Public Accounts Committee on June 2nd, 2016

[Robert Orr, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

As the deputy minister outlined, that's the main reason, and for people arriving who are not refugees, consultants who may have organized their arrival and so on, may use the same accommodation. Other immigrants may recommend a particular address—“This is a good place to live”—and so the same people go to the same addresses. It's normal and explicable why certain addresses continue to appear.

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

For the past few months, particularly since Christmas, many refugees have been living in hotels. In those cases, is the hotel address indicated in their file? How does that work?

[Robert Orr]

Yes, that would be the case. They must identify the address normally six years before they apply. There can be no breaks during that period; so if they're in a hotel, that is the address they would give at that time.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Ferguson, since you tabled your report, have you had an opportunity to see or verify what each department has implemented? Have you had any feedback since then?

[Michael Ferguson]

The situation is the same as today. It's the department's action plan that is in force, and we haven't had a chance to evaluate it.

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

When do you expect the plan will be reviewed or that checks will be made with respect to what has been implemented in all the departments?

[Michael Ferguson]

The other way to do a review like this is to conduct a follow-up audit. So far, we do not intend to conduct such an audit. The office will determine whether a follow-up audit should be done at some point.

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

So there is no predetermined set timetable to put some pressure on departments or to ensure that all the elements that they said they would implement were. You can say you very much agree with the content of a report, but that does not necessarily mean that you are going to do everything that's in the report.

[Michael Ferguson]

This committee's role is to obtain the action plan of the department and other organizations, and to ask questions about it. As I mentioned, we will have an opportunity to do another audit in the future, but in the short term, what is most important is that the committee ask the department questions about the action plan.

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

Ms. Biguzs, in terms of the action plan, you said in your remarks that you accepted the Auditor General's report and that you were going to implement it. That is what I understood from your comments.

Have all the Auditor General's recommendations already been implemented? If so, what progress has been made on them?

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, we are well on our way in implementing the action plan. The dates are indicated, certainly, as I mentioned already. We have already updated our guidance. We have significantly strengthened and enhanced our guidance, our operational directions to staff.

There is other work currently under way, certainly the work with the RCMP and CBSA on information sharing. We have already been in discussion with officials of those agencies to clarify the issue of authorities. We clearly recognize the need to update our memorandum of understanding on information sharing. As I said, our outline in the plan is to have updated information-sharing agreements in place with those agencies by December.

We—and I, personally, as the accounting officer—take this very seriously. Our program integrity framework, which we have significantly enhanced, includes quality control and quality assurance. It includes the requirement to come to the executive committee of the department, which is chaired by the deputy minister, every year with the outcome of all the quality control and quality assurance reports.

The management action plan is also something that is the subject of examination by the departmental audit committee. The departmental audit committee is chaired by an external member. It includes external members outside of the department. In fact, the audit committee provides a challenge function to the department and to the deputy minister to make sure that we are indeed following through on the commitments we have made in the management action plan. That is our internal way of trying to make sure that we are keeping our own feet to the fire and that we are taking this seriously and following up on these actions. We recognize that this is a serious issue and that we have to make sure we are seeing it through.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much. Unfortunately, your time is up.

We will now move to Mr. Christopherson, please, for seven minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It's good to see you again, Auditor General, and your staff. Welcome to our other guests.

Chair, I just wanted to open up with a thought or a suggestion. The AG just acknowledged that his office has not had a chance to review the action plan, and that's understandable because oftentimes they don't arrive until the day before or even of the meeting. Although we like to get it ahead of time, as long as it's here we're willing to accept that. However, I'm wondering in terms of our constant review and doing our business better, just as we ask others to do theirs better, could we work on some kind of a protocol that would give the Auditor General an opportunity to look at that action plan and give us some advice. You'll recall, Chair, that recently we were looking at some dates. Colleagues, we were working—I can't say too much because we're in public—on a report and to meet some deadlines, and one of the things we discussed was whether that was a reasonable request.

If we ask the principals, of course, they're likely to say it's totally unreasonable. Yet we don't have the expertise. So we asked our staff to contact the AG's office to see if they could share an opinion with us, which they did, which was valuable. So I'm just wondering if maybe in the future, we could talk about some way of doing that and working with the Auditor General's office, because I know they've got tonnes of work too—but even if it happened after this meeting but before our deliberations on our report, it would be helpful.

In my 12 years of experience on this committee, we've come a long way on the action plans, but there's still a lot of the minutiae in the action plan that's hard for us to evaluate, whether or not the department is serious about a deadline or whether they're just thinking that if they can swing an extra six months, they'll grab it. We have no way of knowing.

Therefore, I would just suggest maybe that that's something we could talk about, perhaps at a steering committee, as a way to improve the work we're doing and to have more accurate information, because that action plan, as you know, Chair, is everything. That's the piece that says, here's what went wrong, here's what we're going to do in the future, and here are the detailed commitments we make with deadlines.

I think we need to up our game in terms of our evaluation of that, so that we can identify where there are weaknesses and also give credit where someone is being aggressive and hitting some good targets. I leave that with you.

I also wanted to say at the outset to the departments that are here that I've got to tell you, ordinarily the Auditor General goes out of his way to at least sprinkle in the report a couple of nice things to say, highlighting something that you're doing right, to show that he's providing a balanced view. That's not in here. I didn't see anything in here where the AG said, you know, you're doing this or that well. So this is a huge problem.

The other thing I want to say in the preface—and I realize I'm using a lot of that time, but that's fine because I believe these things are critical to what we're doing here—is that the previous government made a big deal, as they should have, about security and safety, but there's a lot more to security and safety of Canadians than just guns and jets, and all through this we're talking about risk. Risk assessment, risk, risk, risk, and it's like fail, fail, fail.

It's fine for governments of the day to pound their chests and fire up the bands when the troops and the jets all head overseas, but you know, security is also the detailed boring work of making sure you're following processes. That didn't happen very well here at all and, again, I remind the department in front of us, and through you to everybody else in government, that we're coming after you in terms of data. The Auditor General has pointed out to us that we've got excellent systems after decades of perfecting them, to our credit, but the data is not always being provided totally, accurately, up to date, and there's a woeful inadequacy of analysis of that data. We're finding that rift throughout this report also.

I bring to your attention that the Auditor General pointed out that the department created an electronic repository of program integrity exercises that's available to all the IRCC staff. However, the OAG contends that although this repository includes data from 250 exercises, their results have not been analyzed to determine if any adjustments to fraud controls are needed.

I'm not an auditor. My common sense question is, you collected all that information from 250 exercises and nobody thought that we ought to analyze it?

Somebody please?

[Anita Biguzs]

On the issue of risk analysis, our risk criteria were based on very extensive work that we have done from getting feedback from the RCMP, CBSA, and from our own officers, who supplied information gleaned from refusals and revocations. We have looked at that. We also have done extensive interviews with judges.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Are you talking about the past, the present, or the future? I'm talking about the fact that 250 exercises took place, and data were collected. Nobody thought that we should analyze the data. That's my question. How could it be that we have these 250 exercises of data collection and nobody seemed to think it was worth analyzing?

[Anita Biguzs]

The undertaking that we have done clearly recognizes that we need to do better. We need to do more, and we need to improve our processes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Now we're getting closer.

[Anita Biguzs]

We have an action plan in place. We have been putting in measures for fraud detection and fraud control. Clearly, we need to do better. We need to improve the work we're doing. We have put in place a systematic, evidence-based approach to identifying and managing risk. It includes quality assurance and quality control. This means we will be doing strengthened analysis activities. We have had our framework validated by an independent third party to make sure that we have checks and balances on what we're doing. We will also be doing exercises as many as three times a year to get the feedback we need as part of our work plan and part of our continuous improvement, which will include random targeting. I take the point that we need to do better. That's the reason we have put this in place and are working towards a strengthened framework for dealing with fraud.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Ms. Zahid.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'll touch on the topic of information sharing between IRCC, CBSA, and the RCMP. The Auditor General's report has told us that the process for information sharing on charges against permanent residents and foreign nationals was ad hoc and ineffective. In relation to the RCMP and IRCC, and also in relation to CBSA and IRCC, can the officials provide insight on the current system of information sharing and the possible courses of action that can be taken to enhance and solidify this process of sharing information among these three departments?

[Anita Biguzs]

I'll begin by saying that we have always done criminal security checks in our immigration clearance checks. Certainly, as part of the citizenship process, there are issues in the timeliness of the information we receive. We're working to improve our processes with the RCMP and with CBSA.

I'll turn to my colleagues to elaborate on that.

[Inspector Jamie Solesme, Officer in Charge, Federal Coordination Center, Canada-United States, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

In regard to the information sharing, there are a number of different considerations that must be taken into place. If we look at the MOU that exists between the RCMP and IRCC that was completed in 2012, there are provisions in there to share information. However, within that MOU, it does not place the limitations that exist for law enforcement in the sharing environment, i.e., the Privacy Act, the charter of rights, human rights. There are a number of different factors that are outlined specifically in that MOU that everyone must keep in mind when there are obligations, or they feel there are obligations, on law enforcement to share with other agencies.

Every agency has its own sharing processes and protocols in place, as does the RCMP. It's a matter of determining when that information can be shared and how it should be shared. When you look at the cases that we're discussing here as far as citizenship is concerned, you also must remember that when the police are doing an investigation, it's not necessary or may not be evident what the nationalities or the immigration status of those people are. It may not surface within an investigation. For example, if an officer is dealing with somebody who's charged with a simple theft charge, they may not question them on their citizenship or their status because it doesn't seem applicable to the offence, whereas if you're dealing with somebody with a citizenship fraud or an immigration fraud, their citizenship and their status become a factor in that.

I should also add in that regard that their citizenship or immigration status—whether they're a permanent resident or whatever their status is—may also come into play when a person is arrested and then being released. There's a clause within the Criminal Code. If we feel there's a flight risk, they may be asked in regard to their citizenship, their status, to ensure that the person is not going to flee.

In moving forward with the memorandum of understanding, I think those guidelines have to be clearer between our agencies. Furthermore, we need to examine what IRCC needs to do to fulfill their obligated duty. In the RCMP, we have to balance that with the expectations placed on us by other legislation to protect the privacy of every individual in Canada. There's a balancing act that has to be there.

I think with regard to the information sharing, there are processes in place. They have been effective in circumstances. There was actually one back in October 2015, in which a number of individuals connected to an organized crime case were deported. There were a variety of charges.

I should also mention that citizenship fraud or issues with fraud may not just necessarily be the sole purpose of an investigation. It may stem from bigger investigations, as the last one, which was a huge, very complex organized crime file. That was an effective means to demonstrate how well our agencies work together.

Are there challenges? Yes. Do we need to do better at trying to be able to determine what people's status is going into investigations to figure out at what point we can share information? The complexity of investigations also makes it difficult to share at times. If there's an investigation that goes in several different directions, providing notification to another agency may impact negatively on another investigation that's part and parcel of that.

We are aware of all of those circumstances. information sharing is key to a whole-of-government approach to security for national security, for economic security, for all the security needs of our country. Those are required because every agency holds information that may be required.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

What measures would the IRCC take to ensure that under the Privacy Act the privacy of these individuals is respected, but you get ongoing information when the applications are in process?

[Anita Biguzs]

Perhaps I can clarify that, Mr. Chair.

In terms of the current process of conducting criminal clearance processes, we do send information to our global case management system, which is a protected system. We send it to the RCMP, and the CBSA also has access to it.

Basically, we can do a criminal check very quickly. In some cases fingerprinting of individuals may be required. That's certainly the case in a certain percentage of cases. It may take longer to get the fingerprinting results back, but as I say, we currently do have processes in place for the exchange of information.

I think what has been identified is the need for more timely information sharing, in some cases from the time we actually make a decision and actually receive some of the criminal clearances.

I would say as well, though, that in addition to the importance of doing criminal security clearances, we do look at our immigration clearance checks as well to make sure that no issues have been raised. We also check the border passenger entries of individuals. That's another way of verifying whether there have been issues. We do an in-depth program integrity interview. That's another way of actually being able to identify whether there are issues.

Our officers are trained. We've enhanced the training on the guidance on the need to look at the original documents and verify them against sample documents. We have centres of expertise as well that actually have experience in identifying the kinds of issues that officers should be looking at.

There are a number of different factors that are taken into account, in addition to, of course, the work that the RCMP and the CBSA does with us and the information they provide.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Unfortunately, again we're out of time.

We'll go back to Monsieur Généreux, this time for a five-minute round.