Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 24th, 2009

[Stephen Rigby]

I don't want to mislead you, sir. There's constant and robust communication with our colleagues in the Customs and Border Protection Service about all aspects of our business, from the strategic to the tactical.

Again, I didn't mean to try to duck the question. What I do know about the American regime is that generally speaking, they're more emphatic about denying these things at the first point of decision-making and then providing an avenue for appeal afterwards, whereas we tend to provide more latitude in the first decision-making point and place more emphasis on the decision of the officer. Typically speaking, as I understand it—and if I'm misspeaking here, I'll write to the committee—I believe the American process is based on saying if you have a criminal background or if you have these sorts of issues present, in all likelihood you are not going to be permitted access to the United States, but you can have access to an appeal process.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

If we wish to address this problem a little bit further down the road so we have some consistency, should we be dealing with this on an agency level or on a political level?

[Stephen Rigby]

I think the best thing that I could do is undertake to get clarity on the issue and make sure I'm not misspeaking or providing you with an incomplete answer. I would say the hierarchy of engagement here should be at my level. I'd be happy to engage my interlocutors to see what the Americans are doing versus what we do, and see whether there's any cooperation that we could use.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Hopefully, with the committee's suggestion it might move forward that we could enlist your help in trying to get at least some form of consistency so that our traveling public on all sides of the border would at least have an idea of what's in store for them when they approach the border.

[Stephen Rigby]

I'd be pleased to have that conversation.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Thank you very kindly.

I have just another quick point. One illegal is one too many; however, we all recognize humanity for what it is. You mentioned you've done a fair bit of traveling lately. How do we stack up in comparison to other jurisdictions? With the U.S., of course, we know they have literally millions of illegals, just proportionately compared to us. But what about Australia, Britain, other countries? How do we stand up in the matter of a shop-around list for you?

[Stephen Rigby]

It's a slightly partisan answer, but I think we stack up fairly well. The one thing I would say about countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain is that they're islands, so their border management tends to have a different dynamic from a country like ours that shares 4,000 miles of border with the world's most powerful country--and all that goes with that.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

What about numbers? If we're sitting at 40,000, how many would be in England?

[Stephen Rigby]

In terms of warrants? I couldn't tell you. I can endeavour to get some information on that if you'd like it.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Okay. It would just be nice to have something we could relate to, so we could actually do a realistic comparison. I recognize they have different factors affecting their rate, but it just would be nice to know.

[Stephen Rigby]

I don't want to misspeak, once again, but I would hazard that the American situation with illegal immigration on their southern border would far outstrip any challenges that I'm facing.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

I couldn't agree with you more.

Mr. Rigby, I'd just like a little bit more information on one statement that you made. You said, “As noted by the Auditor General, due to delays in systems upgrades beyond our control....” The thing is your capacities within your department have been limited with situations that are beyond your control. Are they within Parliament's control? What are those “beyond your control” systems, and how might we best address that?

[Stephen Rigby]

I think the issue is now back within our control. What had happened was that the national case management system, which is our prime data system for detentions and removals, had been brought within the ambit of something called the global case management system, which is a large infrastructure project being managed by Immigration Canada. Due to a re-scoping exercise that occurred last year, NCMS has been removed from the GCMS game plan and is now back with us. To a certain extent, we were waiting on GCMS to deal with a number of the systems issues we had and we were hoping we'd get remediation through that effort. Now that NCMS has been brought outside that game plan, we've taken steps already to begin doing the sorts of things we need to do in the NCMS system. We've done a certain amount up to now, and we'll be doing a certain amount over the next several years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kramp.

Madame Guay.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to the committee.

I'm not an official member of this committee, but I've listened to your entire presentation. I sincerely have to tell you that I wanted more. In fact, I've been here in this House for more than 16 years, and, when you meet people of your calibre, who know their files, but who can't give us answers when they come to meet us once a year or every two years, we expect more. I don't feel we're getting enough information. For example, you told us that you had deported 12,617 persons. Where were they? We'd like to have a more detailed report on that.

You referred to 1,996 criminals. Where did they come from? Could we get that information so that we can have some idea? Do they come from Quebec, Ontario or British Columbia?

There are services in Quebec, for refugees and immigrants, among others, whose purpose it is to help them integrate or to provide a temporary welcome when they file their claims, so that they don't wind up piled on top of each other in cells. We have that back home. There should be more services or this should be known. For it to be known, we have to know how many we have here. We have to have a complete report. And, in my view, this report isn't complete.

It was also mentioned that there are 40,000 individuals working without any status in Toronto alone. These people are taking part in economic activity. They are earning wages; so they are taking part in the economy. What are we going to do with these people? Do they have status somewhere? It's up to you to tell us that because we aren't specialists in the field.

There's also the entire question of the appeal division that we're very keen on. We've been working on that for a number of years. My colleague has previously introduced a bill to enable refugees to file appeals when their applications are dismissed. It was reintroduced by Thierry St-Cyr, of the Bloc Québécois. These people have to be able to be represented and to appeal their cases. It's possible, but it isn't being enforced under the act. I'd like to hear what you have to say on that point.

By introducing these kinds of tools, we would be improving matters; we would be moving matters forward more quickly, and we would be able to resolve a lot of cases. People who come here don't necessarily come to do harm, but because they're often really in danger in their country or because they have chosen an immigration country where they can be well-off, happy, where they want to work, earn a living, raise their children and take part in economic life.

You still have a lot of work to do. I—and my colleagues as well—would like there to be a lot more information, a more complete report focusing on each province, because people don't necessarily do things the same way everywhere. I know that this is done differently in Quebec.

[Stephen Rigby]

Thank you very much.

We can certainly provide the committee with more details in terms of the constituent elements of the number of removals that we do in a year--perhaps the most recent year, and perhaps as much information as we can generate in terms of where they fall across our various regions.

In terms of who's in the 12,000 or so that we might remove in any given year, probably the largest amount will be failed refugee claimants. These are people who have been through the system and have not been granted refugee status and are being asked to leave Canada as a consequence of that.

In terms of the number that enter into so-called criminality, a large number of them would be people who have come to Canada, have lived in Canada while they are awaiting assessment of their status--refugee or otherwise--and for one reason or another have turned to criminal activity while they're living in Canada.

A number of them will enter the criminal justice system and we have to wait for them to exit that system. We try to track them very, very carefully so that when they do leave the criminal justice system, we generally try to get them, detain them, and then remove them appropriately so that they're not lingering in Canada after they've left the criminal justice system.

In terms of the 40,000, these are generally people who have come to Canada, they've entered into the immigration refugee process and then they have failed to pursue the process appropriately. So they've failed to present themselves for some aspect, either a hearing or an interview. They've basically gone truant on the system and it's our obligation to then find them.

The situation--

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Why not give them a second chance then?

[Stephen Rigby]

In some cases we do.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Appeal division?

[Stephen Rigby]

In some cases we will find them as a result of an investigation in pursuit of the warrant and they will re-enter the program or the process regularly, but they had good reason for not having presented themselves and they are not automatically removed. So a proportion of them do get what might be viewed as a second chance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Madame Guay.

Mr. Shipley, for five minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome.

Mr. McRoberts, the audit was done in May of 2008, but it was produced and substantially completed in December of 2007. What years does it really reflect? Just help me a little bit.

[Hugh McRoberts]

It basically reflects the situation in the agency prior to December 2007, going back about 18 months, roughly.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

To Mr. Rigby, if you wouldn't mind, I'm interested in the actions following the May 2008 audit, which isn't that long ago, I guess. I know that Minister Day and Minister Van Loan have taken some steps on this.

I read in your presentation that on the temporary resident permit, the CBSA and Citizenship and Immigration Canada are working together. There's approval in terms of a monitoring framework, which is now coming out in early March 2009. That's the direction that has been taken.

The Auditor General noticed that “no national procedures exist to address capacity”. We talked a little bit about that. You talk here about target dates of implementation for a procedure, again for June of this year.

I'm looking at number three, which is a reporting requirement. This again has to do with detention capacity, where it has been exceeded. It appears to me that you're developing a quality assurance program for implementation in September of 2009, which is just six months or so up the road.

In number four, your agency has negotiated, and there was discussion by my colleague Mr. Christopherson about the length of time taken to reach the agreements. It would appear that those are going to be concluded in 2009, and then with the remaining provinces, hopefully—and I think Ms. Johnston referred to this—by 2011. In the past, although there have been fewer numbers, these don't always make it easier to negotiate, because each province has its own issues to deal with, I would suspect.

In number five, the agency has launched a process to monitor the framework and identify key removals and detention activities. I think this is a key one, to be monitored for consistent application. That reporting began just at the end of 2008. Then you are conducting a pilot for 2009 to track individual removal cases. Is that the one that will try to get a handle on the exit of those who leave? You targeted Toronto as a pilot project area.

Now for my two questions. Are these a result of the concerns that have obviously come about from the AG, and on which you're now moving ahead? And second, has Toronto been picked for a particular reason?

Then I have a question about page 10 and the pre-approval programs to speed up the entry of low-risk people. I think these are good, but is there an increased risk of people slipping through the cracks when you have a preregistration or a pre-approval program? Does it raise that risk?

I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chair.

[Stephen Rigby]

The dates for the action plan have certainly been focused and inspired by the recommendations and observations of the Auditor General. We have said, and I truly believe, that these have pointed out some weaknesses, which we are trying to remediate. What I have sought to do is to have action going on everything they have touched on, and I think we have that.

Some of the things are taking a little bit longer. They involve negotiation. They may involve system changes, they may involve pilot projects, and they may involve testing the policies to make sure we don't put them in the field before they're ready for officers. This takes a little bit of time, but I'm reasonably satisfied that the dates we've set here are fairly aggressive in relative terms.

In terms of why we chose Toronto, it is the location of what we refer to as GTEC, the Greater Toronto Enforcement Centre. It is our largest immigration enforcement centre, and probably the nexus of our attention for enforcement activities, certainly in central Canada. We feel that it provides the largest, richest environment for us to test a number of these things.