Evidence of meeting #139 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was irb.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board
It'll be higher than that, but that's correct.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board
We project that by 2021 the backlog will be approximately 100,000.
The other fact I'll share with the committee is that the pace of growth over the past quarter has been the lowest that it's been in well over two years, since Q2 of 2016.
The recent budget 2018 measures, coupled with our productivity improvements, have already considerably slowed the growth of the pace of the backlog and have kept wait times in check from what they would otherwise have been. The system is being managed.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
Do you agree that reducing the number of claims, reducing the number of claimants, is key to reducing the backlog in wait times?
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board
Absolutely.
In two years' time, the government will have options available to it in terms of how best to reduce the backlog. It's much like what has happened over the course of time, unfortunately, when backlogs had been created both in the early 2000s and in 2010, and grew in part because we haven't always learned from history.
The OAG has pointed out the need for a flexible funding mechanism. Unlike the immigration system, in which you can determine how many newcomers to bring in in any given year, in the refugee determination system, we don't determine how many claims there will be in a given year.
That's the OAG's recommendation.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
Right, but you agree, though, that to reduce the backlog and wait times, you need to reduce the number of claims.
Conservative
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks to all of you for being here today. I appreciate it. I want to pick up on the last discussion. I jotted down some things.
My first thought as I was listening was that in terms of the backlog, you have a plan to get a plan. By 2021, you think the backlog will be 100,000. You've slowed the growth, and the system is being managed. These are just some of the things I've jotted down. To me it sounds like flood waters. I mean, you're managing the disaster, but we're not getting at the cause, and we're certainly not getting at the immediate problem, which is the backlog.
It's astounding, quite frankly. I mean, it's a plan designed to fail, because it doesn't meet the total intake and it still leaves a growing backlog. There are more fingers in more holes in the dike than I can count here. Quite frankly, it's overwhelming that we're at this stage, and with an auditor's report in front of us, and I still don't like what I'm hearing. This is the best you can spin it. This is the best way it can be framed.
I've had people.... I want to segue—poorly—to “Security screening results still pending”, as an example, as 10% of the reasons for postponed hearings. Something needs to be done there.
I get it. I'm a former justice minister and I get security better that most people, but I've also had constituents come in crying—and I'm sure I'm not the only one—because they've been waiting so long that they've actually gone ahead and started a life.... Here's the thing about the security thing that throws me. If they're not a threat, why are we keeping them on tenterhooks for up to 10 years? I've had people waiting for up to 10 years and not knowing when there's going to be a registered letter telling them that they have to leave. Also, if they are a threat, why are we letting them walk around for 10 years free and clear? There's something wrong there.
Again, when I look at it from the human point of view, I'm from the working world and I get it. Nobody wants to be the one who says, “Yes, they're safe” and hands it off, and then worries about how they're going to be the one at an inquest sometime that is wanting to know why they made this decision. The easy thing to do, and the safe thing to do, is just don't do anything.
Give me your thoughts on that if you would, please, because that one is, again, a lived experience. You've had enough people cry in your office because they don't know what to do and you can't help them, and it's right there—it's at security. You should know that when we phone, there is a concrete wall that we cannot get past, and all we are told, even confidentially as MPs, is that “It's with security”, and that's it.
Just give us some thoughts on that, please, and on my opening mini-rant.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board
Okay. I'll start off.
Thank you for the comments, and I appreciate the passion.
I have two points on the backlogs and a plan for a plan. I guess I would just respond by saying a couple of things. As with all backlogs, you need to slow the growth of the backlog before you can begin to eliminate it. That's the process we're in right now.
We will eventually be in a position to seek funding to reduce and eliminate the backlog over time, and that is the plan that was followed in the past—successfully—by the board. Unfortunately, in the board's 30-year history there have been backlogs, and over time they do get reduced. You slow the growth of the backlog first, and then you eliminate the backlog, but I appreciate the member's comment.
On screening, I would simply note that since the conclusion of the audit period this past summer, no hearings have been postponed on account of security in the sense that now, as a result of the work that CBSA has done in dedicating increased priority to security screening and resources, coupled with the IRB's controlling of its own schedule, we are choosing files that are hearing-ready as a result of our ability to look at our inventory. We're in a position to schedule hearings for which the front-end security screening has already been completed.
I'm pleased to report and assure this committee that not only has member unavailability gone down as a reason for postponements, but so too has security screening, to the point where it's actually 0% since September.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you.
This is just a reminder that all these things that we're hearing—and some of that's good, and I'm glad to hear all of this—are a result of the Auditor General's report, the very reports that government is trying to cut and slash so that there are fewer of these reports.
Get used to it, colleagues; you're going to hear this from now until we leave, this business of cutting the budget or denying the increase of the budget to the Auditor General, which means the next Parliament's going to have fewer audits. I can't believe there aren't more people outraged about this, but I'll be getting on that at another time, trust me.
I'd like to move to page 11. This one jumped out at me.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
It is a short question, believe it or not, truly.
It says “Furthermore, new claims were prioritized over those that had been postponed, resulting in delays of several months for postponed claims.”
If you had an old claim and a new claim, the new claim got priority over the old claim. Where's the natural justice in terms of first come, first served?
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board
The OAG did find, when they did a deep dive on postponements, that what would happen is that a case, for example, could be in the middle of a hearing. As you know as a lawyer—
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'm not a lawyer. Call me a used car salesman, but not a lawyer.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board
Well, you'd know this from your previous justice days. I would say that the reality is that you may schedule a hearing for two hours, but for natural justice reasons, the hearing runs out of time before it can conclude, so there's a continuation. The member says our two-hour time slot is up, and we need to reschedule the hearing.
The way the IRB had been managing its schedule is that we schedule three to four months out. We block a schedule three to four months out. You could say a number like 50%, 60% or 30% of hearings are postponed, so why don't we keep 30% of our schedule vacant on account of potential postponements? We would be criticized for that if we had a schedule for the next three or four months that was 30% vacant.
We are always challenged with the reality that when intake exceeds funded processing capacity, as was the case during the audit—less so now—we run into these operational challenges. What the Auditor General reported was that new cases were coming in, and they were bumping cases that had already been postponed.
We are working with the management team to deal with this issue, and I can tell you that I've sat in on a number of hearings. What actually happens is that when they run out of time, the member calls registry and asks for another time slot over the next couple of weeks. They work with claimants' counsels and they find a time to reschedule the hearing much more quickly.
I can tell you why. Members have already prepared for the cases. It's in their interest. They're seized with it, and they've already begun to develop their theory of the case. Evidence has been adduced. They want to finish the case as soon as possible.
We will be working over the summer months on developing a protocol to identify how best to fit postponements into an already booked schedule. Overtime, overbooking and other operational strategies are being looked at.
Conservative
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here.
In my past life I worked quite a number of years in immigration and refugees. That was my life. I'm disappointed, astounded, flabbergasted that 30 years on, we're still talking about exactly the same things we did in the 1980s about, then, the Iranians and the Lebanese. There were a great deal of issues right then, but we're still talking about the same things.
One thing that jumps out at me, and all three of you referred to it, is from page 3 of the Auditor General's report, point 2.13, about the issues around electronic processing. How are we, in 2019, still talking about this? It boggles my mind. How has Australia for the past 15 years been able to do this electronically so much better than we do? They are a federation too, so it's not the excuse that they are a central nation. They are a federation like we are. How have they managed to do so much better than us at the electronic processing of files? I don't understand.
Ten years ago I was on the immigration committee, and we were asking exactly those questions because the Auditor General had mentioned that point, so what is the issue? I just don't understand.
Acting Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'll take a stab at it.
We absolutely agree with the OAG's recommendation in terms of having to move from a paper-based process to a digital-based process. One thing that we've struggled with, obviously, is that departments work independently of each other, and we don't always connect our IT systems. I think that's just a reality as departments grow up in terms of how they develop their priorities with respect to IT. One of the struggles that we've had as a system is that our IT systems have developed separately, as has our culture around the issues that we take on from a technology perspective.
The audits allowed us to bring the group together and consider how to put a governance structure around this issue to actually effect that recommendation. I'll give you some details about some of the things that we've done, because I think that will help you to understand some of the issues we've faced and where we're going.
The ASMB that I talked about in my opening comments has really given us a platform to work together. We meet approximately every six weeks and we talk about the issues that fundamentally, from a governance perspective, are having the biggest impact on the system. IT is an example of one of those subjects.
Investments from the recent budget gave us approximately $120 million divided among us for IT projects. As soon as the budget was announced, we had an ASMB meeting and we talked about the priorities we needed to identify to actually effect this. We then reached out to Shared Services and to PSPC to bring them to our table so that we're not fighting an uphill battle and we have the departments that can help us make our plan for coming into the digital age a reality.
As a result, we now have a working group formed at the senior executive level, which is bringing our three organizations and those other two departments together to effect a plan. Since that time, we've already identified milestones between now and the end of December. We've identified milestones for our project plan. We have people working on determining the greatest needs versus what can be identified for the outer years, and how we can effect that in responding to the OAG's recommendation in terms of implementing a technology plan that will move us from a paper-based process to a technology-based process.
We're very confident from the work that we've done to date that we will be able to realize that goal along the way. These are very complex systems, and because we have grown up separately from each other, our technology systems don't talk to each other.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
Ms. MacDonald, I understand what you're telling us and I get it, but this is not a new problem. This is not a new issue. It has been identified by the Office of the Auditor General for over a decade. What really surprises me and angers me, because it does impact directly on people's lives, is that it hasn't been done and there's no explanation. Nobody can explain to me why nothing has been done for the past 10 years to make this move.
Acting Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Effective in this last year, as we've come together, we've put a number of processes in place. I can't answer to the past, but I can tell you that we are seized with it.
I'll give you another example. We launched a pilot, which is the ICAC that I referred to. One of the reasons that we wanted this pilot was that we needed to see in practical terms what the pain points were—what duplication pieces we were experiencing and what roadblocks were we creating that are impacting the work of Richard and his area.
We did that because we needed to see that to inform what was going to happen with the IT process as well.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC
I understand and I commend you for doing that, but just the very simple example mentioned in one of the previous Auditor General reports about citizenship, specifically about refugee claimants, was the identification of people. You don't have a standardized form for people to enter the last name, the middle name and the first name. It's not the same throughout, so you get this confusion of names.
Like Mr. Christopherson, I have people in my office every single week who have issues with IRB. It's heart-wrenching, because we can't really help them to resolve the issues, and I'm not even touching on the security aspect. Some are things that seem so basic.
That's another thing. How difficult is it to put a birthdate down?
Acting Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
One of the issues we're working on right now is a quality assurance process, for that exact reason you've identified—so that we can have systematic forms available so that it's not confusing to the applicants when they're submitting their information and we have consistency across this system.
Our quality assurance process is built on ensuring that we not only develop the forms, but that we have them available digitally and make sure we aren't creating duplication in the system. Those pieces are going in parallel to the other projects and initiatives we have in place as well, to address that issue you've identified—the frustration clients experience with the system not being consistent and coherent.
