Public Accounts Committee on June 20th, 2007

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much, and thank you all for being here. I'm glad we started on time, Ms. Fraser, and didn't hold you up again as we did on Monday.

To our passport officials, I can compliment you from a Toronto perspective. I had someone come in and see me on Friday who realized their son was leaving on Monday. They got into the office on the Friday, and Monday afternoon at four o'clock they managed to get a passport. So I have to tell you, I compliment the services that can deal with these kinds of emergencies.

I'm always worried about security of documents and I'm concerned about where we are with the biometrics and that whole idea of making sure our passports are as secure as possible. Where do you see the future going—I say “the future”, meaning the next two to three years, or possibly the next five years—as far as making that document even more secure?

Some of the work I've done on the Canada-U.S. committee shows continued concern from the U.S. perspective on how secure our documents are. There have been discussions about doing a blended document. Where do you see the future taking us from a security perspective on those documents?

[Gérald Cossette]

Right now we're looking at three main things. The first one is a change in the design of the document itself. The last time we reviewed our design I think was 2001, so the time has come for us to change the features of the document itself.

The second thing we're looking at, and we're proceeding with a pilot project, is the issuance of an electronic passport, which is a passport with a chip. The same information you would find on the page of the passport would be on the chip.

And the third security for the future we will proceed with over the next couple of months is facial recognition, which is a software that allows the force to recognize whether or not the person in the photograph is the same person who is applying, and so on.

Those are the three main features we're looking at in terms of interim security over the next two to three years.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Are you in discussions with Foreign Affairs in the U.S. on ways of improving the security of those documents?

[Gérald Cossette]

We are a member of what we call the “five nations group”. We meet on an ongoing basis with the New Zealanders, the Australians, the Americans, and the British, comparing notes, looking at the best lessons learned, sharing experiences, and so on. In the medium term, our security features and processes and ways of doing business are very much in line with one another.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

On the current changes that were announced by the minister as far as the guarantor of the passport, to the person who would be guaranteeing, that individual has to have a current passport or simply a passport?

[Gérald Cossette]

It would be a current passport. It would be a valid passport. It would have to have been issued in Canada. The person would have had to apply in Canada. The applicant needs to meet a certain number of criteria before the renewal process can be used.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

And are they going to be held up to that same kind of scrutiny regardless of the fact that the guarantor who signs it is their father or their mother or their brother or sister?

[Gérald Cossette]

When it comes to guarantors, are families excluded? I would have to look at the details of the proposal, but the guarantor would be a passport holder, which means that we would already have the information in our own database with regard to the guarantor. This is much more secure than going through the professional associations list, for instance.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Lake, three minutes.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

In the Auditor General's opening statement and in her report she talked a little bit about the pilot project under way with Alberta and B.C., involving the data being transferred instantaneously through electronic links. It seems to me this would be important to do with each of the provinces. Maybe you can elaborate a little bit on why we're not there yet. I know it was a pilot project, so I imagine it takes some time, but where are we going with that, and what's the plan?

[Gérald Cossette]

Right now the project has not broadened its scope, but it has broadened the number of players. It's being managed by the chief information officer at the Treasury Board Secretariat, and it is trying basically to define the requirements of most departments at the federal level so that we can develop a single point of contact for all federal institutions to access provincial vital statistics. In the past, we may have been in the process of developing a system under which different departments would ask for the same information, and pay twice, basically, for the same information, so we're looking at how we can manage that at the federal level and then enter into a series of partnerships with provinces.

One of the problems we had in the past was to design what this thing would be from a technological standpoint. Would we hit their database? Would it be just some kind of network through which information could be shared? There was a significant technological component that had to be solved, and of course finance is a significant element of the problem.

The second thing was the governance. Once you have a means to exchange information from province to province, from provinces to the federal government, who would be responsible for the governance of such a process?

The third element that has to be taken into account is the legal authority that provinces may have to transfer the information directly to us, and so on. Some provinces may be in a better position to do that, given their own legal framework.

This project is proceeding. It has now been taken over by the Treasury Board Secretariat, so that it applies to a series of federal departments, and not only to Passport Canada or to Service Canada, for instance.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

We know there's going to be another wave coming. We've alluded to that a few times today. It seems to me that awareness of the issue right now is still very high. It also seems to me that rather than just simply planning for the other wave and building capacity to handle it when it comes, there might be some strategic advantage to transferring some of the height of that wave to now, when it's settled down a little bit. I know you're probably just catching your breath, so it probably makes you a little nervous hearing that, but wouldn't it be wise to enact some form of PR campaign or marketing campaign to try to make people get their passports now or within the next six months, when things might settle down a little bit, if they are going to be travelling, say, in the summer of 2008?

[Gérald Cossette]

In fact, what we have started to do—not what we're planning but what we have started to do—is hold a series of seminars inviting Canadians to come and apply on the spot for their passports. The first one was in Sarnia last week, if I'm right. We look at the documents and go over the application, and so on. We're looking at the best locations to do that; potentially they would be centres away from where we have passport offices and where services may not be as available as they should be.

Given the fact that we will have to advertise our change to the renewal policy and the guarantor policy again, we will have the opportunity to remind Canadians that they should apply for a passport. When it comes to the demand, to a certain extent there should be a decrease in the demand as we speak, but it hasn't occurred yet. The demand remains extremely high. It's something like 36% to 37% higher than last year at the same period.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

Mr. Roy is next, for three minutes.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to come back to Mr. Lake's question, because it is something that I was also wondering about. I am referring to the auditor general's current or future report on your performance.

Did the increase in passport applications have any effect on the completion of your other projects? That is my first question. You would like to redeploy the Passport Canada offices through Service Canada. I have news for you, because Service Canada close down a number of offices in my region. And that is not the end of it. For example, Service Canada centralized its offices in Rimouski. But New Richmond is 400 kilometres away, and Gaspé is another 300 kilometres past New Richmond. So closing some offices and centralizing Service Canada in various locations will cause another problem.

You mentioned Canada Post. There is, of course, a post office located in every city. I understand that. However, how will the level of service compare to what is provided by Service Canada and the post office? That is another matter. I don't think the level of service will be the same, because there will not be a passport office and a passport officer in every post office. I don't see how that can be done.

Was your redeployment delayed? What are your current plans? Do you intend to take one year or two years to accomplish it? How long do you think it will take to redeploy Passport Canada offices through Service Canada and Canada Post? And are you taking a close look at the areas that you must serve in order to determine the locations?

[Gérald Cossette]

We are currently analyzing the changing demand. Historically, we had a certain number of centres. However, demographics have shifted, which means that the demand has changed. So, along with Service Canada, we are identifying the location of the demand in order to ensure that Service Canada will be able to serve that need. For example, the 17 new offices slated to open by the end of September will likely be located near the border and in areas that are further away from the current Passport Canada offices.

We realize that, over the next two or three years, the demand will remain very high due to the WHTI, or the Western Atmosphere Travel Initiative. The current Passport Canada structure was designed to process between 2.5 and 2.8 million applications per year—

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

You are not referring to the number of passports in circulation, but to the numbers of applications per year.

[Gérald Cossette]

That is correct; I am referring to the number of passports that are issued annually. Between 2005 and 2006, we received 3.1 million applications; last year, there were 3.6 million. Because of our WHTI obligations, we are expecting the demand to remain quite high.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

How many passports does that represent? Sorry, I didn't do the math. If you process 2.8 million per year... How many passports are currently in circulation, if we count the numbers that have been issued over a five-year period?

[Gary McDonald]

The number is about 14 million, or perhaps slightly higher than that. As I said earlier, we are approaching the 50% mark.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Poilievre, for three minutes.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

One of the tools that some members of Parliament have been using to expedite the passport application process is these clinics. Are these helpful?

[Jody Thomas]

It depends on what the clinic does, quite frankly. To be honest with you, if you're signing masses as guarantor, that's somewhat difficult for us. If you conduct a clinic in conjunction with us, where we can vet and verify that the documents are correct and it's just a matter of getting that information into our issuing system, having the security alerts run, and a passport printed, then that's very useful, but if you show up on our doorstep with 1,000 applications and we haven't been able to prepare for it, not particularly.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

In the second instance, the MP would contact your office—