Merci beaucoup.
Good afternoon. If you want to keep us for less time, we'll be happy too.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Claudette Deschênes, and l am the assistant deputy minister of operations at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Joining me today is Caroline Melis, who is the director general of operational management and coordination for CIC.
I am pleased to be speaking before this committee for the first time, and I hope that my remarks will be helpful to you as part of your study on electronic monitoring.
In order to discuss this issue in the context of Canada's immigration system, it is important that I give you a bit of historical background. I won't go back over ancient history, mind you, just one decade.
In 2002, Parliament passed the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, also known as IRPA. This legislation replaced the old Immigration Act as the main federal law governing Canada's immigration system.
Canada's immigration system, of course, is large and complex. It encompasses many different operations, policies, and activities. IRPA, the legislation governing that system, is equally complex, with many different parts and sections covering every aspect of immigration to Canada.
For the purposes of this discussion on electronic monitoring, l would like to focus on only two sections of IRPA.
First is section 4, which is “Enabling Authority”. Before IRPA came into effect, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration had a number of intelligence, interdiction, enforcement, and border security roles in the immigration system. But under section 4 of IRPA, these particular roles became the responsibility of the Minister of Public Safety.
About 18 months after the passage of IRPA, the government of the day created the Canada Border Services Agency, which reports to the Minister of Public Safety, and is now responsible for many of these enforcement and security roles within the immigration system.
Another section of IRPA, specifically section 56, pertains to the release of individuals from detention. It states that an “officer may order the release from detention of a permanent resident or a foreign national”, while also specifying that the “officer may impose any conditions [...] that the officer considers necessary”.
It is section 56 of IRPA that would govern the use of electronic monitoring within the immigration system. According to the act, this section clearly falls under the responsibility of the Department of Public Safety, not under Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
I would like to be clear that in the years since the CBSA was created, CIC and CBSA have developed a very good, effective working relationship, and we are all very proud of this relationship. As a matter of fact, both Caroline and I worked at CBSA for a period of time when it was created. We cooperate every day in many ways on countless different aspects of the immigration system.
What is critical to understand here, though, is that this cooperative relationship is made possible because of complementarity. We play different but strictly defined roles in the immigration system.
If l may, Mr. Chair, I would like to quote some of the language in the CIC-CBSA memorandum of understanding, because I think it clarifies those roles in very succinct ways.
The memorandum states that Citizenship and Immigration Canada is “responsible for attracting and welcoming people from all parts of the world, enriching the economic, social and cultural development of Canada while contributing to the health, safety and security of Canadians, protecting those in need of Canada's protection and providing for the granting of citizenship, through the administration of both the IRPA and the Citizenship Act.”
As for CBSA, the memorandum says it was created by order in council on December 12, 2003, and immigration enforcement and intelligence responsibility under the IRPA were transferred from CIC to the CBSA. CBSA is responsible for providing integrated border services that support national security, public safety, and trade, which is achieved through the administration and enforcement of various acts, including the IRPA, to facilitate the free flow of persons and goods to and from Canada.
This underlines the fact that when it comes to any issue of immigration enforcement, including electronic surveillance, the mandate for such enforcement falls within the purview of CBSA and the Minister of Public Safety, and not within the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.
Mr. Chair, I thank you for inviting us to appear today. I hope that my opening remarks have been helpful to the committee. My colleague and I will be happy to answer any further questions you may have.
