Public Accounts Committee on May 29th, 2017

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good afternoon, everyone.

This is meeting number 60 of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. It is Monday, May 29, 2017. Today we are conducting a hearing on “Report 3—Preventing Corruption in Immigration and Border Services” from the spring 2017 reports of the Auditor General of Canada.

I'll also let our committee and those in the audience know that we are televised today. It is being recorded, so please turn your cellphones off; it prevents disruption. This would be very much appreciated.

In our audience today we're delighted to have the public accounts committee of Bangladesh as well as their auditor general.

Welcome. As a committee, we look forward to meeting with you and discussing public accounts as well as the business of your committee and our committee. We very much hope you have a good time learning here in Canada.

Appearing as witnesses today from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada are Mr. Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada; and Nicholas Swales, principal with the Auditor General's office. From the Canada Border Services Agency we have John Ossowski, president; and Caroline Xavier, vice-president, operations branch. From the Department of Citizenship and Immigration we have Ms. Marta Morgan, deputy minister; and Mr. Robert Orr, assistant deputy minister, operations. From the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development we have Diane Jacovella, associate deputy minister.

Each of our guests has an opening statement.

I would invite our Auditor General to begin, please.

[Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General]

Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to present the results of our report on “Preventing Corruption in Immigration and Border Services”.

In our audit, we examined the steps that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency took to address the risk that immigration and border services staff could be corrupted.

For the department, we focused on risks and selected controls related to issuing visitor and international student visas at Canadian missions abroad. For the agency, we focused on risks and selected controls related to land border crossings, where the first point of contact is a border services officer.

Overall, we concluded that both organizations recognized that their employees could be vulnerable to corruption. We also concluded that both organizations needed to better implement their procedures to address this risk.

Neither organization adequately monitored its controls to ensure that they were working as intended. Better information about the effectiveness of the controls would help both organizations improve these controls and proactively detect corruption.

Limited monitoring also meant that both organizations were unaware that their staff did not always follow control procedures. For example, we found that the Canada Border Services Agency officers did not always follow the agency's policy that officers enter all travellers' information into the integrated primary inspection line system. As a result, we estimated that over the course of a year, officers did not collect the information they were supposed to collect on people who entered Canada in some 300,000 vehicles. Without this information, officers could allow someone to enter the country who is not entitled to or who should have received further examination.

We also found that border services officers shared their user log-ins, even though it’s agency policy that they should never do so. As a result, it’s difficult to link transactions to specific officers to identify who did or didn’t follow policy.

Agency superintendents are meant to monitor whether border services officers follow required policies and procedures. However, we found that most superintendents didn’t believe they had enough time to do so. Over the course of a year, only half the superintendents used reports intended to help them fulfill their monitoring role. We found that they hadn’t completed the required follow-ups on 56 missed lookouts.

At Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, we found that 14 locally engaged staff had viewed their own visa records. These actions violated the department’s code of conduct. On at least one other occasion, a similar action signalled the inappropriate sharing of other applicants' information.

I would also note that, where we found effective monitoring, we also found the effective implementation of controls. For example, we found that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada appropriately monitored who could access its global case management system, and it removed access rights when those rights were no longer required.

We made five recommendations in our report. These included two for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, two for the Canada Border Service Agency and one for Global Affairs Canada. All three organizations agreed with our recommendations, and they committed to taking the appropriate corrective action before the end of the current fiscal year.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ferguson.

We'll now move to Mr. Ossowski of the Canada Border Services Agency.

[John Ossowski, President, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you.

Hello, Mr. Chair and honourable committee members.

I'm joined today by Caroline Xavier, our vice-president of operations, who can help me answer your questions later.

I'm looking forward to speaking to you today on behalf of the Canada Border Services Agency. I'll begin my remarks by acknowledging the findings of the 2017 spring reports of the Auditor General of Canada—in particular, “Report 3—Preventing Corruption in Immigration and Border Services”.

As you would no doubt expect, I am especially proud that no evidence of corruption was found during the audit. This finding, amongst others, speaks volumes about the importance we place on equipping our officers to prevent corruption, and more important still, the integrity displayed each and every day by those officers.

Because of the importance that we and our officers place on preventing corruption and because we know that no organization is ever truly immune from the risk of corruption, we welcome the suggestions put forth by the Auditor General on how we might build on our already strong success to make our anti-corruption posture even stronger. The auditors' ideas for improving how we monitor our internal control mechanisms are, for example, findings that we look forward to building on as we implement the management action plan that we've prepared, in line with the recommendations set out in the spring report.

Before I get into the details of what our action plan calls for, though, I'll take a few minutes to provide you with some supporting context. Specifically I'll talk a bit about both the CBSA's everyday operating environment and the Auditor General's suggestions on how we can strengthen our anti-corruption posture within that environment.

Our mission is to help ensure the security and prosperity of Canada by managing the access of people and goods to and from Canada. We work under a mandate that is executed 24-7 across Canada and abroad by our 15,000-strong workforce, including some 7,000 uniformed staff.

At home in Canada, we operate an impressive number of service points. You will find us at more than 115 land border crossings, 61 of which operate on a 24-7 basis, as well as at 13 international airports, 10 of which also are 24-7 operations. We are also present at five large marine container ports, three mail processing centres, three immigration holding centres, a collection of integrated border enforcement team offices, and almost 30 rail sites.

In addition, we are active abroad, working hard to keep the goods and people that shouldn't be in Canada away from our borders, and to facilitate the entry of those we wish to have here.

The volume and nature of the goods and travellers we work with each and everyday speak not just to the very real complexity of our work, but also the importance of what we do. To be blunt, we are the front line in keeping the economy moving and connecting Canadians to the world. Just last year, we processed more than 92 million travellers and 16 million commercial releases, resulting in the collection of nearly $31 billion in duties and taxes.

We know that to do our job right we need to move low-risk people and goods as expeditiously as possible, and we need to do that in way that protects Canadians' safety and security. Doing this requires us not only to be on the front lines, but also to be working hard behind the scenes in support of our front-line duties. The back-office elements of our work are not always well known or well understood.

Many wouldn't know, for example, that we make representations at immigration and refugee hearings, including all the way up to Federal Court proceedings. Fewer still would know that CBSA works with partners at home and abroad to conduct lengthy and complex investigations into suspected war criminals, national security cases, and organized crime groups.

To fulfill our very broad and complex mandate, we have developed a highly effective operational strategy that relies on sophisticated risk analysis, targeted information and intelligence gathering, comprehensive examinations, and where necessary, seizures and removals. Because no one agency anywhere in the world can be in all places at all times, we have also developed a critically important network of cross-Canada partners and international counterparts so that we, like them, can bring all the best assets and practices to our work.

As you can appreciate, being a border service officer is a line of work that not everyone can do. It requires dedication, integrity, and some very specialized training. For example, our officers must learn to administer more than 90 acts, regulations, and international agreements, many on behalf of other federal departments and agencies, the provinces, and the territories.

To prepare themselves for active duty, our officers must complete a highly demanding course of study at the CBSA College in Rigaud, Quebec. At Rigaud, the officer induction training program prepares trainees for the wide variety of challenges they will face every day, including possible attempts to co-opt them into criminal activity. Accordingly, as part of their study, officers in training are also required to complete values and ethics training. They also receive guidance and instruction from our security and professional standards division on what they might face and how they should handle it.

We know this training doesn't completely eliminate the risk of corruption; no training ever can. What it does do, and does well, is introduce future officers to the high standards of service and integrity that come with their chosen profession. It also introduces them to a culture of ongoing training and learning, including with regard to anti-corruption, that lasts throughout their career. In short, CBSA employees are expected to uphold the law in carrying out their duties. Let me be absolutely clear: our agency has zero tolerance for illegal activity.

Against this backdrop the Office of the Auditor General conducted its audit. In examining our anti-corruption posture, the auditors found that there is some room for improvement. For example, auditors found that while CBSA understood its corruption risks and had controls in place to mitigate them, it could nonetheless do a better job of monitoring them to ensure they are working to their full potential. They also found that in some cases, individuals have entered Canada without having undergone the fullest inspection possible and that in other cases, border services officers had not recorded their entries as required by policy.

Finally, auditors found that many of the personnel stationed at land border crossings had not completed the full suite of the mandatory training related to corruption awareness.

As a result of these findings, the Auditor General made the following recommendations, which we accept. First, the agency should develop a monitoring strategy that specifies how we will systematically assess our corruption mitigation controls to ensure they are applied appropriately and are achieving their intended results, and define superintendents' responsibilities, in turn enabling them to fulfill their control function at land crossings. Second, the agency should ensure that personnel at land crossings complete their mandatory training.

In response to the first recommendation, I can tell you that we will incorporate the assessment of controls on corruption into our management practice assessments and our port program assessments, which are used to assess and measure operational adherence to agency priorities and high-risk areas of business at ports of entry. We will also ensure that regional front-line management accountabilities are established and that our port program assessment exercise includes questions related to preventing corruption. We expect this work will be completed in summer 2017.

In response to the second recommendation, we have committed to the delivery of mandatory values and ethics training for all officers. To assist with this, we have already implemented an agency-wide communication plan and we will monitor results of these measures on an annual basis. On this point, I'm happy to report that as of March 31, 90.5% had completed this training.

Mr. Chair and honourable members, the management action plan that we have developed is not simply a response to the Auditor General's suggestions on how we can improve our already strong success.

It is, at base, an important investment in our workforce. Our border services officers have a strong organizational culture that rests on their deep commitment to the values they uphold and the motto they live by: protection, service, integrity.

Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, I want to stress that we'll work hard to help them continue doing their job.

In closing, I want to thank the Office of the Auditor General for taking the time to study our operations. In light of its suggestions, we're determined to further strengthen our anti-corruption record.

I would be pleased to answer the committee's questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, sir.

We'll carry on now to Ms. Morgan, deputy minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

Welcome to our committee.

[Marta Morgan, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Good afternoon and thank you.

Thank you for inviting me to discuss the Auditor General’s findings concerning Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

The department appreciates the Auditor General’s review of its visa approval processes.

I am pleased to be joined today by my colleague, Robert Orr, the assistant deputy minister for operations at IRCC.

As you know, Mr. Chair, IRCC's role in controlling the entry to Canada of foreign nationals is to arrange their visas. From April 2015 to March 1, 2016, we approved 1.4 million visas for those wishing to visit or study in Canada. Our visa officers process visa applications at 57 Canadian missions around the world, and our staff consists of about 280 immigration officials and 1,100 locally engaged staff.

With respect to IRCC, the objectives of this audit were to determine whether we had implemented controls to address corruption among our immigration staff. I am pleased to say that the Auditor General did not find evidence of corruption and found that IRCC has various risk controls in place that work well.

More specifically, the Auditor General found that IRCC's controls are effective at preventing a single individual from inappropriately completing all visa processing and approval steps. This finding is important because the separation of duties among staff reduces the risk that they could engage in malfeasance or other activities.

Of the 1.4 million visas that IRCC approved during this time, the Auditor General identified 69 cases in which one person completed all the processing steps to issue a visa. In each of these cases, the exceptions were justified for various reasons: to correct an error on a previously approved visa or to facilitate urgent travel. While the Auditor General's findings are positive for IRCC overall, we recognize there is room for improvement. The department agrees with the Auditor General’s recommendations, and we have since implemented measures to address them.

The Auditor General's first recommendation for IRCC is to develop a comprehensive internal fraud risk assessment, based on an analysis of the effectiveness of its various controls.

To further strengthen its programs against fraud, IRCC has since developed the international network professional conduct standard. This manual focuses on the comprehensive management of risks related to internal fraud, and provides detailed guidance on how to prevent and monitor these risks.

Essentially, our risk prevention and management strategy involves a continuous cycle of prevention, detection, assessment and reporting. We expect to be making full use of the conduct standard by 2018.

The Auditor General's second recommendation for IRCC is to further enhance our monitoring activities to ensure that our risk controls are working.

The international network professional conduct standard also contains detailed guidance on monitoring practices, and will ensure that the department captures ongoing data related to activities associated with internal fraud. This will include baseline data such as the number of incidents of unauthorized information access in GCMS, the number of allegations with respect to misconduct, fact-finding activities related to allegations and mandated investigations, and the number of single-processor visa cases. Establishing this baseline data will allow us to track our progress and better identify trends or anomalies.

During the course of this audit, a review of the use of the GCMS found that 14 locally engaged staff had viewed their own files. Although these actions had no impact on the decision-making process, they nonetheless contravened the department's code of conduct, which prohibits staff from using their roles for their own perceived or actual advantage. The department is in consultation with Global Affairs Canada and the respective immigration program managers to further investigate the reason staff accessed visa records and to determine next steps. In the meantime, all immigration program managers have been reminded that staff should not access records they are not authorized to work on, including their own.

The department is also working to improve the values and ethics training among our staff. The Office of the Auditor General was able to confirm that only 20% of locally engaged employees had completed the mandatory values and ethics training provided by Global Affairs Canada, and it recommended better oversight to ensure the course had been completed. IRCC supports the response from Global Affairs and agrees with the importance of values and ethics training.

In addition to tracking the completion of mandatory training provided by Global Affairs Canada, the principles contained in the department's values and ethics codes are regularly communicated to staff at our overseas missions through other activities. IRCC offers values and ethics training during other training sessions on the departmental code of conduct. Immigration program managers also foster a culture of ethical behaviour through regular communication at staff meetings. In addition, as part of the annual performance management process, all IRCC employees, including locally engaged staff, must confirm in writing that they have read and understood the code of conduct.

At IRCC, we're continuously looking to improve our fraud prevention and detection methods, and this report will help us do so.

Based on the findings in the report, IRCC has adopted an even more comprehensive and effective risk management strategy for processing applications overseas. We’ll also be able to monitor these risk controls more systematically.

Thank you very much to the members of the committee for your attention today. We will be happy to respond to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Ms. Morgan.

We'll now turn to Ms. Jacovella, from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

Welcome.

[Diane Jacovella, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much for inviting me to appear before this committee.

Global Affairs Canada would also like to thank the Auditor General for the work of his office, and acknowledges the findings and recommendations of this report.

Let me start by providing some contextual data that will shed some light on how Global Affairs Canada supports its federal departmental partners like Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and the Canada Border Services Agency, abroad.

Global Affairs Canada manages a network of 176 missions in 110 countries. Global Affairs is the employer of over 5,000 locally engaged staff, who are hired to support the department's operation and programs as well as those delivered by our partners in these missions.

Considering the differences in the environments where these missions operate and the risks they represent, Global Affairs Canada is committed to ensuring that all employees, including locally engaged staff, are properly trained and well-informed of their responsibilities in complying with the code of values and ethics. This is critical in preventing the risk of corruption or any other unacceptable behaviour by our workforce.

I can assure you, Mr. Chair, that my department takes this very seriously.

This concerns the reputation of our country and our institutions. Canadians are expecting us to work together in a coordinated and effective way. My colleagues at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, at the Canada Border Services Agency and I are committed to doing so.

While the focus of this audit was on the respective roles of IRCC and CBSA, the audit also examined certain responsibilities on the part of Global Affairs Canada for locally engaged staff in missions abroad.

The staff support IRCC's visa program. While they report to an IRCC program manager, they must take a mandatory values and ethics course provided by Global Affairs Canada. This course is part of a broad range of training provided to employees operating abroad.

The Auditor General indicated that Global Affairs could do a better job of ensuring that all employees take this important course by monitoring completion rates. As such, one of the five recommendations in the report was addressed by Global Affairs Canada.

I must note that the Auditor General, in his appearance before the same committee, confirmed that no evidence of corruption was found during the audit. That reassures us. However, we must maintain our vigilance to make sure that we are able not only to detect potential corruption risks but especially to prevent them. This entails, among other things, an increased awareness of the risks to which our missions are exposed every day.

Going forward, Global Affairs is committed to continue working with IRCC to ensure that all locally engaged staff complete the mandatory course on values and ethics. More specifically, Global Affairs will be taking further measures, including sending broadcast messages via email to all employees as well as mission training coordinators to remind them of this required training; along with an additional clause in the letter of offer of employment for locally engaged staff indicating that they must comply not only with the code of values and ethics but also take the associated course; and producing monthly training reports to monitor mandatory training and follow-up with employees who have not completed their training as well as their managers.

We are confident that the implementation of these measures, as well as the coordinated and sustained efforts of our respective organizations, will allow us to adequately respond to the challenge.

In addition to these examples of initiatives undertaken, senior management at Global Affairs Canada promotes and enforces an environment of zero tolerance for any behaviour by any employee that runs counter to the code of values and ethics.

In 2016 Global Affairs conducted a fraud risk assessment to identify the main fraud risks and mitigation strategies. This included a clear tone at the top that promoted high ethical behaviour for all employees including locally engaged staff. All employees are encouraged to disclose any questionable behaviours that are investigated and, when warranted, appropriate actions taken to send a strong and unequivocal message.

Mr. Chair, let me be pragmatic. Global Affairs Canada and its partners do business in places where the risk of corruption is among the highest in the world, as measured by the corruption perceptions index published by Transparency International. Despite our sustained efforts and vigilance, zero risk doesn't exist.

Therefore, we must continue our work on prevention while increasing our detection efforts, in close cooperation with all our partners. Clear and consistent communication between our organizations and increased awareness among all employees, including managers, will help effectively reduce the risks we all face.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you all very much for your statements. We'll now move into the first round of questioning.

The first seven-minute round is by Ms. Shanahan.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you once again to the Auditor General and to all of our witnesses for being here.

I think this is a very interesting first choice of report to be studying among the spring reports of the Auditor General, because nothing could be more timely than issues concerning our public security. I think it's going to be very helpful for us to hear what our witnesses have to say today.

However, because this is the public accounts committee, I do want to address a question the Auditor General brought up. One of the themes, Chair, you'll remember, we have been discussing as a committee is the importance of data integrity. For the Auditor General's office to do the work that it does, it needs to have full access to adequate data. Sometimes it's simply not there.

This question, Mr. Ferguson, is regarding recommendation 3.107, that “Global Affairs Canada should ensure that locally engaged staff working in Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada's visa program complete the Global Affairs Canada values and ethics mandatory training course.” The OAG reported that due to incomplete data, it could only confirm that 20% of locally engaged staff working in the visa program had completed the course.

Can you please tell the committee if you have any further details regarding the lack of data pertaining to mandatory staff training? Overall, within the limits of this audit, did your office find other examples of poor or improper data collection and use?

[Michael Ferguson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We don't have any additional information on what's happened since the audit. The departments, I suppose, could give you more information on what they might have on that.

We come across this issue fairly regularly. Departments will have mandatory training, but then they don't always have the information to be able to indicate how many of their staff members have followed that type of training. It's an issue that comes up a number of times.

We got access to all of the information we asked for in the course of this audit, so there wasn't a problem in that way. There were some situations, which, based on the data that we were able to get.... For example, in this one, we said that we could only confirm that 20% of the staff had completed the mandatory training course, because that was the state of the data that existed. All we can tell you is that there was evidence that 20% of the staff completed that training.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

So you would only know in a further audit or follow-up with the action plan.

[Michael Ferguson]

That's right.

Again, the organizations may have more information from their looking at the issue after the audit. However, for us to know how they are doing, or whether they are making progress on the recommendation we made, we would have to go back and audit that again.

I can't tell you right now what percentage of locally engaged staff have now completed the mandatory training at Global Affairs Canada. Perhaps either IRCC or Global Affairs could give you an update on that.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

That's fine.

My question is for Ms. Jacovella.

[Diane Jacovella]

Can I answer, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I'm asking my question through the chair.

[Diane Jacovella]

The statistics that we have from April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017 show that 86% of our employees have completed the course. However, our learning system doesn't differentiate between Canada-based staff and a locally engaged staff. For that we would have to do some manual—

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Can I intervene, Ms. Jacovella? Have you improved your data collection methods? Have you put something new or systematic in place? What was the problem? Why was the Auditor General not able to get the information in the first instance?

[Diane Jacovella]

The information was available for Canada-based staff and locally engaged staff. Since then, we have changed our learning system so we can now produce training reports by mission. We can send out to the heads of our missions the lists of the employees who have followed the course. They know exactly who has and has not met the requirement, rather than just having general numbers. They are targeted now for each of our missions. That will allow each manager to pay close attention to making sure that the employees complete the course within three months of being hired.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you for that.

I wanted to address border services because my riding of Châteauguay—Lacolle has a very important border crossing. Mandatory training is also an issue there.

I want to ask about the observation by the Auditor General of the approximately 300,000 vehicles that have crossed the border without full inspection.

Who would like to take that question on?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Ossowski.

[John Ossowski]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think it's important to recognize that the 300,000 travellers the Auditor General has reported do not represent actual travellers. It's based on probability sampling. They looked at a very small subset of 38 cases and from that extrapolated that up to 300,000 vehicles had not been properly entered into the system.

I want to assure the committee that despite the fact that a licence plate reader might have captured the vehicle, but a passport was not swiped in the system properly, it does not mean that an officer did not provide an examination of each and every person crossing the border.

I would say that there's a hypothesis here. I find it very interesting, and we're going to follow up on it. Obviously our policy is that everything is done completely, and we will be following up on these things.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I would like to ask—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very quickly.