Evidence of meeting #26 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was applicants.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC
It sounds as if it's being dealt with fairly well.
Are there any other recommendations you might have concerning this area?
4:20 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We're certainly looking forward to the introduction of biometrics to see the benefits that system will bring, in terms of protecting the security of Canada and Canadians, and the integrity of the visa system.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
I want to go back a little to the issue of bonding. We've had a number of witnesses come forward on this. We've also had a great deal of discussion or questions from all committee members.
You mentioned, Sharon, that you had seen bonding used in countries still implementing it and countries that had decided against continuing with it. Would you mind describing, from your perspective—not a recommendation as to whether we should do it here—how other countries have been successful with it and the countries that have determined that it's not successful?
4:25 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I have only read that there are varying experiences with the use of bonds. I don't know the details, I'm sorry that I can't answer your question.
4:25 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would have to say the same thing as Ms. Chomyn.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
In any of the countries that you've worked in, have they done the reverse in terms of bonding?
4:25 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
What I had read is that the U.S. at one point had a system of bonds, but they no longer do. Why that is the case, I'm afraid I don't know.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Let me move to the issue that continues to come up here.
I'm not sure on the security side that it's about safety. It's more about interpretation of the work that we do in our offices and how we deal with those who come in and have rejection letters. Almost all of the folks that I deal with in my office who have received notice that they hadn't been approved do receive a rejection letter. Those who didn't bring it with them either have lost it or can't remember where they put it. It's not necessarily clear in terms of the specific reasons, but it does give a generalized outcome of what the investigation was about.
There's this mentioning of appeals. I think it's important to note that at any time someone can reapply.
4:25 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's absolutely true.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
While means for appeal may not be there, certainly means for reapplication.... In fact, that's where I've seen some of the folks who come in to my office be successful with it.
How do you view the fact that we have an over 80% approval rating for visas, and the fact that it was mentioned by the Auditor General as an issue of concern with respect to security. I guess I'm saying, are we allowing too many folks in, or are we at a threshold that we are going to meet the Auditor General's request in terms of getting more details and updating the process that we actually use?
4:25 p.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I can tell you that as a department, and within individual offices, we are constantly doing program integrity reviews of the decisions, and going back over files and notes to see the basis for the decisions, to see whether decisions are being taken in a consistent matter, and to see whether the right information was being considered in coming to a conclusion and a decision being taken. In some cases, the verification is done after the fact to see whether the applicant has returned, or whether in fact they continued to remain in Canada. There are checks being done on documentation that has been submitted.
All of this gets fed back into an office and into the larger knowledge base in the department. We continually revise training materials. We inform our partners. They do the same type of revision on the reference material that they apply to us. I think there's quite a healthy substance supporting the decisions that are being made right now. The reality, I believe, is that most applicants are very genuine visitors and are low-risk cases. Where we wish to concentrate our scarce resources is on the more complex or challenging cases.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Sidney, you mentioned your experience dealing with crooked consultants. Obviously we just passed new legislation in the previous Parliament that is being implemented. How are we going to get stronger on that end? That is where, in principle, some of these issues lie, and that is, folks hearing from crooked consultants to do things that are obviously going to lead them to a rejection.
4:25 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
One of the ways of doing that is getting the message out in the countries where we have our visa offices to let people know that these consultants will dupe them, and working with the local authorities to have these people arrested and prosecuted. We have been doing that in the Punjab, in coordination with other countries that are part of the Five Country Conference. I think that's a very effective way in addition to having penalties for the consultants here in Canada, which we now have.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you very much, Ms. Chomyn and Mr. Frank, for making a contribution to the committee. It has been most helpful. Thank you very much.
We will suspend.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
We will reconvene.
We have two witnesses for the second hour. The first is Dr. Gulzar Cheema, who is a medical doctor and politician who has been elected to both the Manitoba and British Columbia legislatures. His responsibilities in the British Columbia government included serving as minister of state for immigration and multicultural services.
Mr. Bohbot is a lawyer practising in Montreal and is a member of an advisory committee on citizenship in the Bureau d'immigration du Québec. He is president of the Québec Immigration Lawyers Association.
Welcome to both of you.
Dr. Cheema, you will have up to ten minutes to make a presentation, sir. Thank you for coming.
4:30 p.m.
Dr. Gulzar Cheema As an Individual
First of all, thank you for giving me this opportunity. I know that I have ten minutes, but I think I will probably finish within five to six minutes. I'll try my best to keep it short and very specific.
4:30 p.m.
As an Individual
I was elected twice as an MLA in Manitoba, and had the honour of serving the people of British Columbia not only as an MLA, but also as minister of state for the immigration and mental health portfolios. At present, I am a medical practitioner in Surrey, British Columbia, and I have been appointed as a designated medical practitioner for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Over many years of my experience in dealing with immigration matters, I have been alarmed by the number of fraudulent cases that flood our system. I must commend our current government and the Ministry of Immigration on their efforts in tackling this issue, which has affected not only our system but honest individuals seeking immigration to Canada who have been misled by unregulated ghost immigration consultants abroad.
Travelling to India over the last few years on a regular basis, I was pleased to see our Canadian officials in New Delhi, as well as, more specifically, those from the Consulate General's office in Chandigarh, working hand in hand with local authorities to crack down on immigration fraud, as it has been a big problem in some sections of the South Asian community for many years.
Mr. Kenney's recent changes to the spousal sponsorship program are a strong message that CIC not only is aware of this issue, but is also taking swift action in resolving these matters to secure our immigration system.
We are currently spending a large amount of money on removing people who have entered Canada fraudulently. Cross-checking and working together with other governments, such as those of Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.A., will allow us to create a centralized database of people who have tried to enter this country illegally, making it easier for us to screen them initially.
I would like to focus on a few issues with regard to the security checks and medical examinations being done in some places in India.
First, you are aware of the rules for medical examinations for CIC. They are performed by the designated medical practitioners in North America and other parts of the world. The medical examiner completes the physical exam first, and then the applicant has to go through lab tests and X-rays. The medical test results that come out of our labs in Canada are reliable and are verified to be true test results for the applicant, but unfortunately in some places in India the medical test results that are being performed for an applicant from that country have the potential of being tampered with—and thus fraudulent—and may not be the true sample from that applicant.
To solve this problem, CIC should seriously consider establishing a network of a few approved labs where all the samples from the potential applicants can be gathered and analyzed independently. This will avoid a huge cost to the medical system in this country. This information should be shared with countries such as the U.K., U.S.A., and Australia, as these are the common destinations of these applicants.
Second, with regard to obtaining a police clearance certificate in India—and most specifically in Punjab—CIC should establish an independent, credible investigating office for this purpose so that the security checks of all applicants can be done properly. This is essential, because it's very easy to duplicate or produce a fraudulent document for this purpose by any applicant who has the means. For proof, I'm happy to e-mail a copy of this fake police certificate that has been used for these purposes. The cost of security checks should be passed on to the applicant.
Prevention and consistency are the key to saving cost and time, and to maintaining efficiency and accountability. All information should be shared with other countries that have the same or similar standards as Canada, such as the U.S.A., Australia, and the U.K. Since these are the main destination countries of these immigrants, CIC should work with the Indian intelligence services to ensure that everyone has the same information.
Third, all applicants for visitor visas, student visas, or business visas, entertainment groups, religious groups, preachers, school groups, and public officials entering our country should and must have proper security checks, like everyone else. This information must be shared with our neighbours to the south, since these groups travel across the border. To maintain the integrity of our system and keep the rules intact, there must be a zero tolerance policy for violators, whether they are applicants or sponsors. For example, people and organizations abusing our system and these rules should not be given a second chance to offend in any form.
I hope that this will be helpful, and I will answer any specific questions.
Thank you.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you, Dr. Cheema.
I'm sure there will be some questions.
Mr. Bohbot, you have 10 minutes.
March 8th, 2012 / 4:35 p.m.
Dan Bohbot President, Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association (AQAADI)
Thank you very much.
I was asked to come to testify before you today on the subject of biometrics. Basically, this is an invasion of privacy. At school, we read George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. When we read them, we told ourselves that the author was describing the situation at the time in communist countries where people's privacy was completely controlled. We told ourselves that it was terrible and we were happy to be in Canada with our freedoms, our right to privacy, our right to free speech, our capitalism and our free enterprise.
The presumption is that people are honest. In every society, the criminals are few, and they are on the society's margins. Must we change the system of applying for a temporary resident visa because of that minority of alleged criminals? Given the cost, is it worth changing the system of applying for a temporary resident visa in order to catch that minority of dishonest people? There will always be dishonest people. There will always be people like Bernie Madoff, Earl Jones and Vincent Lacroix in the world, despite all our legislation and rules and all the penalties for criminals.
Nothing leads us to believe that Canada is being invaded by waves of criminals from outside or that it is necessary to rush to put in place expensive measures such as gathering biometric data.
If it becomes mandatory to gather biometric data, what will happen if the information is not complete? What process will be in place to complete it? Who will do it and how long will it take? If the biometric information contains errors, how will a foreigner be able to have it corrected? Will he be able to lodge an appeal against decisions that have already been made? What guarantees will our visitors have that their biometric information will be properly used? What recourse will they have in cases of abuse, of loss, of theft, or even just of a change in policy?
Citizenship and Immigration Canada's statistics show that a number of visas are issued to people who would not normally be admissible to Canada. How will biometric data change anything in those cases, for example?
The increasing amount of information involved for each application for a temporary resident visa means more work for visa officers. Where will that money come from? It probably means that it will become a lot more expensive to visit Canada.
This requirement to gather biometric information clearly targets only those countries for which a visa to visit Canada is required. The requirement to gather biometric information therefore discriminates against people from third world countries. What about the criminals from countries that do not require visas? It seems to me that the biggest fraudsters in the world come from countries where no visa to come to Canada is required.
AQAADI feels that Canada is not required to follow in the footsteps of countries like the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, or even New Zealand. Would it not be more prudent to wait to see how effective the measures are in those countries before imposing them here?
Finally, when biometric data are kept and when some visitors one day become Canadian citizens, we will be in a situation where our government is in possession of biometric information on its own citizens.
Thank you. That is what I had to say.