Visa officers lack information, training, auditor general says
By Robert Hiltz, Postmedia News November 22, 2011 3:58 PM
The auditor general says Canada's border and citizenship departments focus too much energy on defending cases of those who have been denied entry into Canada, and not enough on reviewing who should be allowed into the country.
Photograph by: Sam Leung, Vancouver Province
OTTAWA — The Canada Border Services Agency and Citizenship and Immigration Canada lack the guidance, training and information to properly determine who should and shouldn't be let into the country, according to the auditor general.
In his report released Tuesday, Interim Auditor General John Wiersema says the two departments focus most of their energies on defending cases where they have denied an individual entry into Canada — a small percentage of applicants — rather than on reviewing the cases of people allowed entry into the country.
"We've been reporting some of these problems with visas for 20 years, and I find it disturbing that fundamental weaknesses still exist," Wiersema said.
The watchdog's report says more than one million applications were processed for individuals seeing temporary residence within Canada and more than 300,000 for individuals applied for permanent residence in 2010 alone.
Yet, of the three manuals officers rely on to determine admissibility and hence, grant a visa, two had not been updated for several years.
There are also worrisome gaps in the information available to officers about security, health and safety risks to Canadians.
"(Immigration) and the CBSA lack the necessary tools and information to provide assurance that risks related to the admissibility determination process are properly managed," the auditor general's report says.
According to the report, the immigration department has yet to implement the improvements it developed after the last audit, issued more than a decade ago.
The report states that visa officers, the primary officials tasked with assessing whether someone can enter Canada, rely heavily on information provided by the person applying for a visa. This is problematic, the report says, since face-to-face interviews are rarely conducted because of the time and resources they require.
Another area of concern involves the medical screening performed on visa applicants. The auditor says officials have focused on preventing entry to Canada by those infected with two diseases, syphilis and tuberculosis, for the last half-century.
But "today 56 diseases require national surveillance in Canada," the report says. "CIC has not reviewed whether foreign nationals should also be subject to mandatory testing for some of these diseases."
The report says officials are often unable to determine the credibility of documents provided by some security agencies in foreign countries. Applicants must provide security checks from every country they have lived in for six months or more during the 10 years previous to applying for entry into Canada.
Almost two-thirds of visa officers surveyed by the watchdog said the inability to confirm details provided by applicants was a hurdle to determine the legitimacy of a visa application.
Furthermore, about half of the officials said they lacked sufficient information to determine whether an applicant was a security risk if allowed into Canada.
Neither immigration nor CBSA have conducted formal reviews of the available information from the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service to ensure they had access to enough data for assessing the security risk of an individual.
Since the CBSA's creation in 2003, the department hasn't signed an agreement with either the RCMP or CSIS to ensure full access to all of the necessary information. Without such an agreement, there is no guarantee officials will receive all of the information they require.
Neither of the departments responsible for allowing people past Canada's borders have in place a system to review applicants who have already been admitted into the country. This means the vast majority are never followed up on, the auditor general concludes.
The audit was performed between January, 2010 and April, 2011.
In his report released Tuesday, Interim Auditor General John Wiersema says the two departments focus most of their energies on defending cases where they have denied an individual entry into Canada — a small percentage of applicants — rather than on reviewing the cases of people allowed entry into the country.
"We've been reporting some of these problems with visas for 20 years, and I find it disturbing that fundamental weaknesses still exist," Wiersema said.
The watchdog's report says more than one million applications were processed for individuals seeing temporary residence within Canada and more than 300,000 for individuals applied for permanent residence in 2010 alone.
Yet, of the three manuals officers rely on to determine admissibility and hence, grant a visa, two had not been updated for several years.
There are also worrisome gaps in the information available to officers about security, health and safety risks to Canadians.
"(Immigration) and the CBSA lack the necessary tools and information to provide assurance that risks related to the admissibility determination process are properly managed," the auditor general's report says.
According to the report, the immigration department has yet to implement the improvements it developed after the last audit, issued more than a decade ago.
The report states that visa officers, the primary officials tasked with assessing whether someone can enter Canada, rely heavily on information provided by the person applying for a visa. This is problematic, the report says, since face-to-face interviews are rarely conducted because of the time and resources they require.
Another area of concern involves the medical screening performed on visa applicants. The auditor says officials have focused on preventing entry to Canada by those infected with two diseases, syphilis and tuberculosis, for the last half-century.
But "today 56 diseases require national surveillance in Canada," the report says. "CIC has not reviewed whether foreign nationals should also be subject to mandatory testing for some of these diseases."
The report says officials are often unable to determine the credibility of documents provided by some security agencies in foreign countries. Applicants must provide security checks from every country they have lived in for six months or more during the 10 years previous to applying for entry into Canada.
Almost two-thirds of visa officers surveyed by the watchdog said the inability to confirm details provided by applicants was a hurdle to determine the legitimacy of a visa application.
Furthermore, about half of the officials said they lacked sufficient information to determine whether an applicant was a security risk if allowed into Canada.
Neither immigration nor CBSA have conducted formal reviews of the available information from the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service to ensure they had access to enough data for assessing the security risk of an individual.
Since the CBSA's creation in 2003, the department hasn't signed an agreement with either the RCMP or CSIS to ensure full access to all of the necessary information. Without such an agreement, there is no guarantee officials will receive all of the information they require.
Neither of the departments responsible for allowing people past Canada's borders have in place a system to review applicants who have already been admitted into the country. This means the vast majority are never followed up on, the auditor general concludes.
The audit was performed between January, 2010 and April, 2011.
Read more: http://www.canada.com/Visa+
