CIMM#90: Briefing on Migrant Trafficking and Smuggling

Thank you. Now we will go to Ms. Kwan.

Madam Kwan, you have six minutes. Go ahead, please.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the minister and officials for coming before the committee.

The government, of course, with the safe third country agreement, secretly signed an agreement with the United States and then later on announced it. Part of that announcement came with a commitment to accept 15,000 migrants from Central America and South America, who would come in through regular channels in 2023 and 2024.

Can the minister advise us how many have actually come through to date as part of that commitment?

Thank you, MP Kwan.

There are a couple of clarifications on that. A portion of that undertaking involved the excess number year over year that we have with respect to temporary foreign workers. That has been achieved. It's in the ballpark of 4,000 people.

We also have a number.... I would say that the envelope is now fully subscribed, and the next step in the process is to land those people. That's something we're confident will happen over the coming months.

I'm sorry, but when the minister says that it is fully subscribed, I'm talking specifically about the commitment to take 15,000 people. Is that commitment to take 15,000 fully subscribed and 4,000 have arrived?

That's correct. At least that many have.

Could the minister also provide a breakdown of the demographics of those migrants in terms of where they are from?

From which countries...?

Yes.

To the best of my knowledge—and we can confirm with officials—they are, I would say, predominantly from Colombia. There is, after that, a second significant portion from Haiti and a less significant one from Venezuela.

Jenny, we can get you the percentages if you want.

Yes, maybe along with the actual numbers. That would be useful as well. Thank you for that, Minister.

Then those numbers are fully subscribed. When do you expect the arrivals of these individuals?

It can vary, but we expect significant steady flows over the coming months.

Okay. That's about as vague as you can get.

All right. I will move on in terms of the issue around human trafficking and the concern with respect to that. From the department's information, both through IRCC and, presumably, working in collaboration with your colleagues from Public Safety, how many people from Mexico have you identified to have been victims of human trafficking?

Perhaps Mr. Anson....

Thank you for that.

It's challenging, then, if you say “active cases”, but then you can't really say how many victims are engaged in that process. I think it would be useful to know, of those cases, how many victims there are. Perhaps that's a process that could be looked into by the department, to supply that information to the committee subsequently.

With respect to migrants who are subject to exploitation, some would say that is a form of human trafficking, because they come here with a promise of employment and pay and so on, yet they don't receive that treatment. They are mistreated, and they are subject to abuse. From the immigration department's information, how many victims—of the vulnerable workers, the migrant workers—who have been found are from Mexico?

I wouldn't have the geographical breakdown of that, MP Kwan. We could probably provide it at a subsequent date.

Thank you.

Minister, we are already 15 seconds over. Can you be brief, please?

It's something that we're definitely looking into. Obviously, we want to deal with the exploitation as it occurs, regardless of the conditions that people are in. It is clear that, when you have a closed work permit, it does make you more vulnerable. It makes you more hesitant to report abuse and take action, and it gives you less of an ability to move from one place to another.

Looking at the next policy options we have in our tool kit is something that both I and Minister Boissonnault are looking at intensely. I think it's something that we will be working to fix in the coming months.

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

We will go to the honourable member Mr. Kmiec for five minutes.

Please, go ahead.

5:55 p.m.

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

Thank you very much.

We're going to move on to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, go ahead, please. You have two and half minutes.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

Thank you.

Minister, earlier in your response, you talked about the regularization program that is about to go before cabinet. In it, you spoke a little bit about one of the categories being construction workers. Could you advise whether or not in this regularization scheme is it limited only to certain categories of workers, such as construction workers, or would it be open to all workers?

 

 

Marc Miller Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC
Liberal

No, and it's not based on working necessarily. We should really—

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

I'm sorry—my apologies.

When I said “workers”, I meant undocumented migrants.

 

 

Marc Miller Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC
Liberal

What I hope to bring to cabinet is something that is broad and comprehensive. What I was talking about separately was that, when we look at new public policies on the temporary foreign workers that we bring in to fill labour shortages in Canada, there are options for us to carve into those people who are here anyway who have fallen out of status and to regularize them. In my mind, that's something that would be separate and discrete from a broader regularization process.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

All right. Just so I'm clear, it would be that the regularization program would actually be open to all workers and not just to specific professions or occupations.

 

 

Marc Miller Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC
Liberal

My thinking behind that, without betraying any cabinet confidence, is that it would not be based on that theme. If there are certain categories of people who have fallen out of status, it would sort of be an ancillary approach to it. However, I'm looking at something a little broader and more comprehensive.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

Thank you.

Just very quickly, as I know I'm running out of time, with respect to individuals who are vulnerable workers and for the people coming through the border applying for asylum, etc., what is the average processing time for those who are from Mexico? How long are they waiting for their applications to be processed to determine whether or not they have a valid asylum claim?

 

 

Marc Miller Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC
Liberal

There are two things. I think we do our best to get work permits into people's hands, but the processing can take two years.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

Thank you very much.

What's the turnaround time for the process of providing open work permits to claimants?

 

 

Marc Miller Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC
Liberal

What's the fact pattern? This is for someone who has been exploited because of a closed work permit, and they're to be issued an open work permit?

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

No, I'm talking about people who have come into Canada and made asylum claims and are then waiting for their claims to be processed by the IRB. In the meantime, they're provided with a work permit. What's the turnaround time for them to get the work permit?

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

Thank you.

The time is up, Minister.

 

 

Marc Miller Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC
Liberal

We strive for 30 to 60 days. It can be longer at times.

 

6:40 p.m.

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

Thank you.

We will go to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you have six minutes. Go ahead, please.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again to the officials for being here today.

I think this is where we're talking about data. It would be really good to have data that compares apples to apples in this sense, and over a longer period. We've just heard allegations, for example, about certain periods of time and that certain things have escalated and so on.

For my first question, what I would be interested in getting for the committee is a breakdown of the staffing level, both for the RCMP and for CBSA officers, over different periods. That would be for the period of the previous administration, that 10-year period under the Harper administration. Separated out from that period, how many staff—RCMP officers—were there, as well as CBSA officers, during that period, breaking it down year by year, along with the budget?

I think budgetary constraints have implications as well. I fully understand that sometimes within the departments certain urgent things come up and you redeploy, but if you've lost budgets as well as staffing, you're just sort of plugging a hole over here with something else.

Getting that data would be really useful, that data for that period, as well as the period from 2015 to now. Is it possible that this is something you can table with the committee, breaking it down year by year, both on the staffing level and on the budget level, for both the RCMP and the CBSA?

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

I will go first to you, Assistant Commissioner, and then to the director general.

 

 

C/Supt Richard Burchill

Thank you for that, Mr. Chair.

I will endeavour to go back to the RCMP and ask about that data. I know we have data. I know there's data that we can track. I'll see what we can do about how we break that budget down in federal policing as it pertains to positions looking at border integrity.

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

Thank you.

 

 

C/Supt Richard Burchill

I'll commit to go back with that.

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

Mr. Director General, go ahead, please.

 

 

Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
Daniel Anson

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I'm confident that we'll either have the information, or we'll do our best to surface as much information fidelity as possible on the number of employees and certainly the budget year over year for that 10-year period.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

It's for that 10-year period as well as the current period from 2015 on.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I appreciate that it's a lot of work, but I think it's important to get the data on the table.

Related to the data, we talked about cases and how many active cases you have and so on. It would be really important as well, over those two segments of time, to see how many cases were under investigation over those different periods, and then when the investigation actually started. As you've indicated, some of those investigations started three or four years ago or whatever, and then it's not an accurate presentation, because if you started three or four years ago versus what it is today, there's a differential in terms of those numbers.

Would we be able to get that breakdown as well?

 

 

C/Supt Richard Burchill

Again, I'll certainly commit to go back and endeavour to get that breakdown for you.

Are you talking specifically human trafficking cases, or human trafficking and human smuggling?

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

It's both.

 

 

C/Supt Richard Burchill

It's both.

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

Mr. Anson, go ahead, please.

 

 

Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
Daniel Anson

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Of course, the CBSA will do its best to get any and all information related to the number of investigations, prosecutions, etc., over that time period. What I would just suggest to the committee, for awareness, is that it's very complex and particularly manually intensive. Due to changing circumstances with a case or criminal investigation or an immigration or IRPA-related investigation, not all of the cases will go through to the end. The statistics aren't going to be as finite as I'm sure the committee would want, Mr. Chair. In many cases, perhaps the person that is the victim or the smuggler might leave or there might be extraterritorial charges that were not brought before the Crown because there was no probability of successful prosecution.

What I would say is that, given the multi-year and the manual and complex nature of aggregating data of that nature, there will be a certain amount of, I would say, reduced fidelity to the information. Again, we'll do our best, but again, similar to victims as opposed to offenders in crimes, a lot of these are information and data that we may not be able to actually pull from the systems that are used to accurately track all these important features and events.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

I appreciate that answer, because you're exactly correct to say it is very complex. There are a number of different factors that play into it. Simplistic conclusions are exactly that: just simplistic conclusions that may well be meaningless.

I'm trying to get at the truth, as opposed to disinformation. It could be very good and useful, as you gather this data, to also footnote the complexity of the issues and why there might be variances. We at this committee are trying—at least, I am trying—to get at the truth and to figure out what the best option is and what government needs to do to best support you in your efforts to address these issues—not just use sound bites and disinformation and think those somehow address the issues. That is a disservice both to you as people who serve our country, and to the public, who rely on elected officials to do a better job in getting at the issues at hand.

I really appreciate your answer. Thank you so much for that.

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

You have 12 seconds left.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

Is there anything else you might like to add or bring to our attention, in terms of where we should focus our minds?

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

Thank you. The time is up.

Mr. Burchill, do you want to say something? No...? Okay. Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Kmiec.

Mr. Kmiec, go ahead for five minutes, please.

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal

Thank you very much.

We will go to Ms. Kwan for two and a half minutes.

Go ahead, please.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC

Thank you very much.

I don't think requiring a visa or not requiring one facilitates human trafficking or organized crime. This is what I'm hearing from you.

On the issue of investigations, how many active cases are being jointly investigated by, for example, the United States and Canada?

 

 

C/Supt Richard Burchill

Unfortunately, I'm not able to give you the number of investigations that are jointly investigated, but I can say that a large number of our human smuggling investigations that have to do with border security are jointly investigated.

We have integrated teams with the Americans on the intelligence side, as well as the operational side, at marine and land...and airports.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC

In order to help you better do your work to address this situation, what sort of action do you need the government to take? I'd like to hear both the CBSA's and the RCMP's perspectives.

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal

Mr. Anson, we'll go to you and then to Mr. Burchill.

 

 

Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
Daniel Anson

I'm not qualified, necessarily, to speak about what the next iteration of investments might be.

Again, we can describe the policies and the programs that we implement. I can, in certain circumstances internally, recommend different types of advancements, but I'm certainly not qualified or prepared to recommend what some of the future government investments might be.

 

 

C/Supt Richard Burchill

I would say that the RCMP is always going to be accepting of any resources, financial or human, that come our way to better attack this particular problem in all the integrated ways that we're doing that with partners.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

Can I just say quickly...? It doesn't have to be in resources. It could even be any policy change or any enhancement that will better enable you to do your work more effectively. At the end of the day, what we want to do is tackle human trafficking and smuggling. What do we need to do as parliamentarians to say that this should be something that the government should look at?

I'm not trying to get you into trouble. I'm just trying to figure out what it is that we can do to help you do your jobs more effectively.

Could you table that information for the committee, please?

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

The time is up.

Just give a quick answer, please, if you'd like. Otherwise, I'll move to Mr. Redekopp.

Mr. Burchill.

 

 

C/Supt Richard Burchill

Yes—

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

I'm sorry. I just asked them to table the information for the committee.

 

 

The Chair Sukh Dhaliwal
Liberal

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Redekopp.

 

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

Can I get a response?

 

 

C/Supt Richard Burchill

I'll be quick, in the interest of time.

As I said to the other member who asked a question, we work within the legislative framework that we have, so it's not that we've turned our minds to what needs to be done differently necessarily. However, I can certainly take the question back and do some analysis at the RCMP to see if there's a different response.

 

https://openparliament.ca/committees/immigration/44-1/90/jenny-kwan-4/