Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Chair. In terms of whether or not there is a gap, there is not a gap. First, it's important to say that how an asylum seeker comes to Canada, from an IRCC perspective in terms of looking at their claim, is not important. Now, there is no gap prior to April 2017 back to January, because we, as a federal government, can rely on the intercept data from the RCMP.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The short answer is, yes, we have regular contacts. We belong to multinational, binational, and tri-national organizations. We engage regularly with the Americans, who have a lot of experience on their southern border. We talk with our European colleagues constantly about lessons learned.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. Although when we see spikes like we did in Manitoba earlier in the year, we will reassign staff in order to handle those volumes to our regional offices and/or the port of entry.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's a very good question. IRCC does not undertake the actual physical security checks. CBSA is our enforcement arm as well as our security-screening arm. When we capture information on an individual or take in information on an individual, we send that to the CBSA, which then takes that information, does security screening, works with the various security partners, as appropriate, and then feeds that information, or the results of that information, back to us in order for us to make a decision, on their advice, on the security or whatever they found out on that individual.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Only the Canada Border Services Agency would be able to answer that question, because those failed claimants fall into what's called their “removal inventory” and they manage the removal inventory.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's actually a very good question because the asylum system is complex. I'll be very brief, and then I'll hand the floor over to my colleague Ms. Miller. Overall, the asylum system is governed through legislation, IRPA, as well as various regulations. From those authorities we devise operating procedures for how we effect the law.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The temporary suspension of removal was put in place by the Canadian government to respond to Haiti.... It was more or less the same event as the U.S. protection status. It was lifted with a series of amnesties—I'll use the word loosely—attached to it, where we encouraged people, we reached out to community organizations, and we thinned out and made our forms less complex for those individuals who had been here, had established themselves in communities like Montreal, Ottawa, or Toronto.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I apologize, sir. I'm not totally sure that I understand the question. I can talk about, generally, travel continuum and individuals—whether they require a visa or an eTA—but I don't think that's your question.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Typically, when someone arrives at a port of entry, there may be a flag in the CBSA port of entry system. The CBSA officer would then take the person to secondary and investigate. CBSA officers are well trained to pick up on indicators when they interview people at the booths or in what people say.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It depends on the specifics of the circumstance. The CBSA could seek for that individual to be removed from the country. CBSA could contact the individual and inform them that they need to leave the country. It could go after the individual in terms of some level of prosecution, whatever that is.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. We are starting now to track that. In fact that's one of the things we've been discussing with our provincial colleagues. I'm just looking for the actual table. We call it secondary migration. It has been extremely low. That said, I do know that since we've been tracking we have fewer than 200 individuals from the Lacolle area—July, August, and September—going to Etobicoke or the greater Toronto area to our office to have their eligibility hearing taken care of.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's in a day or two; that's correct.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That question goes back to the overall processing in the asylum system itself. When someone crosses at a port of entry and is processed through admissibility and eligibility by the CBSA, it takes approximately four to six hours. In IRCC across the rest of the country, right now we are processing people in a similar fashion.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have not been privy to all of the conversations. I haven't attended all of the task force meetings, but these types of issues are discussed at the task force meetings.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The Privy Council Office has that—