CITI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA CITOYENNETÉ ET DE L'IMMIGRATION

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, February 25, 1998

• 1539

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.)): I'd like to call the meeting to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we shall resume consideration of recommendation 155 of the report of the legislative review advisory group, entitled “Not just Numbers: A Canadian Framework for Future Immigration”, particularly issues relating to removal and detention.

• 1540

Today we're very fortunate to have with us the three authors of the report. I know they have gone through a gruelling experience, and have heard a tremendous amount of information. The most gruelling part, I think, would be to have to sort and to categorize the kind of information they had been receiving.

We're very pleased to have here today Mr. Robert Trempe, the chairman of the advisory group, Ms. Roslyn Kunin, and Ms. Susan Davis. Thank you very much for appearing. My understanding is that you're going to make a short presentation and then we can delve right into a questioning session.

Members of the committee, I'd like to indicate to you that we will stick very closely to the formal schedule just to be sure that everybody has a chance to the kinds of questions they have mulling in their minds. Please keep your preambles as short as possible and get right to those intelligent questions you have already prepared for this group. Thank you very much.

Mr. Trempe, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Robert Trempe (Chairman, Immigration Legislative Review Advisory Group): Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting us, my colleagues, Ms. Davis and Ms. Kunin, and myself. We are accompanied by one of the members of the secretariat that the department graciously made available to us during the year we carried out our work.

I will be making some very short comments and Ms. Davis and Ms. Kunin will then elaborate on them. Our presentation will be very brief so as to give the members of the committee an opportunity to ask all of their questions. We will try to respond to them as best we can.

You already know why we recommended that the issue of detention and removal will be referred to your committee. I have read the transcripts of the meetings you held with various departmental officials. Your observations, comments and questions clearly indicate that you understand why we have referred these two important issues to you.

I will not be quoting anyone because I think that this could prove to be dangerous, however, more specifically, Mr. Chairman, I would like to reiterate what one of your colleagues said so eloquently and that is that when an incident, often an unfortunate incident, occurs and the media seizes upon it, it's very often connected to the issue of detention or release, to the removal or non-removal of a newcomer or immigrant.

The Canadian public does not understand why this individual was detained or released. Why is someone detained and why is someone released? We ask this question even more when an individual, following his release, takes the opportunity to assassinate a baby three days later. Obviously, the Canadian public does not understand.

The Canadian public does not understand because we are living in a system where the data that could shed some light on a number of reasons—which are certainly not all bad—reasons for which

[English]

an adjudicator or an officer of the department releases someone or decides that this person will not be removed are not clear, are not known, are not codified. You don't have the data. Again and again in your questions I saw that you were after data, just as the minister is, just as we were in our research. How many outstanding removal orders? You don't have the answer. We don't have the answer. Nobody has the answer.

• 1545

So I think you know why we defer the whole thing to you. It's because we believe very deeply that as elected members, you're in touch with the public, with your constituents, and before government decides to put into regulation or into law the kind of codification we suggest, the reason why one should be detained or removed, or not detained or not removed, you should know what your constituents think and feel about these questions, which are maybe the most difficult questions in the whole procedure of the immigration system.

[Translation]

Another reason why we referred this matter to your committee is that as elected officials you are in touch with the citizens and, following the consultations, you are probably more knowledgeable than either we or the Minister about the views of the Canadian public on some of these recommendations, particularly those dealing with these two vital issues, namely, detention and removal.

Why do you probably know more than we do or the Minister does? Throughout the consultations that we are holding, and the ones which the Minister will be holding, we are, because of the nature of these consultations, in contact with what we call the immigration industry, which includes people with vested interests. There is nothing sordid about these interests; these are people or organizations that protect other people, and this is very good. There are lawyers that defend these people, and this is required in our system. However, these people know better than anyone else every little feature of the immigration programs and are a bit more knowledgeable about how these programs operate, enabling them to manipulate the programs, to play games, to use them for their own purposes and to help those people they are protecting or representing, etc.

Generally speaking, the public has a lot of opinions about immigration, but has very little information. The public comprises those individuals who, in each of your ridings, may tell the elected officials what they think about certain things, particularly these two issues, detention and removal, which pertain to the freedom of people.

To conclude, I would say that our current system does not appear to have or to give clear-cut grounds for decisions that are made one way or the other. I'm not talking about the court, I'm talking about people at different levels in the system who take action which leads to detention or release. People are sent back to their country or allowed to stay.

We have a system that is not transparent for the government, for the people and for the users. The decisions we make in these cases have very dramatic consequences for the people involved.

• 1550

What we are trying to do, and I'm not sure that we have been completely successful, is to suggest a system with greater transparency and more accountability, where we are clearer about the grounds, reasons and principles underlying the various reasons given and the various actions taken throughout the entire immigration procedure, particularly with respect to detention and removal.

In answering your questions, my colleagues will be more specific about the contents of our report. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Susan Davis to explain briefly the process we followed in drafting this report.

[English]

The Chairman: Okay, as long as comments pertaining to recommendation 155 can be channelled in. All right? Thank you.

Ms. Susan Davis (Member, Immigration Legislative Review Advisory Group): Sure, I'll do that. In fact, I'll go direct to that rather than give you the survey of how we got to where we got to.

Let me just say that in the year it took us to consult and think and read and synthesize and argue our points, it became very clear from the submissions we received that there was only one way to go about curing the ills. It would interest you to know that beginning from January 1, 1996, we started compiling an inventory of issues. These issues were extricated from every written and spoken submission we received and they were categorized under headings and cross-referenced. Although we were looking for solutions to this litany of horrors, what we did in the end was to compile an inventory of issues. We were unable to compile an inventory of solutions from the submissions we received. It occurred to these three very different people that if we were to do any good at all, it would not be to take these thousands of tiny points and try to evolve a process around them—a report by a thousand cuts, if you will—but to evolve a new approach, based on emerging trends.

That having been said, we were struck by the fact that there is an existing trend. It's the one Robert referred to. It is that since 1994—and certainly it was exposed through the submissions we received—there has been a growing concern in the Canadian public about the departmental ability to administer the laws pertaining to deportation and removal in a way the public would entrust it with.

My point is simply to say to you that we believe we have come up with basic solutions in our report. We're sure you'll ask questions. What I'm sure you're wondering about is basically what you could do in the meanwhile, because the legislative review process, even though the minister has an aggressive timetable, is still not going to answer the very short-term need of the public to have answers on removal and detention.

I'll leave my comments there. I know Roslyn wants to answer that question.

Ms. Roslyn Kunin (Member, Immigration Legislative Review Advisory Group): The reason why we are putting this particular thorny issue before this committee is first of all that our inventory of issues revealed that there was an extraordinarily high level of dissatisfaction with the whole process of detention and removal. It was felt there was a lack of efficient and effective processing of persons who were or were not—and it's sometimes difficult to tell which is which—subject to these processes, and the authorities were applied arbitrarily.

This isn't something new. It is completely consistent with the concerns expressed back in 1994, when a round of immigration hearings was held. Some of you might be familiar with them.

Also, there was a vagueness in the explanations for how the enforcement system does work, how it's supposed to work, how it actually is working. This has resulted in, I think I can say, a fairly complete lack of confidence of the public in the system, or at the very least a complete ignorance: maybe it's working, but if it is, we don't see it and we aren't sure how it's doing it.

• 1555

Some solutions have been put forward. The solutions in the Tassé report, which some of you are familiar with, were often brought up to us, in the course of our work, as possible solutions. But in essence, from 1994 to the year when we were doing our work, little seems to have changed. Certainly nothing has changed in the public perception of the problem.

What we were hoping to do was to come to grips with this issue, but as you know, we had a very finite amount of time. We can't solve all the world's problems with limited resources and in limited time.

We also had it as one of our basic principles that we should indulge in full-information decision-making, that we should know what it is we are deciding on. There is not much information about removals and detentions.

We know there is a problem with removing people. We know one of the issues in terms of the problem of removing people is that some countries will not give documents to their less-desirable citizens to allow them to come back home. We know as well that only a minority of the people who are subject to removal procedures face this lack of travel documents, but it's very hard to get the numbers to know what percentage have that problem and what other problems exist with respect to removals.

There's the lack of resources, the lack of being able to keep track of where these people are, and the lack of a degree of freedom for the officers. We have good officers. We're going to have to trust their judgments.

These issues are very complicated. We don't want to micro-manage them, but when you don't micro-manage them, you get to a level of arbitrariness, or the appearance of arbitrariness, and accusations that decisions—who is detained and who isn't detained, who is removed and who isn't removed—are somewhat arbitrary and are not following any rule of law.

Those of you who have looked at our report—and we certainly hope you have—will notice that we did recommend a completely new legislative framework with regard to enforcement. We would like to see a system with respect to all of immigration and protection that went by rule of law, that was carefully documented, down to a user guide that the legislators, the Canadian public, the potential immigrants, their legal representatives and the groups and so on that support these people, would all have so that we would get away from the degree of arbitrariness. People would know the rules by which the game was played.

We're looking for a system of compliance, and a system, therefore, of detention and removal based on highly codified laws and regulations so that people know what the rules are. They know if this happens, you will be detained, and if this doesn't happen, you won't, as opposed to, well, maybe you will, maybe you won't, or maybe we'll remove you, maybe we won't, where nobody is quite sure exactly how that is going to fall.

Looking at this particular issue, because we didn't have time to micro-manage it, to get it down to specific details, we thought this particular standing committee, as elected representatives of the public of Canada, representing no specific interest group, with no vested interest, I'm assuming, beyond the good of Canada and an immigration system that works for the good of Canada, would be the people who would have the time, the interest, the expertise and the research resources to look into this and to analyse it a bit more deeply.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

We'll open for questioning now. Mr. Reynolds, please.

Mr. John Reynolds (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to start off by congratulating all three of you for a very professional job. Whether we agree or disagree with your comments, you did a lot of work. You probably gave us more than we all want to try to digest in the next short period of time.

I would like to start off by asking you one question in terms of guidance. If you look at what you did in a whole year—the number of witnesses you interviewed and the reports you read—to come up with your report, and when you look at the minister's schedule over a 10-day period, you wonder how one can absorb so much in 12-hour days over, say, a 10-day period.

I'm sure most members of this committee are getting calls from constituents who are angry—“I put my application in, but the minister's not hearing it”—but there's only so much time in a day. What's the best avenue you can suggest to us here?

You've seen a bunch of people, and the minister has, but who should we be talking to when we look into this specific issue? How would you suggest we go about either re-interviewing some of the people you saw or looking outside that?

• 1600

For instance, I know the Americans, talking about recommendation 155, have a whole new facility they're building now and they're going to hold people. Should we be looking at that system they have? What suggestions and guidance can you give us as to what we should be looking at?

Ms. Susan Davis: There are different kinds of consultations. Our consultation was more to inform ourselves than to give the public a chance to be heard, to be very frank with you. We come from three very different backgrounds, and we sought out people who I suppose were part of the immigration industry, whether it related to teaching a second language, doing social work related to settlement, doing legalistic work relating to federal court, or doing police work relating to underworld crime. We sought to bring that rather disparate group of people together in a room and seek out opinion that way.

It had a limited utility, but it certainly allowed us, in asides and at the breaks, to get a different view of the world, and it certainly allowed us to see a commonality in people's concerns. Again, there were no solutions, but lots of common issues to attack.

After the minister comes back.... One doesn't know what to tell the committee except to say if you believe it's your mission to give people a chance to be heard, that says you must have very broad-based opportunities. If you think your mission is to inform yourself, it gives you a lot more opportunity to be selective about who you invite and why you invite them, but it means a lot more preparatory work, because you have to be prepared with the precise areas and the precise questions before you figure out who you want to invite. But the resources are certainly there and available to the minister as to who we saw and who she'll see.

One final comment is it's really important that people have a sense that if they're not heard verbally, if their voices aren't heard, the written word is paid attention to. The scrutiny of that inventory of issues was our discipline: to keep that inventory growing, orderly, organized, and read over and over to see who was raising what and to ask for that submission when we read the inventory. So there is something to be said for just keeping yourself organized with regard to what the issues are and who's raising what issues. It's almost more important than what they're saying: where's the commonality of concern?

Mr. John Reynolds: Could we get a list of the groups of people you saw, based on segments such as this section and other sections, so that when we are looking at different sections we'll know who you listened to and who you received representations from?

Mr. Robert Trempe: It would be difficult to go by section. In our round tables, we did specialize, as you probably know, on family economic protection and that sort of thing. I think the secretariat—and I hope Madame Giri is taking notes—would be able to provide you with at least a beginning of that division of people we met over specific subjects, yes.

Mr. John Reynolds: I don't think we need a motion for that to be delivered to us, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: No.

Mr. John Reynolds: That's great.

Let me ask you, specifically, did you receive from groups or individuals any briefs or representations addressed to the detention question? Is there anything in-depth in that area? The cost of that is one thing I've been talking about for quite a while. It always came back to me that there's a great cost to that, but how do we compare that cost to what the cost is once they get in and go on welfare and other costs too?

Mr. Robert Trempe: Exactly.

Mr. John Reynolds: I'm wondering if you have any in-depth reports that could give us any guidance in that area so we know what the difference is.

Mr. Robert Trempe: Oh, yes, we have specific reports. I think they all go by what you said. There's a lot of cost about detention. You will read that, and we received a good lot of them on detention.

There are in some cases really terrible conditions for people who are detained, and this has been attacked. The people who did that were certainly right in doing that. They were describing conditions. They were trying to find better legal ways to proceed. That's another kind of submission we received. But nobody really looked at the cost.

• 1605

Quite frankly, the first reaction we got from some members of the department was exactly that. It costs a lot. Well, what does it cost to have people roaming around the country or disappearing everywhere?

The Chairman: Madam Leung.

Ms. Sophia Leung (Vancouver Kingsway, Lib.): I just wanted to thank you three for your hard work. I know it took a lot of time and effort.

From your report I understand you did recommend for us to call different kinds of witnesses and to collect data. Can you be more specific on what type of witness might be helpful and what type of data?

Ms. Roslyn Kunin: We will have the list of people who have spoken to us, and that will be made available. We would like you to look at a variety of people.

One of the groups of people we would like you to listen to is people who don't necessarily have a vested interest in the immigration industry: the ordinary Canadian who is walking around, who is aware of the situation, who feels the consequences of the results of the system when it works and more especially when it doesn't. We would like you to do that.

Then, about the kind of questions Mr. Reynolds was asking, there are no detailed answers. We can get figures on how much it costs to detain a person in a certain facility per day, but nobody has done a cost-benefit analysis to say, but if the person isn't detained, what does it cost to find them later or what does it cost the system if they disappear? That kind of analysis would be very useful if those kinds of questions could be answered satisfactorily. I know I wasn't able to find answers to them.

Ms. Sophia Leung: I understand you also received many briefs. Can you be more specific on what kind of concern and from what type of people?

Ms. Susan Davis: I think you will remember that one of the recommendations we made about detention...although people seem to take it out of our new compliance system that we'll have large-scale detentions and everybody will be detained, it certainly wasn't our intention. It was our intention to say in that compliance section that the regulations would clearly define under what conditions a person would lose their freedom in Canada, so they would clearly know the consequence of not appearing at a hearing or not complying with a condition.

We also argued for the idea of having a process not stopped by the fact that the person is in detention. We have a system now where a person who is in detention is quite isolated from the immigration process and from the real world. That was one whole heading of concern.

Many NGOs, such as the Inter-Church Committee, spoke to us about the concerns they had about people sitting in detention without the access they need to counsel, to people who could end the condition of detention for them. We also speak to that in the compliance section. Detention doesn't have to be long-term if the person can end the situation that put them into detention in the first place, if the person says, this is my identity, I am this person, I will stay with such-and-such a person at such-and-such an address. But unless they can make those phone calls and unless they can get access to counsel....

That was one whole area of concern, that we use detention punitively but we don't use it productively, because if we keep a person holed up in detention it doesn't further the immigration process either to keep them or to get them out. It's counter-productive, and punitive is only one purpose when it ought to be multi-purpose.

Other headings of concern I think were about the sense of due process in that, and certainly in removal. The whole sense you got from people on the non-governmental side, the major complaints, were that people who shouldn't be detained were being detained and people who ought to be detained weren't being detained. And there was the like situation with removal: the people who were easily identifiable because they had always complied with the system were removed. Why? And why were the ones who were a little hard to get not removed?

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And when you talk about data—and I'm not sure you can collect it because if we asked and didn't get it I'm not sure whether you could—this sort of nuanced data that says to us about removal numbers that it's not just this number, a total, who were refused refugee claimants...but who were those people?

Were they refused refugee claimants from five years ago, from three years ago, or from one year ago? Had they married a Canadian and were waiting to be processed under humanitarian and compassionate grounds? That's the sort of finessed data that tells us that the system really is working. Because if all the removals were of refugee claimants in the short term, what happened to the ones from three years ago?

If people are serving sentences, have removal orders against them and have valid travel documents, are they being removed? We don't know. We have people who tell us at the ground level that they're not being removed, but they can't tell us why. We can't get any hard data on who exactly the criminals we're removing are. And if they're being removed, who are the criminals we're not removing? What are those numbers?

I think we could start at the beginning and start nuancing every subcategory to find out if there really is a problem with regard to removing those who ought to be removed and detaining those who ought to be detained. It's the usual concern of people who are insecure about a process working.

The Chairman: Mr. Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): Good afternoon, Mr. Trempe. I join my colleagues in welcoming you to the committee and perhaps I could be so audacious as to ask you to sign the report for me. I would be very honoured if you would do this because this report will be part of our daily life for the next few months.

In the end, you have told us that this is a world that is quite obscure, one which remains marginal and one that we must not forget. Most people who come in through the immigration program comply with rules that are known and follow a quite respectable process.

This afternoon, I would like to understand the three recommendations that you have made to members of Parliament. Let's go step by step. Initially, could you tell me what you mean by provisional status? What does this status mean in terms of added value in our system? We will then discuss the other two solutions that you have suggested.

Mr. Robert Trempe: If I may, Mr. Chairman, I will try to answer. Right now, some people have a status, whereas others do not. What Susan was explaining earlier illustrates, to a certain extent, the fact that certain people don't have any status or that there is no system enabling us to know who these people are, where they are or what they are doing.

You have read the report and I'm sure that you have found some surprises. You think that you know certain things and suddenly, when you go through the statistics, you realize that some very basic things have slipped through our fingers.

The provisional status will ensure that anybody who enters a country will be given a status. This status will enable us to impose certain conditions on these individuals. If you don't have any status, and you disappear and we don't know where you are, well, it is very difficult for us to tell you, for instance, that if you have an infectious disease, you should go to the hospital at specific times, as determined by the provincial authorities. If you have neither status nor address, and we don't know where you are, you can cash three social insurance cheques at a time. People in the field know this, and the organizations that work with newcomers and refugees deplore the situation. Why? Because we don't know.

Provisional status will enable us to label a person and to impose certain legal conditions on this individual. These conditions must not be unreasonable. The individual must be able to fulfill the conditions.

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For example, we could request that this individual to report to the provincial or federal authorities whenever necessary for certain things. As we suggested, we could begin the security clearance and the medical examination of refugee claimants at the very start of the process, and not at the end, when we might find out that some poor individual who is here and who is hoping to remain here is afflicted with some horrible disease, and then it's a real mess. All of the authorities ask: Do we keep this person or send him back? This poor little boy has leukemia. What are we going to do?" What this provisional status really does is give the government and the minister the ability to impose certain conditions and to have a system to ensure that such conditions are fulfilled. This is what it contributes.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Am I to understand that those people who don't have any status often do not have travel documents and we are unable to really know their identity?

Mr. Robert Trempe: It's not only that.

Mr. Réal Ménard: What would you say is the order of magnitude of this problem?

[English]

Ms. Roslyn Kunin: In that case, if a person did not have documents, we would give this person a provisional status so they would have a legal status in this country as long as they were cooperating with the authorities, saying, this is why I don't have documents, I came from a terrible situation, this is who I am, this is what I'm doing. As long as a person is cooperating with the authorities in Canada, that person would be granted provisional status. It is not dependent on their having travel documents or anything else. It is dependent on their showing good faith, working with the authorities in Canada to establish a refugee claim or whatever other process it is they are seeking within Canada.

The only time a person would be denied any status is if they couldn't demonstrate that they already had it—they were landed or something else—and they were not cooperating: they were not telling us who they were, they were not telling us where they came from, or they were not cooperating, not showing up, not meeting the requirements.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Okay. To the best of your knowledge, could you describe the situation of those people who do not currently have any status? Could you give us their profile or provide us with some concrete examples you have come across. I'm talking about those people who don't have any identification papers or travel documents, etc. Moreover, you have made some quite specific recommendations about these people. However, aside from these people, whom are you talking about?

Mr. Robert Trempe: These are visitors who remain here and whose visas have expired, or who don't have a visa and disappear. This also refers to refugee claimants whose file is in abeyance, claimants we lose track of after a while, etc.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Excuse me. Does that mean that, in your mind, the refugee claimant status does not exist?

Mr. Robert Trempe: No, no.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Okay.

Mr. Robert Trempe: In fact, we want to give the refugee claimant a status that would entitle him to certain things while the process in on-going. Currently, those without a status are those claimants waiting for a decision, claimants who are somewhere in the country but we don't know who they are.

Mr. Réal Ménard: The 22% of the 19,000...

Mr. Robert Trempe: How many?

Mr. Réal Ménard: You said that you had identified 19,000 people, but that we had only managed to send back 22,000. Would you be prepared to bet a beer on these 19,000? No?

Mr. Robert Trempe: I'm not sure that I would bet a beer on the 19,000.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Is that because you are a teetotaler or because I've made a mistake?

Mr. Robert Trempe: I am not a teetotaler.

Mr. Réal Ménard: A chapter in your report indicates that 19,000 people had been identified as having no status. Of this number, we know that only in 22% of the cases was there a real removal mechanism that kicked in.

Mr. Robert Trempe: Ah, yes, 22%.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Twenty-two percent.

Mr. Robert Trempe: I apologize, I had understood 22,000. That was where my mistake was. Yes, yes.

Mr. Réal Ménard: So you owe me a beer.

Mr. Robert Trempe: Mr. Chairman...

[English]

The Chairman: Do we have that on the record?

[Translation]

Mr. Robert Trempe: Mr. Chairman, I am not accustomed to the conclusions that a politician may draw from certain things. So I will gladly buy your committee member a beer.

So, these people definitely exist. There are people who go off into the wilderness and we don't know where they are. By granting them a status, we would be able to tell these people that while the process is on-going, they have a status entitling them to certain rights.

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If you are told that you are not a refugee claimant—and we hope that this decision will be made before 22 or 28 months have elapsed—but you're also told that you have a status and that a system with conditions has been put in place, you will not fear, when you're not recognized, losing your status and the associated privileges. You will not keep on collecting I don't know how many thousands of dollars somewhere off in the shadows. The department is currently unable to manage this situation properly. So that is what the status idea is all about.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Do I have time to ask another question or do I have to wait for the second round? Have I run out of time?

[English]

The Chairman: No, you have three more minutes.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: That's great. I wanted to make sure that I understood correctly. As soon as someone fills out a personal information form, what the bureaucrats refer to as the PIF in English, the individual is not automatically granted a status. The person is in the process of being recognized by a system that currently has its strengths and weaknesses. However, the system does not give the individual a status, at least not the way you mean it in the report. Fine.

Once we have a better mechanism for identifying people, we could turn to the second solution that you suggest in chapter 8, namely, more frequent use of detention for violations of the provisional status conditions.

This is, to some extent, a logical consequence of your first proposal. If we agree that individuals are to be given a status, with certain associated conditions attached to it, such as being available and showing up for interviews, we must also accept that if such conditions are not fulfilled, these people may be imprisoned. Moreover, a colleague said earlier that we didn't know how much this would cost. But you have provided some figures in the report; I recall your saying that detention would cost between $150 and $200 per day.

Mr. Robert Tempe: Yes, that's possible. These figures represent the daily detention cost. Even if you were to combine them and increase the inmate population by 10% or even by 50% if you want to make people a little bit scared, as the departmental people are thinking right now, you will never have the other part of the equation. That's what I heard earlier. The equation is as follows: how much does it cost, in Canada, for the federal government or the provincial governments to keep people living in their territory who have no right to be there and who are living at their expense?

Mr. Réal Ménard: I see. At the expense of society, therefore.

Mr. Robert Tempe: That's it.

Mr. Réal Ménard: I see. But what I'm really interested in...

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Ménard, thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: My time is up? I'll come back to this later.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. McKay.

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I too would like to add my congratulations to the three of you for this radical report. It's clearly the seminal thinking in this area. I have read more than I've ever wanted to read on the area of immigration, and this is clearly a good report.

In studying the deportation part of the system, it strikes me that we get the cart before the horse, that in some strange and bizarre way, we're looking at the wrong end of the horse instead of trying to start at the beginning. That was frankly the result of the testimony from last week with the departmental officials: you can't really look at the rear end of the system until you look at the front end of the system.

I was caught by your arguments in chapter 1 with respect to the rationale for immigration to the country. Having studied the system, at this point, can you tell us what the rationale is for immigration to this country? Is it demographics, is it employment, is there some strategic reason, is it access to human capital? What's the reason?

Ms. Roslyn Kunin: In ten words or less.

Mr. John McKay: In ten minutes or less.

Ms. Roslyn Kunin: Okay. I will put on my economic historian hat, because economic history is one of my favourite things that I have studied.

I put this to you as a challenge. There has never been a case recorded in human history of an economy growing where the population was not growing. We all know that the Canadian population, if it were not supplemented by net migration, would reach zero growth, or negative growth actually, sometime in the next century. You choose the year projection and you pick the date. We are not reproducing ourselves. Economies do not grow unless populations are growing. That is reason one.

Reason two is that all the research—and there is a lot of research on this—shows that economic migrants, people coming to Canada, make a strong positive net contribution to the Canadian economy and to the Canadian fisc, which we just learned at great length yesterday is finally in the black. Those are the main reasons.

• 1625

But we did hear, when we were going around the country, people who said “We have unemployment in this country. We have problems in this country. Shut the doors and don't let in a living, breathing soul for ten years.” We did also hear people who said “We have a great, big, huge, empty country with no people in it. Open the doors and let in anybody who wants to come.” Those are the ranges of what we heard on that.

Mr. John McKay: Having spent a lot of time looking at that, are you, as experts, if you will, satisfied that the demographic and employment reasons you've articulated are good and valid reasons for the immigration system we have?

Ms. Roslyn Kunin: Yes, particularly if you look at our system as a whole, where we are looking not only at the quantity of human capital but also, by means of the five basic criteria we set out, at the quality of human capital, because this country is right now suffering from a serious brain drain. A lot of our good human capital is leaving, heading south and so on, and if we don't attract some in to compensate, we're all suffering that loss.

Mr. John McKay: If those are the principal reasons for the existence of immigration to this country, how do those principal reasons specifically impact on deportation?

Ms. Susan Davis: Let me try that one.

It's more an issue of being a part of this global village. Whether or not you acknowledge immigration as good for Canada; whether it's good for economic reasons, demographic reasons, or humanitarian reasons; whether we had a system for paring out who were the good and who were the bad and who were useful to us and who were just good to have around, people would still come, and come now more than ever. Perhaps they would not come to settle, but certainly the emerging trend is travel and the free flow of capital, and the people come with the capital.

Frankly, we quite haven't figured out how that works. We want to say yes to capital. People are obviously attached to it in any number of ways. We're not quite sure, in this new context, in the context of an immigration regime, how to deal with that. It's almost a love-hate relationship that we have with the people who are attached to the capital we want.

What this has to do with deportation is this. I'm not so sure that I'm married to your approach that our holistic love or hate or need for immigration has something to do with what we do at the end of the day with people we don't want. It has to do more with the idea that, as a sovereign state, we control our borders on many lines with regard to health and safety, and one of those fronts is migration.

The big issue is, if we want a certain kind of people, how do we attract them and keep them? And if we don't want people who have certain characteristics that hopefully are objective and not discriminatory, how do we say no to them and then return them?

We're at the cusp, and that's why it's a very futuristic report. We're at the cusp of a lot of things we can't figure out. We built a free trade system. We thought we built immigration laws to go with it, but in fact they didn't reflect the same morality at all as our free trade regime.

I'll give you one example and then I'll let it go. If you want business from the States, if you want them to enter and have meetings and do business here and do deals, there's a human being who's going to come and do that. It isn't all going to be electronically done. We thought we had a system that would say yes, come to the airport, we'll clear you; we'll get you in for the meeting. You know the stories of people who were delayed seven hours so they missed the meeting or they missed the opening at the museum. It's horrendous.

You have people who say to you—and I've had this said to me—that the trouble is they come in with tennis rackets and wearing tennis outfits and pretend they're here on a sporting holiday because they don't want us to shake them down. No, I say, the trouble is we want their business and they ought not to be shaken down. But of course even wanting their business needs regulation. Are they criminals or aren't they? We haven't worked that out.

• 1630

I think what we're getting at here is that, boy, we had better get busy designing a system that deals with this rather brave new world, which may not have a lot to do with immigration in the traditional sense, like you say, but may in the very transitional sense.

Mr. John McKay: What I heard your colleague's answer to be is the fairly traditional answer in the sense that it's demographics and it's employment and—

Ms. Susan Davis: That was in answer to your questions—if you will excuse me—“What is immigration?” and “Is immigration good for Canada?” But in my answer to your question of the relationship between that answer and what we do with deportation, I'm not sure they're connected at all.

Mr. John McKay: Okay.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

We're sticking to the schedule. Mr. Doyle wishes to speak in the next round. Or do you want to speak in this round?

Mr. Norman Doyle (St. John's East, PC): No.

The Chairman: All right. Then we'll go to Mrs. Bulte.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale—High Park, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much for coming to the committee today. I'd like to follow up on something that Mrs. Leung asked with respect to what kind of witnesses we should have. It's interesting that you stated you think we should have people who aren't affected by the process.

My question to you, seeing that my experience in the immigation area is limited, is this: did you actually interview people who have been affected by the process or people who were in that sort of area where they have been refused refugee status, are waiting for the humanitarian and compassionate grounds application and have probably been told by the officials that's going to fail, but they have no documents so they're not going back anywhere and they have children who have spent half of their lives here and they won't be able to qualify?

Have you looked at the impact on those people? These are the people who have been cooperating and being part of the process. They're not the criminals, but they are technically subject to removal. Have you interviewed those people? And should we not be looking at their cases and talking to them?

Ms. Susan Davis: Yes, I think so, but I'll tell you what our answer to that is in our report, and the answer is.... Let me tell you about people who did have an impact on us. When we spoke to the Dutch about their processes, they basically said—and I think it's very interesting that a system admits it—that when a person has been in the country for three years or more it's a sort of a lose-lose situation to try and deport them. You have to remember that in Holland a person who claims asylum is actually kept separate from the general population in a refugee centre, and even in that context people become entrenched in the local population. They still go out in the village and meet someone and marry someone, and they admit it.

Yes, I think you're quite right. You've answered the question yourself. But our answer is this: in fairness, if we really want to select people—if this is just a huge game, forget it—meaning some people will not be selected, then it has to be a very short process, where people do not do the natural, normal things that happen over time and entrench themselves normally and naturally in human relationships.

Of course we know the testimony of that person. Those people have real lives here, with real neighbours who really like them. They've integrated well, with or without our rules and with or without our settlement programs.

I don't think we can answer why we would remove those people in the short term. I think our answer in the long term is that in a new system, whatever you do, you must make sure you don't create those situations with a process that takes that long.

Yes, I think you should call such people.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: And in another follow-up question, about what Mr. Ménard said, what kind of status, then, would this person have?

Again, would we revert back to provisional status in perpetuity when a person can't be returned and there are no travel documents? What kind of status under your new system, let's say, would that person have? We can't remove them. They can't have travel documents. They've lived half of their lives here. It's more than two or three years in these cases. It has gone on for years and years. What kind of status would they have then?

Mr. Robert Trempe: Mr. Chairman, I am not a minister but I know what I would do. I would give them a status, a real status. But if you've read the report—and I know you have—you would also know that for these persons we suggest that they certainly find persons who will vouch for them. If they are that entrenched, that attached to this country, if they have kids selling chocolate bars in the schools and that sort of thing, the media are there and they won't be removed. Don't worry, they won't be removed because the media are there.

• 1635

They have really found a way to get the media's attention. Try to find an organization, people around you who will vouch for you, and you will stay here, because you have proven, just as we ask people to prove that they can participate when they become citizens, that you really are on good terms and you have connections in this country. If I were the minister, I would give them status. They would stay here.

Ms. Roslyn Kunin: We did recommend, for people who were not documented and who went through all the other processes, that there be a time line, just in case there is some sordid past which is going to come up, and after that time line these people would be landed.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: That's under the new system you have proposed. What can we do in the present system, and when at the same time the recommendations are to remove discretion? What do we do with these people?

Ms. Susan Davis: Let's put it this way. Part of the reason they are here is that there is a dysfunction in the system. Interestingly, a producer who did a series of films on people facing deportation was interviewed on CBC Radio and was covering the story of a Polish woman facing deportation. That was the profile you just gave us. There's great Canadian decency that says, well, yes, she made a mistake in coming; she didn't fit the convention definition; she thought she did, or the situation changed in Poland and she had no more fear; but she was allowed to stay here for five years, she built a life here, and after all, what is the big deal when there are others—and that's the point—who are really not giving to the society and have criminality issues; why not pick on those? When they asked the producer what is wrong with the system, she said it's inhumane because it allows people to stay too long and build those roots and build the expectation that they will have a life here. That's the system we have.

You are asking whether in the short term there should be a policy decision. Well, we had the DROC, which was, I think, the short-term policy decision that failed refugee claimants who were here for three years after the issuance of the removal order could stay. I'm not quite sure what the motivation was to remove it. I think part of it was—and I would ask you to read closely the press releases that went around, announcing the creation of DROC—that while the removals people got their house in order and figured out how to put a priority on who was getting removed, they would have this DROC. It would slowly clean up the people they would never get to.

What happened was DROC took over as the primary program. People weren't getting removed, and everybody was getting an excellent chance of getting in just under that three years. Again, it says a piece of the removal program is dysfunctional.

So I would say if you ask for some sort of policy on who gets removed and then periodic reports on whether that policy is being followed, then you will know that these people, the ones who are entrenched and succeeding, are at the bottom and they are not going to get removed, because we don't have the resources. It's when you don't have those policies and reports on how successful they are in meeting them, which we have tried to codify, that we can never be sure if this woman is going to be picked up one day. I would argue that in the short term perhaps what we try to do by codifying, one could do by policy...but rather holding the operational people to reporting on meeting those policy guidelines.

The Chairman: Mr. Obhrai.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, Ref.): I join my colleagues in thanking you for coming here.

Although we have a lot of questions, of course we are restricted to this, so we can't ask too many questions.

Let me ask you this question. The problem that got identified the last time the department officials came here was the travel documents, people coming here without travel documents. They come into the country without travel documents, stay in this country, go through the whole process, and then get rejected for some reason—criminality or whatever. Then you have the problem of removing them to the country, because the country at the other end will not accept them. Now we have people who want to stay here.

• 1640

If I understand you correctly, you've come up with this new idea about giving provisional status over here at the same time. But it still does not take away the fact that if you have given this person provisional status, and on the other side he does not have travel documents, and cannot get them to go back, he is going back nowhere.

To me, then, while it's fine to give this provisional status and put it in this pot over here, you have actually not solved one of the major problems. The department said last time they came here that one of the biggest problems is travel documents. People don't want the criminal elements on the other side.

Mr. Robert Trempe: Did the department give you any numbers on that?

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: No. That's the problem.

Mr. Robert Trempe: Because you mentioned it was a “major” problem.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: That's what I asked them, whether this was a critical problem. I think they said, yes, it was one of the major problems.

Mr. Robert Trempe: It is certainly a problem. As you read here, we said that should put into movement the other department of this government to try to explain to other countries that there will be some reaction on our part if they don't accept people from their country.

You're quite right, sir, we didn't solve that with this. The problem I have with it is that we never know, we never knew, and I don't know if anybody can give you, the right number of people who cannot be removed, really, out of the thousands of people who should be removed but are not, because of that. I don't have the number, and I don't think the minister has.

Ms. Susan Davis: If I could continue, in terms of our provisional status, you're right, to put people in boxes in the sense that, at the end of the month, at the end of the year, in the annual report, when appearing before you, they're in a position to say how many people lost provisional status because they wouldn't say who they were, or wouldn't cooperate about it, and how many people lost provisional status and went into long-term detention awaiting removal because they didn't have a travel document and their country wouldn't cooperate....

I know that's not a solution to the ultimate problem of getting them the document, but at least we quantify it. At least we say to the public that they should either get riled about a real problem or not get riled because it isn't a real problem.

This is a chronic problem in every migration situation in the world. This is a tool of the people smugglers. Yes, this is the way they operate. They take the document back, or they tell the person to dispose of it.

The truth of the matter is, there is no magic here. It is a chronic part of every migration system. A multitude of parties have to come into this, saying, well, this is important enough that it will play into our trade discussions with this country, or it is important enough that it will play into our international development discussions with that country. I'm not sure it's seen as that important in government right now.

There's one more point. We need to remember that there are all kinds of undocumented people. When we had Somalian and Afghan citizens coming to Canada claiming refugee status, we knew why they didn't have their own documents. We also knew their identities, because they were very clear about who they were, and the need for protection.

But I can tell you, I have sat in on seven-hour interviews at Pearson Airport with people from countries where they're not in civil disorder, who wouldn't tell us their name, what plane they got off, or even that they were refugees. Seven-hour interviews.

• 1645

We let that person go into the ether of Canadian society, and I didn't sleep that night, because I couldn't imagine any other country in the world, if I did that, letting me disappear in that way.

Even if they are not security threats, should we not have a way of counting them and knowing when the system changes, so we imagine that the undocumented are all bona fide refugee claimants and suddenly it changes and nobody knows except the poor guy sitting at the port of entry, dealing with these people? I would not aggrandize provisional status and what happens when you fall out of it, only to say that it is a grand way of counting people and the certain problems they present to us so they can be tabled here and met with, rather than going around and around.

The Chairman: Mrs. Folco, please.

[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval-West, Lib.): First of all, I would like to apologize for arriving late because I had to attend another committee meeting. I would also like to say hello to someone I have known for a very long time. I have the impression that Robert and I have been following in each other's footsteps for many years. I won't say how many years, Robert, however...

It seems to me that your report is calling for a major change in the immigration process, particularly with respect to the acceptance of refugees. I think it is high time for a major change and I'm in full agreement with the report in general.

I will not ask any questions about the specific recommendations. Instead, I would like to ask a more general question. What is your underlying philosophy with respect to the type of immigrants that Canada should be receiving or hoping to receive? Secondly, do we know how much time it takes to integrate newcomers, and how do we know when a person has become integrated into our society?

Mr. Robert Tempe: Mr. Chairman, I will start to answer and my colleagues will elaborate. I think that our philosophy favours the arrival of immigrants who contribute to the life of Canada.

When I talk about contributing to the life of this country, I am referring not only to the demographics, meaning that our population is declining too quickly, but also to the economic life of Canada and to its culture so that this country continues to change, to evolve, to welcome new ideas, to be open-minded, etc. That, in my opinion, is one of the major contributions of immigration. During our consultations, we noted that everyone wanted this country to continue to be open in this manner.

We don't want people who abuse the system and this is why we have suggested certain measures. Some people feel that perhaps we are tightening up some aspects of the procedure too much. We want people who have a chance of being successful here and who will integrate, and this is why we have suggested certain selection criteria.

The selection criteria are just about the only aspects based on data in this entire report. The other aspects are based on good judgment; we thought about what Canadians think, about what is done elsewhere and about the investigations we conducted.

Data on integration in this country and other aspects associated with immigration are extremely rare. After reading the transcripts of your committee meetings, I observed that you are looking for data everywhere: how many do we have in this category, how many are detained and how many are removed for this reason? It is always very difficult to obtain data. Why? Because right now, for all kinds of historical reasons, the department cannot give us any.

• 1650

We want people to whom we can promise success in their lives, inasmuch as we can do that. We also want the country to be able to benefit from their contribution.

That is why we have established the criteria for success based on the scarce data that we have. These criteria include things such as: the person must be between such and such an age, have a relatively good knowledge of one of this country's languages, have demonstrated skill in his or her current job—although these people are not selected on the basis of the job that they are currently doing, nor can anyone promise that they will be performing the same job here... and have attained a certain educational level that enables them to be flexible.

In the entire report, and I am repeating myself here, these are just about the only somewhat solid research findings that we have right now on immigration.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Indeed, when I look at the waves of immigration that have occurred up until yesterday, I know that it is not necessarily because a person comes here with the ability to speak one of the two official languages and has a high school diploma, to use but two of these criteria, that they have been able to succeed. Conversely, we can not conclude that individuals who did not know the two languages and who did not have a very high level of education, or the high school diploma that you suggest, did not succeed. It seems to me that somewhere there is a need to integrate and a need to work that goes beyond the knowledge that a person may have in his or her country of origin.

You gave another criterion in your report that you have not mentioned here, Mr. Trempe, namely, community assistance.

[English]

Does that mean I'm not going to get an answer to my question?

The Chairman: No, you don't have to answer that question, because she's way off topic.

I would like you to stick to recommendation 155 if you possibly can, all right? Those are very good questions, though, Mrs. Folco—

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Thank you, Mr. President.

The Chairman: —and we'll be dealing with them later.

However, now we'll jump over to the other side and we'll hear from Mr. Ménard, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Mr. Chairman, you should always allow the questions to be answered.

Since you are here to talk to us primarily about the solutions that you have provided in chapter 8, I would appreciate your talking a bit about the third solution that you proposed; namely, the creation of another type of position, that of the determination officer, which would combine the duties performed by adjudicators and senior officers.

Secondly, did your consultations and interviews lead you to the same diagnosis as the Auditor General, who concluded that at present the IRB has two hierarchies that are at odds with each other, namely the officials and the commissioners? If this is the case, I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Thirdly, given what you understand and know about detention, do you feel that the principles of natural justice are being upheld?

[English]

Ms. Susan Davis: Those are two very different questions.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Excuse me.

Ms. Susan Davis: It's okay.

The first question, on whether the current structure of the IRB in fact creates two different dynamics, is an intriguing issue. I'm not sure.... In fact I spoke about it this morning to a group of bureaucrats from the IRB and the department.

If you have a quasi-judicial body and people with that kind of independence, it's bound to create divisions. I don't mean the technical divisions; the appeal division and the CRDD are the adjudicators. What I mean is you have these people who feel unique. “Elite” might be incorrect, but you know what I mean. They have the decision-making power, and it does create a bit of a divide with the support people.

When I watch CRDD hearings, and even the appeal processes with regard to inquiries, sometimes I think it creates almost an antagonistic process that doesn't help the case. It doesn't help get the evidence out.

• 1655

The refugee hearing officers, for example, yes, because of that peculiar structure, don't feel as much a part of the team. I think you've hit on something.

On the second question, whether we actually think due process is being applied, again, it's one of those things you just can't get hold of. I've had managers say to me they don't understand why one of their officers at one point detains one case but at another point doesn't detain a case that's very similar in facts. Is it the hour of the day? They don't know. This has to do with—

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: But you understand that when we talk about principles of natural justice, we are referring to the conditions under which these people are detained. Are they entitled to a trial? Can they contact a lawyer? Are they being adequately protected? This is what I'm interested in knowing. You have been cruelly silent in your report on this matter. This is not a criticism.

[English]

Ms. Susan Davis: We were worried about writing a 10-volume report. But I'll tell you that due process in the present system is hard to judge, because there are different points in the process at which a person can be detained. If it's a subsection 20.(3) detention at the port of entry by an immigration officer, what is the due process there? The immigration officer makes the decision that the person isn't part of an admissible class and they will detain. On the other hand, there is a due process when there is a review of that detention and they go before the adjudicator.

We have certainly flattened that process. I think people will criticize our report because we have got rid of the adjudicators and we now have review officers who would do that. They would say that is not enough due process.

I think there ought to be due process. It ought to be measured by, yes, the ability of the person to have access to counsel—which is why we said if you are in detention you should have that kind of access. But I'm not sure one has to aggrandize the process into a long, complicated kind of hearing in front of a high-level person. Often some of the facts that need to be reviewed are not difficult. Whether or not a person has been convicted in a court—it's pretty easy to judge whether that happened. The danger to the public—we probably won't go there today—is a huge area where due process is seen to be lacking.

The Chairman: Mr. Mahoney.

Mr. Steve Mahoney (Mississauga West, Lib.): Thank you very much for your work.

It's a bit frustrating, I guess, when you basically say you thought you would give this to a group of people who are, I think you said, not particularly pressured by pressure groups and would have only the interests of the nation at heart. I would like to think all of that is true, but a member of Parliament is probably more pressured by more pressure groups than any group I can possibly think of, and it's particularly true about immigration and reforms.

Part of my concern is that if we were to listen.... For example, with some of my colleagues I attended a meeting of members of the regional council from the region of Peel, where I live, and the issue of documents came up and how the region of Peel, which happens to be where Pearson Airport is, receives numerous immigrants, particularly refugees. They have sent a bill to the minister, $16 million or some figure like that, for welfare purposes. To some of them, who are normally rational, intelligent, good members of the community, their answer is if they land here without documents, send them back; we don't want to know about it. It's very frustrating to hear that from otherwise rational, caring people, but that is some of the pressure many of us will deal with from the people we hear from in our constituencies, etc.

• 1700

It's occurred to me in all of the hearings.... And I've got a double whammy, because I sit on public accounts committee, and we've been going through the Auditor General's analysis of the same issues we're talking about here today. So I get it from both perspectives. It's occurred to me that whether someone lands in this country with or without documents really doesn't matter, because the reality is that if they land without documents they're going to claim refugee status; they're not looking for landed immigrant status.

They don't have documents because they were unable to get them or were sold false ones or decided to destroy them. You don't destroy your documents if you're going to a country where you intend to apply for landed immigrant status and eventual citizenship; you destroy them because you don't want to be sent back and you know that there's a 14-, 15- or 17-month process in which you can apply to and appeal to humanitarian and compassionate grounds, etc., in Canada. Because all you have to do is to say “refugee”. That's all you have to do. In my analysis, it makes no difference whatsoever whether or not you have documents. I think it's a red herring.

The problem with the deportation system and everything as I see it is one of time. Ms. Bulte will tell you she has a constituent who has been here seven years and is still living on the edge, waiting for the hammer to fall to tell her she has to go back to her country of origin. That's absurd, to have to wait that length of time. You can imagine how your life and everything can change in seven years.

While I wish you had some recommendations on this, as opposed to recommendation 155, which lays it in our lap, which I suppose is where it ultimately belongs—

A voice: That's why we get the big money.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Right. That's why we get the big money.

I've asked this question at the public accounts committee: do you see this as an administrative problem or a legislative problem? Is this something we could fix by adding more resources in terms of officers, in terms of people to hear the appeals? Could we reduce the appeal process? Could we change the administration? Or do we really need to overhaul the entire legislation?

Well, you gave us a tough one. I'm sorry.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Robert Trempe: Yes, Mr. Chairman, from what I hear, I think it really was the place to put that, because what I hear is so meaningful. Really, I think our objective was also to have the elected members, after they have what's going on clear in their minds—and that's what you're after right now—go to their constituents, explain a little bit, receive their ideas and suggestions and be des pédagogues a little bit.

Some will say that it's not your role. Personally, I think it is, in a way. At the same time, I think you will learn a lot. And you already know, I'm sure, because as you said, pressured as you can be.... I think you will learn the feelings of the people about those issues, and about others, but particularly about those two issues. To answer your question very briefly, I think it's a question of both. Quite clearly, in some areas—and the Tassé report was clear about that—they need to apply more resources there and a little less elsewhere.

I think the minister knows that. I think the deputy minister also knows that. And I think they have plans for that. But quite clearly, they need to reapply some resources in this area of l'exécution de la loi, as they say, the law enforcement. Also, it needs to be clearly codified and known by people, and I think that's what we're after.

• 1705

So it needs some kind of legislative action. It's not only some kind of administration and if the deputy minister were more active they would settle the problem. I don't think so.

If you reread the Tassé report, you will see it's more than just reallocation of resources. It's a very long process to reconcile in the same department openness to new immigrants and the very sad job of getting people away and removing people.

The people who do that job think this is a dirty job. They feel they are a bit out in the far region of the department. Tassé said a lot of very good things on that in his report, a lot about what to do, and not only administrative.

The Chairman: Mr. Reynolds.

Mr. John Reynolds: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You mentioned talking to people. I'm doing that tomorrow in British Columbia on a province-wide radio show, just listening to people with Rafe Mair in the morning. It's interesting that you're here today. I'm sure I have a lot of questions on your report.

On allocation of resources, which you just talked about, Ms. Davis talked about sitting in the room interviewing people for seven hours. I was in the Vancouver airport, and—I mentioned it in the previous committee hearing—there was the same thing with a whole group of people. They were into the system. It worried the heck out of me.

All of us sitting at this table have driver's licences, social insurance numbers. Canada has so much technology available it's just amazing to me this department seems to have a total lack of technology. I'm wondering how much of that you looked into or saw. Is the amount of money it would take to solve it, from a technological point of view...?

I know all the personnel things. You talked about the reallocation of resources, which is obviously people resources too. But just the technical end: how much would we save by just stopping some people, or keeping them here for a shorter period, or approving them more quickly, if we had proper technology at least to follow people?

It's amazing to me that 13 people—I don't know what number you saw, but I saw 13 in my group—can hit the streets of Vancouver at four o'clock in the afternoon, and we have a picture and a fingerprint and that's it, and they get a piece of paper saying they can be here until somebody is going to kick them out.

Can you answer on the technology side of it? Is there any way you looked into that area?

Ms. Roslyn Kunin: Yes, we looked very closely at the technology issue. We were very aware of existing resource constraints and we didn't want to suggest a billion-dollar solution if the billion dollars weren't going to be there, but there were certain areas where we said resources have to be spent. One of them is to apply modern technology for systems development, for personal identification, for follow-up.

We know we don't have the human resources to follow up everybody in a manual fashion. We do need electronic systems. I think our strong feeling was that whether or not any of our recommendations are implemented, regardless of whether you use our system, the present system, or any other system, the department is going to have to spend the resources to get a 21st century technological system. Otherwise we should just stop pretending we're playing a game of managing immigration at all. That is a fixed cost we're going to have to face regardless.

Ms. Susan Davis: We did cost it. Our costing exercise determined that we would need $100 million to develop that system.

The Chairman: That's very interesting.

I thank you very much. We certainly appreciate the kind of input and information we have received. I think a lot of these issues will be clear in our minds. Maybe we can develop some of the relationships and make some kind of connection. I'm hoping your input and what you have written for us will help us to come to some type of consensus on what we should be doing, keeping in mind the critical concern you have presented to us.

I thank you on behalf of the committee. We appreciate what you've done.

Members of the committee, before you leave, I have something very important. I have to read a notice to you:

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(3), a meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration shall be convened within 10 days for the purpose of examining the appointment of Anna Terrana to the Immigration and Refugee Board.

That's 10 sitting days. So we will meet with Anna Terrana in the first week after we come back. All right?

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Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair.