Public Safety Committee on Nov. 4th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Welcome back to the committee's proceedings.

The meeting is now public. The system is working properly. We will therefore continue our meeting with officials.

If I understand correctly, Mr. McGuire, you will be the only person from your department to make opening remarks.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Mike McGuire, Director General, International and Border Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for inviting us here today. I am here with colleagues from several departments to answer technical questions on Bill C-12, the strengthening Canada's immigration system and borders act, in support of your committee's study of this bill.

Before opening it up to your questions, I would like to provide some brief remarks about the purpose and themes of the bill. The strengthening Canada's immigration system and borders act builds on Canada's border plan and proposes a suite of measures intended to protect Canadian sovereignty and keep Canadians safe.

If passed by Parliament, these measures will strengthen border and immigration security with new measures to combat illegal migration, the illegal fentanyl trade, transnational organized crime, money laundering and terrorist financing and enhance border surveillance, as well as to modernize laws to address national and economic security threats and respond to evolving challenges, including through providing new tools and enhanced information-sharing authorities to law and border enforcement agencies.

The provisions of Bill C‑12 can be grouped under two key themes.

First, measures to secure the border will give border services officers better access to inspect goods intended for export. They will also expand the Canadian Coast Guard's security services. They will improve the sharing of information on sex offender travel, protect the integrity of Canada's visa and immigration system, and enhance the exchange of immigration information. In addition, they will create new grounds for inadmissibility for asylum claims.

The bill also contains measures to combat transnational organized crime, illegal fentanyl and illicit financing that will clarify exemptions for law enforcement with respect to drug production and trafficking investigations; amend the pathway that allows precursor chemicals that can be used to produce illicit drugs to be rapidly controlled by the Minister of Health; crack down on money laundering and terrorist financing by providing for stronger penalties for financial crimes and adding FINTRAC to the Financial Institutions Supervisory Committee.

Taken together, this proposed legislation will complement ongoing measures under Canada’s border plan to enhance border security, strengthen the integrity of our immigration system and combat cross-border crime while still ensuring appropriate safeguards to protect Canadians’ privacy and charter rights.

Mr. Chair, my colleagues and I are now happy to take any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much, Mr. McGuire.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Caputo, who has six minutes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here. It's rare that we get so many experts at one table, and we're very grateful that all of you are here.

The Minister of Public Safety has previously been asked about the number of people who are tracking down those with warrants. The CBSA was asked about this.

This bill is about securing our borders. It was revealed two weeks ago that there are 32,000 people at this time who are at large—as in we don't know where they are, we being the government and Canadians—who are ineligible to remain in Canada and are wanted for deportation.

How many officers throughout Canada have it as their daily job to pursue these people? If you don't know, that's fine, but I would like to have that information provided.

[Mike McGuire]

I'll turn to my CBSA colleagues.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Thank you.

[Brett Bush, Director General, Immigration and Asylum Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency]

I'm going to have to take away the number for the exact details for your question, but there are about 1,000 officers who work in land enforcement activities. That's a combination of activities. I'll have to undertake to get back to the committee with the exact number of dedicated officers who are doing just the investigations component.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Bush.

Just to be clear, what I'm looking for is how many people on a daily basis, whether armed or unarmed, are going out and looking for those 32,000. That's what I'm looking for. I think you get my point.

It's common ground, I believe, that rail is a vulnerability for the border. That's something we all can be aware of. To summarize, no rail traffic is searched coming into Canada. It's only searched once it reaches an inland port, such as Montreal, Winnipeg, or potentially even Ashcroft, in my riding of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola.

I just want to confirm that this committee will be provided with the numbers of how many firearms have been seized. I want to confirm as well that no train is ever searched at the border itself, which means that the train is essentially unmonitored from the time the border is crossed until its arrival at an inland terminal.

Can we agree on that?

[Graeme Hamilton, Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency]

I would provide one small clarification or precision to the way you framed the search of the trains.

Goods coming into Canada are all subject to a risk assessment. There's advance commercial information provided about what's on those trains, and that information is used by our targeters in the intelligence and enforcement branch of CBSA to screen through the cars to determine which ones are a risk. Before any train car does come into Canada, there is a security assessment of the goods they're carrying. That's identified in advance.

Other than that, you are correct in the sense that those goods then pass the border and travel freely to an inland rail port of entry, where they are then subject to examination and released accordingly.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

The problem I see, Mr. Hamilton, is high-level traffickers are very well aware of CBSA's risk assessments. I think anybody who nefariously operates in this area knows exactly what is looked for and alters their activity accordingly.

One thing I'd be very interested in is how many random searches have been conducted, perhaps, in the last year. Could we have that information, please?

The last thing on this is just to confirm the Coast Guard wasn't traditionally under the purview of National Defence, but it is now going to be shifted to National Defence. Our numbers on defence spending will now contemplate the Coast Guard where they didn't before. Is that accurate?

[Ryan Tettamanti, Senior Director, Maritime Security Force Development, Canadian Coast Guard]

That is correct.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Thank you.

Let's be real. The Coast Guard doesn't engage with enemies. If there were an invasion or anything like that, they would retreat. They are not defence personnel, just to be clear.

[Ryan Tettamanti]

That is absolutely correct.

We remain a civilian organization reporting to the Minister of National Defence through the deputy minister. We are not part of the Canadian Armed Forces. We will not participate in defence activities for Canada.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Chair, with that, I apologize for doing this, but I do have to move a motion at this point.

That motion states:

That, given that during debate on the programming motion for Bill C-8, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety committed publicly that “we will have the Minister appear on two separate occasions”, the Minister of Public Safety appear at two separate meetings for the studies of Bills C-8 and C-12 for one hour each.

The motion has been provided to the clerk in both English and French.

All the Conservatives are asking for is the deal that was made and for what Mr. Ramsay confirmed in public, which is that we would have two separate meetings. This shouldn't take long.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

This is a committee business motion, which could be addressed at committee business time.

We're discussing Bill C-12 with important witnesses. I take note of your intention to table that motion at some point, but this is not the right opportunity to table that motion.

I will have more to say on committee business a little later, at the end of the hour.

I'll now turn to you, Mr. Caputo. You have 30 seconds left.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

It is directly related. We are discussing Bill C-12 today, and this is a motion related to Bill C-12.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

It is about bill C-8.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

It is about Bill C-8 and Bill C-12. It is actually related to both because there was supposed to be an hour for each. We had somebody say something. This should be common knowledge, because we all agreed on this.

If that is the chair's ruling, I would move to challenge the chair's ruling on that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

This is a Bill C-12 meeting.

Madam Dandurand, go ahead.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have witnesses here to discuss Bill C‑12. Our meeting is public. I would like us to use the time we have with these witnesses to discuss Bill C‑12 and adjourn the debate on a motion concerning a different bill. I would like to make the most of the time we have with witnesses who have come to speak to us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Mr. Caputo has the right to challenge my ruling.

That brings me to call for a vote.

Shall the decision of the chair be sustained?

(Ruling of the chair sustained)

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

We now return to the debate. This time, Mr. Ehsassi has the floor for six minutes.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you also to all the officials who are here for this technical briefing.

I would like to start off by asking how this new bill would deal with money laundering and improve our ability to clamp down on money laundering. I understand it would amend the proceeds of crime act. Could you provide us with some more details as to why this is an important piece of legislation?

[Mike McGuire]

I can provide some information and then we can endeavour to get back to you if you would like some more. Unfortunately, our colleagues from the Department of Finance were unable to join us today because of budget commitments.

What I can tell you is, in general, Canada's border plan and Bill C-12 do have specific measures and provisions that are aimed at targeting money laundering, which we know is an important aspect of tackling the cross-border crime issue.

In Bill C-12, there are changes to the administrative monetary penalties, for example, that can be administered by increasing them by 40 times the current amount so that for businesses, money laundering isn't seen as the cost of doing business and there are actual strong penalties they will face if there are indeed infractions under the act.

That's probably the one most important provision I would highlight from what's contained in Bill C-12. If you would like any additional information on that, we can endeavour to have our Department of Finance colleagues respond.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

I understand that under Bill C-12, the CBSA would be provided greater opportunities to inspect outbound exports. How significant would this specific measure be to clamping down on auto theft?