Question Period Note: Removals

• Enforcing removal of people who do not have the right to stay in Canada.

• Removing those who are not eligible to stay in Canada is critical, especially those who pose threats to the safety of Canadians.

• The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) removed over 18,000 inadmissible people last year—the highest in a decade and an increase from approximately 16,000 the year before.

• The Border Plan provided $55.5M to support immigration and asylum processing and to increase CBSA’s capacity to reach 20,000 removals for the next two years.

Information to support statements made in the Key Messages
The removal of foreign nationals that are deemed inadmissible as per the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) is an integral part of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)’s security mandate. Individuals may be inadmissible for a variety of reasons including security; criminality; demands on Canadian society, or non-compliance with the IRPA. Following various legal and administrative processes, including admissibility hearings or redress options through the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), inadmissible persons are issued a removal order, which the Agency is mandated to enforce as quickly as possible.
The CBSA prioritizes removals based on a risk management regime that assigns the highest priority to cases involving security, organized crime, crimes against humanity, criminality, and failed irregular arrival refugee claimants. These are followed by failed refugee claimants as second tier, and all other inadmissible persons as the lowest priority.
CBSA’s removal efforts may be hindered and delayed by impediments such as uncooperative foreign nationals who do not provide necessary information or documentation to allow for their removal, or foreign governments that refuse the return of their nationals, or fail to promptly issue timely travel documents. The CBSA works closely with foreign governments, Canadian officials abroad, and other departments to resolve these challenges, and participates in international forums to identify joint strategies and best practices to achieve timely removals of inadmissible persons.
The Fall Economic Statement (FES) provided $55.5 million over three years to the CBSA to support front-end immigration and asylum processing activities, and achieve a 25% increase in the number of removals enforced. This includes reducing inventory backlogs, increasing removal capacity and addressing the anticipated increase in associated removals litigation. The funding will primarily be used to secure regional staff and ensure the program has necessary resources to achieve 20,000 removals in FY2025-26 and FY2026-27.
In response to the significant increase in individuals making asylum claims in Canada, the CBSA aligned its resources to enforce removal orders in a more efficient and timely manner. A Removals Action Plan has also been developed to further enhance program delivery and address outstanding issues, including prioritizing cases to overcome impediments to removal, leveraging existing resources more efficiently, and engaging priority countries to expedite removal processes.

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