Public Accounts Committee on April 22nd, 2026

[Ted Gallivan]

The plan of action is to focus on students who entered through the student direct stream and who are considered high-risk.

As mentioned by the Office of the Auditor General, we are looking to establish a procedure for processing renewal applications. We are committed to establishing a more rigorous and comprehensive procedure to address the lack of verification at the first level. We want to ensure that we thoroughly verify this and subject this group to a risk assessment that differs from the one applied to the group that followed the standard process.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

In addition, 541 applicants who committed fraud obtained either permanent residence, an extension of their study permit, or filed an asylum claim.

How is it that, even though they committed fraud, these people got what they asked for?

Shouldn't addressing this problem be prioritized?

[Ted Gallivan]

I think we’re starting to step on the toes of my colleague, Ms. Brassard, from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. I don’t want to step on her toes, because she’s the one who makes those decisions.

I would simply say that they are based on several factors and indicators. When someone is the subject of a decision regarding citizenship or permanent residence, our role is to reflect that. That said, the board is an independent body that takes all factors into consideration and makes the decisions it deems appropriate.

I now turn to Ms. Lang to clarify this.

[Tara Lang, Director General, Admissibility, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I think what you said is completely accurate.

When we're considering cases and they're referred to the IRB, there are a number of reasons we might want to intervene. Misrepresentation might be one of them and likewise criminality, but officers have that discretion. In the case of somebody who overstayed a visa one time, it's hard to say if that officer would decide, on the scale or balance of probabilities, that it might be worth an intervention to the IRB to interfere in an asylum claim.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I will now begin our second round, which will consist of five members, who will have various amounts of time.

Mr. Deltell for five minutes.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to my distinguished colleagues.

I welcome our witnesses to your Canadian Parliament and our parliamentary committee.

Before I start firing off questions, I’d like to remind everyone what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about paperwork, files, or anything like that. We’re talking about human lives. When it comes to immigration, we’re talking about men and women who dream of living here in Canada. I acknowledge my conflict of interest with honour and dignity. My parents arrived here on August 22, 1958, aboard the Arosa Star, at the port of Quebec City.

When we talk about 150,000 potential fraudsters, the number is huge, the headline is striking, and we imagine the worst. However, first and foremost, these are people who, for the most part, chose to come here in good faith and who expect their host country to live up to the exceptional reputation our country enjoys around the world.

Ms. Hogan, when you discovered that there were 150,000 people who, as soon as your report was published, would be suspected of something and become targets, how did you react?

Do you believe that Canada has welcomed these people, whom, I am sure, never came here with fraudulent intentions, but who, unfortunately, have not received a welcome that lives up to our country’s reputation and, above all, our country’s responsibility?

[Karen Hogan]

I recognize that most of the students who come here through the program are genuine students. They are here to study and thrive. One day, they will have to decide whether they want to stay in Canada or return to their home countries.

As for the 153,000 people in question, these are cases where educational institutions had noticed that these individuals might not be studying full-time. They might not have been meeting the criteria or requirements specific to their permits. They should be given the chance to prove they are students, but it is unacceptable not to contact them.

As for the 800 cases where the individual used fraudulent documents or made false statements, that must be taken into account. This demonstrates a lack of integrity on the part of these individuals. Every case is unique.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

In your opinion, is there a network of people working together to defraud the system, or are these, on the contrary, isolated incidents that seem to pop up out of nowhere, with no connection between them?

[Karen Hogan]

It's difficult to answer that question.

As for the 800 cases where fraudulent documents were used, more than 700 individuals provided the name of an institution that did not exist. So, it's quite clear that this is an issue that needs to be examined more closely. The department should take steps to do that in these 800 cases.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

Mr. Gallivan, do you have something to say about this situation?

[Ted Gallivan]

Yes.

I agree with the view that these are people first and foremost. That is why I spoke about reaching out to the people on the list. Earlier this week, I talked about informing people initially and explaining the rules going forward. When we talk about expired visas, we need to remind people of the rules and make sure they’re accurate. I believe our department’s approach is to emphasize training and clear communication.

Yes, there is a threat. I’ll turn to my colleague at the end so he can tell you about this small number of cases.

You asked a direct question about networks. They do represent a small percentage of cases. Organized crime will encourage members to slip into the international student program, but we’re talking about five, 10, or 15 cases a year. That’s not the majority of cases.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

Mr. McCrorie, you work for the Canada Border Services Agency. I’m looking at this from the outside, and I think to myself that there are the universities, obviously, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and the Canada Border Services Agency.

Is it possible that everyone is working in silos and that there is a lack of collaboration?

[Aaron McCrorie, Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement, Canada Border Services Agency]

I thank the member for his question.

I think we each have roles to play in the immigration system, along with the Immigration and Refugee Board. In fact, in my experience, we actually work very closely with IRCC, for example—

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

The results are not there. Even if you work together really well, the result is not there.

[Aaron McCrorie]

I can give you the example from about 2023, when we identified an individual who had been providing students with fraudulent letters. We worked with IRCC to work through the students who were affected by that, some of whom were genuine students who we allowed to stay in the country, and others who weren't and who we removed from the country. That was a great collaborative effort between IRCC and the CBSA.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Deltell.

Welcome, Mr. Danko. Thank you for joining us today.

Mr. Danko, just so you know, you have five minutes, and if you get your last question in within that five minutes, I do allow the witnesses to respond over your time, but if you interrupt them, their time ends.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I represent a riding that has three post-secondary institutions: McMaster University, Mohawk College and Redeemer University. This is an issue that is very top of mind locally.

Mr. Deltell started on an important point. A lot of the international students we were bringing in were, in my opinion, very much exploited. They end up here thinking they're going to get this great Canadian education, this pathway to citizenship and a job and a life in Canada, and they end up in very substandard housing and in crowded conditions. They end up in a strip mall and a poor education system and are not receiving what they were promised.

My experience is largely in Ontario, where the provincial government basically created this system, this scheme, whereby the post-secondary institutions were almost forced to rely on international students as a source of revenue. The extreme example of that is Conestoga College, which at one point had 30,000 international students each year in their system. That is the student population of McMaster, which is a historic, very well known and internationally recognized university. It was just a ridiculous level of abuse.

As part of that, the province created the system, but some of those unscrupulous institutions were recruiting overseas, making these promises, bringing people in and not delivering.

My question, through you, Chair, is perhaps for the Auditor General. Did we consider what role the provincial governments and also the institutions themselves had in the abuse of these programs?

[Karen Hogan]

I can't look at the role that the provincial government or the learning institutions played, but I would point the member to exhibit 5 in our report, where we break down how the federal government interacts with the learning institutions.

The learning institutions are allocated a certain number of spots—or at least the provinces are—and the province decides which learning institutions get those spots. They can accept or not accept an individual or make an offer for them to come to the school, but then that person needs to apply to the immigration department. They need to pass through two things: being admissible for immigration but then also meeting the criteria of the program.

There is a lot of interdependency, and that's why I do believe that a better collaboration with the learning institutions, the provinces and the immigration department is needed to see why the intent was a lot sharper. The results of these reforms were a lot sharper than intended. Some provinces were meant to see an increase and saw large decreases.

There might be some adjustment that's needed, but it's clear that there's a relationship between what the provinces do with the spaces they are allocated and who a learning institution makes an offer to, and then how that person passes through immigration and program admissibility.

I hope I've captured that well. To me, it can't be done without collaborating.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you.

I'll extend that question to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration as well.

Another example from Ontario—that's my experience and what I'm familiar with—is that of the system of colleges licensing their diplomas to third parties, which are then basically packing strip malls full of international students. They would graduate with an actual Ontario college diploma, even though the college was simply licensing that.

Could the department comment further, please?

[Ted Gallivan]

I have two points. First, the increased rigour in financial requirements and the increased threshold will help mitigate that and protect vulnerable students from being exploited in the manner you described. Second, the CIMM committee itself produced a report with a much broader scope than that of the OAG's review. There were 10 findings, and then an additional Liberal finding and an additional Conservative finding.

I don’t know if the Bloc Québécois has produced one. In any case, it’s a good report. I think it addresses the issues you mentioned. We will review this report, and we intend to table a government response within the prescribed time frame.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you.

I have a final question—I understand we might be talking about this a bit more—on the timelines for security screenings.

Now that we've limited the number of international students, the final frustration I'm hearing about from post-secondary institutions is around timelines for security screenings, which don't necessarily line up with their admissions requirements. Could you comment on that, please?

[Ted Gallivan]

I'll start.

From an IRCC perspective, we triage those and hand them off to security partners.

We are taking a look to make sure we're really managing risk properly. We have some categories where 100% are referrals. We have road maps, journeys and criteria that we give our officers to get referrals. One place we're starting from is making sure those are effective, using a feedback loop from decisions in order to make sure we're not needlessly tying up the intelligence community on cases that really ought not to be referred to them. On the other hand, where there is a national security threat or a threat to the health and safety of Canadians, cases are referred.

That is one part of the pipeline. I will turn to my colleague Mr. McCrorie for the next part in the processing chain.

[Aaron McCrorie]

We co-manage the program with IRCC and CSIS.

One thing we've struggled with is how to balance efficiency and effectiveness. We want to make sure we can make timely decisions. Some take too long, but we also need to be effective in terms of ensuring national security. Part of the challenge we face, as I said, is some decisions taking too long.

The other challenge we face, quite frankly, is the volume. We've gone from about 50,000 people in our inventory, around 2022 and 2023, to about 183,000. At the same time, our decision-making has gone up. We made 106,000 decisions last year, but we haven't kept up with the volumes coming in. We are looking at how we can become more effective in terms of working through them. We can do simple stage-one applications in a maximum of two days. Other, more complex ones can take 14 days or more, but we need to get our hands on them. That means getting the inventory down.

We have two large pools. One is visa applicants, and those come to us based on referrals from IRCC. We also do 100% of in-Canada asylum seekers. What we're moving to is a more risk-based approach, similar to what we do with visa applicants. We're looking at how we can use indicators. Based on country profiles and our assessment of risk—working with CSIS—how can we more rapidly say, “This file doesn't need the full-blown review,” so we'll move it on and come to a decision more quickly? By making those decisions more quickly, we can then turn our attention to files that require more work. We're optimistic that we can put a significant dent in our asylum numbers this fiscal year, which will allow us, then, to put more energy into all the files we have before us.

In terms of the students themselves, last year we had about 180,000 in our inventory. We had about 1,800 files referred to us as students and made 1,200 decisions over that same period. It's not where we want to be, but we recognize that we need to do more in this space.