Public Safety Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2025

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Whose job is it?

[Carl Desmarais]

That would be the job of inland enforcement officers. Those are the 550 officers I mentioned, roughly 400 of whom are armed and tooled officers.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Okay. Thank you.

Can you clarify something else? We talked about some 600 foreign nationals, or around that number. Are they all convicted, or are they convicted and suspected or charged?

[Carl Desmarais]

Aaron, do you want to answer that?

[Aaron McCrorie]

In our inventories, we will see people who have various degrees of criminality. It could be crimes that they committed overseas that we have discovered here. It could be crimes they've committed here.

As Carl mentioned earlier, 1% of our total inventory are people who have some sort of criminality. They will all serve their time. These are not people—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

They've been charged, but what about people who are suspected or who haven't been charged with crimes?

[Aaron McCrorie]

The president referred to this when she talked about the extortion case, and it's a great example of how we work with law enforcement very proactively to use IRPA to disrupt criminal activity.

In the instance of the five cases of removals for the B.C. extortion cases, we couldn't hit the criminal threshold, and our policing colleagues couldn't hit the criminal threshold, but we could hit the IRPA threshold to say that there were reasonable grounds to believe that these individuals were involved in organized crime, and on that basis we were able to remove them.

It's a different standard from the criminal justice system—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Yes. Thank you.

Is there currently a directive in place for CBSA investigators to opt for release of offenders without conditions into the community? Is this now the default practice of the CBSA?

[Erin O'Gorman]

Could you say that again?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Is there currently a directive in place for CBSA investigators to opt for the release of offenders without conditions into the community?

[Erin O'Gorman]

Do you mean release from immigration detention?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Yes.

I see there's some confusion here.

[Aaron McCrorie]

I would venture to say no. I think we assess, as Carl had suggested, each case on its own merits, and then ultimately, if somebody is detained, the IRB may make a decision to release somebody with or without conditions. That is not our decision.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Are you familiar with Bill C-75 and its impacts on the bail system? What impact did that have on CBSA investigations? What impact did the principle of restraint that was added in Bill C-75 have on CBSA investigations?

[Erin O'Gorman]

We'll come back to you on that.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

It's interesting, because I have a CBSA directive here from January 2020. It says that CBSA officers, because of the provisions of Bill C-75, are being tasked to consider options other than arrest. I quote: For example, rather than arresting and bringing the accused to bail court, investigators need to consider unconditional release. Based on these new Criminal Code amendments, there was a directive put out to the CBSA that they must also consider the release of an accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity and the imposition of the least onerous conditions that are appropriate in the circumstances, including conditions that are reasonably practical for the accused to comply with.

There was a directive released to the CBSA that they were to release offenders at the earliest opportunity because of Bill C-75. Are you aware of that directive?

[Erin O'Gorman]

We'll have to come back.

In terms of immigration detention, it's the Immigration Refugee Board that makes the decision with regard to whether people can remain detained or not.

I'll have to take the directive that you're referring to and look at it in the context of our legislation and the decision-making processes that we have.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Okay.

Have you heard from officers who are saying that they're frustrated with these provisions and being asked to release people or to recommend people for release at the earliest opportunity?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I'll come back to you on that part of it as well.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

I have about 30 seconds left.

You've said that the flow of people coming in is outpacing the CBSA's ability to get these people out.

What are your recommendations on what we can do to reduce the flow of people coming in who are inadmissible?

[Erin O'Gorman]

Bill C-12 will help with that.

I think it's studying this and having recommendations, but generally, the more people come in, the more people will come into our inventory, so it's a stock and flow issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much, MP Lloyd.

We'll go to MP Powlowski for five minutes, please.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you.

I'm new to this committee, so excuse my ignorance on this stuff.

You've talked about the grounds for inadmissibility—security reasons, criminal record, human rights abuses, organized crime. Am I right that it's the CBSA that makes that determination? That's before people go before the Immigration and Refugee Board.

[Erin O'Gorman]

We risk-assess people coming in. If people make a refugee claim, then they enter Canada and go through that process.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

But that determination is made beforehand. If you're declared inadmissible, do you even get to the stage of appearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board?