Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, I would say the answer to that would be zero, in that we don't remove Canadian-born Canadian citizens. The parents may be subject to removal, and obviously they will be likely to take the kids with them, yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We certainly respect that you want to keep the families together and so on. But as far as keeping statistics on the number of those cases where that has occurred....

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can tell you a little bit about 2006-07 and the record for that year. There were 12,636 people removed from the country, and 15% were criminals. Therefore, we're looking at around 1,900 or just under 2,000.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't have an exact number of criminals we would be working on that I can give you right now. We have a working inventory of around 22,000 who are removal ready right now. About 8% of those in the working inventory who are ready for removal have criminal backgrounds.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I guess that question would probably be for my colleague. But if I may, Mr. Chair, I would just respond to the criminal element briefly. I'd just like to say that when you look at how we remove people.... We have a priority list, as I mentioned, which starts off with the serious criminals and works its way down to failed refugee claimants and then others in an inadmissible class that would include illegal workers.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to appear before you today and to provide you with information on immigration enforcement, in particular how it relates to undocumented workers. The Canada Border Services Agency is responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.