Public Safety Committee on Aug. 28th, 2024

[Aiesha Zafar]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] my colleagues at CBSA or CSIS, who would then, at that point, conduct a comprehensive security screening if we referred the application.

Vanessa, did you want to comment?

[Vanessa Lloyd, Interim Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service]

Perhaps I can jump in, Mr. Chair.

I would refer the members of the committee to the information put before them in terms of the range of other tools that are available in each and every case. Upon referral, where we do have indications of a possible national security concern or a risk indicator—it doesn't mean there is information present at that time—we can apply a range of tools. You'll see in the material that we put to the committee that this can include, as we discussed this morning, checks with international partners, reviews of open sources and other tools.

I will refrain from getting into the specifics of our capabilities as it relates to the member's specific question in terms of technical capabilities and methodologies. What I can say in answer to part of the concern I'm hearing from the committee is that while I said this morning that there is an increasing and intensifying risk as it relates to violent extremism, the members should be assured and Canadians should be assured that there is a very small number of people who are present in Canada who are willing to mobilize to violence.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

I still want to focus on the question regarding scouring the dark web. Should our law enforcement be scouring the dark web when it comes to conducting routine security screens and assessments?

[Aaron McCrorie]

From a CBSA point of view, and Ted Gallivan alluded to this earlier, we are asking ourselves, do we need to do more in that particular space? As part of the review, we're asking ourselves, what's the feasibility of that? What would it take from a technology point of view? What would be the usability of the information that we'd get from that and the feasibility of our finding it?

It is a daunting challenge, but we are asking ourselves that question.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

I want to ask a question about the difference between an individual who has gotten a visitor visa, who lands in Canada at, for example, Pearson airport, which is in my riding, and who files for asylum at that airport—that's an inland claim—versus an individual who makes a claim prior to entering Canada. Can anyone on the panel speak to the different legal protections afforded to those two individuals, or maybe to how different the processes are for those two streams?

[Aiesha Zafar]

Mr. Chair, as the member mentioned, every individual who is in Canada who claims asylum is subject to 100% security screening by our partners at the CBSA and CSIS. That comprehensive security screening is conducted on every asylum claimant in Canada.

With individuals who are looking to seek asylum coming into Canada from outside, they are assessed differently. I don't have all the details, as I am more on the migration integrity side. They are assessed to determine whether or not they could become permanent residents in Canada. Then they would go through, if it's approved, a permanent resident screening process.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Could we have a submission to the committee, if that's possible, of the difference in the security screening procedures for an overseas application seeking asylum versus an inland application seeking asylum?

[Aiesha Zafar]

We can certainly look into that.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Gaheer.

Mr. Fortin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. McCrorie. In the testimony he just gave, he told us that the current system was working well and there were no issues. This suggests to me that it's normal, so to speak, or at least, common or regular practice for people like these two men to be able to move around in Canada and get Canadian citizenship. Personally, I find that troubling. I sincerely believed, and I expect that I'm not alone, that the system was seriously flawed or broken. Yet, we're told that was not the case. I thought there was a funding problem, but we're told that isn't so.

I'd like to hear from Mr. McCrorie. If all this is normal, how many individuals like these two are likely fomenting terrorist attacks on Canadian soil as we speak?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I thank the member for his question.

Again, I want to reiterate that in fact we are concerned that these two individuals got through. That is why we are launching a collaborative review of our processes with our partners in the IRCC and CSIS to understand what happened and what, if anything, we could do differently.

What I would say is at the moment in time that the security screening partners reviewed these files, we made decisions based on a very robust process, based on the best information we had available at that time. When new information becomes available, for example, when somebody is in the country, there are different steps that we take. I won't comment on what CSIS and the RCMP may do in the criminal world, but from a CBSA point of view, if we have information regarding somebody's inadmissibility in the country, we will launch an inland investigation. As I noted, we're doing about 8,000 of those this year. Those inland investigations assess whether or not this person should be in the country. If not, we take that file, that evidence, to the Immigration and Refugee Board, who will make a decision about whether or not that person should be removed from the country.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. McCrorie, I understand that, once people like this get here, different processes are set in motion. However, isn't there some way to prevent them from coming?

I thought that terrorists or people who intend to commit terrorist attacks weren't even allowed to enter Canada. To say that we're going to let people like that in the country and then, after they've arrived, conduct a more detailed and thorough investigation, that seems worrisome to me. Wouldn't you agree?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I thank the member for his question.

I'm trying to describe in fact the multiple layers of defence that are in place. I think the member's question is absolutely right in terms of our first objective, which is to push the border out as far as possible. That is why we have a security screening process in place that starts with our colleagues in the IRCC and results in comprehensive security screening being done by CSIS and the CBSA. In 2023 we had 74,000 files come our way, of which we closed 38,000 in terms of people seeking to come to the country. That's the first line of defence—IRCC first, and then our comprehensive security review.

If somebody is on a plane or on a flight manifest on their way to the country, CBSA has additional defences or tools that we bring to bear. We have other lines of defence. We have our national targeting centre, which reviews all passenger manifests for people seeking to come to the country, and we have international liaison officers who are working overseas. They work with airlines and with local authorities to deny boarding to the people we deem to be inadmissible, about 7,500 in 2023.

The next line of defence is at the port of entry. We have highly trained and experienced border services officers—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. McCrorie, I'm sorry to interrupt. I don't mean to be rude, but we only have six minutes each to ask questions.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but based on your answer, you did everything you could with the tools that you and your colleagues had at your disposal. However, you also said this:

“If it can be improved, we will improve it.”

Do you have any suggestions? What can be done? I understand what you're saying, I mean, that you've closed 38,000 of the 74,000 cases, but, in your opinion, what can be done to improve the screening process and prevent this from happening again?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Mr. Chair, it is a great question. We're asking ourselves this right now.

I don't have any immediate views in terms of what changes, if any, we need to make, but I am working with my colleagues who are at the table with me today so that we can understand what happened and, again, if necessary, can make any changes we need to. The system is always going to be—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Clearly, with all due respect, Mr. McCrorie, other countries are reacting faster than we are. We found out that you were informed by a foreign government about the crimes that this person had committed elsewhere. That means some other countries are getting it right. Once again, and with all due respect, I think that everyone in your agency is competent and credible, but some people are achieving better results.

You have a certain amount of expertise in this area. Based on that, do you have a sense of what we can do? Before we undertake studies that are going to drag on for two or three years, does no one have any idea of something we can do now, this week, to improve our screening system and prevent cases like this from happening again?

[Aaron McCrorie]

First of all, I want to assure the member that this is not going to be a review that's going to take a couple of years. The minister was very clear in his direction to us that he's looking for results and for information as soon as possible, so we'll be, in the coming months, coming back to the minister with our recommendations and our understanding of what happened.

I think the challenge we're always going to be facing is that we make decisions based on the information that is available at a given moment in time. Can we do a better job of collectively gathering some of that information? I don't know. We need to determine that. However, if we don't have information, we can't make a contrary decision about somebody. That's the fundamental issue.

I'll just say, for example, that we've talked about the video. To CBSA's knowledge, and it's only to CBSA's knowledge, the one version that we've now identified has only been available for two years. That's when that information was available globally, and it was only available to us in the last couple of weeks. We can only use the information that we have to make decisions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Fortin.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. MacGregor, you have six minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much. Mr. Chair.

I think the witnesses would probably agree with me that concerns about individuals attempting to come to Canada are not just about the potential of they themselves committing an act of terror or some kind of injustice on Canadian soil, but also about the potential of some whose words may inspire or incite violence here in Canada. I do want to note that this can happen with individuals regardless of their political ideologies or their religious backgrounds. We can see that covering the entire spectrum. I've been on this committee long enough to have seen that, but I will point out one example that did make the news recently. This is just a few weeks old.

It's concerning the case of Mr. Mohamed Hoblos, who was scheduled to come to British Columbia to speak at Thompson Rivers University earlier this month. He has been registered in the European Union on the Schengen Information System, so he's been barred from entering Germany, Norway and the Netherlands, and I believe he was also detained and deported from Switzerland.

I just want to use him as an example, because there may be others, and I wanted to point out those countries, because of course Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland are strong western democracies. They share the same values as Canada does, and I'm sure they have very similar outlooks to the Canadian government's. In comparison with other countries that are very much aligned with Canada's approach on the world stage and that share our values, what can we learn from other countries that may have decided to bar certain individuals, and are there other instances where those individuals have been admitted to Canada?

I would just like to hear from some of the people with us today their views on how Canada judges that information and why, at times, we may find ourselves at odds with some of our closest allies and partners who share our strong democratic values.

[Aiesha Zafar]

When an individual is inadmissible to Canada, it's based on legislation. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act clearly outlines the reasons why an individual would be inadmissible.

In the example that you provided, you mentioned something similar to hate speech. Under security inadmissibility in the IRPA, there are various reasons why an individual could be inadmissible. Those include engaging in terrorism and being a danger to the security of Canada. Our officers must be able to meet the threshold of having reasonable grounds to believe that an individual is inadmissible based on the requirements of the legislation.

When it comes to information that other countries have available to them, it is relevant to their own inadmissibility requirements, which may be different from those in our legislation. However, we do have an opportunity to review an individual. If they have been “convicted outside Canada of an offence that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an indictable offence under an Act of Parliament, or of two offences not arising out of a single occurrence”, that person would be deemed inadmissible. Our officers would then work with our national security and law enforcement partners, as well as our counsel, to ensure that we can meet the reasonable grounds to believe that there is an equivalent offence in Canada and therefore deem them inadmissible.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you for that answer.

My next question would be for CSIS.

There's not much Canada can do with individuals who become radicalized abroad. If we become aware of it, there's something we can do to prevent them from coming to Canada, but of course, gathering that kind of intelligence can sometimes be a very difficult task.

Are you able to speak to what kind of deradicalization efforts the Government of Canada is doing on Canadian soil to prevent permanent residents who are here already, our own citizens, from following a pretty dark path and potentially committing a crime? Can you speak to any of the efforts or kinds of resources being put into that kind of work?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

I apologize to the member. That area is outside of my expertise, and I'm unable to give you that information.