Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 9th, 2013

[Wendy Loschiuk]

Mr. Chair, I would like to point out that we do recognize with the new national targeting program that they have in place, which was what we were commenting on a lot in 2007, that they have focused and done some good work in there. That's where we saw that they were putting in place a lot of the things we had asked them to do back then.

Nevertheless, there were targets missed. I think our concern was a little bit more on the lack of progress on the side of lookouts. We found there hadn't been the kind of progress in keeping an eye out for people who we knew about. Lookouts and targets are a little bit different, and it's the lookout area, I think, that needs some focus where we were concerned.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Would you agree with that assessment, Mr. Bolduc, in the sense that maybe overall you might be able to suggest to me you've become much better? In specific reference to the lookouts situation—and I know what the lookouts are since I live in Niagara and had two daughters who worked for your agency for four summers—would you say that is perhaps the weakness so far of what you've done to date?

[Martin Bolduc]

I think that's the area we needed to improve a lot.

What we were pleased with is that in 2012 we did our own internal review of the lookouts. We had an internal audit. In fact, we put together a working group, which I personally led, and when the Auditor General showed up to do the lookouts review, essentially we had identified internally all the areas that needed improvement. I think it is recognized by the Auditor General in the report that we already had put an action plan in place, which was essentially what the Auditor General's recommendation was to implement our action plan.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I think, sir, as the chair indicated at the beginning, this is a case in point where your action plan may have helped you today. I can't work off an action plan that's not in front of me. As much as I take you at your word, Mr. Bolduc, I really do have to have the document in front of me. You may have been able to walk me through that today, sir, and explain all of your accomplishments that I'm now asking you to try and convince me you have accomplished based on an Auditor General's report. That's the importance of those action plans for us at this table. We need to get those.

I know sometimes departments feel they might be hurtful because they haven't quite got there, but in your case, sir, I think, the action plan would probably have reinforced for us that perhaps you've done more than what the report is indicating to us at this point. We look forward to getting those tomorrow.

One of the other pieces that's on page three of the Auditor General's report—

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Mr. Allen, I'm sorry. You're already right now at five. You would have taken me well over.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

We'll get you on the next round. Thank you.

Now it's over to Vice-Chair John Carmichael. You have the floor, sir.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses today.

Ms. Loschiuk, I'm going to direct my questions to you, and then if you wish to push them out to your colleagues, that would be fine.

In your report on page 5, paragraph 5.2, you say that preventing illegal entry has been a policy priority for the Government of Canada, especially since 9/11, which is an understatement. We all agree on that. Keeping terrorists out is a good thing.

In your comments today, you talk about managing who crosses Canada's vast border. You referred to some 270,000 people a day. Obviously, it's a massive job.

I wonder in your audit if you could tell us what you found as far as border security goes in terms of numbers. Did you find a strengthening or a weakening in our front-line security? Has the government increased front-line border guards?

[Wendy Loschiuk]

Mr. Chair, I will ask Nick to add on anything.

What we were looking for was actually a direct answer to your question. Are we getting better? How are we doing overall against the five controls for CBSA we looked at, and for the control mechanisms the RCMP have?

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of performance measurement information. That's one of the recommendations, the areas we're focusing on in our report. It's saying there needs to be better use of the information they do have, and we were able to use some of it to do sampling, in order to get a sense of how well we're doing overall.

Nick, did you want to add anything to that?

[Nicholas Swales, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Only to say I think that is the essence of it. In almost all the areas we looked at, with the exception, I think, of the targeting program, one of the key challenges is whether the information is there to allow you to know whether you're getting better or worse.

With reference to your question about numbers of border guards, we didn't specifically look at that question in this report.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

When you talk about the metrics now, you're talking about tools that will help you to measure the success of those who are on the front lines, which I guess is something we'll look at next year.

Will that be in the action plan, just out of interest's sake? It's one of the recommendations. Should that be in the action plan that we'll get tomorrow?

[Wendy Loschiuk]

I will hand that to Martin Bolduc.

[Martin Bolduc]

Yes, it's part of the action plan that we are able to assess our performance.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Good. Thank you.

On illegal entries, again on page 5, you say, “Failure to prevent illegal entry compromises Canada’s border, the immigration program, and the safety and security of Canadians.” Clearly, that's what this is all about. Illegal entries are also a significant burden on taxpayers.

I wonder if you could comment. I understand from the report there are a number of rejected refugee claimants who entered Canada illegally. What is the estimated cost to taxpayers for each rejected refugee claimant? How are they determined?

[Wendy Loschiuk]

I believe we have in the report the cost that was given to us by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. It was $26,000 per claimant. That was the figure we used as an example. While we don't have good, robust data on the costs for a lot of these activities, we were able to say that at least if it gets to the point where an individual has entered and is now making a refugee claim, we know what that cost is.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

When you're putting a value or a cost to taxpayers on failed refugee claimants, those who come in by legal means and those who come by illegal means, a combination, and that's the cost per....

[Wendy Loschiuk]

That's right, yes.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Okay.

Our government strongly supports an immigration system that honours people who play by the rules, as we would all agree, and respect Canadian law; however, many people try to enter Canada through fraudulent and criminal means.

What did your review conclude about the illegal entries into Canada? Were illegal entries a burden on taxpayers and a risk to Canadians?

[Wendy Loschiuk]

Mr. Chair, our audit concluded the controls that are put in place by the two agencies responsible for preventing illegal entry were not preventing illegal entry all of the time. More concerning was the question about who was getting through.

While we were able to do a survey and look at some of the data and say that about 8% were not targeted or identified, or another 15% should have been further examined, more concerning was that some of those people were individuals with serious criminality.

It's very hard to make an overall statement about the level of how many people are getting through. What is concerning is who's getting through and what mechanisms we have in place to try to stop that.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Your time has expired, Mr. Carmichael. Thank you.

Mr. Harris, you now have the floor, sir.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

It's not Mr. Simms?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I'm going by my list, so you have the floor.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I'm up sooner than I thought.

Going back to some of the questions that were just asked about performance measurements and an ability to assess performance, Mr. Bolduc, you said it's contained in the action plan. When do you expect to have these measurements in place so that we can actually start measuring the success rates?

[Martin Bolduc]

Depending on the area of concern, I think I would turn to my colleagues.

Would you go over that, Lesley?

[Lesley Soper, Executive Director, Enforcement and Intelligence Programs, Canada Border Services Agency]

Sure.

For lookouts, we're currently putting in place the reporting regime in order to collect performance measures around lookouts. That's being deployed right now, supported by training to our staff to ensure that reporting is complete and thorough in 100% of cases.

On the targeting side, we have the measures in place. I think they need to be adapted to reflect some of the comments made by the Office of the Auditor General. Specifically, we use a generic performance measurement in targeting, which speaks to the completeness of advance passenger information that we're receiving from airlines. It's not sufficient to really get at the issue, which is the quality of advance passenger information, so an action plan is in place with the air industry in order to deliver a more robust reporting framework for that piece.