Evidence of meeting #39 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was applications.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:55 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I have the total, but I have not divided it into sub-categories.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Okay. Are you talking about permanent residence applications?
3:55 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, permanent residence applications.
3:55 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I can give you information regarding cases in the special class, Quebec's special measures.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Could we first talk about permanent residence applications?
3:55 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
All the 5,850 applications for permanent residence have been processed.
3:55 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Of that total, 3,241 applications have been approved. I am talking about the number of people and not the number of cases.
3:55 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There were 1,596 refused applications. As we said earlier, 1,013 people withdrew their application.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
And in the other category, madam? The category of special applications for Quebec?
3:55 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Regarding Quebec, as of December 11, all the processed applications were approved. There were no refusals. However, the cases of 26 people were closed.
3:55 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thus far, 464 people have been approved.
3:55 p.m.
Claudette Deschenes
No refusals.
3:55 p.m.
Claudette Deschenes
Twenty-six of them have been withdrawn.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Do you have any statistics on the reasons for the refusals?
December 15th, 2010 / 3:55 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Not by category. The main reasons are usually marriages or relationships of convenience, and medical, security or criminal reasons. We have not divided them up into categories. In any case, we don't have the figures with us.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I have only one minute left, Mr. Gilbert. My last question is about the fees. First of all, do you have the figures on how much money the government has taken in with all those applications? Second of all, in the case of a refusal, is the money paid to the government for application processing refunded to the clients? I have heard about families who paid $1,000 to $1,200 for the processing of applications that were refused. It was fairly obvious that they would be refused, since they were for Ontario and not for Quebec, and Canada has not broadened the categories. So, it was a foregone conclusion that the applications would be refused, but those families were told to submit their applications, to pay the fees and to wait and see what happened.
Has the department looked into refunding the fees, since it was obvious from the beginning that the applications would be refused unless the framework is expanded?
3:55 p.m.
A voice
It's all Quebec's fault.
3:55 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
You are talking about fees for processing an application. Therefore, whether we are talking about the applications from Haiti we are currently discussing, or about applications in all categories we receive from around the world, there is no refund provided for application processing.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal