CIMM Committee Report

    Clause 9(1) provides that an application for permanent residence or for a temporary resident visa must be made at the immigration office outside Canada that serves the applicant’s place of habitual residence. Exceptions are made in clause 17 for specific permanent resident applications: live-in caregivers, members of the spouse or common-law partner in Canada class, and members of the undocumented protected persons in Canada class. For the most part, however, applicants will be restricted to a specific immigration office outside the country. Witnesses appearing before the Committee expressed various concerns with respect to this new regulatory requirement.

    The Committee realizes that, in many situations, clause 9 will cause inconvenience and could result in prospective permanent residents, temporary workers and students abandoning plans to come to, or remain in Canada. A visitor in Canada who, for example, decides to attend university here or receives a job offer that is validated by Human Resources Development Canada as a position no Canadian can fill, may be discouraged if they are required to return to China or South Africa to apply for a study or work permit.

    There are also situations where an applicant is located in an area outside Canada that is not their place of habitual residence and it would cause hardship to require them to apply at the mission serving their home country. For example, a Chilean professor who is on a short sabbatical at the University of Vermont and receives a job offer at Queen’s University would likely want to apply for a visa in Buffalo, New York and not in Santiago. Reference was also made in testimony to the fact that some people are reluctant to make applications at visa posts in their home country. It was suggested that there are issues with respect to the confidentiality of applications and the use of locally engaged staff at some overseas missions.

    Apart from greater flexibility abroad, witnesses also made reference to the need for an expansion of the groups permitted to make in-Canada applications. Visitors seeking status as students or temporary workers were mentioned, as were those in Canada on a work permit wishing to apply for permanent resident status.

    The Committee found many of the witnesses’ suggestions to be compelling and we make the following recommendations.

RECOMMENDATION 54

Applicants should be permitted to apply for a visa at any Canadian immigration mission abroad.

RECOMMENDATION 55

Foreign nationals who are legally in Canada should be permitted to apply to a CIC office within Canada for a study permit.

RECOMMENDATION 56

People in Canada on a work permit should be permitted to apply for permanent residence at a CIC office within Canada.

    The Committee also had drawn to its attention the issue of people working in Canada without legal status to do so. This is particularly common in the construction industry, which has come to rely on such labour. As was noted in the Committee’s report on border security of December 2001, the Department should consider relaxing the landing requirements for those who can demonstrate ties to our country, a clean record and a likelihood that they will be self-sufficient. These people do not currently pay taxes and are often exploited by employers. Not only would this address these undesirable consequences of a lack of status, it would also reduce the demands on the enforcement branch of CIC and would benefit Canadian industry.

    It happens from time to time that temporary residents unwittingly allow their status to lapse. The proposed regulations require that an application to restore status be made within 30 days of the expiration of status. The Committee heard from witnesses who suggested that there is no justification for this time limit. We agree that 30 days is too short a period to rectify an inadvertent lapse.

    Section 28 of the Act requires that permanent residents be in Canada for two years (730 days) out of every five years to maintain permanent resident status. Exceptions are made for people working outside of the country for a Canadian business and for specific accompanying family members. The Act allows other exceptions to be prescribed by the regulations, but the proposed regulations are silent on this matter. In its Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement, the Department indicates that consideration was given to allowing study abroad as another means of compliance with the residency obligation, but it was determined that a sufficiently generous amount of time for absences from Canada is already provided. However, the Committee notes that permanent residents studying abroad for a five-year period would lose permanent resident status even if they returned to Canada for the months of May through August every year. The Committee also heard from witnesses who made reference to other absences from Canada that should be excusable.

It is understood that section 28(2)(c) of the Act would permit the consideration of humanitarian and compassionate factors to overcome a breach of the residency requirement. However, the Committee has determined that it would be appropriate to include specific situations in the regulations for greater certainty.

    Section 31 of the Act provides that a status document shall be provided to permanent residents, and that the regulations may state the circumstances in which the document may be issued, renewed or revoked. This document has come to be called the "Maple Leaf" card, and in most cases will be valid for five years.

    Cards will be provided to all new permanent residents. Those who are already permanent residents who wish to travel (or, eventually, new permanent residents after five years when the cards expire) must apply for the card. The application procedure resembles that for a passport. A guarantor is required, who must be from a specified list of professions and who has known the applicant for two years. Information is requested regarding absences from Canada within the last five years, in order to satisfy the residence criteria for permanent resident status.

    As a number of witnesses pointed out, however, much of the information required goes far beyond that found on a passport application. For example, applicants are asked: where they have lived for the last five years; all the employers they have worked for in that same period, or the educational institutions attended; the names, addresses and telephone numbers of two Canadian citizens or permanent residents who know the applicant; and for identity documents, including (as one option) the applicant’s most recent income tax notice of assessment.

    The Committee agrees that the information proposed to be collected for the purpose of the permanent resident card far exceeds what is necessary to establish that the person is still a permanent resident. Identity and residency would seem to be the key factors, and a good deal of the information proposed to be collected is thus not relevant. We recommend that the government redraft these provisions to concentrate only on the information directly relevant to the establishment or maintenance of permanent residence.

RECOMMENDATION 60

The information required to apply for a permanent resident card should be targeted only to issues of identity and residency.

    As originally conceived, the permanent resident card was to contain security features, such as high quality paper, and a photograph of the individual to whom it was issued. Biographical data relevant to immigration status would be embedded in a magnetic strip. The card was heralded as a document that would be secure, in contrast to the current record of landing document (the IMM1000). The Department has been aware for a number of years that the IMM1000 is open to forgery, being a paper document that does not even bear a photograph of the holder.

    Several of the Committee’s witnesses raised the question of whether there might be biometric identifiers on the new permanent resident card. They were strongly opposed, on the grounds that the use of biometric data implies that permanent residents are less trustworthy than citizens.

    Some critics of the new card, however, maintain that, without biometric data, it will be no more secure than the IMM1000 that it will replace. In this section of the report, the Committee will explore issues relating to the security of the card as originally conceived and the possible use of biometric identifiers.

    We start with the use of photo identification, proposed as a security feature for the new card. This first thing to note is that human beings are not particularly acute at recognizing individuals from photograph identification, particularly across cultural lines. Moreover, glasses, hairstyles and (for men) facial hair may change, which may lead to questions even when the holder of the card is genuine

    More important, however, is the ease with which photo identification may be faked. A cursory search of the world wide Web turns up numerous Web sites offering assistance in manufacturing fake photo identification cards for virtually any purpose. There is even a Web site that evaluates the fake products of the various sites.

    Some sites purport to be for "novelty" purposes; others do not bother with that pretence. Here is the promise on one: "Become ANYONE You Want! Surprise your friends and FOOL...ANYONE...ANYTIME...ANYWHERE. Repair your credit. Travel in style. Protect your loved ones. No one will know the TRUTH but Yourself. Disappear completely and Start a New Life!"

    Even if those companies do not have the sophisticated tools to reproduce a high-quality card, others do. Thus, the Committee feels that Canadians are right to have concerns about the security of the new card. It would be a shame for the government to spend close to $20 million and not achieve its intended purpose.

    Are biometric identifiers the answer? "Biometrics" is the technology that takes physical or behavioural characteristics of individuals and converts then into digital data. They are then encrypted into a system, which can be an individual card, from which subsequent comparisons are made.

    There are a number of possible biometric identifiers. Some — fingerprints and features of the eye (the retina and the iris) — are considered unique to an individual. Others, such as facial features, hand geometry, and voiceprints are considered relatively unique to an individual. Both types contain information that is considered non-transferrable among individuals. Neither type contains data about the person; rather, a biometric identifier is information of the person.

    Biometric identifiers are used for the purpose of authentication (or verification) of identify, or for identification of a person, or both. In the case of the permanent resident card, the identifier encrypted on an individual’s card would be compared against the biometric information presented in person. If the two matched, the person’s identity would be authenticated. Because the biometric identifier would be encrypted on the card, forgery would be extremely difficult.

    Some commentators are wary of the widespread use of biometric information, particularly in the private sector. They warn that biometric systems are not foolproof, and that there are dangers in data sharing. They view some uses, such as surveillance of crowds on the basis of facial features, as threatening individual autonomy.

    Critics feel that the widespread use of biometrics raises issues relating to privacy and human individuality, and may engender in people a sense that the government and private organizations are becoming all intrusive. They warn too of what has been called "function creep," the application of technology to uses unintended and possibly unforeseen when first introduced.

    Although the Committee is sympathetic to the above concerns about the use of biometric identifiers, we believe that with the appropriate safeguards, and for the limited purposes envisaged, a biometric identifier is essential to provide sufficient security for the new permanent resident card.

    What safeguards would be appropriate? We recommend the following:

• Although no biometric system is foolproof, the system should be made as accurate as possible to ensure a high degree of confidence in the results.

• All available measures should be taken to prevent the possibility of tampering with the system.

• A unique identifier — fingerprints or retinal scans — would be preferable to a less reliable one.

• The biometric identifier on the card should be limited to authentication for immigration purposes only.

• Because the identifier on the card authenticates the identity of the person who enrolled in the system, it is essential that the initial enrolment process be as valid as possible. Biometrics cannot detect an assumed identity.