CITI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA CITOYENNETÉ ET DE L'IMMIGRATION

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, February 18, 1998

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order. Thank you very much for appearing, everyone.

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

We have with us today a large array of witnesses. Greg Fyffe is the assistant deputy minister from policy and program development. We've all met before. Brian Grant is the acting director general of the enforcement branch. Susan Leith is the director of investigation and removal from the enforcement branch.

Also with us we have Neil Cochrane, director of case presentation; Roman Borowyk, director of information management; and Mike Weber, financial adviser.

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Do you have some format for your presentation, such as who is going to be the first to speak? We'll follow on from there.

Mr. Greg Fyffe (Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Program Development, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Mr. Chairman, I have just a couple of very brief remarks, and then I'll ask Mr. Grant to also make a very short statement. Then we're at your disposal.

The Chairman: Okay.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: You have already introduced the officials we have with us, who come principally from the enforcement branch but also from finance and information technology. I'm sure there will be some areas of interest there.

We are very happy to have the opportunity to appear before you and discuss recommendation 155 on detention and removal. As you know, our minister has undertaken consultations from the 27th to the 11th, and we expect of course to hear a lot on this and other topics at the same time.

The detention and removal part of the report “Not Just Numbers” is quite an essential part of it, and it's one to which we will be paying a great deal of attention. It's an area of considerable complexity, as I'm sure the members who have already posed questions on this are more than aware. We are looking forward to receiving further ideas from committee members.

With that, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Grant, who has a few short remarks.

The Chairman: Mr. Grant.

Mr. Brian Grant (Acting Director General, Enforcement Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Just to echo the idea that we do look forward to new ideas, we have grappled with this for a number of years and shared our experience with a number of other countries. Sometimes you think that you've seen everything and there's nothing new, but I heard about two weeks ago of a new approach that Sweden had introduced. It related to the problem of people coming without documents and claiming to be a certain nationality. We've all grappled with this. The Swedes are now using linguistic experts who can identify a region within a country the person comes from by the dialect they use.

That's an example, but there are always new ways of doing things that we can look at. For that reason, we welcome the LRAG report, and of course your suggestions built on recommendation 155.

I'd like to just say two things about where we see recommendation 155 within the program, so you understand basically our context, and then we'll follow your questions wherever.

We talk about enforcement sometimes as if it were an entity unto itself, but of course enforcement is an integral part of the program. We can look at how well we do the business of enforcement, and that's a legitimate thing to look at. We have a certain number of cases, say, to remove. How many of those cases do we in fact remove? That's a legitimate thing to look at.

We try as well to realize that this is linked to all other parts of the program. Decisions you make in other parts of the program will determine how many cases in fact you have to remove. We'll try to draw the implications of that for you, based on your questions.

The second point I'd like to make—and we'll probably come back to this as we go through it—is that the program as it now exists really manoeuvres around a couple of important fixed points. In terms of the policies we've developed and the policy choices we have, we are always conscious of these fixed points. Sometimes it may seem a little exasperating that we can't do something because we go back to one of these fixed points, which are twofold.

First is the legal fixed point. We operate obviously within the context of the charter and the unqualified right to due process of law that the charter gives to people. When we set out our policies we always have to work around that particular point, unless we want to move the point, which is not something we have at our disposal.

The second point is just the financial reality that it can be very resource-intensive to deal with a lot of this, so we try to find efficient ways of carrying this out. This has meant increasingly looking at the question of risk management—where is it that we actually have to put our resources?—and also, are there ways technology can assist us? We're fairly new to the realm of technology, but we're trying to learn as fast as possible how that can make our vigilance as strong but perhaps a little less labour-intensive.

Thank you.

The Chairman: You have just those two presentations, and now my understanding is that you're ready to receive questions.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: That's right, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Okay. Our questioning period will begin. I would ask the members to try to zero in as much as possible and stay to today's main topic, which is related to detention and removal.

Mr. Reynolds.

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

How many removal and deportation orders do we currently have outstanding in Canada?

Ms. Susan Leith (Director, Investigation and Removal, Enforcement Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Currently there are 6,617 active removal cases in our system. There are 1,267 criminal cases, and we have 411 persons detained.

When you asked the question about the outstanding removal orders, these are the cases for which we're in the position to begin processing the removal. There are other cases, for example, in which there may be a removal order against the person, but the person is currently serving a sentence or there's some legal impediment to the removal.

Mr. John Reynolds: How many more would that be, where there's a removal order but there's some impediment such as being in jail?

Mr. Brian Grant: I'm not sure we have that number at hand, but we can certainly get it for you.

Mr. John Reynolds: The Auditor General was talking about 20,000 deportation orders. Of that number, only 4,000 people had been deported, so there are 16,000 outstanding deportation orders.

Ms. Susan Leith: Actually, I have updated stats on that.

We recently did a run of our statistics relating to the figure reported in the Auditor General's report, and the information we got from our statistics is that 7,097 claimants who were either refused by the CRDD or had abandoned or withdrawn their claims have actually been removed since 1993. The number reported in the Auditor General's report was 4,300.

Mr. John Reynolds: That's those who have been removed. How many are still left to be removed?

Ms. Susan Leith: Pardon me?

Mr. John Reynolds: You said 7,097 have been removed since 1993. How many are still left to be removed, where there are deportation orders against them?

Ms. Susan Leith: I'll look for that number.

Mr. John Reynolds: Okay.

How many alleged war criminals are we currently investigating?

Mr. Greg Fyffe: I can't give you that right now, Mr. Reynolds. We'll get it for you.

Mr. John Reynolds: How many immigration enforcement officers have we in the field today, and how does that number compare, say, with the number in 1993?

Ms. Susan Leith: I can report on the removals function for the fiscal year 1997-98. We have approximately 98 FTEs expended. An FTE is a full-time equivalent. We had 94 the previous year, and we had 85 FTEs devoted to the removals function in 1995-96.

We have therefore increased the number of FTEs devoted to the removals function. I might also add that in our enforcement centres across Canada we have moved to have a position called an enforcement officer. Previously we had immigration investigators, immigration removals officers, and escort officers. We've moved to combine the job description into that one job description so that we will have more flexibility to deploy our resources in a more effective manner.

We're in the process of doing it right now. Some offices have fully moved to that. Some are in the process of doing so. We're not completely finished, but we're moving towards it.

Mr. John Reynolds: Is there any difference in the terminology? You say 98 removal officers. What about enforcement officers?

Ms. Susan Leith: I'll have to get you that number, and I will be able to get it for 1997 and 1998 as well.

Mr. John Reynolds: That's fine. Can you also get me 1993 just to see what the difference is, whether we've had an increase or a decrease in numbers?

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Mr. Brian Grant: Could we clarify what it is you're expecting in terms of the activities an enforcement officer is involved in? We have officers at ports of entry, we have officers who do investigations and organize removals—escorts. We're trying to move some of those last ones together. We also have officers overseas who potentially do enforcement work.

Mr. John Reynolds: I'd like it all. I'd like to know exactly what we've got in the way of enforcement, whether they're at a border in Europe or wherever they are.

I'd like to know if those numbers in 1997 are more or less than they were in 1993, just to see whether we've added to or decreased the numbers in enforcement.

You can give us whatever you think would fall within those guidelines. At the end we have to try to come up with some idea of what we want to do. I just want to know what direction we're heading in.

Mr. Brian Grant: Okay.

Mr. John Reynolds: That's fine for now, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Maria Minna, please.

Ms. Maria Minna (Beaches—East York, Lib.): I have a couple of questions, but I have the advantage of knowing a bit more about what's going on.

I wonder, Mr. Chairman—and this, of course, would be with the committee's agreement—whether it would be helpful if someone were to go through the process. Part of the difficulty is that I'm not sure how well understood the process of removal is and what now happens. When and how and who does it? What are the procedures, and so on? I think our colleagues may be at a bit of a disadvantage in asking questions or starting a discussion if we haven't had a presentation or discussion on what the existing system is about and how it's structured.

I know that some people have read the Tassé report, and so on, but I'm just wondering whether it might not be better at the outset to have a bit of a presentation or discussion from our witnesses on what the system is about now. This might assist our colleagues in following through with questions. Or is that a waste of time? Does everybody know how it works? I want to know because I want to be sure we're all on the same board.

The Chairman: We know how it doesn't work.

Ms. Maria Minna: Fine. We don't want to do that?

Mr. Norman Doyle (St. John's East, PC): I think it would be very beneficial for me. I'm a new member of the committee. I'd like to know about the process.

The Chairman: I think we should. I thank you very much for that suggestion. I think it's a very positive move.

Take us through the scenario from the beginning to the end.

However, I'm going to ask the members—and anybody on the panel can contribute—as you go along to honestly identify in that process those weak spots, the spots in that process where you find a great deal of trouble or a great number of concerns have been raised time and time again. In other words, please identify where there's a join and a weakness, and if possible even suggest how that weakness can be corrected or what can be done in order to strengthen it. I think that type of presentation would give us a far better and more comprehensive perception of what it's all about.

Thank you.

Mr. Brian Grant: As a point of clarification, where in the process do you want us to start? We've talked in response to Mr. Reynolds' request. We can start abroad and work through the port of entry, or we can start at the point at which somebody in Canada would begin the process that leads to removal.

Now, as I read section 155, it talks about detention and removal, so we seem to be picking it up halfway through. Is that satisfactory?

The Chairman: My feeling is that you should do both to give us a better understanding. Would you agree?

Mr. John Reynolds: Yes.

Ms. Susan Leith: Okay, I'll start. The example I'll use is a person arriving at a port of entry; that will be clearer for you.

The person arrives at our port of entry, and an immigration officer interviews the client. If the officer determines that the person is inadmissible to Canada, the officer writes a report. At that time the person may claim refugee status or the person may not. In the example of a criminal, the person may not in fact claim refugee status.

After the report is written, a senior immigration officer reviews the report and determines whether the allegations are in fact true.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, Ref.): How long does it take him to review?

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Ms. Susan Leith: The officer who does the initial interview, which can take anywhere from half an hour to seven or eight hours, depending on the complexity of the case and whether an interpreter is needed or not... With a senior immigration officer, I would think it would on average take about an hour, depending on whether or not an interpreter is required.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: From the time the first officer has it written down and it goes to the senior one—is it right away?

Ms. Susan Leith: It's right away.

When the immigration officer finishes, the senior immigration officer sees the person. If they have another person to see, there would be a slight delay, but generally it's immediately. When the senior immigration officer is looking at the allegations, he or she also considers the question of detention or release of the client. Mr. Cochrane can speak to the issues relating to detention.

Depending on the reason for inadmissibility, our senior immigration officers do have authority in certain situations to issue a removal order right then and there. These are for allegations that are more straightforward and when the person fails to comply with a requirement of the act, such as not having a passport or visa.

In the case of a person who has claimed refugee status, at the processing point a conditional removal order is issued against the person, but the person is referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board, the CRDD division, to make a refugee claim.

Let me give you a scenario in which the person hasn't made a refugee claim to begin with. The person arrives and the immigration officer determines that the person is inadmissible because they've been convicted of a criminal offence overseas. The case is then sent to an immigration adjudicator, who is a person employed by the Immigration and Refugee Board, in the adjudication division. The adjudicator hears the case, determines whether in fact the person is inadmissible, and then issues an order.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Could you give us some timeframe? Is it one day—

Ms. Susan Leith: Mr. Cochrane will tell you about the timeframes.

Mr. Neil Cochrane (Director, Case Presentation, Enforcement Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Perhaps I can clarify. You asked about the timeframes between the examining officer's report and the senior immigration officer's review. Generally they are done right away, but the process isn't uniform across the country.

Some of the ports have been moving to a mail-in system to move the traffic through more quickly. People are given an information package, which they have to return within a couple of days. The senior immigration officer will then decide whether or not they can render the decision based on the information available or if they have to call the person in for a further interview.

With regard to a person whose case can't be decided by the senior immigration officer, that has to be referred to an inquiry before an immigration adjudicator. They're fairly current with the hearings before the adjudication division. In many instances the hearing will be set for about four weeks after the person's arrival; generally four weeks is about the time we're looking at.

I should point out that the vast majority of people who are inadmissible are dealt with by the senior immigration officer, and almost all of our refugee claimants are issued a conditional removal order, either right away or within a few days of their arrival. The order then would only become effective if and when the convention refugee determination division decided they are not a convention refugee.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: The timeframe to reach the convention refugee determination?

Mr. Neil Cochrane: I believe it's about 14 months now for a decision from the CRDD.

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Excuse me, Mr. Obhrai asked a question about refugees. I thought we were talking about immigrants.

Ms. Maria Minna: We're not talking refugees.

Ms. Susan Leith: I was trying to give you the easy scenario first of a criminal arriving at our port of entry. The refugee determination process complicates the description somewhat, so to begin with I was trying to take you through on a more straightforward case and then get more complicated once you had seen how it works.

Mr. Brian Grant: This may complicate it more, but we're talking now about non-immigrants for the purpose of this explanation. You have to realize that there are two processes going on simultaneously in some cases.

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What we are charged with doing is looking at the immigration status of the person who arrives at the port of entry. Is the person admissible to Canada or inadmissible to Canada? To be admissible to Canada you must be properly documented. You must not fall into one of the inadmissible classes that deals with medical, economic, welfare, criminal, security...or that you've violated the act in some way. Usually this means you don't have a visa or a passport.

Our officers determine immigration status admissibility, whether you can come into the country or not, and they have the power to issue orders in certain circumstances.

The first example that Susan Leith was giving you, all of that will take place in a fairly efficient way. For the most part, they're issued by senior immigration officers and the person can be put on the next plane back. If it's a little more complex, the issue may be contentious and you may have to look at equivalencies of convictions overseas versus Canada. That sort of case will go before an immigration adjudicator, who will weigh the issue to determine whether or not the person is actually described as inadmissible under the act.

What complicates or suspends all of this is if the person says the word “refugee”. At that point they become a refugee claimant. We can make the immigration determination, but the consequences are held in abeyance. So any order we issue then becomes conditional and basically suspended until the question of refugee status is determined, which can go on for several months.

Mr. Norman Doyle: Mr. Chairman, at the point of entry how will the immigration officer determine, say for a refugee, if that person is qualified to enter? What set of criteria will he use on a refugee?

Ms. Susan Leith: In the Immigration Act there are a number of sections that talk about who is admissible and who is inadmissible to Canada. Generally, people who arrive and want to claim refugee status want to come and live here permanently. Therefore, they don't have an immigrant visa so they are inadmissible. Anyone who is coming to live in Canada permanently must have an immigrant visa.

Our officers ask a person who is coming here to live who is claiming refugee status if they have an immigrant visa. If you don't, you're reported for not having an immigrant visa. That's the section they actually write the report on, because anyone who is coming to live in Canada permanently must have an immigrant visa in their possession.

Mr. Norman Doyle: If you're fleeing a country, you would be automatically passed on to the next level.

Mr. Brian Grant: No, we'll do two things, remember. We'll do the immigration examination. Irrespective of your being a refugee claimant, we'll look to see whether you're admissible to Canada under the Immigration Act. In addition, we will look at your eligibility to have your claim for refugee status considered by the IRB. Normally you will be eligible, but there are certain circumstances outlined in the Immigration Act in which you are not eligible. So if you've already been found to be a refugee either in another country or in Canada previously, you're not eligible to have your case referred.

If you have made a claim and you have been removed from Canada and less than 90 days has passed, you're not eligible to come back and make another claim. There are a number of other... And we can give that to you in writing if you want to study it.

On the grounds under which an immigration officer can make a decision, a very small proportion of people are found not to be eligible. Most people are found to be eligible to go forward.

So remember there are two things here now. There's the immigration determination of admissibility and then the question of eligibility to have the claim considered.

The Chairman: Yes, Ms. Folco.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I'd like to thank you for the first part of your presentation.

I come from the milieu we're talking about, and I know how involved and how complex the stream of the immigration determination and the stream of the refugee status are.

I wonder whether I might not ask you, on behalf of the committee, Mr. Chairman, if we could have some flow charts. Would it be possible for the department to provide us with say one flow chart showing us the process from port of entry, a yes and no binary choice for immigration, a yes and no binary choice for refugee status? This would go on until, at the very end of the flow chart, there would be the removal and detention. We know with the removal, in particular, that there are all sorts of points where the process can almost begin all over again.

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I think it would be very helpful for the members of this committee if we had something visual that we could get our teeth into, so to speak, because it's a very complex process.

Thank you.

Mr. Steve Mahoney (Mississauga West, Lib.): On a point of information, Mr. Chairman, I think that flow chart exists in the public accounts or in the Auditor General's report, which the public accounts committee is currently dealing with. It is very helpful. All we need to do is get a copy of the AG's report for committee members and you'd see exactly how it flows.

The Chairman: Very good.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: Mr. Chairman, whatever is there, we'd be glad to see what we have to make sure you have the information that will give you a clear flow of all of this. Whether it's the AG's report or whether we supplement it that so there is a full understanding of the various options in the process, it is a very complicated process.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Could you in that flow chart put the current timeframe that it takes? You can put it in pencil. You just told me that the time it takes to determine a refugee is 14 months. Do you have an idea how long it takes for the whole system to work?

Mr. Greg Fyffe: Yes.

The Chairman: Thanks for the direction. I would like to bring to the attention of the members that on page 25-10 of the Auditor General's report there's quite a comprehensive chart giving you quite a bit of information. Study it carefully and we'll have a better idea of what it's all about.

Are you going to continue?

Ms. Susan Leith: The chart might not particularly describe the mechanism the officers go through to make removal arrangements when we get to the removal stage and some of the challenges they face.

The Chairman: Okay. Would you continue with that scenario, then, please?

Ms. Susan Leith: So we'll pick it up where the person has been issued a removal order.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Conditional or unconditional?

Ms. Susan Leith: Just a removal order—an unconditional removal order.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: So they're not a refugee.

Ms. Susan Leith: That's right. We're ready to remove the person, so the removal order is now what we refer to as “effective”.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: In the case of the guy whose refugee claim has been rejected, it becomes an ordinary removal case.

Ms. Susan Leith: Or they didn't make one.

So when the officers begin to make removal arrangements, first of all, they have to have a valid travel document for the client in order to be able to remove the client to their country of nationality. And you asked us to point out challenges. That is one of our greatest challenges.

In terms of removals, we refer to two types of impediments to removal. We talk about legal impediments to removal. That's any type of impediment where the client has filed some form of an appeal or has turned to the Federal Court for a review of their case. And we also have what we refer to as administrative impediments to removal, and that's the category the travel document falls under.

Not all clients are in a situation where they don't have a travel document; some do, but I'll focus on the ones who don't. Our officers have contact with consular officials in Canada. They attempt to have the client apply for a travel document. In many instances many of our clients are uncooperative and they will not apply for a travel document; therefore, it causes quite a challenge for our officers.

We are currently working on initiatives to encourage our clients to comply with our requests for travel documents. For example, when we have clients who are detained, before they're released from detention our case-presenting officers make arguments to the immigration adjudicator that the person should apply for a travel document before they're released from detention. And that's not necessarily successful in every case, because immigration adjudicators are of course independent decision makers. They may not want to impose that as a term and condition of the person's release.

When you have situations where the people are uncooperative and they are unwilling to file an application for a travel document, that gives the countries we have to deal with a little bit of an advantage over us.

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We also use our ICOs abroad when we have difficulty getting a travel document. For example, we can have our officers contact them and they can go to the town where that person was allegedly born and check through the baptismal records.

I remember an example where we were trying to remove a person and he denied that he was from a place that he had previously told us he was from. So we took a photo and walked through this small town and somebody said there's so and so, I haven't seen him in a while, where is he? And we said he's in Canada, do you know where he was born? Yes, they said, he was baptized down in that parish. So we were able to get a certificate. But that's very costly. That was someone who was riding around on a bicycle in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: You owed them $10, did you?

Ms. Susan Leith: But that's the extent we have to go to in certain circumstances to obtain travel documents.

We do have removal arrangements in place with certain countries to facilitate the issuance of travel documents. We have an arrangement with the United States and we have an arrangement with Jamaica. We have arrangements with Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Czech Republic. We use those arrangements to facilitate discussions between our officials and foreign officials to dictate the type of documentation we have to provide in order to get a travel document. Those removal arrangements also outline the timeframes associated with our requests. In some circumstances those removal arrangements are very effective in assisting us, and in some circumstances they're not.

The Chairman: Who pays the cost of all of this?

Ms. Susan Leith: Which cost is that, sir?

The Chairman: Removing the individual from the country if he has no money left.

Ms. Susan Leith: If the person arrived in Canada at a port of entry and that person was reported at the port of entry, and if we know what airline carried that person to Canada, it is the responsibility of the airline, or the transportation company in the case of a ship, to pay for the removal of that individual.

The Chairman: We are not going in the typical order. We're just gathering some information, and it's coming. I encourage you people to jump in as soon as a question arises so that you don't lose it and we have it within the proper context.

Maria.

Ms. Maria Minna: When you were talking about numbers, at what point do we start counting the numbers of people who need to be deported? Is it at the time they are, as you said, considered to be...? You give them a conditional order, you said.

Ms. Susan Leith: Inadmissible.

Ms. Maria Minna: There are different ones. The ones who declare they are refugees receive the conditional order, you said, and go through the refugee process. Am I right? Are they counted as deportees at that point—when they receive the conditional order? Or is it counted once they fail the refugee process? At what point do they become part of the statistics?

Ms. Susan Leith: The only time we count a person as a removal statistic is when they're removed from Canada.

Ms. Maria Minna: I'm sorry. You said we have 6,617 waiting to be removed. How did we get to that number? Did we start counting at the time they were given the conditional order, or at the time they failed the refugee process and were considered to be deportees?

Ms. Susan Leith: That's when they're failed—when they're at the point where we can attempt to start to make removal arrangements.

Ms. Maria Minna: So they're not part of the statistic at the front end.

Ms. Susan Leith: No.

Mr. Brian Grant: Statistics are obviously the challenge in this game, with so many people coming through. We have statistics that are written either at the port of entry or in an inland report that the person is inadmissible. We have statistics on effective removal orders at that point and conditional removal orders—conditional if there's a refugee aspect to the case. There are two types of removal orders. Most people who come and the only illegal thing they've done is that their documents are not in order—they're criminals or security threats, etc.—these people will be issued what we call a conditional departure order.

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Let's take the conditional off of it. The conditional goes through and it comes off. They're found not to be a refugee. They are then given 30 days to leave the country voluntarily. If they do not comply with that and confirm that they've left the country within 30 days of that departure order becoming effective, which is the point at which the claim is determined not to be valid, then that order automatically becomes a deportation order and a warrant is issued for their arrest. That warrant is placed on the CPIC system and is sent to all police forces across the country. The small computer they have in their car will have this information entered into it that these people are under a deportation order.

A minority of people who come in to make a refugee claim may have a deportation order against them. Again, once the claim is determined, that will become effective.

We can look at it at any particular point. In terms of the numbers we gave you earlier, those are effective orders—that the removal order has become effective for them to be removed, so all stays have been removed. The conditional aspect has been taken off it.

The Chairman: Now we'll go back.

[Translation]

Ms. Girard-Bujold.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold (Jonquières, BQ): I find everything you just said extremely complicated. Frankly, I'd like to understand. You said that a person who arrives at a port of entry without an immigrant visa, without any document, will be interviewed by an immigration officer. Then, the immigration officer writes a report; that has to be approved by a supervisor, which might take a few hours, about seven. But then, what happens? What do you do with this person who has no document? Where does he or she go? When we get to that point, I don't really know what happens.

Second, you said that, even with no document, people can appeal to the Federal Court to have their status recognized. How much time can that take? I find all this quite complicated.

Also, how much does all that cost? How many people fall under this category? You can't remove them right away? Even if we paid for that, we would not be able to remove them right away?

Mr. Neil Cochrane: No, we can't remove them right away even if they have no document. Whether they have documents or not, and even if they have forged documents, the process is the same since those people can apply for refugee status. Unless they fall within inadmissible categories, which are very few, not having any document is not a reason to refuse an application.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Can you tell me what are the non admissible categories, please?

Mr. Neil Cochrane: Of course. We shall not consider an application from a person who has been convicted of a fairly serious crime and who is considered a danger for society. There is also the case of people who have already claimed refugee status and who have been refused, as well as the case of people who have left Canada following a negative decision and who have not stayed abroad for 90 days, as required. There are one or two more categories, such as that of people convicted of war crimes or crimes against humanity. However, whether you have documents or ID papers has nothing to do with the admissibility of your claim.

So, if somebody has no document, a conditional removal order will probably be issued, but the case will nevertheless be referred to the Refugee Determination Division of the IRB so that the claim can be looked at.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: How much time does all that take?

Mr. Neil Cochrane: Before the case is referred to the Convention Refugee Determination Division, it takes about a month. Then, according to the most recent data I can recall, it takes about 14 months to examine and determine the claim.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: So these people stay in our country for 14 months. Who is looking after them during that period of time?

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Mr. Neil Cochrane: It depends. They can work.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: They can work even if they don't have refugee status?

Mr. Neil Cochrane: Yes, they are allowed to have a work permit because otherwise, welfare would be the only other option.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Okay.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. McKay.

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): Just as a point of clarification, when you are discussing the issue of deportations or removals, as you call them, what percentages are attributable to refugee claimants and to non-refugee claimants?

Ms. Susan Leith: In 1997, for example, we removed 7,968 persons from Canada. Of those individuals, 60% or 4,800 were persons who were failed refugee claimants—

Mr. John McKay: So it's 60:40, then.

Ms. Susan Leith: —and 18% of them were criminals.

Mr. John McKay: Is that 18% of the 60%, or...?

Ms. Susan Leith: No, 18% of the total.

Mr. Brian Grant: Failed claimants accounted for 60%, 18% were criminal, and then beyond that would be those working illegally, entering without documents and going straight back—the others.

Mr. John McKay: Okay.

Obviously the committee is concerned with trying to fix the system, which by any standards is not working. The first issue you mentioned was with respect to travel documents. When you say travel documents, I read that as passports. Is there anything else other than passports that we talk about when we talk about travel documents?

Ms. Susan Leith: I refer to them as travel documents because there are other things, like an emergency travel document, an emergency passport.

Mr. John McKay: Okay. I just wanted to make sure we were kind of in the ballpark.

Mr. Brian Grant: There are also seamen's books.

Ms. Susan Leith: Yes, seamen's books, if it was a member of a crew. Some people do arrive on a special laissez-passer. So we always refer to them as travel documents.

Mr. John McKay: Okay. So you're in this bizarre situation where there's an outstanding deportation order, and you're begging this individual to apply to be sent out of Canada. You couldn't think of a more Kafkaesque situation if you really pushed it.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Incentive.

Mr. John McKay: Yes—a perverse incentive, if ever I've heard one.

Where it's possible to remedy that situation is that point of entry, in terms of how you process that individual. Presumably in some instances travel documents are either destroyed or lost by intention or inadvertence. Is there a means by which that issue could be eliminated at the point of entry, so that you're not in this crazy situation three years down the road where you're begging the individual to leave the country?

Mr. Brian Grant: A couple of points. First, to clarify the Kafkaesque picture that you drew, there are two conditions here we find ourselves in. One is that the individual, for his or her own reasons, refuses to sign the application, which is the one you raise. That's not a majority. The second is where the person may well be cooperating, but the country from which they come won't cooperate by issuing the documents. So there are those two.

Mr. John McKay: Yes, and country of origin would be another.

Mr. Brian Grant: We're looking now at ways in which we can increase the removal of failed refugee claimants. One of the things we're looking at is documents—looking at opportunities far earlier in the process to get the person to apply for the documents.

There's an idea we've looked at and haven't progressed on yet, and it's an idea that comes from Australia. In Australia, what happens if somebody arrives and they don't have a document is that they are required to sign an application at that point for a document. That application is kept by their equivalent of the IRB, so it's safe. It's not given to the enforcement people to send back to the country. It's safe until the determination is made, and they then have it out of the way.

• 1620

We've looked at that. The stumbling block on this one is always what sanctions do you bring against somebody who refuses to cooperate? If somebody says no, I'm not going to sign this application form, and if the sanction you bring against the person is, well, if you don't sign it, we're not going to determine your refugee claim, for people who are economic migrants, that's to their advantage. The longer they can stay in the country, the better. If you delay considering their case, you're actually—

Mr. John McKay: Spin that out for me for a second. I don't understand that.

You're at the point of entry. The Australians say “Apply for your travel document to return home or we won't put you into...”. This would be a refugee claimant system at that point. Is that correct?

Mr. Brian Grant: That's right.

Mr. John McKay: So they don't apply. What happens to them?

Mr. Brian Grant: A couple of things. If somebody doesn't apply, as I was saying, you have to have some sort of sanctions. If you say, well, we won't process your refugee claim, then that's probably against your own interest. The second thing you can look at is what other services you can withhold from the people.

You can say okay, we'll let you work, but if you don't sign the application and cooperate, then we won't let you work.

Mr. John McKay: So then we end up—

Ms. Raymonde Folco: What do they do? Do they die of hunger?

An hon. member: You put them on Oprah.

Mr. Brian Grant: Ultimately you get down to a really difficult decision. If you don't allow them to work, are you going to let them starve on your streets, if it comes to that?

Mr. John McKay: Spin out for me the idea of simply if they won't apply for the return travel documents then you return them to the country of origin undocumented. What is the problem with that?

Mr. Brian Grant: The problem with that is a country is not obligated to take back somebody who is improperly documented. It can refuse. We can arrive at the country's airport and they can say sorry, that's not our citizen, because you have no documentary proof.

Mr. John McKay: Why does that become our problem?

Mr. Brian Grant: Because we have the person. If we cannot prove that the person belongs in that country, then to throw them out there is to render them stateless.

Mr. John McKay: Well, apparently stateless.

Mr. Brian Grant: Apparently stateless.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: There's a song about Charlie on the MTA—“Did he ever return?”

Mr. John McKay: We're not going to go through that one, are we?

Mr. Brian Grant: This is why we're trying to take steps to seize documents wherever we can. This is why we now have provisions where we can search people coming in, because we found that people were secreting the documents somewhere on their person, and we didn't have authority. If we saw the document, we could take it, but if we didn't see it, we couldn't search. So we got that authority.

Then people stopped carrying the documents on them. They would send them through the mail. Then you have to get authority, which we did, to search the mails to find the documents. We were talking, in another committee yesterday, about how we do disembarkation checks, always to try to grab a document somewhere.

Now, with the document you can then approach the country yourself and try to get a document. Sometimes we'll have success in that. Some countries will insist that the person apply and will not accept unless the person applies him or herself to go back. Other countries, if you can present the information, may issue a document for you.

In the U.K., for instance, we will go and get birth records at the central registry office. We'll use that to bring the person back, even in the absence of a passport. You can do that in some cases. You'll bring them back and say, “Here's proof that this is your citizen. They don't have a travel document, but here they are in your airport.”

Mr. John McKay: You can't insist that this individual take the next plane back undocumented. Is that a point of law or is that a point of practice?

Mr. Greg Fyffe: If he's made a refugee claim, no, we can't.

Mr. John McKay: But we're in a situation where they won't sign to do it, they won't go into the refugee system unless they do it, so therefore get the next plane. I'm just trying to figure out how to narrow the options here.

Mr. Brian Grant: If somebody arrives off a plane and we know what plane they arrived on, and they've no documents, we can send them back on that plane provided they don't make a refugee claim. If they make a refugee claim, it complicates it, because we're obligated under our signature of the UN convention not to refoule those people until we've determined whether or not they are in fact refugees. They're stuck then for several months, and then you have trouble sending them back.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: So it's not the Canadian charter, it's the UN agreement.

Mr. Brian Grant: It's both. The UN convention obligates us to consider their claim before we take any enforcement action to determine whether they are or are not refugees.

Mr. John Reynolds: If an American came to the Canadian border and said he wanted refugee status, does the UN say we have to take an American into Canada and look at him as a refugee before we can send him back?

Mr. Brian Grant: We have to consider everyone, yes. It's universal.

• 1625

[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Yes, but my question is on the same topic.

[English]

The Chairman: Hold it, hold it.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. You've been getting questions from all over the place without anybody raising their hand, so I'm just jumping into it as well.

The Chairman: I've gone back into order and Mr. Doyle is next.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: You've gone back to order. Good. I'm happy to see that you have.

Mr. Norman Doyle: What about people who haven't had their departures confirmed? The AG apparently said that about 31,000 claims had been refused since 1993, and he said about 78% of them didn't have their departure confirmed.

Do we have any idea where these people are right now, or what percentage of these people could still be here in Canada illegally? What kind of a tracking mechanism do we have? Obviously 78% is a big portion of these claims that we haven't been able to confirm have departed.

Mr. Brian Grant: Ultimately the answer to your question is no, we do not know where they are, and we do not know where they are for the simple reason that we do not have exit controls.

The departure order was an attempt to introduce a form of voluntary exit control for part of the removal population, if you will. But we have so much movement across the Canada-U.S. border, and it's a fairly porous border. There are 120 million crossings a year on that land border, so we're not able to set up people and determine who is leaving. Similarly, if you will recall the last time you left on a plane, nobody checked your passport as they do in some European countries because there is too much movement on that.

One of the things that may present a possibility for us in the future on this is the use of technology, particularly when looking at it in a slightly broader scope than we have in the past. If you look at it in terms of Canada, you have an incredible challenge in front of you even with technology because of how long that border is. There are Indian reserves that straddle the border. You have remote areas where it's a long time before you run into somebody.

But if you have technology and you can link up with the United States, for instance, and start to look at where people show up for certain things, where they enter the continent, where they make refugee claims... What may well be happening is that they'll make a claim here, and if it fails they'll sneak into the United States and make a claim there.

If we can start to link up and we can address the privacy issues related to this, and we have the technology in place, then you may determine de facto that the person has left your country without actually seeing him cross the border. So that's a way that might have more potential than the exit controls, but right now we're not able to determine that.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of things we can do, but in the end it all comes down to this problem you've been forcusing on, and that is the willingness of other countries to take people back. We can have a system in which we track people or detain people, but if the countries won't take them back they build up here.

We can have a system in which they're on CPIC and they might get picked up in a random check for speeding or something, and they're identified as somebody who should be deported and we can go through a process. But if there's no way of removing them from the country because the country won't take them back, then we're stuck.

In many instances we find—and this is the one we're constantly wrestling with—that these countries do not want these people back because they are going to be as much harm to their society as they are to ours. We may have an agreement with them—in many cases we do—but they do not fulfil that agreement because they don't want the people back. In many cases we are able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these people are nationals of these other countries, but they decline to cooperate in giving them documents because they don't want to.

If you can identify two problems, one is that at the front end—we have to take them—and the other is at the back end. In the end, if we can't remove them to the country, all of the other things, whether detention, tracking, enforcement, whatever it is, all runs into that final roadblock. That is the most important challenge that we face.

The Chairman: Mr. Doyle, do you have any more questions?

Mr. Norman Doyle: No.

The Chairman: All right. We'll jump over to Ms. Folco.

[Translation]

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

I am going to ask my question in French, but I don't mind if you answer in English, whoever wants to answer.

First, I want to ask about the documents.

When you say travel documents, do you mean ID papers only or do you accept school, work or baptism certificates, etc.?

• 1630

I too, like some of my colleagues would like to know what would prevent us from requesting airlines—because they are the carrier of choice of the vast majority of people who arrive in Canada—to ask for travel documents even before an individual gets on a plane and to keep these travel documents so that we may remove people who prove undesirable.

I thought it was already done. I thought that all these carriers had to ensure that travellers had a return ticket when they came to Canada. I am asking just in case I am wrong.

I believe we can draw a parallel with the security issue. When we realized that far too many terrorists and bombs got on planes, an expensive security system was set up and, despite the fact that it slowed down the passenger check-in process, it was put in place in airports all over the world.

Obviously, some systems work better than others, but what would prevent us from setting up a similar system so that, at least, a large number of people would not get onto a plane—and I am not talking about containers—or onto a boat to come to Canada? Thank you.

[English]

Mr. Brian Grant: There is an international convention that a passport and certain other documents will qualify for travel across international boundaries. Exceptions to this can be made. The obvious exception is the border that lies between Canada and the United States, where a birth certificate and sometimes a driver's licence are sufficient to prove you are a citizen of one or the other country. But most countries will require a travel document, effectively a passport.

Identity documents are useful if we can get identity documents, because they can be used to prove that the person is a citizen of such-and-such a country and that proof can then be used for the country to issue a passport. Identity documents themselves are not a synonym for travel documents. They are two different things. One is useful for the other. But under normal conditions an identity document will not allow you to travel internationally.

About the airlines, we have worked very closely with them and you're coming close to what is almost a difficult operational issue. We have provided training for airlines on how to identify fraudulent documents. We have officers posted abroad to assist them in this. We have insisted that they check people getting on the plane, as opposed to the check in Canada, to make sure they actually get on the plane with the document. We have given legal authority for them to hold the documents of people getting on the plane.

Most airlines feel very uncomfortable doing this. Some will argue that it's against the law in their country to hold documents, although I've never seen actual evidence of this. There are some security concerns with their holding the documents. There is an operational concern that on a 747, with 400-plus passengers, you're going to have an awful lot of documents. Airlines put a lot of pressure on agencies such as ours to process their passengers very quickly. If we decide to tie people up for an hour and a half while we sort out which book belongs to which person, then the criticism from the travelling public and the airlines is going to mount very quickly.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: With respect, I do understand that problem, of course, but when it comes to life and death and we are talking about security, the process was put in place. People yelled up and down. They weren't satisfied.

I go through airports all the time. I hate having to wait. I hate to have my suitcase checked. But I do it because I know what the consequences are if I refuse to do it at the other end.

This seems to me to be close to a possible solution of one part of the problem. I know there are others. It seems to me this is something that should be looked into very seriously, in spite of the fact that airlines don't want to do it.

• 1635

Right now airlines are not very happy about the security check, but they still do it. There may be some way in which we could remove the authority from the airline and take it upon your department. An agent in the airport en partant, so to speak, perhaps could do this sort of thing without putting the authority at the airline's feet.

I've worked with refugees and I know what happens. Some of them have papers when they get on the plane. They eat them or flush them down the toilet. Others have somebody on the plane...or as they're about to get on the plane have somebody pick up all the documents and then they go on.

There are all sorts of reasons for that, but the fact is there's a point at which they have to show a ticket and something else. There's a point at which they must do this; otherwise, they're not allowed the authorization to get on the airplane.

That's the point at which something's got to happen, not when they arrive in Canada; it's too late by then.

Mr. Brian Grant: We insist that when they do get on the airplane they show their boarding pass and their passport, so we know they're getting on the plane with a document. What's happening is that the airlines are not seizing the documents and holding them for the duration of the voyage.

I would like to add one other aspect we're working on now. We're gathering what's called advance passenger information, or APIS, Advance Passenger Information System. This is basically information that's taken from the ticket on the name of the person, the address, etc., and that information is being sent ahead. We're doing this now on a pilot basis in Vancouver, where we receive the information hours before the airline arrives.

We can take that information and start to run it through our data banks to see whether we get a hit either in terms of criminality or a security concern for us, so that we know who's coming in on the plane. That doesn't help us with the travel document. If that's passed off to somebody and disappears, it doesn't help us. The information from the ticket may or may not be accurate, but it's another way to attempt to get this information.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: I have a couple of questions here, so perhaps you will give me some time.

The Chairman: You have five minutes.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: We understand the lack of travel documents, and we understand it's a problem, but I don't think that's the only problem. I think there are a couple of other things, and I would like you to tell me, percentage-wise, what role is being played here.

The bigger one is the lack of resources to carry out the removals. Aside from your mentioning the fact that the removals were for immigrants, there are removals later on in those cases in which people have been granted citizenship and are deported after you find out they lied.

How much of a role does the lack of resources, the lack of money—which I find difficult now that you have the right of landing fee and all the other fees that people are paying—and the lack of political will to implement enforcement strongly play in this?

Mr. Greg Fyffe: I think you can look at the right of landing fee and assume we have a huge amount of money at our disposal. The fact is the right of landing fee is paid to the Receiver General, basically. We have not in any way added to the resources we had before. Our resources could be calculated to be part of that overall.

Resources would always help, but if we get the resources we still come up against a problem when we marshal a person and get them ready to leave, but they can't be accepted. Then everything else doesn't fall into place.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: In the overall picture, what role does the lack of resources and the lack of political will play? Does it play a major role, or does this travel document play the major role?

Mr. Greg Fyffe: The travel document issue is a key issue.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: It's a key issue?

Mr. Greg Fyffe: It's the key issue. If you look at the front end, there may well be a technological solution, but as Mr. Grant has pointed out, we already make sure that when people get on a plane there's a document that goes with the passport.

The next step, and I'm not sure at this moment it's even technologically possible, is to have some permanent way of associating the person with the airline ticket and the travel document. If we had that permanent way, by a photograph or something—I'm not even sure that technology exists, but if it did, it would be one avenue. The other is the kind that Mr. Grant has talked about.

Australia has a system whereby they have a visa for everybody going to Australia. The visa is entered as part of the travel procedure. They know when the plane takes off who's on it, because they've got all the visas and everything. But they're dealing with a smaller movement than we are.

• 1640

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: So they don't have a refugee problem.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: Oh, they have a refugee problem, but it's on a different scale. The report, as I'm sure you've noticed, talks about detention. I mention that because when you look at the report and the way in which it tries to deal with this issue—and it's one of the issues you're going to have to look at as part of that—they suggest that if the person doesn't cooperate in applying for documents, they essentially not be given the provisional status that would allow them out. In other words, they're detained.

Obviously, detention is a cost item, but at the end of the day you have to believe detention will bring people to fill out forms. In looking at that particular recommendation, one of the things we have to evaluate is, what if it doesn't? What if people are quite happy to stay in detention for an indefinite period? There are people like that.

You could easily get into a situation where you have an enormous amount of people in detention, keeping in mind that our total federal penitentiary system has about 13,000 people in it.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Is that the incentive you're talking about in this new report that's coming out? I am pretty intrigued by the word “incentive” to comply. Is that the incentive you're talking about?

Mr. Greg Fyffe: The legislative review committee felt that people who were not visitors and not immigrants should be given a provisional status. In provisional status, you would be out in the community, as it were, if you cooperated at the start in applying for travel documents in case you had to be removed. So it's their belief that it's an incentive that you won't be put into detention.

But if you believe that's a solution, you have to believe that detention in itself is a sufficient deterrent for people, that they don't want to stay in detention, because it's a very considerable investment in cost and facilities, quite apart from the philosophical issues involved in detention, which are quite serious in some countries.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: One last question.

The Chairman: I'm sorry, your time is up.

Ms. Minna.

Ms. Maria Minna: I'd like to go back to the percentages given to us earlier, that 60% were failed refugees, 18% criminal, and 22% other. I get the sense that we're going around in circles a bit, at the bottom of the barrel. Unless I'm totally wrong, the people who refuse to sign the form are not the majority but the minority.

Are the people with criminal records that the countries will not accept in the majority of numbers as well? Are we looking at a very large number of countries?

Maybe we should separate the two—the criminal part and the other. Of the non-criminal, which makes up by far the largest number of refugees, if a small number of those refuse to sign the form, what is the reason for the large number of problems? Is it that they're still in process somehow, in stays through courts, even though they have a deportation, or what?

Let's do this one piece at a time, and then I'll go to the other.

Ms. Susan Leith: I can give you a listing and tell you that since 1993 we've removed 16,000 failed refugee claimants. But that doesn't match with the Auditor General's report, because people are not removed in the same year in which they make their refugee claim.

So in the timeframe they looked at, we had lots of removal activity of failed refugee claimants going on. It's just that the person who was removed in 1995 maybe made his claim in 1992. So there is a time delay there.

Does that answer your question?

Ms. Maria Minna: Yes and no. As I understand it, you're saying the Auditor General's report is maybe not quite up to date in terms of—

Mr. Brian Grant: No, he just looks at it a different way.

Ms. Maria Minna: Okay. Forget the Auditor General's report for a moment. You told us earlier that there were 6,617 removal orders in effect now. That's the current number. Am I right?

Mr. Brian Grant: Yes.

Ms. Maria Minna: According to your figures, about 60% of these are people who are failed refugees.

Ms. Susan Leith: No. You've misunderstood. Let me go back. In 1997 we removed 7,968 people.

Ms. Maria Minna: Okay. This is the 1997 figure. Of the 6,000, then, how many—

• 1645

Ms. Susan Leith: Of the ones who were removed, 4,800 were refugee claimants. The numbers I gave you earlier in response to Mr. Reynolds' questions talked about the inventory of cases we have across Canada who are awaiting removal in our various removals offices.

Ms. Maria Minna: Okay, that's the 6,000 figure.

Mr. Brian Grant: Of those, criminals represent 1,267.

Ms. Maria Minna: All right. Of the non-criminal part, people who were waiting, what is the main reason for removal delay? Is it mostly the administrative stuff? We spend a lot of time talking about signing these forms, and I get the sense it's a small number we're dealing with. It's not the main issue.

Ms. Susan Leith: A large number of them are awaiting a risk review. Before June of this year a mandatory risk review occurred for every person who claimed refugee status. We changed the regulations, and now failed refugee claimants must apply. I believe somewhere around 4,500 nationally are in that inventory of people waiting for their cases to be dealt with.

Ms. Maria Minna: So the reason for the delay for the bulk of them is not the problem with documentation. That's a small number. The primary reason is administrative, in the sense that they are still going through some final process for—

Ms. Susan Leith: Yes—or their cases could be before the Federal Court in some form of—

Ms. Maria Minna: But an administrative process of some kind is still going on with those cases. Effectively they are not finished, such that you're in a position to say, okay, you have to go now tomorrow.

Mr. Brian Grant: I think we've inadvertently led you astray here.

On the travel document issue, it is a very serious issue, which all countries face. When we said it's a small number, the problem is that they won't sign the application or we don't have evidence. There's the other side, which is that we have the evidence that the person is a citizen or they have signed the application or we have a lapsed passport we can use and the country refuses to issue the travel documents. There's that part too.

Ms. Maria Minna: Okay, but what percentage of our cases does that account for?

Mr. Brian Grant: We don't have that with us. We'll—

Ms. Maria Minna: I'm trying to get a handle on how much of it is that problem and how much of it, from what I gathered from something one of you said earlier, that by far the largest chunk of refugees is in the administrative process... They are either in the non-wanting to fill out the form, although there are those who do that, or on the other side.

I presume the people where the countries refuse to accept are on the criminal side.

Mr. Brian Grant: Not necessarily.

Ms. Maria Minna: They don't want the criminal. It goes back and forth.

If you could break that up, I think it would be helpful—

Mr. Brian Grant: Okay.

Ms. Maria Minna: —especially if we could know, of the 6,617, how many are actually going through a process, whether they are in court, PDRCCC, H and C, or whatever it is, because in my mind that means the case isn't done, and therefore you're not in a position to pick them up and deal. So it's a mute point whether or not they are actually deportable at that stage until the administrative stuff is done. I think it's important to have the figures cleared up.

Ms. Susan Leith: We'll do our best, but some of the reasons why those people haven't been removed yet aren't necessarily recorded in our system. To be able to take that total number and divide down and indicate to you what percentage... For example, if someone is serving a sentence, the way we track our numbers is that although they are serving a sentence, we can't remove them.

Ms. Maria Minna: I understand that, but I'm not talking about that group. I know all the problems that go with that.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: You want figures from us on how many of the people we should be removing as failed refugee claimants are not removable because we are unable to get cooperation on travel documents.

Ms. Maria Minna: That often comes up as a reason, but I want to get a feeling about whether that is a big problem. If it's not a big problem and the biggest chunk—60%, 50%, I don't know how much it is—is not that problem, then is it because, as was just stated, they are still in some process? Ultimately, when that process is finished, are those easily deported, and does that mean we're looking at a problem of dealing with 40%, or are we dealing with a problem of 100%, from the point of view of our trying to sort out the problem of removals?

Do you know what I'm saying? How big of a problem is it, and where is it?

Mr. Greg Fyffe: Yes, we'll clarify that. We'll look at our stats and see what we can provide you with.

Ms. Maria Minna: It would be helpful. Thank you.

• 1650

The Chairman: Ms. Hardy.

Ms. Louise Hardy (Yukon, NDP): On entry, I was wondering if you could explain the role the officer has for discretion and what its scope is. About the recommendation to lessen discretion, what are the hazards of doing that and what are the benefits?

Mr. Neil Cochrane: I'm not sure I understand about the discretion at the port of entry. You mean for a non-immigrant?

Ms. Louise Hardy: For refugees.

Mr. Neil Cochrane: For refugees, there isn't discretion for the officer at the port of entry. There is a provision to allow a person to come in as a visitor where they are unable to satisfy all the requirements of the legislation for a period. I think it's limited to 30 days. But this wouldn't be applicable in the case of a person who is coming to remain permanently. So there's a discretion there for an examining officer to allow a person in for a temporary purpose, where perhaps, for example, they don't have the visa and they are from a country where they require a visa but the officer is satisfied that otherwise they meet the requirements of the act.

I think, though, in the report of legislative review there's a reference to discretion, or the discussion has to do with the authority to allow a person to remain in Canada as a permanent resident on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Is this what you're referring to?

Ms. Louise Hardy: I just want to know what the scope of discretion is. How is it used, and if they lessen that, what are the benefits and the—

Mr. Brian Grant: Currently a person is able to apply at any point from the time they come into Canada until the time they are removed for a review under humanitarian and compassionate grounds. There's no limitation to the number of times they can apply. It costs $500 for every application.

H and C will consider two sets of things. The Immigration Act is currently built on a principle under section 9.1 of the act, which says all immigrants will apply for a visa overseas. People who are already in Canada and under removal will say what I would like to do is to be able to apply in Canada, so can you wave the requirement that I have to go home and let me apply in Canada? That's the first order of H and C.

The second order of H and C will be that the person doesn't fit the description of an immigrant. Say they are a member of somebody's family, but it's a brother, and under the definition of a family in the immigration regulations, brother is not a family member for the purposes of the immigration program in Canada. They say, all right, I am a brother and I don't qualify to be sponsored as a family member, but can you let me stay? Will you bend the rules for me because my family needs me and I'm helping out; we have a sick—whatever the story is—bend the rules for me. That's considered level two.

Level three is where the person is inadmissible to the country. It might be medically inadmissible. It might be criminally inadmissible. They might have overstayed and they have been ordered removed. They say, well, because of the peculiar and extreme circumstances in which I find myself, will you waive the inadmissibility and say I'm no longer inadmissible?

In weighing these three levels, if I can put it that way, you basically look at two criteria. The first one is what is the risk of sending you back home? It may be an inconvenience to send you back home and make you have to apply, but is there actually a risk there? We'll look at that.

The second side is what connection do you have to Canada? There we'll look at emotional attachment to Canada, how long you have been in Canada, children born in Canada, financial involvement in Canada. There are any number of factors. There's no grid. We don't say you get a point for this, a point for this. It's all taken into account in terms of your attachment to Canada.

Those two sides are waived in an H and C.

Ms. Louise Hardy: Does that depend on the particular person hearing all this? That depends on his experience and discretion?

Mr. Brian Grant: Yes

Mr. Greg Fyffe: In part, but there's every effort to provide guidelines so there is consistency in application. Guidelines are in fact under development to make sure there is a certain degree of consistency in the use of H and C. You obviously want a trade-off. If it were rule-driven, then it wouldn't be H and C.

• 1655

Ms. Louise Hardy: So you see discretion in that area as a good thing.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: Yes.

Mr. Brian Grant: It's good in that area, but this is where the immigration program is such a challenge, because you are dealing with people and individual lives and they are not always terribly neat. What we are faced with is on the one hand people say you have all these failed refugee claimants, they should be removed from Canada; they have failed; they sneaked into the country; they don't have the right documents, etc., so they are not refugees; remove them. Then on individual cases, we are also supposed to say, but in this individual case there's this and this and this. You try to put a program together with sometimes contradictory orders, and that is where I think sometimes we get muddled up. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Trying to find our way through that is really the challenge the LRAG report tries to address, and obviously you've been asked to look at as well.

The Chairman: Mr. Mahoney.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: We wonder why the public's confused.

Is it safe to assume a person would not arrive in this country without any documents and simply apply for landed immigrant status?

Mr. Brian Grant: I'm sorry...

Mr. Steve Mahoney: They arrived in this country and they presumably had documents when they got on the plane from wherever; they get off the plane and they have no documents whatsoever. What would they apply for?

Mr. Brian Grant: Probably refugee status.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: They would not apply for landed immigrant status, and if they did, it would be a very clear-cut decision on the part of the immigration officer that they would not qualify and they would be put back on the plane and returned, without a hearing, without anything.

Mr. Brian Grant: Yes, correct. That would be the administrative order.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: The immigrant flow over here...they would all have documents.

Mr. Brian Grant: Yes.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Okay. So it's only the people who arrive without documents... Let me put it another way. The people who arrive without documents are the ones who would claim refugee status.

Mr. Brian Grant: By and large, yes.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: So the document issue doesn't really matter, because even if they had documents they could step on shore and say, here are my documents, but I'm a refugee, with or without documents. So tracing the documents back to where they disembarked is irrelevant.

Mr. Brian Grant: You are getting very close to the core or the nub of the issue, because—

Mr. Steve Mahoney: It has taken me only six months.

Mr. Brian Grant: —the work we do in interdiction, while it's necessary in order to protect the system from being overrun, and I believe it would be...nonetheless, we are offering a resistance. If we could do the job perfectly, if we could prevent everyone from getting on an airplane, I suspect you would have boats arriving off the coast. People will try to get here no matter which way.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: The point I'm trying to get at, and you were at the public accounts committee and I tried to make this point, and I think I made it only partially, is we should not be surprised that people arrive on our shores without documents and claim refugee status. If they are claiming refugee status, they are presumably fleeing for their lives, or their safety at the very least, or their freedom, and therefore they are not going to stop at the embassy and say could you give me a passport, or could you give me a visa. Either they are going to have forged documents or they are going to have a document which... They just want to get out of their country quietly, get to Canada, and claim refugee status.

I'm having some trouble understanding now... I heard my colleague say the reason you need the documents is for the purposes of sending them back, so you can determine where they are from. I understand that. But if they claim refugee status, they are going to be here for 14 months no matter what we do—

Mr. Brian Grant: Correct.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: —and they are going to go through a process, and presumably during that process you are going to be able to trace who they are, their existence, or you are going to be able in some way to adjudicate that they are legitimate refugees. If they are legitimate refugees, then we probably don't care about their documents.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: But you need the documents while you are preparing before the board.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Why? Are you going to say no, go back, because you don't have documents?

Ms. Raymonde Folco: No, but it facilitates the process.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: It may facilitate it, but it does not allow us, as long as we are a party to...

• 1700

I respect Madame Folco's experience in the IRB, but I'm cutting at it a little more from a layman's perspective here. The fact is that you are not going to refuse to allow them to go through the refugee process, whether they have documents or not. As long as we are a signatory to the UN agreement and as long as we have the Canadian Charter of Rights, virtually anybody, an American, anybody can come ashore in Canada, claim refugee status with or without documents and go through the process. How it adjudicates is a totally different issue.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: This does come down though to the fundamental integrity of the decision that's made, of whether Canada ends up offering its protection to somebody who truly deserves it or to somebody who has made out a false case, partly because they have been able to hide who they really are. For example, if someone comes from Sri Lanka, they really have been compromised in some serious way because they'd been accused of being involved with the Tamil Tigers. Perhaps this is a common case. Let's give that as an example. If we know who they are and they are honest about it and they make the claim, then the IRB has some chance of assessing the claim on the basis of the story.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Fairly quickly.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: If, however, the person is really from Kenya and they have claimed they're from Somalia and they've thrown the documents away, then we're that much further away from knowing whether we're hearing the real story from the real person.

So the issue for documents is partly the control issues we've been talking about. At the end of the day it comes back to how much of the information the Immigration and Refugee Board needs to make a determination are they going to have, based on the credibility of the story, and if the story is credible, whether it's a refugee story.

If they start from the basis of a person who is totally undocumented, they're that much further away from the possibility of that decision. If the person is beyond that and uncooperative and won't even say who they are, then we're even further away. So, yes, if we can take the process all together, the process still must make a decision. If we don't have a documentary base, accepting that they might have got in with false documents, if we don't have some place to start, then we have removed even further the chance of making an accurate determination.

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Which makes your job more difficult. I fully understand what you're saying.

I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that it doesn't change the efficacy of our refugee system. Whether they have documents or not, it simply changes the bureaucratic load or the administrative load that your department would have to come to a proper decision. At the end of the day, the possession of documents or non-possession of documents only determines the length of time they're in the system, not whether or not they're approved as a refugee.

Mr. Grey Fyffe: I would contend that it's more serious than that. There are certainly circumstances in which a person will legitimately not have documents. They will be a refugee and the fact that they don't have documents is part and parcel of that. But nobody shows up at an airport with false documents because they found them in a washroom. They've been sold the documents by a people smuggler. They went to the people smuggler because they wanted to get into Canada. They received advice from that person on how to present themselves and on how to treat their documents, because it appeared to give them a better chance than their real identity. So it makes it very difficult.

There is going to be a portion of those people who had to get false documents because of their real refugee situation, but there's another block who had this as their best avenue into Canada. They've been coached on how to present themselves and so on. Getting to the heart of that is fundamental to the integrity of the whole determination process.

The Chairman: Mr. Reynolds.

Mr. John Reynolds: I want to go back in the UN charters for clarification. You're saying anybody who arrives at our border... Last year 12,500 people came through the United States border into Canada declaring refugee status.

I talked to the Americans at the Vancouver airport, because I was told that if you came to Canada as a refugee and even if it was in America, we take them in and give them a chance. I asked them what would happen if I came to your border here today with my ticket and I said I'm a refugee from Canada. And I won't repeat the words he told me that he'd tell me to do, but I wouldn't get through.

I asked him why they are different from what we are. He said they have a smaller number of countries they accept people as refugees from than Canada does. He said even if they're from one of those countries, they can say no. They have 72 hours to go before a judge and they'll hold them until they can make that decision.

• 1705

So why is it they can have that rule of not accepting anybody in the world but we have anybody in the world who comes out?

Mr. Brian Grant: The United States, as I understand it, have introduced a process called “expedited removals”. I caution you that this is not my area of expertise, the UN convention, but I'm aware of nothing in the convention which obligates a country to determine that claim in any particular way. We have a particularly careful, elaborate system.

The United States has recently introduced a two-type system, I suppose. I don't know the full details, but I could get them for the committee. Basically it's an expedited system, where if you arrive without documents your claim is treated at the airport. I believe it's an administrative decision. So it's a specialized immigration officer, as opposed to the way we do it with the IRB in Canada. Nothing says you have to do it this way or that way.

That was introduced about a year ago, to try to deal with these. The theory they are using, the theory we all know and we have tried since Bill C-55 in 1989, and everyone around the world knows, is that under the UN convention you have to make a determination whether or not they are a refugee, but the secret is how you do that as fast as possible. Speed is the way you can discourage frivolous claims, because if you can get in and out quickly you don't have a chance to work or collect welfare or whatever might be of benefit to you.

Mr. John Reynolds: Have we looked at their system? I know they are building a big facility down in the Buffalo area. It's going to have the cells there to hold the people for 72 hours. The judges are right there. The courts are there. Have we looked at that system to see if it's a system we should be looking at?

Mr. Brian Grant: We've watched their system as they brought it in the last year to see how it works. It's being challenged in the courts right now. But in terms of looking at the system, it's what the LRAG people were asked to do—to look at that system.

The Dutch have a system where if somebody comes in they will process within 24 hours, at the airport. If it's determined not to be a credible claim, then the person is back out within 24 hours. They are running into trouble and they think they are going to have to extend that to 48 hours, but the Dutch Parliament has said, you will do it within 24 hours.

Anyone who doesn't fall into where it's obvious and there's proof the person is not a refugee is sent to a processing centre, and it's slow and laborious and they have the same challenges as we all do, because numbers slow it down.

Mr. John Reynolds: Would it be very difficult for you to supply us with both systems, the Dutch system and the U.S. system, and what they are doing?

Mr. Brian Grant: We can get that information.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: In larger terms, Mr. Reynolds, if you were to try to put something like that in legislation, the ability to exclude people by basis of country before they even got into the Immigration and Refugee Board stream, you would probably be looking at charter issues. That's not a legal opinion, but I suggest that's the first obstacle.

Those issues are really treated by the board's internal processes. Sure, if somebody makes a claim from the States, it's considered. But it would have to be something pretty spectacular, and I think it's extremely rare.

If, even within their processes, you were able to exclude a whole series of countries, you would probably cut out only a very small number of successful claimants. There are a number of other areas which, as you know, have been extremely contentious. But that issue is basically dealt with by the board and its own internal training, information, and documentation processes.

Mr. John Reynolds: But of course the report is recommending to get rid of the board, so you have to look at...if you're going to get rid of the board, what kind of a system are we going to have, and is it going to improve?

I was at the airport in Vancouver when I was there getting a tour to find out how the system worked. I guess it was my lucky day, because there was a family of about 11 people who had no ID, didn't know what airplane they had come in on, didn't know where they were from. They just said the word “refugee”. I know you talk about eight hours, but this was 10 a.m. and I was told they would be on the street at 4 p.m. They were. I waited, and they were picked up; so somebody knew they were coming.

This was supposedly a family. There was no proof. They said they were a family. All we got was fingerprints and their picture. Now we have 11 people out on the street. We don't know what their health is, number one, which could be serious. We don't know that they are not criminals, which is even more serious. You hope they reappear the next day and do what they are supposed to do.

To me, it's just an astounding system we allow, and I know that isn't happening in the U.S. I think we should look at what they are doing, to try to get a message out there that this is not the easiest place in the world to come to and stay, you can hire lawyers and...

It's great to use the term “refugee”, but most of these people spend an awful lot of money on a plane ticket, most of them a return ticket they are not going to use. A family of that size, if they ever found out where they came from—and they could have come from the States cheaply, but if it was from overseas it was very expensive. So they obviously have money. They have people waiting for them right at the Vancouver airport. Every day vans are there, waiting. It's astounding.

• 1710

Mr. Brian Grant: May I clarify? The committee may want to look at this as part of their research.

When you look at the United States you have to be careful, because their numbers are skewed massively by the number of Mexicans who come across and are dealt with very expeditiously. Basically they are asked, do you want to go before an immigration judge, and most of them don't. They want to go back because they will come back the next night. You're talking about millions and millions of people a year who come across, some of whom are caught.

On the other side, before, the United States invested a considerable amount of money in dramatically increasing the number of immigration adjudicators or judges who would hear these. Before they introduced the expedited process they had a backlog that I believe was on the order of two years for people's hearings to be read. So they had run into the same thing. The solution they adopted in large measure was to put in much more money than they had invested before.

But again, the principle is the same: how do you get them through the process quickly?

The Chairman: Mr. Doyle.

Mr. Norman Doyle: What happens when we issue a deportation order to an individual who is not allowed back in his own country again? What responsibility would we have for him? What do we do with him if he's not allowed back in his own country?

Mr. Brian Grant: We have a couple of options. It may seem surprising to you, but there is no international law which says a country must accept back its citizens, although it is a common convention we subscribe to and we have used things such as the ICAO agreement to try to force countries that sign on to that to take their people back within a certain period.

About trying to remove somebody, the first choice will be the country of origin. We can sometimes remove the person back to the country from which they have come. If there's a third country, if they come through the United States, we can remove them back to the United States, even though they are not a citizen of the United States, because they spent time in the United States on their way to Canada. We will remove them step by step.

The Chairman: Legally, does the United States have to receive them if they come back? Can they reject them?

Ms. Susan Leith: We have a reciprocal agreement with the United States. There are certain parameters under which we have to accept people back into Canada and they have to accept people back into the United States. Generally, if a person came directly to Canada from the United States and went through our process, they are removed back to the United States.

The Chairman: Even though they came from a third country.

Ms. Susan Leith: Yes.

The Chairman: Mr. McNally.

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

I don't know about the rest of you, but my brains are starting to melt down a bit with all the information you're giving us. I thank you for it all.

You made an interesting comment: speed discourages frivolous claims. If the word out there in the international community is now that if you come to Canada you can expect 14 months to whatever length of time in the process, with all the leaks in where you can go in all that, and with all those ramifications, would you see, as some of our colleagues have mentioned, putting in more resources at the front end as being a way to get the message out internationally that it's not going to be that way any more? If there's a will to put in those resources—and I know that's not going to be up to you but up to members of this committee and Parliament—would you see putting those resources at the front end as being a possible solution to the many concerns that have been raised here today?

Mr. Greg Fyffe: It has to be a combination of resources and process.

Mr. Grant McNally: Right.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: An awful lot of process is legitimate process.

When we're talking process, though, there are always two objectives. When the Auditor General is making his comments, and in the comments in here, it's the issue of removal and so on, but we have to make sure the process also supports protection where protection is appropriate. We don't want a fast process that fails to recognize people who genuinely need protection.

Resources alone wouldn't do it. It would have some combination of resources and the appropriate process. Of course the report makes some recommendations, which we're looking at very carefully.

Mr. Grant McNally: Another issue—I think we touched on this before—is the philosophical perspective of voluntary compliance within the current system from those who don't want to comply, or those who know it's in their best interests not to comply. That also seems to be something we need to address, not only the points you've just mentioned. The perspective maybe needs to change from voluntary compliance to... Then we get back to your question: is detention the answer, or what is the answer? It appears something other than what is currently in place has to be the answer.

• 1715

Mr. Greg Fyffe: The report puts the proposition essentially as that in part at least detention is the answer; detention linked to provisional status. That is something we're looking at, obviously.

This is ground that has been gone over many, many times. If there were an obvious answer, I think we would have gone for it. It may be that detention is the answer, but it's not clear it's the answer. It raises a lot of questions of philosophy, of cost, and of effectiveness.

Mr. Grant McNally: Right; and I would say we are charged with answering those tough decisions and going forward. Madam Folco's comment earlier about the travel documents and the carriers...

I thought you made some really good points about that.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Thank you.

Mr. Grant McNally: That again is a matter of political will, if legislation were in place, or partly of putting an onus on carriers at the other end to deal with some of those issues you mentioned. Right now the airlines have concerns it's going to slow down service and it's going to impact on them. Well, maybe it needs to impact on them for the benefit of Canadian society and we need to go in that direction too—a combination of all these things.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: All these things unfortunately are trade-offs. I think the airlines generally have been very cooperative, within the system we now have. If we push that system more—and I'm not even sure the technology would support that—we do have the legitimate trade-offs with the people in your constituency, as in others, who are travelling legitimately on business or whatever. If you take a 400-passenger airplane and you put it through a rigorous series of checks, an awful lot of really angry Canadians are going to get off at the other end. That's also part of the problem.

Mr. Grant McNally: I guess the debate then becomes whether that is a trade-off—as Madam Folco mentioned when security checks at airports became commonplace—Canadians are going to be willing to make over the long run if they know that change is going to result in an improvement in some of the negative situations that are out there.

Mr. Greg Fyffe: All countries are wrestling with these. Mr. Grant in particular has a lot of these contacts, and all countries are trying to figure out ways of getting at these issues. Different things are permitted in different countries because of their different legal regimes. There are many aspects to it. If you have new ideas, they would be welcomed.

Mr. Grant McNally: I have just one last question on documents upon getting on the plane, and on technology, which has also been mentioned. I don't want to rehash everything, but even scanning those travel documents when somebody gets on the aircraft... As Mr. Grant mentioned, some of that is starting to happen, where information is being sent ahead. Could that not also happen? A person gets on. The document is scanned. It goes ahead with a list to wherever that carrier is going to arrive, whether it's Vancouver, Montreal, or Toronto. Again, that's a matter of money and the will to do it and the resources for it. In your opinion, do you think something like that is going to help?

Mr. Brian Grant: With the caution I gave earlier, that, remember, we're engaged in offering resistance only. This is not the solution to the problem. It's that counterbalance with people passing through and perhaps in every country making a refugee claim.

We've tried a technology that has sometimes had a minor success, sometimes been a little more comic. It's very difficult. We had a system we tried to develop where we would scan documents. We started scanning our own visa. Then that became difficult, because the airlines had all these boxes on their desks, and depending on which document they gave, they scanned different ones. They have now moved to a more sophisticated technology, where you can start to scan it in. I suspect there's still a bit of resistance.

Partly it's the shape of the passport. You have good passports out there. The United States passport, for instance, is a machine-readable passport. Then you have passports that are fairly old in technology themselves. So you don't get the machine reading. You can nonetheless scan the passport.

The strategy we've tried to follow in the last ten years is to ensure that we raise the vigilance of the airline staff, who are really the only ones with authority out there to deny boarding. I'm not saying no, you can't do that, but the caution is that if you start scanning in, they will scan in a document and you will get the person and you may or may not get the document, but they haven't actually looked to see whether the document belongs to the person.

• 1720

So right now the training we've given them is we'll give them certain techniques to look at the document to try to find... Obviously they are not forensic experts and they don't have equipment, but you look at that, you make sure you look at the person, because a lot of our problems will be that somebody has a legitimate document but it's not the person. So you would have to look very carefully to see that they didn't do that.

For instance, at one point we tried working with just simple photocopies, so we would at least see the document they had got on with. The airlines' response was, well, if we give you the photocopies, then we're not liable for anybody who gets off our planes; could we just be relieved of all vigilance in this, and you'll have your photocopy.

The problem there is the photocopy wasn't good enough to help us in our examination of the document: what had been altered on the document. If we can get the document, we can put it under special filtered lights. You can see how the smugglers are using acid to change the document, how they lift the counterfoil, how they change the photograph; and that information is useful. You feed it back out and you're better able to look for things.

With that caution, that you always have to look at how something would work, it's worth looking at. As the technology develops it gets easier to do this sort of thing.

The Chairman: Mrs. Folco.

[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Let me go back to a question I asked earlier and broaden it a bit.

First, I believe it would be extremely helpful if members of this committee could be given those sections of the Act that pertain to removal and detention, because we should know about all that process. It seems to me that several members of this committee have not had the opportunity to read this part of the Act and it would be the perfect time to do it.

Then, I would like to come back to the suggestion I made regarding the flow chart. I had a close look at the chart which is presented here, on page 25 of the Auditor General's report, but I don't find it detailed enough. What's important for us is that before the final removal of an individual, there are three opportunities to stop the process. If you will allow me, I'll use the English terms because I don't have the French text in front of me. First, there is the appeal to a superior court, second, the risk in their own country and third, acceptance on humanitarian grounds.

If I understand how the process works, I believe these opportunities can present themselves at different times. This is the reason why I would ask that the flow chart prepared by the Department be detailed enough, particularly regarding the end of the process, and show every opportunity a person has to take advantage of the process as well as repeated opportunities.

As several members of the committee have asked, I would like to know how long each of these appeals takes. If we had this information, not necessarily on paper, but maybe on slides, we could refer to them when asking questions and it would make things easier for us.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chairman: A very good point, yes.

Now I'll give you one minute, Mr. Reynolds.

Mr. John Reynolds: I may just want to talk about it tomorrow, because—

The Chairman: Would you save it for tomorrow?

Mr. John Reynolds: No, because I want to tell them what I'm going to ask them. My first question tomorrow is going to be on the scanners, and maybe digital cameras, because I have talked to some companies that have talked about technology and the benefits that might give us.

Also, about the process, I know you don't like talking about individual cases, but there's a story in the Toronto Sun about a fellow, Fitzroy Ellsworth Dixon. He's 31. He was a landed immigrant. He came to Canada before 1991. He went down to the States and was convicted of manslaughter in 1992. He spent five years in jail. He was ordered deported from the U.S. back to Jamaica. Instead he came back into Canada. Somehow I guess he just told them he would be over for a week and got back in here, because he had his landed status.

Then he applied for citizenship and got it. He didn't tell them he had committed murder and served time in the States. Somehow or other, with whatever checks we did, we gave him citizenship. He's now under a big manhunt again for some pretty serious drug crimes.

I would like to know how that happens. It's a public story. How does somebody who has been convicted of murder in another country get citizenship in this country? He got back in here when he was deported to Jamaica, and we never picked it up. I want to know if we have any technology today that's stopping that from happening, and if not, why not, because that's part of the process.

• 1725

How could you get rid of this person now? He got his citizenship, but obviously under false pretences.

It's an impossible system. I want to talk about that tomorrow. I just thought I would give it to you tonight so you could check it out.

The Chairman: Ms. Bulte.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale—High Park, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of questions for quick clarification.

About the numbers you gave us at the beginning for how many deportation orders are outstanding, my understanding—correct me if I'm wrong—is that those do not include where the order has been stayed by the minister or where applications on humanitarian and compassionate grounds are launched.

The other thing is that my understanding is that risk reviews were done before the orders were made, yet I thought I heard you say the risk review is done after the fact.

Ms. Susan Leith: Yes. Part of the problem is that when we talk we use very specific language, and sometimes when you ask a question we perhaps misinterpret the question because you'll use a term such as “outstanding removal orders” and it may mean a different thing to you from what it does to me. What I'm going to try to do for tomorrow is to bring some numbers that will clarify the outstanding removal orders more for you.

What happens is we have conditional removal orders, as we talked about today, where a person has made a refugee claim and they get a conditional order, but then there are effective removal orders, and that's when the person has been determined not to be a refugee, they have had a risk review and that decision has been negative, and then the order becomes effective. What happens first is the person has—

Ms. Sarmite Bulte:

[Inaudible—Editor].

Ms. Susan Leith: They also have a departure order. Then that can become a removal order if the person doesn't leave within 30 days.

So it's very complicated.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: May I suggest something? Maybe what we need is definitions, so we're all talking about the same things—and that's not so much on the statistics side.

Ms. Susan Leith: I'll try to bring something that clarifies the situation tomorrow.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: We're talking about removal orders and things like that. From the experience I've had, the order that becomes effective is outside the process, and one of the things we haven't talked about is how the post-PDRCCC comes into play. I know orders aren't issued at that time, but maybe if we had even a glossary... If we're speaking about the same thing, it cuts down on the work on all sides.

Mr. Brian Grant: You make a very good point. It might be very helpful for you if we were to list all the forms of recourse somebody has after they are determined not to be a refugee at the CRDD, some of which have legislative stays attached to them, so we cannot remove them even though the order is there, and some of which have what we call “administrative stays”, so if they apply to the Federal Court there's a legislative stay. If an international tribunal says we want to look at this case, would you mind not removing that person, then the minister can agree to an administrative stay; and there are many of these.

The Chairman: Mr. Grant, you're going to give us that list. You don't have to go through it now. Then tomorrow, when we get that list from you, we could possibly spend a little time in case we have any difficulty with—

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: Unfortunately I won't be here tomorrow, because I have another committee meeting. One of the other things, though, is that again, I think it's very important that we know what we're talking about and that we're talking about the same thing. That's where there was a lot of the confusion.

Also, if you are making that list, can you annotate it with the sections of the act? Is that possible to do?

Ms. Susan Leith: Yes.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: That would be helpful. That way we can just pick up the act and go through it ourselves.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. The meeting is adjourned.