Public Safety Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Welcome to meeting No. 17 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on September 18, 2025, the committee is meeting on its study of Canada's ability to remove foreign nationals with a criminal record.

I would now like to welcome the witnesses we have with us for the first hour of the meeting. From the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Erin O'Gorman, president; Aaron McCrorie, vice-president, intelligence and enforcement; and Carl Desmarais, director general, inland enforcement directorate.

Welcome to all of you.

Ms. O'Gorman, you have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Erin O'Gorman, President, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to begin by giving you an overview of the removals process, and then I will provide a breakdown of the removals inventory.

Every non-citizen entering the country is assessed for inadmissibility at the port of entry by a border service officer. If there are reasonable grounds to believe—which is the legal threshold—that the person may be inadmissible to Canada, they may be allowed to leave, be issued a removal order or have their case referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board, or IRB, for an admissibility hearing.

In other words, being inadmissible doesn't in and of itself give CBSA the legal authority to prevent somebody from entering Canada. People who are eligible to file a refugee claim and are assessed as high-risk may be arrested by CBSA and detained. All refugee claimants who enter Canada are issued a removal order when their claim is referred to the IRB, but it remains unenforceable.

Let's fast-forward approximately two years, to the point where, on average, a decision in the asylum claim is rendered. If the claim is not accepted, that is when a removal order comes into force.

The law states that individuals have an obligation to leave Canada 30 days after their removal order becomes enforceable, when a removal order has been issued. Despite this legal obligation, many people do not leave the country immediately and some go into hiding.

For example, in the last fiscal year, 12% of individuals failed to appear for their scheduled interview, and 7% failed to appear for their scheduled removal.

There are currently 30,000 people in the removal in progress inventory. CBSA officers are actively engaging with many of these people and working through them on the removal proceedings and making arrangements for their departure. The CBSA has already completed 30,900 removal interviews this fiscal year.

Reasons why the removal may not be immediate include allowing people to arrange their personal affairs, seeing through the holidays, be it Christmas or other holidays during the year, finishing the school year or recovery from surgery.

While the numbers have hovered around 30,000 since about 2020, they're not static. CBSA is removing about 400 people each week, on average. At the same time, the CBSA is seeing between 450 and 550 new people entering the removals inventory each week.

The Immigration and Refugee Board makes approximately 70,000 decisions on asylum claims each year, of which 37% are not approved. That means about 25,900 new cases will enter the removals inventory each year.

I will now say a word on our wanted inventory, which currently sits at about 33,000.

Over the past five years, the wanted inventory has fluctuated from year to year, but has remained relatively stable.

People on the wanted inventory are those who failed to appear for their removal processes. Once we have established that people are actively seeking to evade removal, the CBSA will issue an immigration warrant, which allows law enforcement partners to advise the CBSA if they locate them.

For the safety and security of Canada and its citizens, we place the highest priority on removal cases involving criminality, security, organized crime and human rights violations. Over the past five years, we have nearly doubled the removals of individuals who were inadmissible on serious grounds, such as criminality.

The Canada Border Services Agency employs around 550 personnel dedicated to immigration investigations and removal activities.

We employ almost 200 criminal investigators whose mandate includes investigating organizations that facilitate immigration fraud or are suspected of unlawfully acting as consultants involved with the illegal employment of foreign nationals.

To the question of why we would not assign more officers to removals, I would say that everything has consequences, and we allocate our staff across the many risk factors facing Canada at the border.

Finally, I would add that some of our challenges associated with removals relate to countries that do not provide documents for their citizens such that we can remove them. Here, we are actively working with colleagues, including those at Global Affairs, to have these countries issue the necessary documents. It's an issue that our allies face, and we exchange information on this subject regularly.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much, Ms. O'Gorman.

I now give the floor to Ms. Kirkland for six minutes.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here again today. We appreciate your being here and your testimony.

The title of the study is.... Obviously, we're looking at removals. I know that the folks, the officers, involved in that are inland officers as well, which is an example of.... One of the folks, one of the ladies, living in my riding has made complaints in terms of discrimination. She was an inland officer. I have concerns that if the respect in the workplace isn't what it should be, then we will have a whole lot of difficulty with removals.

I do have a few questions regarding that and the fact that we heard testimony from the Customs and Immigration Union president. When I asked about his perspective on how widespread is the discrimination or retaliation specifically faced by women who go through something like maternity leave or illness, his response was as follows: “The CBSA ranks last in the public service employee survey almost every year. That is not an accident. There is fear of reprisal. There's fear of reporting. There's fear of being subject to an investigation that is not impartial.”

Ms. O'Gorman, could you add your comments to that? Would you agree with the union president, or do you see things differently?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I will say that I certainly heard the very emotional testimony that was provided here the other day. I will say that I have also dealt with employees who have had unacceptable experiences.

We—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I will interrupt you briefly.

I really want to be clear. I'm not talking about experiences. I'm talking about harassment and discrimination. There's very clear terminology that is used for a reason. An experience could be something very light, and harassment and discrimination are something very heavy. That's the only clarification I'd like to make.

[Erin O'Gorman]

Okay, thank you. Perhaps I could have the time to unpack my whole answer.

I think people's experiences are also very important and very compelling. I'm not going to defend all of the individuals at the CBSA. We have systems and processes that are there to address issues of discrimination and harassment, but I'm not going to testify that they are all working and that people don't experience discrimination and harassment in the workplace. In fact, I think I've been quite public about the work that the CBSA needs to do across all fronts, including in its management, to make sure that we are aligned not only with our code of conduct and with our values but also with the various policies that are in place to prevent these incidents from happening and to prevent people from being subjected to harassing and discriminatory behaviour.

Absolutely, on our public service—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

So—

[Erin O'Gorman]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I do have your answer.

[Erin O'Gorman]

But I'm not finished with the answer.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Well, I have some clarification that needs coming forward.

It sounds like, then, you're willing to admit that some investigations may not be impartial, based on what you just said.

[Erin O'Gorman]

I'm going to step back and say that we have some problems in the agency that include people being subjected to harassing and discriminatory behaviour. I'm being clear about that. We need our systems and processes to work. We need the confidence of Canadians. In order to have the confidence of Canadians, we need to have the confidence of one another. People need to feel that those systems and processes will treat them fairly.

In many cases, the top level of those systems and processes gets adjudicated outside of CBSA. I think that's very important. We want to solve problems before they get there—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Of course.

[Erin O'Gorman]

—but I'm not going to sit here and tell you that we don't have issues.

I would be very happy, noting one of the studies that you're contemplating, to come back here and go through the various actions we've undertaken and the actions that we need to continue to undertake.

I would also mention—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Ms. O'Gorman, I have limited time, so I do have to get a few questions in very carefully.

I think the fear of reprisal is probably one of the biggest fears that members have. When they come to me, they're afraid. When they've come to even their local union reps, they're afraid of reprisal.

Can you clarify this for me? I know that you wrote a letter—it was forwarded to me—to all CBSA members about two women who came forward. You mentioned in that letter that they spoke with the minister directly. That is not something I said in my testimony here. These ladies feel that this was a bit of an intervention that would give them the reprisal that we were exactly talking about. You made it clear. It was very easy for those members to figure out who the women were, and therefore they could be targeted. That is exactly an example of the fear of reprisal that they are talking about.

Can I ask you, did you receive briefing notes for today's meeting from the ministry or from the minister?

[Erin O'Gorman]

No.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

You didn't have a briefing about today's meeting at all, or the questioning?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I've come to testify on removals.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Okay.

[Erin O'Gorman]

The material I have.... I guess, may I ask more precisely what you're asking me? I haven't received briefings to have a discussion of particular individuals or individual cases.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Okay. It just seems to be that they're afraid.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I'm sorry, Madame Kirkland. I'm sorry to interrupt, as always.

Let me turn now to MP Acan for six minutes, please.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for coming again. I would like to start with my questions, but any of you can answer if you want to step in.

The committee motion noted that approximately 600 foreign nationals with criminal records are missing or “have failed to attend their deportation proceedings”, and CBSA is actively seeking to locate 33,190 wanted persons across its sub-inventories. We understand that absconding presents a significant operational challenge.

I know that lawful access has been the Conservative attack point since we started. How will the modernized lawful access capabilities proposed in Bill C-2 complement CBSA's current intelligence and enforcement strategy regarding combatting threats to public safety and national security to improve the identification and location of foreign nationals who have served sentences and are now evading removal?

[Erin O'Gorman]

In terms of how we conduct removals and our investigations, we do work with our law enforcement partners. I understand broadly the importance of lawful access, but in terms of the way CBSA would execute its work, it wouldn't necessarily avail itself of lawful access provisions. We do obtain judicial warrants in certain cases.

In terms of our operations, I will hand it over to Mr. Desmarais, but lawful access will not be a particular tool in the tool kit of CBSA. I understand that, to the extent that it allows our policing partners to deal with organized crime and to the extent to which some of those individuals would be on a removal order, this would facilitate for CBSA. In the grand scheme of things, that tool for law enforcement is very important.