Canada - 36,000 deportee's "lost"
cnews.canoe.ca
Government can't account for 36,000 people ordered to leave Canada
By JIM BROWN
OTTAWA (CP) - The Immigration Department can't tell how well it's doing at keeping undesirables out of Canada, and it's having trouble removing them once they're here, says the federal auditor general.
During the last six years, a gap of 36,000 cases has developed between the number of removal orders issued by Ottawa and the number of departures actually confirmed, Sheila Fraser reported Tuesday. "Saying they've lost control would be a little exaggerated, but not far from the truth," she told a news conference. "There's a real problem."
In her latest report to Parliament, the auditor general also found the department has done no new studies in nearly a decade to assess the efficiency of the border screening process that lets people into the country in the first place.
The combination of imperfect border controls and a spotty deportation system is threatening to undermine the whole fabric of immigration law, Fraser maintained.
"If you have a law in place and never enforce it, why would people bother to respect that law? Why would people go through the procedure of trying to arrive legally in this country, if they can come in illegally and there's no consequence?"
Although she reserved her sharpest words for the Immigration Department, Fraser also cast a withering eye on other government activities. Among her conclusions:
- The Defence Department has been lax in assessing and preventing environmental damage at military training sites and weapons testing ranges.
- Housing shortages on many First Nations reserves have reached crisis proportions, despite $3.8 billion earmarked by Ottawa during the last decade to address the problem.
- Corrections Canada needs to improve programs for women inmates, including better treatment for substance abuse, work programs in prison and parole services.
- The government must be careful not to trample the privacy rights of citizens in its zeal to combat money laundering by organized crime and international terrorists.
MP Diane Ablonczy, immigration critic for the Canadian Alliance, said the report is proof the Liberal government is "completely asleep at the switch when it comes to kicking the bad apples out of Canada."
In her examination of immigration issues, Fraser noted that two studies performed in the early 1990s questioned the effectiveness of screening procedures at airports, marine terminals and land border points.
Customs officers who conduct initial interviews of the 100 million travellers a year who enter Canada are supposed to refer anyone who arouses their suspicion for a follow-up examination by an immigration officer. The aim is to winnow out people who might be inadmissible on a variety of grounds, including criminal record and security risk.
But a 1992 spot check at several border points found the referrals were often hit-or-miss, and a 1994 survey found the follow-ups were just as unreliable.
Since then there have been no new studies, said Fraser, so it's impossible to know whether things have improved or not.
Turning to deportations, Fraser noted that an average 8,400 people a year have been kicked out of the country since 1997 - but the total falls 36,000 short of the number of removal orders issued.
That doesn't mean 36,000 people are illegally at large within Canada, the auditor general was careful to note. Some may have left voluntarily and simply not notified authorities.
All the same, she said, overworked officers can't keep up with the case load, and the gap will continue to grow unless more personnel are assigned and more money spent on enforcement.
MP John Williams, the Alliance spending watchdog, expressed shock that the removal system hasn't been tightened in the wake of the September 2002 terrorist attacks in the United States.
"Sept. 11 was a wake-up call to the world, but I think Canada slept through the alarm clock," said Williams.
Immigration Minister Denis Coderre said it's hard to keep track of all deportation orders and confirm they've been carried out, because Canada has no formal system of exit checks on people leaving the country.
But Coderre insisted his officials give top priority to the most serious cases.
"I think that we're doing a pretty good job," said the minister. "Every time that there's an issue regarding security threats or a highly criminal record, we're doing what it takes."
He also maintained that border screening should get better in coming months thanks to a new agreement signed by his department and the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency to improve co-operation and share information.
Aside from Immigration, Fraser directed her strongest criticism at the Defence Department, lashing its officials for not paying enough attention to the impact of Canadian Forces exercises on surrounding land, waterways and wildlife.
Among the problems she discovered:
- The department has stalled since 1996 in assessing the damage from dumping of lead weights, lithium batteries and other substances into Nanoose Bay, B.C.
- Defence planners violated the federal Fisheries Act and allowed silt and sediment to build up and damage salmon spawning grounds at Canadian Forces Station Alderbrook in B.C.
- Salmon stocks were endangered by soil erosion and silting of streams caused by heavy equipment traffic and timber clearing at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick.
Fraser's study of Gagetown also found the Defence Department hired private contractors who paid $4 million for the right to cut timber on land the base wanted to use for combat training.
But the value of the timber turned out to be $6.7 million - a windfall of $2.7 million for the contractors, who were not identified in the report. They also failed to clear some of the land of stumps as promised. |
