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.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Thank you for that, Chair.
I have quick question, just to follow up on my colleague's question. I believe this is to Mr. Ossowski.
How much is each individual who is volunteering to leave being paid in the volunteer program?
12:20 p.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
I don't have a fixed number yet in terms of that. It would probably be on a scale in terms of the incentives that we would see as appropriate at that particular point in time, but that level of detail has not yet been established.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Perfect. We'll follow up on that, I suppose.
I have a quick question for the AG as well.
I just wanted to know if you've received the funding yet. We had a unanimous motion for you to have the funding you need to do your job.
12:20 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I always appreciate the support of the committee, and I appreciate the all-party motion to support us in our funding request.
I continue my dialogue with the government. We are hopeful that we'll be included in the supplementary estimates (C) process. We won't get our funding until Parliament has an opportunity to vote on those funding mechanisms.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Thank you. We'll follow up on that going forward.
I just want to quickly go through some numbers with you, Mr. Ossowski. You used slightly different nomenclature than was used in the report. For clarity, I'm hoping you can rattle off the numbers quickly, as my time is short.
What's the total amount of enforceable removal orders now outstanding?
12:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
I'll answer the question.
We currently have 18,000 in our working inventory that we would consider workable, but 4,000 of those are currently actionable, for which we're actively towards removal.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Of those 18,000, how many are “whereabouts unknown”?
12:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
In addition to the 18,000, there are currently 33,000 that are “whereabouts unknown” that are part of the warrants review the president has spoken about, which will be undertaken and completed. It's mostly completed now, but it will be completed by the end of the calendar year.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Of all of the enforceable orders that are outstanding, how many have criminality?
12:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
In the “wanted” inventory, it's about 800 of those cases. Of the 33,000 we just spoke about, 800 have some level of criminality.
I would use this opportunity to clarify that there are two standards for criminality in the IRPA. They're not all serious criminality by definition. There's a variance in terms of the quality of criminality that's involved.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
How many crimes were committed by people who had enforceable orders outstanding?
12:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
Criminality is the trigger for the removal order—
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
No, no, no. Sorry, sir, I don't mean to be rude, but my time is short.
How many crimes were committed by people who had enforceable orders?
12:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
I don't have that information.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Can you get that order? I think that's an important piece of information.
12:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
We will do our best.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
I think the best way to avoid removing people is to not allow people into the country who are undesirable, as it were, to begin with.
How many asylum seekers are coming in a day, on average, now?
12:20 p.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
On average now, one, irregularly because of reduced airline travel. I would say we've probably had about 300 inland, at ports of entry, and about 1,800 at airports. It depends.
People could have arrived in the country with no intention of making an asylum claim, and then make a claim after several months. We would call that an “inland claim”.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Okay. Thank you for that.
How many is that? Is it per month or...?
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Okay. Thank you for that.
Are all the asylum seekers screened intensively for criminality?
12:25 p.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
Yes, certainly at the port of entry. Upon arrival, the first thing we establish is your criminality and your admissibility to Canada, and then your eligibility to make a claim.
Right now, we have an order in council. For example, if somebody's claiming asylum under the safe third country agreement, we direct them back to the United States. We don't want unnecessary movement of people while we're dealing with the pandemic.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
If they are screened, how then do we get people who have criminality and whom we later find out have to be removed?
12:25 p.m.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
What happens is that we do this initial screening based on what the RCMP or we, ourselves, might know. As people progress through the system and go through the determination process, we also work with our national security partners to do security screening. That ensures that, as a file is ready for a determination by the Immigration and Refugee Board, we have a complete picture. We might discover in the intervening period that there are some concerns, and that's often when some of these other things are brought to our attention.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Once again, my apologies for being rude here. We don't, then, have a complete screening, because we have people who get through who walk into Canada and who have criminality that we are unaware of—at least for some time—and then we see that we lose their whereabouts.