Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 4 - Evidence - Meeting of March 24, 2014
OTTAWA, Monday, March 24, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 3:33 p.m. to study the policies, practices and collaborative efforts of Canada Border Services Agency in determining admissibility to Canada and removal of inadmissible individuals; and for the consideration of a draft budget.
Senator Daniel Lang (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I will be welcoming our guests to these proceedings in a few minutes, but I would first like to refer to December 12, 2013, when the Senate adopted this committee's study reference. I want to quote it, because I think it is important:
That the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence be authorized to examine and report on the policies, practices, and collaborative efforts of Canada Border Services Agency in determining admissibility to Canada and removal of inadmissible individuals; and
That the Committee report to the Senate no later than December 31, 2014, and that it retain all powers necessary to publicize its findings until 90 days after the tabling of the final report.
Before we get more into the subject matter of today's meeting, I would like to acknowledge on behalf of all members of the committee the contribution of over 40,000 men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces who have served with valour and distinction in Afghanistan on behalf of our country.
At this important point, as our flag is lowered in Kabul, we must take stock not only of the commitment made on October 7, 2001, to fight terrorism, but of where we are on that mission and whether it has achieved those goals post 9/ 11.
One hundred and fifty-eight members of the Canadian Armed Forces have made the ultimate sacrifice at the request of their country, and many more returned home injured, physically and mentally. No greater price could be paid and no greater request could be asked of the Canadian Forces, especially of the wives, mothers, fathers and children who continue to live with loss and injury.
As a country, we owe the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces, especially those who served in Afghanistan, our loyalty, our support, our respect and our thanks. Canadians are proud of the service given, and we will honour their sacrifices on behalf of Queen and country.
Last week, our Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, announced at the welcoming home ceremony in Ottawa that May 9 has been designated as National Day of Honour by Royal Proclamation in recognition and commemoration of Canada's military mission in Afghanistan. The Prime Minister stated: "Through this National Day, Canadians will have the opportunity to reflect on the courage and sacrifices made by our soldiers."
Colleagues, I am sure I speak for everyone around the room when I say "thank you" to all our Afghanistan vets who have made us prouder, stronger and freer as a country.
At this point, I would like to invite our deputy chair, Senator Dallaire, to share any comments he might have before we welcome the witnesses.
Senator Dallaire: Thank you, chair, for offering me this opportunity.
Afghanistan — the theatre of operations, the war, the conflict — was the culmination of nearly 20 years of conflict zones in which the Canadian Forces and Canada were committed around the world after the end of the Cold War, remembering that the first operational theatre was the first Gulf War in 1991. So we have accumulated over 100,000 veterans in this 25-year time span, with Afghanistan being the most combat-oriented of the missions.
The forces — ground and air, with support from naval forces — mastered the tactical level of the theatre and mastered the operational or theatre command level with pride, distinction and also with success. The strategic level of the mission and its continued situation in that part of the world remains a question that we hope will be resolved with time.
We deployed reservists like never before. In fact, never have we deployed so many reservists since the Korean War, where the bulk of those deployed were reservists, many of them World War II vets. But we also deployed the families. In this era of the revolution of communications, the families are living the missions with the troops, and in so doing, are also living the stresses and strains. So when we deploy troops, we are also deploying their families in a virtual way, and that commitment is to be recognized.
In my closing comment, when we saw those body bags come back, I believe that this country should continue to pursue with the memory of not just the losses and seeing the body bags but also of those who were injured, and that we demonstrate in many of the garrison cities across this country the respect and dignity for those who have served for their families, and that they don't have to fight again to be able to live decently as injured veterans in our country.
"Well done" to all those who have served and to those who have supported them.
Thank you very much, chair.
The Chair: Before we welcome our witness — and we will get to the proceedings — I would like to introduce the people around the table. I am Dan Lang, senator for Yukon. This is the clerk of the committee, Ms. Josée Thérien, and our Library of Parliament analysts assigned to the committee, Holly Porteous and Wolfgang Koerner.
I would like to go around and invite each senator to introduce themselves and state the region they represent, starting with the deputy chair.
[Translation]
Senator Dallaire: Roméo Dallaire; I represent the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
[English]
Senator Mitchell: Grant Mitchell, Alberta.
Senator Day: Senator Joseph Day from New Brunswick.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Jean Guy Dagenais from the Province of Quebec.
[English]
Senator White: Vernon White, Ontario.
Senator Wells: David Wells, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Beyak: Senator Lynn Beyak, northwestern Ontario.
The Chair: I would like to begin with a special welcome to Senator Beyak who is now a full-fledged member of the committee and is replacing our colleague, Senator Nolin. At this time we would also like to recognize the work that Senator Nolin did on behalf of this committee for many, many years.
With that long introduction, I am pleased to welcome Jean-Pierre Fortin, President, Customs and Immigration Union; and Jonathan Choquette, Communications Officer.
Mr. Fortin, I understand you have an opening statement. Please begin. We have one hour.
[Translation]
Jean-Pierre Fortin, President, Customs and Immigration Union: Mr. Chair, thank you for offering us the opportunity to appear before you as you conduct your special study into the policies, practices and collaborative efforts of Canada Border Services Agency in determining admissibility to Canada and removal of inadmissible individuals.
My name is Jean-Pierre Fortin and I am the National President of the Customs and Immigration Union, a position I have held since 2011. I have the honour to represent over 10,000 CBSA employees.
Our membership is comprised of all the border services officers and immigration screening and inland enforcement officers, as well as intelligence officers and support staff who work both at the border and inland.
I am joined today by Jonathan Choquette, CIU's Communications Officer, however I will be the only one to answer questions.
I sincerely hope we can assist you with this work through our appearance and the materials we provide today and in the future, should that be helpful.
[English]
In April 2012, we were advised by CBSA that approximately 1,350 CBSA employees, including front-line operational officers, were to be given notices that their position would be affected. We are aware of front-line officers who have retired since then and whose positions have not been filled. That is a staffing cut.
I cannot provide you today with the exact number of operational positions that have been cut, but we are tracking down that information for you. I can tell you that our CIU membership has decreased by approximately 700 positions since late 2011, and this is not a good sign.
I encourage you to pursue this matter because reducing operational personnel means reduced border security, and that directly contradicts what you have been told by CBSA management. If asked during the time for questions, I can illustrate this reality using a case example where the agency did not proactively target drug smuggling exports because of staffing shortages.
Furthermore, I can also provide you with case examples of incidents where automated border clearance machines, mainly at three major airports, failed to report or refer red flag travellers. In these cases it was drug smugglers, but it could have been weapons smugglers or terrorists.
Having an accurate, well-maintained and technologically supported "persons of interest" lookout database, which provides information when and where it is needed, is a cornerstone of border security and public safety. As more than one police official has commented, what and who gets through the border illegally always ends up on the streets of our Canadian communities.
For CIU, this is also an officer safety issue because not knowing who we are dealing with is a huge risk factor. The situation is made worse when the information has been collected, but for reasons of risk aversion or bureaucratic silo protection, it is not made available to our officers. We first exposed this problem back in 2005 and it has been a priority for us ever since. Last week, I was advised by CBSA that the full information from the Field Operations Support System, which we call FOSS, will not be made fully available to our officers at the primary inspection line.
[Translation]
On December 9, 2013, during the Public Accounts Committee's review of the Auditor General's report on persons illegally gaining entry to Canada, CBSA senior management testified:
You are correct that our officers do not have the authority to initiate high-speed chases of people who do not stop at the border. In such cases, we call upon our colleagues, be it the provincial police or the RCMP. They collaborate fully with us on this.
In an effort to increase the effectiveness of operational activities, CIU has repeatedly raised with CBSA the issue of officer enforcement authority away from designated ports of entry. In 2010, we received written confirmation from former CBSA President and current National Security Advisor to the PM, Stephen Rigby, that such lawful authority does exist and that the source of the RCMP's role between ports of entry is not a legal restriction but rather a policy choice articulated in a 1932 order in council.
I will be pleased to share Mr. Rigby's written confirmation with the committee as well as CBSA's own policy which contradicts the no-pursuit rule. This absurd restriction has public safety consequences which we can discuss during questions if you wish.
We understand that CBSA is free to make its own policies but it is not free to pretend that its inaction is due to legal restrictions which are set in stone. This needs to change and we recommend the creation of a CBSA mobile interdiction unit.
[English]
Expedited removal of criminal deportees is a subject where our members' activities are governed by legislation and practices that are in need of a major re-examination. I will refer you to our submission where we list the areas we suggest should be reviewed.
In addition, I would like to caution the government that CBSA is currently looking at subcontracting the removal of deportees to security firms. The liability and level of security of those operations justify why highly trained CBSA officers are needed. Failing at this could very well compromise the security on an international level.
In our view, it makes no sense to "require" allowing entry of inadmissible persons into Canada to contest their inadmissibility. Why not change the law so that persons who are deemed inadmissible for reasons of security, war crimes, misrepresentation or criminality of any kind can challenge that determination from outside of Canada? At land ports of entry such persons would simply be directed back to the U.S. At air or marine ports of entry, they would need to be held until removed.
[Translation]
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that when our members are put at risk because the lookout system deployed by CBSA is grossly deficient, Canadians are also put at risk because people who should not be entering our country are doing exactly that.
When people sneak into our country undetected because Canada does not have a properly resourced, intelligence-led, joint-force mobile border interdiction unit that too jeopardizes public safety.
When our members are forbidden from pursuing people who run the border, Canadian public safety is inevitably compromised.
When an insufficient number of officers are assigned to handle a high volume of traffic, fewer checks are done at the border in an effort to keep people moving. Again, this compromises public safety.
It is important that Canadians fully understand these issues and know what is at stake. Our members are on the front lines and they know what is working and what is not. They expect CIU to speak out and I am honoured to do that today on their behalf.
I would like to thank the committee for the work it is doing, for asking informed and pointed questions and for following up when answers are either not forthcoming or do not make sense. It is our hope that this submission and our ensuing dialogue will contribute to the ongoing process and essential changes needed to improve security at our borders.
I look forward to answering your questions.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much for your well-thought-out brief and the number of recommendations you put forward. I think it is a constructive position you have brought forward and I am sure it will be given due consideration by the committee.
Before I ask a lead-off question, I would like to refer to your suggestion to offer the committee further information about changes that are required to expedite removal of criminal deportees. We would appreciate it if you could table those with the committee, if you could make that commitment, to add to your brief.
Mr. Fortin: Absolutely.
The Chair: That is great.
I want to go on to a couple of areas. At the outset you referred to the question of your membership and the fact that there are job reductions or attrition; call it what you may. At the same time, we have been told in our proceedings that front-line and intelligence services have not been affected.
In respect to the study that we're undertaking about the inadmissibility and admissibility of individuals coming into the country, with the changes that have been made, both within your complement of staffing and also with the changes in technology, how are we able to continue to do the job we are asking the department and yourselves to do? Perhaps you could give us concrete examples of how changes have been made so that we have some understanding here in the committee.
Mr. Fortin: One thing that comes to mind immediately, I did talk briefly in my introduction with regard to what we call the ABC machine, which is automated border clearance. They are at three major airports: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Many of our agents brought to my attention that these machines are miscoding these travellers and they can get through easily. That's why I highlighted as an example that a person went through once and was flagged, but actually, by the vigilance of one of our agents, got caught before he had left the area, and that person had drugs. We have quite a lot of examples that we can bring forward to this committee.
Also, the second part of your question, when you are talking about the fact that the CBSA came before this committee and highlighted the fact that there was no reduction, I am using their numbers here, which we have been briefed on. CBSA never came back to us to say that they did not have to impose those cuts. We were briefed that there would be 1,351 positions precisely, which includes 325 front-line officers. I don't know if the situation has changed since, but that was part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan of this government.
Actually, yes, it has an impact. We are talking mainly about officers in the field of intelligence, which has been highly cut. Obviously, you will have an impact in the mandate of this committee. It will have an impact certainly on the national security of this country.
The Chair: I would like to follow up on one other area. One of the reasons we have undertaken this particular study and overview is because of the information provided to us that just under 50,000 individuals in one way or another are in this country illegally and are inadmissible. One can argue how accurate those figures are, but the fact is that a substantial number of individuals have come into the country illegally.
In your brief you recommend a number of steps that can be taken legislatively to help the front-line officers as well as the department in doing the job we are asking them to do. Knowing that, if the government proceeds with all the recommendations that you have provided us, how do you foresee the job being done at ports of entry? Would this quell the number of people that are getting into the country through various ways, whether it be legislative or otherwise?
Mr. Fortin: I definitely think that it would have a positive impact. There are two measures that I would like to bring to the attention of this committee more particularly. I gave the example of when you are at a land border. If you are an American who is not admissible into Canada, you are simply returned into the United States. That's an easy measure. We're saying if we are defining more people who are outside of the country, they should be applying at the Canadian embassy or somehow outside of the country to determine if they should be admissible or not, instead of having them in this country and making that determination when they are in this country. This would be a huge step for this government to have a cost saving, because when they're in the country, they have certain rights, as you know. They will go in front of a tribunal or they could be in our jails if they are in Canada illegally or if they are committing any crime. That extra layer would certainly help Canadian society to be more safe and keep these individuals outside of this country.
[Translation]
Senator Dallaire: We are concerned about people who could enter the country with ill intent. You are on the front lines. You say that intelligence services are not necessarily perfect at entry points in Canada, be they accessible by land, air or sea.
Is that because employees are not qualified to use the technology that could help them in their work, or because they do not have sufficient credibility in the eyes of other intelligence agencies, who are afraid that secrets will be revealed? There has to be a reason that is preventing people from wanting to share more information with you, as you are on the front lines, and this is an era where on the contrary, we need more information.
Mr. Fortin: The incompetence of our staff is not an issue; they are highly qualified, on the contrary, and at the same level as the majority of police forces throughout the country; they exchange information with them, whether it be the RCMP or other organizations. Everyone cooperates in exchanging information. The problem rests with the collection of information by our frontline officers from people who cross the border to enter the country. For instance, at the border, whether in Windsor or Lacolle, our frontline officers, what we call the primary line, receive very little information from travellers.
So that is the first point of contact we have with the clients. What we wish is to obtain all of the information needed. For instance, if we are dealing with a wanted individual who could potentially be armed or dangerous, the system simply indicates that there is something not quite right with this individual.
We feel we have the right to know if there is an increased risk for our officers and to obtain all of the information. So that information — and this is what we deplore — is not available aside from the indication that a situation is raising a red flag, as we would say in our jargon. The system simply indicates that there is a problem and that that person has to be referred to the secondary service.
That information becomes available eventually, but only once our investigation is much further along. We deplore this situation; we want to obtain the information immediately so as to be able to protect our people.
Senator Dallaire: What tools do your colleagues on the other side of the border have which you do not? Now you are armed — we can talk about that more at length — but what tools do they have that allow them to be more rigorous in their analysis and to act immediately?
Mr. Fortin: I think that the famous Conservative government Canada-U.S. agreement known as the Beyond the Border project has greatly increased security at the borders. We had to adjust because of a part of that agreement.
I could not tell you what the level of information is on the American side, but we could certainly come back before the committee to draw a comparison between both sides of the border, compare what they may have and what we have.
One thing is certain, we lagged far behind. I am a frontline officer and have been working for 32 years at the Canada Border Services Agency. At the time, there were practically no computerized systems. In Quebec, there may have been two or three offices that had computer networks that provided us with a certain level of information. All of these things were done by telephone, quite simply. So we have come a long way.
The volume of information has increased considerably, but things are still not perfect since more information could be forthcoming. We are questioning the delay in the transmission of that information.
Senator Dallaire: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Wells: I'm interested to know this because I read it in your bio. You are Chair of the National Board of Directors, Standing Committee on Border Security. Can you tell me what that entails?
Mr. Fortin: Yes, absolutely. It's a subcommittee that is actually overseeing the arming initiative and also anything related. This is a committee that has also been active in lobbying to create the border patrol, which I highlight in my brief.
It's one thing that you are becoming more efficient in the major border crossings, but we're still very vulnerable in between those points of entry. That is why I'm saying the CBSA kept saying it is a matter of legislation, but it's not a matter of legislation; it is more like a policy only.
To my knowledge, there is only one corridor that actually the RCMP — there is a pilot project in Quebec, actually in my home province, and they are only patrolling a certain corridor. Right now I have been told that it is efficient, that actually the Americans are patrolling the border on the U.S. side, and I think we need to also be more effective in between those ports right now.
Senator Wells: What are some of the things that the pilot project is looking at that you think should be applied to the rest of Canada?
Mr. Fortin: Actually, it is like a patrol in between. They are exchanging information with the U.S. border patrol, and as an example, not long ago you had refugees that were crossing at a place called Rock Island; so we remain vulnerable in key areas, but we're not there.
Shiprider is another project I guess where we are the only organization that is not part of that. Again, CBSA kept saying it is a matter of legislation, it's a matter again of policies, and we think we should be there.
We are coming from a long way with the arming project that Senator Dallaire was just highlighting. I think right now our officers are way more equipped, way more trained, and they have the skill, and they were actually deployed in the 117 land border crossings. It would make sense to patrol with the RCMP, or it could be made only under the CBSA, but when you are deployed there, you know the community, and this is the place where we remain very weak compared to the Americans.
Senator Mitchell: My first question concerns your point number 2, Mr. Fortin, and that's the question of the sharing of information. It seems to me almost impossible to comprehend that you wouldn't have full access to people who shouldn't be entering the country and that you wouldn't have full computer or other access to that information. Are you saying that people are on a no-entry list, you're the entry point, and you don't get that list?
Mr. Fortin: That's not correct, senator, with all due respect. It's the full disclosure of the information that would be required to our officers.
Let's say you're coming from the airport here in Ottawa. The only thing you'll see at the primary inspection lane is basically, "Jonathan Choquette, I do have a red flag only on it," so I don't know what exactly we are looking for. But it is accessible if you refer the person to secondary and you push your information to the point that you will get the information.
For example, for sex abusers it is very complicated, believe it or not, to get full disclosure at the primary inspection lane, and this is where it is crucial that our officers should get that information immediately. We do have access to the information but not in a timely fashion.
Senator Mitchell: So it is a question of advancing that, and that would be more efficient and less dangerous for your staff.
Mr. Fortin: Absolutely. And the only reason why is because the CBSA doesn't want to slow down the flow of traffic, flow of inspection, and that's a concern we're having.
The thing is you need a proper balance in between the security and actually having that flow of traffic moving forward. We do understand that, but it's a matter of security for our officers also to know if a person potentially could wear a weapon on him.
The Chair: When someone is flagged, do you not automatically send him to secondary?
Mr. Fortin: Yes, we could certainly do that, if you don't know exactly what it's for.
Normally, technically speaking, when you are in a booth at the inspection lane at a major border crossing, you may say, "Okay, turn to your right to the inspection lane," what about the person that goes through? We're not even allowed to chase them; so the person will be in the country. That's a problem.
If the person is armed and he feels that you may push your investigation further — and I'm looking at Senator Dagenais, who is an ex-police officer, and also Senator White — we should know that. Because if I know, for example, that the person could be armed and dangerous, I would freeze them right there. He would not go any further, and then I would push my investigation.
Senator Mitchell: My second question concerns the pressures that inevitably arise because you don't have enough people. You say you are down 700 positions since 2011.
Mr. Fortin: Membership, yes.
Senator Mitchell: Some of the implications, I can imagine and understand, are that there were dedicated enforcement groups, I think, and they no longer exist. Were there or were there not, for example, dog units that would be useful in certain drug and other situations? What about that?
And what about the whole question of overtime? Is there not a question that because of the lack of enough staff that we're filling in with overtime and paying time and a half or double time?
What are the implications of the reduction of 700 people?
Mr. Fortin: Absolutely, I think you're right. If I'm not mistaken, we're talking about overtime money and about $70 million over the last year that has been spent. Probably CBSA can provide you with the exact figures. That's what I have been told.
I don't think you will be able to have zero overtime in this organization because we're a 7/24 operation. At the end of day, I think that right now we are understaffed to the point that, for example, a director-general of a certain sector actually told us — we used to search containers at major marine ports, but because of the lack of resources, even if you don't have an official lookout, but if you suspect you may have drugs going for export, we have a policy in writing by a director-general of CBSA right now to let him go.
Senator Mitchell: Because you don't have the staff.
Mr. Fortin: Because we don't have the proper staff, actually. I will be providing that policy, if you agree, Mr. Chair.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Thank you, Mr. Fortin and Mr. Choquette. It is nice to see some work colleagues again. Congratulations for having managed to get your officers armed; I am certain that that was not easy. I had the opportunity of going to Rigaud to visit the firing range and I know that training is ongoing. I was told that most of the officers would now be armed, and that is a good thing. I have two questions.
[English]
Could you please provide an update on the progress towards working with local law enforcement agencies to address incidents of port-running and non-reporting?
Mr. Fortin: Well, I don't have the numbers right now that I can provide to this committee, but I can certainly dig into that.
The RCMP, if I'm not mistaken, is receiving that information through the Americans on a monthly basis, the U.S. border patrol or Homeland Security. I think an exchange of information at that level is taking place. I don't know if the numbers could be provided to the committee.
The frustration that I'm trying to highlight is the typical case where I may ask somebody at the land border, "Park up to your left. You are not allowed to go. We need to look into your matter furthermore," and that person goes through. We do have the car, the training and everything, but the frustration comes from the field from our officers saying, "You're not entitled to get that car and take it back to the port." As the CBSA told the committee, you need to call the police because it's not under your responsibility and hope that somebody is down the road and may be able to stop them, which doesn't happen very often.
Senator Dagenais: You have indicated that the CIU wants the CBSA to "formally acknowledge the full powers and protections provided by peace officer status so that our members can enforce CBSA's mandate away from ports of entry, such as port runners, inland immigration removals among others."
Could you please describe how the CBSA's current stance on the peace officer status of your members affects their work? Why, in your view, does the CBSA maintain this stance? What, in your experience, has been the RCMP's position on this issue?
Mr. Fortin: That's a very good question.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you so much.
Mr. Fortin: Actually, I think that things are getting better. Our understanding is getting better, even though it is not perfect. We engaged with CBSA officials, and some of my folks from the union — actually, the entire national executive — met with the CBSA and had a concrete discussion about scenarios. What about, for example, if our folks who are performing inland enforcement — let's let us say we got information, there is a lookout — would go into a restaurant to arrest someone because the person is deemed illegal in Canada? We had concerns about having a third party maybe interfering when you are arresting that person, and things were not really clear. We were able actually to clear off the mandate of our officer.
Also, there is a huge difference right now between a police officer, who is a police officer 24 hours a day, seven days a week, versus CBSA folks who only when they are performing the mandate of either IRPA or also the Customs Act are considered, legally speaking, a police officer. A lot of our officers think that right now there should be also that recognition. We are like three-quarters police officer, but there is still one third or one fourth not there to protect them. If they see a crime, let's say they are going to the bank or doing other stuff, and they are in uniform, the concern is they still don't have the legal right to intervene in those matters.
It did happen, actually. There were a few cases brought to my attention that did actually happen when our folks were qualifying at a shooting range, and people were drinking beer, and it could actually get very ugly. It's in those situations that we still don't have the legal power to intervene, even though we are in full uniform or wearing a weapon. People may not see that distinction clearly at times.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you so much.
Senator Day: My first question, Mr. Fortin, is a point of clarification from the line of questioning of Senator Wells, and you were talking about the experimental work going on in the province of Quebec. The last comment I heard you say is the Americans are doing it well because they live there, and I'm not entirely clear what you were talking about when you made that comment.
Mr. Fortin: Thank you for allowing me to clarify, senator.
What we're saying is the Americans actually are out there. I was referring to the fact that there are 117 points of entry on the land border, and we are saying we know the communities. Our folks are living out there; they know the traffic. It would be a very small step, in our view, to give the mandate, and it could be jointly with the RCMP or under the CBSA to create these patrols under specific sectors in order to patrol and also to allow us to join the Shiprider program with our counterparts, the Americans.
There is a lot of frustration out there because we're saying we think we are the ones who actually know the client, and I think it would be very beneficial if we could create joint forces or a mobile team, especially right now when we see more and more technological equipment in the field. Equipment is good, but we have to keep in mind that normally that equipment is there to assist us, not to replace us.
We have some huge concerns. I just highlighted the ABC machine, but that technology is also coming to the land borders. There are a few pilot projects in 2015 that will be arising also. I'm looking more specifically at the mandate of this committee. As I said, I personally would have — and this is the officer speaking to this committee — a huge problem if we were not improving the security at major points of entry. Number one, with the border patrol and Shiprider, we need to be more proactive out there. We have been told that these resources would only be if they are putting more equipment or are shifting to places that are higher risk, and we don't see that right now. We don't see that at all taking place.
Senator Day: Just to expand on that, you've had 32 years of experience in the business, and we thank you very much for that service to the country. You've learned a tremendous amount over that time frame, especially now with your role as chair of that group.
Have you told us about all of the various items? You've talked about Shiprider and about a better exchange of information back and forth with respect to the United States. I was trying to make a list that expanded on your comments because I think that's how we can help you serve Canada better, if we can improve on the role you're playing now.
The United States made significant changes 12 or 13 years ago, and I'm getting the sense from you that we're still in silos here wherein we have different groups with different responsibilities and these IBETS or the combined border security groups are not working quite as well here in Canada as they are in the U.S. with respect to their border security. Am I reading your comments correctly? What should this committee be recommending to help you do your job better?
Mr. Fortin: First, at the very least, I think the CBSA should be able to explain why they are in front of this committee and then explain the fact that they are actually increasing the number of people on the front lines. Like I say, I was able to confirm before this committee that even with my own list of membership, there are 700 people, which is a decrease since 2011.
We've be told that we should be shifting resources to a higher risk place. One of the aspects I'm targeting is to be more proactive at the border crossings. Also, the lookout system should be more efficient and all of the information should be provided to the front-line officers at the primary inspection location.
I've been saying to the committee that even if you suspect a container to be carrying drugs, don't inspect it because we don't have enough resources. Things like that should not be happening in this country. It makes no sense to me that in 2014, because of a lack of resources, we are flagging stuff wherein my members are telling me, "You know what, Mr. Fortin, we think we should look at that, but because of a lack of resources, we are forced to let things go." That does not make any sense, from my humble point of view.
Senator Day: With respect to more information to the people on the front lines — I just want the committee to understand this — are you saying that at a border land crossing, the American side and the people who are working there with Homeland Security have more information and better sources of information than their Canadian colleagues who are working across the border?
Mr. Fortin: With regard to that aspect, senator, as I have said, I will get back to the committee with a comparison of what level of information both countries have on both sides of the border.
I give the example of an armed and dangerous individual; our officers are telling me that they would like to know at the primary booth whether that person is armed and dangerous because they want to protect themselves.
Right now, we do actually have accessibility to a very high level of information. I want to make that very clear to this committee. It's the time and fashion in which we can have access to that information that's important. That's the problem we are seeing. It needs to be immediately available at the primary inspection line. We need to know that information.
Senator Day: And you don't?
Mr. Fortin: We don't.
Senator Beyak: Thank you, gentlemen. What recommendations would you have for expanding and enhancing the cooperation you mentioned earlier between the various enforcement agencies?
Mr. Fortin: Right now, I would say that we have a good relationship with most police forces in Canada. Even up to a certain extent — and I would need to speak with my intelligence officer directly because normally when I get questions like that, I speak with the people who perform the work. I represent them, so I'm trying to make myself as credible as possible.
From the information I have now, we should be increasing the number of intelligence officers. With respect to the people who lost their jobs, when the CBSA told this committee they did not lay anybody off, they are right, but they did not replace someone who is taking his pension, for example, and that's the concern.
That's why I said in my brief that when you're not replacing an intelligence officer, you are cutting his position, and that's a concern, especially in this world where information is crucial to be effective on the front line; you cannot go and catch these members. Go in front of Parliament and say these are not front-line officers. They are front-line officers because they are doing the work that provides information to the front-line officers.
Senator Beyak: Secondly, I wondered what changes you would make to help the CBSA locate inadmissible persons. You mentioned something to that effect a little bit earlier, but I would like a little bit more information, please.
Mr. Fortin: I'm talking about a category of individual who can currently fly from a third world country, end up in Canada, and then they are stuck with either taking the person back or an old process of bringing them in front of a court or even spending a tremendous amount of time detecting if that person is not admissible.
If you know for a fact that they should not be allowed, there should be a mechanism to keep them in their country so they can apply from where they are instead of flying back to this country and then we may end up being stuck with an individual who is not admissible. There is a huge cost associated with that.
One last thing, if you allow me, has to do with the privatization of deporting these people outside of the country. If the government is moving forward by having not fully trained officers and by deporting people outside the country, they will be making a huge mistake.
Senator White: Thank you for being here today. I've worked with CBSA over a number of years and really appreciate the work they provide. I was very supportive when the expansion for CBSA officers to peace officer powers and firearms was moving forward; I felt it was probably a little late but appropriate.
At the time, there was a discussion — and I may have started it — around what point in time, if they become police officers, why would we not replace them with the police. If you are telling me that you don't have access to something that the RCMP has, why do we have two agencies and not one, realistically, rather than the duplication of efforts, resources, management systems and other things? Why wouldn't we go to one agency, like many countries in Europe and elsewhere have — not the U.S.?
Mr. Fortin: I've never thought about that. That's a very good question.
Senator White: Another very good question.
Mr. Fortin: It is.
I think the work our members perform right now is very specific, and I will give you a good example. Especially with the merger of immigration and customs by this government, which I think was a good decision, the knowledge you need to have is highly specific.
Just looking at customs, traffic officers versus commercial officers, the skills are different and you cannot be a good officer thinking that you will be a jack of all trades. The thing is, you would know about customs for travel information, for commercial entries, and immigration because we are talking about hundreds of laws here. I do strongly believe that it requires — otherwise you will have a lot of people in that box with very little knowledge. You need to keep the level of specific knowledge to a certain group of people.
Senator White: I appreciate that response. I do not want this to be construed as an anti-CBSA IMP, pro-RCMP, to be fair, but if I look at the impact the DRAP had on the RCMP specifically, they have taken a number of specialized units and folded them together to a federal unit. They now have drugs, immigration, passport, customs all working now in one unit, and they bring their expertise with them, of course.
I had the same discussion about Parliament Hill, to be fair, around having two security agencies and why we are not one. In fact, I would argue we should be one; it doesn't make sense to me, either.
Maybe we can have that discussion at some point about why in Canada, with 37 million people, and I agree, but right across those border locations — and I have policed a number of those locations where CBSA, at that time called something else, as well as RCMP always worked together. I have said all along it would have been much better from a service delivery perspective for me in Beaver Creek, Yukon, to have four RCMP officers instead of two RCMP officers and seven Border Service agents. I agree it may not be easier initially, but I am focused on the front line delivering service. I don't care who runs it. I wouldn't care what the name would be.
The Chair: And your question?
Senator White: My question is: Are you just trying to protect union versus non-union positions?
Senator Dagenais: That is another good question.
Mr. Fortin: I could say no. Well, I am trying to protect my membership, which is my mandate, but I am not trying to achieve that here. If you carefully read the brief that I put forward in front of this committee, one of the things I am saying is the first step for me — because I don't have the answer to say, "Should we become RCMP officers?" I am saying why do we not start with a joint border patrol and see how it works? I think that certainly would be a positive step in the right direction.
Senator Dallaire: This has been very informative. You did touch upon the government wanting to bring civil security firms into some of the movement of people and the risk there. I would like to know how far they are looking at that. Why do you think they are going that route?
I think that you should have been on Shiprider versus the RCMP, personally, not to go against Senator White. I raised that when we actually did that legislation. It made no sense to me why CBSA is not on those ships, at least also with the RCMP.
What I am getting at is the following: Apparently we are going to start introducing exit control. Do you see this as something that will be more valuable to you in achieving your aims or less valuable, or will you be seeing an introduction of something without resources, possibly? What is your feel for that side?
Mr. Fortin: In my humble opinion, from what I can see, it does create some confusion at this point in time. I think they have started doing that in Fort Erie, and there are a few other places where they are starting to do that.
Senator Dallaire: Trials, yes.
Mr. Fortin: The problem I am having is when you do not have the resources right now to even search shipments leaving this country; I am talking about stolen cars and drugs. The only reason, senator, why they are doing that at this point in time is to speed up traffic. They don't know the answer. I think they are trying to please a certain amount of people.
We get the fact that business has to go quickly through the border. We do understand that, but we have concerns with the balance of security versus facilities right now at the border. They are trying all kinds of initiatives like the one that you are pointing out right now.
I don't have the answer at this point in time if it will be more efficient, but the reason behind it is mainly because they are trying to speed up the expedition as quickly as they can, and right now it is mostly targeting the commercial entries.
Senator Dallaire: I may have misquoted it. The exit control I am talking about is people.
Mr. Fortin: Oh, I'm sorry.
Senator Dallaire: But thank you for that information.
Mr. Fortin: Can you elaborate a bit more on your question?
Senator Dallaire: The idea of introducing exit control, because we leave the country and there is no control, do you see that coming in and being a useful tool in gathering intelligence and monitoring it? Is there a project that you have been aware of that will also bring in resources to do that?
Mr. Fortin: We heard about it. I don't know how far the government will go. If you are talking about something like where the Americans are, let's say, at major airports, when you are leaving Dorval or Toronto right now, you are being cleared because you are seeing an American officer in Canada upon your leaving Canada. Absolutely, if that is what you meant, I think that could also work out well, especially into specific places.
The Chair: We have come to the end of our time.
I want to say thank you to our witnesses for attending. The information you have provided will be worthwhile to us when we look toward coming to some conclusions. If we need more information, we will contact you.
Mr. Fortin: Thank you for inviting me, senator.
The Chair: I'd now like to welcome Mr. Joe Bissett to our proceedings today. I see that he has had a long and distinguished tenure as a career civil servant, working in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and also as a diplomat.
I understand that you are appearing today as an individual and not on behalf of any group or association and that you're here to share your knowledge of the immigration screening system and some recommendations on what can be done to improve our system for determining admissibility and inadmissibility.
I want to welcome you to the committee. I understand you have an opening statement. Please begin. We have one hour for this panel.
James (Joe) Bissett, former Canadian diplomat, as an individual: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm really very happy to be invited to come before you today and tell you what I used to know and still know, I hope. I'm going to read my statement because I have quite a lot to stay, and it will take up too much time for me to speak from notes.
My presentation will focus on two main areas. The first addresses what I consider to be some of the major weaknesses in the current system of bringing people to Canada, the entry of non-Canadians into the country. The second part of my statement will deal with security issues arising out of our immigration policy and the so-called war on terror. I would like to address what I can see as a problem in terms of the numbers of Muslim immigrants that we are bringing to the country. It's politically incorrect, but I think it needs to be said and I am bold enough to say it. I'll start off with the entry control issues.
When I started out as a young immigration officer, my first job was to work in the minister's office as a liaison between the minister's office and the department. It was during the darker days of the Cold War. One day, the minister asked me to find out for her the number of visitors that had come into the country from the Soviet Bloc in the previous year. I hustled off and very quickly was able to get that information and give it to the minister. She perused it and then looked over her glasses at me and said, "Now, Joe, can you get me the number of the people who came in who have left the country?" I explained to her that that was impossible, that we could not tell her how many had left and had no system of doing so. She was shocked at that and looked over her glasses again at me and said, "God, I hope that the opposition and the media never find this out."
Well, that was over 50 years ago, and nothing has changed. We still have no system for knowing who has left the country. We know how many come in. We can give you a lot of details on that, but we don't know who left because we have no exit control system, no tracking system. I think that is one of the most serious weaknesses in our system.
We see that, in 2007, the Auditor General's report of that year indicated that there were 62,000 people who had appeared before the refugee board and had failed — were not considered to be genuine refugees. The government had a record of about 20,000 of these. They had an address for them, but 42,000 were missing and no one knew their whereabouts. Nobody seemed to be particularly concerned about that except maybe the Auditor General herself. I think the officials in the Homeland Security offices below the border probably had more concern about it than we did.
Not much has changed. The only significant difference is that the problem is much more serious now than it was even in 2007, and that is because of the tremendous volumes of immigrants, foreign temporary workers and foreign students who are coming into the country. The numbers are very high. The immigration flow is averaging a quarter of a million every year. It has been that high since 1990. Prior to that, in the eighties, for example, when I was in charge of immigration, we never went over 100,000 immigrants. Now we are getting large numbers — 257,000 last year, for example.
What's really new is that we've made the same mistake that Europeans made in the early 1960s. We began to allow into the country very large numbers of temporary foreign workers, and as the Europeans found out, the one characteristic that is common with a temporary foreign worker is that they're not temporary. They don't go home. There isn't a major European city now that isn't suffering from the after-effects of that mistake they made because they have a large underclass of former foreign temporary workers living in the suburbs of Paris or Berlin or in many other cities of Europe. It has caused a serious problem, primarily because most of the temporary workers were unskilled labourers who, when conditions improved, lost their jobs and didn't have the education, training or skills to adapt to the new kind of economy. It seems to me that we're going in that direction, unfortunately.
During the five year period 2008 to 2012, we have brought into the country over 1,450,000 temporary foreign workers. Along with that, we brought in 1,096,000 foreign students. We also brought in, in that period, 1,286,400 immigrants. These are extraordinarily high numbers, and they can't be processed adequately by the immigration officers abroad or by the Canada Border Services Agency. You've heard some of that from the speakers before me. As a result of that, the pressures of numbers have really exempted the vast majority of immigrants from even being interviewed or seen by a Canadian officer abroad. Few are seen now. If you are an immigrant in Dhaka and make an application, your application form will probably end up in a central processing office in Ottawa. Your documents will be perused and examined; all the trade and police certificates will be looked at. If everything is in order, a stamp will come down and you'll be issued your visa by mail. It will arrive in Dhaka, and the next day you will take an aircraft to Toronto or Montreal. You will never be seen until you get to the port of entry.
The security implications of that, as you can imagine, are pretty astounding, quite apart from the fact that immigrants no longer are being counselled by our officers telling them about living and working conditions in Canada and about places to go where they might get work in accordance with their occupation. There used to be long counselling sessions with immigrants and films to show them what to expect when they get to Canada. None of that is happening anymore. It is now a question of numbers.
The increase in the number of temporary foreign workers is a relatively new phenomenon brought about by the inability of our officers abroad to process the large number of immigrants that were coming to the country, and backlogs built up. There were over 1 million immigrants backlogged who had met all of the requirements and were waiting to come. They couldn't get here, of course, because they couldn't get processed in time. Sometimes a highly skilled worker would wait three years to get to Canada.
So instead of bringing in immigrants, employers started bringing in temporary foreign workers. I gave you the numbers — they were bringing them in by the thousands. Unfortunately, most of them are not highly skilled. Most of them were unskilled service workers in Tim Hortons, McDonald's, Subway or the slaughter houses in Manitoba — the abattoirs. They're good people but not equipped if they lost their jobs as unskilled workers. They were allegedly in for four years, but there was no tracking system. A temporary worker could leave his employer the day after he arrived and seek employment elsewhere. Who would know? That is a serious problem, in my view, and it will accumulate because one of these days we'll find suddenly that we have 1 million unskilled workers on our hands and no one knows who they are or where they are.
It is not as bad a problem with foreign students because even if they do stay — and some of them are allowed to apply to remain — they are skilled and educated and will adapt pretty quickly into economy. They are an asset. However, the unskilled foreign workers are another thing.
I will conclude at the end of that part of the session on a bit of a sweet note: The government is moving swiftly, I hope, to impose an exit control system. It's part of the long title, Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness announced by President Obama and Prime Minister Harper in February 2011. Quite a number of things that flowed from the announcement have made significant reforms in the system. One is that they are moving closer and closer to an exit system. Two or four customs posts along the border are going through a pilot project. The idea is that we will do it first along the U.S. border and then gradually move it into airports and seaports. Hopefully within a year or two, we should have a complete exit control system.
The sour part of the note, though, is: What if it works and suddenly we find that 50,000 or 60,000 or 100,000 foreign workers are still in the country? What will Canada Border Services Agency do about that? They couldn't do anything about the 42,000 that we knew were here in 2007. If you get 100,000 temporary foreign workers still here and you know they have not left, what will you do about it? That is a problem.
I want to move to immigration policy and what is called the war on terror. Canada moved quickly after 9/11 on the terrorist threat. We sent troops to Afghanistan and passed an omnibus anti-terrorist bill, which was controversial, but elements of it that were struck down by the courts are now back in. We set up a new Department of Public Safety, signed the Smart Border Action Plan with the United States, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America with the U.S. and Mexico, and the Shared Vision of Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness with the Americans. Flowing from these agreements, we also moved ahead with other significant programs to try to ensure that the bad guys don't get into Canada and that the security and safety of Canadians are strengthened.
Among the most important of these is the introduction of a biometric visa system, which has been introduced in a number of high-risk countries. It will significantly improve our screening procedures; there is no question about that. The Americans have had it for some time and the Australians have it now. It is a major step forward, as is the introduction of an Electronic Travel Authorization, ETA, which means that people coming to Canada from certain countries will have to go through a form of pre-screening before they are allowed into the country. That is also a big step forward.
One other thing I should mention is that one of the major problems we faced from a control and security point of view was the wide-open asylum system that we had. We allowed anyone from any country in the world to come here and make an application claim for refugee status. Because of the Charter, these people were entitled to full due process. We had as many as some 40,000 coming in every year and making claims. The backlogs built up such that anyone coming in and making a claim three or four years ago would have to wait three years before the claim was heard. In the meantime, of course, they had free housing, free welfare, and free medical, so it was extremely costly, in particular when roughly 70 per cent of those applying were found not to be genuine refugees.
In 2008, we had people from 188 different countries coming here claiming refugee status. We had Swedes, Swiss, French, and at least 2,000 or so Americans, many of them young men from California claiming to be refugees because they couldn't smoke pot in California. It was a very difficult situation that went on for many years. In fact, from 1985 when the first trickle of asylum seekers started coming to Canada to 2012, we probably had close to 1 million asylum seekers come here. Most of them are still here. Many of them were some of our more notorious terrorists, like Mohamed Mohamud and Ressam, the Los Angeles bomber. There was a report in 2006 that of the 25 serious terrorists identified in Canada, 16 had come in as asylum seekers.
That problem has pretty well been resolved by the bill that was passed in the summer of 2012 that made it possible for anybody who comes in from a designated country — i.e., a country that has signed the UN refugee convention, is obligated to look after refugees the same as we are, is democratic and follows the rule of law — to be given a quick hearing and sent home quickly if they are not genuine refugees. I think that has solved, at least temporarily, the asylum system problem.
By the way, it wasn't just Canada that had that phenomenon of asylum seekers. It started in the early 1980s and swept over Western Europe. In Germany in 1983, they had 430,000 asylum seekers. The following year, they had 380,000. In that year they changed their Constitution and passed some very tough legislation, which basically is the legislation we have whereby if you are coming from a safe country, you can make an application for refugee status, but it will be an accelerated hearing and removal if found not to be genuine.
Most European countries have that. They don't even allow someone from a safe country to apply for refugee status. Our law still allows them to apply and be heard, but in most European countries it is a 24-hour exercise. You can come in, and if you are from Canada or the United States, they will not allow you to claim and will turn you back. Those measures have certainly helped.
But because of the high volumes, we're not paying attention to the personal interview and for human intelligence to play a role in our screening. More importantly, the security screening itself is minimal.
I'm afraid I can't give you the date but it was around 2005. Before a House of Commons committee, Superintendent Hooper of CSIS testified that in Muslim countries they were security screening roughly one in ten applications. Whether they are still doing that, I can't say. But from my own anecdotal conversations with immigration officers I worked with who are still working — I am not going to name them — the incidence of people being referred to CSIS for security screening is very, very low indeed. Since people aren't being interviewed, it's a big risk, and I think it's the most serious risk that we face.
I have focused my attention today on the problem of Muslim immigration because I don't buy the idea that we are fighting a war against terror. We are fighting a war against Muslim extremism. If we're not interviewing people and not seeing them, we're taking very large numbers of Muslims from countries that we know produce terrorists. I will give you some of the figures. From 2000 to 2009, we received over 536,000 Muslim immigrants. These were Muslims who came directly from Muslim countries; they don't count the many thousands of Muslims we received annually from France, England and the U.S., so this is a low figure. But the fact is that in that 10-year period, we doubled the Muslim population of Canada. In the last two years, we have brought in 109,000 Muslims, again, directly from Muslim countries like Pakistan, Algeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia — from countries that produce terrorists.
If they are not being interviewed or very few of them screened for security, I think we're taking a serious risk. It's part of our system, and people don't like to talk about it, because they are afraid of being considered not politically correct, but it's an issue that should be looked at very carefully and discussed. Perhaps there are some sensible and fair means of trying to identify people, not after they've been here for three years and applied for citizenship and we find out that they really don't buy into the Canadian value system, but before they get here. That can be done, but it can only be done by personal interviews by very experienced officers who, within 10 or 20 seconds, can tell if the person in front of them is going to integrate comfortably in Canada and accept equality of the sexes, gay marriage, religious tolerance and the other values that we cherish.
The experience of Muslim immigration into Europe is not encouraging. There are very few countries with large Muslim populations that are not desperately coping with trying to integrate Muslim populations that don't seem to want to integrate. In Brussels, 29 per cent of the population is Muslim; 26 per cent of city of Amsterdam is Muslim. They are all having problems.
Chancellor Merkel has publicly stated that multiculturalism is not working in Germany. Why? Because of Muslim immigration. The Netherlands has put an end to multiculturalism and is insistent in their laws now that Muslims have to integrate. If they don't, they should return home.
I'm not saying we want to go that far and I'm not saying we have reached the tipping point, but we should be talking about it, examining it and looking hard at it. There are thousands, if not millions, of highly qualified Muslims we could be bringing to Canada, but how can we know if we are not talking to them, interviewing them and making a decision as to which ones can come and live comfortably here and make a contribution?
My recommendation is that we should certainly start to interview Muslim applicants from Muslim countries to determine if they are going to be able to live here comfortably and accept our cultural system and our values.
Perhaps it is not easily done; you have to certainly have highly trained officers who can tell you whether an immigrant from, say, Islamabad will adjust well here and integrate. We certainly did have such officers at one time. I've been to Islamabad and many Muslim countries in the 1980s, and we were careful about the selection because we had seen what had happened in other countries.
Finally, most of the issues your committee is dealing with are really part of a much larger problem; namely, the problem of Canadian immigration policy, which really has not been looked at carefully since 1976. That was when a thorough examination of immigration was done, with the joint committee of the House of Commons and the Senate and hearings right across the country to hear what ordinary Canadians felt about immigration policy and to get their views.
In the last two decades we have fundamentally transformed Canada through immigration, and the Canadian people have had nothing to say about it. They haven't been consulted. They haven't been asked. It's just been done. Perhaps it's for the good, but perhaps it's not. But at least we should be thinking about it and discussing it openly and with good common sense.
I was so pleased I had a chance to speak to you this afternoon because I think the Senate has a role to play. It was the British House of Lords that three years ago, I believe, called into account the British House of Commons and said, "You have been bulldozing your way through an immigration policy that does not make sense. You are bringing in 190,000 immigrants and transforming this island, and the British people have not had anything to say about it." They chastised Tony Blair and the government for not being open and honest.
It was the House of Lords that did that — not the House of Commons. It is a good example for the Senate.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Bissett.
The intention of the Senate hearings is to have a conversation with respect to the question of inadmissibility of individuals coming into this country and also, once they are in this country, how do you, with due process, have these individuals removed. We are looking at specific recommendations. The broader question you've put forward in immigration is a question in itself in many ways, but it does also touch on the study we are doing and in respect to the report that hopefully will be coming forward later on in the year.
Colleagues, if I could, I would like to start out with a question. It has to do with the fact that there are 100 million non-Canadians entering Canada annually through our borders. That means there are 90,000 daily coming through our borders, which is a very significant number. The numbers we're talking about in immigration, between temporary workers, refugees and actual immigrants — I think we're closer to 500,000 than, say, 300,000, if you add the numbers together. It is a significant amount of people coming into Canada. Our obvious hope is that they contribute to Canada, and eventually those who are applying to be citizens will become good citizens.
I want to go back to the screening. This is the part that really has come home to me over the few hearings we've already had. It seems we're doing little if any screenings in any of these countries, whether it is Sweden, Arabic countries or wherever. In order to maintain immigration in the country, how are we going to put a system in place where we make sure that we do that screening, which I think we have to do and should be doing from a security point of view? What would you recommend that we do in order that we can do it expeditiously and relatively cost effectively? There is also a price tag to this.
Mr. Bissett: There is screening being done, obviously by a targeting system of profiling. You would have to get a CSIS officer here to cross-examine them, but with the limited staff I don't think they are able to do much more than that because of the volume, if you're getting the large numbers that you mentioned coming in, quite apart from the Canadians coming across the border. When dealing with 257,000 immigrants, but on top of that almost as many temporary foreign workers and students, they simply do not have the staff do the deal with it. That's why they are doing it the way they are, but they are taking a serious risk with the security and safety of Canadians. The answer to it, of course, is to slow down the volume.
Now the temporary foreign worker, I think, is a temporary phenomenon. The government is already taking steps to get that under control. It came about as a result of immigrants having to wait three or four years to get here and it was being abused, no question. Why not bring in temporary foreign workers if you can pay them less and get them quickly? There are ways to deal with them in a different fashion and that is the seasonal farm worker program that we have operated since the mid-sixties. It works perfectly. We bring in seasonal farm workers from Mexico and the Caribbean. They work for farmers, work hard and go home. Why did they go home? One reason is that they don't get paid all of their salary here. If they want their full salary they have to go back to Kingston or Port-au-Spain or Mexico City to collect it. And there are other means of dealing with temporary foreign workers that can keep it under control, but our system had no control and doesn't now. That's a serious problem.
The volume of temporary workers will fall off. If that's the case and you only have immigrants and foreign students to deal with, then I think you can expand screening.
I was in London a long time ago, in 1972, and the annual immigration figure that year was 257,000. But I had a very large staff in London and we had officers all over the world, well-staffed and equipped. That's gone by the boards now and now the staff are very thinly spread and don't have the time and the means of doing the checking they know they should be doing.
One would be to drop the volume down. You see, part of the problem as well is that of the 257,000 immigrants we brought in last year, roughly 15 per cent were selected because they had skills, training and education. The rest are coming in because they have family here who are sponsoring them, because they are humanitarian cases or refugees, or because they are being brought in by the provincial governments, who now have much more active role in immigration. They are not applying the same selection standards that the federal government is, with the exception of Quebec. Quebec has its own selection criteria, standards and interviews applicants — all of them as far as I know. They don't just select them on paper.
The danger of the paper transaction is that in many of the countries, particularly in Asia and Africa, you can go to any marketplace and get whatever university degree you want and even a professional can't tell the difference. You can get trade certificates and buy police certificates from the local chief of police if you give him a few rupees. The paper we are looking at is not valuable or worthwhile, and yet that's how we are selecting the people now.
I don't think I really answered your question.
The Chair: It has certainly been informative.
Senator Dallaire: You are a witness that has got me sitting on both sides of this chair — one quite interested in some of the comments that you bring forward and the other one making me very uneasy from a human rights side to the focus of this nation being an immigration nation versus an emigration nation that we've seen.
It would be interesting to see how we could throw out every Canadian that doesn't believe in gay marriage or equal rights for women to start with, and at the same time avoid those who don't believe in that coming in. We have a whole bunch of them here that have nothing to do with ethnicity that believe that, so I'm not sure how that can be a criteria for us to select people to come in.
I am concerned about all the number crunching you have produced. Would you provide the references that you are using in order to produce those numbers? The number of refugee claimants to be found eligible versus ineligible; I have numbers that do not fit your numbers and they are much lower. My first point is to get that data; it would be rigorous and peer reviewed, if you don't mind, because they are significant in your statement.
Second, I saw the gastarbeiter scenario in Germany when I was serving there. It suited the Germans when they needed them, and when they didn't they became a pain in the neck. Industry is leading that exercise here and it behooves the government, who does not want to be involved in industry, to sort that side out as I believe they are starting to do. It's fine to get cheap labour, but you have a responsibility if you are bringing them. That side of the house has not been carried by industry. Every university is screaming for foreign students because they come in with a large amount of money and it allows universities to get ahead, and because we are underfunding the universities, they are keen to get the foreign students. We hope some do stay and are educated.
My conclusion from your number crunching is that the problem is not necessarily the fact that we need as many immigrants — because we know the population growth here is so low and we've got people wanting jobs all over the place — but it is that we simply don't put the assets to do the job properly. Why do you think that as we have significantly reduced the capability of doing the analysis that we used to do, which gave us a sense of security at a time in the Cold War when we did not have that worry like we do now, that we inversely do that so at a time of higher risk we are reducing the capability to do the assessments? What is your feel for the logic for a government doing something like that?
Mr. Bissett: All my figures and statistics are easily obtained from a wonderful publication called that Citizenship and Immigration puts out called Facts and figures from 2012, 2011 and 2010, and you can get anything. You can find out how many women came in during 2012 and how many husbands. It breaks it down and one of the sections gives you the immigrants by country. It takes a little while, but if you have your computer you can quickly confirm my figures. It's easily accessible and Citizenship and Immigration probably has more statistical information available for the public than other government departments.
It is the same with the refugees. The Refugee Board now is keeping accurate statistics on how many people come in and apply for refugee status, how many are accepted or refused. The 37,000, 40,000 are figures — 2008 was the 37,000 — but the new board has figures and you can go back and find out what the previous applications were.
The broader question is a more difficult one. My own view is, of course, I'm defending a retro-immigration policy, and it is: Why have we done so well with immigrants in Canada, up until the 1990s? The immigrants that have come to Canada since the 1990s are not doing well. Many are living below the poverty line; they're not getting jobs.
There are reasons for that. One is that there are perhaps too many of them to get any kind of counselling or assistance at the front end, but part of it is because we went away from relating immigration to the labour force. We used to select immigrants according to the major selection criteria. There were nine factors of selection. This was the famous, or infamous, points system that was introduced in 1967 so that we could get rid of our all-white immigration policy and move to an international universal system, allowing anyone anywhere in the world to apply; but to do that we needed criteria to select, otherwise we would have emptied Hong Kong and Jamaica in 48 hours. We set up these nine factors of selection. The key factor was the demand in Canada for your occupation. It was worth 15 points out of 100, but if you got zero on that occupation, you would be refused regardless of what you scored on the other factors.
Sometime in the early 1990s that was removed and we got away from selecting immigrants on the basis of labour force requirements. You have heard the term turning the tap on and turning it off. That's what we used to do. If we were going into a recession went sent out occupations with zero demand to slow the movement down and curtail the flow, because there is no point in bringing immigrants here if they can't get employed. If we were in buoyant times and we needed labour, we turned the tap on and sent out a long list of occupations with the demand factor high and we were able to control the flow in accordance with labour force demand.
When we got rid of the occupational demand, we lost the thermostat of the system. We could no longer turn it on or off. We put more emphasis on education. We started giving very high numbers of points for people with education, not realizing there were many thousands of young Asians in India, in Pakistan, in China who could meet the selection criteria without any trouble, and they did. Within six months there was a backlog of 600,000 of these young men and women waiting to come. They had already met the requirements. The act had been changed to say if they met the requirements they "shall be accepted." That was right in the act. Therefore, you couldn't turn them down, so the backlog built up to an enormous amount, a million and some, and there were efforts by both Liberal and Conservative governments to control that backlog.
Denis Coderre tried to do it by setting the pass mark higher, but it was retroactive and therefore ruled ex post facto by the Supreme Court and it failed. Kenney, the previous minister, was able to resolve it by returning the refunds to the people who had applied and taking them off the backlog list. So there isn't a large backlog now. To some degree we're going back to the labour force control system, so that there is now a list of 30 occupations in high demand and those people will be selected and brought to Canada.
Yes, some improvements in the system have taken place but the numbers are still very high. Even though the selection has changed, the volume is high because people who come in now are entitled to bring their relatives with them. By far the bulk of the immigrants coming here are not selected because they make contributions to the labour force or the economy. Grandparents and parents are coming in, in very large numbers.
All of this needs to be looked at, I think, and dealt with in Canada's interest and sensibly. It can be done. We've had the best immigration policy of any country in the world and it's a model for most, but it has gone off the rails now, I'm afraid, and has to be put back on.
Senator Dallaire: I had quite a significant problem with the targeting of Muslims versus other peoples who do not adapt, maybe the Hindus and God knows whatever. That one really irks me, but I'll pass.
Senator Wells: Senator Dallaire, I share your concern and comments regarding the Muslim issue that the witness spoke of, but while it may not be politically correct, there also should be a forum to have an open discussion no matter how uncomfortable we feel, and I share your feeling on it.
Mr. Bissett, thank you for your work in this sector throughout your career, starting way back when you were a staffer.
Mr. Bissett: Way, way back.
Senator Wells: Perhaps longer than I've been alive.
He said 50 years. I'm on the high side of 50, but still.
The Government of Canada recently — in fact late last week — announced, as you may be aware, the Canadian Immigrant Integration Program. Are you familiar with that?
Mr. Bissett: I must confess that I am not very familiar, no.
Senator Wells: It was just announced on March 21. I was looking it up earlier today. It uses foreign credential recognition, which you mentioned, and key information on Canadian labour market and settlement issues. Earlier, you mentioned — and I'd love to explore it in depth but recognizing we are on the clock — the question of the interviews and watching a video. If I go on a one-week vacation, I'll spend as much time looking at the Internet doing my research as I do actually on the vacation. Do you think times have changed with respect to the access that potential immigrants have when they are selecting Canada or a region of Canada to which they would like to emigrate?
Mr. Bissett: Yes, I think so. There's no question that modern communications have made a big difference. If someone has access to a computer and has television, and most people do, but not all of the ones coming to Canada do, they could certainly do that kind research themselves. But I think there was merit in the idea of sitting down with a family and giving them a half an hour of your time, telling them if you're going to Toronto here is what Toronto is all about and avoid a member of your own ethnic origin who tries to sell you $10,000 worth of furniture the day you arrive. They were practical hints of what you might expect on the first days of arrival to help pave the way.
I take your point. Certainly, there is a difference today, when they can get a lot of this information at their fingertips.
Senator Wells: I'm looking at some of the grant application inventories over the past couple of years: 270,000, 324,000, this year 387,000. Do you know what percentage is interviewed or what percentage just has the paperwork?
Mr. Bissett: I don't have a percentage figure.
Senator Wells: Is it 50 per cent? Is it more?
Mr. Bissett: No, it's not anywhere near 50 per cent. I would guess that one in ten or one in five is more likely.
Senator Mitchell: I'm very unsettled by what you said about Muslim origins. I'm very unsettled by that and I just want you to know that. I don't ever want us to have an immigration system that would somehow single out groups in some kind of predetermined, preconceived, pre-stereotypical way. I'm very unsettled by that.
I accept that we should be reviewing people properly, yes, and that's where I'd like to go. How do you know that we are not interviewing? We have a government that says it is. I disagree with it often, but I'm willing to accept it has been hard on immigration. My experience is that people can't even get their mother in to see their new child. They can't get their brother to come in to their wedding. I have a completely different view of getting into this country than you do.
My specific question is, how do you know that people are not being interviewed? What's your data? What's your source?
Mr. Bissett: Well, there are sources. My sources are mainly from immigration officers who have gone abroad on temporary duty and come back and tell me what they have experienced. In addition to that, the government itself has announced a new system for immigration in which it does say, pretty clearly, that they are going to be doing most of the processing in an automated fashion.
I had it in my notes at home the other day, and I reread it. It is a new system for dealing with immigration, and it was announced by the government. You can find that out. If you get some immigration officials in front of you, they will be able to tell you.
Senator Mitchell: We need to do that, yes.
The other side of it where I am quite shocked, but perhaps not surprised, is when temporary foreign workers come into the country, what you are saying is that nobody goes and checks to make sure that they left the country at the end of their two-year tenure; is that right? What is the basis for your saying that?
Mr. Bissett: Well, as far as I know, no one goes and checks; and as far as I know, no one is obligated to do that, and the foreign worker is not obligated to report to anybody. Who would he report to?
Senator Mitchell: Thanks.
Mr. Bissett: On the Muslim thing, I am shocked that you are shocked.
Senator Mitchell: Well, I am shocked. I'm actually quite offended, so be careful, please.
Mr. Bissett: If you look at what is going on in the world and if you look at the incidents that we have had here in Canada alone, we have had serious problems. An Environics poll in 2006 interviewed roughly 700,000 Muslims in Canada and found that 80 per cent of them were perfectly happy with the conditions in Canada and their life here; but 12 per cent of them, that is close to 70,000 of them, approved of the Toronto 18's objective in blowing up the —
Senator Mitchell: What is your source for that?
Mr. Bissett: An Environics poll in 2006.
Senator Mitchell: I don't believe that.
Mr. Bissett: That is just an indication. Sorry.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Since there is very little time left, I am going to shorten my preamble.
[English]
I have two short questions. On what basis do you believe that CSIS does not conduct security screening of foreign students or foreign temporary workers?
My second question is given the strong likelihood that 17- and 18-year-old foreign students will not appear in the files of either CSIS or its counterparts in the students' countries of origin, what are your views on how Canada should balance security concerns against the competing demands for workers?
Mr. Bissett: Well, as far as I know, CSIS does not do any kind of security screening on foreign temporary workers. They may do screening on a foreign student, if there is some reason to believe that they are coming from or going to a school to study a certain subject that is security sensitive; they may then do a check on the student, but generally speaking not.
I am not quite sure I understand the last part of your question on the 17- and 18-year-old students. They don't have any record of them; that is true.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Obviously, students who come to study here come from different countries. How is a certain level of security established in their regard? Do they come to Canada essentially to study or do they come here to stay here? How should we monitor all of that in your opinion?
[English]
Mr. Bissett: No, that is quite true. Many of the students that come here do intend to stay, but many do not. There is a provision now that if a student studies here — there is a period of time, but I'm not sure how long it is — they are entitled to apply from within Canada and they wouldn't have to go home to apply. So there is that provision.
But I agree, many of the 17- and 18-year-old students who come here, depending on the institution they are going to, may not have the intention, when they first arrive, of remaining; but after two or three years, they may decide that this is not a bad place and make an application to remain. I think that is a good provision in the procedures, to allow them to do that.
Senator Day: I was looking around the table thinking that we are all immigrants or products of immigrant families — every one of us around this table in Canada. We have always prided ourselves in having taken the opportunities that are available along the way. You are not suggesting that we have to abandon that pride and tolerance and religious freedom and opportunity that has made this country great and has given us a reputation around the world that is second to none.
I think you said since the 1990s there are some problems that have to be dealt with. I think if we can build on that, and given the experience that you obviously have, having worked in the area, I have made a note of a lot of the points that you have made, and I think they are helpful.
If there are any others that you want to bring to our attention, now is the time to put them on the list: more resources, more personal screening, law changes — and you concede that most of the law changes with respect to refugee claimants have been made. With respect to immigrants, there is the focus on job market needs, or a refocus on job market needs. You are not too happy about family reunification, and that has always been one that I thought was a very tolerant and worthwhile program.
Mr. Bissett: Let me say this: I have spent many, many years in the immigration service, and I firmly and devoutly believe in immigration; I am not anti-immigration. I think we had the best immigration policy in the world, and I think we are all aware of that. However, since the 1990s, we have gone off the rails a bit, and I think it is time to do a thorough, ongoing review.
We are one of the only countries in the world that relies on foreign labour to meet our labour force needs. Most economists will say that is a sign that there is something structurally wrong. You shouldn't have to do that. We don't look at that. We don't have a national labour force policy. We are probably the only industrialized country in the West that doesn't have an apprenticeship system built into our secondary school system.
Senator Dallaire: Very good point.
Mr. Bissett: We have our problems. One of the reasons I think we rely on foreign labour is that it avoids the necessity of building colleges and institutions that can train our young high school kids who aren't going on to university in trades and occupations that are in demand. Why spend millions of dollars setting up an institution to train Canadian students when you can get all of the labour you want much more cheaply than that?
I saw that myself in London in the 1970s. Westinghouse would come over to London and literally buy 20 or 30 British toolmakers and bring them to Canada by offering them $2 more an hour than they were getting in Manchester or Birmingham.
It takes seven years and a lot of money to make a good toolmaker. We invested nothing in that; Westinghouse didn't have to pay a penny.
There are many things we could do, but I think we are relying too much on foreign labour and not enough on matching our young people with the kind of skills they need for today's labour force.
Senator White: I want to reiterate the comments earlier. I think everyone around this table comes from immigrants at some point in time, by extension at least. I think it is what builds this country. I think it is one of the only countries in the world you can become a Canadian in a few years. There are other countries where you can become a citizen of that country, yes, but an actual Swede or an actual Swiss is a different story. I think it's what makes this country great. I'll get past that now.
My point is the fact that we do collect fingerprints from refugee applicants arriving in this country today. We do it to ensure that we know who they are. What we don't do, I would argue, is compare them against the 800,000 sets of fingerprints captured by the U.S. military up until 2010 in Afghanistan alone to ensure that they are not somebody else that we should be worried about. When we capture biometric data, do you see an opportunity for us to start being more aggressive by comparing it against the multitudes of countries that have captured biometric data already, rather than just focusing on "I know it is Joe Bissett" instead of worrying about whether Joe Bissett had a particular occasion in Kabul, in 2006, that should be of concern to us? Would that not assist us?
Mr. Bissett: I certainly think it would, yes. Definitely.
The Chair: Senator Beyak, if you can get to your question fairly quickly, this will be the last question.
Senator Beyak: I found your comments frank and refreshing. You carefully noted that it was Muslim extremists that were the problem, not Muslims, so thank you for that. I agree that we need an open, honest debate on any issue that's been well documented as a problem in other countries. Your knowledge is vast. I'm so impressed.
I wanted to ask about students. You said foreign students are normally an asset. Would CSIS worry about scientists and foreign students coming in and stealing our technology and perhaps espionage? Would you have any comment on their work with academia in that way?
Mr. Bissett: I think that, clearly, they are concerned about that. There is no question. I think they have examples of how espionage has actually taken place through the foreign students. I think that is a risk that we have to run because you don't want fear of that happening to stop you from bringing in foreign students.
The other problem on the security side that is important to realize is that your average terrorist is not a criminal. He doesn't have a criminal record. He is a clean living, young guy who has been brainwashed into thinking he can come here and set a bomb off and kill people. They are very hard to detect because they don't have a criminal record. The really hardcore terrorist is not going to come through the immigration system. This is one of the really serious problems in dealing with the so-called war on terror. It gives the security services a tremendous problem.
Senator Day: Mr. Chair, could I just follow up on my colleague's point?
The Chair: Be very quick, please.
Senator Day: I am just concerned that some of the terrorists of today, here in Canada, are second generation and were not immigrant, Muslim terrorists. They are homegrown, here in Canada. I think it is important that we put that on the record. Maybe Mr. Bissett would like to comment on that?
Mr. Bissett: I think there is no question about it. Almost all of the Toronto 18 were born in Canada. Khawaja, the one who had the instrument for setting off the bomb in London, was Canadian born. It's a phenomenon that's been recognized. Many of these young Somali boys who have gone back to fight for al Shabaab are Canadian born.
The Chair: I want to thank our witness for taking time to come to present to us. You obviously bring a wealth of information with the background that you've had in your working career.
I want to make this comment: I think that the conversation we are having here is very healthy, and I think we should be prepared to have that conversation. The reality of it is one of the reasons we are having these hearings is because of the security or lack of security at our borders due to the terrorism threat across the world. We have not only been given evidence at this committee that there were about 130,000 Canadians absent from our country actually participating in terrorism organizations around the country, we just learned recently — the other day, there was a press release — that 80 Canadians who have actively participated in terrorism activities outside the country are back in Canada. This is very serious. It is one of the reasons why we have to look at our rules and how we are conducting ourselves at our borders and who we are allowing into this country. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention. I am sure that we will have something to say about that when the report comes to some conclusions.
Thank you, Mr. Bissett. I would like to excuse you and to ask everybody to stay for a few minutes. We are going to go in camera to discuss a couple of issues and then come back into the formalities of the committee.
Mr. Bissett, thank you very much for appearing.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
The Chair: Senator Dallaire, you have a proposal to put forward for our travel.
Senator Dallaire: I believe that it is essential travel for the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs to go to the last hospital that is under the auspices of Veterans Affairs Canada to look at how that transition process is going and how the veterans who are there, who are essentially World War II and Korea veterans, will be handled with regard to the transfer of the hospital to the provincial government and also to look at the PTSD clinic, which is the only one that has actual beds, and where it sees its continued role within a now provincial-based hospital with a supposedly veterans wing to it. I think it is timely that we go. It would also be quite appropriate to thank the staff, some who have been there over 40 years and who will be moving on because of the transfer.
The Chair: Any other comments?
Senator Dallaire: I would like to move that we adopt this proposal.
The Chair: Seconded by Senator White. Is it agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Senator White, I understand you have a proposal that you would like to put forward?
Senator White: Yes. I would like to propose that, like Senator Dallaire, we spend some time with Joint Task Force 2, which is a segment of CANSOFCOM and which just completed their 20th anniversary, having taken over from the Special Emergency Response Team, which was an RCMP contingent. They have been very active overseas, in particular in Afghanistan. As they are a secret component of national defence, it would be helpful for us, as we deal with national defence issues, to have a better understanding of the service they provide. They are certainly willing to have us visit there and spend half a day or a day with them. It is about a 45-minute to an hour drive, and I think others would also gain from that experience. So I would move that as well.
The Chair: So moved by Senator White. All in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
(The committee adjourned.)