Evidence of meeting #50 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 amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
It's VFS, a private company. They are processing visa applications; it's a foreign company and it is from India. It very much connects with processing time because it's a contract that was just signed, and this committee never had the opportunity to learn about it or study it.
My fear is that the visa offices that are run by the government would have one set of processing times, but if you can pay the extra $35--let's say in China and Beijing--you can go to this private company, get into a separate queue, and you can have your visas fast-tracked that way.
I totally agree with studying the processing time, but in order to do it comprehensively.... Since this motion has been submitted, we learned last week that they have signed this contract that none of us know anything about with this international company, which even just last year compromised the identity of 50,000 applicants in India.
How are we going to safeguard these applicants? This is an amendment that I want to add to Mr. Karygiannis' motion.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Before you accept the amendment, can I just say two things?
I think what my honourable colleague is trying to say is that she wants to study the visitor visa process, because the thing this is referring to is the visitor visa process.
In India, in order to apply for a visitor visa you go through a contract that we have with an office that takes all the visitor visas—a private company—and sends them to the posts, whether it be Chandigarh or New Delhi. Something similar was signed last week in China.
I think we need to keep it clear that this deals with the processing times of immigrant applications, and what my colleague is saying is that she also wants to study the processing times of visitor visa applications.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
If we can make clear what we're studying, so that we're not discussing apples and oranges, what my colleague is advancing, and I have absolutely no problem with it, is that somewhere we have to find the processing variables for visitor visas in China and in India versus other parts of the world where no outside source is used to process the visitor visa application.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Is there discussion on the amendment?
There is no discussion on the amendment.
(Amendment agreed to)
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Is there no further discussion on the main motion?
We will vote on the main motion.
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
We will vote on the main motion as amended.
(Motion as amended agreed to)
4 p.m.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Just before we get into the issue of the report, the issue I'm going to raise is purely administrative, and I hope maybe the parliamentary secretary can convey it.
We changed the group permit process for international students in Canada to a three-year process. I have a case, and there are many other cases, where somebody may have completed a one-year process and then gone on to graduate school. But the process before was one year and now it has been extended to three years.
The problem with the present process is that when this person completes their graduate studies, they cannot apply for this three-year process because they have been granted a one-year process before.
It would probably be consistent with the government's aim to allow these people to at least get an extra two years, so that in total they would have three, because I think the whole initiative is to get these international students to maybe pick Canada to settle in. It would make sense in those cases that we allow them to do another two years on top of their one year, especially in this case--the student is now going to be a graduate student. And this will apply in many other cases.
I'm not sure whether Mr. Komarnicki is aware of this, but I imagine he would very much want to support something like that.
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
That's fine. We'll certainly take that through.
I want to make one point before we move into the study itself. We have partially completed Bill C-17, having heard some witnesses, but have not concluded that process, and we need to conclude it. It should be the first order of business when we get back, unless we're going to have further meetings at this point.
4 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Mr. Chair, can I resubmit the motion regarding safe third country agreements, so that we would deal with it again when we come back?
4 p.m.
Conservative