Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 10th, 2009

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Go ahead, I'll make--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Let him finish.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, I do hope that Mr. Dykstra will allow me to finish.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay. I don't want to get into a fight. Please continue, sir.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I think the minister called my figures into question. So, Mr. Chair, I am prepared at this time to allow the minister the doubt that he doesn't have the figures I was talking to, and maybe he'd like to reconsider his comments.

But I'm going to table the figures I have. These figures were something I received from Citizenship and Immigration on November 21, 2007, for the 2004 processing times for skilled immigrants. The top of the line says “All points of service...43”. Then, Mr. Chair, I would go to the minister's website on December 2, 2008. It states that the processing times for all points was 68.

I'm prepared to table this. I'm wondering if the minister would like to reconsider his remarks, if the minister would like to go away and look at the figures I have and maybe come back to this committee and reconsider his remarks, or if the minister has absolutely no clue about what figures he was talking about.

I would like to have the government--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay. Mr. Dykstra has a comment.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Yes. What I was going to do is ask Mr. Karygiannis to table or enter in his material, which he has done.

It's pretty difficult for the minister, based on the fact that he hasn't seen anything you've put forward today, to respond to that question. I think you should at least give him the time to have a look and then potentially respond.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, if the minister is prepared to withdraw the comment that my figures are in question, certainly I would like to give him the benefit of looking over these figures and maybe coming back to this committee to be able to substantiate....

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Karygiannis, the minister hasn't seen the documents you have.

Okay, here we go. Mr. Minister.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Chairman, I believe this is clearly a point of debate and not privilege.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It is indeed.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

If I could then be given just a moment to respond to clarify my remarks, I do not withdraw them. Essentially what I said was that Mr. Karygiannis had previously cited statistics on processing times at this committee that turned out to be inaccurate. On May 13 of last year, he asked if we could explain why processing times in Beijing had increased by 48% since 2005, and in fact the premise of the question was totally inaccurate. Processing times in Beijing had not increased by 48% in any category.

I simply referred to that to suggest that until we can have a closer review of the statistics he has referenced this morning, I'm not prepared to accept their veracity at face value, given that he was mistaken in citing similar statistics a few months ago at this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Karygiannis, the chair is ruling that this is not a point of personal privilege, and we are going to proceed to the motion of Ms. Chow.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm just wondering if you are in a position to rule on a point of personal privilege.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

I move that we delete vote 1 of the citizenship and immigration department as it includes the $2 million communication funds.

Earlier on I spoke about why I thought spending close to $1 million on communications, purchasing $915,000 worth of ethnic media while Parliament is debating the item, and $24,000 on Bill C-50 between April and the first week of May.... As some of you may recall, we didn't approve Bill C-50 until the end of May, I believe.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. Chow, I understand from the procedure that you can reduce but you can't delete. The committee can reduce--

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Yes, you can reduce. You can call it reduce to zero. You can delete, either way. You cannot add. You cannot transfer. You can certainly delete or whatever you want to call it; it can be removed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm going to excuse the witnesses. Thank you very much for coming.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

I will just thank the committee very much. I look forward to coming back.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well--

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

We can certainly change that to remove rather than delete. I think it means the same thing. Remove, eliminate, delete, cancel--what else is there? Defer?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

All right. I understand what you're saying. My understanding of the procedure is that you can reduce something or you can vote against it. You can vote against the whole thing, but I don't think you can delete a particular item.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Okay. Why don't I amend my motion to read that we remove, reject, eliminate, defer vote 1?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

That's a long motion.

Ms. Chow, we're running out of time. We can continue this matter on Thursday when we have other motions. We have literally run out of time, and I'm sorry--

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I have a point of order then.