Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 25th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well, we thank you, Mr. Tam, for coming. And I know members of the committee have some questions.

Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'd like to thank all three of you for being here today, so well prepared and so well spoken. Thank you very much for your insightful presentations.

I am particularly delighted to see Mr. Pang here today. For those of you who don't know Mr. Pang, he's not only a leader in the Chinese community in Toronto, but very well respected in the multicultural community for many, many years of contribution. So thank you for being here, Mr. Pang.

I have a couple of questions for the three of you.

In testimony from a previous witness, someone suggested that the government be provided with a $75,000 pay-in if they want to bring their parents or grandparents to Canada. This, of course, is to cover the cost of social services over the time that they're here. I'm just wondering what you think of this suggestion, if you think $75,000 is reasonable or not.

[Amy Casipullai]

Can I respond?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Sure.

[Amy Casipullai]

There are no studies that conclusively establish that parents and grandparents are either a drain or a benefit in the context of services, the economy, or health care. In the absence of that data, we are troubled by the assumption that parents and grandparents would use up the services that we cannot afford. So we are disturbed by this proposal.

It would just be a new head tax under a different name and it would only serve to create a two-tier immigration system, one for the rich and another for the majority.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Tam.

[Thomas Tam]

For over a hundred years Canada has been admitting parents and grandparents for our older citizens, for our older generation, and they contribute to our national development. Again, I agree, I wonder if this is another type of head tax when we implement these amounts at this moment in time.

[Tom Pang]

As I said just before, all you really need is to give them an extended visa, a visitor visa, and they're on their own. If their purpose is to unite with their family, they're welcome to come and stay as long as they want, as long as they don't become a burden on this society.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to visit a little bit again the issue of backlogs. It's a fairly significant number, almost a million people, 800,000 of whom were even on the list before 2006. I don't want to focus, as we often do, on quantity, but a little bit on quality. It's not just about the sheer number of people we let into Canada; it's about making sure that the folks who come here can properly integrate, join the workforce, and participate in the economy and become active in the community.

For our government, the integration of new Canadians is a key goal. As a matter of fact, it's a priority. Would you agree? And can you please expand on what the practical limits are on how many people Canada can welcome a year?

[Amy Casipullai]

I'm sorry, I didn't catch the last part of your question.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Simply, would you agree, and can you please expand on what the practical limits are as to how many people Canada can welcome every year?

[Amy Casipullai]

I would like to go back to a bit of history. Between 1903 and 1913, Canada welcomed people that were in excess of 1% of the population. In fact, in 1913 it was a little over 5% of Canada's population. A number of them were refugees, a good number of them were dependent relatives, including parents and grandparents.

In 1957 Canada welcomed again more than 1% of the population in immigrants. I think it was almost 1.6%. Again, a number of them were refugees, a number of them came as a result of the Suez crisis. I think we can tell now, several decades later, it wasn't a disaster. We were not overwhelmed with problems of sewage and garbage in our communities. Our economy thrived, our communities thrived, and we are beneficiaries of what those immigrants brought to this country.

I think we have evidence that shows that family reunification is a success, that people have settled, that they have contributed, they have participated. In fact, their children and they themselves are sitting in Parliament today. That's testimony to the success of the immigration program.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I agree with the fact that the immigration program has been successful. That really wasn't my question. My question was dealing with practical limits of how many people we can actually accept to the country annually.

Mr. Pang.

[Tom Pang]

How many is not the issue. Canada's a big country, whether they're taking in two million, five million, ten million, whatever. The issue is whether after they arrive in Canada we have a job for them so they can reasonably settle down, that we have schools for the kids to go to. This is the real issue.

I think everybody is talking about this 1% thing. For years and years, for the last 20 to 30 years now, I guess the actual number of immigrants should depend on how many of them we can successfully handle and settle in Canada.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

That really is the point. Thank you.

[Thomas Tam]

I also support that the number of incoming immigrants has to match the capacity of the country. One percent is a good reference. When we look at the distribution of new immigrants, ten years ago 90% of new immigrants settled in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, but the recent figure shows that it's down to 70%. That means more and more people settling in communities outside the major urban centres. I also see a lot of smaller communities, including Fort St. John in northern British Columbia, long for more new immigrants to help to build the community. So I think we are still not at the kind of maximum capacity that we cannot accommodate any extra immigrants.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm afraid we're out of time.

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here.

Being from Vancouver, I want to extend a special thank you to Mr. Tam for being here. For the benefit of those on the committee and all Canadians watching, SUCCESS lives up to its name. It is one of the pre-eminent immigrant servicing agencies, I think, in Canada. On behalf of the committee, we're very honoured to have you here.

Ms. Casipullai, a thank you to you also, for the work you do in Ontario, for contributing so much to our country.

There's a lot of mis-characterizing of different positions that goes on here. We're here studying the backlog, and we know that we get about 400,000 applications every year. This government has been processing about 250,000 every year for the past five years. You don't have to be a mathematician to see that 150,000 applications a year get added to the backlog. There's now a backlog of over a million.

One of the suggestions of the official opposition is that we look at increasing the annual levels in a prudent way. Last year we let in 0.8% of the population. This government took us from 220,000 annual entries in 2006 to 250,000 today. They've increased 14%.

We also know that Canada's going to face a labour shortage in as little as five years' time, and we will be dependent upon new Canadians for up to 100% of our new labour growth. The official opposition's position is that we should be prudently looking to improve or increase the number of admissions per year up to the 1% number over the next five years.

My question is on temporary foreign workers. Last year we let 182,000 temporary foreign workers into this country. When we talk about getting the capacity right, letting enough immigrants into our country because we do want to see them successfully integrated and working, what is your comment on the policy of this government of growing temporary foreign workers every year, and yet shrinking the number of family class visas that are granted and not increasing the number of annual permanent resident applicants to this country?

[Amy Casipullai]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Davies.

We think this is one of the reasons that has contributed to the backlog. It's probably a diversion of resources in processing that has seen more resources put into processing temporary foreign worker applications. As I mentioned earlier from that story from the Alberta newspaper, it's really troubling that more and more temporary foreign workers are being used to fill what would typically be considered as permanent or long-term jobs. This is not a commitment to Canadian communities, and it's really hard for us to understand how—

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

Point of order.

I don't have a problem with folks being critical of a particular story or a particular employer, but we're hearing judgment calls on particular areas of focus that the government uses that are incorrect, and I want to point that out, that it continues to happen.

I know the point that Amy's trying to make, but it is factually incorrect.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

That's not a point of order.

Carry on.

[Amy Casipullai]

Sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It's not a point of order.

You may proceed.

[Amy Casipullai]

Thank you.

We are deeply troubled by the trend to move towards temporary as opposed to permanent immigration. We can see it's going to have a long-term impact in our communities, in how we build the capacity for our communities, because we don't think that economics is the only basis on which Canada is built. We have to look at the social and political consequences as well.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

There's been some talk from previous witnesses about parents and grandparents, and even the insinuation is coming from certain members of this committee that allowing parents in is an economic burden on our society.

Mr. Tam, have you seen any research or do you have any testimony to give us on whether you think that having parents coming to our country is an economic benefit or a net economic burden to our country?