Evidence of meeting #26 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was worker.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Sir, this year there's an additional 19.67%. Does that tell you that maybe the Government of Canada today, the Conservative government, is saying to the Chinese you need not apply?
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Executive Director, Chinese Canadian National Council
Well, I can't draw that conclusion because I don't have all of the facts and figures in front of me.
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National President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
Just to add a little clarity to the situation, the reason you can have less intake and longer processing times is that the government has prioritized the backlog. They've actually done what they're proposing to do, or think they need to do. If you understand the immigration system, when IRPA started, it was first in, first out, and you applied as a skilled worker. Subsequently, the government came and said, wait a minute, it's taking us too long to process spouses and children—
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Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Mr. Mooney, I appreciate the lesson; however, one is not needed.
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National President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
Then they said that individuals who were nominated by provinces had first priority. Then they said the same for the individuals who had arranged employment in Canada. All you have to do is look at the scope of applications in China to realize they have a much harder time accessing the Canadian labour market, as they have a greater proportion of regular skilled workers. If they had a whole lot of regular skilled workers who were being—
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Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Does that mean that people applying out of China are less qualified to come to Canada?
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National President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
No.
I'm not defending anything. I'm just saying that by processing priorities, by saying that we're going to give everybody first chance ahead of them on the list, and continually moving more and more people in front of them, it just means that processing times get longer and longer.
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Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Mr. Mooney, you're an immigration practitioner, right?
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National President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
Yes.
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Liberal
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National President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
Nine years.
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Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
I've been a member of Parliament for 20 years, and my intake on immigration is very heavy.
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National President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
I understand.
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Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
So thank you for the lesson; it's not one that's needed.
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Order, please. I'm not going to tolerate that kind of aggressiveness toward our witnesses, please. If you're asking a question, please ask it to the witness and give the witness—
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An hon. member
[Inaudible--Editor]
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Order while I'm speaking.
Please give the witness a chance to answer the question. The witnesses came here today with that in mind, so I think we need to respect their right to speak and to make their views known.
Mr. Karygiannis.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
The processing times have increased by 48%; that's a given. This is under the old system, not under the proposed Bill C-50. The intake has decreased by 41%.
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National President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
You understand, Jim—I'm sure you do, because you've been in the system long enough—how CIC reports processing times. They report the average processing time. If they only have 10 cases, the average is eight cases; if they have a million cases, the average is 800,000 cases. So really, they're not processing actual processing times; they're saying on average, the cases that we have been processing are taking this long.
It's like driving down the 401 looking in the rear-view mirror and trying to steer. It's okay if the lanes go straight and there's no traffic in front of you, but it sure as heck doesn't help you drive down the 401. That's exactly what it is.
All I'm saying is that what's going to happen, in our opinion and in our position on Bill C-50, is that those same people who have been waiting in line and have seen their processing times—we have clients in many visa posts—get longer and longer, not because there are more people who are the same as them, but because other people keep butting into the front of the line.... They keep being moved in front, and now we're going to have a whole class of CEC people moved in front of these people. Then we're going to have all these files the minister wants to bring out of the backlog, because they're needed, move in front of the same people. We're going to get processing times of 10 years and 15 years.
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Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
I appreciate that, but until now it's been first in, first out.
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National President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
No, not in the last four years. It has not been first in, first out.
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Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
The minister says it's first in, first out. Is she misleading us?
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National President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
If everybody is an orange, it's first orange in, first orange out, but they've brought the peaches in front of the oranges, the pears in front of the peaches, the apples...and they haven't even come to all the fruits yet.