Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 24th, 2020

[John Ossowski]

I would say this. People who come from the United States have also been screened by the United States government first, before they cross the border into Canada, so we're pretty confident that we have a good sense of their serious criminality, for sure, at that point. There may, however, be other things in their past that won't come up until we do more research with our national security partners.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

You still have 40 seconds, if you wish.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Are all the asylum seekers screened for COVID when they enter the country?

[John Ossowski]

Yes...well, not necessarily. It depends on whether or not they're symptomatic.

I will double-check that with Scott, though.

[Scott Harris]

Yes, screening depends upon whether you're symptomatic, but we do require people to self-isolate for the 14 days, and we have arrangements with IRCC to ensure that self-isolation occurs.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

What are those arrangements? What prevents someone from saying they are going to self-isolate and then not doing so?

[Scott Harris]

It's similar to the case with any Canadian or anybody returning to the country. We do, obviously, have lookouts put on individuals to ensure, and there's follow-up by public health agencies of those who self-isolate in private residences.

In addition, IRCC has a number of spots for those who have no place to self-isolate. In that case, IRCC can monitor those cases.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you. I'm glad we got that in.

We go over to Mr. Fergus, please, for six minutes.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to all the witnesses here. Let me also point out that Mr. Ossowski and Ms. Hogan are regulars at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

The members of this committee received some training behind closed doors. The training emphasized the point that, when we are examining reports from the Auditor General, it is important to recognize the good work that has been done in order to encourage other departments and agencies to follow the example of those organizations who achieve a good mark.

My question goes to Mr. Wex and Mr. Kipling, from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada reported that: “We found no errors with the agency's entry of removal orders issued by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada”.

In your view, Mr. Wex and Mr. Kipling, what are the practices used that result in no errors with the entry of removal orders issued by the board, in terms of the inventory of cases that the agency has to deal with? For example, is it because of the training of the officers or the regular checking of the input?

[Richard Wex]

Mr. Chair, we have a strong system interface with IRCC, which is also shared with CBSA, with respect to decisions issued on the refugee side—refugee decisions that are issued every night. There's a run on the system, and the disposition of the decisions is uploaded on a nightly basis.

That information is shared with IRCC through their GCMS database. Our case management system is connected with theirs, and CBSA has access to it.

Those decisions are also shared, either through encrypted email or regular mail, with CBSA within five days after the decision has been issued

On the immigration side, it's more manual, actually. We don't yet have a systems interface. As Mr. Ossowski mentioned, we are working with IRCC and CBSA to strengthen that area as a result in part of the 2019 audit. All parties, however, receive decisions that are issued through the immigration division or the immigration appeal division.

CBSA is a party with respect to any removal orders that are issued by those two divisions. Those decisions are issued, again by email or mail, within two to five business days. That has been the practice for a significant amount of time.

That said, as you can see, it's fairly manual; it's not yet automated. While it's working very well, and we were reassured by the OAG's report that the information management practice is working well, we want to strengthen it. As Mr. Ossowski said, we're looking at ways of doing so.

One way we are doing it is that the IRB is moving forward with its digital strategy. We are implementing a portal whereby we are pushing information, including decisions, out to counsel and other parties.

Decisions have not yet been pushed out through that portal, but that is the next stage of the implementation. It is something we're working on that will take the current manual process and make it more digital and more automated.

We're doing fine, according to the OAG, but we want to continue to advance our efforts on this front, and we have a strategy to do so. We are reassured by the OAG's report.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much for that answer.

I now have some questions for Mr. Ossowski and his colleagues.

The Auditor General's report describes delays in the enforcement of removal orders because of failures in receiving data because of the system interface. The report also mentions that: “We found cases filed in the wrong inventories and others that contained inaccurate information”.

Mr. Ossowski, are you confident in your computer system, the global case management system, GCMS, or should it be replaced?

[John Ossowski]

The GCMS system is in the IRCC system—

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Oh, my apologies.

[John Ossowski]

—but we rely on it. It's a legacy system for sure. It's something that we could see some improvements in, and we would certainly support any investments to do so.

Absolutely, the way we interact with these systems is critical to us. I have confidence that we have a strategy to move forward to improve our data quality [Technical difficulty--Editor] and the triaging and attention required for these files.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I'm sorry I interrupted you; I thought that you finished your answer.

Are those interface problems resolved, or do they keep occurring?

[John Ossowski]

As I mentioned, we have funding from budget 2019 that we're working with our colleagues in the other departments to improve interoperability with. It's not done yet.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, for six minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to continue talking about the removal program.

I am talking to the witnesses from the Canada Border Services Agency.

I have been doing some research of my own, still using Report 1 from the Office of the Auditor General, which is about removing immigrants who were refused entry. Paragraph 1.2 reads:

In the 2018-2019 fiscal year, the agency spent about $34 million on its removal program.

We are talking about $34 million for a program that works 30% of the time.

More specifically, of the 50,000 people who are subject to enforceable removal orders and who have exhausted or waived all legal recourses to stay in Canada, two thirds, about 34,700, according to the report, are in the wanted inventory, and 2,800 of those were individuals with criminality.

Does the Canada Border Services Agency find that acceptable?

[John Ossowski]

We've accepted the Auditor General's findings. We have an action plan to move forward on this. I am convinced and I am committed, along with my partners in other departments, to improve this situation. We will achieve better results.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I sense a real will on your part to move forward in this matter. The government has also contributed by providing more money. But, the end of the day, the results are still that 30% of the cases are resolved in a program that costs $34 million.

I am trying to understand. How can we give you more help? I am even wondering whether any recommendations have been implemented, in terms of having managers or different teams in place, so that more than 30% of the cases in a $34 million program can be resolved.

[John Ossowski]

The process is complicated, and it's not completely dependent on us. We require the co-operation of foreign countries. You are looking at a very small subset of the 216,000 people who are currently being monitored in our system right now. In fact, and Scott can correct me if I'm wrong, of the people eligible to be removed last year, 93% of them were removed. There are people out there whom we're looking for, and we will do our best to find them, along with our law enforcement partners. When we do so, we will remove them.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you for those clarifications, Mr. Ossowski.

I am now going to turn to the witnesses from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.

As you know, the pandemic has affected everyone, particularly the board. Hearings were cancelled up until approximately July. What is the situation now in terms of processing delays?

Questions have been sent directly to the department. We have been told that cases are going to be dealt with, but all the cases have been prepared for the fall. If nothing has been processed for several months, I have a hard time believing that working at double speed will be a success, and all those cases will be processed by the fall.

I am trying to look forward a little, to see what will happen in the coming months. Because hearings have been cancelled, will there be unacceptable processing delays, meaning that, basically, you will not even manage to process only 30% of the cases in the removal program for immigrants who have been refused entry?

Can you clarify that for us?

[Richard Wex]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to inform the committee that for the year to date, the board has processed and rendered over 18,000 decisions across the four divisions. In fact, the board resumed operations as of June, when in-person hearings began. Most in-person hearings were suspended as a result of the pandemic, with the exception of the immigration division. However, within a few months after that, in-person hearings did resume. I believe it was actually in July. We were also able to shift to hear remote hearings. It's been a tremendous success for the board.

The board has traditionally been a very manual and paper-based organization. We wanted the silver lining—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Mr. Wex, sorry, if you could just hold up your microphone a little bit for the interpreters, please.