcomes. One is improving efficiencies, so we do use advanced analytics, as well, to do risk triaging and to automate some of the decision-making.

We're also looking at ways to improve client transparency. As referenced by my colleagues, there is more information in terms of the non-permanent resident cohorts who are in Canada, so our website has been updated with that frequently. We're starting to make changes to how processing times are published, so that clients can see where in the queue they are. We've recently just done this for one line of business and are piloting that.

In addition, we've recently launched what's called officer decision notes: For clients who are applying for temporary resident lines of business, at the time of their refusal letter being sent to them, we're also providing to the client the officer's notes that supported that decision for refusal. Those are being sent to them automatically as part of that process.

Those are some of the recent—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Ms. Gill. I'm sorry. We've gone over. I think everybody will be rejoicing at this modernization information, so thank you.

Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe is next.

Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In order to solve a problem, we have to start by identifying it. An international crime ring is victimizing a lot of people in Quebec and the rest of Canada. It generates half a billion dollars from criminal activity and uses that money for things like financing terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah. This criminal organization uses Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada's study permit program to achieve its goals.

I just want to know if there's a problem in your department or not.

[Aiesha Zafar]

I personally don't have the details of the criminal investigation that you're referring to. However, when there are indications that individuals, foreign nationals, have come into Canada and committed crimes, the CBSA, the RCMP and local police will investigate those crimes. Any information that is relayed to us—and we do have relationships with those organizations—we will then use to ensure that we don't provide permits in the future to individuals with the same characteristics.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Chair, at the beginning of this meeting, I asked the witnesses if they had seen last week's episode of Enquête. They said they had. Now they're saying they don't know what I'm talking about.

Ms. Zafar, did you see the report or not?

[Aiesha Zafar]

I have seen the report. I don't have any specific details about the criminal investigation other than what's in the report.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

According to the one-hour Enquête episode, a criminal organization is using IRCC's study permit program to engage in criminal activity yielding half a billion dollars to finance Hezbollah, a terrorist organization.

My simple question is this: Is there a problem in your department?

I'm not here to attack you. I'm here to help fix the situation. If you can't admit that there's a problem in your department when a crime ring of this size is using one of your programs specifically, how can you solve that problem?