THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 6, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met with videoconference this day at 11:30 a.m. [ET] to examine, and report on, the Canadian foreign service and elements of the foreign policy machinery within Global Affairs Canada.
Senator Peter M. Boehm (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, my name is Peter Boehm, and I am a senator from Ontario. I am the Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
[English]
Before we begin, I wish to introduce committee members participating in today’s meeting. Senator Gwen Boniface, from Ontario; Senator Mary Coyle, from Nova Scotia; Senator Amina Gerba, from Quebec; Senator Peter Harder, Deputy Chair, from Ontario; Senator Leo Housakos, from Quebec. Welcome to the committee, senator. Senator Michael MacDonald, who is not here yet; Senator Ravalia, who is also not here yet; Senator Richards, from New Brunswick; and Senator Woo, from British Columbia.
I wish to welcome all of you, as well as people across Canada who may be watching us today.
Today we continue our study on Canada’s foreign service. As you know, the objective of the study is to evaluate Canada’s foreign service and foreign policy machinery, that it is fit for purpose and ready to respond to global challenges today and in the future.
[Translation]
While Global Affairs Canada plays a leading role in defining, advancing and representing Canada’s interests abroad, it often draws from, and collaborates with, other federal departments and agencies to fulfill its responsibilities.
[English]
For today’s meeting, the committee will begin to look at how the mandates and the work of Global Affairs Canada, the foreign service and other government departments intersect.
For the first part of our meeting, we are pleased to welcome, from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service — or CSIS, as it’s known — Newton Shortliffe, Acting Deputy Director, Operations; and from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, also via video conference, Liam Price, Director General, International Special Services.
Welcome, and thank you for being with us today. We’re ready to hear your opening remarks, which should be about five minutes each, and these will be followed by questions from the senators on the committee.
Mr. Shortliffe, I believe you’re starting. The floor is yours.
Newton Shortliffe, Acting Deputy Director, Operations, Canadian Security Intelligence Service: Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Newton Shortliffe. I am the acting deputy director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I thank you for the invitation to speak to you today and to respond to your questions on this topic.
[Translation]
This morning, I’d like to begin with a quick overview of the agency’s mandate to provide the context for our activities and footprint abroad. All of the activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, flow from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, which sets out the agency’s mandate and powers. First and foremost, the agency investigates threats to Canada’s security.
The act defines the threats in respect of which the agency is authorized to conduct investigations: espionage, sabotage, foreign interference, terrorism and extremism, and subversion. The agency advises the government on these threats, particularly ahead of intelligence assessments and reports. The agency also takes measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada.
Lastly, at the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs or Minister of National Defence and with the approval of the Minister of Public Safety, the agency may collect foreign intelligence on the capabilities, intentions or activities of a foreign state, within Canada.
[English]
The increasingly interconnected and global nature of security threats means that CSIS cannot fulfill its mandate in isolation. Information sharing has been and remains fundamental to the Government of Canada’s national security requirements. Cooperation with federal domestic partners and foreign agencies provides CSIS access to timely information linked to any number of potential or specific threats to Canada, which might otherwise not be available. Relationships with federal partners are essential to active CSIS investigations and facilitate both lawful sharing of information and provision of advice as well as operational deconfliction.
CSIS officers stationed in various countries around the world collect and share security intelligence information related to security threats to Canada and its interests with its allies. Under section 12 of the CSIS Act, the service may investigate threats to the security of Canada both within and outside of Canada. This international work often relies on the support of our domestic partners such as Global Affairs Canada, the RCMP, and the Department of National Defence.
CSIS has more than 300 foreign relationships in 150 countries and territories, each authorized by the Minister of Public Safety and supported by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in accordance with the CSIS Act. The process to establish arrangements with foreign agencies is stringent and takes into consideration a wide range of issues, including Canadian security requirements, respect for human rights and the reliability of the agency.
Prior to seeking the minister’s approval for new arrangements, CSIS proactively consults with Global Affairs Canada in instances where there are specific human rights or foreign policy considerations. CSIS engagement with foreign entities must align with Canada’s laws and legal obligations. This includes ensuring that CSIS remains fully compliant with the requirements outlined in the Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities Act.
CSIS provides an annual report to the Minister of Public Safety outlining CSIS’s implementation of those requirements during the previous calendar year and publishes public information on that implementation process. CSIS, working alongside its Government of Canada partners, including Global Affairs Canada, plays an integral supporting role in helping to advance Canada’s broader foreign policy priorities. The service does so principally by leveraging its overseas footprint and intelligence partnerships. When synchronized with other Government of Canada’s efforts and augmented by the services of other intelligence capabilities, these additional channels of communication and coordination have a forced multiplier effect on the protection of Canadians and Canadian interests.
Recent global crises, including the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the illegal invasion of Ukraine, have reinforced the importance of cooperation with global partners. As global tensions and conflicts continue to shape geopolitical dynamics, CSIS remains committed to working with our Canadian partners, including the RCMP, Global Affairs Canada and our international partners to ensure CSIS is delivering on its mandate to protect Canadians at home and abroad.
With that, I will be happy to take your questions. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Shortliffe.
We will now move to Mr. Price. You have the floor.
Liam Price, Director General, International Special Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me today to speak on behalf of the RCMP regarding our international presence and its contribution to Canada’s foreign policy efforts.
[Translation]
My name is Liam Price, and I am the Director General responsible for International Policy at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, which is part of the federal policing program. I am in charge of the network of RCMP personnel working abroad, country operations under the Canadian Police Arrangement, and the RCMP’s Interpol and Europol country bureaus.
[English]
Together, our network abroad, our peace operations and our Interpol and Europol bureaus play a key role in fostering international law enforcement collaboration and contributing to making a safer and more secure Canada. I understand you’re most interested in our network abroad, and I will focus my brief opening remarks there.
Pursuant to our duties under section 18 of the RCMP Act, the RCMP maintains our international network in order to prevent crime, enforce the law and protect Canada, Canadians, our allies and the global public. We do that in a variety of ways, including sharing information, working with foreign partners to intercept criminal ventures before they reach our borders, assisting police agencies around the world in searching out fugitives, collecting information to inform ourselves on criminal threats, and capacity building to foster proper police-to-police cooperation among all law enforcement.
The RCMP’s international network consists of approximately 64 resources in 29 countries around the world who serve as liaison officers and civilian criminal intelligence analysts. Most of the network works out of one of 33 Canadian missions globally. Some are also embedded directly with partner agencies. Our network serves as a critical link between police agencies in Canada and police overseas. It enables Canadian police to pursue investigations of an international scope quickly and efficiently. It further supports a consistent approach to information sharing with foreign partners in accordance with our obligations under the Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities Act, or ACMFEA. Finally, it strengths the rules-based international order through the delivery of capacity building in a variety of countries around the world, including fragile and conflict-affected states.
The RCMP is a signatory to the Global Affairs Canada-led memorandum of understanding on operations and supported missions. This MOU provides the framework for GAC’s delivery of common services in support of international programs of client departments, including ours. When considering changes to the RCMP’s network abroad, such as the opening, expanding or closing a post, we work closely with Global Affairs and its committee on representation abroad. Additionally, throughout the year, we participate in a variety of interdepartmental forums, locally in missions overseas and at the headquarters level in Ottawa to help ensure the effective delivery of Canada’s overseas platform and the RCMP activities. The RCMP also contributes to the development of the Government of Canada’s foreign policy initiatives when consulted to ensure law enforcement perspectives are unincorporated.
On matters relating to RCMP program activities, on operational policing and investigations, as well as RCMP program expenditures, RCMP personnel abroad report directly to RCMP management at our national headquarters in Ottawa. The RCMP retains command and control of these resources, recognizing, however, that they have a duel accountability to the local head of mission for in-country activities and duty of care pursuant to the DFATDA.
The RCMP is a proud part of Team Canada abroad, and our liaison officers will, at their discretion, provide heads of missions and others with information on their activities. Of note, the RCMP has one officer deployed at GAC in a protective liaison on role. However, this is separate from our international network.
The RCMP routinely collaborates with all government departments deployed abroad, and we draw tremendous strength from this collective approach. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and I would be happy to take your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Price, for your comments.
Colleagues, I want to remind you that you will each have a maximum of four minutes for the question and the answer, so it’s probably in your interest to keep the preamble as short as possible and to be concise. Indicate your interest for asking a question either to me or to Madam Lemay, the Clerk of the Committee, and we’ll try to get everyone in. Of course, we can go to a second round as well.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you to our witnesses. My question is directed to both of you. Our historical digital security foundation has relied on our relationship with the Five Eyes countries, and perhaps more recently with Japan and its interest in being part of this group.
With the global shift in security threats, do we need to enhance our security digital relationships into the Indo-Pacific, South America and Africa, or do you feel the current framework within which you work is robust enough to maintain security and your relationships with other countries?
Mr. Shortliffe: Thank you, senator, for your question. As I understood it, you were asking specifically about the digital footprint. We’re constantly looking at the threat environment. We’re constantly looking at how it is evolving. The rise of cyber issues and the need for data is one that we’re very alive to and, frankly, is one that we’re looking at from the point of view our own mandate and whether or not our own mandate permits us to make as effective use of the new technologies as it currently does.
In terms of the threat environment, there’s no question but that the Indo-Pacific region is one that we’re looking at more closely as an area in which we need to pay attention because of the threats to the security of Canada that emanate from it.
I can’t really comment specifically about the digital nature, but I can say that we are looking at whether there needs to be, from a service point of view, greater investment in that area.
Mr. Price: Thank you senator for your question. I pick up on Mr. Shortliffe’s comments and agree wholeheartedly with what he said. I might just pick up on your question in a couple spots, senator.
Number 1 is the importance of the Five Eyes. Our allied relationships are incredibly important to the global law enforcement fight across all crime types — national security, transnational organized crime and financial crime — all of which are priorities of the RCMP at the federal level. Those exist not only in the cyber realm but also in the physical realm. We draw tremendous strength from working with them on the ground, not just in each other’s countries but around the world.
To the point on the Indo-Pacific, we have made early, new investments tackling things like child sexual exploitation, which exists in the online and digital space, as you’ve suggested in the region. We’re also interested in what more can be done there.
In terms of the question of digital relationships, I would add that nothing replaces the person on the ground, the person down range working directly with the individuals in the other countries. So I would not suggest that digital relationships can ever replace that sort of point of presence.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you to the witnesses. My question is for Mr. Price.
The RCMP’s International Policing Program relies on a network of liaison officers and analysts working around the world. As the link between police services in Canada and their host countries, these individuals fulfill a crucial function.
This is my question. Can you tell us how you select those officers and what criteria you use to determine which country they go to?
Mr. Price: Thank you for your question, senator. I’m going to answer in English, if you don’t mind, so that I can provide a clear answer.
[English]
You’re absolutely right, selection of our liaison officers and our analysts abroad is critical because they have such unique capabilities and such large investments for the RCMP when we put them in a foreign country. The selection process for liaison officers generally runs the course of almost the entire year before we deploy people. After they’re selected, they go through a comprehensive training program.
In selecting them, we look at a number of factors, for example, the experience of the individual, their language skills, the threat environment of the country that they may be going to, the relationships that they may already have and then also the softer skills that are absolutely critical to being successful in the international arena. That is to say, diplomacy skills, their ability to work independently and proactively on their own, those sorts of things.
It is a time-consuming process, but one that we do feel works relatively well.
I would also add, we keep in mind the RCMP’s equity, diversity and inclusion strategy in attempting to ensure our liaison officers and analysts deployed abroad reflect the face of Canada and our values when we’re going out there. We have more work to do in that regard, but that is part of our calculus as well.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I have another question for Mr. Price.
According to the latest available data, liaison officers are currently deployed to 26 countries. Do you think that’s enough?
Mr. Price: Again, thank you for your question. It’s a hard one to answer. If you ask me, my preference is always to have a more extensive network abroad.
[English]
That said, I believe what we’re doing is effectively and strategically deploying them to the best of our abilities within the resources that we have.
We are a nimble network, and so we’ve been able to move resources from one area to another in response to changing threat trends, but we’ve also found ways to maximize investment by placing people in strategic locations, like Europol in Europe where you can access more than one country at once.
Would we expand the network further? We continue to look at ways to do so, but that’s always a challenging reality.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
Senator Woo: Thank you to the witnesses. My question builds on Senator Gerba’s and has to do with the recruitment of fresh talent into your respective agencies.
The prior question is whether you hire new staff specifically to work in international assignments, and if you do, whether there is an overlap in the skill sets that these individuals have with recruits to the foreign service to principally studying the foreign service. What I’m trying to tease out here is the extent to which there’s overlap or a difference in terms of the different types of international recruitment efforts you make, and ultimately whether you see GAC as a competitor, if I can put it that way, for the talent pool to enter into internationally oriented work of the Government of Canada?
The Chair: Can we go to Mr. Shortliffe on that, Senator Woo?
Senator Woo: Both.
Mr. Shortliffe: Senator Woo, we don’t recruit specifically for international service. What we do is we recruit all kinds of different staff to service our mandate. When it comes time to staff our international presence, we make a process available whereby people can apply and be assessed for suitability to be abroad. It’s very similar to the process that Mr. Price was explaining for the RCMP in which we have a fairly rigorous process for assessing whether a candidate is appropriate. We examine their language capabilities, we examine their suitability. It also depends on what role they’re going to be playing when they are abroad, because there are a number of different types of positions for our staff who go.
For those who are selected, we sometimes find that there are those that have an affinity for service abroad, and they’ll sometimes do multiple assignments over the course of their careers, so we gain expertise in terms of working abroad. But in terms of our initial intake, we’re not specifically recruiting for that.
However, it is a selling point. When we’re recruiting for people to join the service, we do say this is one of the things that a career in the service can make available, and that is a selling point for our employees. Rather like the RCMP, we’re making great efforts to recruit from across Canada. We’re making efforts to improve the diversity of our staff to make sure we reflect the face of Canada. This is of great value to us both for our domestic operations and for our foreign footprint.
People who understand the communities that we serve is of great value to the service, so we’re very conscious of that and we’re recruiting with that in mind.
Mr. Price: Echoing Mr. Shortliffe, we don’t recruit specifically into the RCMP for the liaison network. Normally our liaison officers and analysts are mid-career folks who go abroad, building on their track record of domestic experience to bring that sort of police-to-police angle.
That said, on our peace operations side, we try to draw from the best of Canadian law enforcement. These days, about 60% of our personnel that are deployed overseas for peace operations don’t actually come from the RCMP, they come from one of 33 or 34 other Canadian police agencies. And as Mr. Shortliffe said, it’s a real selling point for that interagency collaboration and to draw folks to the federal RCMP family.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Harder: Thank you to our witnesses.
Both of you have referenced the MOU that’s in place to ensure coherence across the Government of Canada. I’d like to do a health check on that. Are there improvements to the MOU that your organizations would see as appropriate?
Mr. Price: What I can offer is that the MOU was recently updated, and I would applaud Global Affairs Canada on their continued efforts to increase transparency and increase the sharing of information across that. It’s a robust conversation. It can always be better, but I wouldn’t put my finger on anything specific. And they are working on it.
Mr. Shortliffe: The service’s MOU with Global Affairs Canada is a little bit older, it dates to about 2009, but frankly, it’s quite flexible. It articulates the nature of the relationship that our staff who are deployed abroad would have with the station, the financial arrangements and things like that which are made. There are provisions for ensuring that there’s management discussions between Global Affairs and the service.
There are no real gaps at this time that I can think of in terms of the MOU itself.
Senator Harder: I’m very pleased to hear that.
I would like to talk a little bit about the practicalities of that cooperation around a couple of subject areas; one is a duty of care. Certainly, we’ve had situations where our missions abroad have had security issues, presumably to the extent that you had personnel in those missions. The duty of care questions would have been one in which your organizations were a part of.
Could you talk us through a little bit about how the Government of Canada can coordinate better on the duty of care issues that are confronting us in certain missions?
Mr. Price: No problem, senator, thank you for the question. I would suggest that the duty of care is an ever-present concern for me and for my program. We are putting folks down range, sometimes in challenging environments, and it starts in the mission. It starts in the mission with the mission’s security committee, with the Career Management Manual, or CMM, the management team, and the strength of that management team really is the strength of the collaboration.
Having served abroad twice, I’ve had the benefit of being part of some great management teams that are very collaborative, through the pandemic, for example. It was a situation where we definitely had to manage the duty of care to our personnel.
But then back in Ottawa, it goes to those interdepartmental tables, which I know you’ve been part of over many years, and sadly, we have muscle memory on them now to work through, having worked through situations a number of times.
I’m very comfortable that those mechanisms are robust. They’re based on trust, and they’re based on processes that we sadly have had to use.
The Chair: Mr. Shortliffe, can you give us a short response?
Mr. Shortliffe: The duty of care starts at the mission with the head of mission. There’s a positive responsibility according to our MOU with the head of mission and, of course, the shared responsibility of their own management, myself included, back at the service.
We work very closely with Global Affairs. I can think of quite a number of incidents, sadly, where the duty of care has been at the top of mind for the head of mission, for our staff, and where we received excellent support from Global Affairs for staff who were in difficulty. This is during the pandemic but also more recently in some other situations. It is a top-of-mind issue.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much to Mr. Shortliffe and Mr. Price for being with us here today as we examine Canada’s foreign service. Your testimony to this point has been very helpful. I’m curious about a number of things. The first thing I will ask, simply, is about mobility. Is there much employee mobility that you are witnessing among Global Affairs, CSIS, RCMP and other Canadian actors working in the international realm? If there is, where is it, in which directions? Is there something we should know about that? If there isn’t, is this something that is desirable? Are there impediments to it?
Mr. Shortliffe: To answer the first question, is there mobility? There is. There are staff who will sometimes go from the service to Global Affairs; they will change departments. Sometimes members of Global Affairs, including at some senior levels, changed departments to come into the service. This is good because it brings in fresh perspectives and fresh ways of looking at things. It helps keep the service energized.
The service is a separate employer. The director has considerable authority over our staffing. Are there any real impediments? Not really. Our staff don’t become part of priority lists and things like that, but when we want these things to happen, it can happen.
We also do, from time to time, second staff to Global Affairs and other departments. This is done where we continue to pay the employee, and we do it for their development. That’s a fairly long-standing practice in a number of different quarters. Those employees stay as CSIS employees and will come back. That kind of movement does occur as well.
Mr. Price: I would add, from the RCMP’s perspective, there is mobility on the civilian side, analysts moving back and forth, project management folks moving back and forth. It is less so when it comes to police officers who are returning to the policing profession in Canada when they return home.
That said, one of our reasons for deploying police officers abroad is the tremendous experiences that they gain and that make them better police officers when they come home. We find that is a huge takeaway that they get from missions abroad. I wouldn’t necessarily look at that as a negative in terms of mobility. We are getting back better Canadian police officers when they get back from a mission.
Senator Coyle: What are your observations of your counterparts within the Five Eyes and the relationships that they have with their international counterparts within their respective countries? Is there anything we can learn from those relationships that could inform our study on the Canadian foreign service? Any best practices?
Mr. Shortliffe: I don’t know if there are any best practices. We do talk to them quite frequently about how they do these things. The major takeaway I would normally have is that they face similar issues to ours, whether it’s difficulties recruiting staff or the challenging environment. Some countries have a different arrangement where perhaps more people flow back and forth, but, again, I think that’s more particular to their countries as opposed to ours. As I said earlier, I’m not sure there is any particular lesson we need to draw at this time.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Housakos: I have a couple of questions for our witnesses here today. On a number of occasions, the RCMP and CSIS have flagged that we have seen an increase in foreign interference here in Canada and that Canada is very much at risk from certain nations which are operating in a nefarious fashion. Would our witnesses let us know if there are any legislative tools that we can give them — for example, a foreign registry influence act or any other legislation — that would help them in pursuing this particular work that they have flagged in the last little while?
The second question is, of course, after what happened in Afghanistan and Kabul, all Canadians feel a degree of shame of how we let down our friends and supporters in that country. It seems our allies had better intelligence. It seemed that they were more diligent in getting their supporters out of Afghanistan.
My question on that issue is, was it a failure of lack of intelligence? Was it a failure on the part of Global Affairs or Immigration Canada to act? Or was there just not enough political resolve to take action?
The Chair: Senator, I think the questions go a bit beyond the mandate of the study, but we’ll see if our witnesses would like to attempt to answer. Mr. Shortliffe?
Mr. Shortliffe: In regards to your first question, senator, on foreign interference, it is a major concern for the service. It takes a number of different forms. We are very concerned about any interference with individuals, with communities and with our democratic processes. Does the service need additional legislation? Well, our CSIS Act is quite old, notwithstanding that we did have a refresh on some of our powers in 2017. There are elements that need to be modernized, particularly to allow us to make better use of data and issues like that.
In terms of what specific measures would be valid to see, that’s something that is really a political decision, and that is a matter for discussion with our partners, including the Department of Justice and other parts of government for public safety.
In terms of your second question, was Kabul a failure of intelligence? We actually had very good intelligence. Canada did quite a lot and is continuing to do quite a lot — I’m sure your IRCC witness may speak to this later — to try to remove people or to get people out of Afghanistan. But this was a very fast-moving situation that unfolded in Kabul. The government fell much faster than anyone expected. Canada, of course, has limitations on what it is practically able to do.
Mr. Price: I would just echo what Mr. Shortliffe said and add one thing. We do take threats of foreign interference incredibly seriously. We investigate them. I would just encourage Canadians watching this across the country who feel that they are victims of harassment and intimidation, coercion, et cetera, to absolutely come forward to their local police of jurisdiction or to call our National Security Information Network. These are top of mind for us, working with our Government of Canada partners.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Boniface: Thank you to both witnesses for the work that you do, both in Canada and abroad.
My initial question is for Mr. Price. You mentioned 64 members in 29 posts. How does that compare to past years? I worry a bit about staffing issues within the RCMP and, therefore, I’m quite interested in whether or not that’s affected your deployment abroad.
Mr. Price: In terms of staffing issues in the RCMP and whether that has affected our postings abroad, it has not. We are still an incredibly attractive program for applicants. We have at least a 10 to 1 applicant ratio to deployment ratio, so I’m happy about that. That is down a bit over previous years, but we’ll see how that is post-pandemic. I expect it to bounce back.
In terms of our growth over time, we have been in the international liaison game for 100 years now in the RCMP. It has grown considerably and changed over the years. We have grown in the last number of years to new areas opening posts in West Africa, in places in Asia that are new. We are evolving to meet the threat, as Mr. Shortliffe described, which is ever-increasing and interconnected. It is not a staffing shortage on our side that would be a limiter for us.
Senator Boniface: Thank you. Mr. Price, again to you. You mentioned your responsibility — and, I’m a little familiar with your area — in terms of deployments. I’m thinking Canada and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, missions, those things. They fall under different categories. Can you tell me how many people would be in that capacity? For the RCMP, I see it as representation around the world and those connections being made.
Mr. Price: Absolutely. Both are within my area of responsibility. At the moment, we have 46 or 47, depending on the day, overseas on bilateral peace operations, missions, UN missions or multilateral missions like UN missions or OSCE-type missions. Our deployment with the International Criminal Court vis-à-vis the Ukraine situation would be counted in that pot. That’s a low number for us. Our ceiling is actually considerably higher. We’re working to get that number back up. It’s low at the moment because of the conflict in Ukraine, which shuttered our largest mission, as well as pandemic-related factors. Hopefully, we’ll get that number back up in the coming year.
Senator Boniface: To the other gentleman from CSIS, you did not indicate how many people are abroad. Are you willing to do that?
Mr. Shortliffe: For operational reasons, I’m not. The only three locations that we publicly acknowledge are that we are in the United States, in Washington; in the U.K. and in France. But we do have stations around the world.
Senator Boniface: Would that be a number that has increased or decreased in the last decade?
Mr. Shortliffe: I do not believe I can reveal that.
Senator Boniface: Okay. Thank you.
Senator MacDonald: Perhaps he can’t answer my questions, but I’m going to ask Mr. Shortliffe to work on a couple of questions here. Senator Boniface just touched on this.
CSIS does maintain a network of field stations abroad that are responsible for the collection of information and security threats to Canada. Apparently, we have one in Washington and two in western Europe. Are these locations arbitrary? Why are these three particular locations used? Is there a particular reason for it?
Mr. Shortliffe: We have acknowledged those three stations because they represent three of our closest partners. Obviously, the United States — there is no partner that is more important to the service than our American friends. The U.K., of course, our Five Eyes Partner and extremely close ally. The French are also a very close partner for the service.
Historically, we have acknowledged those for a long time. There was a point in time — and it was public knowledge — that we were also at one time in Afghanistan, in Kabul. Clearly, we are not there now. For operational security, we don’t acknowledge the other posts that we have deployed.
Senator MacDonald: Okay. That may put a bit of a restriction on the questions I’m going to ask you, but I will ask you.
When it comes to security threats, what do you consider the country to offer us or our greatest security threat? Where are our greatest security threats coming from?
Mr. Shortliffe: The service looks at all manner of security threats. We look at counterterrorism. Although we are much more focused today on things like ideologically motivated violent extremism, and we are now looking much more closely at counter-intelligence and espionage issues, the reality is we still look very closely at religiously motivated violent extremism. Daesh and its allies and al Qaeda and its allies represent a significant threat to the security of Canada.
If we look at the issue of foreign interference and the espionage threats, well, a large part of that is coming from the PRC and from Russia, countries that make extensive use of their intelligence services to target Canada and Canadian interests using all of the mechanisms at their disposal, including cyber and things like that.
Obviously, with the war in Ukraine, we are taking a very close look at Russia and what that means for the security of Canada today. The PRC is one that is very significant for us as well, but they are not the only ones.
The Chair: I’ll use my prerogative as chair to ask a couple of questions. This follows a bit on what Senator Harder was asking earlier.
You do have MOUs with Global Affairs Canada. Do both organizations rely on the Canadian Foreign Service Institute for some of the training, be it linguistic before a posting, or in general how diplomacy might work at a mission abroad. In that context, might you be also looking at the application of the foreign service directives? My understanding from my own service period is that it’s a bit different for both the RCMP and for CSIS, so I’m wondering about that.
The last element I would like to throw out there is whether you have kind of a best practices course to deal with the heads of mission. In some missions abroad — I won’t name them, but in my experience, both organizations have been represented — sometimes the head of mission is a political appointee; sometimes it’s someone from the foreign service itself, or another government department. Do you compare notes on that? To that, I would add that in my own experience, I had a very collaborative relationship with the RCMP in Berlin, and in one particular case where we had to get a serious Canadian offender out of Germany who had been discovered there. That worked very smoothly. Is there a sort of a best practices course, or something, that you undertake to keep the head of mission informed but also to ensure that your programming is effective?
Mr. Price: Thank you, senator, for that question. Quickly, the foreign service directives operate within the foreign service directives framework now. We deliver them ourselves, but we follow the same Treasury Board guidelines on our network missions abroad. On our peace missions abroad, we use the Military Foreign Service Instruction, or MFSI framework, but they are the Treasury Board mandated formulas.
In terms of dealing with the heads of mission, it is a subject that we discuss in our predeployment training. It’s a subject that we discuss on an ongoing basis with the liaison officers abroad. It is a case-by-case basis because, as you said, different people bring different skill sets. We try to emphasize that we are part of team Canada, that there is accountability to the head of mission and that the more effective the relationship that you have with your colleagues in mission, the more effective you’ll be as a liaison officer or an analyst abroad.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Shortliffe?
Mr. Shortliffe: It’s very similar for us. We also use the Foreign Service Directives, or FSDs. In terms of our relationship with the heads of mission, our MOU makes it very clear that there is an expectation that our officers will be briefing the head of mission on our key activities. They are not expected to delve into the specific operational aspects of our work, but the heads of mission need to be kept advised of what we’re doing because it can affect their relations with the country in which they are placed. That is something our outgoing officers are trained for.
I don’t know if we used the Canadian Foreign Service Institute. That is something I will have to go back and ask.
The Chair: Thank you both very much. We’ll move into the second round.
Senator MacDonald: I recall when CSIS was created and doing a lot of the work the Mounties used to do.
In terms of the breakdown of responsibilities, are there any responsibilities that perhaps CSIS should have that the Mounties still do or vice versa? I wonder if you both can answer.
Mr. Shortliffe: I’ll approach that question this way, senator: The services civilian organization is not law enforcement. Our mandate is to collect intelligence and to advise the government in relation to threats to the security of Canada. We also have a security screening mandate. We do both integration screening and government screening, for which we also need to collect information. Some of the work that we do abroad is in relation to that. We also have in our mandate, since 2017, an ability to take some actions ourselves to reduce threats.
Because we are not a law enforcement agency, we don’t typically collect to an evidentiary standard. We work very closely with the RCMP when it comes to threats to security to Canada, because it’s the RCMP that is a law enforcement body that will, if we have someone who is engaged in criminal activity or who is presenting a threat — for example, if they are planning an attack or something like that — it is the RCMP that would be expected to investigate and to bring that to trial.
We then work closely with the RCMP to find ways to provide the lead information that they need to initiate their own investigation without compromising the eventual prosecution downstream, because we might be in a position where we have to protect our sources, and that could undermine their case. This is actually a very difficult challenge, and it is one that we wrestle with every day.
Mr. Price: I emphasize the power of that collaboration, especially overseas. The closest partners that I had while I was working abroad was the service. Frankly, the relationship in my 17-year career in the RCMP, part on the national security side, part on the serious organized crime side, is as strong and as close a period in that relationship as I think I have ever seen. So I echo Mr. Shortliffe.
Senator MacDonald: Thank you.
Senator Ravalia: This is a follow-up to my earlier question.
I’m just wondering what measures you take to mitigate the risk of cyberhacks of foreign service professionals, particularly in dealing with the spread of misinformation and the increasing polarization on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. For context, the CSIS Director was recently quoted as saying that this subject is one of the most complex issues facing government agencies such as his, as well as the CSE and the RCMP, and that you were trying to figure out who should be looking at social media. Thank you.
Mr. Shortliffe: Thank you for your question, senator. The issue of social media is one that is really challenging for us. There is a great deal that is on social media that, notwithstanding being really horrific and may propagate hate, doesn’t actually rise to the level of the national security mandate that we have.
In terms of what we do for helping to protect Global Affairs and other partners in terms of cyber-threats, we’re part of the cyber ecosystem in the Government of Canada, which is CSE, the Communications Security Establishment has a major control, as does CCCS, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. We have a role in helping to understand the threat actors, especially the state-sponsored threat actors, that might be behind a lot of that activity. Then we try to provide briefings to the different departments, as well as to others, at different levels of government, including sometimes parliamentarians, in terms of the types of threats they might face and advise some common sense actions they might take to protect themselves.
One of the things we always ask them is that if they suspect that they have been compromised, please report it so that action can be taken and we can understand what has happened and perhaps find ways to mitigate the threat in the future.
This is a greatly expanding issue for us that is very challenging to meet.
The Chair: Thank you. Did you want Mr. Price to provide his perspective?
Senator Ravalia: If he has a comment, sure.
Mr. Price: Absolutely. Senator, I would echo all of that and say that we are also part of that cyber ecosystem. Part of the fight increasingly involves Canadian policing at every level, and we work closely with all the partners that Mr. Shortliffe described. We work transnationally in that regard.
The Chair: Thank you, senator. I would like to thank our witnesses, Mr. Shortliffe and Mr. Price, for their commentary today. Colleagues, we will do what is called a soft transition in the cyber world and move on to our next panel.
[Translation]
We will now move to our second panel. Joining us are representatives from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: Pemi Gill, Director General, International Network, and Karim Virani, Director General, Integrated Planning and Coordination.
The floor is yours, Ms. Gill.
[English]
Pemi Gill, Director General, International Network, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: Thank you very much, honourable senators, for inviting us officials from IRCC to speak here today.
[Translation]
I’m delighted to be here today to talk to you about the program administered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC. Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee to discuss the work of Canadian Foreign Service officers within IRCC.
[English]
The mandate of the IRCC is responsible for the delivery of Canada’s immigration program and has long had a presence in Canada’s missions abroad. Our mandate is grounded in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act. The minister is responsible for the Citizenship Act, 1977, and shares responsibility with the Minister of Public Safety for the Immigration and Refugee Protect Act.
IRCC and its partners build a stronger Canada by developing and implementing policies, programs and services that facilitate the arrival of people and their integration into Canada in a way that maximizes their contribution to the country while protecting the health, safety and security of Canadians.
We also maintain Canada’s humanitarian tradition by protecting refugees and people in need of protection. We enhance the values and promote the rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship, reach out to all Canadians and we foster increased intercultural understanding toward an integrated society with equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, ethnicity and religion.
IRCC’s overseas workforce comprises over 1,500 positions that are allocated between Canadian-based staff and locally engaged employees in approximately 60 locations around the world.
IRCC also ensures services to the public for visa and immigration applications that is delivered through service providers that are contracted with the Government of Canada. This includes 166 visa application centres that are located in 111 countries, and 2,500 medical physicians and radiologists located in 176 countries.
[Translation]
IRCC’s overseas workforce focuses on three pillars in order to maximize the social, cultural and economic benefits of immigration: business and risk intelligence, program delivery and stewardship, and global engagement.
These pillars are woven into IRCC’s role, which is to provide a timely response and deliver services in the face of world events and emerging policy issues.
[English]
Canada’s representation at overseas missions operates as a whole-of-government team, with representatives from a variety of departments, and the Government of Canada’s head of mission. IRCC is one of these team members. Departmental representatives at mission work together in a variety of ways to foster that coherence and advance Government of Canada’s objectives and priorities, both holistically and as individual departments.
Within IRCC’s mandate, we work closely with our colleagues at Global Affairs Canada in a number of ways. On the administrative side, IRCC works with Global Affairs to manage our platform and people, including our locally engaged staff and Canadian staff posted to mission, to equip and resource our people overseas, to deliver Canada’s migration programs and to ensure the duty of care of our staff.
Governmental and departmental priorities intersect between IRCC and Global Affairs in a number of areas pertaining to international engagement on issues related to migration.
[Translation]
Immigration plays a key role in our economy and our economic recovery. The department’s work is foundational to supporting Canada’s economic growth, reuniting families and building communities, and meeting this country’s international humanitarian obligations.
As the departments with the largest overseas footprint, Global Affairs Canada and IRCC have a profound relationship and cooperate on a range of issues. Going forward, IRCC will continue to expand its digital service offering and transform business operations to improve efficiency, flexibility and security, while continuing to work towards annual immigration level targets.
[English]
Recent global crises, including the developments in Afghanistan and Ukraine, have reinforced the importance of a whole-of-government approach and cooperation with international partners. It’s a team effort, and IRCC is a key team member. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We will go to Mr. Virani for his statement. He doesn’t have one? Okay. In that case, we have more time for questions. I see everyone is smiling at that prospect, so that’s good.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: My question is for Ms. Gill.
Thank you for being here today. Your participation is greatly appreciated. You’re right that your department and Global Affairs Canada have a significant impact on Canada’s reputation and global relationships.
IRCC’s international network delivers Canada’s immigration program abroad, and is made up of more than 50 overseas offices. You said it yourself: you have a broad presence.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the department recently had just one overseas office in Dakar, Senegal, to process all the visa applications from 12 countries in Africa.
A few months ago, the department announced that it would soon be opening an office in Yaoundé, Cameroon. It’s a significant step in the right direction. Can you tell me when the office in Yaoundé is going to open? Do you have plans to expand your network in Africa? Thank you.
[English]
Ms. Gill: Thank you very much for the question. Indeed, our office in Dakar does cover multiple countries. In addition to Dakar, we have an IRCC presence in multiple other countries in Africa. In recent years, we have started to increase our footprint in Africa, recognizing the continuous opportunities for growth. There is the young population across the African continent, and looking at future immigration to Canada, we have been increasing our presence in Africa.
In 2021, the Government of Canada proposed and did open an immigration section in Ethiopia to facilitate migration work there. That office opened in July 2021. To be clear, there has always been a Global Affairs presence there, but this was an immigration section being opened within that office.
In summer 2022, so this past summer, we opened an immigration section in Cameroon, in the mission there. That office is actually now operational.
With increased technology and us moving more and more to electronic applications and truly digital work, we are increasingly processing applications for all of our clients globally, from Canada and from other locations, and not our traditional model of always putting resources into an office to process locally. The resources that are there focus significantly on engaging bilaterally with the country, supporting our engagement efforts for student promotion, francophone promotion, as well as any business intelligence and complex cases that require intervention.
Senator Richards: Thank you to the witnesses. Senator Gerba asked at least part of my question. How difficult is it to work in areas of real crisis in order to facilitate aid and immigration? I’m thinking of Somalia and other countries in Africa.
What is the level of success in these areas? Primarily speaking, can we effect change and save lives at this moment? I’m thinking of the famine now in Somalia and the crisis in Ethiopia and other places. Either witness, please.
The Chair: Maybe we should give Mr. Virani a chance. Would that be fair?
Ms. Gill: If it’s okay with the chair, I’ll take this question.
The Chair: Of course.
Ms. Gill: Thank you for that question. It’s a very deep question with multiple facets.
International events, particularly crises and instability, continue to grow. For IRCC, we look at the events, which are flagged as they arise, and we assess throughout to determine impacts on operations and potential population movements.
Through ongoing monitoring, should an event escalate, the department has established protocols to trigger processes and a full response. We do this in conjunction with partners. Most obvious would be Global Affairs, as well as others.
We also do tend to use our service provider networks, such as the visa application centres and the panel physicians, because they do have a broader footprint than necessarily where we’re located as immigration officers. They undertake work like medical screening and biometric collection, which is a critical part of our operations and application assessments.
We also work closely with organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration, or IMO, which is a key service partner for us. For most of our refugee movements around the world, it is the IOM that undertakes the flight arrangements, providing support and pre-arrival settlement orientation. Post-arrival supports in Canada are undertaken by our in-Canada network of providers.
Senator Richards: Do you coordinate with people like Doctors Without Borders, and Save the Children, and other organizations that function in Africa? Do you have dialogue or associations with those organizations?
Ms. Gill: I can’t confirm for sure the specific organizations that you have outlined, however, IRCC engages broadly both overseas and in Canada with non-profit organizations, particularly around resettlement. We have a vast array of stakeholders with whom we engage and seek input, including various dialogues with UNHCR and settlement providers as I mentioned.
Senator Richards: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much to Ms. Gill for your testimony, and to Mr. Virani for being with us. I’m sure we’re all tempted to get into the meat of the work that you do, asking about bringing Afghan refugees to Canada, the backlogs in our immigration, but I know that’s not what we’re here to discuss. Hopefully, we’ll get your minister in one day to discuss those things with us in the Senate.
Your people, your foreign service officers in particular, are your real assets and are real assets for Canada. I’m curious about the changing immigration policy in Canada, what IRCC is looking for now in its foreign service officers. We’re aggressively wanting to bring talented, qualified immigrants to Canada. My experience historically with IRCC internationally has been very much a screen. Let’s make sure the bad apples don’t get in and, for God’s sake, stay in Canada. That would be a nightmare. That’s all changed now or changed to a large extent.
I’m curious what you’re looking for now in your foreign service officers, how you recruit them, how you retain them. Are there some things we can learn from what you do now in terms of the types of people and anything new that you have to do to recruit and retain the kind of professionals you need today?
Ms. Gill: Thank you for the question. In terms of the size of our foreign service, of our 1,300 employees who are working overseas, approximately 300 are Canadian-based, so those are foreign service positions.
We do recruit regularly. The foreign service does comprise a smaller portion of our department, whereas the majority of our department’s workforce is based in Canada. Our entry into the foreign service is we have a standing poster that is available to Canadians and it’s always accessible, and what we do is we regularly invite Canadians to undertake assessments, so to start the process in terms of hiring and assessing for becoming a foreign service officer. So far this year, we’ve actually issued invites for four campaigns. That poster is always publicly available. Canadians can apply to it, and then we draw from that.
Our posters include opportunities to ensure both geographic and diversity of people. There are assets in there and it’s publicly available on the poster that allows us to ensure we’ve got geographic diversity of our new candidates, as well as diversity of people including the employment equity groups, so women, persons with disability, Indigenous and visible minorities.
We are always seeking to attract and recruit top talent in the field of migration. Comparable to the Global Affairs program, we hire based on competencies, not on experience of having done certain types of work overseas already, and they undergo a rigorous onboarding program that is quite aligned to Global Affairs, which includes starting out first with language training, followed by training in the administration of the acts and regulations for immigration, because we are adjudicating decisions under legislation. It also includes components about crisis management, engagement, staff management. As part of that development program, those employees then go overseas for a period of time where we continue to ensure that they get very specific experiences that allow them to then progress upwards in the program.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We’re out of time on that segment.
Senator Woo: Thank you to our witnesses. I’d like to build on Senator Coyle’s question and dig a bit into the nitty-gritty of human resource management at IRCC.
First of all, when you talk about the foreign service offices of IRCC, presumably this is not the same as the foreign service officers of GAC. Maybe I’m wrong, and perhaps you can help clarify.
Whether or not it is the same thing as the foreign service officers of Global Affairs Canada, what are the institutional mechanisms for movement between IRCC foreign service-type talent and the classical foreign service, whether we’re talking about the PSs or the ECs or the EXs?
I vaguely recall that Global Affairs had some kind of immigration stream in its history, and I’m not quite sure what happened and how that was transformed and so on. I am aware that from time to time, there are, in fact, people who came from the immigration stream, IRCC people, who have become ambassadors. How does that work and is this an institutional arrangement or is it sort of ad hoc?
Ms. Gill: Thank you. Traditionally immigration was part of the broader context, but that immigration stream is the IRCC foreign service. That mandate is within the IRCC department, and it’s our foreign service officers who undertake that.
The construct of the foreign service is aligned across IRCC and Global Affairs. Global Affairs is not only our international platform for physical infrastructure, IT, et cetera, they also provide all of the support and oversight for the duty of care of our employees. The governance of the Foreign Service Directives, or FSDs, access to rest and respite for IRCC employees overseas, falls under that umbrella of Global Affairs, so we really do follow all of their constructs. In fact, we have quite a few interdepartmental governance frameworks to ensure that we are working closely and are aligned in terms of the application of that.
I apologize, the second part of the question?
Senator Woo: Movement between immigration-type foreign service and the more diplomatic, political, economic stream of foreign service, including becoming an ambassador.
Ms. Gill: The classification of a foreign service officer is the same across the two organizations, but the job descriptions are different. It’s an FS classification.
Global Affairs does open up opportunities for ambassador positions for other departments to apply as well, and it’s a competitive process. Members of the IRCC foreign service have applied, and even some non-foreign service officers have applied as well. I believe at this time there are three ambassadors abroad that are from IRCC’s foreign service. So there is a structured process, but we’re not seeing large volumes of employees moving back and forth.
Senator Woo: Thank you.
The Chair: We’ll move to Senator Harder. I think our witnesses know he has more than a passing familiarity with your department.
Senator Harder: Senator Woo, your question recalled my role in bringing the foreign service officers out of the Department of Foreign Affairs into Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, but I’m not going to go there for my question.
I’d like to talk a little bit about the locally engaged staff. It’s a huge element of your personnel. It’s very challenging, given the geographic distribution of those thousands. I’d like you to talk a little bit about the balance between what is appropriate for recruitment of locally engaged versus Canadian-based on the management of the program. It’s always cheaper for locally engaged, but what about the risk factors of the integrity of the program and oversight and all this sort of thing?
I’d also like you to talk a little bit about the duty of care, particularly with respect to the locally engaged, who aren’t able to be extricated quite as efficiently as Canadian-based — let alone the other management issues that attend this. For example, every jurisdiction in which you have locally engaged has their own pension plans. How do you ensure equity in the service, let alone compensation? I’d like to focus on the locally engaged, if I could, with those questions.
Ms. Gill: For duty of care of staff at diplomatic missions abroad, it is the responsibility of Global Affairs Canada, and it’s implemented by the head of mission. For the locally engaged staff, or LES, who support the IRCC mandate and who are 100% focused on the delivery of the IRCC mandate, they still fall under and are included under that umbrella of locally engaged staff being under the duty of care of Global Affairs. In fact, even for IRCC Canadian-based staff, the duty of care responsibility of the ambassador includes our Canadian-based staff.
Your questions around extraction of LES and equity for pensions and compensation, those really are under Global Affairs oversight. Whether the locally engaged staff is supporting the IRCC’s mandate or the Global Affairs mandate, it is at the direction and the decision of Global Affairs. I would refer to Global Affairs for anything on that. Thank you.
Senator Harder: If I could go back, though, to the question of deciding whether to use locally engaged or Canadian-based personnel in the exercise of judgments that are valuable from a financial point of view but also from a security point of view, how do you review whether you have the right balance of locally engaged versus Canadian-based in a particular location over time?
Ms. Gill: Thanks for that. Apologies for missing that part in my initial response.
For IRCC, our mandate overseas is really linked to three critical pillars: processing and immigration services for clients, engaging bilaterally and multilaterally on topics of immigration, and promotion and engagement. That includes partnering with Global Affairs on foreign direct investment. The trade commissioners, we support them with a fair bit of engagement in that domain, as well as on international study and for students.
For us, when we look at our balance of locally engaged and Canadian-based, adjudicating IRPA, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, is predominantly tied to Canadian-based officers. For us, we do have locally engaged staff who have specific responsibilities in that domain as well, and they are a key part of our engagement space. They bring the local context; they bring local language skills and the ability to build those more in-depth relationships and partnerships. However, at all of our IRCC presences overseas, we do have Canadian-based management.
Senator Boniface: I just wanted to get clarity because, somewhere in the process, I’m not understanding the full structure. You indicated 1,300 employees; 300 of those were Canada-based. Then when I look at the IRCC Transition Binder, as an example, it states there are 164 visa application centres in 108 countries, and the centres are managed by third-party contractors. Is that an additional number? Is that a sort of contract for an entire service, or are there individual contractors? Just help me understand what the footprint on the ground looks like.
Ms. Gill: Thank you for that question. It’s a point of misunderstanding, often.
IRCC employees, both our Canadian-based and locally engaged staff, are located in 61 countries. We are co-located within the Canadian embassies and high commissions. The footprint numbers I provided are specifically for that contingent.
In addition, just given the volumes — and migration is such a critical pillar of the Government of Canada’s priorities — last year in terms of permanent residents to Canada, we had over 400,000 new permanent residents. In support of that work, we have a series of networks of service providers. These are contracted, third-party service providers who undertake some of the administrative steps in our processes to ensure we have a closer access for clients as well as sufficient capacity for the volumes that are seen, particularly during periods of high season.
They are not Government of Canada employees. They also do not administer or make any decisions on applications whatsoever. Those are our visa application centres. That’s where a client could go — previously when we were accepting paper — to drop off their paper application. That’s where they go to do their biometric enrollment. That’s where they drop off their passports for affixing the visa, which is then done by the mission. It’s truly administrative support for clients, as well as our panel physician network. Those are the doctors locally engaged to undertake the medicals that are required.
Senator Boniface: That’s good enough. Thank you.
The Chair: I’m going to ask a question about Afghanistan. We’ve touched on it, including in Senator Housakos’s question in the last panel. About a year ago, many of us — I think all of us — were flooded with messages from people inside Afghanistan looking to get out and come to Canada. There was a lot of pressure. The government made announcements. My understanding is that task forces were set up, that our mission in Islamabad was reinforced and that various programs were put into place to try to get the 40,000 Afghans to Canada. Of course, it was challenging during a pandemic period.
Mr. Virani, you haven’t spoken, but you and I have spoken in the past about this very difficult operation, no doubt. Could you shed a bit of light on how this worked, how it unfolded, because some of us still get messages? There’s been a lot of interest coming directly to parliamentarians.
Karim Virani, Director General, Integrated Planning and Coordination, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question. I appreciate the opportunity to be a witness to the committee as well. Indeed, you and I have spoken. You will recall, in some of our conversations, and for the sake of others, just after the fall of Kabul, the Government of Canada made a commitment to bring roughly 20,000 Afghans to safety at that point in time. In September 2021, the government had doubled its commitment to welcome at least 40,000, as you’ve mentioned.
As of October 1, 2022, we’ve actually reached the milestone of half of those individuals having arrived in Canada, at a number of 21,305.
When we speak about this, I will let you know that I actually started with the Afghanistan task force at the time, in November 2021. It has since become a sector within IRCC in order to manage the complexities of the program in general and the resettlement initiative.
At the outset, our commitment was to assist those who had closely assisted Canada, and we continued by adding to that commitment a certain number of individuals through the humanitarian program. Of our overall commitment, roughly 23,000 individuals are of the variety who closely assisted Canada.
From that set, I believe that your reference is likely to a lot of those individuals who had expressed an interest to either Global Affairs or to the Department of National Defence to come to Canada. We had received hundreds of thousands of emails, and indeed, the minister has expressed we had received over a million pieces of communication from individuals.
The reality of the situation is that not everybody will be able to come to Canada. We continue to work and process people in cases coming to Canada from Afghanistan and from the surrounding countries in the region, as well as places that people have ended up in. That work continues, and a lot of the folks in our foreign service are on the front lines and coordinate with GAC.
I will also add that the next 20,000 will likely be as difficult, if not more so. Roughly 10,000 of our clients still remain in Afghanistan, with no straightforward path to leaving the country. I would also say we are doing everything that we can and will continue to work on facilitating travel out of Afghanistan and neighbouring countries. This means continued effort in close collaboration with our colleagues at Global Affairs.
I would turn to Ms. Gill, if you have anything to add.
The Chair: We have run out of time on that segment. I have to police myself as well. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I’m going to continue my conversation with Ms. Gill.
Ms. Gill, you said before that the department would be expanding its footprint abroad, and I’m delighted to hear that the office in Cameroon is already operational. It’s also great to hear that you have an office up and running in Ethiopia as well.
You talked about technology and the move towards digital work, which takes into account Africa’s growing population. Nevertheless, in many cases, the processing of people’s applications requires them to travel. For example, some applicants have to go to an office in person to provide their fingerprints, meaning they have to travel a long way to get to an office. First, do you think technology will fix that problem, so that people no longer have to travel for the purposes of their application?
Second, the department’s computer system — Chinook, I believe — has come under a lot of fire for systematically rejecting the applications of francophone African students. Do you think the system will undergo improvements or stay the same? Thank you.
[English]
Ms. Gill: Thank you for those questions. I will start with the paper or in-person requirements for clients. Though they are the same globally, whether you are in Africa or any other continent, the biometric collection for clients continues even when we have digital applications. That is one of the in-person steps.
As mentioned earlier, that is done by our visa application centres, partially to ensure that we have closer proximity for clients than our missions, as we’re only in 60 missions globally. In sub-Saharan Africa, we have 21 visa application centres. That is where clients would go to undertake their biometrics.
We continuously monitor the volume of the clients in utilization, such that when we see there is a need to add another, we do so. I believe over 95% of our clients have a visa application centre within close proximity to them.
On the question of digital tools, Chinook and others, the digital modernization of IRCC’s systems and immigration systems for the Government of Canada are intended to ensure that we remain a destination of choice for global talent. We are making multiple changes in our systems to introduce new IT capabilities that are key to digital modernization and not just a technical upgrade. Rather, we’re undertaking a business transformation to bring IRCC into the digital era and to revolutionize the way we deliver services.
Public confidence in technology-enabled immigration systems are critical and important to us, as we depend on safeguards to protect against unintended bias and discrimination and ensure accessibility for a diverse client population.
I will make note that Chinook is a tool that displays information for officers to facilitate processing applications. There is no artificial intelligence, or machine learning built into Chinook. It is an Excel-based tool to help facilitate the processing of applications.
Senator Coyle: Thank you. I just want to follow up on the questions I was asking previously about recruitment and retention.
I have a few quick questions. Do you have any issues with retention among your foreign service officers? If so, could you characterize those?
Secondly, if you are engaged in any actual proactive recruitment practices, are you going out to specific potential sources of foreign service officers that you would like to bring in? If you are doing proactive recruiting at various sources, could you describe those? Has that process changed in any way, both the sources and the types of recruits that you’re looking for?
Ms. Gill: Thank you. I’ll start with the question around retention and then proactive recruitment.
With regard to retention, our foreign service rotational employees tend to be — it’s quite similar to Global Affairs — more of a career pathway. Employees tend to stay on, so retention isn’t something that has been a significant concern.
We have been growing our reviews and just ensuring that we have employees coming in at the right levels at the right time, particularly given the age of our workforce and such. That is something that we are proactively monitoring.
In addition, with regard to proactive recruitment, our poster is publicly available on the PSC website, and it’s always available. We have actually, in recent years, started to do — for example, it will show up in LinkedIn. We’re trying to use more social media and other platforms to ensure that we’re targeting more diverse recruitment pools, as well as we have participated in job fairs in different parts of the country. We’re just at the infancy of doing more focused work to ensure that our workforce is increasingly diverse.
Senator Coyle: Yes, and you have mentioned that focus on diversity, which I definitely applaud.
In addition to the effort to make sure you have a diverse workforce, I am also curious about the types of candidates, the qualifications, the experience space. What are you looking for in today’s foreign service personnel within your department?
Ms. Gill: Thank you. We’re continuously looking for a foreign service that represents Canada. To clarify, when I talk about diversity, we’re also talking about geographic diversity.
In terms of the competencies, because our foreign service program is intended to be an entry-level program with structured development and approaches, we are not looking for specific experiences, like you must have worked internationally or what have you. It is more focused on having post-secondary education, followed by more of a competency-based assessment. If you would like specific details, I would be happy to table that for the committee.
The Chair: If you could send those specific details to Madam Lemay, the Clerk of the Committee, that would be very useful, Ms. Gill. Thank you.
Senator Richards: Thank you very much. This question has been asked and I’m sure has been posed to you before.
We have received thousands of emails from Afghans begging for help, saying they were betrayed by Canada, that they worked for Canada as interpreters or guides or whatever they did, and now they are facing the Taliban.
Is the vetting process for them as strident as before? How hard is it to get them accepted in order to get out of Afghanistan and into Canada? Of course, it must be in part because of the Taliban, but is it because of the nature of our vetting process as well? Could anyone answer that, please?
Ms. Gill: I’ll start and then turn to my colleague, Mr. Virani.
We are doing everything we can to help Afghans, both inside and outside of Afghanistan. Regardless of where in the world an Afghan national is, if they are destined for Canada, the requirements for being determined to be a refugee or any other category are the same. Effectively, we are ensuring that both eligibility and admissibility are undertaken.
For a lot of our clients who are in Afghanistan, we undertake that biometric collection once they have departed from Afghanistan. But there is no higher level of screening that is being done for refugees from Afghanistan than for any other population globally.
Mr. Virani: I will add to that by saying that the Government of Canada’s commitment is one of the largest in the world — per capita, in fact, the largest in the world — welcoming at least 40,000 individuals by the end of 2023.
At the same time, we know that there are at least 3 million, and maybe even more, displaced Afghans in Pakistan alone. As ambitious as our program is, it will not be able to respond to all the requests we will have for people wishing to be resettled in Canada.
There are other programs that people can apply to, but the unfortunate reality, Mr. Chair, is that not everybody will be able to come to Canada. As I had indicated in one of my previous responses, we have received hundreds of thousands of requests from people in Afghanistan.
We continue to work with our partners to identify vulnerable Afghans. For instance, we continue to work with the UNHCR, front-line defenders and ProtectDefenders.eu for our humanitarian program.
We also facilitated a large number of evacuations that we had seen last year. For one of the first times that I’m aware of in my career, we partnered with the United States government to refer cases to us that fell within our priority groups. These people continue to be processed and moved to Canada.
I had discussed some of the challenges we face for people who are our clients and who are still in Afghanistan, and those challenges persist. For example, the Taliban is a listed terrorist entity. We have very little in the way of direct communications with the Taliban. We are challenged with people moving out in terms of their rules for documentation, but we continue to work with our like-minded partners and colleagues internationally in order to find a solution to some of these challenges that we face on the ground.
Senator MacDonald: My question is somewhat similar to Senator Richards, in the same vein.
There has been a lot of discussion in Canada lately about listing the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, as a terrorist entity. It has been suggested that doing so might create challenges for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC.
Without getting into any specifics, could you provide any insight into what those challenges might involve?
Ms. Gill: Thank you for the question. Is there any additional detail as to the challenges that are being referenced? Apologies; I’m just struggling a bit with the question. The question was around challenges for IRCC?
Senator MacDonald: Yes. It has been alleged that if we did list the Iranian IRGC as a terrorist entity, it would possibly create challenges for the IRCC. Without getting into specifics, I wonder if you could provide any insight into what those challenges might involve.
The Chair: You can get these acronyms confused, IRGC and IRCC. They are very different.
Ms. Gill: They are very different.
The Chair: I hope that helps.
Ms. Gill: Thank you for that. I was pretty clear on that part of it, I’m happy to say.
When an organization becomes a listed entity that can act as a flag for further scrutiny by IRCC and Public Safety. We do already have the framework for listed entities and being able to identify the implications for that as part of an application. In addition, it is within the framework of how we apply the legislation.
Senator MacDonald: I was here in 2012 when the Canadian government listed Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. I wonder if you could tell us how that was managed in terms of the immigration implications at the time.
Ms. Gill: I’m sorry; I wouldn’t have that information. If that’s something that you would like, we could take it back. Thank you.
Senator MacDonald: Perhaps the other witness has something to contribute.
Mr. Virani: The question is outside of my area of expertise. My apologies, Mr. Chair.
Senator MacDonald: No problem. Thank you.
The Chair: Senator, I have some memories myself from that period, but I’m not sure how accurate they are. It did involve closing our embassy in Tehran as well at the time.
If there are no other questions, colleagues, I would like to thank our witnesses for their testimony today. Thank you, Ms. Gill and Mr. Virani, for being with us. Do continue in your hard fight. We know there is a lot going on. Good luck to you.
Colleagues, before we adjourn, I wish to advise that, as we discussed last week, today in the Senate I will give notice of a motion seeking authorization for this committee to undertake a review of the provisions and operation of the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, otherwise known as the Magnitsky Law, and of the Special Economic Measures Act.
I’m also pleased to report that this morning CIBA approved this committee’s two budget requests that we discussed last week. I will present both reports this afternoon in the Senate for consideration at the next sitting.
If there are no other comments, the meeting is adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)