Public Safety Committee on March 12th, 2026

[Steve Watson]

Yes. I'll use an example of 12 months, because it's easy to work it out. A person will be sentenced to 12-months' imprisonment. They'll be eligible for parole at probably seven months. We would engage with them within a month of their being sent into prison. We would serve them all their paperwork. That would allow them the due process of appeals, which can take up to 42 days. By the time they are able to be released, everything is ready. The flight is booked. The escorts are prepared. We literally pick them up from the prison gates and take them to the airport.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

How about the people who abscond? I've spent enough time in New Zealand to know that even though it's a small country, you can get lost easily, especially in South Island. How do you go about finding those people?

[Steve Watson]

We would use what I would call basic modern investigation techniques. We start with their last place of [Technical difficulty—Editor] with all of the other agencies in the community that will share information with us. We have a single police force in New Zealand. We can have access to other government departments' records if we request them properly—things like our social development agency and a number of other government agencies. We also have what's called a crime line, or a dob-in line, where we receive anonymous information. We also, in the more serious cases, operate human source intelligence—so informants—and all of that information is processed through our intelligence system and refines where we can look to find people.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

I would just point out, too, that the recent Bill C-12 that is in the Senate right now will allow us that communication that Mr. Watson is...between agencies, which we had in Canada. However, now we should be on par with New Zealand.

[Steve Watson]

That's good to hear.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Hopefully, we'll beat New Zealand in rugby sometime in the next 10 years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Maybe even before then, but we'll see.

Before that, I'll give the floor to Mrs. DeBellefeuille for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Watson, when you're a Quebecker, you always try to find a family connection or some other link with the people you meet. I can tell you that my grandson, who currently lives in Australia with his parents, also has a lot of family in New Zealand. They have told us that it's really a very beautiful country. It's on my list to go meet my grandson's family in New Zealand.

That said, I noticed in the document we were given that New Zealand has increased the number of deportations of foreign nationals compared to other years.

Could you share your best practices with us? What has enabled New Zealand to deport more people than last year, for example?

[Steve Watson]

That's a good question. I am [Technical difficulty—Editor].

Prior to COVID, we were deporting quite a few people. Obviously, when COVID came, the ability to deport people was compromised. We are just now returning to previous levels.

In terms of how we achieved those additional numbers, we took more of a case management approach to our lower-priority deportations. Our priority deportations—criminals—are always there, and picking them up from prison is actually quite an easy thing to do. It's very straightforward. However, with regard to the people who are in the community, we've spent a lot of time actively working with them so that they go home under their own steam. The main increase was in what we would call “voluntary departures” or “self-deportations”. We would visit these people weekly and kind of convince them that it was the wrong thing to do to stay in New Zealand. We would convince them to return home. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to offer them any incentive to do that, but we can disincentivize them from remaining. If they're on our radar, they can't work. They can't even work illegally, because we will be keeping an eye on them.

There are two things that work in that space. One is that you allow people who are not criminals or who are not serious criminals the ability to control their own destiny. Sometimes that is an empowering thing for people, and they will realize the error of their ways and just simply go home. It also means that it's a cost-saving for the government because sometimes their family...and often they'll have offshore remittances once they've made up their mind to return home.

There is a third incentive that we can offer them, which is that, if they do return home voluntarily without being deported or through a co-operative action, after a period of time they can then have the opportunity to return to New Zealand, and that's never off the table. So, it's a case management approach for our less serious overstayers.

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

Mr. Watson, you say that these people are accompanied to the airport when they leave prison, to ensure that they leave your country. I imagine that New Zealand—this is the case for Canada—has signed treaties with certain countries to prevent people from being removed to those countries, because the political situation there is unstable.

What do you do with these people who have served their sentence, who have a removal order, but whom you can't send back to their country because the political situation or an international treaty prohibits you from doing so?

[Steve Watson]

We monitor the case until their prison release and we ask our corrections colleagues to work through the parole system, so that when they're eligible for parole, we can engage with them again, long before they're released. We would know that we're not able to remove them. We don't hold them in detention.

If they're still liable for deportation, we would manage them in the community through a residence and reporting agreement, which is a lawful document that says “you must reside at this address and you must report to our officers at a period of time”.

For matters where it's a serious national security threat or they are a serious threat to the community, we may detain them, but in recent times, based on United Nations advice and human rights advice, where possible we will allow people to remain in the community, particularly if there is no prospect of deportation. Otherwise, essentially they are held in a corrections facility.

We don't have immigration detention, so they are held in jail with no prospect of release or no prospect of deportation. There have been some overseas court decisions and the United Nations frowns very heavily on this, and I think it's the right decision: I think we have to treat people in a fair and humane way.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

Ms. Kirkland, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much.

I appreciate this conversation. We can always learn things from each other, and it's always a great opportunity for us to learn from you. Hopefully, we can reciprocate down the road, Mr. Watson.

As per the Canada Border Services Agency's removals program, persons subject to removal have to pay their own return travel. Of course, if the person is unable to pay, which will happen often, the Canada Border Services Agency will do so on their behalf, and we'll attempt to recover the cost if the person seeks to return to Canada. In New Zealand, who bears the cost of removals?

[Steve Watson]

We have a similar process. As I alluded to before, where people can pay their own removal costs, we encourage that, because it gives them an opportunity to return, and it's the right thing to do. Where people simply cannot pay and we need to remove them, the state pays. I have a budget for that, which needs to be carefully managed because it's a public appropriation, but there is an expectation, as you said, Ms. Kirkland, that if the person wishes to return, they have to repay that debt in full.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Do you have any comments on how often your government is able to recover those costs?

[Steve Watson]

It's very difficult, because the person is offshore and we have no jurisdiction. It's extremely unlikely that we recover costs. I think it's probably under 10% of cases.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Could you comment on the situation where an individual refuses to co-operate with immigration authorities and they go “no contact” and you start to wonder where they are. I know you touched on it, but could you comment on some of the enforcement tools New Zealand uses to locate and remove them? I think you mentioned that you're using some digital tools as well.

[Steve Watson]

Yes, we obviously have good information sharing with people.

In terms of digital tools, we're using AI a bit to triage and suck information out for us in order to identify where people are, but the main way we find people who have gone underground or who are difficult to locate is through some good old-fashioned investigative work: asking questions, a bit of surveillance and following the trail a little. One of the things we've changed is trying to understand where the person is working, because it's much easier for us to look someone up at work. It also allows us, then, to have evidence to prosecute the offending employer.

In terms of digital tools, we don't really have anything special. We just have a case management tool that allows us to keep and record information. We do data-matching with some other agencies, which allows us to see where a wanted person may have touchpoints with other government agencies.

We have a lot of liaison with groups that represent diasporas in New Zealand. It's our experience that the various groups that represent the ethnic diasporas in New Zealand are very anti others who don't stick to the rules. More often than not, they will hand them over. They do the right thing, because they feel these people are doing a disservice to their culture.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I appreciate the urgency of your government to make sure those who are incarcerated.... I'm sure you have bureaucratic slowdowns, like every other country. The goal, obviously, is to make sure they're ready to go from prison to airport.

Are there a number of cases where timing just can't work out for that to happen, or are you pretty successful?

[Steve Watson]

We're pretty successful.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

That's great.

[Steve Watson]

Generally, if a person makes an asylum claim in prison, we obviously can't remove them. We just go through the prison release process, then monitor them in the community.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

The urgency—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you.