Evidence of meeting #74 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was seekers.
A video is available from Parliament.
Acting Vice-President, Operations, Canada Border Services Agency
I do not have it with me in the detail that you're asking for, but we will provide that information to you.
Conservative
Acting Vice-President, Operations, Canada Border Services Agency
It will be as soon as possible.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
As to the number of asylum claims that have been made in 2017, Mr. MacDonald, I believe you said in response to one of my colleagues that ebbs and flows are associated with visa regimes. In this year, how many asylum claims have been made by Mexican nationals?
Director General, Operations Sector, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I don't have the Mexican number right at hand.
Conservative
September 28th, 2017 / 10:10 a.m.
Director General, Operations Sector, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No, I do not have the Mexican number at hand.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Can you please provide it to the committee as soon as possible?
How many staff within IRCC have been reallocated from different streams of processing to the new processing centres in Montreal, and what streams are they from?
Director General, Domestic Network, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would say approximately 80 staff have been deployed from across Canada to the centre at Guy-Favreau. In addition to that, we have created back offices in various locations across Canada and have an approximate total of 40 staff helping the processing at Guy-Favreau.
As Mr. MacDonald pointed out, we have capacity within our resources to divert individuals from one project to the other. We took, for example, some people from the citizenship line and have asked them to assist on the project. We've also taken people working on, for example, certain immigration lines and have asked them to participate in the process.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Have the processing times for temporary foreign worker work permits increased in 2017 over 2016?
Director General, Domestic Network, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I don't have that information, but as Mr. MacDonald has indicated, over the past few weeks we have substantially reduced the processing times for refugee claimants to get work permits.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
In the 2017-18 immigration levels plan, there's a line item that says “humanitarian and other”. Is that the line item in which asylum claims would be projected?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No, the asylum claims would be projected under the “protected status” persons.
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
In 2017 the target is about 15,000.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Is that specifically for asylum seekers, or does it also include other streams of refugees as well?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's for the asylum seekers; then we have a column called “resettled refugees”.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay.
This year, just to be clear and for the record, the government projected 15,000 asylum claimants in the levels plan, and last week in New York the immigration minister was projecting more than 40,000.
Is that correct?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Well, just to provide a bit of precision, the protected persons number of 15,000 is the anticipated level of asylum claimants who would actually become protected persons in this year. It doesn't equate to the number of asylum claimants who might show up, because the process—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Do we have the figure for how many asylum claims have been made versus how many have been approved this year?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We certainly have the number of asylum claimants who have come in thus far, which I think is 32,000. As to when you actually become a protected person, it's a staggered pace: you don't become a protected person until the IRB actually makes the determination that you are a protected person.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Sure.
There is one other area that came to my attention about which I was curious. You were talking about expediting health care coverage for asylum claims that had been made at a legal port of entry.
Is that being undertaken for other streams of refugees as well?
Director General, Operations Sector, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No, the discretion of the minister to do that is exclusively for those who cross through the Lacolle situation. We are processing most other asylum claims across Canada either completely at the port of entry, and they're issued their IFH certificate, or we are processing them inland within the three-day window.
Liberal
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Great. I'll just finish the thought of my colleague Mr. Maguire. He was asking the RCMP about the number of outstanding deportation cases from asylum claims that had been rejected.
Could you speak to those numbers?
