That's right.
Evidence of meeting #8 for Public Accounts in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was asylum.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #8 for Public Accounts in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was asylum.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Do you know what the payment was for 2019, or is that still being worked on?
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Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No. We're still discussing it with Quebec.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
This is likely my last question. I want to talk about the incentive program. In one section of the Auditor General's report, it said that few people have incentive to voluntarily leave, essentially. People are not willing to go. We have to arrest them, and have them leave. That's my understanding from the report.
The agency's response was:
While the immigration continuum is predicated on the expectation that individuals who no longer have status in the country, or who have been found inadmissible, will abide by our laws and leave Canada voluntarily, the reality is that a significant number of people fail to do so.
In response, the agency has proposed, or is implementing, a departure incentive program pilot, and will implement these initiatives by the fourth quarter of the 2020-21 fiscal year.
What is the budget for this pilot project, and how many people will it service?
11:55 a.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
We were given an initial allotment to develop the program for two years.
Scott, do you have the exact number?
The next step would be for us to go to Treasury Board, and get the right authorities to actually launch the program. I don't actually have that number handy.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Do you have an estimate? Are we talking $10 million or $20 million?
11:55 a.m.
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
It is in the neighbourhood of $10 million over a number of years.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Just so I'm clear, this departure incentive program pilot is because folks who are supposed to leave are not leaving. Their claims have been denied, their appeals to those denials have been denied again, and now they're supposed to leave, but they are not leaving. We're going to pay them to leave, is that correct?
11:55 a.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
It's to incentivize them to leave within the period before it becomes a deportation order.
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Conservative
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President, Canada Border Services Agency
We would initially have a departure order. The process is that they would have a negative decision.
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Conservative
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Conservative
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Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
We'll see if we can pick that up later.
Ms. Yip, it's over to you.
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Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you all for coming.
I would like to follow-up Ms. Dancho's line of questioning. How successful is this incentivization program? Do you have any preliminary data on this program?
11:55 a.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
We're still at the design phase of the program. We haven't actually implemented it yet. It will take a bit of time to get the authorities lined up for use to be able to provide that payment to people, which would be based on some sort of a scale. I don't have the amounts and how we would do that. We've looked at the experience of other countries to help us design a program that will work better than the one we had in the past, which didn't work so well.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
What was the experience in other countries? Were they successful in removing a greater number of people?
11:55 a.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
Some countries have had more success than others. It's fairly uneven, and I think it's important to understand that it would depend on the situation. Each person, as I like to say, is a rational economic actor, so they'll look at where they are and ask, is this my best choice?
It might be different if you're in an EU country from what it is in Canada. It really depends on the situation, so I think it's very hard to compare apples to oranges here.
Noon
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
In the sample of cases that were not removed within one year, it was found that about one in five cases was delayed because it was not assigned to an officer. In the agency's response, it mentioned that the new multi-year removal strategy being developed by the agency would allow for an “enhanced triage method to improve case identification and ensure cases are processed in a timely...manner”.
Can you brief us on the rollout of the strategy and whether this enhanced triage method has been implemented yet?
Noon
President, Canada Border Services Agency
Yes, we are rolling this out as we speak.
Part of that, as I mentioned, is the warrant review process. There are still going to be lots of complications, as I mentioned before, with getting travel documents. But certainly in terms of the data, the quality assurance program, the triaging process, these are all things that we're actively working on to make sure that we're better positioned so that these files get the attention they deserve.
Noon
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
The OAG found that there were a lot of system interface failures in receiving data, which delayed the enforcement of removal orders. It also found cases filed in the wrong inventories and others that contained inaccurate information, and also that information from paper files was not updated in the electronic files.
Have the system interface problems been resolved, or are they still an issue?
Noon
President, Canada Border Services Agency
We're actively working on that. Fortunately, in budget 2019, the three of us, ourselves, my colleagues at the the Immigration and Refugee Board, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, got money for an asylum interoperability program. We all have different case management systems and this was allowing them to interact together so we had better fidelity on all of the hand-offs that happen back and forth. I think that's really one of the most challenging parts of this process, the hand-offs back and forth as people avail themselves of the due process that we have in our determination system.
Noon
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Yes, there seems to be a need for better coordination between the departments. I'm hoping that the technology will ease that.
What checks are going to be in place to ensure better data quality?
Noon
President, Canada Border Services Agency
As I mentioned, we've put in a quality assurance program to really make sure that the data, right from the very beginning when we interact with somebody at the border, is captured properly in a system of record. We tend to use, at first, the global case management system, which is the system of the IRCC. It's only when it becomes a removal order and we start to work on it that it would come into our national case management system.
Right now we have about 216,000 people in that system, and this number is constantly changing, all the time, because people are coming through and getting processed. Those volumes have remained, I would say, fairly stable over the last number of years.