Citizenship and Immigration committee  As part of our work around program design, we've looked at a number of factors. We would anticipate that probably less than 2% of the current volume would be adversely affected by an eTA.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Perhaps I could give a little more background in terms of work that has already been undertaken with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. As we move forward with this initiative—and just to underline, what the budget bill contains are the legislative authorities to be able to put an eTA in place—you're quite right that a lot of the detail will flow through regulation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In that instance, you're quite correct, without an eTA the airline would not board the individual. Given the propensity or the availability of hand-held devices as well as Internet café stations and that sort of thing in airports, we don't foresee a difficulty for an individual, where there is no problem, being able to obtain an eTA fairly quickly through available Internet connections.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For problematic cases, I'm happy to explain the process that we envisage. Essentially, the applicant would fill out the online application. Verifications would be done centrally through what we would call a centre here manned by CIC officers 24/7. If there were any indications of adverse information, the eTA would not be issued, but the client would then be directed to the nearest Canadian office to have an interview or an examination with a Canadian visa officer overseas.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Certainly. Mr. Chair, it is important to understand how the process works now for individuals who travel to Canada who don't require a visa. They are able to board flights from points of embarkation coming to Canada with very little scrutiny before they actually travel. The CBSA does receive advance passenger information, but only once, in common parlance, “wheels are up”, so once the plane has taken off, and then manifests with information, tombstone data, are provided to the CBSA so that they can have a good understanding as to which passengers are coming to Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I will introduce my colleagues: Maia Welbourne, who is the director in admissibility policy responsible for the electronic travel authorization, and Marie Bourry, our senior general counsel. Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to speak to you today about Bill C-45, the Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, and more specifically the subject matter of division 16 of part 4 of the act.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, I would draw attention to the wording in section 40 of IRPA, which lays out the parameters around misrepresentation. In part, it reads that misrepresentation relates to the withholding of material facts that relate to a relevant matter “that induces or could induce an error in the administration of this Act”.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Perhaps I can start and Mr. Walker can supplement me. Everything that has to do with information sharing will go on in the backroom, as we say. Basically, clients won't know about the verification process with our federal partners, enabling us to make a recommendation or come to a decision regarding foreign agents.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would like to emphasize how we are going to confine accessibility to the data we will collect. Initially, we will work with partners we trust and can work with. As I said earlier, we aren't going to transmit all the information we have in areas where we don't have control over its circulation or how it will be shared with other entities.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  To clarify, we won't share personal information with entities like Interpol if there isn't aren't adequate controls in place. That kind of control at Interpol on sharing information is not currently planned. We have adequate controls with our key partners, namely, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't have the figure at the top of my mind but I think Mr. Desruisseaux would have it.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, that is correct. There's no view here that we would need to, or should be, collecting biometrics for Canadian citizens.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we are there technologically, and we're actually working through the specifications of the technology that will be needed to be provided by the successful bidder who actually moves to implementation of the contract. As I mentioned earlier, we are looking at this as a fairly limited rollout, in the first instance, to make sure we are doing it right and that we have the platform to which we can then add, incrementally over time, to expand to the entire temporary resident program.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's correct.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Very quickly, if someone shows up off an airplane undocumented and they make a claim for refugee status, then the CBSA would interview them to determine, to the extent possible, how best to establish identity. They may actually cooperate and provide us with their identity, in which case they would be reported under IRPA and directed toward the IRB to follow through on their claim.