Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 24th, 2020

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number eight of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. The committee is meeting in public and is being televised today.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g), the committee is meeting today to study “Report 1—Immigration Removals” of the 2020 spring reports of the Auditor General of Canada.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind members that the subject of this study is an audit by the Auditor General of Canada and the recommendations of that audit. This isn't a study of policy or looking at future events; this is looking at the audit by the Auditor General.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of September 23. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So that you are aware, the webcast will show only the person speaking, rather than the entire committee.

I reiterate that we're focusing on the study today, which is the audit by the Auditor General of Canada and the recommendations in that audit. For people who are subbing in or who haven't gone through the orientation, that's something unique to this committee. We really look at the functioning of the audit and the recommendations from that audit.

To ensure that an orderly meeting proceeds, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

First of all, you may speak in the official language of your choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of selecting either the floor, or English or French. For those participating via Zoom, before speaking click on the microphone icon to activate your own mike. When you are done speaking, please put your mike on mute to minimize any interference.

Should any members need to request the floor outside of the time that's being given to them by me, they should activate their mike and state that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order that has been raised by another member, they should use the “raise hand” function. This will signal to the chair your interest to speak and create a speakers list. In order to do so, you should click on “participants”, and at the bottom of the screen you will then see popping up on the right side next to your name the “raise hand” feature. This function creates a list of speakers by the same token.

Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the use of headsets with a boom microphone provided by the House of Commons is mandatory for everyone participating remotely who needs to speak.

Thank you to the interpreters for working through this technology with us.

If you have any technical challenges, please advise me, and we'll do our best to help.

I'd like now to welcome our witnesses.

Joining us today from the Office of the Auditor General are the Auditor General of Canada, Karen Hogan; Carol McCalla, principal; and Erin Jellinek, director. From the Canada Border Services Agency, I'd like to welcome back John Ossowski, president, and Scott Harris, vice-president, intelligence and enforcement branch. We also have with us today, from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, Deputy Minister Catrina Tapley, and Nicole Giles, associate assistant deputy minister, operations. Also, from the Immigration and Refugee Board, we have Richard Wex, chairperson, and Greg Kipling, deputy chair, immigration division.

You will each have five minutes to make your opening statements.

We'll begin with you, Ms. Hogan. You have the floor. Welcome back. It's great to have you with us this morning.

[Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General]

Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to present the results of our audit report on immigration removals. Joining me is Carol McCalla, the principal who was responsible for the audit, and Erin Jellinek, who led the audit team.

The audit examined whether the Canada Border Services Agency removed foreign nationals found inadmissible to Canada. Examples include failed asylum claimants, visitors who overstay their visas, or those with criminality. Timely removal supports the fairness of Canada's immigration system and may deter those who might seek to abuse it. In the case of criminals, their timely removal is important to protect public safety.

Overall, we found that the agency's approach to managing removal cases had not resulted in the timely removal of inadmissible foreign nationals. The accumulation of enforceable removal orders has been a long-standing issue for the agency. We determined that in April 2019, about 50,000 had accumulated, and many had been enforceable for years. Also, the agency had not known the whereabouts of about two thirds of the individuals ordered to leave.

We found two key issues that were affecting the timely removal of foreign nationals. First, the agency's efforts were hindered by poor data quality, which meant that the agency did not have the information it needed to track enforceable removal orders. For example, orders that the agency should have been monitoring were missing from the inventory. Some orders were delayed because of the poor flow of information between Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, and the agency, while others were filed in the wrong inventory. This meant that the agency did not always know which orders to enforce.

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

Thank you.

Second, poor case management led to significant periods of inactivity for thousands of cases. The agency did not have an effective system that pushed it to act on removal cases—even high-priority and time sensitive ones. For example, we estimated that in its working inventory of enforceable removal orders, the agency had not acted on about 1,500 cases for at least two years simply because they had overlooked them.

The agency aims to remove failed claimants within a year of a final negative decision. We found that most of these cases had, on average, still been in the working inventory after four years and in the wanted inventory of arrest warrants after 10 years.

The agency’s inability to effectively prioritize removal cases is concerning for the small number of criminal cases that may pose a risk to public safety. Criminal cases had been in the agency’s working inventory for an average of five years. We estimated that almost 150 cases involving serious criminals had not been worked on—either because they had not been assigned to an officer or because the officer had not taken any action on the case.

Further, we found significant periods of inactivity among the 34,700 cases of foreign nationals whose whereabouts were unknown. These included 2,800 high-priority criminal cases, about 70% of which were not being investigated to determine whether the individuals could be located. Agency officials confirmed that, in general, cases in the wanted inventory are not a priority.

We made three recommendations. The agency agreed with all of them and has shared its action plan with us.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan, for your presentation.

Now, who is up next? Mr. Harris?

[John Ossowski, President, Canada Border Services Agency]

I can go, Mr. Chair, if that suits you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Sure. Thank you very much.

[John Ossowski]

Good morning, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee.

Thank you for inviting me to participate in today's discussion on the Auditor General's recent performance audit on immigration removals.

With me today is my vice-president of intelligence and enforcement, Scott Harris.

I would like to thank the OAG for its report, and can confirm that the public safety minister has accepted all of the findings and recommendations.

The removals process plays a critical role in supporting Canada's immigration and refugee determination continuum, and contributes to the Government of Canada's public safety and security priorities. These processes are complex and not linear. As a result, the inventories that the CBS maintains are constantly changing to reflect the fact that individuals are at different stages of these processes, given the recourse available in our Canadian system of determination.

The various recourse mechanisms available to some or all applicants include the Immigration Refugee Board, judicial review, humanitarian and compassionate relief, ministerial relief and the intervention of United Nations bodies, such as the United Nations Committee Against Torture.

The Auditor General's report focused on the various CBSA inventories of foreign nationals involved in these processes. As of November 2020, about 217,000 people were in our inventory. Of those, about 149,000 were in the monitoring inventory, meaning that they were not eligible to be removed for various reasons. There were 165,000 in the monitoring and stayed inventory, and not eligible to be removed.

Of the 217,000 in total, just over 18,000 are in our working inventory, but have impediments to their removal. I will speak to some of those impediments in a moment.

This leaves a total of 4,175 individuals who could be removed right now.

I want to assure this committee that everyone who comes to the border is screened by our border service officers. Our BSOs have the authority, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to deal with potentially inadmissible visitors. No one leaves the border until and unless we are confident that they do not pose a risk to Canadians. Otherwise, we pursue other options, including detention.

Our efforts aren't just at the border. We assess and reassess risk throughout the process and have the ability to detain those who present an unacceptable danger to the public.

When it comes to removals, CBSA prioritizes the cases in its inventory. However, as indicated, there are variables in our immigration and refugee determination process that require us to constantly prioritize and remove individuals from our inventories. Another significant factor that presents a challenge for removals is our dependence on other countries to provide the travel documents required to have their foreign nationals returned. We depend on the co-operation and coordination with these countries, for example, on the specific requirement for the ID documents so that a removal can take place.

The agency is working with partners on making enhancements to systems to improve our ability to manage data related to removals.

The COVID-19 pandemic's effect on international travel has allowed us to focus our efforts on reviewing our inventories of cases and conducting business that requires a desk investigation or is more administrative in nature—all in support of the program.

As part of its overall case management strategy, the CBSA employs a number of electronic resources to track files along the immigration continuum. The CBSA also uses an inventory management system to help guide the monitoring of files along with the associated resource allocation.

In addition, with the new entry-exit controls in place, we have much greater access to information about travellers who leave Canada—either by land or air—which has had a positive impact on our ability to keep on top of warrants for removals.

Mr. Chair, let me assure you that the CBSA is focused on the recommendations coming out of the Auditor General's report, so that Canada maintains its strong reputation as a fair and welcoming country that is also governed by the rule of law.

I'll be pleased to answer any questions committee members may have.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you for your presentation.

Now I'd like to call on Catrina Tapley, please.

[Catrina Tapley, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for inviting me to participate in today's discussion on the subject of the Auditor General's recent performance audit on immigration removals.

I'm accompanied by one of my colleagues, Nicole Giles, who is the associate assistant deputy minister of Operations at IRCC.

IRCC welcomes the Auditor General's report and agrees with its recommendations, which offer valuable insights that support ongoing efforts to improve the immigration and asylum system.

Canada is fundamentally an open and welcoming society. We are recognized as having one of the best immigration systems in the world, which was premised on a well-managed migration. In order to preserve that tradition, we must remain alert to those who do not qualify under existing pathways and mechanisms to remain in Canada or those who are otherwise deemed inadmissible.

Equally, however, we must guard against faults in our own processes, and this is what brings us here today, how we can improve.

In budget 2019, the Government of Canada invested $1.18 billion over five years to increase the capacity of Canada's asylum system to process about 50,000 claims a year. This funding will strengthen processes at the border and accelerate the processing of claims and removals in a timely manner. In support of this investment, the departments who share responsibility for these processes have a duty to co-operate as effectively as possible.

A key part of any well-managed system is good and timely data. Our department is committed to working with the Canada Border Services Agency to ensure accurate and timely data entry to assist the agency in managing its removal programs as well as to ensure IRCC's program integrity and quality assurance.

One of the concerns raised in the Auditor General's report was the number of delays in certain removals, which were the result of deficiencies in information sharing between the CBSA and IRCC. In response, IRCC is building on the monitoring, oversight and compliance regimes that we put in place to focus on asylum and related enforcement processes.

Since September 2019, this monitoring regime has allowed us on a monthly basis to identify delayed or improper data entry and to take corrective action.

Over the last year, a section on incomplete removal orders has been incorporated into the report to ensure that any issues are quickly addressed by the appropriate organization. In addition, we are developing a systems-based solution to ensure litigation data entry is completed in a timely manner. We have committed to implement the solution in conjunction with the Department of Justice and the Canada Border Services Agency by September 30th of next year.

In the more immediate term, we have taken action in recognizing that the ability to co-operate effectively with fellow departments is crucial to delivering the many programs and services Canadians rely on to maintain public safety.

To this end, the Asylum System Management Board was established as a deputy minister-level forum in spring 2018 to improve horizontal coordination among IRCC, the Immigration and Refugee Board and the Canada Border Services Agency, the organizations responsible for the administration and operation of Canada's asylum system.

Further, in 2019, the government established a whole-of-government strategy for increasing removals co-operation.

Under this strategy, IRCC received $21 million over six years to deliver capacity-building programming to increase engagement and co-operation with targeted countries.

The strategy also aligns with key findings and recommendations of the spring OAG report, including the need to increase engagement on removal co-operation.

In conclusion, Mr. Chair, coordinated efforts on any scale rely on communication and co-operation to succeed. The Auditor General's study of immigration removals has revealed opportunities to strengthen links between departments that are collectively responsible for immigration removals.

We have made progress, and I know my colleagues here today share my resolve to further strengthen our efforts in accordance with the recommendations contained in the report.

I look forward to answering the committee's questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

The final five-minute presentation is by the Immigration and Refugee Board, Richard Wex, chairperson.

[Richard Wex, Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee.

I am accompanied today by Greg Kipling, deputy chair of the Immigration Division.

I'd like to begin by thanking the Office of the Auditor General of Canada for its report and the information it provides.

While none of the recommendations in the report are directed to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, we are pleased to be able to tell you about our organization and the relationship between the board's work and the Canada Border Services Agency's removals program. We will also be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Before getting to the heart of the matter, I'd like to give you an overview of our mandate, our current operating context and the board's strategic directions.

The IRB is Canada's largest independent administrative tribunal, with a mandate to resolve immigration and refugee cases fairly, efficiently and in accordance with the law.

We have a staff of some 2,000 across the country, including some 500 adjudicators, and a current budget of approximately $300 million a year. As well, we're a high-volume administrative tribunal issuing some 60,000 cases a year across our four separate divisions.

The board's decisions are almost always life-changing, from deciding whether someone is granted refugee protection from the country against which they are alleging persecution, to deciding whether an individual is inadmissible to and, therefore, removable from Canada, to whether someone detained by CBSA for immigration-related reasons should continue to have their liberty restricted or be released into the community.

The board's mandate is important both at an individual level by virtue of the nature of its decisions, but also at a broader level in playing an important role in upholding Canadians' confidence in our immigration and refugee determination systems.

As many of you are no doubt aware, our operating context has been quite challenging over the past few years. Much like elsewhere around the world, Canada's asylum system has faced significant pressure, with refugee claims growing exponentially and far exceeding the funded capacity to process such claims. This has resulted in evergrowing inventories and longer wait times, raising questions around access to justice and public confidence in the system as a whole.

In response to these and other challenges, in early 2019 the IRB developed and implemented a fairly ambitious multi-year growth and transformation agenda. In terms of growth, budget 2019 provided some $200 million in additional temporary funding over two years for the IRB to address the recent surge in asylum claims and slow the growth of the refugee claims inventory and wait times from where they would otherwise be.

As we work to grow the organization and maximize the use of these temporary investments, we're also focused on transformation, as defined by three strategic directions. First, we're focused on improved productivity characterized by a culture of increased operational awareness and results.

Second, we're focused on enhanced quality in decision-making, and third, we're focused on strength in management, including, as my colleague Ms. Tapley just mentioned, improved governance through the Asylum System Management Board with IRCC and the CBSA, which allows us to work through common issues requiring coordinated responses.

I'm pleased to report that results to date across all four divisions have met or exceeded ambitious performance targets, including those associated with the recent investments in budget 2019. At the refugee protection division, for example, the board finalized over 42,000 refugee claims last year, some 10,000 more claims than in 2018-19. The board finalized some 11,000 refugee appeals, more than double the number of appeals finalized at the refugee appeal division the previous year. Of course, these gains represent better access to justice for tens of thousands of people waiting for certainty in their lives.

The audit under consideration deals with immigration removals. Removal orders or decisions that impact whether removal orders are brought into effect are issued by each of the IRB divisions. They cover a range of potential circumstances, including those where the board finds someone to be inadmissible, or where refugee claimants are ultimately found not to be in need of protection.

The effectiveness of CBSA's removals program is based in part on the timely sharing of such IRB decisions. The audit examined the sharing of such IRB decisions with the CBSA in the context of their removal program, and I was reassured that the OAG found no issues with the information shared by the IRB. That said, we are committed to and are currently taking steps to further strengthen our information sharing practices with both IRCC and the CBSA across the immigration and refugee determination system.

Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My colleague, Mr. Kipling, and I are available for your questions.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you, all, for your presentations this morning. We're right on time.

Speaking of time, I'd just like to remind the committee members that in the last 10 minutes of today's meeting, we're going to deal with committee business to look at the road ahead for us.

With that, we'll start our first round of questions with Raquel Dancho from the Conservative Party.

Welcome to the committee, Raquel, for being a sub. It's great to have you here. You have six minutes.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to question the witnesses.

I looked over this report in detail and have a number of questions. I just want to reiterate the crux of the report and many of the remarks by the Auditor General. My understanding of the report is that the goal was “to determine whether the Canada Border Services Agency, in coordination with [the department of immigration] and the Immigration and Refugee Board...removed individuals ordered to leave Canada as soon as possible to protect the integrity of the immigration system and maintain public safety.” Further, the AG had found that “[f]ailed asylum claimants make up the largest share of those ordered to leave”.

I just want to reiterate some of the highlights from the AG's remarks in English—she gave them in French. She said, “[W]e found that the agency's approach to managing removal cases had not resulted in the timely removal of inadmissible foreign nationals” and, further, that “in April 2019, about 50,000 had accumulated, and many had not been enforceable for years.”

That, in particular, I found very concerning.

“[T]he agency had not known the whereabouts of about two thirds of the individuals ordered to leave”, and she found two main issues with this. “First, the agency's efforts were hindered by poor data quality, which meant that the agency did not have the information it needed to track enforceable removal orders.” They didn't even have the technology to sort of know and find where these individuals were. There were 50,000 at the time. She also mentioned that there was a “poor flow of information between Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the agency”.

The second one, in particular, I found quite concerning. “[P]oor case management led to significant periods of inactivity for thousands of cases. The agency did not have an effective system that pushed it to act on removal cases, even high-priority cases” that were time-sensitive. She said that “the agency had not acted on about 1,500 cases for about 2 years” and that more “of these cases had, on average, still been in the working inventory [for] four years and in the wanted inventory of arrest warrants” for a decade.

What I think the public will be particularly concerned about is “the agency's inability to effectively prioritize removal cases”, which “is concerning for the small number of criminal cases that may pose a risk to public safety. Criminal cases had been in the agency's working inventory for an average of 5 years.”

Now in her report, she mentions that criminal cases, particularly the serious ones, were with regard to “those convicted of crimes punishable by a maximum sentence of 10 years or more” and “who, in the opinion of the [border] officer, [would] pose a threat to the public or individuals.”

I did find that concerning. She specified that there were “150 cases involving serious criminals [that] had not been worked on”.

So, what I was hearing in her remarks and in her report was that there were 150 known criminals that they weren't sure where they were and that they weren't working on finding. Further, there were 2,800 other criminal cases, as well, that they didn't know where they were and that they weren't working on.

Now we know that this report is from data from a year and a half ago—April 2019—so I'm hoping today to hear an update with progress for the Canadian people who are concerned about criminals who, essentially, have illegally entered our country and that we're not able to find and are not working on finding, at least at the time of this report.

Mr. Ossowski, how many of the 2,800 criminals that were identified for removal have now been removed in the past year and a half, and how many warrants for the arrest of failed asylum claimants who are individuals who are criminals exist in Canada right now?

[John Ossowski]

I'm happy to report that one of the silver linings of the COVID experience is that I've been able to reallocate some resources to a warrant review process. We're about 80% done that review process right now. I'm happy to report that the number of people in the wanted inventory that the Auditor General identified is now down to 800 people with criminality.

I would just like to expand for a second on that, though. I think it's important for the committee to understand that people, when they come to the border, might have criminality in their pasts. It might have been serious at some point in time. The person might have served a sentence. As I said in my opening remarks, no one leaves our control if we feel that there is any risk to the public. We will go to the IRB. We will detain them. There's a hearing process where the IRB will review those detentions.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I just have to continue. I only have a minute and a half left.

My understanding of her report is that she said that there were many of these criminal cases where no one was looking for them. They were, I guess, on somebody's desk, collecting dust, which I found concerning.

But just now in French for our French colleagues....

How do you explain the fact that the average processing time for removal orders for criminals we are able to locate is five years? How do you explain the fact that 150 serious criminal files have been inactive for years, often with no officer assigned to the file?

[John Ossowski]

It is complicated. We might find someone we know about who has a criminal past, but we can't get travel documents for them. That represents about 60% of our challenge. We have an enforceable removal order in place, but we can't get the travel documents to send them back to where they came from.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

The crux of the problem is that they don't have a passport and so you can't deport them, so to speak.

I want to know as well—just to wrap up—how many have been convicted or charged with crimes while they were in Canada.

[John Ossowski]

My vice-president might have that information.

Scott.

[Scott Harris, Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you very much for that.

It's probably in the neighbourhood of 60% who have been charged in Canada, of our total criminal cases.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

To be clear, you're not able to find them, but they have been charged.

[Scott Harris]

Yes. They have been charged and/or convicted of crimes in Canada.

As part of the process, people who are convicted of crimes in Canada complete their sentences in Canada. During the serving of their sentence, their removal orders are stayed. Once their sentence is complete or they're granted parole, they come into CBSA care in custody. We review those cases to determine if they present a risk to the public, and we move forward with the removal order.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you very much.

Now it's over to Mr. Blois from the Liberal Party.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony today. It's certainly an important subject.

I'm going to start with Ms. McCalla, who was the principal on this particular report.

The information is obviously helpful, but it's a snapshot in time. As Mr. Wex was talking about, the IRB has basically increased the number of asylum cases it has processed, and I think he suggested that it might have doubled in the last year.

Was there any type of analysis—this is obviously a snapshot in time—about where we were in years past and where we are today basically? Is there any continuum there that we looked at?

[Carol McCalla, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

With regard to the number of removals that CBSA effected each year, we found that over the past decade, since our last report in 2008 when there were about 12,000 removals, the number had steadily gone down. However, it had recently increased, in the last year that we looked at, to close to 10,000 removal orders.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Obviously, some of this is predicated.... I went through your report that was prepared, and some of that is not tied to.... There wasn't much of a connection in terms of the number of processed cases that are going through IRB and the number of removals that are taking place. Obviously that has some impact on the ability to get removals out. Is that correct?

[Carol McCalla]

We found there were a large number of cases of enforceable removal orders that had accumulated and that existed, regardless of the number of new removals that came into force each year.

Based on the surge in asylum claims over the past three years, the CBSA expects there to be a significant increase in the number of removal orders it will have to enforce. That is indeed why we undertook this audit, to see how the CBSA is situated in terms of the information it has on which removal orders to enforce so that the accumulation of removal orders won't worsen.