Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Just to clarify what my colleague said, you have extended the contract with Mr. Guay due to an anticipated influx of refugees at the Roxham Road crossing. Is that correct?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Not entirely. I'm not 100% sure, so I want to take care here. My understanding is that we put a new RFP out, so it's a new contract that went through appropriate contracting principles and procurement actions in anticipation of.... Look at our numbers at Lacolle. Roxham Road, I described, was the illegal crossing that was taking place between the ports prior to the extension of the STCA. When that ended, people stopped crossing between the ports, at Roxham Road, but we did see people continuing to arrive at the official port of entry, Lacolle. We saw those numbers going up, and with a concern that we might not have enough facilities for a growing number of people, based on the precautionary principle and good solid contingency planning, my understanding is that we've signed a contract.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

How many anticipated crossings do you expect this year that precipitated that RFP?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Through the winter and into the spring, we saw that numbers were comparable—like 300 to 400 people—to what we were seeing during the Roxham Road days. Those numbers have gone down—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Essentially what you're saying right now is that you have seen such a spike in numbers that you had to issue an RFP in anticipation that there would be more people. Would that be correct?

[Aaron McCrorie]

As I say, we operate under the precautionary principle, and it's better to have capacity, if those numbers emerge, than to not have that capacity.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

There's a significant enough threat of that increase happening that you issued that RFP. Is that correct?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Yes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

I'll pass the floor to Mr. Davies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

You have three minutes.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a number of questions. I hope you'll accept my rapid-fire approach here.

Does a failure to comply with a 30-day order always result in a deportation order?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I think it will depend on the nature of the inadmissibility and the nature of the application, but I'll say by and large yes.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Okay.

Do you have a full list, or can you identify all the people who were on a removal list or a deportation list?

[Aaron McCrorie]

We do maintain removal inventories of various categories. It will include those, for example, whose removal is in abeyance as they move through the asylum process. It will include those who have an enforceable removal order, but because of the country they're coming from, for example, Haiti or Sudan, countries where there's an administrative deferral of removal, we can't send people there. Then we'll have an inventory of people whose removals we're actively working on.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

You track that very carefully.

I think you mentioned earlier that you have a target of 20,000 removals per year. That's 20,000 out of how many?

[Aaron McCrorie]

It's 20,000 out of our active.... Bear with me, but I haven't memorized everything.

Bear in mind, the sad analogy I use is that as we remove people, new people are added to our inventories. Right now, for example, our “removal in progress” inventory is sitting at 30,000 people.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I think I have time for one last question.

One of the issues that was raised with me in the past is the idea of sharing information across Canada, among police departments and between IRCC and CBSA. Is there a standard platform you use to share information, or is it just by basic software?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Insofar as IRCC is concerned, we actually operate off a common system, the global case management system. When we work with our partners in the RCMP, that's what CPIC and the warrant systems are for. A warrant is a signal for us to tell our policing colleagues to look for this person, for example.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Other than CPIC, is there any other platform that would...?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Not with law enforcement, no. It's so dispersed, if you think about all the different police jurisdictions in the country.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I have one last question. Going back to the list of people to be removed from Canada, do you rank the people on that list as high risk, medium risk or low risk?

[Aaron McCrorie]

We have four tiers of priorities. Our tier number one priority is a serious inadmissibility, which would be people with criminality, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Then, we have a bundle around failed refugee claimants and irregular arrivals, again because we want to create a push-away factor. The third tier is everybody else.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I was—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

I'm sorry, but we've gone past your time.

Thank you so much.

Now we move to five minutes with Ms. Zahid.