CITI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA CITOYENNETÉ ET DE L'IMMIGRATION

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, February 26, 1998

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.)): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Some members of the committee have been delayed, but they shall be appearing at intermittent stages. However, we do have a quorum, which allows us to continue with the meeting.

I would like to state that, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we shall resume consideration of recommendation 155 of the report of the Immigration Legislative Review Advisory Group, entitled Not Just Numbers: A Canadian Framework for Future Immigration, particularly issues relating to removal and detention.

Members of the committee, as you recall, last week we did have the present witnesses before us. We were heavily involved in a process using the charts that were available to us. We did not complete the process, so I'm asking the members of the ministry to continue with the process and provide us with any additional information this morning.

We will stick to the schedule. Now I'm asking the witnesses to proceed. Thank you.

Mr. Brian Grant (Acting Director General, Enforcement Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Perhaps, before we go to questions, I'll just take a couple of minutes of your time to walk through what we understand you've asked us to prepare. We're in the process. I actually reviewed some of this stuff this morning, and it still needs a little bit more work, but I just want to be clear that we understand exactly what you're looking for. So I'll do that first.

The second issue I'd like to address before the questions is to pick up on something that I understand was discussed yesterday, which was the whole question of technology, and to suggest something we might be able to help you on, where we see the technology lying right now and where it's headed.

I'll start with the list, then. Number one, I have an additional chart, other than the two charts you were given, that gives more details about the removals process. If you recall, the charts you have walk you through the refugee determination system at the IRB and the adjudication system at the IRB—the inquiries, the issuance of the orders. From there on, certain steps have to be taken.

What I saw this morning was a draft version. It's not quite accurate yet and it's still a little bit confusing, but it deals with where the recourse is, following a negative decision by the convention refugee determination division of the IRB. So it deals with Federal Court, it deals with various risk reviews, etc., and it leads at the end to removal, voluntary or involuntary. This chart takes you that far.

There's a second possibility, and this is where I want to clarify what you're looking for. These are the administrative steps we take in order to remove somebody, and they would include applying for and obtaining the travel document, making travel arrangements, making decisions on escorts, etc. Do you want that level of information as part of the chart, or as a separate chart, if we can't get it all on the same chart? That's a question I have for you on the charts.

We're also preparing a note on outstanding removal orders, and here I'll seek your clarification as well.

I also have a note here that you're interested in statistics on the number of criminals versus non-criminals who are stuck in the PDRCCC, which is the personal risk review; the humanitarian and compassionate review; etc.—the various reviews. Is that part of the note, do you know, that deals with impediments to removal? Would you see that as impediments to removal?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Brian Grant: I think it is.

The Chairman: Yes, it definitely is.

Mr. Brian Grant: So I think we can combine that.

The Chairman: Yes, it has emerged on several occasions in our deliberations.

Mr. Brian Grant: Okay. There's one other part of that note, which is statistics about the number of criminals who are under investigation and potentially removable. I would see that as part of that note as well. If you're in agreement, we would put all of that in.

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The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Brian Grant: The next piece we're preparing for you is the number of enforcement officers. I recall that what we agreed to was the number of people working in the enforcement area, which would include the people working overseas to interdict illegal migrants and criminals; the people working at our ports of entry, who do the examinations, etc.; and also the people working inland who are the investigators, those who make removal arrangements, etc. So we're going to give you all of the people, because they all play a part in this process.

As well, from our refugee branch we are preparing for you information on both the American and Dutch systems of refugee determination, which you asked for. I saw a thick study that I'm sure we can make available to you, but I think we're going to try to make it a little more digestible. There is considerable information available. We're preparing that as well. It will be available to you.

There was also a question about statistics about minister's consent. There are two aspects to this. There are cases where a person has been deported from Canada, which means they are barred from Canada for life unless the minister gives her consent that this person is allowed to come in. So that's a form of consent.

The second form of consent is when somebody who is inadmissible to Canada is issued a minister's permit and allowed to come in.

On the question of the minister's permits, this information is available to Parliament. There is a report issued once a year. The minister issues a report to Parliament on the number of minister's permits that have been issued in the prior year. They're broken down by category—how many for criminal, how many for medical, etc.—and according to the sections of the act.

That, if my recollection is correct, is usually tabled in April. If it's helpful to the committee, we can certainly get you a copy. It's available in Parliament, but we can certainly get you a copy of last year's. This year's is not completed yet. I can provide that, but I'm assuming you also want the other, where somebody has been allowed to come in even though they're deported.

The Chairman: Yes, definitely.

Mr. Brian Grant: Good.

That's the list I have.

The Chairman: Ms. Minna.

Ms. Maria Minna (Beaches—East York, Lib.): Maybe I missed what you said, but as I recall, at the last meeting we were talking about removals. At that time you said there were 6,617. We were having some difficulty breaking that number down.

I was looking for a specific breakdown. How many of those were criminals? How many of those were people we could not deport because countries were not collaborating? How many of those were people who were not cooperating themselves in not finding papers or what have you?

If I understood the discussion at the time, my impression was that by far the bulk of them were people who were stuck in the process in terms of appeals and what have you, not in any of those other three categories. I thought it would be beneficial if we could break it out in the discussion. Then we could take a look at them separately to see where the difficulties were.

Mr. Brian Grant: I went very quickly over number two, which is the note on outstanding removal orders. I think we'll capture it in there to the extent we can.

This is a good segue into our next point.

Ms. Maria Minna: To your technology stuff.

Mr. Brian Grant: Yes.

Ms. Maria Minna: Okay.

Mr. Brian Grant: To the extent that our systems allow us to do that, I think we'll try to capture it in that one note on removals.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would offer to take a few minutes of your time to ask Roman Borowyk, who is here with us from our technology section, to say a few words. He promises me he will do this in plain language that everyone can understand. You don't have to know how to run a computer or set a VCR, which I can't do. He'll explain exactly where we've come from, how our technology has developed so far, and where we're headed.

If that's agreeable, then, we can take a few minutes to deal with that issue.

The Chairman: Yes. In light of our discussions yesterday, I think this would be most valuable.

Go ahead, Mr. Borowyk.

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Mr. Roman Borowyk (Director, Information Management, Information Management and Technologies Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, the department came together as the Department of Citizenship and Immigration from many various elements that existed in other departments. The three main ones were these. There was a component that was part of Employment and Immigration and that dealt with immigration issues in Canada. There was a component in External Affairs that dealt with selection and interdiction activities abroad. There was a component in Secretary of State that dealt with citizenship.

When the decision was made to meld all these elements into one common department called Citizenship and Immigration, there was a fundamental technology challenge to start with. Each one of these departments employed its own technology, its own hardware, its own software, its own means of communicating with each. Even their file numbers for cases were different.

So our first challenge when we came together as a department was to try to integrate the technology into one particular unit, so when the Secretary of State people, who were using Macintoshes, came over and somebody else was using IBM-compatible PCs, we would be able to have a compatible hardware program and so on. That was our first challenge when we came together as a department. We didn't have the ability even to think of the future. We had to make sure we could at least all communicate with each other.

There were a number of other challenges at the same time. The Department of Employment and Immigration has a very strong regional presence, which resulted in systems being developed in British Columbia, for example, to track people, different systems being developed in Quebec to track people, and so on.

The whole idea was to try to integrate the various elements of technology. That was the first step. That's what we accomplished. The technologies in place at that time did accomplish that. That was our major challenge: that all our staff, whether they were in Canada, at a port of entry, inland, whether they were abroad at a consulate, could communicate with each other using a common platform.

The second challenge was that the department had changed its way of conducting business with the client. As some of you are probably aware, if not all of you, at one time the clients would line up in front of immigration offices to carry out whatever business they needed with either citizenship or immigration. The department moved very early on to processing systems and large mail-in centres. All these required the development of new systems, one for Vegreville, one for Mississauga, one for Sydney, which did the processing of citizenship applications.

So that was our next phase. We had to develop brand-new systems from scratch to be able to deal with the new business requirements that were put into place.

That's what we have accomplished till now. We still do face some major challenges. This is where we are now.

We're developing what we call a “unique client identifier”. That means anybody who comes into our system will be identified by a unique identifier. Again, as I mentioned, when the program was delivered by numerous departments, everybody had their own way of identifying clients.

The other thing we are developing is called an “integrated client file”. That means you'll be able to see all information on that particular client in a continuum from the beginning to the end, no matter what Citizenship and Immigration process that client has applied to do or what has transpired for that particular client.

We are also building something called a “data warehouse”. We appreciate that the challenges of providing data within the department to facilitate decision making as well as performance reporting to Parliament and providing information to committees like this...our data have to be accurate both for the recommendations we make to the minister and to facilitate decision making and to meet reporting requirements.

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The data warehouse basically takes data from the variety of different transaction-based sources that we have, cleanses it, transforms it, and makes it into a system that is usable to extract management information. That's what we're in the process of building, so in the future our data should be more reliable, more accurate, more easily accessible, and should enable us to facilitate ad hoc requests as well as standing reporting that we're obliged to do.

Up to now that's been fairly difficult to do, because our systems are called transaction-based systems. Transactions occur on these systems all the time—maybe every 15 minutes, maybe every day, maybe every week—and it's difficult to capture a snapshot at any given time, because the data does change. It's supposed to. It's transaction-based. This will enable us to provide snapshots, historical patterns, trend analyses—the kind of research and analysis that the legislative review group has recommended the department undertake.

In terms of enforcement, which is of primary interest to this committee, we have now had systems in place across the country that did track investigations, hearings, detentions, and removals, but you could never see an integrated picture at any given moment. The department has embarked on an ambitious program to integrate all these and to provide everybody with an integrated client history, so that anybody working in the enforcement field will be able at any one particular time to get an accurate and up-to-date picture of where we are at this time.

The Chairman: May I interject just for a moment, please? Instead of using the pronouns, could you give us very specific nouns? Who are “they” when you're referring to “them” and “they”? Let us know exactly who are the partners who have access to this integrated client file. Is it just the citizenship and immigration department or other departments?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

What I've been speaking of up to now is officials of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, and I'll try to talk about external linkages to other partners in a moment. I've been focusing now on the information that officials of the department have available at their hands to carry out decisions and make recommendations.

The Chairman: Thanks for that clarification.

Mr. Roman Borowyk: This national case management system has received departmental and ministerial approval to proceed. Phase one will be completed in approximately a year's time and will provide enforcement officers with an ability to look at a national case database. It will replace the various local tracking systems that were developed on a regional level and it will provide the department with accurate enforcement-based information, which we can then use in the department's decision making and recommendations or in addressing requirements before Parliament.

That is only phase one, and we expect to be able to develop the application. The department will roll out the system to the major urban centres first—Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal—and then proceed right across Canada. That is only phase one. It is a five-year project that will increasingly add functionality. That is, it will improve the ability of officers to carry out their decisions over a period of time.

The other area the department is working on is ensuring that its staff in Canada and all around the world will be able to have information tools readily available to assist them in performing their duties. This is what we call CIC Explorer. It's an Intranet. It's essentially for those who are familiar with Internets. It's very similar in terms of the concept.

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We will have on it our information, our guidelines, our manuals, the legislation—everything we need—with a search engine enabling you to search by a particular topic, by a particular court decision, by a particular piece of legislation, no matter where that officer is around the world, whether they happen to be located at an embassy, a consulate, a port of entry, a processing centre, a citizenship court, or wherever.

At the same time, we're facing a number of challenges not unique to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. It's being faced by private industry as well as by other government departments. We have to ensure that our applications, our hardware and our software, will work beyond 2000. This means going through every single one of our existing applications and correcting literally thousands upon thousands of lines of code.

This is a massive undertaking for everybody, not only the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, and there are very scarce resources to do this. Everybody is out after the same people.

As we face the challenges and opportunities offered us by legislative review, we cannot forget about the year 2000 that is approaching. It is going to be upon us. We cannot delay it.

The second challenge is that technology has evolved to such a degree that there probably aren't technological barriers to do anything. The principal barrier is cost.

To use the simple analogy of a car, you can buy a car for $15,000 that will get you from point A to point B in relative comfort. You can buy a car for $60,000 that will do it a little bit better. You can buy a car for $400,000 that will do it very fast, in a very comfortable fashion. So we can build the system. It's just a question of how much money we are prepared to invest in a particular product.

On that we work very closely with the people in, for example, the national case management system and with enforcement colleagues in the department to try to develop a system that meets their requirements with a minimal amount of cost.

The area you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, was the linkages to other departments, other partners, and stakeholders. We've been working, since the beginning of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, to enhance these linkages, to move from an interaction based on paper—that is, transferring files between one another—to transferring information electronically by building the suitable technological interfaces between the various systems, which are not the same. They are built differently. They use different software. So it is a challenge to get them all to speak to each other.

Those are essentially the few words I had in the overview. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to do so.

I know you're probably going to ask a question about cost. I'll try to give you some indication of what it will cost. The very simple year one aspect I described, the national case management system, will cost $4 million to implement. That is a very little bit, if I can call it that, of the kinds of recommendations the legislative review group is recommending that the department look at. That probably will give you a sense of relativity.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Is there any further information to be added to these presentations? If not, we'll continue with our schedule.

Mr. Obhrai, please.

Ms. Maria Minna: Can I clarify something first, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman: Go ahead.

Ms. Maria Minna: Earlier, Mr. Grant, you said something about a chart for the removals. We're not dealing with that today, the removals part.

Mr. Brian Grant: No. As I said, I saw it in draft this morning. It still needs some work. The second part I talked to is not in there yet, so we'll have to add that.

I understand we're coming back on March 11. We'll have it for that meeting. We'll walk you through it then.

Ms. Maria Minna: That's fine. I just wanted to be clear on that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Is there any possibility each member of the committee can get those charts in advance so that we can study them and be better prepared for the session?

Mr. Brian Grant: It would be our hope that we would do that, yes.

The Chairman: If possible. Thank you very much, Mr. Grant.

Mr. Obhrai.

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Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, Ref.): Thank you for coming back again. I listened to you here and I am going to start with this. You have just given us an example of technology in which your department had little spots all over the place, and it's been taking you so long to recognize that and bring it together.

Did that review of all this technology take place because the advisory council was recognizing the flaws? The Auditor General said a long time ago that there were major flaws in the department, but you're giving this right now. Was it because the legislative review was taking place and you have now recognized that there were problems? That's one point.

Second, you are saying it's going to take another five years down the road. I see a similar concern here. Five years is a long period of time. What's going to happen over there in the five years? The same old cracks in the system?

Third, you have all these interlinks now. We read in the papers of the security breaches in your system over there. And I personally have seen somebody putting his birth date incorrectly into your security system and getting an extension to a visitor's visa, just by changing his birth date. So there's a problem of security as well.

Mr. Roman Borowyk: Can I try to address the three elements of the question?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Roman Borowyk: The first one, the need to integrate our systems, was recognized right at the beginning when the Department of Citizenship and Immigration was created.

For example, we have been working at integrating the three separate systems we inherited from the three major departments that had responsibility for delivering the citizenship and immigration program right from the very beginning. This has been an ongoing process, which we are continuing. The members of the Immigration Legislative Review Advisory Group recognized that this was a need and that it was a continuing need. This is not something that's brand new.

With respect to the five years for developing the full functionality of a national case management system, it's a projection. The first year will provide for a major enhancement to the ability of officers to carry out their decisions. Then we will build on that.

In the meantime, we do have existing systems that do the job, perhaps not as well as we would like them to...for example, on your desk you now have a Pentium and maybe two years ago you had a 386. Two or three years ago, you were very happy with your 386. Now you wouldn't be. As technology moves ahead, the expectations also move ahead, and we're trying to keep abreast of that.

That is our plan now, and yes, to some degree that plan can be accelerated, but many of the functions that were recommended by the legislative review group will be built in during the first year. It's not that functions don't exist. They do exist, and we're trying to integrate them and make them better and faster.

With respect to your last point, on security breaches, information technology is an enabler. It's a tool to help people do the job. Each of our systems is password protected, based on what every individual needs to do the job. For example, if you're in a citizenship and immigration call centre, you might have password access only for reading in citizenship and immigration files. If you're at a post abroad and you're entering data on file creation, you're password protected. You cannot go beyond that. The next level is, for example, decision making. If you're making a first-level decision, you can have access to those particular screens, to that functionality.

Throughout the line, you're password protected. The system is password protected. We're always looking at means to enhance the system, to make it better. But to some degree, we are reliant on people. If somebody gives their password to somebody else, there's not much that technology can do about that. That becomes one of training and so on.

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We do constantly work to enhance that. As we build and develop and enhance new systems, we look at what has happened in the past and whether the new system will prevent that from occurring. Not only do we try to incorporate new technology to enhance security but we try to learn from what has happened in the past.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Are you pretty comfortable with the fact that now overseas missions are tied in to your centres in Canada, and comfortable with the transfer of data that will be going from overseas to here? This is confidential information. Are you fully satisfied with the security level, that these are secure information transfers?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: Yes. These are transferred in data packets and we're fairly comfortable that the systems are secure. We're looking at ways and means to ensure they will continue to be secure.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Is this the way the Americans do it too, or is it similar?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: Similar, yes. Again, technology continues to improve, and we'll try to improve with it.

Mr. Brian Grant: Mr. Chairman, may I add something to what Mr. Borowyk said? He indicated that enforcement is one of the key priorities, particularly for systems development.

As you work through something like this—and I go back to his analogy of the car, because it's a useful one to think of. We realized a couple of years ago, when we became, once again, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, that we needed to improve our systems. Unfortunately, everyone wants the $400,000 car. They want one with all the bells and whistles. We passed through a period when technology was going to be everyone's solution, and everyone wanted every bell and whistle you could possibly have. To move forward a project that large is extremely difficult and, as Mr. Borowyk indicated, extremely expensive.

I think what the committee should realize about what we're doing now, which is called the national case management system, is that we have identified enforcement issues as being the primary task we will accomplish. Phase one will be the enforcement issues. As we go along we can add the other accessories, but that's the one we really want to have.

We have a system now that treats cases. We know where the cases are. What we really need to do is improve our tracking of cases. We have individual tracking systems, but we have to improve our ability to have a national tracking system and we have to improve our management information system, which in large measure is the questions your committee asked us: how many people are in here? How many people have documents? It's all management information where you draw that out. That's where our systems right now let us down.

I think the important thing to realize is that the decision that has been taken by senior management in the department is that we move forward on those enforcement issues first, so we can start to collect that information. It's a question of priorizing.

The Chairman: I have a point of clarification about security. At present it's only the password that you have. In a sense it gives you some sense of security about the data you are collecting. With my knowledge of hackers, who have their networks all over the world and assist each other, I know eventually they can break through passwords. No system with just a password protection system is totally safe. Are you considering a fire wall system of some kind, or some other additional security system besides just a password?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: Password protection is really at the base.... It deals with what level of access officials of the department can have to each one of our transaction systems. It deals with the individual. If an individual needs to make a decision, they will be given that level. If the individual needs to make a more sophisticated decision, they will be given a higher level, access to more applications, processing screens, and so on. If the individual is doing fairly routine data entry, they have a lower level. It's how our officials access the system.

Another element of it is the actual transfer of the information between points. We're using the most sophisticated technology available to us now. It's the same technology as banks use to transfer information about your accounts. It's the best we can do now. Is it 100% foolproof? I don't think so.

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The Chairman: That's right.

Mr. Roman Borowyk: But it's the best that's available.

The Chairman: Okay. Thank you very much.

We'll continue our discussion with Mrs. Folco, please.

[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): I was wondering whether we could get a detailed chart showing the removal process. If I understood correctly, you're apparently preparing one at the moment.

Mr. Brian Grant: Yes.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Thank you.

[English]

I'm finished, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Oh, fine. Go ahead, Ms. Minna.

Ms. Maria Minna: Thank you.

When you're talking about the integrated client file model, are you looking at something like the paperless files that, say, Workers' Compensation in Ontario has—the imaging process where the whole file is accessible to whoever wants to get into it and find whatever documents have been filed or what have you? Is that what we're talking about? Do you know the systems I'm referring to, the imaging systems?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: Yes. What I'm referring to is the beginning, when you had, for example, three different departments—External Affairs, Employment and Immigration, and Citizenship—all dealing with the same client or applicant. As they applied overseas and as they applied at a port of entry, you had three different numbers assigned to it, because they were three different departments and they were all using different systems.

The unique client identifier will assign one number to the individual, and it will enable us to track that individual and hopefully avoid situations such as somebody entering a different date of birth; it would show up against the file. Again, there's enhanced security protection with integration of the systems.

The integrated client file will allow any officer, based on their need to know or access, which goes back to password protection, the ability to look at the entire client in, let's say, one or two computer screens. So if that client appears before you in Edmonton, you will know they were issued a visa in London, they entered at Vancouver Airport, this happened, they're now asking for an extension, and by the way, an enforcement action was taken on them in Toronto. It will give you a complete picture.

Ms. Maria Minna: I understand that clearly. My question was, will the documents that are submitted by those people also be scanned in, or is it not that kind of system?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: No.

Ms. Maria Minna: That was my question—if the file in its entirety is also there, but you can just move from page to page. I've seen that system. I just wondered.

Mr. Roman Borowyk: That's right. All the data that is available, however, will be on the screen. So it will all be extracted data. We may look at imaging technology to assist us in putting that data on that screen, that's correct.

Ms. Maria Minna: My next question is for Mr. Grant.

As you said earlier, yesterday when we met with the authors of the report, there was some discussion with respect to the Tassé report, and as you know, a lot of recommendations were made. Maybe before we even get into that aspect of it next time, you might let us know what parts of that report were implemented in fact. Where are we at with that report? It may be that some stuff that was recommended has already been done, in which case it might change the kinds of things we're looking at or how we approach it, if they've been done.

Mr. Brian Grant: We have a chart that we've been compiling as we go along with the Tassé report, and I'll make that available to the committee.

I'll just say a couple of things about it, because this is an area in the report where there seems to have been a misunderstanding between the group and what has taken place in the department. It's important to address it as well, because we took the recommendations from Mr. Tassé very seriously, and we were quite grateful to him for pointing these out to us.

We began addressing the recommendations immediately. The first recommendations, the ones in which he spoke of people not being involved in the review process, were implemented within weeks of the report coming out.

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I also wanted to flag for the committee that we felt a number of issues needed a little more analysis or discussion from what was done in Mr. Tassé's report, so we held a national symposium in March 1997. It brought together the removals officers from across the country for a couple of days. We went through the report very carefully and explored in a little more detail some of the issues that had been raised there. I forget the numbers, but I think over 150 officers were brought together. The officers themselves were quite pleased with that and recommended we do that on a yearly basis. We're examining the feasibility of doing that.

Out of that group a focus group was struck. It had representatives from all parts of the country. That focus group has also gone on to do a number of things, including a meeting they held at the end of January this year where they looked at the whole question of ethics and values. They are feeding into a larger process we have under way in the department to look at ethics and values. It's basically a bottom-up; we're looking at case studies and trying to resolve what you do in cases like that. The enforcement area has been extremely active, largely because of this focus group which has ultimately come out of the Tassé recommendations.

There were a couple of recommendations we didn't disagree with but we wanted to put a condition on or to clarify or to change slightly. For instance, Mr. Tassé recommended that a code of ethics be developed for removals officers. We agreed with the code of ethics; we disagreed that it should be for removals officers.

We were worried about having a Balkanized process or team. At the same time, when we're trying to bring people together into a more integrated team we didn't feel there should be a code of ethics for the guys working in removals, another one for ports of entry, and others all over the system. We agreed that there should be one code of ethics, and this focus group has recommended certain values that should be values for enforcement officers.

So in fact a great deal has been done on the Tassé report. I think you were led by the report to believe otherwise. I think you'll see in the report that we've addressed all the recommendations from Mr. Tassé. Some of them are ongoing—they are not completed yet—but all of them have been addressed.

We will provide that to you, Mr. Chairman. It should be in the next couple of days.

The Chairman: Mr. Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): I must confess that the link between the information you provided for us and what I consider the committee's major concern was not immediately apparent to me. The fact is that we are here to try to understand a situation that is of great concern to all Canadians and Quebeckers. We are told that at the moment 19,000 claimants are subject to removal, and that the department manages to remove 22% of them. So there are quite a few people who got into the country illegally, for all sorts of reasons, and who should not be here, but who continue to remain here even though there is a removal order against them.

We are trying to understand the detention requirements and why some individuals are falling through cracks in this system. The main point I understood from what you said is that our computer systems are now integrated, that we will know more about individuals, be able to track them better, be able to use computers to identify them better, and so on. That should be a cause for celebration, but I think the fundamental issue remains the same.

What could you tell us that would help us make some intelligent and imaginative recommendations that would ensure that 80% of the people who should not be here do not remain here? What is missing in the area of enforcement, technology and resources? Why is it that despite the fact that the systems are integrated, despite the fact that you can identify individuals more easily, you agree with the Auditor General's analysis? Earlier the figure of 6,000 deportations a year was mentioned. The Auditor General told us that 19,000 individuals were supposed to have left Canada, and that only 22% of them actually did.

What is the technological problem preventing the process from being more efficient, and why do we find ourselves in this situation?

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I don't want you to get the impression that I am in a bad mood. I'm just trying to understand your remarks a little better.

I fail to see the relevance of today's testimony to our concerns. We are always pleased to see you, but your comments today do not seem to have much to do with our work.

[English]

Mr. Brian Grant: Perhaps I can begin, and others can join in later.

First of all, to clarify a bit, the Auditor General in his report looked at the problem from one perspective. He said that from 1993 to the present, a certain number of people—about 20,000, I think he said—had been refused refugee status, and of those, something in the order of 4,000 had been removed. He looked at the people who, within those years, had made a claim, had been found not to be a refugee, and in fact had been removed. If you look at the removals in the same period, from 1993 to the present, our numbers show that it was over 16,000.

Now, the difference between the two—and they're both interesting; I mean, you're looking at different things—is that the Auditor General confined himself to what started and ended in that period. Unfortunately, the cases keep rolling on. We've removed, since 1993, cases where the claim was made prior to 1993, it was completed after 1993, and they were subsequently removed. So you have to be careful about the numbers you're looking at.

The second point is that because it's very expensive to remove everyone, we have attempted in the past to encourage people to leave voluntarily, and to show them that they have had an opportunity to have their case heard, they've had a chance to have that decision reviewed, and at some point in time, that's the end of the road. They have to leave voluntarily. There's nothing more. Since 1993, I think over 7,000 people have done so.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: You say, Mr. Grant, that the Auditor General's figures are incorrect and that the process works much better than we might think on first reading.

However, can you tell me why there is not a better tracking of individuals? You have the technology to identify individuals, but, generally speaking, there are many people... You say that since 1993 there have been 16,000 removals, not 4,000. That is certainly good news, particularly for taxpayers, given that we know how much it costs to keep them, and that figure apparently does not match the one put forward by the Auditor General. I would like to know, nonetheless, why the system does not identify individuals exactly, and why it is impossible to take effective action.

The chair of the Advisory Group, Mr. Trempe, told us yesterday that the department could not say exactly how many removals occur each year. The process is monitored poorly. Why is it that we cannot identify those who should be removed, and why can we not actually remove them? What technological facilities do you need, assuming the problem lies in this area? Perhaps having more technological facilities would do nothing to correct the problem, but can you tell us why we find ourselves in this situation? That is what the committee must understand.

[English]

Mr. Brian Grant: I'll tell you about some of the things we've done in the last year to improve this, and I'll tell you where we have a problem.

We have increased the removals over the last year from 58,000 to close to 8,000. Most of them have been failed refugee claimants. How have we done that? Well, we've done that by addressing the famous problem we've talked about here, that of travel documents. We've tried to get people to apply earlier in the process for the documents. We've had some success there.

We're also working on information-sharing arrangements with provinces and municipalities. Basically, what we're talking about here is that the welfare offices, for example, have an address they're sending a cheque to. They're interested in knowing whether a person has been ordered removed from Canada and therefore should no longer be in receipt of this. We're interested in knowing where the cheque is going so that we can find it.

It's as simple as that. It's an address to find people. It's a tracking system. We've had some success with that as well.

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There are several other initiatives, and we can provide a more detailed list. So we have increased...we're still missing people, as all countries do. It's partly the tracking system, and improvements will improve it, but the biggest concern is that at a certain point in the process people abscond.

In the U.K., I think, they estimate that something like 50% of the people just don't show up. In the United States it's slightly different. It's an interesting problem in the United States. People come in and make a refugee claim to get into the system and then they just disappear. They don't even show up for their hearing. All they want to do is get into the United States and work illegally, because it's a big labour market and they can get lost in there.

In Canada the pattern is slightly different. People will stay in the system because in the system you get a work permit, etc.—until they get towards the end, that is. And when they get towards the end and either hear the “no” or see it coming, then they disappear. The “no” can come at various places. Remember the system we walked you through last time? You get “no” in terms of your refugee claim. That's the first one. Then you can go to the Federal Court, and meanwhile there's a stay against your removal.

So there's a question the ILRAG group grapples with. They're not clear—at least I can't find in the report—on just where you draw the line. They introduce the idea of cooperation; is the person cooperative or not? If people are not cooperative, then they would be detained.

But what exactly is cooperation? Up until this time, the person has been cooperating. They've filled in the forms, they've shown up for their hearings and they've applied to the Federal Court. They've cooperated with us. So we do not have strong grounds to hold them in detention, because they're giving every appearance of showing for removal. Every time we tell them to come in to do something, they show, and then all of a sudden they disappear. The problem is how do you track them down at that point?

Some people, we believe, leave the country. They realize there's nothing more they can legally pursue here. Maybe they head for the United States and try to work illegally, to go underground.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Mr. Trempe and his colleagues told us that one problem in Canada is that detention was not used enough in some cases, even though detention is an option when people do not have proper documents or when they make false statements. Mr. Trempe said that Canada used detention very little to deal with this type of problem. I don't know whether that is good or bad, because that is not the point. However, the fact is that we are having trouble identifying people, detaining them and particularly removing them.

This morning, you told us about a number of technological advances, but as far as I'm concerned, the link between your comments and recommendation 155, which we are supposed to be studying, isn't clear. That is why I am asking for some clarifications about the way you operate.

In addition, you are right to remind us that we are talking about people who are moving around, who are not easy to identify, and that this has nothing to do with the competence of the officials or the technological resources at your disposal. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Canadians consider the system to be very leaky. The process is not working, and we want to understand why.

Obviously, any information you could provide which would help improve the process would be very much appreciated by committee members.

[English]

Mr. Brian Grant: There are two points, and I'll give you a question back, because I don't have the answer. It's a question we're looking at as well.

The report talks about a much more extensive use of detention. So here's the question I put back to you: what is the legal basis for detaining people in these cases? We have a limited legal basis for detaining now, which is that you are a danger to the public or that you won't show for an inquiry, or more likely—

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Provisional status. Perhaps that is why Mr. Trempe was proposing provisional status.

[English]

Mr. Brian Grant: Right, or else you would be detained. They are suggesting detention that would be much broader than what we have authority for now. The question is, on what grounds would you detain the people? Are you legally allowed to do that?

The second thing is a piece of information for you to consider. We talk about all countries having the problem, and it is true that it is an international problem. We all approach it differently and we try to learn from each other's successes and mistakes.

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The approach of the United States Congress was section 110, which has concerned a lot of Canadians, particularly in border communities. Basically what section 110 says is that immigration officers will record the names of every alien who enters and exits the United States. They call them “aliens”. I've read in the paper it has been predicted there will be 18-hour back-ups at ports of entry...trying to get into the United States.

What we're looking at is a way that might do the same thing without interrupting the movement. We're saying we believe that, of the people who disappear, probably a significant number disappear into the United States. It's a long border. It's easy to pass through. We're trying to find them by doing a better job of linking up to welfare systems and other places where people must record their identity. One possibility we're exploring is whether we can link up with the United States. If we have somebody we're looking for and that person shows up in an American system, then maybe we've answered the question of where the person went, and maybe we've answered one of their questions.

Obviously there are questions of privacy on this. There are also technology and security questions we have to look into.

That's an approach we're exploring right now.

The Chairman: Mr. McKay.

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): I've listened to your testimony fairly carefully, and at the end I wasn't overly comforted that the systems you had put in place were greatly different and greatly more effective in removals from what previously existed. It seemed to me basically your testimony was that you pulled together a bunch of incompatible systems, tried to make them compatible, and you've gone from a 386 to a Pentium, so you can do it faster now.

What I didn't hear about was the fundamental information gathering at point of entry where you have that individual. So could you tell me in very specific terms how in the past six months your integration of this system and improvement of this system are of more assistance to those who ultimately may be faced with removal or detention?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: I'll be happy to. Let me start by saying that when I started to provide the overview, the program was delivered by three different departments with three completely different, fragmented systems. They were totally incompatible. That's where we had to start.

Now we do have in place various tracking systems, whether for investigations or hearings of appeals. The difficulty is they do that job in that narrow function very well, but they are not integrated with other systems. That's where we are now. We have the functionality to do this throughout the citizenship and immigration program, but what we're working on now is trying to integrate the information so what you're indicating, an officer doing investigation, an officer doing removals, will be able at the push of a button, if you will, to pull up a client's screen and it will show the total picture.

We're not there yet. That is the national case management system I've described. That has recently been approved and recently costed and financed. We have gathered all the requirements, so to speak, from our client, the enforcement branch, through something called joint application development sessions. We are now ready to proceed to the application stage. A year down the road you will see an integrated enforcement file with a shared national database.

So to answer the question, yes, we started here. If you look at a spectrum, we started here, with totally disjointed, fragmented systems. We would like a totally integrated, superior system. We're somewhere in the middle.

Mr. John McKay: What you're saying is that in a year you hope to be merged.

Mr. Roman Borowyk: We hope to merge certain investigations, hearings, detentions—the enforcement function. We hope to be able to provide a complete integrated enforcement look, if you will.

Mr. John McKay: If you have a client in the system who in the initial instance has been something less than cooperative, hasn't provided documents of any kind, let alone travel documents, how is this system itself going to be of any great use to the person at the other end?

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Mr. Roman Borowyk: If a client doesn't cooperate and provide information, there's not much that technology can do.

Mr. John McKay: So you're just going to have blank screens, if you will?

Ms. Maria Minna: But that in itself will say something to the enforcement person.

Mr. Brian Grant: There is a requirement: we have the right to and we do photograph and fingerprint, so we have a positive ID.

Mr. John McKay: Does that go into developing a unique identifier? Is that in the unique identifier system?

Mr. Brian Grant: It would be in our records. The person also will give us a name. They're usually making an application for refugee status, so they must apply, they must have a name, they must say where they came from, etc. It's an identity. They may have fabricated the identity, but nonetheless it's an identity, it's a name. And we have also a fingerprint.

They can make up a completely fictitious name and a completely fictitious past, but at some point, if they get through and they're accepted as a refugee and they're landed, what people often do is they want to bring members of their family. So the family had better match the name they've given. It makes it difficult. It's not impossible, but it makes it difficult.

Mr. John McKay: Fabricate a name, fabricate a family.

Mr. Brian Grant: Well, but then you start to check that, you start to try to get some references on it, and you're obviously finding that somebody's making up a story. But something will go into the system, and it is based on a positive identifier, which is a fingerprint.

Mr. John McKay: So you have a fingerprint in the system, which you can't fake, but everything else in the system, every other point of information they give you as it goes into the system, they could be developing a persona?

Mr. Brian Grant: I'll qualify what I said earlier. Yes, they could be inventing a persona. It's the challenge of the Immigration and Refugee Board to see through that in terms of whether they are a convention refugee. If they find that they are a convention refugee and the person does not have documentary evidence to support this personality they've created, they will not be landed in Canada. They cannot become a permanent resident.

We've made two exceptions, because they simply don't have documents: Somalis and Afghanis. But for them there's a delay for five years, which was deliberately built in, because a lot of stories will come out in five years. You will see basically the record of how the person behaves in your community, which is the principle that lies behind the minister's permit as well. The community will often inform you on what you might investigate in terms of who these people are or claim to be.

Those are the only two exceptions. Those are extraordinary circumstances where we felt it was impossible for somebody to produce a document. For everyone else, if you're seen as a refugee, we'll give you protection and we won't send you back, but you will never become a permanent resident and ultimately a citizen of Canada. So you're stopped at that point in terms of your status.

Mr. John McKay: I'm just trying to get a handle on the usefulness of the testimony, shall we say, as far as removals are concerned. If one year from now you got to the stage where this was a completely integrated system, would you be doing removals more efficiently?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: I'd like to add a few points to that. It is conceivable that you could make up a blank screen. I suppose I could say it's conceivable that when you file an income tax return, you could make a blank screen, or you could not file an income tax return at all, and maybe you could get away with it for three or four years.

There may be a situation where the same individual has applied for a visitor visa or had an interaction with one of our offices overseas. Maybe he was refused. That would be captured by the system. Maybe he purchased an airline ticket; that would be captured by the ticketing system. Perhaps he entered the United States and the U.S. authorities have information on him. It could be a law enforcement or an immigration agency.

So there is a possibility that that particular individual will not be a totally blank screen, that somewhere where you start matching data, a match will occur. It may not be a 100% accurate match, but the systems are designed already, and we're improving and enhancing, so the probability is that this person in front of you is 75% that individual. It's not infallible—no system is infallible—but by integrating information and technology, we're trying to build a better system.

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I'm not going to tell you right now that we have a 100% foolproof system. Nobody can.

Mr. John McKay: Even a year from now?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: Even a year from now.

Mr. Brian Grant: I have a few comments from the program side on what we expect and hope for out of this system.

Right now we have a system that records immigration transactions that take place, which is the FOSS system. We also have other tracking systems that try to pick up, because people come in and out of our system as they go through. They're in the immigration system and they go to the Federal Court; they're in the Federal Court system and they go to the IRB; they're in the IRB system. We're working on some linkages with the IRB right now, but this system will track them all the way through the process.

What that means is we will be able to see a case coming through the court. We will be able to see where it is, in terms of the court deposition, more easily than we can now. We don't have to go from system to system to system. One system will say this person is almost through, so we can take some tactical steps to get ready for the person. That's number one.

Number two, not only will this enable us to answer your questions more easily in future, but it gives us the type of management information system that allows us to deploy our resources so we can look with much more accuracy at how many criminal cases we have in such-and-such a place. Are they serious criminals or minor criminals? Do they have stays? Do they have documents? We can start to then blitz here and there, and we can do a number of things from a management point of view that are much more difficult now, because you're working sometimes with manual calculations out of the system. It will allow us to take management decisions and give directions much better.

Mr. John McKay: So at critical points in the current system, it's a surprise to you right now? You have no way of tracking?

Mr. Brian Grant: Well, we do have a system of tracking.

Mr. John McKay: But you bounce from system to system.

Mr. Brian Grant: For instance, in Toronto we have a system called TRACS, which has been developed for Toronto only, so we can track within there. It's trying to do that. It was an ad hoc attempt to solve this problem.

The process Mr. Borowyk has been telling you about will do it nationally by 1999 so we can start to track people nationally.

Mr. John McKay: All right.

The Chairman: Mr. McNally.

Mr. Grant McNally (Dewdney—Alouette, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It seems from what you're telling us that there's leakage along the system, and that can happen at any time, depending on what the individual we're talking about decides to do—whether they're seeing a no coming up, as you indicated, or they do actually get the no. There's leakage throughout the system.

If we were to put the resources at the front end and shorten the time loads, which we've mentioned in earlier talks, that would be more of a preventative medicine, looking at it at that end rather than dealing with it at the other end. It's appearing as though it's very difficult to first of all find the people who need to be removed, and then, even if they're found and we ask them to leave voluntarily, that gives them an out, too, to disappear. We need to put the resources at the front end and have the will to do that.

You asked a question of us about the legal framework. In detaining a person, you have to show that either they're a danger to the public or there's a possibility that they won't show. The department's past experience has been that any person could leave the system at any time, even though they were cooperative in the beginning. These of course are people who are not going to be eligible to stay, and most likely know that upon entry. As for the technology you've talked about and the resources required to do that, in your opinion—and don't throw it back on us, because you asked us that question before—is that the route to go?

I know the report mentions this as well, linking that provisional status. We seem almost hesitant to say we need to do that, because no one likes the idea of the tension. But if we were to go in that direction, knowing that to some degree it's going to be an inconvenience to the people who are true refugees or truly eligible to enter the country, is that the route you think we should take here?

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Mr. Brian Grant: I will just challenge your use of “leakage” and add something I should have added before. We don't see it as leakage, in that we respond to every situation. The question is whether that's the appropriate response or it's the response—

Mr. Grant McNally: I want to clarify that the leakage has nothing to do with the departments. I don't think there is any way you can figure out what someone is going to do. It's the responsibility of the individual who decides to disappear.

Mr. Brian Grant: Let me be specific and apologize in advance. There may be a question for you at the end of this.

What I mean by saying there is not leakage is that if we get to the end and somebody absconds, then a warrant is issued for that person's arrest, because they did not show for removal. The warrant is entered into the CPIC system, the Canadian police information system, which means that every police car in the country has it in its computer if they pick them up. It's also hooked up to the United States, so the officials at the border going into the United States have that information as well.

That has been our response to what we do on that. The response could be a much more massive and more expensive response. It could be a response that brings detention into play, so they can't run away. Maybe more forces could be put in place to try to find them. There are various responses you could make. I suppose the challenge we all face—you because of recommendation 155, we because of the department, the ILRAG people—is what is the right level of response? What can you afford to do? What is the most efficient?

By and large, in the last few years we've been trying to move towards finding ways that would make voluntary compliance attractive to people, and—

Mr. Grant McNally: I would like to interrupt you for a second there. Voluntary compliance obviously isn't working really well with the individuals who know there is a voluntary compliance aspect to our system. The word is on the street in other areas. When they come here they know they can, as you mentioned earlier, disappear anywhere along in the system. If we move our resources to, first of all, identifying who these individuals are more quickly at the front end, for which we'll need the will and the resources, then those people won't get further down in the system, to disappear, as you mentioned earlier.

Mr. Brian Grant: Voluntary compliance works only if there is some consequence to not complying.

Mr. Grant McNally: But with voluntary compliance the reward for not complying is you get to stay in Canada, or you then get to pursue the U.S. or another country. That's probably a bigger carrot for somebody than it is to leave voluntarily. Why leave voluntarily if you're already in the country and you've achieved your goal, which was to be able to stay in the country?

Mr. Brian Grant: If you push it far enough, it comes down to how you make no mean no. If you stay on and you hope—

Mr. Grant McNally: I think you do that earlier in the system.

Mr. Brian Grant: The longer you stay on...if you hope somewhere there is a yes there, you would be encouraged not to comply voluntarily. If there is some way we will give in at the end, there's always going to be hope for somebody. So how you make sure.... “You've had the opportunity. The answer is no. There will never be a yes.” Then the problem is that if you have a decision that it's impossible to say yes, you have a person who is on your territory. It's a different problem. They have no status. They have no access to anything. They really have nothing to hope for here. Then you have to find the person and actually remove the person. But if you're in the woods in Canada, you're not really anywhere.

Mr. Grant McNally: Yes. That gets into a whole other set of....

Mr. Brian Grant: As we found in the ice storm, if you don't have access to certain things, you are really nowhere.

Mr. Grant McNally: My next question is short. It's a technology one. In the department, if someone with different security levels accesses files, is there any overseeing of who is accessing and at what levels? Is that recorded or monitored by anybody?

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Mr. Roman Borowyk: Every time you log in on the system using your password, the system records who logs on. That was one of the features of the system that assisted the RCMP in their investigation.

Mr. Grant McNally: Does someone check that? Is there a senior supervisor who is checking who logs in and when they're off?

Mr. Roman Borowyk: There are various levels, and in each particular location there is a systems administrator who has access to the overall information in the system and will be able to provide information to you, for example, that on such-and-such a day such-and-such a person did the following transaction or accessed the system in the following way.

Mr. Grant McNally: Thanks.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

We've come to the end of our session this morning, and I would like to thank the witnesses who have appeared.

We will adjourn until Wednesday, March 11, 1998. At that meeting, we have to consider two very important issues. The first will be a letter of request initiated by four members of the committee under Standing Order 106(3). Of course, we will also have a reappearance of the officials from the department on recommendation 155.

The meeting is adjourned. Thank you.