Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

All right. How many people have had their application to enter Canada refused for causing excessive demand on health or social services to date in 2025? As you know, that's part of IRPA requirements.

[Aaron McCrorie]

I apologize; I don't have that number readily at hand.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

How many people did CBSA recommend be denied, only to be overruled by IRCC?

[Aaron McCrorie]

It happens. I couldn't tell you offhand what the number is, say, for this fiscal year. I think I indicated in my remarks that we had about 300 or 400 non-favourable recommendations, but there will be times when there are other considerations. For example, if there's only one person who can come in and fix a piece of machinery, there will be a national interest process that allows that person to come into the country.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

I see. If you could table that information with the committee, that would be very helpful.

You know that asylum claimants sometimes file bogus refugee claims and, once rejected, appeal these decisions to the refugee protection division. While they are waiting at this stage, you have the authority to enforce removal orders. Do you enforce these orders?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I'm sorry; I'm not sure that I followed the question.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

When there's a refugee claim and they're waiting for a decision from the refugee protection division, they could be removed from the country.

[Aaron McCrorie]

No, we allow people to go through the due process in terms of making the appeal to the IRB, and often they'll make an appeal to the Federal Court, and then, as I noted, depending on where they come from, they can ask for a pre-removal risk assessment. Those are the steps that we typically go through prior to initiating a removal.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

How many failed claimants who are linked to document fraud rings, fake offers, ghost consultants and that kind of thing are in the removal queue, and how many were removed in 2024 and 2025?

[Aaron McCrorie]

If I understand the question, I don't have that data readily at hand.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Is that something you can table with the committee?

[Aaron McCrorie]

We can certainly see. I can't promise you that we have it, but if we have it, we can certainly provide it.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

The last Conservative government required CBSA to maintain a list of most-wanted foreign criminals in Canada to be deported. Justin Trudeau, in his soft-on-crime approach, shut this down. With Mark Carney supposedly wanting to get tough on crime again, I presume he has asked CBSA to once again publish this information.

[Aaron McCrorie]

When we look at how we get information about people who may be in the country illegally or who are inadmissible, we look at a variety of tools. When we did our own assessment of that program, it wasn't as effective as, say, tips we got from the public, so—

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

I'm sorry to interrupt you. The idea of a list of most-wanted foreign criminals to be deported is not something that CBSA is currently pursuing.

[Aaron McCrorie]

We're not currently pursing that, but we are encouraging people to provide us tips and information when they have information about anybody who is here and inadmissible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you so much, Mr. Redekopp.

Thank you, Mr. McCrorie.

I think our first up is Mr. Zuberi from the Liberals for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Once upon a time, I was a reservist in the Black Watch and served five years in uniform, so I just wanted to salute all in uniform who are working to serve and protect our country.

I am going to start off with a question around security screening.

In our offices, we receive many requests to work on immigration files. On occasion, some are stuck in security screening. Our government has committed to increasing the number of RCMP and CBSA officers by at least 1,000.

Will any of these new resources be dedicated to alleviating the security screening issue? That's number one. Number two is this: What are you doing to reduce these wait times around security screening?

[Aaron McCrorie]

It's premature to say whether any of the 1,000 CBSA frontline officers will be deployed to security screening.

With a program like this, there's a constant tension between the timeliness of our answers and the time we need to take to do it right. We can typically do an easy, simple case in a couple of days; more complex cases may take more time. We're always looking at how we can improve our efficiency without sacrificing that effectiveness piece. If you look over the last couple of years, our productivity has actually gone up quite impressively. The challenge is that our volumes have gone up with it, so we haven't been able to keep up with the increasing volumes.

That doesn't mean we've given up. We're continuing to look at how we can achieve further efficiencies in the program. One thing, for example, is that about 50% of our current inventory of 195,000 are in-Canada asylum seekers, so we're looking at moving away from a first-in, first-out process to finding and identifying the simple, less complex cases so we can get them out of the inventory quicker. That does two things: It gets people decisions quicker, and it also reduces the volume in the inventory and allows our staff to work on the other cases.

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

Thank you for that.

I understand how you have yet to determine how those new resources will be allocated and where they'll be working.

I want to shift gears and talk about conflict zones. In the first panel, we talked about Sudan, and we talked about Gaza. We have Canadians who have families and loved ones who are going through quite difficult situations, including, in some cases, loss of life, and they want their loved ones to be here.

We appreciate how, in conflict zones, there has to be screening done. Very briefly, I am assuming that everybody is going through robust security screening but that you're also dedicating resources so they're done in a timely fashion.

Is that correct on both fronts?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Absolutely.

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

Related to conflict, as somebody who's served in the army, I was trained on what war crimes and crimes against humanity are and to not follow orders that are illegal according to international law. That's what we were told as soldiers. I was a soldier; I was a corporal at the end.

Now, Canada and other human rights groups, in particular B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence, have said that war crimes have been committed and crimes against humanity have occurred. The Government of Canada has cautioned and said that the prevention of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza in the past has amounted to a breach of international law.

Are we screening to ensure that those who have served in the IDF during this period in time have not been involved in any of these breaches of international law as they enter Canada? I'm talking about those who are not Canadian citizens.

[Aaron McCrorie]

The way the security screening process works is that our colleagues in IRCC get the applications and, based on the thematic indicators that we've developed with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, they will screen those applicants and then refer them, if warranted, to CBSA and CSIS.

We assess each application on its own merits.

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

Are you presently satisfied that the safety and security of Canadians is intact, given the level of screening that's happening right now for those who are involved in conflict and are seeking to enter Canada, those who have served with the IDF within the last two years?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I would just respond more generally to say that that is our constant. It's not specific to any conflict zone. That is what our raison d'être is and that's what the challenge is in terms of the volumes we're facing and the need for a timely decision. We need to take the time to get that decision right, regardless of where the conflict zone is. That is what we do every day in security screening.