PACC Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Public Accounts

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, May 12, 2003

¹

1530

The Chair (Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Canadian Alliance))

Ms. Sheila Fraser (Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada)

¹

1535

The Chair

Mr. Michel Dorais (Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration)

¹

1540

The Chair

Ms. Val Meredith (South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

¹

1545

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Daniel Jean (Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Program Development, Department of Citizenship and Immigration)

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

¹

1550

Ms. Val Meredith

The Chair

Mr. Odina Desrochers (Lotbinière—L'Érable, BQ)

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Ms. Sheila Fraser

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michel Dorais

¹

1555

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Odina Desrochers

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Odina Desrochers

The Chair

Mr. Shawn Murphy (Hillsborough, Lib.)

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Shawn Murphy

º

1600

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Michel Dorais

º

1605

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Shawn Murphy

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Shawn Murphy

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Michel Dorais

º

1610

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Michel Dorais

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Michel Dorais

º

1615

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1620

Ms. Sheila Fraser

The Chair

Mr. Roger Gaudet (Berthier—Montcalm, BQ)

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Roger Gaudet

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Roger Gaudet

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Roger Gaudet

º

1625

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Mr. Tony Tirabassi

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Tony Tirabassi

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. John Finlay (Oxford, Lib.)

º

1630

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. John Finlay

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. John Finlay

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. John Finlay

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. John Finlay

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. John Finlay

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. John Finlay

Mr. Michel Dorais

º

1635

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.)

Mr. Michel Dorais

º

1640

The Chair

Mr. Roger Gaudet

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. Roger Gaudet

The Chair

Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre)

Ms. Sheila Fraser

The Chair

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. John Finlay

º

1645

Mr. Michel Dorais

Mr. John Finlay

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

º

1650

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Mr. Michel Dorais

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Fraser

The Chair

º

1655

Ms. Sheila Fraser

The Chair

Mr. Joe Fontana

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Fraser

The Chair

»

1700

Ms. Sheila Fraser

The Chair

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Richard Neville (Deputy Comptroller General, Comptrollership Branch, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat)

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Richard Neville

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Richard Neville

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Richard Neville

Ms. Val Meredith

The Chair

Mr. John Morgan (Executive Director, Financial Management and Accounting Policy Directorate, Comptrollership Branch, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat)

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Richard Neville

»

1705

The Chair

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Richard Neville

The Chair

Mr. Richard Neville

Mr. John Morgan

The Chair

Mr. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Richard Neville

The Chair

Mr. Richard Neville

The Chair

Mr. Richard Neville

The Chair

Mr. Richard Neville

The Chair

Mr. Richard Neville

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Public Accounts

---

NUMBER 029

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Monday, May 12, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹  (1530)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Canadian Alliance)): Good afternoon, everybody.

    The order of the day is, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(e), consideration of chapter 5, Citizenship and Immigration Canada--Control and Enforcement, of the April 2003 report of the Auditor General of Canada.

    Our witnesses today are, from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Ms. Sheila Fraser, Auditor General of Canada, Mr. Shahid Minto, Assistant Auditor General, and Mr. John Hitchinson, a principal with the office, and from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, Mr. Michel Dorais, Deputy Minister, Lyse Ricard, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, and Daniel Jean, acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Program Development.

    We have a letter from Treasury Board, Mr. Neville, which was circulated, I presume, some time ago, asking for some approvals and waivers for the Public Accounts of Canada. We expect them to arrive around 5:10, so we will wrap this meeting up early and at that point consider ex gratia payments. Mr. Neville, Deputy Comptroller General, Comptrollership Branch, and Mr. John Morgan, executive director, Financial Management and Accounting Policy Directorate, Comptrollership Branch, should be showing up.

    Even before that, the Auditor General has some guests from overseas. They are in attendance at the moment in the audience, and we will give them 10 or 15 minutes to come forward. Ms. Fraser can introduce the guests, and if they have any questions about how we conduct public accounts committees in Canada, we'll deal with them.

    We will now start with the opening statement by Ms. Fraser.

    Ms. Sheila Fraser (Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    We thank you for this opportunity to present the results of our audit of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's control and enforcement activities, which was contained in chapter 5 of our April 2003 report. As you mentioned, I am accompanied by Shahid Minto,who is the Assistant Auditor General in charge of the audit, as well as Mr. John Hitchinson, the audit principal who led the audit team. Also with us, but not at the table, is Mr. Paul Morse, who was the lead director on this audit.

    Parliament passed the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in the fall of 2001, with most provisions coming into effect on June 28, 2002. Our audit examined control and enforcement activities. We did not examine the activities of the Immigration and Refugee Board.

    Our audit found a number of positive activities carried out by Immigration. For example, the department has taken a significant step to stop inadmissible travellers entering the country. In the past three years immigration control officers have worked with airlines overseas to prevent some 20,000 people with improper travel documents boarding flights to Canada. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is also playing an important role in the government's joint control efforts with the United States. The department has produced the permanent resident card, which has modern security features. It also led the negotiation of the safe third country agreement with the U.S.

[Translation]

    The integrity of the immigration system depends on control and enforcement activities.

    One problem is that the Immigration Department does not know how effective its border controls are.

    Border controls have not been assessed since the mid-nineties when both primary and secondary screenings were found to have been not very effective.

    We s strongly urge Citizenship and Immigration Canada to regularly examine the performance of its border controls. It is the only way to be certain that the steps they have taken to improve the security of our borders are effective.

    I am pleased to say that the Department agrees and has indicated that it plans to evaluate both the primary and secondary inspection lines through a combined review process.

    Once people are in the country who should not be—for whatever reason—it is the job of Citizenship and Immigration to enforce their removal. This must be done in a safe, effective and respectful manner while ensuring that the individual's legal rights are maintained. They cannot remove someone as long as that person's legal rights allow him or her to stay.

    A problem that we highlighted is the large gap between the number of removals orders and the number of departures confirmed. This number has grown by 36,000 in the past six years.

    Now then, we should be careful not to jump to conclusions. This doesn't necessarily mean that all these people are still in Canada illegally, and it certainly doesn't mean that they are all security risks.

[English]

Immigration doesn't actually know how many are still here, because Canada does not have exit controls, and some may have left voluntarily without reporting their departure. I also believe it is unrealistic to expect this gap to be reduced to zero. However, the Immigration and Refugee Board had a backlog of about 53,000 cases at the end of December 2002. The Immigration and Refugee Board estimates the historical average of its decisions that resulted in cancelling a removal order at about 45%. Therefore, the department can expect that about 29,000 more people already in Canada will soon require processing.

    Some questions the committee may wish to ask the department are when performance measurement and evaluation of the primary and secondary inspection lines at ports of entry will begin and how the committee and Parliament will be informed of the results; what measures are being put in place to improve the screening of travellers at marine ports of entry; how the department plans to deal with the growing backlog of investigations and removals; and whether the department has developed an action plan to respond to the recommendations.

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    I hope this brief explanation of our audit and findings on Citizenship and Immigration Canada's enforcement activities has been helpful to the committee. That concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Fraser

    Now we'll turn to Mr. Dorais for his opening statement.

[Translation]

    Mr. Michel Dorais (Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    Members of the committee, I want to thank you for inviting me here today. I understand that I should keep my comments brief and I will.

[English]

    The work of Citizenship and Immigration is a constant search for equilibrium between welcoming visitors, immigrants, and refugees and ensuring that those who should not be in Canada find it difficult to enter or are promptly removed from our soil. Fortunately, almost all of the 109 million people who cross our borders every year are here for legitimate purposes and are most welcome in our country.

    There was, is, and will always be a need for enforcement measures to maintain the integrity of our program, and this is the part of our program the Auditor General has commented upon and is helping us to improve. The department welcomes her recommendations, and follow-up work has already started. However, there's no magic bullet, no ideal program design that can filter out all the bad people and let only the good people in. Our best avenue is to work hard at improving the situation within the limits of the appropriation approved by Parliament.

    I know the committee will have specific questions today. My officials and myself are ready to answer those questions, but before doing so, I'd like to take a minute to provide some context.

    First, we see our program as a continuum along which potential immigrants go through a selection decision, land in Canada, are integrated into Canadian society, and eventually become Canadian citizens. Similarly, each potential journey to Canada is also a continuum, with a series of borders or checkpoints along the way. At each of these points there has to be a match made between a person, an identity document, and the intelligence we have. This concept is at the very heart of our enforcement action, and it's known as the multiple border strategy. What's behind this strategy is our intelligence-based enforcement program. Since September 11, 2001, we have taken action at each checkpoint along this multiple border to strengthen immigration and refugee screening.

[Translation]

    Our network of migration integrity specialists, formerly known as Immigration Control Officers, are engaged in a variety of activities, including interdiction, intelligence, screening and anti-fraud. I'm happy to report today that 70% of people with improper documents trying to come to Canada are now stopped overseas. This is up from 30% in 1990. In fact, our program has been so successful that other countries such as the US and UK are building their networks based on our experience.

    In June 2002, we introduced the permanent resident card. It is the best of its kind, and it closes one of Canada's most serious vulnerabilities.

    In addition, all asylum claimants are now subject to a full security examination upon arrival and we are vetting advanced information on passengers to better target our inspections according to risk.

    At a broader level, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency and CIC recently signed a memorandum of understanding. Among other things, this MOU sets up the stage for an effective evaluation of the primary and secondary inspection lines. Our cooperation with the US has intensified since the events of September 11 through a number of initiatives under the Smart Border Action Plan.

¹  (1540)  

[English]

    The domestic enforcement program is one of our biggest challenges and is very costly. Canada does not have entry-exit control systems, as the Auditor General mentioned, to determine with precision who enters and who leaves Canada. We do not detain people systematically, and we do not have a tradition of tracking people when they move around within our country. These are political choices that were made a long time ago. In that context, our approach is to deal with the highest-risk cases first and to take action. Our key concern remains the safety of Canadians, and this is where we invest the enforcement resources as a priority.

    To conclude, I'd like to reiterate that we welcome the Auditor General's recommendations and this opportunity to discuss her report with the committee. My department clearly faces challenges, but we have a strategy to follow, an action plan, and accomplishments to demonstrate progress to Parliament.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The Chair: Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Dorais.

    Ms. Meredith, eight minutes.

    Ms. Val Meredith (South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Auditor General and Mr. Dorais, for appearing before us on Citizen and Immigration matters.

    I listened to the plans you have to move forward on this, and I applaud you for doing some of the screening overseas, for bringing the numbers from 30% to 70%, but I gather from your comments that when somebody makes a refugee claim upon arriving in Canada, you still give them an appointment to appear for their interviews and what not. You made mention in your remarks that all asylum claimants are now subject to a full security examination upon arrival, and you're vetting advanced information on passengers to better target your inspection. To me, that is contradictory, unless you are changing your process. Are you?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: I think what you're referring to is what we call the direct-back procedures. This procedure was put in place when we had an overflow at one border point. To allow us to conduct all the security interviews and checks we needed, we, in some circumstances, gave appointments to people to come back on days--

    Ms. Val Meredith: In some circumstances or in most circumstances?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: Some circumstances. It happened when we had rushes at certain border points at a certain point in time. I don't have the exact statistics in front of me, but that's not a regular procedure, it's a procedure that is applied exceptionally.

    Ms. Val Meredith: So when a plane arrives from overseas and you have a large number of people coming into Immigration making these claims, they're not given appointments to come back?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: It's never done at airports. It's done only at land border points. At airports we can't send back people.

    Ms. Val Meredith: So what happens if you're unable to get the security information you require to make a determination when they first come across the border, when they arrive on an airline? What do you do with these individuals?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: A number of options are open, but one we can use is preventive detention or detention.

    Ms. Val Meredith: What one do you normally use?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: In most of the cases there is sufficient information for us to proceed with the refugee claim, receive the information, go through the security interview, fingerprinting, pictures, and contacting the non-governmental organization to receive the refugees. In cases where there is a doubt about the identity of the individuals, we have the power to detain, and that's left to the judgment of the agent at the border.

    Ms. Val Meredith: So with these 36,000 individuals who have been given deportation orders, but have not yet been removed, does the process I have just described catch them all, or are we missing some people who never showed up for interviews, and so never entered the legal process per se, or did they enter the legal process the minute you did the initial interview with them and took their fingerprints?

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    Mr. Michel Dorais: It covers all those people, but the removal orders you're referring to, the 36,000, were issued for people who should be removed under the Immigration Act, after a process has taken place. For example, a refugee claimant coming into Canada is entitled to the refugee process, and it's once the refugee process has decided that the person is not a refugee that a removal order is issued.

    Ms. Val Meredith: So the 36,000 does not at all capture those people who are still going through the process. We are only talking about those people who have gone through the process, so the numbers really are much higher than 36,000.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: The other people would not have a removal order against them.

    Ms. Val Meredith: So how many people have gained access to refugee claimant procedures and have not had their orders finished? How many people are we talking about?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: I'm not sure if I have an easy answer to that.

    Ms. Val Meredith: You don't know, you don't keep records of how many people you've allowed into our country who haven't finished their process?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: We have those records. We have the number of refugee claimants currently under examination by the board. We can provide numbers of people who are undergoing humanitarian and compassion hearings, the number of people who have appealed to the Federal Court. Obviously, all the people within this process at any one point in time are not issued removal orders.

    Ms. Val Meredith: So could you provide this committee with a full determination of the numbers of the people who have come into our country, claimed refugee status, but have not yet been given deportation orders? Could you please provide that information at some point to the committee?

    Mr. Daniel Jean (Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Program Development, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): I have here the number of asylum claimants over the period. From 1996 to 2001 we had 186,591 asylum claims. During the same period there were 30,392 failed asylum claimants who were removed. A lot of people get accepted.

    Ms. Val Meredith: That's in a one-year period.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: No, that's six years.

    The Chair: I think Ms. Meredith was asking how many people are in the pipeline, who arrived and made an application, but have not yet been given acceptance, citizenship, landed immigrant status, or deportation.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: We can provide this information, but we would have to add all the processes. I don't think I have it today.

    Ms. Val Meredith: I want to go back to one of the concerns the Auditor General pointed out, the quality, scope, and use of information needed to manage, control, and enforce. If you're not keeping track all along the way in a very manageable way of how many people are coming into our country, how many people are being processed, how many people are in this process, that process, that should be part of the ongoing number games you play with. That's the only way that you're going to have concept of how to manage the numbers. If your numbers were correct, the Immigration and Refugee Board have a backlog of 53,000 cases as of December 2002. Those are pretty hard numbers to manage. What I want to know from you is what processes you have put in place to manage those kinds of numbers.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: We do have a process called the national case management system. As the Auditor General pointed out in her report, we are putting the last touches to this program in June 2003. This is a process that will allow us to trace each and every one of those cases in a computerized way and pull it out at any point in time.

    Ms. Val Meredith: To whom will you be reporting this process? Will you be reporting to Parliament?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: We do report to Parliament on a regular basis on all the numbers, but not on the numbers that came out of the national case management system, though I suppose that could be done.

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    Ms. Val Meredith: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Meredith.

    Monsieur Desrochers.

[Translation]

    Mr. Odina Desrochers (Lotbinière—L'Érable, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I'd like to welcome Mr. Dorais and departmental officials, as well as Ms. Fraser and officials from the AG's Office. The issues we're discussing this afternoon are quite delicate, namely immigration and security.

    I've read and listened to your opening statement, Ms. Fraser. You ask the following questions in paragraph 15:

When will performance measurement and evaluation of the primary and secondary inspection lines at ports of entry begin? How will the Committee and Parliament be informed of the results?

    I would ask myself the same questions.

    You've looked into this matter. What conclusions have you drawn?

    Ms. Sheila Fraser: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Regarding the evaluation of inspection lines, the last ones were conducted in the early 1990s, specifically between 1992 and 1994. At the time, results were not very positive. Admittedly, additional measures have since been taken, but it is difficult to tell if these have been effective because no further evaluations have been done.

    Mr. Odina Desrochers: No further evaluations were done, not even after the events of September 2001?

    Ms. Sheila Fraser: No.

    However, mention has long been made of the fact that there is no agreement in place clearly setting out the respective roles and responsibilities of the department and of CCRA. We're happy to note that shortly before our report was tabled, a new agreement, one that provides for evaluation mechanisms, was signed. I have no additional information to give you. Perhaps Mr. Dorais would like to elaborate on this.

    Mr. Odina Desrochers: Then I'll ask you the same question, Mr. Dorais.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: The Auditor General mentioned an agreement that was signed. First, let me say that we concur with the AG's findings.

    On March 6 last, we signed an agreement with CCRA. One component of this agreement pertains to the joint assessment of the effectiveness of primary and secondary inspection lines by customs as well as by immigration officers.

    Mr. Odina Desrochers: Are you working to a timetable? When will we have some results?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: We're in the process of drafting the memorandum. The agreement was signed in March. There was an overall sense of urgency to the process. However, let me just say that in 2001, we conducted an internal audit of ports of entry, the results of which will be released this week. When I last checked, the audit report was being translated and the findings will be made public. We therefore proceeded immediately to conduct this internal audit.

    However, assessments must be done jointly with CCRA. I have to say that I'm especially pleased that the department signed this memorandum because we can now get down to work, most probably by the fall. The audit will have been completed and a report made to Parliament, through the regular reporting process.

    Mr. Odina Desrochers: Will your audits be focussing on certain areas in particular?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: I'll let my colleague elaborate on that point.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Specifically, we're working to jointly put in place quality assurance processes at primary and secondary inspection lines to better target risk. Furthermore, using information vetted in advance on passengers and the findings of screenings done at airport ports of entry, we will evaluate efforts to identify individuals who have been singled out as suspicious and not direct anyone unnecessarily to the secondary inspection line. That's what our ongoing evaluation process entails.

    Moreover, during the fiscal year, we will also be conducting at the same time a formal evaluation of primary and secondary inspection lines.

    Mr. Odina Desrochers: Thank you, Mr. Jean.

    Mr. Dorais, you stated the following in your presentation:

In June 2002, we introduced the permanent resident card. It is the best of its kind, and it closes one of Canada's most serious vulnerabilities.

    What vulnerability would that be?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: That vulnerability consists of a form that has been in use for decades. I believe it's known as IMM 1000. It's a lengthy document handed out to immigrants upon their arrival in this country certifying that they are permanent residents of Canada. This document has been the target of major fraud which we have been hard pressed to keep in check, as everyone knows. This door will be shut once and for all next December 31. A permanent resident will be required to have a new permanent resident card to enter the country and all documents currently in circulation will be invalid.

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    Mr. Odina Desrochers: What kinds of problems have arisen as a result of this vulnerability?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: The main problem encountered was document fraud. This document was used to re-enter the country. Persons arranged to mail the form to their country of origin, the name on the passport was altered and another individual entered the country using these same papers. We knew that this was a vulnerability and we monitored the situation carefully. This document could easily be falsified.

    Mr. Odina Desrochers: The events of September 2001 put added pressures on your department which made a number of commitments in the memorandum of understanding. Have you taken steps to hire more staff, or can existing staff satisfy these new expectations?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: We have taken a number of steps. First, as I explained, further to the events of September 11, we adopted the new concept known as the Multiple Border Strategy. We beefed up staff levels at our missions. We once had 44 immigration control officers. However, we modified the definition of several positions and we now have on staff 84 migration integrity specialists engaged in activities such as intelligence, anti-fraud and interdiction. On average, over 8,000 persons are stopped every year even before they board an aircraft. This is a critical rate of success.

    Screening procedures have been stepped up at ports of entry, particularly in the case of refugee claimants. Each claimant is interviewed and screened in terms of security.

    Measures have also been taken with respect to visas. Since September 11, new visa requirements have been introduced for nationals from ten additional countries.

    As a result of this series of measures, controls have been tightened.

    We are in the process of implementing one final initiative, namely the Safe Third Country Agreement already negotiated and signed with the United States. We are in the final stages of implementation.

    Mr. Odina Desrochers: You mentioned added responsibilities. However, have you hired additional staff to attend to these duties?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: In total, $641 million is being allocated over five years to public security. This includes initiatives such as the permanent resident card. For instance, over 300 person-years have been assigned to handle security screening measures at ports of entry. I'm not sure if that's the correct figure, but I can check for confirmation.

    Mr. Odina Desrochers: Is that enough?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: It's never enough. Obviously, if the system were ideal, we'd be able to screen each and every person, all 109 million of them, but that's not how it is. We cannot operate a system that way. Since we do not have enough staff, occasionally some undesirables do manage to slip into the country at the border. It's clear, therefore, that there are not enough officers, but we feel that we are managing risk along our borders in such a way that the chances of someone making it through the control system undetected are fairly slim.

    Mr. Odina Desrochers: Thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: Merci, Monsieur Desrochers.

    Mr. Murphy, eight minutes.

    Mr. Shawn Murphy (Hillsborough, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Dorais and the Auditor General's office, for your presentations

    Mr. Dorais, dealing specifically with the refugee program, the illegal immigrants coming in, where is the worst problem? Is it the airports, the seaports, or the land borders?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: It depends how worst is defined. In numbers, obviously, the land border we have with the United States, which is 9,000 kilometres long, is a major point of entry.

    Do you have the figures?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: It's about one-third in-land entries and one-third air.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: In-land is defined as people claiming once they have already entered.

    Mr. Shawn Murphy: Has there been any analysis by your department of the practices we follow in Canada dealing with this class of people compared with some of the other foreign jurisdictions I consider to be similar, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark?

º  (1600)  

    Mr. Michel Dorais: There has been multiple analysis. In fact, there are a number of international groups. I'll be going in a few weeks from now to the four country conference, which brings together the heads of immigration of the United States, the U.K., Australia, and Canada to exchange best practices.

    We compare with most other countries, so much so that the United States has allowed us to enter into a safe third country agreement, which has as a premise that we consider the system in the United States comparable to ours and vice versa. Our systems are very different, but they're comparable. The problems in Europe are slightly different, because of volumes and the circulation within the European community, and the numbers are much higher than in Canada. Australia has a system that's similar, but because they're an island, they have a different system of control. It's much easier to control an island than a country with land bases. But we do compare, and we have data we can make available to the committee.

    Mr. Shawn Murphy: So there's nothing you can point to as a distinct best practice followed by Australia, New Zealand, the United States that would improve our situation?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: We are constantly exchanging on that. For example, our immigration control officer system is now being adopted by the U.K., Australia, and the United States as a model to follow. The advanced passenger information analysis has been in place in Australia for a long time, and the United States and Canada are now adopting that practice. So there is a constant exchange. I gave you two big examples of practices that have been exchanged between our countries.

    Mr. Shawn Murphy: Take us to the whole area of technology and give us some indication where you see this going. I know there are different things being explored dealing with these issues. Do you see anything on the horizon that would make the life of your department much simpler, much more effective?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: There are quite a number of things. If I have to venture on the prospective analysis, biometrics is certainly an area in the whole field of immigration.

    Maybe I should back-track for a second. In the immigration field we have to deal with documents; otherwise, what we have is a person and the immigration agent, so something has to come in between, and that's the document. The future, obviously, has documents linked with biometrics. This is where the whole world is going right now. Not only the United States, but Europe and Asia are going in that direction. So I think we will see over the next five or six years an evolution of the document itself towards something a little more complex, including some biometrics.

    The second major avenue is seeing that the concept of a border as a line you cross at a point, from an immigration perspective, in a world where people travel all the time, is an outdated concept. This is why we developed with our colleagues in the United States multiple border analysis, which says the border really starts when you buy your ticket, you get your visa, you board the plane in London or anywhere else in the world. So the border is now what we call a transactional border, it is where you actually do the transaction.

    Those are two main areas where there will be a lot of changes. I don't know if that answers your question.

    Mr. Shawn Murphy: It does, and I want to thank you for it.

    It's been said part of the problem with the Canadian system--and perhaps this is more policy than the actual subject of an audit--is that there are too many entrants to Canada who do not have proper documentation and more of them should be detained. Do you have any comments on that?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: First, we're referring mostly to refugee claimants. For a genuine refugee it is, one may think, very difficult to obtain a perfectly legal passport from the government that allegedly persecuted them. So there are a lot of people who are coming to our border to claim refugee status who have falsified documents or no document or not the appropriate document. So we have to be very careful here.

    Second, we have the authority to detain on identity. An identity does not necessarily mean a passport with the visa, but the ability for an individual to prove their identity, which they do in a large number cases. In cases where we have doubt we detain, and we can use a number of other methods to try to determine the identity of the individual.

    Third, the minister has stated that his policy has been not to resort to systematic detention, and that's a very important value for us to follow. Some countries, like Australia, have resorted to systematic detention and created camps where they put people. As a point of policy, the minister has decided not to do that in Canada. So we use detention on a selective basis.

º  (1605)  

    Mr. Shawn Murphy: But that's part of my point with the systematic detention that's used in other countries. In controlling the problem, if you want to call it that, is it not more effective, when a person arrives here with no identification whatsoever, to detain that person until it can be established who that person is and that the person is a bona fide refugee?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: If we have a person who has no document and cannot be identified with any certainty, we will detain that person. That's part of the act and part of our policies. So such a person would be detained. People who can demonstrate their identity, even if they don't have a perfectly valid passport, may not be detained.

    Mr. Shawn Murphy: But if they're coming from a country such that you're extremely suspicious that they're not really a bona fide refugee, would you not detain them, even if they had valid identification?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: It's very hard for an agent to determine whether the person is a bona fide refugee. The Immigration and Refugee Board, as an independent quasi-judicial body, has that function. We can receive the person, we can check whether there's criminality involved, and if there is, we can divert that person from the refugee process, but it's not up to the department to make that decision.

    Mr. Shawn Murphy: Thank you very much.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy.

    Ms. Davies, eight minutes.

    Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the Auditor General and her staff and the deputy minister and his staff for being here today.

    I think the Auditor General made some very important observations and raised some very important issues in her report, but I also think there is a lot of confusion about this issue. Whenever we talk about refugees particularly, there's a tendency in the media to immediately characterize people as illegal. So first I want to clarify a couple of points.

    With the 36,000 removal orders that have no confirmed departures, it is not necessarily the case that every single one of those 36,000 people is here illegally. They may be at some point in a process, is that correct?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: No. The number of unexecuted removal orders would be on people who are not in the process, who, for some reason, should have left this country and have not necessarily left the country.

    Ms. Libby Davies: So they are people who would have exhausted every appeal, including a minister's permit based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: Correct, but not exclusively. There are people in there who have extended their visas and committed other infractions under the Immigration Act that resulted in a removal order. But the bulk of those people, we can suspect, are failed refugee claimants.

    Ms. Libby Davies: With the 30,000 outstanding deportation warrants overall, are we looking at an overlap here, or are we looking at two different situations, so that potentially we're looking at close to 70,000? Could you explain the difference between those two things?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: There is an overlap there. It's very important, I think, to understand the difference between a removal order and an arrest warrant, because they're two very different things. A removal order is an order under the Immigration Act that the person should be removed. An arrest warrant is a document that solicits the cooperation of all the police forces around this country to arrest someone.

    In the six years covered by the report we've issued 14,000 arrest warrants. Those are people we are actively looking for. The Auditor General makes reference to 30,000 outstanding warrants. There are some that go back to 1979. We keep them on the books. It means since 1979 that person has not been arrested for a traffic offence, did not seek a security clearance anywhere, and has probably left the country without telling us, but if they try to re-enter the country at some point in time, the arrest warrant will pop up, and then we'll be able to take action.

    As far as the removal orders are concerned, there are some situations where we have a removal order, but we do not remove, for example, the moratorium on removal to Algeria, which we lifted not too long ago, the moratorium on removal to Afghanistan; there are a number of other countries in the world we do not remove people to. These people have a removal order, but they do not have an arrest warrant.

º  (1610)  

    Ms. Libby Davies: I think it's really important to make these clarifications, because it seems to me what we need to get at is the number of people who, in effect, are outside the system. Based on what you've just described, say the Algerians or people from Afghanistan, they may have the removal order, they may be one of those 36,000, but they may be subject to some other decision by the government.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: You're right.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Or it may be someone who was pulled over, there was a warrant, and they ended up in a detention centre and still may be awaiting documentation. In fact, I've heard of such cases.

    With these numbers that get thrown around, and they are getting bigger, so there are certainly a lot of serious concerns there, what we need to focus on is the case management system. If there are people who have exhausted everything and are now here illegally, fair enough, though there are also issues about how they are tracked or not. To me, the key issue is how you keep people within the system and how you keep the tracking continuing? I guess that would bring us to the case management system. As I understand it, the plans are that it won't be in full effect until--

    Mr. Michel Dorais: This June.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Okay. So once it's in full effect, do you have targets for reducing these numbers? Will your system be able to actually deal with that?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: The short answer is yes, but there are two systems we are referring to. One is the national case management system, the other is the global case management system. The national case management system is completed this June, the global system, the one I think you were referring to, is 2005.

    Ms. Libby Davies: The national one, then

    Mr. Michel Dorais: The national one will be ready in June of this year, which is the system that tracks all those people in the system.

    You are right in reminding us that dealing with numbers is always an tricky proposition in the field of immigration. Not only do they change on a daily basis, but depending on the methodology used, you can get slightly different numbers out of there. The number that's absolutely secure is the 14,000 arrest warrants. Criminals are dealt with through one of the three following actions, issuing an arrest warrant and soliciting the collaboration of forces around the country to locate them and arrest them, detention, or removal. I'm confident that with the system we have, giving the highest priority to the individuals who could create a safety problem for Canadians, we have the situation covered under one of the three actions.

    Ms. Libby Davies: On that point, though, I'm just looking at the research document, and I believe it's dealing with the same issue. They're saying that 11,000 investigations have not been assigned or are waiting for assignment. Is that 11,000 out of the 14,000?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: No, this is a different process. On this one, there are many ways to look at it. We tend to look at it in a slightly different way. We do not assign investigations per se. We have the national case management system that will next month keep track of all the cases we have in the department. Some cases will necessitate an action next week for a day, and then no action for six months or so. The case is not assigned to a specific officer, but it is there and is being followed by the system. So only the high-priority cases would be assigned to an individual in the system to take urgent and immediate action.

º  (1615)  

    Ms. Libby Davies: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Davies.

    Now we will go to the second round, so it's for four minutes.

    Mr. Forseth.

    Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

    I'm looking at the Auditor General's report of April 2003 talking about ministerial permits on page 19. At paragraphs 71 and 72 the report says:

We reviewed the information supporting the decision to issue the permit. We found that files supported the decision in 60% of the cases. In cases involving persons denied entry due to serious crimes or security issues, we found that the files supported the decision 51% of the time.

These permits are an exception allowed by the Act. Departmental manuals state that officers “must use exceptional care before an applicant receives one [a Minister's permit]” and the grounds for issuing a permit should be recorded in the case summary. Based on our review, the Department is not consistently documenting the reasons for issuing the permits.

Certainly, there should be a clear and full record and a full file, especially if an MP, or even a minister, is becoming a strong advocate with the bureaucracy for a constituent or relatives of an applicant who are constituents. The word on the street is pretty clear, and in our current administration, with the Liberal government, we have ministers who get ministerial permits, and the inference is that they are trying to curry local political favour with ethnic groups in their ridings.

    The call for tightening up ministerial permits is not a new one by the Auditor General. I'm asking what you have been doing to tighten this area up and respond to the calls that have been there for a long time for transparency and accountability with ministerial permits? Again, it's April 2003, and we still have this problem that's been identified year after year after year with ministerial permits.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: There are two things we've done. We agreed with the auditor that we had a coding problem within the department, permits were not coded at the right place. This has now been corrected. The other thing we are doing is developing internally a quality assurance mechanism to make sure everything is properly documented.

    It is very important, however, to make a distinction between the ministerial permit issued by the minister and those delegated to the department. There are quite a number of those. What were known as ministerial permits would allow someone to diverge from the regulations. I can give you a simple example. Someone who is pregnant and cannot go for an X-ray can be issued a permit by an official. That is the distinction there, but they were not coded properly, and that has been corrected.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: On page 21, paragraph 78, the Auditor General says:

In 2002, the study focussed on the detention strategy. It recommended a three-part strategy: tackle unexecuted removal orders more vigorously; strongly pursue alternatives to detention; and give priority to understanding detainees' cases better and tracking them through all stages of the detention process.

That third one is a little bit fuzzy to me. Maybe the Auditor General could help us, but certainly, it looks as if there is something to be done there. I can obviously understand that we need to tackle these removal orders. Have you re-instituted these squads that used to go out and do that? I take it that those were cancelled. What about the third action in the Auditor General's report to “give priority to understanding detainees' cases better and tracking them through all stages of the detention process”? That's a follow-up, I suppose, on Val Meredith's question.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: We have a number of teams that have been created now, not the squads we used to have, but teams created with law enforcement agencies that help us track. But the key element to remember is the prioritization of the cases we do. We do track very aggressively criminals and people who have criminal backgrounds, and the new national case management system will allow us to track each and every one of those cases through the detention process and through all the processes that follow the treatment of immigration.

    I'll let my colleague complete the answer.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: There are a number of things we have done. First, we've put in place a system whereby we're tracking detentions, a better data system. We're extending the national case management system for enforcement cases, as the deputy has described before. To make sure we have a good set of data, we're also investing in data management. Also, in February we issued guidelines on direct-back as a tool to make sure we do an appropriate security screening up front. We clarified the rules for detention on identity, where the Auditor General felt the guidelines were not as clear as they should be. And we've established teams that target the IRS cases not in detention with the RCMP, trying to identify where they are, bringing them into detention, and then working towards removal.

º  (1620)  

    Ms. Sheila Fraser: I'd just like to point out in response to Mr. Forseth's question that the studies were done by the department, they were internal studies. The final point is really a question of better monitoring information, as has been brought out.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Forseth.

    Monsieur Gaudet.

[Translation]

    Mr. Roger Gaudet (Berthier—Montcalm, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    What entry criteria were in place in Canada prior to September 11, and what are the criteria applied today to persons entering the country, either by air or by land?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: Some criteria were amended on June 28, 2002 when the new Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was enacted. However, overall the criteria remain the same. Grounds for denying a person entry into the country are the same as they have always been: a criminal record, involvement in terrorism or other illicit activities. Persons who fall into these categories will not be allowed into Canada.

    Canada takes a slightly harsher approach than the US when it comes to crimes against humanity and war crimes. Unlike Canada, the US does not screen people at the border to see if they meet the criteria. We have intelligence units that pass along certain available information to border officers.

    However, with respect to eligibility criteria, the US and Canadian systems are fairly comparable. I'm assuming that that was going to be your next question.

    Mr. Roger Gaudet: Yes. If I understood correctly earlier, a total of 109 million pass through border points and you screen every single one of them.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: No. In total, 109 million persons pass through the primary inspection line and these individuals are screened by our CCRA colleagues. The vast majority go through the primary inspection line. You've likely experienced this, as a Canadian, at various ports of entry.

    Officers have various tools available to them, among other things, system indicators. If they see a particular passport or individual, something may jump out at them immediately. Or, they carry out their inspection duties, just as customs officers do and, if they have any doubts, they can direct the persons in question to the secondary inspection line where a much more comprehensive screening is done by immigration officers using highly sophisticated tools. It is at this point in time that the decision is made either to let the person into the country, to detain him or to screen him further.

    In percentage terms, how many persons are directed to the secondary inspection line?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: I believe it's 16 per cent.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: I believe 16 per cent are directed to the secondary immigration inspection line, which means that 84% of individuals go through the primary line and enter the country.

    Mr. Roger Gaudet: In June of 1992, you introduced the permanent resident card. Has this initiative proven successful?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: The permanent resident card system will not be fully operational until December 31 of this year. This card, which replaces the IMM 1000, was judged by experts, among others, by experts from the state of Florida, as the best of its kind in the world. It's recognized right now as the most secure card. It lists the identity of a permanent resident in Canada. The technology used in the making of the card is state-of-the-art. As of December 31, 2003, any permanent resident wishing to re-enter the country will need to have this card in his possession, or else, obtain a special visa. The vulnerable document I spoke of earlier will then be taken out of circulation.

    Mr. Roger Gaudet: Are permanent resident cards issued to persons arriving in the country to keep track of their whereabouts? As a new MP, I attended an course given by Immigration and Citizenship Canada in Trois-Rivières. I was told that persons arriving would be issued a card. If they weren't carrying a card, then...

º  (1625)  

    Mr. Michel Dorais: Well, we attach a special visa to the passport of all new immigrants. Upon their arrival, they are processed for a new permanent resident card which they subsequently receive. All permanent residents must present themselves in person to our offices in order to receive their permanent resident card. It is a travel document and it is not mandatory for everyone. Persons travelling abroad will need to have the card in order to re-enter the country.

[English]

    The Chair: Merci beaucoup, monsieur Gaudet.

    Mr. Tirabassi.

    Mr. Tony Tirabassi: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I too would like to thank the witnesses for appearing here, and my question is to Mr. Dorais.

    Being from the Niagara area, I had the opportunity last fall to pay a visit to the Peace Bridge, which, of course, connects Fort Erie to Buffalo. There were two parts to the visit. The first part was actually at the border dealing with the refugee claimants section, where they're received and how they're initially screened, processed. That's always been a hot port of entry, but post-September 11, then with looming uncertainty on the relationship between the U.S. and Iraq, and also with the rumours that Canada was going to tighten up, there was a real surge of people seeking refugee status here in Canada. I think the officials were doing a tremendous job with the facilities they had, and I think, for the most part, those who were coming across with children in hand and what have you were being accommodated as well as possible, but nonetheless, both were rather inadequate, accommodations and the working conditions. When we asked the senior official from your department who was more or less guiding us on the tour when we would move from temporary trailers side-by-side and an abandoned tourism information centre to a more permanent facility, the answer was that if they had a better idea on the numbers they would be processing, that would help them determine all their needs. I fail to understand what the problem is. You've had some incidents. You must have an idea by now exactly where you're going with numbers, with some idea of an average. The second part of the visit was with the local support groups, who then take those refugees and make sure their needs are adequately met, such as shelter, until they go further in the process.

    Is this a unique situation at that particular border point with regard to the processing facilities and accommodations, or is this the situation across Canada at other border points, and what are we doing to address this?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: I'll ask some of my colleagues to comment on the specifics of Niagara. It is unique, because of the volume. The southern Ontario ports of entry are all unique, because of the huge volume. It's like southern B.C., in fact.

    Again, the number fluctuations are enormous in that field. In one year we went from 46,000 refugee claimants to 32,000. So the volume can vary quite substantially. When the safe third country agreement with the United States is concluded and in place, that number will also change quite dramatically there.

    Daniel.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Your visit was probably early in the calendar year, right, January to March?

    Mr. Tony Tirabassi: It was actually in the fall last year.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Okay. We had a surge late in 2002 and early in 2003. That surge has calmed down a fair bit now, and the direct-back the deputy minister described earlier was a way to better manage our flow and make sure we didn't have so many people, creating the kind of situation you described.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Tirabassi.

    Mr. Finlay.

    Mr. John Finlay (Oxford, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Could I ask for a very quick, brief definition of what a safe third country agreement is?

º  (1630)  

    Mr. Michel Dorais: It is an agreement permitted under the Immigration Act that allows us to recognize that another country has a refugee determination system that is equivalent to ours, and therefore, refugee claimants coming from that country should be claiming in the source country, rather than claiming in Canada. This is the case with the United States, where refugee claimants coming across the land border could claim refugee status in the United States, and the United States has a system to offer protection. The same thing applies to refugee claimants in Canada, who should claim refugee status in Canada, rather than crossing into the United States and claiming refugee status. So it allows us at the border point to return people to the United States and them to return people to Canada.

    Mr. John Finlay: You mean they don't want to go to the United States or they don't want to come to Canada, or they do, but we're not going to let them?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: That's it. We'll return them to the United States, and if they are in need of protection, the United States can offer protection under their refugee legislation. The accord itself species all kinds of conditions. For example, if the refugee claimant has a close relative who lives in Canada, we'll accept the person in Canada to claim refugee status. There other exceptions, for minors, for example.

    Mr. John Finlay: Would you then use whatever records the Americans had collected and whatever documentation they had?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: A refugee claimant who comes to the border to claim refugee status does not necessarily have to produce documents. They can claim without documents.

    Mr. John Finlay: But some of the work has been done then?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: Some of the work could have been done. There is, in fact, an agreement with the United States to exchange some of that information.

    Mr. John Finlay: Thank you.

    I'm looking at this backlog of 53,000 cases at the end of December. I just want to make one comment on the number of people. Mr. Dorais, you mentioned that over 109 million people cross our borders every year, which is over three times the population of this country.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: There are some who cross on a daily basis. Those are actual crossings, they're not 109 million different individuals.

    Mr. John Finlay: It gives us some way to visualize the size of the problem, when you have 9,000 kilometres of land border, untold miles of sea border, and airplanes flying constantly.

    Does the permanent resident card mean the present passport will become passé?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: No. Permanent resident cards are intended only for permanent residents who travel with a passport from their own country. If they live in Canada and are accepted as permanent residents in Canada, they're still citizens of another country, they're not Canadian citizens. The card is not issued to Canadian citizens, it's issued to permanent residents only. That is what allows permanent residents to come back into Canada; they can go to the border and say, I live permanently in Canada, here's my card, here's my passport. This does not replace the passport.

    Mr. John Finlay: Is it safer than a passport, in your opinion, or is it not any safer? Canadian passports have been involved in a fair amount of illegal activity, and we try to protect them. Are Canadian citizens going to be carrying a document that's not as safe as this card?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: It's not an easy question to answer, because all documents are falsified at one point or another. Very few documents exist in the world now that cannot be falsified one way or another. The good news is that we are detecting a very large proportion of them, because of the experience of our agents. I was at Pearson doing the lines not too long ago, and one of our agents picked up a passport and said, this one has a problem. I wondered why, but it was because the little corners were cut by scissors. They were able to spot that immediately. It's very hard to fabricate a document that cannot be detected, but there are false documents that are very well done indeed. No document is à l'abri.

º  (1635)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Finlay.

    As I mentioned earlier, we're going to try to wrap this up early today, so we're going to do a rapid fire round. We'll start with Mr. Forseth, then we'll come over to this side, back and forth, everybody will get one question, and we'll wrap this up. I've got a few questions of my own after that.

    Mr. Forseth.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: Thank you.

    The Auditor General's report paragraph 81 says:

Officers detain people without identity documents until the subsequent workload of detention reviews becomes overwhelming. They then send fewer people to detention.... The number of beds available dictates the number of people detained.

That's an incredible statement. It looks as if capacity creates or dictates its own demand. So what has been done to ensure that detention is for the need of the person being seen and not the capacity in the room behind?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: I will let the ADM policy, who is in charge of enforcement, respond to this one, but I can tell you that very strict guidelines and procedures were issued the moment we were made aware of that, and that should not be the case now, if it has ever been the case.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: In clarifying our guidelines on detention policy on identity in February, we gave firm instructions that this should not happen, that our offices should try to have flexible options for detention when we are in such situations. We have reaffirmed the importance of detaining according to risk, and if a person is considered a risk, they should be detained.

    Mr. Paul Forseth: So you're assuring this committee that the assessment will be based on the case in front of them and not the institutional capacity for detention.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: That is the case. In fact, I've witnessed it myself. At 11 o'clock at Pearson on a Sunday night we had to find room for three people. It was not easy, but we did.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Forseth.

    Ms. Meredith.

    Ms. Val Meredith: When you talk about genuine refugees, is there not a process where refugees are identified overseas, placed in camps, and held there until a place has been found for them? Is that not a genuine refugee?

    And on the cards, I would like to think these cards identify a landed Canadian with some biometric, fingerprint, eye scan, whatever, so that they can't be forged, the card has a unique feature that applies to that individual, so it can't be duplicated.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: You're absolutely correct to point out that there are other ways people can seek refugee status in Canada. We accept 7,300 refugees who are selected abroad and brought into Canada. We call them government-sponsored refugees. We accept about 2,500 or 2,600 refugees who are privately sponsored by individuals and are brought from camps and from other places in the world. Third, according to the international convention we signed, if someone comes to our country and says, I'm a refugee, I'm seeking refuge in Canada, we cannot turn that person around and not deal with the case. We have to determine whether that's true or not.

    On the card, we currently do not have biometrics, but the card we've designed is biometric-ready. There's an optical stripe on the card that would allow us at some point in time, when the government decides to proceed with biometric, to include one or many biometrics, but it doesn't have that now.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Meredith.

    Mr. Assadourian.

    Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    I have a request for information. A few months ago the U.S. was implementing a deadline for foreign nationals to leave the country. I think it was March 21 or February 21. There were some weeks that a whole bunch came to the border. Most of them were, if I recall, Pakistani nationals who were forced to leave the U.S. before the deadline. Can you tell us what happened in that situation, because that issue suddenly died in the media?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: You're referring to a rush we felt, and that was the topic of what we call the direct-back procedure. We had a large number of refugees coming from the United States after the United States declared that a number of people needed to register. In order to allow us to do all the security clearance and everything properly, we directed them back, that is, told them to come back at such and such a date, so we could regulate the flow there. That flow has been reduced to what it was in normal times before.

    What happened is very difficult to tell. Some people just abandoned the idea. Some of those people had been in the United States for a very long time and had a life established there. It's very hard to determine with any precision what happened there.

º  (1640)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Monsieur Gaudet.

[Translation]

    Mr. Roger Gaudet: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. Dorais, how many cases of fraud can be traced to the use of the form that you qualified as vulnerable? How long has the form been in use?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: I can't answer that question. We can certainly look at the figures on the number of fraud cases linked every year to the use of the IMM 1000 form. We can try and get that information to you.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: Fraud cases that have been uncovered, of course. There are several different versions of the form which has been in circulation virtually since Canada first opened its doors to immigrants. At one time, it was a small document. Now, it's a fairly lengthy one. It has been around forever.

    Mr. Roger Gaudet: I'm talking about the last ten years. There's no need to go back to the Stone Age.

[English]

    The Chair: Perhaps you can provide that information to the committee, Monsieur Dorais.

    Mr. Fontana.

    Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I guess I'll have the opportunity of asking the Auditor General my own questions. She's appearing before the immigration committee tomorrow. But for the benefit of the members of this committee, in reviewing those who have yet to be returned who should be going, did you look at any other country's enforcement provisions, how they were able to monitor and deal with visitors who overstay or workers who overstay their permit? Not very many countries have entry and exit controls, and I hope it's not something we would ever even think about. I can tell you, having just come from the United States, there are six or eight million people in the there they can't find, and I'm not even sure they're looking too hard. I'm just wondering whether or not you looked at anybody else.

    Ms. Sheila Fraser: We didn't compare practices in other countries. The real point of bringing that information up was to indicate that the number has been increasing. We saw it as attention needing to be paid to the enforcement activities and the resources that perhaps had to go to it.

    The Chair: Mr. Dorais.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: This is a very important question we asked ourselves when the report came out saying: how are we doing compared to others? We looked at numbers of failed asylum claimants to see how we compare with countries. We're at 16.3% removal rate, compared to Denmark's 16.5%, the Netherlands' 13.2%, Sweden's 26.0%, and the United Kingdom's 11.5%. Removing people is a difficult proposition.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Ms. Davies.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Can you tell us what the increase is in the number of people being detained since September 11?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: We are not detaining more people, but detention is a little bit longer, which may be evidence that the ones we're detaining pose a higher risk.

    Ms. Libby Davies: How many people are in detention, on average, any given month or day?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: We can confirm the number, but it's roughly 400 beds.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Is there a length to a detention?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: It's all based on risk.

    Ms. Libby Davies: So it can go on forever.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: We may be able to remove somebody in 48 hours.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Or they could be there for two years.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: No.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Davies.

    Mr. Finlay.

    Mr. John Finlay: Several people mentioned ministerial permits, and I remember some figures back four or five years that indicated that the number requested and the number granted had gone down year by year. My only experience with the Minister of Immigration would suggest that it got ever more difficult, because they were more careful to make sure the people were going back and so on. Have we hit a level, are they still reducing, or does it depend on the minister?

º  (1645)  

    Mr. Michel Dorais: It depends, I would say, on the circumstances. The temporary resident permit, which is the new terminology for a ministerial permit, can vary from year to year. For example, the year we received nearly 7,000 people from Kosovo, they were all issued ministerial permits, so the numbers were up tremendously. So it varies from year to year. It's the prerogative of the minister. It depends also, for those delegated authorities, on what kind of population we have. There's no huge variation year to year, but they can vary.

    Mr. John Finlay: I had one experience where it was impressed upon me that they had to check in at the airport when they were leaving. This was a 30-day or 60-day visit of an 80-year old mother. The young lady came to my office two weeks after her mother had left and gone back to India, and she'd had a hard time giving in this half of her paper to say that she was going back. Nobody would take it at Pearson. She finally gave it to somebody. I wondered, because it had been impressed upon me that they had to have this piece of paper and have it checked out, and nobody did it. I'm not suggesting this goes on all the time, but it was certainly a shock to me.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: I hope it doesn't go on all the time, indeed.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Finlay.

    In paragraph 2 of the Auditor General's report it says:

An evaluation of the immigration's secondary examination process in 1994 concluded that it was only 50 percent effective at controlling inadmissible travellers. No subsequent evaluation has been done or is planned.

Is that still the situation?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: No. One assessment was done in the year 2001, an internal audit. Is that what you're referring to?

    The Chair: The Auditor General's saying there's no evaluation. You found out it was only 50% effective in 1994, and ten years later nothing has happened, even after September 11, 2001.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: The Auditor General is right, and this is why we have included in the agreement with the agency a very strict element. One must remember that between that time and today a department was created. In 1994 the citizenship and immigration department was created, and after that went for program review and through reorganization in order to establish itself as a department. I'm not defending the absence of an evaluation, but that's part of the explanation.

    The Chair: I'm glad you're not defending it, because it's not very acceptable.

    Also, in paragraph 4 the report says:

Also, the Department's policy on detaining travellers who lack proper identification is not clearly understood by staff who have to apply it. There are also no data available on the number of people detained for this reason.

It seems to me people with no documentation are the highest-risk people, and your staff are not really up to snuff on understanding how to apply the rules.

    Mr. Michel Dorais: The Auditor General made that observation, and we totally agree with it. We took immediate action to correct the guidelines and issue the policy, so there should not be a problem today.

    The Chair: In your opening statement you used a different definition of the border and said, “each potential journey to Canada is also a continuum, with a series of borders or checkpoints along the way. At each one of these points there has to be a match between a person, an identity document, and intelligence.” How can that happen if people show up with no documentation?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: Showing up with no documentation, on the statistics we have, means the person does not have an appropriate passport and an appropriate visa to come into the country. They may have an outdated passport, and this would show as improperly documented. They may have an ID card of some sort, and it would count as undocumented. It's important to make the distinction between not being appropriately documented to enter Canada and having no documentation whatsoever. In the cases where someone shows up with empty pockets and no documentation, there is usually a detention period while we interview people, seek advice in the community, if necessary, to determine who these individuals are with a reasonable amount of certitude.

    The Chair: But the Auditor General pointed out that for example, at Pearson Airport, where you've got a large number of people arriving at any particular point in time, you can't even determine which plane they arrived on.

º  (1650)  

    Mr. Michel Dorais: That is correct in most cases. This is why we implemented the DART team, the disembarkment rover team, or whatever they're called, people from Immigration at the door of the airport trying to identify who comes out of that plane. If there are people without documents, we try to identify them there. It's very important for us, because we can charge the airline company afterwards. The Auditor General pointed out some deficiencies in that system, which we're attempting to correct as we speak.

    The Chair: In the Auditor General's report, page 26, there's a box dealing with removals backlogs. You're talking about timely follow-up. The Auditor General says:

Removals of unsuccessful refugee claimants by the Greater Toronto Enforcement Centre totalled 725 for 2000-01 and 1,354 for 2001-02. About 60 percent of the claimants left voluntarily after the personal interview. A timely follow-up and investigation resulted in a further 20% leaving. As a result, about 80% of those scheduled for removal left Canada. The voluntary departures saved the Department from expensive and time-consuming investigations and removals.

The Centre scaled back this project because of a shortfall in resources.

What happened to the resources? Didn't you think this was a good investment of money?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: The Auditor General is right. The program was suspended at a time where we had some decisions to make. Since the publication of the report we have put that program back on the table, and we're looking at potentially re-establishing it.

    The Chair: On the one-third of refugees who arrive at land borders, one-third at the airports, one-third dealt with internally, I always had in my mind that when a refugee is so relieved to arrive in what they perceive to be a free country, the first thing they say is “refugee”, if they have no documentation or if that's the reason they travel here. Why do a third of them wait until they're well inside the country, and then go to Montreal or Toronto or wherever and say, I think I want to apply for refugee status?

    Mr. Michel Dorais: There are a number of reasons behind that, which relate to the individual decisions. People they might have consulted in Canada may have pushed them in the direction of making that decision. It could be people who come here as totally legitimate visitors, and then realize they have that option, which they didn't know about it before. Or they are people, as my colleague pointed out to me, who have sneaked into Canada, ended up here illegally, and are now making that claim. Those are various possibilities.

    The Chair: It seems to me a very high percentage of people who just seem to be applying at their leisure now they're within Canada.

    We're going to wrap it up now. As I mentioned, the Auditor General has some guests here, and then we have the second part of our meeting, with the Treasury Board officials, who have also arrived. We'll have the closing statement by the Auditor General first.

    Ms. Sheila Fraser: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    We are very pleased with the response of the department. There were some serious issues raised, and even during the coarse of our audit they started to take action on them, as I think the deputy minister has indicated today. We are particularly pleased to see the signing of the memorandum of understanding with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. This is a point that has been raised repeatedly, I don't know how many times, but over the course of the years in many of our audits. There's a provision in that for evaluations, which Mr. Dorais has indicated will be coming this fall. So we look forward to action on all those items.

    The Chair: Very Good.

    I thank you, Mr. Dorais, Monsieur Jean, Madame Ricard, and you're excused. The Auditor General can stay and introduce her guests, and I invite them to come forward. We'll only be a few minutes, and then we'll get the Treasury Board going. We need to keep quorum, because we have a couple of motions to pass; the Treasury Board would like a directive from the public accounts committee.

    Ms. Fraser.

º  (1655)  

    Ms. Sheila Fraser: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    As you may recall, in the past I have told the committee a little about some of the work we do in INTOSAI, the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions, the auditors general, if you will, of some 180 countries around the world. I chair one of the subcommittees--my predecessor actually started the committee--and we're doing work on the independence of legislative audit institutions. At the congress in the fall of 2001 we adopted eight principles, and we are now working on application provisions and case studies as a group. We are holding a meeting of the subcommittee here in Ottawa today and tomorrow, and I would like to introduce some of my colleagues from the committee.

    On my far left is Dr. Gertrud Schlicker. Gertrude is a deputy director in the Austrian Court of Account and Secretary General of INTOSAI. So she has an important role for us. Next to Gertrude is

[Translation]

    Mr. Mama, Cameroon's Auditor General. We're delighted that he travelled this far to take part in our proceedings.

[English]

Next to me is Mrs. Armstrong, the auditor general of Antigua and Barbuda. On my right is Goren Steen, an audit director with the auditor general of Sweden.

    The Chair: I'd like to thank you very much for bringing these guests forward, Ms. Fraser. I'll give them a brief opportunity for any comment or observation on the public accounts committee meeting they've just observed. We have some other business, so we will have to make it very brief, unfortunately, we can't get into any long discussion.

    Mr. Fontana.

    Mr. Joe Fontana: Maybe I could just ask them if they are as tough on their government people as our Auditor General is on ours. Sheila, I thought you'd like that.

    The Chair: We'll let Ms. Fraser answer that at some other time, Mr. Fontana.

    Ms. Sheila Fraser: I think not, Mr. Chair.

    The Chair: I would just like to say welcome to Canada. We appreciate the importance of the role you all play in your respective countries and how you're working together to try to improve the oversight of government. As a member of the opposition, I can say that's always desirable. We wish you well in your deliberations here in the next couple of days, and we hope you return to your countries with renewed enthusiasm to write tough reports on government.

»  (1700)  

    Ms. Sheila Fraser: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    The Chair: Now we'll have Mr. Neville and Mr. Morgan come forward.

    There is a letter, which the clerk has circulated to all members of the committee, from Mr. Neville. He's asking for the committee's approval to wave the reporting in the Public Accounts of Canada of a number of ex gratia payments of special benefits to the merchant navy veterans, under the heating fuel rebate program, and made to resolve claims arising from the Indian schools system. We have in the past granted a one-year exemption, with the proviso that the number of claims paid and the total value of these claims are reported in the Public Accounts of Canada.

    Ms. Meredith.

    Ms. Val Meredith: The heating fuel rebate was an emergency measure two or three years ago. Why would we still be making payments on it?

    Mr. Richard Neville (Deputy Comptroller General, Comptrollership Branch, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat): Mr. Chair, I'll answer the question, but may I also have the opportunity of making some opening comments?

    In the year 2000-2001--

    Ms. Val Meredith: Yes, it was quite a while ago.

    Mr. Richard Neville: That's right. That's when we had the first series of payments. The relief for heating expenses was $1,459,000,000, and the total number of claims was 8,714,738. You're going to see a decrease. In 2001-2002 we were down to $42 million in payments and 278,000 claims. What is anticipated for last year, for which we're asking the exemption, is $13 million and 86,165 claims These are adjustments coming out of GST, so as you go back and do adjustments, there are some payments that are made. There may be some in the fourth year, we're not sure.

    Ms. Val Meredith: But these apply to the fuel costs from the year 2000.

    Mr. Richard Neville: Correct.

    Ms. Val Meredith: And it's taken three or four years to get them through the system?

    Mr. Richard Neville: Yes, because of the adjustments on GST. It's all based on the GST refund, that's how they calculate it.

    Ms. Val Meredith: But how many more years do you make adjustments on something that affects emergency fuel use? Why are we just adjusting the GST now? Why is it just coming up now?

    The Chair: Mr. Morgan.

    Mr. John Morgan (Executive Director, Financial Management and Accounting Policy Directorate, Comptrollership Branch, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat): The GST is the tax credit. They're assessed on an ongoing basis, and it's based on the 1999 tax year. As Canadians file their income tax returns, some of these are filed late, and thus the reassessments are based on late filings. They also occurred because of reassessments of their tax returns on an ongoing basis. As well, you have some invalid addresses that are updated subsequently. Once the individuals are identified and tracked down with the proper address, they are eligible for both the GST tax credit and the fuel heating rebate. This is on an ongoing basis, and it does drop off over time.

    Ms. Val Meredith: I would hope so.

    Mr. Richard Neville: Mr. Chair, could I have some opening comments?

    Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee on the subject of ex gratia payments.

    On April 23, 2003, we sought this committee's continued support to not publish the individual names and amounts of ex gratia payments of special benefits to merchant navy veterans, heating fuel rebates, and payments made to resolve claims arising from the Indian school system. A reporting exemption for these three programs had been provided for the 2001-2002 public accounts. We also sought a new exemption for special benefit payments to first nations veterans made in 2002-2003, given that the volume of payments is expected to approximate 1,800 and that the payments are similar in nature to those made to merchant navy veterans.

[Translation]

    As a rule, ex gratia payments do not require prior authorization of Parliament, unlike program payments which require Cabinet authorization. Barring a publication waiver, the details of each payment are reported in Section 10, Part II, Volume 11, of the Public Accounts.

    We are seeking the committee's support to waive publication of these ex gratia payments in the Public Accounts. The nature, number and total amounts of these payments should be published for each program.

    We thank the committee for considering this request and we would now be happy to answer your questions.

»  (1705)  

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. Meredith.

    Ms. Val Meredith: What's the purpose of this? I'm new to this. Is it just not to report the individual's name to maintain a privacy thing? Why are you coming?

    Mr. Richard Neville: In the case of home heating we had eight million names. In the case of the Indian residential schools it's a question of privacy; otherwise, you'd have intentional, physical, or sexual assaults. So to maintain the privacy of the individuals, we ask for the exemption. We do publish the total number of payments, the amount, and the program, we just do not want to publish the individual names of those receiving payment.

    The Chair: I have a question, Mr. Neville. On heating fuel rebates, you're asking for approval to keep on paying more and more money out, and you mentioned reassessments of the income tax. Are you collecting money back on this heating fuel rebate if you find they weren't eligible for it in the first place?

    Mr. Richard Neville: Yes. This is a net amount. There is in some cases a recovery of payments. In other cases, where there's a wrong address or whatever and it's a legitimate claim, we'll pay.

    Mr. John Morgan: This is actually the gross payment that is made, but if there are recoveries to be made, they are effected by CCRA.

    The Chair: Okay, so we are recovering where there are readjustments.

    Mr. Bagnell.

    Mr. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): I just wanted to make a short comment relating to what Ms. Meredith was bringing up on the prices. I know it takes our tax system a long time to get all the adjustments made, as things are re-evaluated, but I think for the people at the lower income level who had to get the fuel rebate, as they're saving for their children for university etc, the money will still be useful when they finally receive it.

    The Chair: The clerk prepared a motion:

That in relation to the letter dated April 23, 2003, from Richard J. Neville, Deputy Comptroller General, concerning waivers to the publication of details related to ex gratia payments relating to special benefits to merchant navy veterans, heating fuel rebates, and payments made to resolve claims arising from the Indian schools system, an annual waiver be given to the Treasury Board, provided that the gross amounts and the total number of claims are reported to Parliament.

    Mr. Richard Neville: I would ask, Mr. Chair, also for first nations veterans.

    The Chair: Is that a different program?

    Mr. Richard Neville: It's the first time we've asked for it.

    The Chair: Okay, we will add special benefit payments to first nations veterans to that.

    Mr. Richard Neville: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    The Chair: That's four programs, first nations veterans, veterans, the heating fuel rebate, and payments on the residential schools. The total number and gross amount will be reported in public accounts, and this is a one-year waiver.

    Mr. Richard Neville: That's correct.

    The Chair: Moved by Mr. Bagnell.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: Before you run off, we have a couple of minor housekeeping issues.

    You're happy, Mr. Neville?

    Mr. Richard Neville: Yes. I would have liked, Mr. Chair, a permanent exemption, but I'll be very happy with an annual exemption.

    The Chair: We have a couple of motions. We have already gone through a couple of reports in camera that have been agreed to by the committee, but we did not have quorum at the time to approve them. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(e), consideration of a draft report of chapter 1, “Placing the Public's Money Beyond Parliament's Reach”, of the April 2002 report of the Auditor General of Canada, it is moved that the committee adopt the report as the 14th report of the committee.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: The second is that pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government provide a comprehensive response to this report.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: The third is that the chair be authorized to make such grammatical and editorial changes to the report as may be necessary without changing the substance of the report.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: The fourth is that the chair table the 14th report to the House.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: The fifth is that a press release be issued.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: Also, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(e), consideration of a draft report on chapter 2, “Fisheries and Oceans Canada--Contributing to Safe and Efficient Marine Navigation”, of the December 2002 report of the Auditor General of Canada, it is moved that the committee adopt the report as the 15th report of the committee.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: The next is that pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee request that the government provide a comprehensive response to this report.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: The next is that the chair be authorized to make such grammatical and editorial changes to the report as may be necessary without changing the substance of the report.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: Then that the chair table the report to the House.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: Finally, that a press release be issued.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. There being no further business, the meeting is adjourned.