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.
Noon
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Why is it advisable to have both paper and the electronic files? This could be contributing to missing information. Why not just move the digital files?
Noon
President, Canada Border Services Agency
That would be the goal, for sure, at the end of the day, but when people come from a lot of countries it's a very paper-heavy process, and a lot of the legal processes that we have, including going to the Federal Court, are still paper-based. Getting those hand-offs, as I say, between us all is something that we're working on to make sure that we can improve our timeliness.
Noon
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Thank you.
Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, you have two and a half minutes.
Noon
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll address Mr. Harris and Mr. Ossowski of the Canada Border Services Agency.
I can say that the Auditor General's report is quite damning for your organization. I want to focus primarily on the removal of refused immigrants. It's this alarming situation that is the main focus of the report.
In recent years, much more investment has been made in this area. I read an article from La Presse, dated July 8, 2020, written by Jim Bronskill. In that article, he says that in recent years, the government has made much more investment to improve the processing of enforceable removal orders. The Canada Border Services Agency is responsible for enforcing removal orders issued against foreign nationals who have been inadmissible to Canada.
Gentlemen, can you tell us how much money was allocated to this particular program in the last budget?
12:05 p.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
I can give you some highlights from past years. In 2010, for a program called refugee reform, the agency received $95 million for five years and $19 million ongoing.
There was another injection of funds in 2016 for the Mexican visa lift program. That's when we stopped requiring visas for Mexican travellers coming into Canada. That was $20 million for five years and $5 million ongoing.
Budget 2018 received $7.45 million for one year and nothing ongoing.
In budget 2019 the agency received $77 million for three years.
When you look at those numbers, it's important to understand that a lot of that was for us to deal with what we call the “border management” side of things. This was to process people, either through immigration levels or volumes of asylum claimants we were seeing, and it wasn't focused specifically on removals.
As we recognize this process, removals tend to be at the later edges of those things. Typically when somebody starts a process—maybe three years later if everything works well in the appeal processes and due process is afforded to people—we would be in a position to remove somebody.
12:05 p.m.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Great, Mr. Ossowski. Thank you for this clarification.
Can you clarify some information? According to the figures I have for the fiscal year 2018-19, $34 million is dedicated to the removal of foreign nationals program.
I would like a written response from the department.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Be very brief, please.
Yes, if we could get a written response, that would be excellent.
12:05 p.m.
Bloc
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Longfield.
Respecting time, I'd like to go ahead and give notice of motion. I'm not going to move the motion, but read the notice, and we will have a translated copy sent out through the clerk to all members of committee.
The notice of motion reads:
That the committee invite the Auditor General of Canada and the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development to appear before the committee to discuss the mandate of the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development, the role of the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development within the office of the Auditor General, the budget of the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development, the number of permanent fulltime equivalent staff assigned to the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development, the prioritization of Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development audits within the Office of the Auditor General workplan for 2021 and 2022, and that the committee report its finding back to the House.
You can feel free to continue to run the time. I don't want to take away from anybody else's time, so I'll go into my general question, which—
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
That works.
In paragraph 1.43, the OAG explains that the CBSA experiences significant periods of inactivity for cases needing travel documents. The specialized unit charged to obtain the travel documents does not receive referral requests.
Why are very few cases referred to that unit? I can think of people who are stuck here, stateless, and unable to move.
12:05 p.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
What we tend to do when we're approaching countries to get travel documents is that we go with lists of people. It's not done on a case-by-case basis—it might be, it depends on the circumstances—but generally we would go with a list of people that we have in order to see if we can find the appropriate documentation for people on that list.
That's one of the data problems, unfortunately, that doesn't sync back necessarily with the case management system, but we're going to do a better job at matching those efforts.
Over the last couple of years, we have documented over 300 interactions with foreign governments to try to get them to give us the documents we need.
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Were those instances where they have refused or were not co-operative, to put it plainly?
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
That's super. Thank you very much.
The next five minutes is for Mr. Berthold.
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Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and congratulations on the work you're doing today.
Ms. Hogan, first of all, thank you very much for your report. Indeed, it's a damning report.
It seems that you had difficulty in getting consistent figures from the different agencies. Did I understand you correctly?
12:10 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
During our audit, we had no difficulty in finding figures that matched. We reviewed the inventory of enforceable removal orders. It should be understood that depending on where an individual's case is filed in the legal system, the individual's case can move in and out of the inventory. For example, the case may have been processed or the individual may be a wanted person. This is a point in time that we looked at, and it was with respect to the cases in the inventory.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
After hearing the answers of the witnesses, I have a little difficulty in finding my way around the figures provided by IRCC and the different agencies. However, I've made an astonishing observation.
On the one hand, we're told at the Canada Border Services Agency that the pandemic was an opportunity to catch up. On the other hand, at IRCC, the time it takes to process each application and case is getting longer and longer. As members of Parliament, we are well placed to know this.
If it wasn't for the pandemic, where would we be at the Canada Border Services Agency?
Would you have been able to meet the commitments made in the action plan that was presented to the Auditor General?
12:10 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Was the question for me?
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
No. I was talking to the representatives of the Canada Border Services Agency.
12:10 p.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
We are on track for everything that's in our action plan, which has been sent to the committee.
These are important actions and [Inaudible—Editor].
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Ossowski, without the pandemic, would you have been able to meet your recommendations?