Public Safety Committee on Aug. 28th, 2024

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

Do any of the witnesses have anything they can add on that? Okay.

I'll leave it there, Mr. Chair, for the next questioner. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

We'll start our second round of questions with Mr. Motz.

You have five minutes, please.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

I sat through the first two hours this morning and listened carefully, and I'm still concerned, as Canadians are, about how this happened. The confidence they need to ensure that it doesn't keep happening—we haven't had that yet today. I appreciate the fact that our national security apparatus acted responsibly and efficiently to thwart the attack. Kudos to them. However, a failure occurred. We need to ensure that this failure doesn't keep happening.

Mr. McCrorie, CBSA has a critical role and responsibility in the process to protect Canadian citizens from those coming into Canada with dangerous or divisive ideologies that pose a threat to our national security and public safety and to not allow them entry. You've talked about the multiple ways you do that. What's interesting is what I found when I went through the timeline we were given just before this meeting today about the various times the accused in this matter, the senior, was refused as a “non-genuine visitor” and then received a temporary resident visa. He was not refused. He was given it. He was then assessed and a risk indicator was found. That happened over and over and over again. These risk indicators are when CBSA is supposed to step in and take over.

What checks did you actually conduct to make that happen? Do you have access to the database that my NDP colleague talked about, the Schengen database? Did you run this individual through the FBI database or through the Homeland Security database? Did you run them through anything that would give rise to...?

Obviously, someone in an office who was interviewing this individual had concerns. They identified a risk. That same risk appeared again months later. It appeared again years later. Yet this person was able to get temporary status, permanent status, and then become a Canadian citizen, all while these risks were being presented.

How can we sit here today and assure the Canadian public that we know there's a problem when we don't know the...? Obviously, this timeline identifies the problem, and yet he was still able to be here. I'm actually quite concerned about what that actually means.

You also indicated in previous testimony that the CBSA has a role to play in removing the people who are ordered removed from this country. Of those people ordered removed, how many actually remain at large? Do you know the answer to that?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Well, I think of the ones that were removed, they were removed. There are about—

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

There are thousands who are ordered removed. Some of them are ordered removed based on their risk to Canada.

[Aaron McCrorie]

I apologize, because I don't have our removal stats immediately at hand. I think you're absolutely right in the sense that last year we actually did remove 15,000 people, but there are, for example, in publicly reported data, about 28,000 to 30,000 people we're trying to track down.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Many of those you can't find, right?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Correct.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

So it's reasonable to presume, based on how this individual gained access to this country and received citizenship, that some of those also have gotten into this country illegitimately.

This is for Ms. Zafar from the immigration department as well.

As you guys navigate this, you have a joint role to play. Really, you guys do the interviews and you guys are the first matter of defence before it gets to CSIS, if there's an issue. What do you do here? How do you check to make sure? Obviously, people lie to you all the time. Is that what happened here? What steps are being taken by both CBSA and IRCC to make sure you can see through the lies that obviously this person told? People come to Canada for legitimate reasons and for illegitimate reasons, for nefarious reasons. What are you doing to ensure that those who lie to you are caught and not allowed in?

[Aiesha Zafar]

Mr. Chair, I would like to start by saying that the vast majority of those individuals who visit Canada, for whom we processed over seven million applications last year, are truthful and genuine visitors to Canada.

At the IRCC, we are responsible for determining not only admissibility but also eligibility. I would like to clarify the two. In terms of eligibility, are you eligible under the conditions set out in the act? Are you coming to be what you say you're coming to be? If you're applying as a visitor, do you intend to stay—

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

With that in mind—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Motz, you're done. I'm just giving her the time to answer your question.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead, Ms. Zafar.

[Aiesha Zafar]

Thank you.

The eligibility would include whether you are a genuine visitor, so that's separate from the admissibility, where we would do the security screening and then perhaps would refer to our partners for a comprehensive security screening.

Our applications set out a number of different questions, where we do rely on the information that's provided by the applicants. However, the applications ask for a number of different details for the individuals to provide, and those details are then assessed against the risk indicator packages, which, again, are clues to the officer about where we might need to do a little more comprehensive digging.

We also submit biometrics to the RCMP, and we also have information sharing agreements with our Five Eyes partners, so we are able to check with them if there is any known derogatory information on the individual who is applying to enter Canada.

I would like to point out that the risk indicators are based on the serious inadmissibilities in the legislation, so it's not only on security grounds, which would include espionage, terrorism or danger to Canada but also could be for human rights or international rights violations. It could be for serious organized crime as well.

All of those different indicators are parts of our risk indicator packages, and my colleague at the CBSA—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you. I'm going to have to cut you off there.

[Aiesha Zafar]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead very quickly, Mr. McCrorie.

[Aaron McCrorie]

I would just add it's those risk indicators that are developed by CBSA and CSIS and that we provide training to IRCC officers on that tell if this is a file they should look at. It's not a definitive statement that there is a risk. It prompts the question that leads to the comprehensive security screening we do in partnership, not instead of, but we do it in partnership with organizations like CSIS.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

We go now to Ms. Zahid.

Go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

My first question is for Ms. Zafar or Ms. Gill, whoever can answer.

I know that all TRV applications, all permanent residents, temporary foreign workers and students, are screened and that you have a process at IRCC. What collaboration is there, and at what stage do you do it with the agencies like CSIS, CBSA and RCMP? Are all the applications referred to these agencies, or is it a portion of the applications if there are any concerns from your initial stage?

Can you also provide some details such as how many cases last year did you refer to them?

[Aiesha Zafar]

Mr. Chair, absolutely all temporary resident applicants to Canada—that includes visitors, those coming on student permits and work permits—are screened by IRCC in that initial stage for security and for other reasons. We will look at the applications. The officers have to be fully convinced that the individual is not inadmissible to Canada. There may be some back and forth with the individual collecting further information.

As was mentioned earlier, our officers can also interview the individual to collect the information. If there are any concerns that remain outstanding or if there are risk indicators, our officers will then refer that for a more comprehensive security screening to the CBSA and to CSIS. When a recommendation is returned from the CBSA, our officer will take into consideration that recommendation.

We also are subject to the rules of procedural fairness. If an officer with a non-favourable recommendation from our security screening partners has further questions, they will provide a procedural fairness letter or some opportunity for the applicant to address those concerns in order to fully satisfy the officer that the individual is not inadmissible to Canada before rendering a final decision.

My colleagues at the CBSA or at CSIS may wish to talk more about the comprehensive security screening process.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Would you like to add something to that?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I would add that, in terms of when the file comes to us, as suggested, as part of our comprehensive security process, in addition to understanding who the applicant is, what their travel history and work history are, who they are and whether their story makes sense, we review their name against all of our internal intelligence and enforcement databases.

Thinking of some previous questions, we also have information sharing agreements with our Five Eyes partners and are able to make requests for information to partners around the world in order to gather information about people. For some of the systems—and I can't talk about the specific systems we have, again, because we don't want to give those adversaries information about what we do and how we do it—I can assure members of the committee that we do have access to information from international partners.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

My next question is in regard to citizenship. Can you explain to this committee more about the process of revocation and the thresholds that must be met in cases where you have to revoke citizenship from someone?