Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Issue 4 - Evidence - April 22, 2010
OTTAWA, Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 10:31 a.m. to study the rise of China, India and Russia in the global economy and the implications for Canadian policy.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade is studying the rise of China, India and Russia in the global economy and the implications for a Canadian policy.
As senators have indicated, they wished further information with respect to visas and processing overseas as well as in Canada, with particular emphasis on business and student visas.
We have today from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Rénald Gilbert, Director General, International Region, Citizenship and Immigration Canada; from Canada Border Services Agency, Geoff Leckey, Director General, Intelligence and Targeting Operations; and Rick Herringer, Director of the National Security Screening Division, Intelligence and Targeting Operations, also from Canada Border Services Agency. We also have Robert Hage, Director General, Europe, from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. Mr. Hage is not new to this committee and this study.
Robert Hage, Director General, Europe, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada: Thank you, honourable senators. It is a pleasure for me to return to the committee. I had the opportunity of briefing you before you went on your visit to Russia and I will be dealing today with a few opening remarks dealing with the visa situation, as we see it, involving Russia, China and India. If there are any questions in that regard, Ms. Marthe Lemay, the deputy director for South Asia, can respond if need be. With me as well is Mr. Shawn Steil, deputy director of Greater China and Mongolia.
I will defer to my colleagues from Citizenship and Immigration and the Canada Border Services Agency to provide specific data on the volume and frequency of visa issuance.
Canada's active pursuit of an open rules-based global trading and rapid ongoing integration into global markets by Brazil, Russia, India, China and other emerging industrial economies has led to a significant increase in the number of foreign citizens seeking to visit Canada for business purposes in recent years. The Senate committee certainly saw that in their visit to Russia.
We find ourselves under pressure to service a sharply rising demand for business visas from executives interested in purchasing leading Canadian goods and potential foreign investors seeking investment opportunities in Canada, as well as from foreign citizens employed by Canadian and foreign firms wishing to work temporarily in Canada to undertake training and to inspect production facilities here.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is mindful that Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency are charged with the heavy responsibility of ensuring the integrity of Canada's immigration system and protecting Canadians against foreign-based terrorists and criminals.
It can be challenging for officials to fulfill those responsibilities while simultaneously supporting the needs of the business community, since it is not uncommon for government and business officials from emerging economies to have previously held positions that legally prohibit them from entering Canada under current legislation.
The continued growth of the Canadian economy and the maintenance of our current standard of living are heavily dependent upon Canada's success as both an exporter and a destination for foreign and direct investment. Indeed, the viability of a growing number of Canadian firms and the employment they provide to Canadians is increasingly dependent upon Canadian investment abroad.
Canada has a strong national interest to engage commercially with emerging economies — both for our own commercial gain and to encourage their continued integration into global markets. However, for certain key markets our ability to do so is frequently being challenged by legislation governing visa issuance.
The specific nature of the difficulties encountered by business people from India, China and Russia has varied, as have the steps taken to address them. However, one common issue that is raised is that Canada's visa policies are more stringent than those of other industrialized countries and that Canada often bars the entry of foreign business people who are able to obtain visas from the United States, European countries and other nations.
This situation places Canada, at times, at a serious competitive disadvantage in a global business environment that is intensely competitive and has created an ongoing irritant in bilateral relations with a number of countries. Steps have been taken to mitigate difficulties, where possible, and there have been improvements.
In India, for example, visa issues were seriously hindering the growth of our commercial relations. Numerous senior business people complained of inordinately slow processing of applications and of denials of applications by respected citizens who had previously travelled to other industrialized countries without difficulty.
In April 2008 our High Commission in New Delhi implemented a Business Express Program, or BEP, offering fast track, one- or two-day visa service and simplified application procedures for visitors from qualified companies, while enhancing program integrity.
In June 2009, the High Commission expanded this program to cover employees of Indian companies applying to work temporarily in Canada. These initiatives have been enthusiastically received by both Canadian and Indian business communities and have gone a long way to resolving the situation.
The situation in China and Russia has been more difficult to address, given the vetting procedures that apply in these countries. Senior Chinese business executives in possession of Canadian visas have complained on numerous occasions about being detained upon arrival at airports for secondary inspections without any explanation. Once again, it is claimed that many executives have travelled to other countries without difficulty.
Russia has repeatedly expressed serious concerns over both the length and complexity of Canada's visa application process and the denial of visas to senior government and business officials. Indeed, visa issues are a major irritant in our bilateral commercial relationship, and Russian officials have raised the possibility of reciprocal or even retaliatory measures being put into place against Canada.
Earlier this year a senior official of an important region of Russia was forced to cancel a visit to Canada because of the uncertainty caused by delays in processing his visa application. He had been invited by one of Canada's global mining firms and a key business association. Since the regional government had purchased more than $200 million in Canadian construction equipment and technology over the last decade, this cancellation caused difficulty for more than one Canadian exporter and impacted Canada's image and credibility. Similar situations have arisen with officials of such prominent Russian firms such as Gazprom, Rosnet and the Renova Group seeking to attend business meetings and conventions in Canada. Since the immigration section at our embassy in Moscow serves not only Russia but all of Central Asia, this situation is aggravated by the lack of sufficient service points for visa applications in the region.
To address these concerns, DFAIT and CIC have worked together to reduce difficulties within the current framework. Web information on visa procedures is current and multilingual and ongoing outreach is undertaken with government authorities and the business community to increase awareness and understanding of the Canadian visa procedures. In addition, we ask Canadian firms to encourage proposed foreign visitors to apply for Canadian visas at the earliest possible date and to ensure that their applications include all the required information and documentation.
The good news is that thousands of foreign business people visit Canada each year. The vast majority of those visits are both unproblematic from an administrative and legal perspective and they contribute significantly to Canada's continuing prominence as a leading global trader and investor.
I hope that our departments will continue to cooperate on resolving concerns about our visa application process. Should we fail to do so, Canadian workers and Canadian firms could incur serious but avoidable economic losses.
[Translation]
Rénald Gilbert, Director General, International Region, Citizenship and Immigration Canada: Mr. Chairman, my name is Rénald Gilbert and I am the Director General of the International region for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). I am responsible for visa offices abroad. I would like to begin by thanking the committee for having invited me today.
I will take this opportunity to provide an overview of the roles and responsibilities of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) in administering Canada's visa system.
CIC's responsibility is to deliver Canada's immigration program, processing applications for not only temporary residents but also permanent residents.
[English]
In 2009, CIC's network of visa offices abroad assessed temporary resident applications for over 1.2 million people. Of those, 940,000 were visitors while 120,000 were students and 178,000 were temporary workers. In addition, there are also permanent residents. CIC's approximately 1,500 overseas staff, which includes Canada-based foreign service officers, locally engaged officers and support staff perform this work.
Many common complaints about Canada's visa process are based on misconception, for example, that our refugee rate is high. In fact, 80 per cent of all temporary resident applications worldwide were approved in 2009. The approval rate for business visitors is even higher. Another common misconception is the long processing time. Globally, again in 2009, 55 per cent of all temporary resident visas were finalized in two days or less, and 75 per cent were finalized within a week or less.
Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, all visitors to Canada require a visa except for citizens of those countries where an exemption has been granted. Currently 143 countries and territories are visa required for travel to Canada while 54 are visa-exempt, including most of Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia and various other countries in the world such as Barbados, Korea and Namibia. There is a long list.
[Translation]
In order to issue a visa, the visa officer must be satisfied that the applicant is coming to Canada on a temporary basis and is not inadmissible. The officer makes a decision based on the information presented in the application.
For admissibility issues, visa officers conduct an initial screening of all applications against departmental data bases and risk indicators.
Cases identified as possible concerns are forwarded to Citizenship and Immigration Canada's security screening partners to seek a recommendation.
My colleague from the Canada Border Services Agency will explain the security screening process in more detail; however, I will mention that CIC and CBSA work closely on a daily basis, both at headquarters and abroad, to maintain the integrity of the immigration program and to protect the safety and security of Canadians.
The admissibility provisions in the act are universal and non discriminatory in application. While Russia is often a high profile source of inadmissible visitors, similar admissibility issues arise in other countries, including India and China.
[English]
In cases where an applicant is determined to be inadmissible, the act provides for the possibility of issuing a temporary resident permit. In March 2009, CIC introduced a streamlined procedure for issuing permits to high-level, inadmissible visitors whose visit to Canada was deemed to be in Canada's national interest. Those individuals should no longer be referred to the immigration secondary examination at the port of entry for the sole purpose of processing the permit and do not require verification of departure, which was the case previously.
One outstanding issue is the $200 processing fee require for a permit. The act currently provides very limited exemption for this requirement. CIC has examined the issue of the fee exemptions for officials and persons invited by the Government of Canada who require a permit, and the resolution on this issue is expected shortly.
I understand the committee has a special interest in Russia and have noted the committee's recent report dealing with criticism of Canada's visa office in Russia, so I will now talk about Russia.
[Translation]
I would like to emphasize that the Government of Canada is committed to offering the best possible service to the Russian clientele at the visa office in Moscow. On refusal rates, I will note that in 2009, the visa office in Moscow approved 78 per cent of all temporary resident visa applications, and over 90 per cent of business visitors.
On processing times, Moscow finalized 78 per cent of temporary resident visa cases in two weeks or less. However, cases requiring enhanced vetting may take longer.
We have already taken steps to address concerns regarding our office in Russia and improve client service within this environment, in some cases not only in Russia but throughout our network. These proactive measures taken by CIC followed constructive consular consultations held with Russian officials.
[English]
For example, Moscow has reduced the visa processing time by implementing upfront screening for priority business applicants. Moscow engaged the Canadian business community to ensure a broad understanding of what we do. The visa office in Moscow now makes regular use of national interest letters signed by the head of the mission to trigger the streamline permit for approval process. Between January and March 2010, 132 such national interest letters were signed. I have to admit it was unusual; because of the Olympics, there were more visitors.
In addition, our visa office has engaged an extensive proactive outreach with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Olympic committees, various sport federations, visiting delegates, and there have been ongoing meetings between CIC officials and the Russian embassy in Ottawa. The Moscow office accelerated efforts related to the Vancouver Olympics, engaging in outreach sessions and ongoing dialogue with various stakeholders as well as mounting a media awareness campaign. Staff worked hard for long hours to ensure that all applications were processed as expeditiously as possible given the high profile of the event and closely collaborated with our partners at Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Canada Border Services Agency to ensure overall success.
For this year's G8 and G20, Canada has facilitated visa issuance to Russian delegates through the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act which permits the issuance of ordinary visits and not permits to persons who would be inadmissible under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
With respect to the issue of client services, Canada is committed to improving client services at all of these offices. One example, as mentioned by my colleague, is a business express program, piloted by our office in New Delhi, to provide improved services to business visitors and applicants from companies who have proven reliable and do a large volume of travel to Canada. Canada has recently introduced the same model in Mexico and is looking to expand to other countries as well.
In June of this year, CIC will introduce a new system of record, the Global Case Management System, which will greatly improve the exchange of information with screening partners. CIC recognizes the political and economic benefits to Canada brought by officials and business visitors and is dedicated to the dual goal of facilitating the entry of visitors while also protecting the health and safety of Canadians and maintaining the security of Canadian society.
Within that context, CIC is committed to providing the best possible client services and will make improvements in this regard, but we acknowledge there is still room for improvement and we are actively working to maintain an improved client service to visa applicants.
I will be happy to answer any questions you might have about CIC's role. I will now pass the floor over to my colleague, Mr. Leckey, from the CBSA.
Geoff Leckey, Director General, Intelligence and Targeting Operations, Canada Border Services Agency: Madam Chair and honourable senators, I wish to thank the Senate committee for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the issue of the Canadian visa process as it pertains to Russia, the People's Republic of China and India.
[Translation]
The 2010 Speech from the Throne stresses that the federal government will take steps to safeguard Canada's national security.
The 2004 Government of Canada policy paper entitled Securing an Open Society: Canada's National Security Policy focuses on addressing three core national security interests: protecting Canada and Canadians at home and abroad; ensuring Canada is not a base for threats for allies; and contributing to international security.
In March 2010, G8 Foreign Ministers agreed that security and prosperity are best sustained by democratic states that respect human rights and the rule of law.
[English]
Prior to December 2003, responsibilities for immigration enforcement and intelligence under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, IRPA, were the mandate of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, CIC.
On December 12, 2003, the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, was created, and these responsibilities were transferred to the new agency. The CBSA is responsible for providing integrated border services that support national security and public safety priorities; facilitate the free flow of persons and goods, including plants and animals; and manage the nation's borders by enforcing Canadian laws governing trade and travel.
On slide 4, you can see that the relationship between CIC and CBSA is unprecedented in the Federal Public Service. Never before have two departments engaged in the degree of interaction of legislation, policy and service delivery that we now experience.
In order to achieve the objectives of Canada's immigration program, CIC and CBSA are committed to working together to provide a seamless continuum of service in the delivery of our programs to Canadian newcomers and visitors.
On a day-to-day basis, CBSA is the intelligence arm of CIC. It provides unbiased assessments to CIC decision- makers, representing all information known to CBSA and other screening partners. In recent years, CBSA has seen a significant increase in referrals from CIC for visitor screening.
[Translation]
The Canada Border of Services Agency has a policy responsibility with respect to sections 34, 35 and 37 of the IRPA. These sections pertain specifically to subversion, terrorism, espionage, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, organized criminality, people smuggling, trafficking in persons, terrorist financing and money laundering.
Moving on to slide six, the term ``security screening'' refers to the procedures used to identify foreign nationals seeking admission to Canada who are, have been, or are likely to be involved in activities such as espionage, subversion, terrorism, war crimes or human rights abuses.
Sections 34, 35 and 37 of the IRPA were developed to deny access to Canadian territory to persons who, in the assessment of the government, there are reasonable grounds to believe are criminals or security risks, and to ensure that Canada would not become a safe haven for persons responsible for acts contrary to Canadian's values.
The legislative framework is rigid and often captures persons whose presence in Canada would not be detrimental to national interest and indeed may be key players in our foreign relations. In cases where a foreign national has been deemed inadmissible, and their visit supports Canada's national interest and presents a low risk, a temporary resident permit may be granted.
Canada's national interest includes dialogue intended to support Canada's bilateral relations and international commitments.
[English]
The elements of ``reasonable grounds to believe,'' ``complicity'' and ``membership'' are considered in determining whether a foreign national is inadmissible under sections 34, 35 and 37 of IRPA. These elements have been interpreted for us by the Department of Justice and by CIC and CBSA legal services and have been confirmed in rulings issued by the Federal Court of Canada.
The rules of interpretation under section 33 of IRPA provide a standard of proof that is set at ``reasonable grounds to believe.'' This is a relatively low standard and is defined by the Supreme Court in Mugesara v. Canada as follows:
The ``reasonable grounds to believe'' standard requires something more than mere suspicion, but less than the standard applicable in civil matters of proof on a balance of probabilities.
A person is considered complicit if, while aware of the commission of atrocities or crimes, the person contributes directly or indirectly, remotely or immediately, to their occurrence. Active or formal membership in the organization responsible for committing the atrocities is not required.
The Federal Court of Canada has stated that when looking at membership in an organization, there are many factors that must be considered. As a result, each referral to us is assessed individually, taking into consideration the applicant's age, educational background, occupation, location of service, chain of command, et cetera. Having direct responsibility or active involvement is not needed to find a person inadmissible.
[Translation]
The security screening regime has evolved rapidly in the last few years, and balancing security and facilitation continues to be a challenge for Canada's international relationships.
As a result, Canada Border Services Agency and Citizenship and Immigration Canada are routinely asked by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to seek ways to streamline and enhance the process to meet international priorities. One of the challenges that security screening presents is identifying potentially inadmissible individuals that have been invited to Canada for political and economic reasons. Despite the changing international landscape, once a person is engaged in activities that fall under sections 34, 35 and 37, the wording of the act makes him or her inadmissible for life.
In this context, I would like to briefly discuss Russia, China and India.
[English]
Currently, nationals of the Russian Federation are identified as subject to discretionary — that is, non-mandatory — referral to CIC for screening based on section 34, 35 and 37 concerns.
The service standard for Moscow is 10 working days. The CBSA's average screening time is 7.45 days. In 2009, CBSA screened 2,573 referrals out of the 21,489 applications processed by Moscow. Fifty of these referrals resulted in negative recommendations, and 25 were put forward for temporary resident permits. In some cases, security screening in Russia can being complicated by the fact that some former intelligence officials are now part of the current government. Also, business figures can have links to organized crime. Once such suspicions have been aroused, it is our obligation to assess them. The process is also influenced by a certain reluctance that we have observed on the part of some Russian officials to apply within the mission processing standards and to provide additional information as and when required.
In China, nationals are also a discretionary — or non-mandatory — referral by CIC for screening. The service standard for Beijing and Shanghai is five working days. CBSA's average screening time is 2.7 days. In 2009, CBSA screened 5,443 referrals out of the 101,222 applications processed by Beijing and Shanghai. Twenty of these referrals resulted in negative recommendations and six were put forward for temporary resident permits. The officials that Canada needs to engage are often part of China's extensive police and state security apparatus. Canada's efforts in China to promote democratic development, good governance and greater protection for human rights through dialogue and cooperative engagement often challenge the security screening mandate.
Like Russia and China, nationals of India are subject to discretionary referral. The service standard for Delhi and Chandigarh is 10 working days; CBSA's average screening time is 4.5 days. In 2009, CBSA screened 162 referrals out of the 86,101 applications processed by New Delhi and Chandigarh. Nine of these referrals resulted in negative recommendations and one was put forward for a temporary resident permit. Various non-governmental groups have documented human rights abuses in the two-decade separatist conflict in Kashmir. Government of Canada screening has identified as inadmissible a small number of Indian officials who had been invited by Canada to discuss regional security and global strategic issues of common interest.
[Translation]
In November 2009, assistant deputy ministers from Canada Border Services Agency and Citizenship and Immigration Canada began a concerted effort to improve the security screening process with an aim of finding better remedies whenever entry is in the national interest.
The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games accreditation process provided an opportunity for CIC and CBSA to experiment with new methods to streamline the security screening of visitors. In particular, an efficient approval process based on risk management was introduced, which greatly reduced the processing time.
[English]
Security screening of visitors is essential to Canada's national security, and yet, as no one knows better than CBSA, it often causes bilateral irritants with countries with which Canada has engaged as an international priority. The CBSA, in conjunction with its partners, is continually reviewing the security-screening regime and is engaged in negotiating further creative improvements to introduce needed flexibility while ensuring program integrity.
These improvements have the joint goals of maintaining Canada's national security while ensuring that Canada asserts leadership in global governance models and remains competitive in growing and emerging markets. However, as I mentioned at the outset, our mandate is to balance facilitation with another government priority — security. As a result, there will be limits to the extent of risk management that can be undertaken. Having said that, all of us here share the objective of ensuring that Canada benefits from emerging and rapidly growing economies.
I thank the Senate committee for giving me the opportunity to appear. I will gladly take any questions that members might have.
The Chair: I have one item for clarification. I understand that under the law a person who does not qualify by any other means, he or she may apply for a ministerial certificate to get into Canada. I understand that certificate to be that broad. As well, there were 140 plus entrants into Canada under discretion for national interest. Under what section of the law is that found?
I understand that national interest letters were signed by heads of mission to trigger streamlining. Is that a policy decision?
Mr. Gilbert: The act refers to it in the negative way: ``If it is not against national interest.'' It was interpreted to mean that if a consideration were being given in the national interest of Canada, we could issue a permit. In this case, the person who can make that call is at the ADM level of CIC. Following the recommendation made by CBSA, they review and describe the rationale for the inadmissibility, and that is when the call is made.
The head of mission, in the case of Moscow, could make that call if it is in the national interest. For most cases, that happens at the ADM level at the Department of Foreign Affairs or another department. There were numbers for DND, CSIS, the RCMP and other departments.
The Chair: It is not a change in law or policy, except to the extent that at the ADM level this could be done. Now, you have brought it closer to the processing centre and put it in the hands of the head of mission.
Mr. Gilbert: That is correct. Those are issued under the authority of section 24, which indicates that they may be issued when justified in the circumstances, which was interpreted as national interest.
The volume that we discussed was for Russia. At the beginning of the year, many high profile visitors came to the Vancouver Olympics, not only because the Olympics were in Canada but also because Russia is the host of the next Winter Olympic Games. In general, I could say that the volume is lower than that. In my previous job, I was responsible for seeing them at a rate of about three per week. It is fewer than that.
Senator Jaffer: For clarification, does a national interest letter mean a minister's permit?
Mr. Gilbert: No, the permit that my colleague and I talk about used to be a minister's permit but now, it is a temporary resident permit. A temporary resident permit is issued for any type of inadmissibility, whether medical, criminal, security or other. The majority of those permits are issued for criminality, often to American citizens. The same tool is being used for cases of inadmissibility for security reasons. The same tool is used but a different authority signs for it.
Senator Segal: First, I express my thanks and that of many Canadians for the difficult work that you do on our behalf. National security is an amorphous proposition at the best of times. It is often in the eyes of the beholder. You have to deal with laws, regulations and people in the field have to make tough calls. I do not want you to think for a moment that our questions today in any way misunderstand the nature of that task or underestimate its importance to the country or the role that you and the folks who work for you play. Quite the contrary, we are deeply appreciative.
You look at the prior life of an individual who is seeking a visa to Canada in the context of a democracy, such as India, versus countries that might best be described in the kindest of ways as less than democratic, such as China and Russia. You go about the process of sourcing as best you can the information required by you to make a determination on that individual. You gather up that information and it tells you that in the normative context, there is a tilt and this would is not the sort of person to whom you would want to issue a visa because of his or her prior activities in the categories you have described. Then the head of mission or God knows who — or some Canada name of country trade association — enters and makes a plea because this person is important to the sale of tractor parts or whatever. A determination is made that the entrance of this person for a temporary period is in the national interest.
You were very good at laying out the criteria by which you determine that someone would not normally be eligible for a visa because of certain activities, associations and background; that is been very well laid out and I am very appreciative of that information.
This may not be codified anywhere, but I would be interested in knowing your view, collectively and institutionally, as to what would be the building blocks for a countervailing national interest assertion on the part of the head of mission or someone else with authority to do so.
I would appreciate hearing from anyone on the panel who cares to engage.
Mr. Hage: Mr. Gilbert indicated that section 24 of the act allows for this possibility of a temporary resident permit. The act actually says ``under the circumstances.'' The interpretation is that means the national interest, because the national interest is referred to in another part of the act; but the provision itself says ``under the circumstances'' a temporary resident permit can be issued.
When we look at it, we generally refer to a national interest letter, and we make a case as to why the admission of this particular individual is in the national interest. As you mentioned, in the case of Russia, our head of mission has been given this possibility of drafting these letters and sending them directly to the assistant deputy minister in CIC.
No other head of mission has this responsibility. It was one thing that was done to try to speed up the process, given the fact that we seem to be issuing more TRPs for Russia than for other countries.
This has greatly speeded up the process. As you heard, there were something like 180 issued in the lead up to the Olympic Games.
He makes the case, in this instance, why it is important for Canada to have the person there. In some cases, it is because the person has been invited to come in by not just Foreign Affairs, but an agency of the Canadian government, including CSIS and the RCMP. Those departments have invited people to come in and then it is obvious that, because we are inviting them, we want them to come and it is in our national interest that they come. In other instances, it is senior officials of the Russian government or senior business officials who fall under the legislation and who require this type of access to Canada.
The circumstances vary depending on the individual. The letter generally is about four or five paragraphs long, and it also makes the point that it is a recommendation to CIC.
We cannot say, let this person in. It is CIC's decision at the end of the day. It is the Minister of Immigration, and then the responsibility, I believe, has been delegated down, but Mr. Gilbert can speak more categorically on that subject. However, in the end, it is CIC's decision. We only recommend something to them.
[Translation]
Senator Segal: Mr. Gilbert, when a group of citizens in Canada opposes the entry of certain individuals, regardless of the reasons, and the government decides that it is in the national interest to facilitate their entry into Canada, and when citizens of Canada then request, either to a member of Parliament or by letter to the department, the reasons why an individual was allowed entry, given their difficult record, by our criteria, regardless of the reasons, do you have the authority to respond or does privacy legislation prevent you from responding?
Mr. Gilbert: Usually we cannot respond unless the individual who applied gives us authorization to do so — which often is not the case.
That puts us in rather uncomfortable situations because we cannot respond for privacy reasons, we cannot provide information and that often leaves the impression that we want to conceal that information. We do not have the authorization. If an individual gives us that authorization, then we can provide the information.
With respect to inadmissibility, I do not remember any cases where individuals gave us authorization because they themselves did not support making that information public.
[English]
Senator Segal: I want to ask specifically about Russia. Here we have a country whose prime minister was a prominent member of the KGB and who was elected both prime minister and president on several occasions in the democratic structures of that country, such as they may be.
When you deal with societies in transition, transitions which our own country has profoundly encouraged as part of the NATO alliance and with other organizations in Europe, it strikes me as almost unavoidable that you will find people in positions of prominence who had prior positions of prominence in areas that would have caused us profound difficulty.
I am interested in knowing whether you still go on a case-by-case basis in making the assessment as to admissibility, or whether you make a categorical decision. I refer to those persons who were part of various organizations in Viet Nam but are now part of the legitimate Vietnamese government. You cannot penalize folks for what they did under their previous system because they are now legitimized as part of the new system and it is not for us to get behind their domestic legal issues. Do you still do a case-by-case analysis?
I would be interested in knowing whether it is a point score proposition, as we do with admitting others to Canada for other reasons, or whether it is basically an intuitive call by a senior official, based on the information and categories that they have looked at.
I am not opposed to intuitive calls. Having first class public servants, such as your, make intuitive calls gives me a strong sense of confidence, but I wonder whether, in execution, it is a point score proposition categorical or an intuitive call.
Mr. Leckey: I am very happy to hear, Senator Segal that you recognize the tough calls that have to be made every day, both at headquarters and in the field. I could not agree with you more when you say that often questions of national security and admissibility are in the eye of the beholder.
Also, I think we are talking about societies, about countries where the significance of having belonged to a certain organization at a certain time in history changes over the course of time. In many cases, it diminishes over a period of 10 or 20 years. People who used to be the terrorists are now the government. We are faced with making assessments every day on the basis of societies all over the world that are in transition.
You asked what would be the building blocks of perhaps a better regime, a better way of making these difficult calls every day. We are in constant deliberations with our colleagues in CIC and DFAIT to consider exactly that. We have made some changes recently. We are currently looking at a series of proposals that would constitute building blocks for a new regime.
I will just mention one of a large number that we are looking at. We are considering whether it would be possible to develop a list of senior positions within foreign governments or foreign organizations, the incumbents of which would automatically be deemed to meet the national interest criteria, even if they were technically inadmissible. Therefore, we are looking at a list. It would sort of say there is a blanket national interest if any of these people want to come to Canada. That would be decided up front. It is not that there would not be any screening done. There would have been an upfront assessment made that is always in the national interest as to whether people in these particular positions need to come to Canada. That is one example of a building block.
You asked specifically about a point score system. Our assessments are, as you correctly point out, recommendations and they are passed to CIC, and CIC are the decision makers. Recently, we have developed a new template for making those recommendations, which is specifically risk based. We assess 10 or 12 possible concerns that might result in the individual's presence in Canada being low risk, medium risk or high risk. CIC receives a very precise risk assessment in each of those categories.
If the ticks in those boxes are predominantly low risk, then the person will receive a temporary resident permit. However, there are still a few cases where the ticks in the boxes are predominantly high risk, so it is not exactly a point score. It is, however, a structured way of assessing the presence of that individual in Canada.
Senator Finley: Good morning. Thank you for your interesting presentation.
I am more inclined to talk about statistics than practices. In one of the presentations I think made by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, I note you talked about an 80 per cent approval rate for permits. To me, that means 20 per cent were refused. How does that compare to other countries? Do we know whether the U.S., U.K., et cetera, have higher or lower acceptance rates?
Mr. Gilbert: I know it is not intuitive, but it would be comparing apples and oranges in certain circumstances. Why does Australia have a much higher approval rate, for instance? Australia has imposed visas to every country. In the case of a Canadian or U.S. citizen going to Australia, the approval rate is 99.9 per cent, so it immediately bumps the number or the percentage of acceptances or refusals.
Different countries have different regulations. For instance, when we talk about inadmissibility, which is something my colleague discussed, we do not have the same rules as many other countries. We look at whether the person has been a member of an organization in the past. Many countries do not. They look at whether the person is a member of an organization now. That makes the requirement different to our requirement.
It is very difficult to compare countries to countries, whether for visitors, business visitors or students. There are variations in time as well, and depending on the country, there is variation within the countries. When we have a percentage of refugee claimants from one country going down, our approval rate goes up. It is almost a direct link. It is the other way around, as well. If we have many refugee claimants from one country, we are more cautious. We talk about security, but the main reason for refusal of a visitor visa is largely that we think the person will not leave the country at the end of the visit.
Our system is very attractive for many people to remain in Canada. That is partly why our minister announced reform of the refugee system. Some of those attractive parts do not exist in other countries, which have faster minimums to remove illegal persons, for instance.
Senator Finley: You have segued into the second part of my question. The reason for asking the first part was to determine, particularly as we are competing very much with the U.K., U.S. and Australia for students or trade dollars or whatever, whether our rules were more or less punitive than other countries based on the rejection rates. However, I think you probably covered that question.
The second part of the question was exactly what you discussed. I am sure you must have some statistics. How many people violate their visas by not leaving or not sticking to the rules of the visa requirements?
Mr. Gilbert: I do not know the rate for Russia. I am more familiar with other parts of the world. With China, we estimate between 1.5 per cent and 2 per cent of the visitors to whom we issue a visitor visa once they arrive in Canada claim refugee status. That varies a bit. If it goes up, that is when we are more careful in issuing visas.
I will point out that the vast majority of refugee claimants from China who obtain a visa were business visitors. They were not really business visitors but pretended to be. With the volume, it is easier to slip into a large delegation. Often, you have 40 people coming on a business delegation and 30 are really business visitors but 10 bought a seat to come here to Canada. That is why we are very careful about those applications.
That links with the previous discussion about people who are inadmissible. Sometimes it is not the principal person coming but there are other members of the delegation who may be inadmissible. The bodyguards are often in that situation.
Senator Finley: I have a supplementary. You mentioned China. We occasionally hear horror stories about visa holders from India, as well. For example, we have heard stories of sports team that come over and only one-half of the team returns. Is India any better or any worse than China? You mentioned a 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent rate.
Mr. Gilbert: It is in the same range. Strangely enough, the three countries we are talking about have about the same approval and refusal rates. It is roughly 80 per cent approval rate for all three countries. It is different from other countries; sometimes it is much higher or lower. However, these countries are about the same. As far as I know, roughly the same issue happens in both India and China, although the clientele is very different. Many business people come from China whereas it is private citizens from India.
Senator Finley: It is still about 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent.
Mr. Gilbert: Yes, it was the last time I checked, which was some time ago.
Senator Smith: On our Russian trip, this subject took up more time than all the other subjects, both at the embassy and when we were up in Khanty-Mansiysk, dealing with various Canadian and Russian companies there was interchange with. You made use of that word ``inadmissible.'' There was certainly commentary to the effect that the wording of the current statute just might not work in the case of Russia.
Clearly, it had a change of government philosophy when it ceased to be a communist regime. If you were to interpret that very strictly there might be people coming to the G20 who might be less than black and white and grey.
The department has recently brought in amendments and recommended amendments that the government has tabled with regard to the refugee situation. I will not get into that. However, is the department giving serious consideration to recommend to the minister that this problem might be at a level where a legislative change is warranted?
You are not only talking about a senior official, but the chair of a parliamentary committee who only made it in by the skin of his teeth. It was embarrassing to have senior members of the Duma not able to come because they were involved in public life under the previous regimes.
Is consideration being given to recommend some fine tuning to address that real problem?
Mr. Gilbert: Not to my knowledge. The magnitude of the issue is acute in some places. It is difficult to change it only for one place. The larger issue is if you were a member of a past organization as in the case of Russia, many members of the government were part of an organization involved in espionage. It is not unique, but I am not aware of recommendations to remove that provision of the act. Perhaps my colleagues have other information on the subject.
Mr. Hage: I do not know that the act will be amended, but let me comment on some mitigating circumstances that might help that process. I can be corrected by my colleagues if I misinterpreted the act.
Until now, the examination has been done on the basis of a visitor or someone applying to be a permanent resident of Canada. The analysis is the same. The standard outlined is similar whether you come to Canada as a visitor or as an immigrant. It is identical for someone coming for a few days or for a few years to live here.
Mr. Leckey outlined the idea of risk management. It is a useful tool. It is one we have been advocating. If someone is coming as a visitor, the risk of staying in Canada might be diminished especially if the person is a business representative or a government official. You mentioned the notion to designate chairs of committees in the Duma or senior government officials in some way to allow them easier entry to Canada. That would help.
Based on judicial legal advice, a TRP comes with a letter to tell you that you have been given a permit. If you are denied the next time you apply as a visitor, you can say you were admitted the last time. The letter was fairly blunt until a few years ago and specified provisions of the act under which you were barred. You were also advised in the letter that you were subject to secondary inspection upon entry Canada, which caused concern. That letter has been modified and the situation seems to have eased the concerns of the Russians.
Some of these measures, if put in place, would expedite the process to allow Russians to enter Canada. You are correct that it is past deeds are caught under the act rather than what they do currently, but that is the way the act is interpreted.
The Chair: Once you give your TRP and you get this letter, does it mean we would not exercise any of the provisions of the Criminal Code to do with war criminals?
You said we let them in, risk management, et cetera. We are not only preoccupied with the persons past deeds. Indeed, his or her past deeds may be of the type we wish to pursue under our criminal or war crimes legislation and our international commitments.
Rick Herringer, Director of the National Security Screening Division, Intelligence and Targeting Operations, Canada Border Services Agency: In every single case where the Border Services Agency is asked to assess an individual for inadmissibility, we apply the same criteria whether with respect to espionage and subversion, war crimes or organized crime.
In a particular situation, if we note potential war crimes, we assess that process as a normal part of how we do our assessment. Sections 34, 35 and 37 referred to by Mr. Leckey are regular parts of or assessment process. Sometimes, it is more prevalent in some countries than others, but we apply the same criteria. Therefore, we will not miss any war criminals as part of our assessment process because we apply the same criteria.
Senator Smith: Has there been any instance of a Russian official getting through the hurdles and then attempting to claim refugee status in Canada?
Mr. Gilbert: I am not aware of any.
Senator Segal: I think I heard Mr. Leckey indicate a few moments ago in response to Senator Smith's question that you are working on criteria by which the nature of an office held would get someone an automatic pass, notwithstanding what might have been found with respect to his or her past. In your present understanding of some of the parameters of that process, would that include an elected member of the Duma in the Russian Federation? Might it exclude that because the position is not far enough up the hierarchy?
Senator Smith: Or used to be in the KGB.
Senator Segal: I am sure. Weren't they all?
Mr. Leckey: We have not gone that far to decide what levels would be covered. It could extend to members of the Duma.
Senator Stewart Olsen: It seems that the people on the front line, where screening initially takes place, are the most valuable assets. How are they selected and monitored? Is there ongoing quality assessment of the work? The people that do initial screening of these applications interest me.
Mr. Gilbert: Two types of individuals make decisions. Some are locally engaged. The vast majority are Canada- based foreign service officers that follow similar recruitment to other foreign service officers at Foreign Affairs. Part of their training involves different selected course, including a six-week training course on IRPA followed by two supervised temporary duty assignments. They spend four weeks in a mission and then two weeks in another to learn the proper procedures. They are accompanied by an officer who verifies everything they do during that time.
After that series of meetings, they take specific courses on refugees, ports of entry, et cetera before they go on their first assignment. They then have the capacity to make decisions on cases. They also take exams to ensure they know the act. Before they make decisions of which they are unsure, they can verify them with their supervisors and colleagues. Quality assurance is performed on their decisions but they have to make the decisions first.
Of course, the supervision of staff is a key operation of all our immigration managers to ensure to the extent possible that there is no discrepancy between the decisions of one officer versus another, to ensure it is not the luck of the draw. To make a comparison with judges, you might have a different decision with one judge versus another, but they apply the same act.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Of your people to whom you grant the temporary residency, the deemed inadmissible, do you have any sense of how many you have lost track of? How are they monitored here in Canada? Once they get here, they have this temporary residency.
Mr. Gilbert: I am not sure I would use the word ``missing,'' but there is no exit control in Canada. When we issue a visitor visa, we do not know if the person has come and we do not know that he or she has left. When you leave an airport out of Canada you do not check out. There is no checkout in Canada. A number of countries have that, but not here. The people we can track are the refugee claimants.
Senator Stewart Olsen: I suggest that might be a gap.
Senator Di Nino: I am not sure I would agree with my colleague on that last point, but it is an issue we can discuss.
I would like to share Senator Segal's comments, particularly with the Canada Border Services Agency. You have a tough job to do and we appreciate what you are doing. If we are being critical, it is not directed at you but trying to make sense of the system and hopefully improve it.
It is a fact that we have a great deal of competition, not only for trade and investment, but for students as well. We also are starting to have competition for the immigrants. Immigrants are just as important a component of the success of our country as the other two who are more temporary.
Do we treat students, once they have been approved, any differently, or is there a different system to screen, approve and allow students entry to Canada?
Mr. Gilbert: I would say there are differences. Different countries have different rules. If you want to study at a university in Australia, for instance, you have to take a language test first. In Canada, you do not. Very often, foreign students in Canada learn English or French the first year and then continue their studies.
In the U.S., the power of attractiveness is the grants and bursaries that students get that we do not have as much of in Canada. Tuition fees are lower in Canada than in the U.S. There are other advantages. The tuition fees have a much higher impact on who comes to Canada as students than any others issue, whether it is visas or not.
There is the issue of processing time. We require a medical examination before a student can come to Canada for more than six months. The U.S. does not. We want to ensure that people who come here for an extended period are medically fit. It is not necessarily the case for every other country.
Depending on which market, we have more or less disability. That is also an issue. For India, which is a growing market now, Canada has always been fourth on the list of choices. Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. always rank higher.
Australia is not as much in fashion because of recent events. We are trying to take its place, working with the Department of Foreign Affairs, doing more outreach to ensure we can take advantage of that situation. The number of foreign students is growing every year in Canada.
Senator Di Nino: We heard testimony yesterday from a witness that visas are still a problem in competing for students with the rest of the world. Do you think that is the case?
Mr. Gilbert: I do not think so.
Senator Di Nino: Can you give us the student statistics.
Mr. Gilbert: I apologize. I will have to provide that information. I did not expect that we would need that information today.
Senator Di Nino: If you could provide that, we would appreciate it.
This study is about the BRIC countries — Russia, India and China. In his presentation, Mr. Hage probably captured our experience so far. Some problems are creating roadblocks in our ability to attract the business people and, as you heard, others as well. We are here to identify those problems and help find ways to resolve them.
How can we manage this better? What should we do? Mr. Hage talked about the lack of sufficient service points for visa applications in the central Asian and Russian area. Is that something we should recommend to the government? Do we have enough resources out there? Do we have enough points of service, consulates, et cetera, in the areas from which we are trying to attract not only investments and students but also immigrants?
Mr. Gilbert: Points of service are an issue in many places. We have to look at the volume of applications before we can do anything. The ambassador from Kazakhstan not long ago asked for the same thing, to have someone on site. I had to tell him that unless we have at least 10 times more visitor applications, we could not afford to have an officer in that location. We must have a certain volume to justify having a visa officer on site.
That is the case in many places. If it is below a certain threshold, we cannot justify having one visa and the support staff and the system it implies. We have to justify the financial commitment.
We have taken steps for a certain number of service providers to help bring the applications to the embassy and back to the applicants quickly. We have 36 visa application centres. We have some in the three countries we just mentioned.
In the case of China and India, if you walked in, you would think you are in a visa office. They have counters. You can pay on site, submit your application, and they package it and send it to the embassy. We commit to do those in a certain period of time, so that the visa application centre can deliver back the passport or, for an extra fee, the person can get it directly at home.
We have nine centres in India. We have four in China that were authorized by the Chinese government; we would like to have more.
In Russia, we do not have the same system. However, we have an agreement with another type of service provider, a courier company that brings the applications to the embassy. They have 41 points of service in Russia that serve us. That is mostly for the applicants who are of some distance. However, if we require an interview, it means that the applicant has to come on site, unless we do area trips, and that depends on volume again to justify the expense.
Senator Di Nino: If any one of you have some thoughts that we should reflect in our report that would help us make recommendations to the government, would you please supply them to us, if you have not already included them in your remarks?
Senator Smith: Reference was made to one particular country.
When you look at all those former Soviet Union republics, and I have been to about five of them, they would all be in the same category. In Russia, the elections are quite bona fide these days. I am not sure that is true of Belarus but there are many shades of grey.
I wonder if there is an element of denial, because it is difficult to describe how this was the subject when we were there for several days. I am not mentioning names, but we were getting raised eyebrows from the embassy officials to the effect that this situation needs to be fixed.
If someone holds an elected position but at some point way back they were in the KGB, are they inadmissible automatically?
Mr. Gilbert: Yes, automatically.
Senator Smith: Is that not a bit of a problem for a certain individual who may be coming to the G20?
Mr. Gilbert: There are two parts to that question. That is what the act says; it does not name an organization but it does describe it closely enough that it fits exactly.
With regard to the G20 and G8, there are special rules that apply only for a number of summits and both qualify, so it depends on the individual's level. Once that level is established, the person might obtain a visa instead of a permit.
Senator Smith: I understand this and I am not trying to pick away unduly on this, but it was a real issue. We heard complaints from Canadian companies going over there that there is a bit of a quid pro quo: If you are making our lives miserable, what favours do we owe you? However, there are business opportunities there. The geography of where the oil is over there is similar to the geography of where the oil is in Canada and we have advanced technologies that are of great interest to them, yet we kept hearing problem after problem.
It would make me more comfortable if I thought people were trying to fix this situation. It is not the end of the world if there is some amendment necessary to a piece of legislation. We must correct a problem that damages Canadian business opportunities. I am looking for a reaction.
Mr. Gilbert: The Immigration Act is not written for one country and so the problem exists for every country. It would be very delicate for us to say yes to the organizations that are considered inadmissible. It would be delicate for us to say yes to these people based on the information that they belonged to these organisations in the past.
Let us think about the world events over the past 50 years; many people who were members of X organizations are still considered undesirable in Canada. Fortunately, the act is not based on names of organizations but rather on descriptions.
Senator Segal: If I understand what our colleague from CIC just said, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation is not notionally admissible, should he wish to come as part of the Russian delegation to the G20, unless our head of mission makes a determination that his presence in Canada would be in our national interest.
Second, I believe in February, as chair of the G8 and the G20, co-chair with our Korean friends, the Prime Minister of Canada issued a declaration about who could come and the nature of what those delegations could likely hold.
Have you vetted that to see whether it meets your criteria, or are you about to vet that or do you agree with the contents of that document?
Mr. Gilbert: I cannot comment if I agree or not, but for G8 and G20 the rules are different. I am sure the Prime Minister met the threshold but I am not sure at which level, whether it is the assistant to the minister of X, Y, Z, unless my colleague knows the answer to that.
Mr. Hage: Not to be too clever, it is President Medvedev who is coming to these meetings, not Prime Minister Putin.
Senator Segal: I understand that, but he has the right to put together whatever delegation he chooses I expect.
Mr. Hage: The president, yes, that is true. The provisions of the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, which is in play for the G8 and G20, deal with all of these issues and goes down to a certain level in the entourage to expedite the entry into Canada.
The Chair: I take it the Olympics it is a private organization. The act Mr. Hage referred to is for all international conventions and treaties.
Mr. Hage: It was not applied during the Olympics, you are quite right.
Mr. Gilbert: It is also for any UN meeting taking place in Canada, so the organization in Montreal applies as well.
Senator Jaffer: I would like a clarification on CBSA. In your brief, you discuss India. You note that there are indications of human rights abuses in the Jammu and Kashmir regions. I accept that, but I am surprised that is where you left it. I come from British Columbia so you can imagine my question. We face many challenges with the Punjab, but as a senator from that region, I receive many complaints of people being rejected. How you deal with these issues?
Mr. Leckey: The researchers we employ in the division headed by my colleague Mr. Herringer are hired for their research skills and for their knowledge of international affairs. In the course of their work they develop a high level of expertise often in one particular area, on one particular issue and in one particular country. They apply that knowledge and expertise on a daily basis. In addition, their work is subject to quality control, of course, by their supervisors and recommendation letters, negative recommendation letters are approved at the level of my colleague, Mr. Herringer.
The reports of human rights abuses in such places as Jammu and Kashmir originate with extremely reputable organizations, as I am sure you are aware, many NGOs, Amnesty International and so on.
Senator Jaffer: I was not so much speaking of the researchers. That was my next question. You indicated Jammu and Kashmir, but I leave it at that.
I wanted to go into the research question. Just this morning, the Federal Court criticized the research of the department being on the Internet at Wikipedia.
I assume the way you make your decisions on threats would be on intelligence from our partners and from local knowledge. What else do you rely on?
My concern is that in many places I am told that the reason — I am just talking about India — I have been denied a visa is because X complained about my being a threat. I am sure you do not rely on that, but what do you rely on to make your decisions.
Mr. Leckey: I thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk a little bit more about that subject.
The sources of information that we use, which we call intelligence — information that has been analyzed and prepared for a particular purpose — are obviously open sources and databases that have been compiled in the course of our work over a number of years. These are available to our security partners, notably CSIS and the RCMP. They are also available to our allied agencies that perform work similar to our own, and to our people overseas, both in DFAIT and in our own CBSA offices overseas. Those are the major sources of information that we compile and analyze globally.
We do not rely on Wikipedia as a single source. It would certainly be one source, but merely one source among 100 that a researcher would look at. Every researcher is aware that Wikipedia is notoriously unreliable and subject to change.
Senator Jaffer: There have been a number of questions and I do not want to refer to Russia or India and mention those people; therefore, let us look to the past. You stated that one day a so-called terrorist could become a leader the next day. Let me talk about Nelson Mandela, for example. He is a citizen, so I do not think he has those issues. How can that kind of person enter the country? Are there occasions when you have to say no to a prime minister? If so, how do you make that assessment?
Mr. Leckey: The wording of the act is such that anyone who was ever a member of a terrorist organization or an intelligence organization is inadmissible to Canada for life.
Despite that, there are many people who need to come to Canada, for example, people whose presence in Canada is desirable and essential in support of our foreign policy and economic goals. In a case like that, the provision of issuing a temporary resident permit is open and is used.
Senator Jaffer: Let us discuss India now, where, Mr. Gilbert, you said we have nine offices.
Mr. Gilbert: The service provider that we use has nine offices. We have two offices: one in New Delhi and one in Chandigarh.
Senator Jaffer: I want to clarify that you accept many applications by mail. For visitors' visas, however, from time to time you would need them to come to your offices; is that correct?
Mr. Gilbert: Yes. We interview a fairly small percentage of the applicants. That is a big difference between Canada and other countries. For instance, the U.S. requires that every person attend for an interview. That makes a big difference. Often, we get complaints regarding the long processing time of Canada versus the U.S. In the United States, the processing time is shorter once they get an application, but it may take a month and a half to get an appointment; we do not have that wait time.
Senator Jaffer: Yesterday, we had people from the education world who talked about pilot projects to hasten the student applications. How many pilot projects are there and are there plans to make those pilot projects into permanent projects?
Mr. Gilbert: Whether it is business express, temporary workers, or the student partnership program, before we implement something like that on a large scale, we try it in one place. In the case of students, we also initiated that program in India, in partnership with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. We want to ensure that we can confirm if a student has been accepted and if the student can afford to study in Canada. In this case, our partnership helps us to assess those two components which are crucial in the decision-making process. We want to ensure that the students come to a real school. That sounds silly, but it is not. When you see a new school for the first time, you wonder, ``Is it real or not?'' We are working in a different time zone. You often phone a school and there is someone at the other end who just woke up, so you know it is not necessarily a school over there.
This year, we are trying to do the same with China and Vietnam with regards to students; and, with Mexico and China with respect to business express. We want to expand these programs while carefully ensuring that we do not have bad surprises at the end of the day. We give some responsibility to other partners, but, ultimately, we are responsible.
Senator Jaffer: You said something interesting. In my province, there have been circumstances where students have come here thinking that they were coming to a legitimate school and it was not a legitimate school.
Do we have a program that protects foreign students? Do we have someone who can inform them that certain schools are not legitimate schools when people apply? Do we provide that kind of service?
Mr. Gilbert: We do not. We had it in the previous act, but there is no provision in the current act. We rely largely on our partnership with the provinces because education is under the provincial rubric.
The rules are different from province to province. A language school in Ontario, for instance, is a business; it is not a school. However, in B.C. it is a school. Each province does not necessarily have the same level of verification on those institutions. We work with them, but we do not say, ``If you go to the ABC School of Hairdressing, you are inadmissible.'' There is no such thing.
Senator Plett: I will add my voice of appreciation to the comments that have already been made for the wonderful work that you do.
You mentioned the Olympics a couple of times but did not really go into it. Are any special provisions made for that type of event? Do you relax the rules at all for something like the Olympics? Obviously, we do not have them here often, but on a number of occasions we have other sporting events. Is there any relaxation of rules for these types of events?
Mr. Gilbert: The most common relaxation has to do with a processing fee, which does not apply in certain events.
Concerning the Olympics, we copied one thing that was done in Torino, Italy: Applicants who received accreditation from their Olympic community did not require a visa; they were issued a card. That was closely monitored because only the Olympics committee could approve them. I do not have the volume, but there were a large number of them. It was essentially called ``the Olympic family,'' namely, not only athletes but also coaches, et cetera.
Besides that, we provided extra staff in the mission where we knew there would be a lot of work. The inadmissibility criteria were the same, but, as I said for Russia, many people had good reason to come. We used the same mechanism, the national interest letter, to issue permits to let them in.
Senator Plett: My next question is a continuation of what Senator Finley raised earlier regarding comparisons in the approvals and the rejections. My question is more specific to the United States. They are our closest partner; they are right next door to us. Clearly, terrorist issues that could happen in Canada would be an issue to them in the United States. Are we working together with them to adopt similar policies or is each country entirely on its own in this in adopting ours and possibly allowing people into Canada that would not be admissible in the United States or vice versa?
Mr. Hage: As far as cooperation with the United States on visa issuance, I leave that to my colleagues.
About a year and a half ago, the American ambassador in Russia told me that their refusal rate was lower than ours was for applicants coming from Russia. Mr. Gilbert explained the difference in legislation. The Americans are ahead of us in the sense that the percentage of Russians who applied for entry into the States is higher than in Canada. In that sense, I do not think they would have much criticism over Canada.
I mentioned an example of a successful program in the United States, when I testified before you went to Russia. The Americans have a program where they allow 32,000 young people in every summer. That is an astounding number, including 16,000 from the Ukraine. This is under a special work program for summer students. They use a series of visa providers that they have certified in Russia to expedite this process. Again, the Americans, in this particular instance, are quite open in many ways to Russian visitors and Russian students.
Senator Plett: Has that changed in the last number of years? A few years ago, you would hear, and maybe unjustly, comments that Canada was a bit of a haven for terrorists and that people who wanted to create problems in the United States would travel through Canada to get to the United States. Has some of that changed in the past with our rules or was that just simply not so?
Mr. Gilbert: I cannot really speak of a change. A number of American senators strongly believe that is the case, based partly on rumours that the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada. Even Senator Clinton at the time said that, although it is not true, but it has been repeated a number of times. We had the famous millennium bomber case that involved a person who came from Canada and tried to cross the border into the United States.
It takes only one case. I cannot say this occurs more or less now or that our rules are more relaxed. I do not think so. However, it takes only one or two cases, and it is already too many.
Senator Finley: Temporary residence permits are granted to those who are inadmissible for one reason or another. I am somewhat surprised to see that this applied to almost 13,000 people in 2008. Was 2008 a typical year?
Mr. Gilbert: It was a typical year, but I have to put a caveat on the 13,000. The vast majority of those people have a criminal record in the United States. The permit is issued at the port of entry. The criminal record is often for drunk driving, and many of these people are truck drivers who go back and forth a number of times during the year.
The type of inadmissibility we are talking about is much smaller. Often, the inadmissibility is related to medical or criminal issues, often from the United States. The remainder is counted in the hundreds, not in the thousands.
Senator Finley: I was rather surprised to see over 4,000 temporary resident permits granted involving noncompliance with active regulations — no passport, no visa, work study without permit, medical or criminal check to be completed in Canada. What would cause people who lack what would appear to me to be basic credentials to get into the country? How would they get a temporary resident permit?
Mr. Gilbert: Let us say you are in Canada, you are a refugee claimant and you claim that your government is persecuting you. You are unlikely to get a passport from your country. That is a common example. The majority of the 200 adoptive children, who came from Haiti, came to Canada without passport, and they were issued permits. There are a variety of reasons, but the no-passport issue often has to do with the home country not issuing a passport for a variety of reasons.
Senator Finley: Finally, in Mr. Leckey's presentation, he said that national security screening in 2007 involved 48,000 screens; and in 2009, almost 71,000 screens. That is about a 40 per cent increase in two years. Is that a natural growth or were more stringent screening requirements placed somewhere in that period? In other words, has the hurdle level risen?
Mr. Leckey: No, it is not because of more stringent requirements or increasing the height of the hurdles. Our colleagues in CIC refer those numbers to us. After they receive a visa application, in the vast majority of cases they do not see any reason to suspect that there might be a need for further examination. However, in those 70,000 cases last year, they refer them to CBSA and we conduct our more in-depth assessment of those individuals. In other words, those are the tough cases.
The reason the numbers are increasing has to do with the fact that we are providing training to CIC overseas, so they are increasingly aware of what to look for and the indicators.
Mr. Gilbert: That is part of it, and part of it is purely volume, because the number of visitors increases every year. Last week I got the message from Delhi that they had their highest week ever, 15 per cent more than the second highest week. There is an increase in the number of visitors coming to Canada.
We have also implemented additional vetting in a number of countries. For instance, for Afghanistan and Pakistan, I am not sure when we decided to change it, but it is a large number. Our colleagues have implemented a system where we enter information on a large number of people.
Mr. Herringer: Since 2007, nine new countries were added to the overall screening list, which includes Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia and Yemen. That is one reason. Another major reason is the numbers that came in for the 2010 Olympic Games, during which we had a huge intake over a very short period of time. That is generally the explanation.
Senator Finley: That is perfectly satisfactory. I wanted you to confirm that we are not ramping this up to a level where we are making it inordinately difficult for people to obtain visas to come to the country because of the balance with trade.
I fully appreciate and am seized with the fact that the security screening process is essential. However, in terms of our mandate to look at trade issues with India, Russia and China, I want to confirm that you collectively are doing what you can to make the visa process easier — or faster, if you like — not less so. That was the reason for my question.
Senator Smith: Going back to the Olympic Games, do you have statistics on how many people — assuming there were some — came either to participate in the games or to attend the games, who then claimed refugee status? Can you give us information on that?
Mr. Gilbert: I do not have that information. I saw the report in the media, but that is all. You may have seen it as well.
Senator Smith: There were some, though?
Mr. Gilbert: There were a number of Mongolians and a Japanese person. The minister has commented on the provenance of some of them, but I do not have a number.
Senator Smith: Would the amendments currently before Parliament with regard to refugee status issues address that issue?
Mr. Gilbert: It depends when the claim is made. When you arrive in Canada as a visitor, you are allowed to stay for six months. Often the refugee claim is not made on the spot. It depends whether this is before or after the new act is approved.
Senator Smith: I can tell you that in 1980, when I was a member of Parliament during the Clark government, in the nine months they were in power, they had imposed a visa requirement for people coming from Chile. There were still serious problems in Chile at that time. They felt that many people who were coming were just queue jumping.
Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Axworthy asked me and another MP, who is now a senator as well; to go there and talk to everyone we could for several weeks, including the church representatives, the viceroy and other embassies and our own officials. It made me proud of being Canadian when the person who was in charge of it there, and I will not mention the name, said that in Canada, we just assume that when someone says something, they are telling the truth, but in many countries, they do not. The truth frequently can hurt them, and so they may only tell the truth to their closest friends or family members. He had a graph of various countries and what percentage of the people he thought was telling the truth. I will not get into what his percentages were. I said, ``Thank you, you have been very helpful. I would suggest you not show that graph to any other members of Parliament when they come down, because they may not be open-minded.''
When we came back, we thought only about 4 per cent were bone fide ones and they would all get visas anyways and it was left as it was. It was a fascinating experience.
Senator Jaffer: Mr. Herringer, if I am not mistaken, all of the countries that you set out for the screening are Muslim countries; is that correct?
Mr. Herringer: Honestly, I am not entirely sure. When countries are added to a mandatory referral list, it is on an assessment based on risk and threat. Those are the criteria we would look at. It is not because they are Muslim countries or non-Muslim countries. That is not a criteria that we use.
Senator Jaffer: If I am correct in understanding what you said, from the intelligence you get from the various sources that were set out earlier, you have decided these countries need more screening; is that right?
Mr. Herringer: That is correct.
The Chair: We have come to the end of the questions. On behalf of the committee, I thank you for the work you do. It is very difficult, as we know, because it constantly changes. There is a delicate balance between letting people in and ensuring security and fairness of processes. We particularly thank you for the information you have given us. Many of these questions had been asked during the course of our studies, so this has completed many the queries we had in this area. Thank you for your patience in answering the questions.
(The committee adjourned.)