Public Safety Committee on March 12th, 2026

[Steve Watson]

I have to confess that I'm not overly familiar with your system, but of the little I do know, you have a similar approach to New Zealand's in that it's a balanced approach. You have strong humanitarian considerations and you prioritize criminal offending. In my experience of dealing with the Canadians, they always seek information and are always very helpful.

I'm not really answering the question, because I'm not really familiar with it, but—

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

We can move on to the next question.

As an example, in the event that among the Five Eyes, several countries have designated a group as a sponsor of terrorism or as engaging in terrorist activity within their own jurisdictions, should they come to New Zealand requesting information? Would that information that has been requested be forthcoming from your authorities on that basis?

[Steve Watson]

Yes, I would say so. There are channels for pushing that information through, and we are a very active and co-operative member of the Five Eyes.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

You don't just look at whether a particular individual they're asking for information about actually engaged in criminal activity only in your jurisdiction; you would also be forthcoming with information if that individual had engaged in criminal activity in another jurisdiction.

[Steve Watson]

Yes, that's correct.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'll follow up on the question my colleague, MP Acan, asked about data-sharing permission forms. How does that process work? I think she had a follow-up question for you. She wasn't quite sure how the forms operate and who authorizes them.

[Steve Watson]

We've used our lawyers to design a template that meets the legal requirements, because we're requesting information using a piece of legislation. We have made it as simple as possible. Across the government, the forms are pretty standard. Depending on the seriousness or the nature of the information requested, we're quite permissive in terms of our frontline officers making the requests directly to the other agency themselves.

In a case that's a bit more complex, I would probably expect a one-up sign-out or some legal advice, but it's a well-used, long-established process that we use, and it's based on a lot of trust between government agencies. We trust each other to not drop the ball and to not get this wrong, because we are dealing with other people's information and managing other agencies' information. I'm sure, as in Canada, privacy breaches where sensitive information has got out into the public domain through public service incompetence are treated very seriously.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

MP Au, you have five minutes.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Thank you very much. I'm glad I have more time to ask questions.

I want to ask a question about case management, because you mentioned that you use the case management approach. In your case, which department is the primary gatekeeper for case management to make sure that the ball is not being dropped? Is it the correctional department, the justice department or the police?

[Steve Watson]

Each of those agencies maintains its own systems to maintain the integrity of the data. To enact the approved information-sharing agreements, we have what we call APIs and business rules that allow the data to be shared mechanically, particularly in the proactive space.

Where we share data by using the form or the manual request, the integrity of that is basically maintained by training and quality assurance checks on those requests to make sure that they are lawful and we're not just going fishing. We have a very good all-of-government agreement about the management and sharing of information, which we are held accountable to by our Parliament.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

New Zealand's humanitarian appeal test requires exceptional circumstances, or unjust or unduly harsh impacts. How often were the criminals able to use that kind of test to avoid being deported?

[Steve Watson]

It doesn't happen very often. Occasionally, the higher courts will overturn our decision. It's generally based on a family reason. We are still able to successfully deport criminals who have New Zealand-born children and New Zealand families because the courts have upheld that thinking. Just being married to a New Zealand partner or having New Zealand-born children is not in itself an exceptional circumstance. Sometimes courts will make decisions and that's what they do. We can either appeal that or accept it.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Your minister has the absolute discretion to cancel or suspend deportation liability. How has it been, in your experience, with allowing the minister to have that power? Has it been abused? Have people been accused of inconsistency or does it give the minister too much power?

[Steve Watson]

The minister delegates to senior officials the thinking and the prep work. The minister regularly has what we call calibration meetings with her delegated decision-makers. She also has an associate minister who does a lot of this work for her and who also is part of those calibration meetings.

The key here is that the minister very rarely intervenes in cases. If she does, she always gives good reasons for it. I don't believe there's any abuse of that process. It's a very thorough process. It's managed by very senior officials such as myself and my colleagues. It's just part of our legislation that we work with.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

We'll go to MP Powlowski to end this portion of our meeting.

You have five minutes, please.

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

Mr. Watson, I'm curious about your use of the term “bad character” and the removal of people of bad character. I would have thought that if you broadly interpreted the meaning of bad character, you'd include pretty well all the members of the Conservative Party on the other side.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

I don't think that's likely the basis of your interpretation.

You gave us some ideas of what constituted bad character. I'm hearing comments from the other side. Besides being a member of the Conservative Party, what are the other criteria that constitute “bad character” in New Zealand?

[Steve Watson]

We start with criminal offending. Stepping back from there, there are breaches of the civil jurisdiction, which could be people committing, say, tax evasion or something that is a non-criminal. It's quite broad, but generally we would consider bad character to be criminal offending. You jest, but sometimes alignment with some sort of ideology can be considered to be of bad character, and that's quite a difficult one to deal with.

It's generally criminal offending or how they conduct themselves in the community. If they conduct themselves in the community in a way that causes harm or offence to other people, that is not.... There's not a lot of it in New Zealand because we are quite an open and understanding society. We certainly tolerate a lot of different ideologies.

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

I also understand that part of your mandate is looking at the exploitation of foreign workers. I was interested in this. I understand that New Zealand brings in about 5,000 workers from Vanuatu every year as temporary foreign workers in agriculture. I'm interested in this. I lived in Vanuatu for five years. I understand there are some cases of exploitation.

Moreover, my understanding is that the work permits the New Zealand government issues are for one specific business to be able to employ someone. I think we in Canada do the same thing. This opens the door for exploiting workers who may feel that if they complain they're going to be sent home. What does your government do to ensure being tied to one single employer doesn't result in the exploitation of workers by unscrupulous employers?

[Steve Watson]

We have two schemes.

The scheme you're talking about is called the “recognized seasonal employer”. Those employers have to jump through quite a number of hoops to be accredited. They are audited on their pastoral care, their plans and their accommodation. They have to provide worker accommodation and that has to be of a suitable standard.

They also have to demonstrate to us that their internal processes are compliant in terms of things like minimum wage and wage deductions. If they don't and they are audited by us, they may lose the ability to hire migrant workers, which basically means that they're dead in the water as a business. There's a strong incentive to comply.

For the broader labour market, we have what's called an “accredited employer” scheme. It's quite similar. Employers have to demonstrate to us that they have all the checks and balances in place to prevent migrant exploitation. What that does is allow us to investigate, monitor more and audit their processes on a risk-based cycle to ensure they're behaving properly.

The final thing it does—and I'm conscious of time—is that those who operate outside those schemes are deemed to be “high risk” by us. That allows us to prioritize them and pay them a lot of attention, because generally they're the ones who will be committing the exploitation.

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

Thank you for appearing before us. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you for saying that, MP Powlowski.

I will repeat, on behalf of all members of this committee, that you have our gratitude and appreciation for your time and input into this exercise.

Despite the physical distance between you and us, we feel very warmly appreciative of your strong and warm contribution. We wish you a great day. I know it's the beginning of your day.

We look forward to perhaps meeting you in person at some point. Thank you again and enjoy the rest of the day.

Yes, please go ahead, Mr. Watson.