Public Accounts Committee on May 29th, 2017

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all our guests today.

I also want to thank the delegation from Bangladesh for joining us at our meeting today.

As a member of Parliament from an urban Toronto riding, I can tell you that immigration case work and visitor visas take up the bulk of the interactions we have with constituents. Naturally, I was very interested in the findings of the Auditor General with respect to locally engaged staff and their access to visa records.

First of all, it's a monumental task. As was pointed out, there are 176 missions in 110 different countries. Global Affairs employs 5,000 locally engaged staff, so I understand the immense complexity of this.

I appreciate the honesty of pointing out that we cannot operate in a zero-risk environment, because we are operating in many different parts of the world where there are different cultures and standards, all of which require us to be extra diligent in what we do.

I know that in my MP's office when, for instance, it comes to accessing a file, there are controls in place. In fact, there is a designated number, as you all know, that MP offices have to go through.

It really makes no sense to me, when you have a very specific rule in your code of conduct, that locally engaged staff should be using any aspect of their job to benefit themselves, that they would have broad access to the case system and be able to even type their name into the system and pull up their file. To me, that could be prevented by implementing a simple system control.

I'd like to hear why such a control, on a system level, was not put in place? Yes, the rule exists but we all know that crimes occur out of convenience. If you have a door and it's supposed to be locked, no one is supposed to go through it, but if you leave it unlocked, someone is bound to just pull it open. Why wasn't that control put in on a system level?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Chen.

Mr. Orr.

[Robert Orr]

I think it's important to point out that no one has unfettered access to the global case management system. There is a very serious set of controls in place. For instance, as Ms. Morgan pointed out, even if these individuals did have a look at their file, they did not have the opportunity to influence that file. They could not write into it. For sure, they should not have looked at it at all, but there are controls in place that prevent any impact on decision-making.

We do have a large number of locally engaged staff. We have 1,085 of them, and they would have different levels of access to the GCMS, depending on their level, and training, and experience, and on our trust in them as well. There are very significant controls on that.

To close things down entirely is very problematic. Often the files they are accessing are not their own. Sometimes it can be a relative's or a friend's, so it is very hard to close that down in that sort of way.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

With respect to the staff who did pull up their own records, I'm trying to reconcile a disconnect, because I heard, and I want to thank Ms. Morgan for clarifying this, that while locally engaged staff report to IRCC they are in fact employees of Global Affairs.

So when Ms. Jacovella spoke earlier, she said very clearly that Global Affairs promotes and enforces zero tolerance of any such behaviour by employees. To me, me zero tolerance is very clear, in that there is clear punishment as a result for some types of wrongdoing. I'm not advocating zero tolerance in this case, but I'm saying that it's what we were told.

So if it is clear that these employees pulled up their own records and that it violated the code of conduct and, simultaneously, I hear from Ms. Morgan, that it's being investigated and looked into, where is the zero tolerance? I realize we're talking about staff here, so I just want a general response. We don't need to get into the details of any particular case, but is there zero tolerance with respect to this type of situation? Did they break the code of conduct? Did they not? What's the finding?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Orr.

[Robert Orr]

Mr. Chair, as I indicated earlier, there were a number of investigations—14, in fact— both in the domestic network and overseas, and there was very clear action taken in a number of cases where we did the full investigation. There were very serious consequences if the allegations were founded.

In this case, the 14 cases, we're not at that stage yet, and that's why I can't give you an indication of what the consequences are.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

It's very important to me as an MP, because I have many frustrated constituents and people come into my office. They are frustrated with respect to their visa applications. They are frustrated with respect to other types of applications they are waiting to find out information about, and oftentimes they come to us and bring up cases and make comparisons with other people in similar situations who have been processed more quickly. As an MP, I want to be able to assure them that we have strict rules in place, that we are, to the best of our capacity, trying to ensure that there is fairness in the system. I want to be able to say so with confidence. That is why it is so important to me that we look at these cases and ensure that we take any action we can to be more proactive with respect to training and ensuring that when people do break the rules, there are appropriate consequences. This is very important. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

I see a light on but I don't really hear a question; it's more just a statement. So that's good.

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

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Are we not televised?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

No.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Is there a reason why?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes. We'll explain that to you later.

There are two committees that are televised, and we were not able to be televised today because of the other two committees. I think one is immigration—

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Michel Marcotte]

It's immigration and committees.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Is there a priority list? Is that how it works?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We got the room, but we didn't get to be televised, so we are recorded.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Not even live to tape and then it's played later?

I'd like to follow up on that in committee business, but for now, I just want to say that in my opinion, this audit is not a bad one. It's not a great one, but it's not a bad one either. However, what makes it so critically important is the nature of the work. When there are any gaps at all, they have very serious implications. That's why I didn't start by being complimentary because I wanted to get at some of the stuff that's problematic, and it's not great. It's not like political mushroom cloud stuff, but it matters to what we're dealing with.

I have a couple of quick questions if I can. I don't have a lot of time.

Global Affairs, in your action plan to us, you've committed that in the matter of the locally engaged staff getting their mandatory training, that will be completed by September 2017. Is that still on track? Remember, we're going to check.

[Diane Jacovella]

Yes, it is still, so we have—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Very good. That's fine. Thank you.

Sorry, I only interrupt for time's sake. I don't mean to be rude.

Over to Immigration, and the Border Services Agency, your training is going to be done by June. Are you on track?

[John Ossowski]

Yes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Very good. I'm very glad to hear that.

A lot of this is about the mandatory training. There are a couple of things I want to address while I have the time. First of all, how did mandatory become not mandatory? If it's mandatory, there's only one explanation: you have to do it. Yet you didn't do it. So, from the get-go, at the top of the house, why was mandatory not seen as anything that needed to be a priority? Please give a quick answer.

[John Ossowski]

Well, from my perspective, mandatory means mandatory, appreciating that you will never have 100% because people are off on maternity leave or whatever the case may be. But my expectation, as the head of the organization, is that when we say something is mandatory, it is done.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. We have a long way to go on this front, because I'm pointing to page 19, paragraph 3.92. In it the Auditor General says:

We found that only 40 percent of border services officers and 69 percent of superintendents at land border crossings had completed mandatory training related to mitigating the risk of corruption.

He found that 78 percent of superintendents had completed the mandatory course on security awareness for managers. Flip it around and that's almost one-quarter of the superintendents who did not take a mandatory course on security awareness for managers.

Paragraph 3.98 says:

We found that 60 percent of border services officers had completed the Values, Ethics

—that means that 40 percent didn't—

and 58 percent had completed the security awareness training.

That means that 42 percent would not. Moreover:

Just 40 percent of border services officers had completed both. Only 69 percent of superintendents had completed both.

Again, these are pretty devastating numbers, and the thing that just drives me the most is how could it get to this point that you would be so far behind? Superintendent training on security—give me a break.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

I'm going to ask whoever wants to respond to do so.

Mr. Ossowski, perhaps.

[John Ossowski]

Sure.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I actually don't want.... It was just as much a rant as anything. I'd accept that. If they want to respond, fine.