CIMM Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA CITOYENNETÉ ET DE L'IMMIGRATION

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 8, 2001

• 0907

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.)): Good morning, colleagues, and welcome to Martha, Joan, Tony, and Elizabeth. It's nice to have you with us again.

For the members of the committee, I've distributed something produced by Ben here, our researcher, with regard to the 72-hour issue. I believe we all needed to have some clarification on that, as well as on the PRA. So that document is before you, and we probably will have questions about it. I think the document lays out what Bill C-11 anticipates with regard to the 72 hours as well as the PRA.

The French version will be available this afternoon. Unfortunately we haven't been able to translate it as quickly as desired, but it will be available a little later.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): What a greeting!

[English]

The Chair: But Madeleine, you're so good in both official languages—

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: That's a very good reason, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: —unlike the chair.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I am sure all of you agree with that.

The Chair: Yes, they do. You can blame the chair, but I'm trying to be so efficient. And I in turn will blame the researcher.

Mr. Steve Mahoney (Mississauga West, Lib.): No, you won't.

The Chair: The other thing I should just bring to the attention of the committee is, as you know, we're still working on our Washington trip. The response from our embassy in Washington is that, as everyone can appreciate and understand, there are a lot of things going on there. Between mid-term elections and the anthrax and the numerous meetings both the senators and the congressmen are having, it's becoming very difficult to ensure that if a meeting is called they'll be able to show up.

I must admit the embassy and the ambassador there have been trying their hardest. In fact, two other committees are also trying to get there, namely transport and industry, to do something similar to what we've been doing.

• 0910

I took the liberty of writing a letter to our counterparts on the Senate side as well as the House of Representatives side—both the committee chairs there—to say essentially that we don't need a formal meeting; what we need is a breakfast, a lunch, or a dinner where all of us can get together informally, if that's going to be a little easier for them, so that we can talk a little bit about it.

I sent out that letter to them the other day, hopefully just letting them know how important this issue is for us and for them, and how important it is that our two committees—or we—meet.

I'm hoping that in their planning they will be able to invite us or give us the time. During the course of the week we're off, we'll let you know whether.... We've asked for a day or two, either on November 19—the week we return—or the following week. I'll keep you advised as to how we're coming along on that important part of our deliberations.

Steve.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Thanks for that update. I just would like to add, at least from my perspective, that I'm less concerned about the trip to Washington than I am about our getting to the point where we can write a report based on the things you saw out west and we saw in the east. So good, if you have the—

The Chair: That was my next point, and I might do it before we get into the meeting.

I think the Washington component would be an important part of the report. If Washington can't happen this year, for whatever reason, I think we need to write the report anyway, based on witnesses we've heard.

It's my plan that we would meet, when we come back, on Tuesday and Thursday as usual and start to talk a bit about the possible themes and content of that particular border security report—we'll think of a name for it—start to draft it, and hopefully be able to table it in the House, with or without the Washington component, the week of November 26. I hope it would show the committee has taken this issue very seriously. Not only do we want to table it in the House, but also to have a news conference where we can all share our experiences and that report in the week of November 26.

Obviously, if Washington happens the week of November 19, it might be delayed, but to be relevant for the budget and to be relevant to Canadians—showing that we've done all of this work because we know they've been very concerned about border security—that's the plan.

So we will meet when we come back here as a committee and start to draft the possible themes we would want included in a report. Hopefully we can work very hard to make sure it's a unanimous report. I understand there may be differences of opinion here and there, but let's not predetermine the outcome. I just want to let you know from the outset that I think we need to have this thing tabled and done the week of November 26 for Parliament and for the Canadian people.

Maybe we can discuss this later, when we have a little time.

Let's get right down to it. Joan and Martha, Tony and Elizabeth, the purpose of this meeting obviously is that when we were travelling there were a number of issues. I think it's safe to say we have to get our heads around the human resources and technology issues, the resources required to implement Bill C-11, as well as how many resources the department has.

Maybe you're going to take us through how those resources, human and otherwise, work now and what the impact of September 11 is in terms of additional resources, both human and technological ones, that are anticipated. The committee has been most interested in the human resources. We heard loud and clear that there's no doubt there are shortages already in human resources. I'm sure the questions will talk a lot about this.

I don't know if you had an opening statement or whether you just want us to get into the questions. If so, that's fine.

If I could ask the first question, there's at least a baseline with regard to human resources. Can you tell us exactly, on an operational basis, or give us some idea of how many people in Immigration are dedicated to a number of different operational matters, be it internationally, at the border, or at our airports? Maybe you can give us a summary of the operational plan.

Ms. Joan Atkinson (Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Program Development, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): We don't have a prepared statement, Mr. Chair. We came prepared to try to answer all the committee's questions. I guess we can start on the question of resources.

• 0915

I'm looking at my colleagues because you asked a fairly broad question in terms of all of the resources we have available, overseas and in Canada and at ports of entry. I know we've got some statistics in terms of port of entry. Perhaps I'll ask Martha to give you an overview of what the resources are in terms of Canadian ports of entry.

Ms. Martha Nixon (Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): First of all, let me start out by saying we're very pleased you visited our offices and ports of entry. We had reports back from our people, who all expressed a great deal of satisfaction that they had the opportunity to speak with you and found the discussion was interesting. I think they really welcomed the opportunity to put their issues on the table.

When we look at our operations, if you take the overall total number of people in the department currently—and we're all working now from a fact sheet we've tried to standardize so we're all speaking the same numbers—as of June 2001 we have 4,882 people in the department. At the moment—

The Chair: You may have to repeat. Don't go so quickly. Is it 4,882?

Ms. Martha Nixon: Yes, it's 4,882. Such precision is always dangerous, but if you say 4,480 probably that would be pretty close.

In terms of the people we currently have overseas, we have some 204 Canadian visa officers overseas who screen immigrants and visitors.

In terms of our in-Canada resources, we talk about immigration officers currently working in Canada. There's a total of 1,358. Of those, 443 would be at ports of entry, and 413 are involved in what we would term enforcement work. About 101 are hearings or case presentation officers, and about 401 would be counsellors, analysts, or advisers of one sort or another. That gives you a bit of a breakdown. These figures are as of October 2001.

Ms. Lynne Yelich (Blackstrap, Canadian Alliance): Could you please tell us what each of their job descriptions is—just a little bit, concerning the immigration officer as opposed to your enforcement role, to your hearings, and the counsellors? I just wonder what the differences are, because if there's a hearing or case officer present, there are only 101 to hear all these refugees that land.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Perhaps I could jump in here. When we talk about enforcement officers, we're talking about officers involved in investigations, in hearings, removals, and other enforcement work, whether that's inland.... It includes 49 enforcement officers who work expressly at ports of entry in Ontario.

Hearings and case presentation officers are the minister's representatives in front of the Immigration and Refugee Board. When a case is in front of the board, either in the appeal division for a family class appeal, or for an appeal against a removal, or as the minister's representative when the minister is intervening at the IRB on a refugee case—those are what the hearings and case presentation officers do. It is of course the IRB that actually hears the refugee claims.

We do not have reflected in the numbers that Martha has given you the resources at the IRB. The IRB resources of course would include the members themselves plus all of the supporting staff, including refugee hearing officers who are employees of the board. The numbers we've given you are CIC resources but do not include the IRB resources.

The Chair: Simply, you said 4,480 people in total.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Yes. What's not included as well in these figures are the locally engaged staff overseas who support the work of the 204 visa officers.

The Chair: You've got 4,480; that's the total complement? Then you said 204 overseas. Is that included in the 4,480?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Yes.

The Chair: Okay, then you said 1,358 in Canada. That's part of the 4,480, right?

Ms. Martha Nixon: That's correct; 4,882, Mr. Chair, was the overall total.

• 0920

The Chair: I'm saying where is the difference then? Is it all in head office? If I add up 1,358 and 204, that's about 1,700 or 1,800. Where are the other 3,000 people?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: What we are giving you...the 1,358 are officers.

The Chair: Yes.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: That doesn't include all of your support staff. That doesn't include your call centres. That doesn't include your citizenship program. That doesn't include all your staff on the citizenship side, and it doesn't include your settlement and integration officers. We haven't given you a breakdown of absolutely every category of employee in the department devoted to all of the programs.

The Chair: I'd like that document so that the committee at least has a total breakdown of how it works out.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Sure. No problem.

The Chair: I don't expect you to do it now, but at least during the course of the week you could send it to us.

So let's get to questions then, now that you've given us a basic idea of what kinds of numbers we are dealing with.

Lynne, seeing that Paul is on the phone, do you want to start? This is going to be rather informal. We're not going to do this ten minutes, five minutes.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: I'll let someone else go ahead.

The Chair: Jerry, go ahead.

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham—Kent Essex, Lib.): Thank you.

I assume then we have 1,700 officers working on people flowing in and out of country, be it abroad or here, and that's good.

My first question is, in your estimation, with the demands that are required in the staff, with the paperwork that's required and all of the other functions that these officers require, does that amount of work on our Canadian borders and overseas need to be increased? And would it be appropriate for this committee to look at limited increases or larger increases as recommendations? We have to fundamentally look at what the hot spots are and what the concerns are.

So question one, from your view, and with all of the demands that are coming down today—and they're greater demands, we all know that—do we functionally need more people on staff doing those front-line jobs?

Second, in the travels we've done across the country, I believe 80% of our discussion focused on the word “refugee”, and that seems to be a hot spot with all of our employees, a hot spot with the public, the press, and all of the entities that deal with the whole background of immigration.

So refugees, including 37,000 applications here in Canada, seem to take up the focus of some 200,000 people who come on an annual basis. That's an area that has been focused on for an inordinate amount of time, but that is where the focus has been.

When we travelled, at Emerson, a U.S. officer in charge of that area said, “We simply deal with people coming from Canada into the United States, Canada being a safe country....” I'm not dealing with safe third now. I'm just saying their life is not in jeopardy in Canada, in his opinion, and I think his opinion would be the same opinion as other U.S. Customs officers.

They say we will accept all of your applications, all the information, but we would ask you to wait in Canada while we do the processing, before we allow you entry onto the streets without checks, without proper background, without all the paperwork and information we have. So it's like this: “We receive this. We know you're safe, and you will wait until we do this processing before you come into the country.”

If 40% of our refugees are flowing across that border, from what I would determine—and I think most people in this room would determine—is a very safe nation, where their life may not be threatened or in danger, are we violating any principles by saying, yes, we accept the fact that you've made application here, you've come from other areas, we will process this and we will accept your refugee claim, but we would prefer you not enter the streets of Canada until proper checks are made? In particular, we may have to focus on those who do not have paperwork, those for whom we do not have background checks, health checks, all of the things that are needed. There may be some coming who we do have that information from. I can't determine that, so we may have to stream in this case as well.

• 0925

I believe it's a very significant point about pressure that's put on our front-line people. If we can ease that pressure—do the checks over a reasonable amount of time, let them have the opportunity to know they're safe, and yet deal with the refugee claimant in an appropriate way—that seems to me a pretty significant positive move. I think I heard a lot of that from employees.

The Chair: Those are very good questions.

Martha or Joan.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Let me start.

On the resources question, I think what you heard is something we all acknowledge, that the volumes have been increasing everywhere in our program. The volumes have been increasing overseas, they have been increasing at our ports of entry, they have been increasing inland, and the volumes of refugee claimants have been increasing as well.

Obviously I would not presume to suggest what this committee should or should not recommend. I think I would, in terms of our response to our resource needs, make the same reference or the same comment our minister made, that I would not be a good bureaucrat if I said, no, we don't need any more resources.

But I would also point out that we have received additional resources, as you know. In the context of the government's anti-terrorism and security agenda, we received $39.9 million to expend this year on dealing with some of our immediate pressures, and we received $9 million in ongoing money to add additional staff.

As you know, the government is continuing to look at all of the needs of all of the agencies that are involved in the anti-terrorism activities and the security activities to determine what the resource needs are. I can tell you that we clearly are part of those discussions, and part of those deliberations that are going on right now.

The Chair: To ask a little supplemental, how much is one FTE with all the associated costs?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I don't think it's easy, Mr. Chairman, to give an exact figure because it does depend on whether that FTE is overseas. If it's overseas, they are much more expensive than if they're in Canada obviously.

The Chair: I want both numbers.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: It depends on the level of FTE we're talking about. I don't know whether anyone has any information. Maybe Martha.

Ms. Martha Nixon: We've recently tried to do a bit of—

The Chair: Jerry, I didn't want to divert it, but it's just so we can—

Mr. Jerry Pickard: I think it's good that you both care and there's another—

The Chair: —have a calculation here, because $39.9 million doesn't do anything for me. I don't know what the heck that is, and 100 people, as I understand it, ain't going to do the trick either. So we want to understand how much it costs per person to do some work.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Can I try to ask the succinct question in one sentence? You have to have a percentage of human resource increase in workload. The department has to understand how many more hours, on a percentage base, their staff is required to do today than it was back a while ago. Do you have a number, a percentage—and that would give us some direction as to what's happening—of human workload increase in hours that has happened over the last ten years or five years? Then we can look at the dollars.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: We have not characterized it that way. What we do have is the increases in the workload.

I think one of the reasons that it's difficult for us to say, x increase in workload equals x increases in resources is, again, it depends what the nature of the workload is. At the same time as we're looking at the volume increase, we know there will probably never be enough resources to be able to meet the demand if we do not at the same time look at the way in which we work. Of course, you've heard the minister speak about it, and you've heard from other witnesses who have come in front of the committee, that we attempt to try to work smarter and to streamline our processes, because we know it's not just a matter of how many resources you devote to the function; you also have to look at ways of working smarter and using your existing resources better. And whatever new resources we might get in the context of the current anti-terrorism and security agenda, we'll have to look at how we use those resources more efficiently, how we use our technologies, and so on.

• 0930

Ms. Martha Nixon: I just want to add that on the overseas side we have a formula that equals...a productivity figure and how many resources we need based on the volume of work. We use that quite extensively.

We've recently been trying to analyse what it costs us to put an officer overseas. It's an astonishing number because the salary is the least of it. There is the cost of travel; there is the cost of the DFAIT mission charges to our department—it's somewhere in the area of $300,000 to $400,000 per FTE. It is a considerable amount of money when you look at what it costs per person.

The Chair: A person doesn't make $300,000. It's awfully high.

Ms. Martha Nixon: It is not cheap to have a person abroad, whichever way you look at it.

We've been looking at what we can repatriate back to Canada in terms of our overseas processing. We've had, as you know, this pilot project looking at centralization in Canada of some of our functions. We have made the decision to, over the next two or three years, move toward having some of our administrative work done here in Canada, partly for that reason. Then we'll move to looking at imaging of our files and trying to do that more efficiently.

But it is expensive. In Canada, you are probably looking at an average of a PM-2 or PM-3 salary, which is in the area of $42,000 to $55,000. That's the magnitude you're talking about in terms of dollars per person.

We have been going through an extensive exercise, as have many departments, looking at the pressures in the department. It's called a departmental assessment process. We've had all of our managers engaged in trying to analyse where the gaps are between what we know we should be delivering and what we are able to deliver.

We've done extensive analysis and will be presenting that eventually to Treasury Board. We've had a challenge function of the work we've done on that. There is evidence of extensive gaps in terms of what we think we should be doing currently, based on volumes of work and our mandate and what we are able to deliver.

The Chair: Paul.

Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance): You mentioned the challenge. How many regions do you have in Canada?

Ms. Martha Nixon: Five.

Mr. Paul Forseth: The regional director in B.C.-Yukon mentioned the challenge he was going through. He projected that he needed 148 to deliver his mandate. So it should be very easy for you to give us the equivalent numbers from the other regions for what they were asking for.

Ms. Martha Nixon: I don't have that at my fingertips, but a large number of requests are on the table. It's clear that in challenging those we have to make sure we're looking at consistency across the country. That exercise is not yet finished, but I'm sure that when it is finished we'll be happy to report on it, because we will be looking for Treasury Board support.

The Chair: The question Jerry had was on the disproportionate amount of resources to the number of refugees, and the whole notion of perhaps processing the applications but leaving those people in the United States while they wait for our determination, as opposed to detaining them or whatever else.

Can you just comment on both of those points?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Perhaps I could start on this one. On the tools we have available to us under the current legislation and the new legislation to help us deal with the flow of refugee claimants at the borders, we have a provision in the current legislation called a direct-back provision. It can only be used when a senior immigration officer is not available to deal with the case.

When a person makes a refugee claim at a port of entry, they are seen by an immigration officer who writes a report. That is referred to a senior immigration officer. If the senior immigration officer is not available, then it is possible to direct the refugee claimant back across the border into the United States, with an appointment to come back within a matter of days, or perhaps even hours, to have their examination reconvened.

The legislative authority to do that is very narrow. It cannot be used simply because someone has come from the United States, and because we may consider the United States to be safe, we can direct them back across the border. It cannot be used for that purpose. It's a fairly narrow legislative authority.

The Chair: Where is the legislative authority for that in Bill C-11? In what section of the bill is that?

• 0935

Ms. Joan Atkinson: You've stumped me there. I don't have it....

The Chair: Or in the existing one?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: It is in subsection 20(2) of the current act. Thank you, Elizabeth. I can get you the precise clause in the new legislation where we find that.

The second tool we have in both the current and the new legislation is, of course, the safe third country. As you know, safe third country is only activated when you have an agreement with the other country. Neither the current legislation nor the new legislation allows you to implement a safe third country unilaterally. You must have an agreement with that safe third country in order to return people to that country because you consider it to be safe.

I think the other issue you refer to is what we call safe country of origin. It is another concept that is used in some refugee determination systems around the world. The safe country of origin concept is a screening mechanism for individuals who claim refugee status from a country that is considered to be safe. They are national or long-term residents of a country that is considered not to be a refugee-producing country.

In most jurisdictions where that safe country of origin is used, it is used to fast-track individuals through the system. It's generally not used as a way to exclude people altogether from the system, but it is used in different ways in different jurisdictions. We do not have that in our current legislation or in the new legislation—the safe country of origin concept.

On the final thing I would point to, in terms of your questions around our ability to be able to screen people and so on, I know you've heard a lot about the front-end screening we've initiated at our ports of entry. We are also putting that in place in our inland operations, to try to do the upfront in-depth interviews of all refugee claimants when they arrive, so we can begin the process as soon as possible to identify who they are and what their backgrounds are, when it comes to criminality and security.

The Chair: We'll have some follow-ups.

Paul, you may ask a couple of questions, and we'll keep moving around.

Mr. Paul Forseth: What then is the legal basis for these agencies—halfway houses, societies or whatever—on the American side that are simply phoning up the Canadian authorities that are working with them for an appointment list? There's that relationship going back and forth. How does that fit?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: That's an attempt to try to manage the flow, to the extent we can. Given the tools we have available to us in the current and new legislation, we are attempting to work out an agreement with those NGOs so they will help us manage the numbers that come to the ports of entry, so we don't have to use the direct-back mechanisms.

Particularly in upper New York state, in the Fort Erie area, a number of people come to those NGOs and prepare themselves to come to the border to claim refugee status. We are trying to have the resources there when those individuals come so they can be heard, we can do our in-depth interview for the front-end security screening, and get those cases into the refugee determination system as soon as we can.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Okay. You talked about country of origin. Those same border points they talked about are receiving even U.S. citizens, for some reason or another. They feel that their phones are being bugged. They are hearing voices. They get all kinds of strange people who are going to claim refugee status from the United States. They say they have to receive them. They have to be put into the process. That's another burden. I take it Bill C-11 doesn't address that problem you've mentioned.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Bill C-11 does not have a safe country of origin in it, that's correct. It has a safe third country, but there is a very clear distinction between those two.

Mr. Paul Forseth: In the media a figure has been bantered around of approximately $50,000 per refugee application when you globalize the whole process. Is that number legitimate?

• 0940

Ms. Joan Atkinson: That number is legitimate. We've done some research ourselves in terms of trying to determine what the costs are when someone goes all the way through the system, not just for CIC but for the IRB, for the Federal Court, and so on. That $50,000 figure comes, we think, fairly close to the mark.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Okay, that's the cost to the federal system. That's not counting things like ESL for the Vancouver School Board or the legal aid costs to British Columbia. The British Columbia Legal Services Society is just screaming because they really felt that the British Columbia boat people ruined the financial footing of the B.C. Legal Services Society. Those additional costs I talked about are outside that $50,000 number, aren't they?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: That is correct.

The Chair: So $50,000 an application. Assuming we had 50,000 refugee applications and it's costing $50,000 apiece to process them—because that was the question—50 times 50 is what? Is that $2.5 billion just to process 50,000 applications, or is that $250 million? I don't have my calculator, so I might be off by some zeros.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I don't have my calculator either. I don't know whether we have the right number of zeros there, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: How many applicants are we projecting for next year?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: We're projecting that we will probably reach 47,000 applicants within the next year. That's the direction we're heading in.

The Chair: Once we do the multiplication, how then does that translate into answers for the questions both Paul and Jerry have asked? How many people do you need to process 50,000 applications at all levels, IRB and CIC, with the real estate costs, the extra costs, and the benefits?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Again, as Martha has indicated, we're in the process.... I have to say that the IRB has also been conducting the same type of analysis, because obviously there are very significant issues for the board in terms of their capacity to be able to deal with increasing numbers of refugee claimants.

Again, as Martha has also indicated, we have been going through a process of trying to identify what the gaps are between the volumes and the resources we currently have available to deal with those volumes. We don't have any figures for you we can put on the table today. Suffice it to say that we've obviously been going through the work to try to identify those gaps.

Martha would like to add something.

The Chair: Sure.

Ms. Martha Nixon: I just want to say that in terms of looking at current volumes, what we're currently trying to focus on are all the means we have to try to figure out how to reduce those volumes, things like additional visas. For countries from which we've had what we consider to be a very large influx of people, additional visas are certainly one of the options we're looking at.

Other things that are at our disposal, such as increased use of detention and those kinds of things, are what we're hoping will help us control the volume. It's a question of both being realistic in terms of what we need to manage an unprecedented increase in flows and looking at measures we have to control them, as well as trying to put those in place.

The Chair: Jerry raised a question, and so did Paul.

What we've heard and what we have now confirmed is that 40% or 50% of refugee claimants come from the United States, which is a safe third country, right? You're trying to control flows. If half of them are arriving at inland border points as opposed to airports—and we'll get into that a little later—surely in terms of controlling flows, some of the suggestions that have been made by both Paul and Jerry.... Paul says to detain everybody until you find out who they are, and that's one option. Jerry says to send them back to the United States and say, wait until we check you out. Somewhere in between is probably the solution—or whatever. Wouldn't either one of those two options do what you want in terms of controlling flows?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Well, as Martha said, there are a number of options. There's the visitor visa screen, which we know can be very effective in terms of preventing the flow of persons making claims who are not legitimate refugees but economic migrants. There are our interdiction efforts overseas through our immigration control officer network. There is the safe third country, and on that one, as we've said, we cannot impose it unilaterally.

As our minister indicated when she was here, we have indeed begun to discuss a number of initiatives with the Americans, looking at how we collectively manage the problem of irregular migration throughout our respective territories. The Americans obviously have similar problems in terms of individuals who are attempting to enter the United States, either from Canada or from elsewhere. What we are working on with the Americans is to look at that collectively and to take a regional approach. Part of that would be looking at a safe third country agreement with the Americans. That's clearly on our agenda as one of the tools we would want to look at in terms of helping us reduce the flows.

• 0945

I think also, as the minister pointed out, that these are all tools and initiatives we can pursue. There's no one tool or one solution that is going to solve the problem. We have to undertake a number of initiatives and take a number of steps to try to reduce the intake. If we manage to get a safe third country agreement with the United States, people won't come through the land border any more, they'll come by other means. That's a constant, and you have to look at the mechanisms you have available to you in trying to deal with this issue of irregular migrants, both those who are legitimate refugees and those who are not.

The Chair: Judy, you may just have a supplementary here. I have a list.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP): The suggestion we heard from many on our tour was, never mind letting them in and sending them back or making an agreement about a safe third country; just keep them out; don't let them cross the border. We heard, they are coming from a safe country, so why the heck would we even let them in the door to begin with?

That worries me. One would think that there are cases of legitimate refugees coming through the States to Canada. My question is, is it an appropriate public policy to just simply shut the door?

The Chair: We're just getting some facts from the administration now. It's not a discussion with regard to options, nor are we debating political points.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: But if we don't deal with this question, we're not going to get anywhere—

The Chair: Steve, go ahead.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: I want to change course in a minute. I want to ask you about adjudication, but before I do, I'd like to just follow up on a couple of points on this issue.

If 40% of the refugees come from the States, would the vast majority if not all of those enter at land border crossings?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Yes. The vast majority of them do.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: And if they come from the States, presumably that means they got into the United States with some kind of legal document.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Correct.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: When they cross our border, do we know who they are?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: As you know, about 45% of our refugee flow arrives undocumented. Some of those people who come across the border from the United States will not have documents with them.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Would most of them be documented?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I don't know whether we have the breakdown of what proportion of the people who come via the land border are undocumented.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: They must have a visitor's visa or something from the States that got them into the States in the first place.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Many of them do.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: It seems to me that if you ask that simple question as to where the document is that allowed them entry into the United States and they say they don't have it, there's something suspicious there. At Lacolle, by the way, they don't have a problem with the 72 hours there because they process it all within that 72-hour timeframe now. They have no concerns at all about it. It won't change their method of operation. We heard that at Lacolle, if they get someone they don't believe, they just turn him around and send him back.

Ms. Martha Nixon: They also have the opportunity. All our officers generally go through a search of the person's belongings. Frequently, you can turn up some documents there.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: But their options are to return them immediately to the United States—which they do in some cases—to offer them an opportunity to withdraw, or to detain them. If they don't withdraw, then they're detained. The fourth option is to release them into the country because you're satisfied as to who they are. You think it's a case you're going to refer to the IRB, and you process the application.

So you've got four possible decisions: one, send them back to the States; two, detain them; three, instead of detention, allow voluntary withdrawal; and four, release them because they're legitimate. I don't see any other options in there. I understand that at Lacolle, at least, that's exactly what they're doing.

Ms. Martha Nixon: At Lacolle, if the person has made a refugee claim, the customs officials should not be turning them back. What they sometimes do—and they have an arrangement, I think, with the U.S.—is they ask if the person had documents when they passed through the U.S. side, and if so, what happened between there and here, which is a small stretch of road? So they'd attempt to, in a sense, determine where the documents went in that small distance.

• 0950

Mr. Steve Mahoney: But if they determine they're criminals, they send them back?

Ms. Martha Nixon: Yes, indeed, if they haven't made a claim.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: I had a question on the adjudicators, just to get away from the land issue.

Martha, you and I were just talking about this, but I'd like to put on the record the concern that has been expressed at Dorval. It seems we have a much different situation at our airport entries than at our land entry points.

The adjudicators will hear someone's case, when they're detained, within 48 hours. The staff at Dorval indicated that too often the adjudicators are simply not accepting the evidence of the immigration officer and they're releasing the detainee after 48 hours. So our staff get to the point where, if it's a borderline case, they say, “There's no point. I'm going to have to go and give evidence. Even though I have a problem with this person, I think this person should be detained, I don't think I'm going to win with the adjudicator. So what's the point? We're filling up our detention cells, so I might as well let him go, because the adjudicator is going to let him go in 48 hours.”

Is that legitimate?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: First of all, the adjudicators, of course, are part of the IRB, which means they are independent decision-makers. Yes, it is incumbent on us, CIC—the hearings officers and the case-presenting officers—to present the best evidence we have available to justify the continued detention.

We're hopeful the regs in Bill C-11 will provide better tools for both our case-presenting officers and our hearings officers, and be a guide for adjudicators who make the decisions on release or continued detention, because what we are deliberately trying to do through the regulations is provide clarity around the grounds for detention and the factors that should be considered when you are either detaining someone and making a case to detain them or when you're considering releasing someone.

So it is our hope that those regulations will assist our people in terms of making their case to adjudicators on detention reviews.

The Chair: Okay.

Judy, then Madeleine, and then Inky.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: What I was trying to do in Steve's point...he listed four options. I guess there's a fifth, though, and that is something we've been hearing on the road, in Parliament, and in the media, which is the assumption that anybody coming from the States has no business trying to seek refuge anywhere else. I have a hard time going any further until we deal with that, because it's growing in momentum, and I'm worried.

We heard it from so many officers on the line—your department staff—saying this to us. I'm sure it's coming out of stress. Everywhere we went, people were overworked. They're trying to come up with solutions to deal with the workload so they can help legitimate folks. But they're making the assumption that anybody coming from the States should just be sent back; they have no business coming into Canada.

My question is, are there not statistics showing that people coming through the States are legitimate, that because of differences in foreign policy, differences in the way we respond to political circumstances in third world and developing countries, there are some legitimate folks? Can you give me an answer to that? I don't mean to be political or rhetorical. I'm just trying to understand this.

The Chair: That was an attitude that was displayed to us: Why in the heck are they claiming refugee status in Canada if they're coming from the United States, which accepts refugees and is a safe country? Why would they want to come here? That's the attitude of most of your people who are on the front lines, I must tell you.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: They also gave us an answer. I think it's critical to note that your front-line people said they're economic refugees rather than true refugees. They're coming to Canada because of our social programming. I think that is part of the issue.

The Chair: Let's have Joan and Martha answer that, in terms of policy.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I'll start.

First of all, our obligations under the Geneva Convention and the Canadian charter set the standard for our refugee determination system, and that is that everyone is entitled to a fair hearing in front of an impartial decision-maker. That's the bottom line in terms of the refugee determination system.

• 0955

When we look at our source countries for refugee claimants and the acceptance rates of claimants from those countries, it is true that claimants who come from the United States and go into our system do sometimes get convention refugee status conferred on them by the IRB, because the board determines they are in need of protection and they do meet the definition of convention refugees. And some of those people do come to Canada from the United States, that's a fact.

The Chair: Who do they need protection from, if they're already in the United States—just for my own education?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I think that's the issue our staff on the front line are expressing to you. Why do those individuals who were in the United States, which is also a signatory to the convention and also has due process and procedural safeguards built in to its refugee determination system the same as we do, not claim refugee status in the United States?

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Maybe they did.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Well, if they did claim refugee status in the United States and if they were granted protection in the United States, then they are ineligible to make a claim in Canada. But we need to find that. We need to get that information. That's part of the challenge when people arrive without documents.

The Chair: So the answer to Judy's question is they have every right to make application unless they've been accepted somewhere else, based on the charter and the convention.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Correct.

The Chair: So a lot of arguments, or at least a lot more questions—

Mr. Steve Mahoney: But normally they're there on a temporary permit of some kind—

The Chair: That's not supplemental. Let's get to Judy's question.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Yes, it is.

The Chair: No, it isn't.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Presumably some of them come—

The Chair: I told her the same thing before on your question, so....

Go ahead.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Presumably some who get into the United States by slipping through the border through Mexico or coming in as a visitor would never make a refugee claim in the United States, because they know they're going to be rejected because of a political bias in the foreign policy.

Look at the statistics we heard the other day from the union guy on El Salvador. The Americans accept only 10% of people from El Salvador. We know the political circumstances, and our numbers show that. We would accept 90% from El Salvador. That is something that has to be addressed. We can't just dismiss it by saying it's the same system for everyone, so why are they coming to Canada. Don't we have to acknowledge there are those factors that have to be addressed by Canada?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I think we can speculate on why Canada's system may be more attractive to some people than the American system. There are some differences between our systems. Putting aside the acceptance—who's accepted in the American system and who's accepted in the Canadian system—there are a lot of similarities in the mechanics of the systems, in terms of a hearing in front of a decision-maker and so on. But there are some key differences.

The Americans have a system of detention for undocumented refugee claimants. We do not have a mandatory detention scheme for undocumented refugee claimants. When refugee claimants arrive, we offer them the ability to work in Canada, the ability to claim social assistance in Canada. We give them interim access to the federal health program so they have health care coverage in Canada. And we do that for obvious public policy reasons, to ensure these people who come to Canada have some means to support themselves and they're not on the street.

The United States does not have the same system. They do not give people access to those services, at least not initially. They do get access to work permits after a first-level positive decision has been taken.

So there are differences between the systems.

If a safe third-country agreement is struck with the United States, the purpose of that is to indicate that if an individual was in the United States and had the opportunity to claim refugee status there and they did not, then they should go back to the United States because they had an opportunity to claim in that system.

The Chair: Precisely.

Yes, Martha.

Ms. Martha Nixon: We've been working closely with the United States now for a good three to four years, for instance on the Argentinians. We've been having a fair number of Argentinians come here, and we know it's an organized movement from a particular area. We've been working with the Americans, saying they're coming through the United States, so clearly they can get into the United States without a visa. We're asking if they can help us track them and figure out what this movement is. It's quite likely that the Americans are now considering something like a visa for Argentina. That would very much affect the flow of people through here.

• 1000

A similar thing happened when we had a number of Ethiopians coming through the United States. We worked with them and a visa requirement was put on, and all of a sudden that flow stopped.

That's just to say that working together with a number of different tools we have, we can affect the way movements move. Both countries—in fact, many countries now—are looking at what we call “asylum jumping”, or hopping around trying to find a country that is going to be the most hospitable for whatever you're looking for. We have to work together in order to get a series of actions to stop that from happening. So it's not one thing that you can point to that will do it but a series of discussions around all the different elements that we can in fact effect, visas being one of the chief instruments we have.

The Chair: Madeleine, do you have any questions, or do you want to wait?

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Yes, I have a question. One thing is clear, a budget will be introduced in the next few days. The Minister of Finance has decided to do his share. I imagine the department has presented relatively clear demands.

Could you tell us what they are? It was clearly said by the witnesses, as well as during our travels last week, that there are real and clear needs. Employees are working overtime and their judgment might be impaired because of that. That is true in all areas. If we see people who have major needs and we decide it's not true, then I think we have an ethical responsibility.

What did you submit to the Minister of Finance to get him to recognize those needs and to give whatever money is necessary to increase resources?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I think it's fair to say that we've had many discussions with all the central agencies, including the Department of Finance, Treasury Board, and the Privy Council Office, on some of the gaps we've been talking about that have been identified through the work we've been doing. I certainly can't tell you what's going to happen with all the information we've been looking at and discussing with those central agencies, but I can say that we have been having a series of discussions with them.

Ms. Martha Nixon: A lot of the areas that we've been looking for additional help with relate to security issues. So I think it's probably fair to say that our requests would be related to front-end port-of-entry resources, increased intelligence. Those kinds of things are the tools we feel we need. So those are the sorts of discussions, looking at fraud issues, and increasing our capacity in that way. Those are the kinds of things we've been discussing.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I have a question, but I don't know if you'll be able to answer it.

Earlier on, you mentioned your relationship with the American authorities. If I understood correctly, we might even start asking Argentine nationals for visas again. If, for a while, you don't need any visas and all of a sudden you need some, then that creates rather strong tension. Remember that when the Americans were thinking about asking Canadians for a visa, we didn't like it.

What are the chances that the USA would do that? The Americans aren't very frustrated by the fact that refugees go through their country to come over here. That doesn't frustrate them at all. Isn't it wishful thinking to hope they'll ask for a visa, especially in the case of the Argentinians?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: If I could attempt to respond, we have been talking about a number of initiatives with the United States, as Martha has indicated, prior to September 11 and obviously after September 11. When we look at the sorts of things we can do collectively to deal with the problem of irregular migration into the United States and Canada, and particularly to deal with security threats and terrorist threats, which obviously have been the focus of our discussion, there are a number of tools that both of us have at our disposal.

• 1005

As Martha has indicated, visitor visa screens are one of those very effective tools. So we have been talking to the Americans about their visitor visa processing, our visitor visa processing, and where we are the same and where there are differences, and whether there are countries that cause some difficulties either for us or for the Americans in terms of the flow of certain nationals into our respective territories. No final decisions have been made on countries that we may want to impose visas on, but clearly we are discussing those things with the Americans, because a visitor visa screen can be very effective.

The Chair: Inky.

Mr. Inky Mark (Dauphin—Swan River, PC/DR): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm glad to hear this morning that we're looking for solutions instead of trying to finger point, because my concern with all the negative press surrounding the whole topic of refugees is that it gives refugees and immigrants to this country a bad name. I believe the people we're talking about are really, as someone mentioned, the asylum seekers and not legitimate refugees.

But at the same time, we cannot disregard the discussions we've had with front-line people. As Mr. Pickard indicated, their primary concern is about....

I think the debate is not about whether we should take refugees. Canadians want refugees to come to this country. It's just the process of how we select them, how we get them into this country.

But we've heard that anywhere from 10% to 20% of the claimants are legitimate, with the remainder being illegitimate, if that's the right word to use. We've talked about a number of vehicles or solutions, including safe third countries. At the same time, since the 1994 accord, Canada has never even put the topic on the table for discussion with the United States, yet the Auditor General, in his 1997 report, stated that the department had stated that 40% would be sent to safe third countries if such a thing existed.

So do you think the evidence we heard on our tour is valid? Also, how much room do you have in making regulations that will assist in coming up with a solution to this problem? I think this is the key question we need to answer.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I think you are correct that one of the key issues we have to deal with in Canada, and I would say every western developed country in the world has to deal with, is how to distinguish the legitimate refugee in need of protection from economic migrants and others who move across borders and are seeking a better life in a western developed country. That very topic is indeed the subject of discussion internationally, because it is, in essence, the crux of the difficulties we all have in our refugee determination systems around the world.

In the Canadian context, the IRB accepts 58% of cases on merit, not including those that are abandoned and withdrawn, but those cases that are in the system and go through the determination system and get a hearing. The United States accepts on merit 53% of the claimants that go through their system, if we try to compare a relevant acceptance rate.

On the safe third country concept, as you may know, in 1994 and 1995 we did enter into discussions with the Americans on a safe third country agreement or a responsibility-sharing agreement. The negotiations carried on for quite some time, over the course of two years. We were unable to reach an agreement with the Americans at that time, and we both decided that since we were unable to reach an agreement that was acceptable to both sides, we would abandon those particular negotiations.

Recently, as part of our discussions with the Americans on how to address the issue of irregular migrants more generally, we have agreed to reopen those discussions on a safe third country agreement. That's not to say there won't be a lot of issues that we will have to deal with in the context of those discussions, and that's not to say that if we do get a safe third country agreement, that will be the magic bullet, because it won't. People will modify their behaviour. We will see people coming through other means and so on. But, clearly, it's an important tool for us. The Americans have agreed with us that it's time we sit down and discuss it again.

• 1010

Mr. Inky Mark: With regard to the figures of 20% and 80% that were mentioned by the staff, how valid do you think those numbers are in terms of 80% being economic?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: As I say, I can only point to the decisions that are taken by the board. When you look at those cases that are not abandoned or withdrawn and that go through the system, the board finds 58% to be legitimate refugees.

The Chair: Mr. Charbonneau is next, and then we'll go around again.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, my questions have to do with the level of resources and the volume of work to be done.

My first question is this. Considering the increase of some $40 million you mentioned earlier, are you back at the 1993 level, in other words the level that existed before the cuts, in terms of resources?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I'm not sure we've done the analysis...if the resources we had before program review were to be restored, I'm not sure that would be adequate. The environment has definitely changed since 1993. It has changed, as we've talked about, in terms of the volume of cases we are dealing with across the board in all lines of business, both overseas and in Canada. But I would also say that the complexity of our environment has increased substantially as well. In the context of the source countries we are dealing with, where people are coming from, and the level of fraud and misrepresentation we find in the program, it is quite a different situation than it was in 1993. Similarly, in Canada the nature of the cases we're dealing with is certainly different from the way it was then.

When we look at what our resource gaps are, we are not looking at what our resources were at some point in the past. We are looking at what are our needs in the current environment and what we can do in terms of our policies, programs, and procedures to deal with those volume increases and the complexity of the types of cases we're dealing with and the resources we have available.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: You're telling me that the environment is more complex, that the volume is higher, that it's more difficult to work abroad and here, but you're not telling me whether you have fewer resources than in 1993. It seems to me you should be telling me this. If you don't even have as many resources as in 1993, but the environment is more complex and the volume is higher, that means there's a clear problem. If you have more resources than in 1993 and the environment is more complex, then we'll see about that part.

[English]

Ms. Martha Nixon: I don't have the figures as far back as 1993. But looking at the total number, we mentioned earlier that in June 2001 we had 4,882 people in the department. If you go back to June 1995, we had 4,605. We went down to a low of 4,100 in June 1998. Since June 1998 we've seen a steady rise in the number of people. So you do look at that fluctuation in terms of total numbers. At the same time you have to take into account all the things Joan mentioned. We're going in the right direction.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I'd also like to take the opportunity to invite you to clarify two pieces of data that you sometimes see circulating in the newspapers. We're told that there are perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 people who have asked for immigrant or refugee status and whose whereabouts are unknown. They're somewhere in Canada. Is this a plausible figure? What proportion of your teams is out looking for those people? Is it your people's responsibility or the RCMP's to find those people? That was my first point.

A very senior official in your department told me that there was a backlog of some 25,000 cases in your department. Could you tell us if this figure is plausible? What is the approximate breakdown of this backlog, by category? Have you asked for any resources to eliminate the backlog?

• 1015

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Let me start by talking about the lost cases. I think we've all seen the media reports of the number of outstanding warrants, which stands now at about 27,000. A warrant is issued when someone does not show up for removal, an inquiry, or a hearing.

That does not mean to say that 27,000 people are in Canada undetected. We know that a number of those people will have already left Canada. We know, for example, that individuals who are under departure orders and who are supposed to check in with us before they leave do not do so. That departure order then becomes a deportation order, and a warrant is automatically issued for them. We know that people who are not being escorted out of the country but who are under deportation and are required to check in with us before they leave do not always do so. Again, it's an automatic issuance of a warrant. So the 27,000 is somewhat misleading in the sense that it does not mean we have 27,000 people roaming around the streets who should be removed.

The Chair: What's your best guesstimate, then, so that we can dispel this rumour? If it's not 27,000, is it zero or something in between? We'd like to have something to go by.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Part of our problem is that it's very hard for us to make that sort of guesstimate in terms of saying we know that x number of that 27,000 have already left the country. Because we don't have exit controls, it's extremely difficult for us to know how many of those 27,000 have already left the country. That's the whole problem in terms of people checking with us before they leave.

When we try to track people, as you know, our priorities for removal are criminals, terrorists, and others. When we're trying to find people, with the help of the RCMP primarily, our priority and our focus is on those who may be a danger to the public, and those are the criminals, terrorists, and security threats.

The Chair: We'll come back to you on the next round.

If I could—

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: My second question was about the breakdown of the backlog. I also wanted to know if you asked for extra resources to eliminate it.

[English]

The Chair: Oh, yes.

Ms. Martha Nixon: We have considerable backlogs both overseas and in Canada. I'm afraid I don't have the exact numbers with me. We are very actively trying to work toward plans to get some of those cleared out. I think in terms of our overseas inventory, because we have been meeting the target set for immigration levels, we tend to think of those more as waiting lists. We are at the moment in the area of having almost 500,000 immigration applications in that inventory.

Here in Canada we have inventories of people who have submitted applications for landing, and we have backlogs of refugee claimants both pre-IRB and in the IRB.

We have indeed looked at asking for additional resources. We have already put some additional resources toward the beginning of moving those backlogs, and we've made it a priority for all of our operations managers to have a plan to do that. We've been working closely with them. We have, of course, ambitions to try to have as much as we can of that work moved before we implement the new act in June.

The Chair: I'd like to direct a question to Tony before we go to the next round. This was brought up by both the unions that were here and those on the ground. It has to do with whether or not immigration officers ought to be more prevalent on the PIL.

Goods are not the important thing at airports. It's people. We're supposed to be watching out for people. At ports, it's obviously water and bridges. On land, obviously, commerce might very well be the thing.

• 1020

It gets back to our discussion about what should be more important, people or goods?

What's your feeling—

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Or good people.

The Chair: Or good people.

What's your feeling about making sure that Immigration people are on the PIL line and that Customs is not used as the first line, but in fact it's a joint responsibility for those who are doing it?

In the airports it would seem to me that it would be logical to put...or even if it's Customs people...but I don't know how you would do that. Obviously you'd have to negotiate that with departments, but the prime responsibility ought to be people at airports. There have been some suggestions that maybe you have Canadian residents, and so we're streaming people as non-residents and so on, and that might be an easier way to expedite the process. I want you to talk a little bit about that, because I think this whole concept of putting people first as opposed to goods is an important signal.

Secondly, you have one immigration officer in the whole port of Vancouver. Calgary, which is becoming, probably, the fourth busiest airport in the country, is seriously in need of some additional people. Your regional directors know how many people they had in 1993 and 1994 and how many they have now. We have numbers that would indicate we're talking about serious human resource increases.

Your western regional person has to cover hundreds of kilometres and in fact has to use overtime, and Treasury Board doesn't give him all of the requirements so he doesn't have flexibility for travel, for cellphones, for radios.... I'm sorry, but the network, at least the hundreds of kilometres from our side we went to take a look at, is seriously understaffed at airports, at the ports, and across the land. We need some numbers.

I know you want to be loyal bureaucrats to your minister. The fact is that this is a committee, and our recommendations to the minister or to the government, to the Parliament of Canada, need to be taken seriously in terms of what numbers we need.

We also hear, in some cases, that the standards of technology are all over the place. In some places, you have absolutely fantastic technology, and in other places you have people who don't even know how to work CPIC because it's not Word-based or Windows-based CPIC. So you have machines there that aren't being utilized by people, and yet security is supposed to be the number one thing.

Let's start from the top in order to put emphasis on checking for people, because people are the ones who create terrorism; it's not goods. There is the whole concept of whether we should be putting Immigration people at the front lines, and secondly, this whole resource area and issue.

Mr. Tony Smith (Director, Ports of Entry Management, Enforcement Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

That is a very tricky issue, as you've gathered on your travels. It's something that I did discuss with you the last time, as you recall, when we gave the technical briefing about this issue of the ports of entry, how they're structured and the various alternatives as to how they're structured.

It's probably not my place to say who should be doing what. That's clearly your prerogative. What I can do is suggest to you the various alternatives and what we've been looking at.

We have worked very closely with Customs over the last year to try to develop our travellers' programs. We are very close together with them in a range of areas, and we're very close to signing a new memorandum of understanding with them about how the relationship ought to be.

As I understand the position in Canada, this goes back to the early 1960s, in fact, where a decision was taken to have a multi-functional officer on the primary line and that the multi-functional officer would perform a range of tasks for a range of different agencies. Customs was perceived, at that time, to be the best equipped agency to do this.

In terms of the primary line right now, there are a number of initiatives we're looking at where we could work more closely with Customs, particularly in terms of processing what we would term to be low-risk traffic, genuine business traffic, people coming up here for conferences and for meetings, frequent travellers, and that kind of thing.

• 1025

For example, at Dorval, we have introduced something—and I don't know if you saw it, those of you who were there—where we are planning to have a separate booth made available at the primary inspection line for people who are coming for temporary work, for short-term workers, to try to speed up that kind of process.

In terms of the mechanisms that are adopted in Canada to process people, we are looking at the business process. It seems to me there is scope to try to streamline a lot of things. We do find a lot of people being sent into immigration secondary at the ports of entry who maybe shouldn't be there, who maybe, if we were able to identify them, identify their needs, and document them overseas before they arrived in Canada, could be admitted in some way at the primary line, either through a dedicated channel or through some form of streaming.

This would take you into areas of getting more information from people before they set out. I think this is the way a lot of administrations are looking at things right now; that if you are going to make a journey overseas, it may be that the best point to make your plans and to get your papers in order would be with the high commission or the embassy before you travel. You could work through your travel agent to ensure you have the necessary documents and papers so that when you arrive at the port of entry the process is relatively seamless.

Mr. Chairman, in my view, people don't come to ports of entry to queue up for bureaucracy. People come to ports of entry to go through quickly, pick up their baggage, get in their taxi and get on their way. What we're looking at is whether there is scope maybe to shift more of our processing overseas and therefore the primary function on the primary line becomes less critical and less intense.

In terms of a couple of the technology options we're looking at right now, again, as I mentioned before, the immigration officer is particularly concerned about fraud. It's something that unfortunately does exist in the immigration context, and it is prevalent particularly at ports of entry where people arrive and the immigration officer does not have the tools at his disposal, certainly not at his immediate disposal, to be able to detect fraud, to know whether the person concerned is the person he says he is, and to be able to establish the document with which that person arrived.

There are a couple of things we are looking at that I think really go to equipping our officers and giving them more tools to be able to tackle fraud. One is fingerprinting. We are working with the RCMP very closely to try to introduce some form of automated fingerprinting recognition system within the ports of entry that would at least give the officers the tools to be able to have fingerprints cross-matched much more quickly in those cases where somebody arrives and we have no idea who they are, and potentially to screen out more effectively those people who legislation permits to be screened out such as previous claimants or criminals. I think it would be a very big boost to the ports of entry to have that kind of tool.

The second area, Mr. Chairman, we're looking at, in conjunction with a number of other departments, notably Transport but also Customs, is the acquisition of passenger information from the travel industry. I mentioned before that I think a critical relationship is that between the control authorities, which includes Immigration, Customs, and Transport, and those people who bring people to your country. The travel industry has been very cooperative with us in terms of working with us to try to find ways whereby they can help to screen out those people who would not normally be admissible to a territory, and to provide us with the information we need to be able to do that ahead of time.

In terms of the primary inspection line, I would rather look a little bigger and recommend to you that you look at immigration in a broader continuum and in a context that starts and ends in a country. It either starts and ends in the country where the person sets out from, and ergo is going back to, or is in your country because they are coming to live here. If we can join up all those lines, then the emphasis upon the primary inspection line is not quite so stark as perhaps it is now.

I have one other point, if I may, Mr. Chairman, and that is on small ports. You mentioned you had been to some regions, which I'm aware of, particularly in the Atlantic region, and in the prairies region, where I have had a good deal of discussions with staff about how to handle these very large geographical areas with limited ports of entry and limited scope to cover those.

• 1030

This is similar to a problem we encountered in the U.K. not too long ago. The main solution there is a multi-agency officer. It would not be right, it would not make sense, to have an immigrations officer and a customs officer and a police officer and another officer all in one fairly remote small port where you may be able to have one officer doing it all. Customs are probably still best equipped to do this. They certainly are in the U.K., and I believe they would probably be here.

But again, solutions can be looked at in which, if somebody turns up at one of those places, a mechanism exists whereby these people could be processed by whichever agency is best equipped to do so. So we're looking at things like video or telephone interviewing—remote interviewing...because you really need to make sure all the agencies are joined up, Mr. Chairman. This has been our primary aim.

The Chair: On the resource side, we need something more definitive before you go.

I can tell you, we were told that the prairies needs at least a hundred or so more and B.C. needs 40 or 50. I don't know what you heard over there, but obviously Ontario.... Your union people have indicated at least a thousand more for Customs and a thousand more for Immigration. I haven't heard anything so far, other than the fact that you have $39 million and maybe a hundred people, and you think this is going to do it. I don't believe you.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: No, no, no—

Ms. Martha Nixon: No, no, we never said this would do it.

The Chair: Well, give us some numbers.

Ms. Martha Nixon: We would totally agree with you that at the moment there is every reason to believe we need resources. We've gone through this really extensive exercise I mentioned earlier, the departmental assessment, bringing forward all of those managers you spoke to, having them put forward their case for where they had pressures, where they weren't able to manage, and what it was they needed.

When we put all of it together, it was a pretty huge number. Right now in this process we are going through this challenge function I mentioned, which is simply to have two or three people sit with everyone, look at the whole picture, and determine a realistic number with which to go forward to Treasury Board.

The Chair: What was the number you came up with, just so we know what the wish list was? You're not giving us any reference point.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to address this issue because—

Mr. Paul Forseth: So would I.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: If we think, as a committee, that we can micromanage, suggesting in a report what a number should be, then I'm concerned. Our job is to suggest what policies we recommend; it's their job to determine what resources they need.

The Chair: Yes, I know. It's a debatable point.

Okay, do you have anything more to add, other than the fact that you have a wish list and you are going through it or something?

Ms. Martha Nixon: No. I would just like to add and underscore that we are very seized with the resource issue and we're working very hard at it. I don't want you to be left with the impression that we're being casual about it or we aren't taking it very seriously.

The Chair: A parliamentary committee can be very helpful to the process—

Ms. Martha Nixon: Absolutely.

The Chair: —and while you're still crunching numbers, we have a budget coming down in three weeks and we'd like very much to be able to assist a department that we believe—after hearing the things we did—needs additional resources. We'd like to be able to suggest this, and you can help us now by giving us some numbers. Whether it's relevant or not, I don't know, but so far we've heard that yes, it's been incremental, and yes, we need some, but I don't hear any firm commitments—

Mr. Paul Forseth: Let me ask a specific question, out of respect for Steve.

We need some information. Based on this information, the committee as a whole will decide what to do with it. But very simply, you said you have five regions; you've been going through the challenge process. I want to know what each region has asked for.

I know specifically what B.C./Yukon asked for. They asked for a hundred and forty-eight. It would be very simple to give us the four other numbers, and that should be available in a day.

Now, I understand it's $50,000 per refugee application. That's $2.35 billion. Can you give us a global number for immigration? We're getting—I don't know—200,000. What's a global number for normal immigrant applicants when you take in family, business class, and all of them together? What does it cost the federal government?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I'll turn to Martha, but I'm not sure we have a cost per applicant or a cost per case.

• 1035

As Martha mentioned, we do have a workload formula for overseas, where we look at productivity that is very much based on the type of case, the type of workload you're dealing with, and the environment in which it is dealt with. If you're in an environment where there is a higher incidence of fraud or where documentation is not readily available, it's going to be more costly for your Canada-based officers to deal with it.

On the other hand, if you're in an environment where you can use a lot of locally engaged staff because the particular workflow is suited to using locally engaged staff, who are less expensive than Canada-based staff because you don't have all the overhead costs Martha referred to, then this situation is going to be less costly to deal with.

The formula takes into account all of these issues, but I don't think we have a breakdown of how much it costs per immigrant case.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: I have a really quick comment.

Joan has said the numbers that have been submitted by middle management on what they require are very large. Martha has said you are seized by this issue of getting much information. Tony has said the cross-training of numbers of people here is needed so they can handle the immigration, customs, and enforcement functions properly. The message is clear to this committee: dollars are required. They haven't been able to give us an exact figure, but they've told us large resources are required.

The Chair: It was a supplement. You were on the list to make the point, Paul....

Mr. Jerry Pickard: I want to say I think they've given it to us, Paul.

The Chair: Well, I'm not sure that I know that at all.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Every citizen in Canada knows that they need more resources, but we're looking for some easy, precise numbers, and I think we're going to get them from the challenge exercise.

In the normal immigration stream—not refugees—what is the current backlog for the department?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: As Martha indicated, overseas we have almost half a million people in our backlog of applicants for permanent residence. In the context of cases waiting to be referred to the board, we know we have in the neighbourhood of 10,000 cases waiting.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Is that to the IRB?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I'm sorry. Yes, to the Immigration and Refugee Board; that's correct.

We know after people have been to the Immigration and Refugee Board, currently they're entitled to go through a post-determination refugee claim process. We know we have approximately 10,000 people who are waiting to be heard, waiting to have their cases processed in that particular process. And in the removal stream, we know we have something like 8,000 or 10,000 cases waiting to be removed.

I think this gives you grosso modo. It does not include the numbers at the IRB itself waiting to be heard. The chairperson of the board did talk to you about the numbers at the board itself when he was here. You would also want to factor those numbers in.

The Chair: Okay.

Madeleine.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: During our stay on the east coast, when we heard witnesses, Tuesday, there was something said about reorganizing the customs agents and immigration staff and putting them in the same department. Is that an avenue you examined when you were thinking about this to try to increase effectiveness, ensure the security of personnel and get the best performance possible from the resources you have already?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Well, in response to this question, I'd refer you back to some of Tony's comments about the concept of the border in an immigration context.

Part of what we are attempting to do—as Tony reflected—in looking at dealing with increasing volumes at the border itself is to take as much work away from the border as we can, to try to screen people before they actually arrive at the border, so the process when they get there goes much more quickly.

• 1040

If you were to concentrate all of your border resources—Customs, Immigration, and perhaps other agencies, because there are other agencies involved at the border—then you would be concentrating all your efforts at the border. This is, we think, not necessarily the most effective way to deal with the sorts of volumes of traffic we are seeing coming into Canada.

We think the more appropriate way of dealing with the traffic is to look at it from outside the land border or the airports and do as much as you can to pre-screen people before they arrive, to deal with your improperly documented, your irregular migrants, and your criminal and security threats before they arrive at your border.

The Chair: We agree. It takes people to do that too, right?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Correct.

The Chair: Madeleine, do you have another question, or Judy?

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Fine.

[English]

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: What I want to do is offer four short hypotheses and get a response.

The Chair: Short.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Yes. Number one, based on this discussion, it seems to me if we hadn't cut the hell out of the department back in 1993, we wouldn't be running to catch up today and trying to deal with the—

The Chair: We had to, in 1993-94.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: We still had a deficit.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: That's fine. You can determine whether your priority is always a balanced budget or appropriate systems in place to deal with—

The Chair: That's for another day in debate.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: The second—

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Spend, spend, spend.

The Chair: Judy, go ahead with your—

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: What are we doing spending all of our time here quizzing about resources if it's not relevant?

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Your hypotheses—

The Chair: Judy, put them forward, would you?

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Number two, the volume may be going up, but our numbers certainly are not going up on an overall basis. The last report out suggests in fact that we're not going to be on target for 1% of population. I think in fact what we're seeing is what everybody was worried about: a retrenchment, because in the post-September 11 world we aren't equipped to respond effectively and we're going to pay the price that way.

The third hypothesis is that our inability to respond to all of these scenarios around refugees, who are such a small part of the system, is actually having—as I think Inky hinted—a devastating impact in terms of the suggestion that's gaining credence of having a moratorium on all refugees.

The last point, I guess, really relates to the second hypothesis, and that is, some provinces desperately need to increase their numbers—like Manitoba, where in fact if we hadn't had the nominee program, if we hadn't had refugee-sponsored programs, if we hadn't had some family reunification, we'd be a declining population.

I'm quite worried that we haven't been able to respond effectively since September 11. I don't see the plan today. I hope maybe at Treasury Board there is one, but—

The Chair: But the plans, believe it or not.... We're trying to do a whole year's worth of work that the committee would do in terms of performance reviews, in terms of the immigration numbers that have just been announced—and we will do all that. I've noted all of your four points, and yes, yes, yes, yes. But we're not going to get to an answer right now.

I'll go to Inky, if I could, and then Steve and Yvon.

Mr. Inky Mark: I have just one short question. We know that one of the areas that is problematic is people getting on aircraft with ID that then, by the time they get here, disappears.

Through regulations is it possible to keep them on the airplane, if they can't show identification at the exit when they land in this country?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Let me start. Then I may turn to Tony to provide some more details. As you know, our immigration control officer network overseas has as one of its primary objectives for those officers to train the airlines to check documents before people get on the planes. We work very closely with the airlines, as Tony mentioned.

We are putting in place a system—the new legislation will give us the authority and the regulations will provide further details—for the collection of advance passenger information and passenger name records from airlines and other transportation companies, to provide us in advance of arrival details on individuals who are travelling with those transportation companies. This will allow us to do some pre-screening, if you will, before people arrive, to try to identify individuals who may be of concern before they arrive.

As you know, we also have at some of our ports of entry disembarkation teams that are at the gate when people get off the planes. What we sometimes find is documents disappear between people getting off the planes and arriving at the primary inspection line. We currently have a number of tools or initiatives available, and we are moving towards giving ourselves additional tools to help us deal with some of those issues.

• 1045

The short answer is no.

The Chair: Steve, Jerry, and Yvon. I'll let you put the questions. I want to try to get to the answers.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: There are claims that there are 27,000 people—however you want to say this—roaming our streets. My suspicion is that most of these people are not in fact refugees and that they're people who've walked away at the end of a visitor's visa.

As many as 20,000, it has been estimated, are working in construction in places like—no, quite seriously—Mississauga and the GTA. The construction unions have all come forward and said, we want to get these people into the country because they're good people, they're not criminals, etc. I've asked the minister to consider an amnesty program. She's rejected my request, and she doesn't reject many of mine.

My question is, why is the department so intransigent on this? We've done amnesties before. It would clean up a huge backlog, and obviously we wouldn't grant amnesty to anybody who was a criminal. They would have to qualify.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Then you wouldn't have to spend anything.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: If I could address the construction worker issue first—

The Chair: Very quickly, though, Joan.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: As you know, we have been discussing this for some time with the construction industry—the employers and the unions—and HRDC to try to come to an agreement on a program that would see us being able to issue work permits quickly to construction workers to come to the greater Toronto area and deal with some of the shortages in that particular industry.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: You're already there.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: In terms of amnesties and so on, we just don't know how many people who are in Canada without status are truly underground. I think we've had this discussion before, namely that it's very difficult to estimate or to get some kind of a fix on how many people are truly underground. We have lots of mechanisms for people to be able to stay in Canada. If not the refugee determination system, we have humanitarian and compassionate processes, and we have provision for people to be able to make application if they have a compelling case to make.

Of course, people are always encouraged to leave the country and make their application from outside the country. If they've spent time in Canada, if they've been working in Canada, and if they've shown that they can establish themselves in Canada, they may very well qualify to come back to Canada as immigrants.

The Chair: Jerry.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Thank you very much.

Joan, when you talk about the 58% acceptance rate by our boards, I really don't think we can tie that to economic refugees. They could have applied in the United States or anywhere else, so I really can't see how that association works. I think it's country picking in that case, and that's what your front-line people will bring to us.

The point I think is relatively important—Tony brought it up, and you've brought it up and have really endorsed it strongly—is that we need to do an awful lot more work outside Canada. As to this claimant issue, where a guy arrives on the soil and says he's a refugee, people are telling us it's costing on average $50,000 to process that person. If we did the work outside Canada, they couldn't arrive on the soil and make the claim—

The Chair: It's $300,000.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: —but they would be dealt with in a much better way. They couldn't get on an airplane and come to Canada without having the proper papers processed outside the country. Is there a possibility of putting that in place and enforcing it?

Second, would that endanger the refugee system as we know it?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: As you know, we have a refugee resettlement program overseas. We do select between 10,000 and 13,000 refugees overseas every year, either government-sponsored or privately sponsored refugees. The problem is that there are some 150 million people on the move around the world according to various estimates by international organizations. Even if we have a refugee resettlement program—and we are a country that has one of the biggest, strongest, and longest traditions in terms of resettling refugees directly from overseas—people will come. That is just a fact that none of us can ignore, that even if we try to take our refugees only from overseas, people get on planes and they come. They come to Canada, they come to the United States, they come to Europe, and they come to Australia. You have to be able to have a refugee determination system to deal with those people, because they will come regardless.

• 1050

Mr. Jerry Pickard: I think the argument from a lot of people, though, is that these people are in many cases jumping the queue, overriding our whole system, and are using a technicality to get in. That is what I saw as causing the anger in people. People who legitimately go through the process are held up and screened in another way than people who jump the queue and move into the country. There is some big-time resentment about that. Can we deal with that?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: As we have been saying, this is the crux of the difficulty in our refugee determination system as well as everyone else's: how do you quickly determine who are legitimate refugees and give them protection quickly, and how do you quickly determine who are not in need of protection and remove them? We've been talking about a number of the tools we have at our disposal to try to do it, but there is no easy answer.

The Chair: Just before Yvon poses his question, I want to make sure of something, because we may have to have you back. We'll decide what we're going to do when we get back because we have to get to the vote in five minutes. Could you provide this committee with this possible list of tools you are looking at, which you are talking about either internally or with the United States, so we can consider those for our report.

[Translation]

Yvon, your turn.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Mr. Chairman, I think the departmental resources must certainly have seen that this committee would look favourably upon supporting requests for an increase in resources. I don't want to second-guess the conclusions of the committee, but I can tell you that I would tend to support such a recommendation.

On the other hand, we must also see to the effective use of resources. The reality for us as members today, is that we get a lot of cases concerning visitor visas, immigration and so on. We're snowed under by problems that are often very easy to solve, problems that we send up to the minister's office or to other levels in the department. Now, people often tell us that it's clear, that these are bureaucratic questions, outlandish requests, lost files, student visa renewals for a third year. All of the previous files are requested and it takes two months to process.

[English]

The Chair: Yvon, get to the question. We have to get to the vote, I have one more question, and I have a committee waiting.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I must set out the problem. It's a problem that you have as well as many others.

[English]

The Chair: I know the context. Just ask the question.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I want to know if the department can make a commitment to see to improving the training of the officers, either through an improvement in technology or simplified directives, in order to get rid of all those useless bureaucratic problems, those outlandish requirements, those useless delays that land on our desks. If the officers waste 10, 15 or 20% of their time with matters like those, that's time that your staff can't use to treat files in depth.

Are you going to make an effort in that direction?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Perhaps I can respond by telling you that we have created under my particular sector what we call a director general of business solutions. That branch is responsible for identifying best practices and putting into place processes that are going to improve client service while still maintaining program integrity. The branch is particularly concerned with the global case management system, which is the new technology system we have been funded for, and is in place to ensure that we identify the business requirements for that IT system, and that in identifying those business requirements we look at ways we can streamline and constantly improve our processes.

Another of the things Martha talked about was our centralization pilot, where we have been experimenting with new ways of delivering our business service to try to make it more efficient and more streamlined. This is part of the direction we're going in to try to make ourselves more efficient.

The Chair: Quickly, Mr. Forseth.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Can you give me any quick numbers? How much of a problem is the fact that when some people make refugee claims, the reason they do it is to try to avoid the fees of the normal immigration process? They secretly have relatives here in Canada. Normally, they should go through the family reunification process. They just want to avoid the fees, so they misrepresent themselves because they come from a place where they can do that. How much of a problem is that, namely subverting the refugee program just because they want to avoid the fees?

• 1055

The Chair: Good question. He's posed that question, and maybe you could get back to us with an answer, because we have to move.

There are two other things. There are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings with regard to 72 hours and this PRA, and in fact your own people suggest that a PRA is going to cause all kinds of other problems. In other words, they think Bill C-11 allows everybody to claim an appeal with respect to the PRA and so on. Ben, our researcher, has been able to put together a pretty good case. I'm going to forward his questions, which I think are very good and which the committee would like to have you answer in writing.

Thank you, Martha, Joan, Elizabeth, and Tony.

We may call you back again. It all depends on where we're at in terms of travel and writing the report. As you know, there are so many more issues we weren't able to get to. We may have to call you back just so we can get further clarification once we start building it.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: We'd be happy to do that.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.