In a word, nothing.
Part of the Auditor General’s report that was released last week dealt with the Canadian Border Services Agency’s (CBSA) handling of persons who had been ordered deported from Canada. The Auditor General found that 41,000 people, mainly failed refugee claimants, had been ordered deported and were unaccounted for. It is hard to know the exact number of illegals there are whose whereabouts are unknown. The AG’s figures do not include those who entered Canada on temporary visas, overstayed their visas, remain in Canada and simply have not been caught. And as Canada does not impose exit controls on anyone who leaves the country, the number of deportees is probably overstated. Some deportees may have gone back to their country of origin or set off for greener pastures and the authorities would have no way of knowing that they had left Canada.
It is easy to see what the problem is with having so many illegals in the country. If they don’t pose a danger to Canadian society, they certainly impose one to the rule of law. As the Auditor General states in her report, when people are allowed to flaunt the rules it is highly unfair to those who wish to enter Canada or immigrate here and who choose to play by the rules. But it is one thing to know what the problem is; finding a solution is another matter altogether. The reality is that any action that the government could take to reduce the number of those who remain in Canada illegally is, at a minimum, counterproductive and in any event would constitute political suicide for any government that tried to implement it.
Imposing exit controls
Canada does not keep records of people who leave the country. If someone is granted a visa for, let’s say, 30 days, no one knows whether that person left within the 30 days or overstayed the visa and became an illegal immigrant. The only way this illegality can be established is if the person is caught in the country after the visa has expired. Imposing exit controls would mean that everyone would have to go through Canadian immigration as well as immigration of the country that they are going to when they travel to another country. Requiring this would double the time that it would take to cross, for example, the Canadian/American border. The hit that commerce is taking as a result of delays due to security concerns would be exacerbated. Inspecting everyone who leaves the country would simply not be practical and would cause a serious disruption to cross border commerce. And Canadians would be angered by further delays in travel which would make setting up exit controls risky for the government that would impose them.
Lock ‘em all up
This might sound good but the cost of detaining everyone who is ordered deported or who is discovered here illegally would be prohibitive. This would necessitate not simply incarcerating those who pose a danger to society but those who don’t as well as families including spouses, children, babies and aged grandparents. There are too many bleeding hearts to ever allow this to happen. There would also be Charter of Rights concerns that people in Canada could be detained without given the opportunity for release. There is no way a government could financially or legally detain everyone who is illegally in the country.
Limit Charter rights
The courts have consistently held that everyone who is physically present in Canada is entitled to the protection of the Charter of Rights. If these rights were restricted, illegals could simply be taken to the airport and removed without the necessity of a hearing. The position of the courts is unlikely to change so the only way that the rights of those who are in the country illegally can be restricted is by the government engaging the notwithstanding clause of the Charter. The notwithstanding clause that seemed to be a logical inclusion in the Charter of Rights to protect the supremacy of Parliament is now, thanks to the Liberals, viewed as Draconian. It would be virtually impossible for any government to justify using it to rid the country of illegal residents.
Scrap the Geneva Convention
Since most of the 41,000 were found by the Auditor General to be failed refugee claimants, if Canada was not a party to the Geneva Convention, we could simply sign off of the Convention and not let in anyone who claims to be a refugee into the country. This is so drastic it is hard to believe that it could ever be a viable consideration.
In her report, the AG made two recommendations regarding the problem of illegals in Canada
1. The Canadian Border Services Agency should develop suitable policies and procedures for detentions and removals to ensure that risks, situations, and individuals are treated in a consistent manner, and;
2. The Canadian Border Services Agency should improve its data and level of analysis to allow it to better manage detentions and removals.
In other words the Auditor General told the CBSA that they should do a better job. Hardly helpful but then it is consistent with the view that there is simply no politically feasible solution to the problems of missing illegals.
It is interesting that thanks to the AG we now know there are about 41,000 deportees unaccounted for and not 21,000 or 61,000. But in terms of solving the problem, there simply isn’t a solution.
If the Auditor General wants to investigate government waste of taxpayers’ money, perhaps she should investigate herself and find out why she investigated a problem for which there is no solution – other than to try to do better.
