Are Canada’s borders a virtual sieve?

In 2010, according to government data, 317,000 people applied for permanent residence in Canada and one million people applied for temporary visas.

How many of these people should have been legitimately allowed in the country?

According to Canada's interim Auditor General, nobody really knows.

In his office's Fall 2011 report, AG John Wiersema says Canada Border Services Agency and Citizenship and Immigration Canada - the gatekeepers of our borders - lack the guidance, training and information to properly determine who should and shouldn't be let into the country.

Wiersema warns tools and guidance available to visa officers are not always kept up to date and risk indicators to flag potentially inadmissible foreign nationals have been not reviewed or updated for years, the Toronto Star reports.

Moreover, he says the two departments might even be in the dark about their own shortcomings, saying they have no way of measuring their performance and ensuring their processes for screening visitors are working and "appropriate for today's challenges."

In his blog Tuesday, PostMedia News journalist Michael Den Tandt wonders aloud how Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney could on one hand, be so tough on refugees and foreign war criminals, but on the other be so lax in supporting our overseas border offices.

"Why are Canada's overseas border offices, ten years after 9/11 and five years after the Conservatives took power, a sieve?" he asks.

"Judging from the auditor-general's report released Tuesday, this description is fair. Indeed, based on the findings in chapter two, it seems miraculous good luck that foreign terrorists haven't already landed in Canada to wreak havoc, multiple times.

"Memo to the department of foreign affairs: Don't anyone tell Hillary Clinton."

(CBC photo)