Public Safety Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2025

[Aaron McCrorie, Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement, Canada Border Services Agency]

If I may add, especially in the context of removals.... In the context of criminal investigations, we might avail ourselves of that tool, but in the context of removals, we would not be using it.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. McCrorie, in the past fiscal year, the CBSA removed 10,585 inadmissible people between April 1 and September 15. With 18,785 enforced removals completed as of October 31, 2025, the agency is nearing its goal of 20,000 removals by March 31, 2026.

Considering the dynamic nature of the removals inventory, which currently shows 29,542 removals in progress for all inadmissibility types, what specific metrics and operational adjustments are being implemented to ensure that individuals inadmissible on security grounds, serious criminality or organized criminality who lose their right to appeal to the immigration appeal division are efficiently processed and removed within this targeted cadence?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I think that fundamentally what we do is active management of our inventories, and this is the responsibility of my colleague Carl Desmarais. We've actually prioritized our removals inventories and looked at, you know, tier one, which is serious inadmissibility, including criminality; tier two, which is failed refugee claimants, irregular asylum claimants; and then tier three, which is others. It's active management of those inventories.

I liken our inventories to a bathtub. We're constantly scooping water out of that bathtub, but as the president noted in her remarks, the bathtub is filling up as well. You can see the results of that work if you look at our inventories, and you can look at different moments in time. If you look at our inventories right now, you will see that in all of our inventories about 1% of those in the inventories have some sort of criminality associated with them.

In our wanted inventory this week, about 2.2% of the 33,000 people in that inventory are associated with criminality. Then, if you look at our active removals inventory, which is the people we're actively working on, you'll see that 4.3% of those have criminality. So, while the wanted is at 2.2% with regard to criminality, 4.3% of our in-progress inventory has criminality. You see that in the removal results. This year so far—if you look at the last 12 months—we've removed about 22,000 people, and 3.9% of those had serious criminality, so that's about 845 people.

It's really about active management of those inventories and about focusing our efforts on serious inadmissibility. I think you see that in the results.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you.

The government has committed to significantly invest to strengthen border integrity, including a commitment to hire 1,000 new CBSA officers and a budget 2025 investment of $617 million over five years to enhance detection and interception capacity.

President O'Gorman, given that you previously noted the dedication of approximately 500 officers to removals, could you please elaborate on how these major governmental resource enhancements, including the specific allocation of newly trained officers, will ensure that the CBSA not only can maintain its current successful removal operations but also can intensify focus on the reported 431, I believe, foreign nationals who have been found guilty of serious crimes?

[Erin O'Gorman]

The border plan allocated funding for new border services officers whom we are putting specifically to removals. They are currently in Rigaud, having their training, and they should be graduating in February.

Then, more broadly, the rest of the 1,000 officers we will certainly be putting to all aspects of our mandate, including removals. They will include the inland officers and the investigators I mentioned, as well as removals officers and support. As you can imagine, there's a good deal of support and file management that's involved in this for it to go well and efficiently, including for our clients who need to be removed. There's a lot of work there. We will bolster the whole spectrum of our work on removals with the 1,000 officers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Ms. Acan.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. O'Gorman, thank you for coming here. I said at the outset that you almost had a subscription to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Thank you for making yourself available.

Earlier, you talked about the whole issue of deploying human resources. How many officers are assigned to removal activities? I didn't quite understand the number, so could you repeat it for me?

Of your 1,000 new officers, 800 will be trained at the Canadian Border Services College in Rigaud and will respond at the border. What about the other 200? Will these officers be able to add to your removal officers?

[Erin O'Gorman]

There are 550 officers who handle removal files and 200 criminal investigators who provide assistance in the course of their work.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Are these employees unionized, Ms. O'Gorman? Are these 200 officers consultants or trained officers?

[Erin O'Gorman]

They're trained officers.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Can we say that these are FB‑04 positions or FB‑03 positions?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I believe those are FB‑05 positions.

[Carl Desmarais, Director General, Inland Enforcement Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency]

Let me clarify that those 550 officers are law enforcement officers. Of those, 380 are trained and armed officers.

As for the 200 officers you're talking about, these are officers who are criminal investigators. They are also trained and occupy FB‑05 positions.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

They're not at the border. They specialize in criminal investigations. Is that correct?

[Carl Desmarais]

That's correct. They do the criminal investigations.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

As for the 200 officers who are currently adapting, I learned that you were in the process of shuffling human resources.

These officers, who were trained at the Canadian Border Services College in Rigaud, are no longer allowed to carry their weapons, but they perform FB‑03 duties while being paid at the FB‑04 rate. What I'm saying may seem like gobbledygook to my colleagues, but what interests me is what you're going to do about it. I'm concerned that the agency will lose highly valuable human resources if you decide to let these 200 officers go. They can't carry a weapon, but they can certainly be put to good use by assisting removal officers or performing other duties. Right now, they're performing duties that fall under the FB‑03 position, but they could be very useful elsewhere.

So, if there is a shortage of removal officers, why not take people who can't carry a weapon and put them in this sector, which seems to be in need of human resources?

[Erin O'Gorman]

Thank you for the question. I'm going to answer it in English, just to make sure I'm very precise, because it's a very important question.

I went back to making sure that the agency manages in conformity with all of our budget and human resources requirements.

I'm going to agree 100%. CBSA officers who are unarmed due to a workplace injury or some other reason are absolutely important contributors to the agency. What's happened is that the agency has missed the step where we accommodate officers into an actually classified position with money to it. As we've given those individuals other roles, they have brought their salaries from the front line. The exercise we're doing is to make sure that they are in classified roles and that they can contribute and bring all of the experience they have. We're going through that process.

I would say that there was not good oversight in making sure that we had regular engagement with those individuals in terms of what they were doing, their accommodation and whether that had changed over time. That is a management gap that we're fixing. Those individuals absolutely have a role, and we have an obligation to accommodate. Also, we need their skills. Whether it's with regard to reassignments or other aspects of the agency, we need to put them in positions with salaries attached to their level. That's the process we're going through now.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

What you're telling us is that your restructuring and classification exercise for these people also includes a financial objective. However, I'm an experienced manager, and I can't understand the purpose of such restructuring in an organization like the agency when it lacks human resources. I have a feeling that the measures you're about to take could penalize the Canada Border Services Agency.

What is your ultimate goal in doing this restructuring?

[Erin O'Gorman]

For people who, for whatever reason, require an accommodation and are no longer tooled, as they're given work away from the immediate front line, they continue to bring their salary with them. Therefore, we have gaps in the front line. You can imagine—just for ease of example, but we could do this everywhere—a small port of entry that is now down one person. The impact of that will be that the other people will do more overtime and have to compensate.

What we need to do is keep the salary at the front line but then find a position for that individual where they can contribute. I agree 100% that they will be bringing all of their experience to bear. This is just making sure that they're in a funded position and that we're not having the people deal with fewer and fewer personnel at the front line because of those who are being accommodated.

It's a matter of putting them in funded positions and making sure that if somebody is unable to work in a fully tooled position at the front line, they are replaced with somebody who is fully tooled. We're a big organization, so I'm not particularly concerned that we won't find our way to make sure that everybody lands and can contribute.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

Mr. Caputo, you have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

Ms. O'Gorman, I'm going to ask you these questions.

One thousand border officers were promised by the Liberal government. Zero have been hired to this point. Is that correct?

[Erin O'Gorman]

That is incorrect.

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

How many have been hired?

[Erin O'Gorman]

We have 57 people hired. By the end of the fiscal year, I would estimate that we should have over 100. We're aiming for more than that.

We're going to be recruiting our uniformed officers over three years. I think if we did it any faster than that, we would risk not meeting the standards that we have maintained for having excellent, experienced people coming in and getting the training they need.

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

I understand that.

Of those 57 who have been hired, were those planned hires or are those part of the 1,000 new officers?