Public Accounts Committee on June 2nd, 2016

[Anita Biguzs]

All of the applications are input in Sydney, but as I say—

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

I'm sorry?

[Anita Biguzs]

All of the applications are input into our system in Sydney, but in terms of the actual receipt of the applications and the interviews, that could be done in Toronto if that's where the individual is resident, or it could be in Vancouver if that's where the applicant is resident. It depends on where the applicant resides.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Just very quickly after that, though, in your response to the recommendation with respect to the problem with the addresses, the department says:

The Department has established quality control procedures and will undertake a quality control exercise in September 2016 to verify that these processes are being followed.

Is this a one-time verification or is it going to be continuous? I ask because in response to a lot of these recommendations, your response is that you will do this and I want to make sure that this is continually being monitored on a year-to-year basis, or even maybe shorter timeframes than that.

[Anita Biguzs]

Yes, Mr. Chair, the proof is in the pudding, and that is why the program integrity framework that we have now completed and put in place includes very robust quality assurance and quality control processes. As I say, these include following up times a year on these kinds of things to make sure that in fact the practices are taking place, or, if there continue to be issues, that we're changing our guidance to officers on how to do this. I think the only way we can improve is by making that sure we have a continuous feedback loop.

We also intend to do random targeting, by randomly going in to assess whether in fact we're getting at the issues that have been identified.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

All I want to do is to follow up on Mr. Lefebvre's excellent questions—and it's not a gotcha. I thought it was a very good question when the Auditor General had pointed out that things were happening to varying degrees. The very legitimate question was, with some of these high-paid consultants—notwithstanding that there is a main entry point, which I think you said was in Sydney—whether there is any way they could manoeuver or game the system to have a particular application end up in a region where they happen to know that things aren't quite as stringent as they might be in other areas. The answer was that it depends on where the applicant resides.

The only thing I want to do is just to nail down 100% that there is no other option, once it goes in at Sydney, and that where you reside is the region it goes in and there is no ability on the part of a high-paid consultant to game that system and have that application end up somewhere else where they have reason to believe their client would get a less thorough scrutiny.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Orr.

[Robert Orr]

That is essentially the case.

All applications will go through the Sydney office and the risk triage there. There's no influence. Everyone goes through the same process there, and then it will go out to the office where the applicant lives. Regardless of a request to go to one place or another, it goes to where the applicant lives.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

And it can't be moved.

[Robert Orr]

Well, if the applicant moves, then we might do it.

The reason for that is they must do the knowledge test and the interview. Thus, it is important to have the file where the person is, so we can do that.

It's also perhaps worth pointing out that Bill C-24 did ensure that all consultants must be in good standing with the regulatory body as well. That was a change that happened in 2015, which did perhaps reduce some of the risk in that area.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

In Hamilton Centre, I deal with a lot of these kinds of things and will be more satisfied when the AG has a chance to go in there and find out how well that's working.

I hear what you're saying, but again it is a very legitimate concern that my colleague Mr. Lefebvre raised. You believe there's no need to be concerned about that and you don't sense that there's any way the system could be gamed as a result of what the Auditor General identified. Is that correct?

[Robert Orr]

That is correct.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Very good. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that.

Thank you, Mr. Lefebvre, for an excellent train of questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll go back to Mr. Généreux, please.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Biguzs, I asked you a question earlier about seizing or keeping potentially suspicious or fraudulent documents. I asked you what tools the staff had for that. You told me that it was something you had never seen. Were you talking about a program you have never been able to see in action?

[Anita Biguzs]

As I say, there are multiple tools, Mr. Chair. The reference that I made in particular was to an advanced computerized image retrieval system—I think it's called Edison. It's an electronic system of travel documents from around the world. Officers can actually verify a document in front of them against the information in Edison. I haven't seen the system myself. It's apparently a very accurate system that can actually verify against—

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

You've never seen it?

[Anita Biguzs]

I haven't actually had the opportunity, but certainly, Mr. Chair, Mr. Orr has.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I presume Mr. Orr could perhaps describe this system exactly. I want to make sure I know what the tool in question involves.

[Robert Orr]

I think this is an international tool that Canada has access to. What it basically does is outline the security features of passports of most countries of the world, so that if you have a document in front of you, you know that you can look at this particular feature to see whether it's correctly done or not. It's very useful in that respect, when you're not sure whether the document you have is genuine or not. But it's not a magic bullet. All of these things, all of these tools, have to be used in combination to determine if a document is fraudulent or not.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Right. So there are many tools, not just one.

[Robert Orr]

That's right.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Okay.

Ms. Biguzs, earlier when I spoke to you about seizing and keeping documents, you told me that your officers could not seize documents, but that Immigration Canada and RCMP officers could.

Does that mean that these officers all have their offices in the same place? Do officers from different organizations work together in all the offices, across Canada?

[Anita Biguzs]

I'll ask Mr. Orr to respond in detail, but often we are in close proximity to access CBSA or RCMP officers. As I say, if the suspect document is an immigration-type document that's been used for immigration purposes to Canada, then the legal authority would exist under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to seize the document. That's where we would call on our CBSA officer, or one of our own immigration officers—not our citizenship staff, but our immigration officer—to actually then exercise their authority under that legislation to seize that document.

Perhaps you can provide details on that.