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.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I hope this is better.
One of the silver linings of the pandemic, in fact, has been that we've been able to accelerate our ability to become a remote organization. We launched a pilot to hold remote hearings in the latter months of the summer, which ended up being very successful for working with counsel, claimants and various national stakeholders, to the point where during the month of October over 50% of all of our hearings were held remotely.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you for those clarifications, Mr. Wex.
I'm sorry for interrupting you, but I just want to clarify some things and go back to the basic issue.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board
Going forward, for the balance of the year, the majority of the hearings will be held remotely such that, to answer your question with respect to the number of claimants that we expect to finalize at the refugee protection division—
Liberal
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Wex, I did not want to interrupt you, but I just wanted to get back to basics. Will there be additional delays because hearings were cancelled?
You said that you resumed hearings in June, but online. However, the pandemic struck in March. No hearings were held in April and May. Are we to expect delays?
I am trying to find out what you did between the middle of March and June. The House of Commons was closed in the middle of March and we resumed our work virtually in April, with two months then to make up for.
At the board, what did you do during that time?
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board
With respect to the immigration division, immigration detention reviews continue to take place.
With respect to the refugee protection division, less complex claims were considered. These are claims that can be considered and resolved without a hearing in certain cases. That task force was up and running and a number of decisions were triaged into that task force. Various training and policy efforts were taking place as well.
As I said, we resumed our operations within a matter of a few months.
With respect to the other divisions, there has been a delay as a result of the pandemic and that will have an impact in terms of wait times.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Thank you, Mr. Wex. We're over time, but I appreciate your answer.
Mr. Green, you have your final six minutes, please.
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I do appreciate Mr. Wex's commitment to the comprehensive answer in response to the previous question.
Some information has come up. There's been a lot of talk about criminality. There's been a lot of talk about the irregular entries of folks who are seeking refuge in Canada and in reference to Roxham Road. We know that at the peak of asylum seekers, I think there were 50,000 unofficial border crossings in just two years. Roxham Road is certainly a focal point of that.
I'm wondering what has been discussed should Canada lose its appeal in the Federal Court on the safe third country agreement. In your opinion, how much of that is correlated with the very aggressive, almost draconian, way in which ICE has tracked down and persecuted folks who were in the U.S. irregularly?
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Mr. Chair, if it's okay, I think I'll lead on the response to that question.
As the honourable member is aware, and as you are aware, the Federal Court struck down the safe third country agreement. It's been appealed, and we expect the court to hear that appeal. We don't have an exact date, but we think it will be sometime toward the end of February.
Just to take the question in parts, first, are we planning for eventualities around that? How would we stand up resources and what would they look like? The answer is absolutely. We're working closely with our colleagues at the Canada Border Services Agency, as well as the Department of Justice and other departments, on what this would look like and how we would make sure that we would continue operations in a safe and orderly manner that respects the safety and security of Canadians as we do that.
We continue to watch developments in the U.S. and any potential changes with a new administration and what that might involve.
I'm just trying to make sure I have a thorough answer to the question.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You're doing a great job, and for folks who are tuning in, I'm bringing this up because oftentimes immigration is reduced to a very small minority of highly criminal cases. We haven't, in this discussion, delved into what criminality looks like, whether it's summary convictions or indictable offences, whether they're violent offences or mere missteps of the law.
I want to peel back what the average experience is like for people seeking refuge in Canada. We know, for instance, that the United States under Donald Trump's regime was horrific in its treatment of refugees, with the separation of children, the caging people and inadequate conditions. I think that there is a reasonable understanding now, perhaps not four years ago, but certainly now that we can argue why the safe third party agreement is likely to fail in this appeal.
For lack of a better term, I want to make sure that we have systems and principles in place so that this new flow of people who may be escaping.... Maybe they won't under a new regime. I don't know if there's going to be a difference, but I want to make sure that we're really focused on what the general experience is like for refugees who cross at places like Roxham Road.
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I think what Mr. Ossowski said earlier about others calling for a fast, fair and final system remains one of the overall priorities, whether it's with or without a safe third country agreement with the U.S.
There are a couple of things that, as partners, we're working on together but haven't highlighted yet. One of the big issues is the complexity of the asylum system. How do we simplify or de-complexify that system?
As part of the work toward an asylum interoperability project, one of the things we've been working on is the integrated claims analysis centre. This is where we've come together in Toronto to make sure that files are as complete as they possibly can be so that we can reduce the back and forth. If I'm at the IRB, I can't make a decision because I don't see the information, so I send it back, then I get it back, and it goes back and forth.
The goal of the integrated claims analysis centre is to really streamline that processing, define deficiency in the current in-Canada asylum system and ensure that the decision-makers have all relevant information in a timely manner. That helps to maintain the integrity of the system.
We're optimistic about the results of this. It has been through three phases. The third and final phase was just implemented this month, and I'm happy that we've been able to do that throughout the COVID period. Now we will be analyzing how effective it is, but I can tell you that it looks pretty promising.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Lastly, what would you consider to be the cause of the drop in cases at Roxham Road from 50 cases a day to one? In your view, why would that have happened?
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I think there are a number of factors. First, overall, the situation with COVID-19 has had a big impact on that. Moreover, additional orders in council were put in place to help to control the flow at the border and to look at that.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
That suffices. I'll just share this with committee as my last statement.
My people came here through the underground railroad. I think about people who are fleeing war and famine all round the world trying to seek this. I just encourage people not to always reduce immigration to this idea of high criminality and fear.
Thank you.
Liberal
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
That's great.
It's a very good discussion this morning.
I have one very brief question, if I may, because we have a few minutes before we go into committee business. It's in terms of the audit and something that maybe Mr. Green was alluding to. The system that we use to pre-screen people before they even get to our border, looking at criminality, health care and references, was that part of the audit? Working with the Five Eyes system, we have some agreements internationally on how we do our work to allow people into the system.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
No, the audit really focused on individuals who had exhausted all of their legal recourse and there wasn't enforceable action to remove them from the country.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Chair, since we have a little time left, I would like to ask the Auditor General a question.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Actually, we have a pretty clean break.
Okay, we can have one question each, then. We'll have one from the Conservatives. I've asked one—
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Chair, may I point out that it's my time anyway, according to the speaking order. So I'm going to take the two minutes I have left.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Ms. Hogan, are you satisfied with the answers we received today?
In the coming months, do you believe that you will have to follow up on the Canada Border Services Agency's action plan?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Yes, we are satisfied with the action plans that we received before the appearance today. I am satisfied with the answers I have heard.
We try to follow up on almost all our audits. Clearly, because of the pressure on our employees, we cannot do all the follow-up that we would like to do. If the subject is extremely important, we will do a more exhaustive follow-up in a few years. As we mentioned earlier, I believe that this is the second time that we have looked at the removal order system and the issue of removing immigrants who have been refused entry.