Mr. Chair, thank you again for inviting me to address this committee.
Today I am joined by Richard Wex, Chairperson of the Immigration and Refugee Board, known as the IRB, and John Ossowski, President of the Canada Border Services Agency, referred to as the CBSA. Together, in our respective roles, we make up the Asylum System Management Board, which I will describe in greater detail.
We are here today to address recommendations on processing for asylum claims, an area that is the joint responsibility of our three organizations: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, known as IRCC; the Immigration Refugee Board, or IRB; and CBSA.
We will each provide some brief opening remarks, and then we'll be happy to take questions.
We would like to thank the Auditor General for his recommendations, which offer important insights that will allow us to continue improving the asylum system. As the Auditor General's report highlights, Canada's system is being tested. We've seen a significant increase in the number of asylum claims over the past two years—both regular claims made inside Canada and claims made by irregular migrants entering Canada between ports of entry at the Canada-U.S. border. Canada's situation is far from unique in this regard, however. The world is now witnessing unprecedented levels of migration. An estimated 258 million people are on the move, and more than 25.4 million are refugees.
As a result of these trends in global migration, as has been the case in other countries, Canada's asylum system has experienced increased pressure, and increases in global migration suggest that this trend will likely continue. Mr. Chair, this points to the need to ensure that our borders and our asylum system are well managed and properly equipped to address an increase in asylum claims. We are committed to the integrity of our border and asylum system as part of the integrity of our overall immigration system, which is based on rules and orderly migration.
According to the Auditor General's report, our asylum system requires continued efforts to ensure that the system is flexible, that it makes good use of technology, and that this results in greater efficiency and fewer postponements. As noted in the report itself, the government has recognized the need to take action, and this work has begun. More specifically, we are improving coordination between the organizations that administer the system. We are changing the way that claims are processed to increase efficiency while maintaining fairness, and we are making investments, proposed in budget 2019, to increase the system's capacity to process 50,000 claims per year.
Throughout 2018 and continuing now, the government has been taking concrete steps to manage and discourage irregular migration while maintaining focus on the long-term need to improve its productivity and management of the asylum system as a whole. The actions that we have taken are consistent with the balance that the federal government is seeking to achieve between ensuring that Canada is a place for those who genuinely need protection and safeguarding the integrity of our immigration system and the safety of our citizens.
Mr. Chair, we have also taken to heart recommendations from the independent review of the asylum system that was completed last year. These recommendations were focused on how to improve the management and productivity of the IRB and the asylum system as a whole.
One of the key recommendations of this independent review was to improve coordination between the organizations that deliver the asylum system. The Asylum System Management Board was created in part to respond to this need.
The ASMB, as we call it, which was announced publicly in December, functions within the terms of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, within the existing mandates of our organizations and in a manner that is consistent with the adjudicative independence of the IRB. The ASMB is helping maximize efficiencies by ensuring that operational challenges are resolved and that each organization benefits from the information it needs to deliver the system efficiently. The ASMB makes it easier for us to align our collective priorities: planning, resourcing and reporting. Additionally, the ASMB will oversee the adoption of the updated performance targets. These will be used to report on claim volumes, processing capacity and productivity at every step from intake to protection or the removal of a failed claimant.
Last year, the ASMB also supported a pilot project in Montreal called the Integrated Claim Analysis Centre, ICAC, which has demonstrated a new approach to triaging and processing claims. The centre co-locates IRCC and CBSA employees so that they can work together to provide hearing-ready files to decision-makers at the IRB. This approach makes it faster to process claims while ensuring the fairness of decisions. Through the ICAC pilot, our three organizations are working to eliminate duplication and to move claims to the IRB more quickly.
Given this success, we will be implementing a new ICAC pilot in Toronto, which will process the majority of new asylum claims in the national caseload. As announced by the government in its most recent budget, this is one of the key investments to increase capacity of the asylum system.
To support the expanded ICAC and improve program delivery overall, we are enhancing our IT systems. We will make it easier for people to submit the information electronically and to use digital tools.
We will be making the sharing of information between organizations faster and simpler. This will allow us to move from paper files to digital processing, which was identified by the Auditor General as a major need. Through the ICAC, we will also prioritize and track cases through each step of the asylum system.
Together, our organizations have committed to implementing the recommendations we received in the Auditor General's report. This will include seeking greater flexibility in funding, reducing delays in decision-making, making better use of expedited processes and being more proactive in sharing information.
Beyond these measures, we will bring essential new capacity to our organizations, including through investments made in budget 2019 to address pressures felt across the asylum system. A portion of the funding will help manage operations at the border, but the investment clearly recognizes a need to ensure Canada's asylum system can handle higher volumes overall. Budget 2019 invests $1.18 billion over five years starting in 2019-20 and $55 million per year ongoing to double the capacity of the asylum system to 50,000 claims per year as well as to implement the border enforcement strategy. This funding will allow us to respond to the volume of asylum claims that we receive, including those made by both regular and irregular migrants.
In closing, Mr. Chair, we agree with the recommendations in this report and we will continue the work that is already under way with the IRB and CBSA to make the asylum system more efficient without sacrificing its fairness.
We have taken concrete steps to address the issues raised in this report with the view to achieving an asylum system that is fast, fair and final. We have done so on three fronts: through governance and increased collaboration, by increasing the asylum system's capacity through increased funding, and by improving the efficiency and productivity of the asylum system.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My colleagues and I will be happy to respond to questions the committee might have.