Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 24th, 2020

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you. Maybe we can pick up on that in the later part of the meeting, if there's more on that topic.

Mr. Green, the next six minutes is yours.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Longfield.

I certainly appreciate the opportunity to have heard the comments, and I want an opportunity to learn more. This audit has certainly brought to light some pretty significant and challenging conversations around our immigration system.

There were earlier assertions, through you, Mr. Chair, that somehow people with extreme criminality who are here in an unauthorized way are kind of roaming the streets. One of the answers was in fact that when people serve their time, they're taken into the custody of the CBSA, of our immigration system. Currently, how many people do we have incarcerated for immigration-related issues? How many people are within the custody of the CBSA, just to give me a better understanding here?

[John Ossowski]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On any given day, we would have about 350 or so people in our three holding centres. We have immigration holding centres in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. For someone whose situation is beyond our ability, we would work with our provincial colleagues, and that person would be put into a provincial correctional facility.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Then there are things like the facility in Lindsay, for instance, which, I believe, houses people in immigration cases. Currently, how many immigrants do we have in jail simply based on their immigration cases?

[John Ossowski]

They are detained for primarily three reasons: they are a danger to the public; they are unlikely to appear for a detention hearing and/or we're not able to resolve their identity. Those are the three primary reasons we would detain somebody. As I said, on average in our custody we would have about 350 people at any given time. That number has obviously dropped dramatically with last year's travel volumes being down as much as they were, but those are, grosso modo, the numbers we're talking about.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

“Grosso modo” is a new expression I just learned. Thank you for that.

I'm trying to get an understanding. There are just 350 within CBSA. Are there other avenues through which our immigration system detains people? I recall that Lindsay, Ontario, for instance, has people on indefinite detainment perhaps for what you call the unlikeliness that they would appear or their unresolved identity. Certainly the possibility of being a danger to the public I can completely understand, but I'm just trying to better understand through this audit where the systems are failing and therefore resulting in the symptoms of the deficiencies that were brought up in this audit.

[John Ossowski]

I think it's important to understand that when somebody is detained, every 30 days—first after 48 hours, then seven days and then every 30 days—they are brought before the IRB for a detention review hearing. We always hope to try to resolve whatever the matter is at the time when those hearings take place. If we're not able to resolve that, the person goes back into detention until we can figure things out.

If it's an identity thing.... Some people have done this for a very long time, and we work very hard try to figure out who they are. I would say that recent changes to capturing biometrics on entry of foreign nationals is something that will change this over the next couple of years, but there still are some people for whom we're just not satisfied that we know who they are, and if we don't know who they are, we don't know what risk they represent, so we will continue to detain them.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I just want to make sure that I'm not missing something. When you say there are 350 in holding centres, I'm assuming that's in airports and at points of entry. Is that correct or is that all—

[John Ossowski]

No. I have three dedicated facilities where we detain people. There are transitory set-ups at airports to hold somebody while we're waiting to board a flight, but we don't hold people there for any lengthy period of time.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Got it, so I guess as a more general question, we're talking about the delays in the Immigration and Refugee Board hearings. In your opinion, what impact do those delays have on your ability to keep track of refugee claimants throughout the process?

[John Ossowski]

I think certainly what we've seen from the irregular asylum and inland claim side, from people claiming asylum either when they get off an airplane or people who have claimed irregularly—the most famous example is Roxham Road in Lacolle, Quebec—is that as those volumes have grown, the system has had to adjust.

We were baseline-funded to deal with around 26,000 cases a year. The government has provided us funding to have us set up for the next few years to deliver around 50,000 cases a year. We've ramped up in response to that sort of supply side, if you will, but it will take time to resolve.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Right, and have you done any research on the impact that the delays in completing removals is having on the lives of foreign nationals and their families? I can imagine somebody who comes here. They're perhaps following an international refugee protocol. They are presenting themselves. They're setting up their families here. We're hearing that there's a process through which they engage. Maybe they move. Ten years down the line, all of a sudden, they're caught in a situation where, after having built a life in Canada, they're being removed.

I'm wondering if you've done any of that work to figure that out.

[John Ossowski]

That's probably more of a policy research question that I would defer to my colleague at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to answer, but I would say that we've done a lot of work together with our colleagues at IRB and IRCC to assess these claims as quickly as possible.

We've had a pilot going for a little while now in Montreal that's shown some promise in terms of expediting the process and getting those decisions faster. You've probably heard ministers in the past talk about the desire for a “fair, fast and final” system, and we're working towards that.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you so much for your answers.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you for your questions. That was a good line of questioning by all. Thank you.

We'll be moving into our five-minute round now with Mr. Berthold from the Conservative Party.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'll give the floor to Ms. Dancho.

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

I just want to talk a bit about the cost to taxpayers of the recent influx over the last couple of years. We know that in 2017, 2018 and 2019, 169,000 people illegally or, as others have said—the federal government in particular—irregularly crossed the border into Canada, most of which claimed asylum, for most of which we found their asylum claims were not valid and many of which we now cannot find to remove.

My understanding is that the agency in 2018-19 spent $34 million on this removal program. The year following, the federal government more than doubled that, adding $36 million for a total of $70 million for our removal program. Further, the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship committed in 2019 $1.18 billion over a five-year period to increase the capacity of Canada's asylum system to process 50,000 asylum claims per year.

For the deputy minister of immigration, can you confirm that this $1.18 billion does not include welfare payments like food, lodging, travel and others?

Hello?

Deputy Minister, can you confirm that this $1.1 billion does not include the welfare payments to those asylum-seeking claimants?

[Catrina Tapley]

You are correct.

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

Okay. I—

[Catrina Tapley]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I'll just take one moment to say congratulations.

It's my first opportunity to congratulate you on you appointment as our critic. We look forward to that.

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

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Now that we're talking about the money for the Quebec context, we know that most of the influx has been into Quebec at Roxham Road.

The Government of Canada has reimbursed Quebec for the costs it incurred as a result of the tens of thousands of refugee claimants who entered Quebec via Roxham Road. How much was Quebec reimbursed in 2017 and 2018?

[Catrina Tapley]

I assume we're talking about additional monies the federal government has provided to the Government of Quebec—

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

That's correct.

[Catrina Tapley]

—for lodging, and for the increases in lodging related to irregular asylum claimants. We're still discussing with the Government of Quebec for 2019 and 2020. Those discussions are under way and ongoing. We have not—

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

I'm sorry to cut you off, Deputy Minister, but my understanding was that it was $250 million over 2017-18, is that correct?