Good morning, and thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm accompanied by Deputy Minister Neil Yeates; Les Linklater, ADM for policy; Robert Orr, ADM for operations; and Amipal Manchanda, who is the chief financial officer at CIC.
Thank you very much, colleagues.
I think the estimates before you are straightforward and self-explanatory. However, I thought I would focus my remarks on a critical issue, which was the subject of a study of your permanent standing committee, and that is the question of backlogs. We've made enormous progress in backlog reduction.
You all know that one of the most vexatious problems in our immigration system for many years has been that of enormous backlogs, which reflected a certain degree of dysfunctionality in our immigration system. You'll know that a couple of years ago our total immigration backlog had capped out. It was plateaued for two or three years at about one million people waiting for decisions on their applications, in many cases for over seven years, across a range of our programs. We have taken determined action to reduce those backlogs in order to move from a slow and passive immigration system to one that is fast and flexible, and better connected to the needs of our labour market, our economy, so that we can do a much better job of using immigration as a tool of economic growth.
One thing I'd like to remind committee members of is that backlogs were not and never have been a function of operational inefficiency. When I hear some members suggest, even after having studied the question of inventories and backlogs for months, that if we were simply to hire more staff to generate more visas, as if this were some sort of remedy, I'm disappointed. I think after the study this committee held, surely members would understand that in fact backlogs have not been a function of operational resources.
Indeed, for the past seven years this department has been achieving its operational targets, and has been admitting the number of permanent residents that we planned to. Rather, it was a function of policy, whereby we were required to receive and ultimately process a potentially unlimited number of applications in a world where, of course, we limit the number of immigrants we admit.
Consequently, year after year we were, as I say, overselling the plane, as it were, to Canada. We were selling more tickets than there were seats available.
I think the best possible metaphor for the development of backlogs is to imagine Immigration Canada running an airline, which has a capacity, let's say, of 255,000 seats, but every year we were selling something in the range of 400,000 tickets. We could have tripled the number of flight personnel. We could have hired more pilots. We could have hired more flight attendants and gate attendants, but there were still just 255,000 seats on the plane. There were still a limited number of opportunities for permanent residency based on the immigration plan, which in turn is based, in part, on the government's understanding, at least, of the public consensus for the practical limits of immigration.
The real problem wasn't how many staff were running that airplane, because we were filling it up year after year, we were occupying every available seat. The problem was the 150,000 people to whom tickets where sold and for whom there were not seats available.
That happened year after year. That was a function not of operational inefficiency on the part of the department, although it could and always does seek additional efficiencies, it was rather a function of bad policy. We, the politicians, have to take the blame for that. Really, I think ultimately that policy mistake was made in IRPA, and it wasn't helped, frankly, by subsequent judicial decisions.
To the previous government's credit, it actually did try, following the adoption of IRPA, to take measures to reduce the backlog, at least in the skilled worker program, which were ultimately unsuccessful at court.
We ended up with a backlog of one million people. You'll see this in the deck.
Mr. Chairman, this is the point I'd really like to emphasize with you.
Had we not taken action, we would have had a total backlog of 2.23 million people by 2015. That means that, in two years, we would have a backlog of 2.2 million people, with ridiculous wait times.
That's the direction in which we were headed.
Some people, Chairman, suggest that the solution to all of this could and should have been simply to increase immigration levels. Let's expand the airplane. Let's buy another airplane. Let's add seats on the airline by increasing the immigration levels. At least that proposed remedy sort of addresses the mathematical problem of backlogs but inadequately.
You can see on one of these slides—I don't have the number here—that had we increased immigration levels to 1% of the population, which has been advocated by some political parties, that is to say increased levels in the range of admitting 340,000 permanent residents rather than say 260,000, and done that without limiting the number of new applications and without more aggressive backlog reduction, the backlog by 2015 would stand at 1.28 million. The backlog would have continued to grow. You could increase levels massively from 260,000 to 340,000, but if you didn't limit intake of new applications, the backlog would continue to grow.
This is a challenge.
In fact, Mr. Chair, by proposing an increase in immigration levels, it might be difficult to resolve the problem of growing backlogs.
You'll see on the next slide a huge backlog reduction. We've gone from a total backlog at the end of 2011 of just over 1 million to a backlog last month of 616,000, a 40% reduction, Mr. Speaker. You'll see the largest production there is in the economic classes, a reduction from 688,000 to 326,000, and in family class from 238,000 to 202,000.
I find it interesting, Mr. Chairman, that after all the criticism the government has taken for its robust efforts to reduce these backlogs so we could actually have an efficient immigration system, I've been criticized for having gone too far into backlog reduction on the economic category. Now people are asking why I've neglected the family class and why I haven't more aggressively reduced the backlogs there.
I find that somewhat ironic because in fact legitimate criticism can be directed in my direction for not having taken firmer action faster on backlog reduction. But quite frankly, every single measure we took, from limiting the number of new applications, to putting moratoria in place for several programs, to of course the legislative decision to return applications to some 280,000 people in the federal skilled worker queue, all of those were opposed.
Nevertheless, notwithstanding that opposition, we see that enormous progress has been made. I'll just run you through how some of that is happening. You'll see on the next slide the total immigration backlog again. We would have been on track to well over 2 million persons had no actions been taken, which would have been massively irresponsible. I estimate that at that point we'd be sitting on average wait times of well over 14 years, and of course, it would just keep growing ad infinitum.
Instead, as you can see, with the introduction of the action plan for faster immigration in the end of 2008, which was essentially to begin using the new tool of ministerial instructions to limit new applications, in the case of the federal skilled worker program, we've managed to plateau the growth of the backlog. Then in 2011, you'll see the impacts on the moratorium on new applications for the immigrant investor program, the entrepreneurs program, the moratorium for new applications on the federal skilled worker program, and the two-year temporary pause in applications for the parents and grandparents program.
Then, ultimately, you'll see the impact of the legislative reduction of old pre-2008 FSW applications bringing us down to 436,000. Then you'll see the differences broken down by program.
Just to run you through these very quickly, on the federal skilled worker program, had no action been taken, we'd be on track for a backlog of 1.58 million persons with a 15-year wait time by the end of 2015. Instead, you'll see that we are now at under 100,000. We're at about a 90,000-person backlog with about a 12-month wait time, on track as promised to a just-in-time system that processes new applications for skilled workers in months rather than years, with a working inventory. That is to say, an inventory that's smaller than the projected annual level of admissions.
Similarly, on parents and grandparents, you'll see that in the third quarter of 2011 we introduced the action plan for faster family reunification, which has helped us to take a 167,000-person backlog with an eight-year wait time down today to 125,000-person backlog with a five-year wait time. If we continue with this policy approach, which involves a higher than ever level of admissions, admitting 25,000 parents and grandparents per year—that is, by the way, a 60% increase over the average level of admissions in that program over the long term—and we continue with limited numbers of new applications, we will be on track to a two-year wait time by 2015.
I'll tell you this, Mr. Chairman. If you're applying for your parents to come to Canada, a two-year wait time is a heck of a lot better than an eight-year wait time growing to a 15-year wait time, which is where we would be, frankly, had we followed the advice of some and taken no action.
The business categories, you'll see, involve essentially the entrepreneur and investor immigrant programs. Again, we were capped out at a backlog of 107,000 with a nine-year wait time—that was just last year—and we were on track for a backlog of 250,000 and 20-year wait times. Yes, you heard me—20-year wait times—but with the pause on new applications, we're on track to see a gradual reduction in that program.
One program on which we have not taken any action yet is the live-in caregiver program, and this is a concern that I point out to you, colleagues. We are now sitting on a backlog of 45,000 people with their permanent residency applications in the queue. There's a five-year wait time, which, to me, is unacceptable. In fact, that doesn't really disclose the whole truth, because there are also the caregivers who are currently here on a temporary status and have not yet qualified for permanent residency. If we count those two inventories together, we are looking at upwards of 80,000 people and about a 10-year inventory.
We've also made enormous progress not through limiting new applications but through other measures such as the introduction of the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, which, of course, limits access to the humanitarian and compassionate application process for failed asylum claimants, replacing it effectively with the new fully fact-based appeal at the refugee appeal division for the vast majority of claimants.
We've also, as you know, restricted access to H and C for certain kinds of very serious criminals such as terrorists and members of organized criminal networks. As a result of those measures, you'll see that the backlog, which was bouncing around the 25,000 level, is going to come down to a couple of thousand. That is to say we'll be processing those H and C applications very quickly rather than over the course of 18 months or so.
Finally, I have very good news. It's not in this chart, but as a result of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and its implementation last December, together with additional resources that we gave to the IRB and the CBSA to deal with the asylum system, we have seen a dramatic reduction in the asylum claimant backlog.
It had capped out about 18 months ago, at the beginning of 2012, at 60,000. We're now at about 28,000 claimants who are waiting for their asylum hearings. That's very good news, because with the better than expected results of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, with a 65% reduction in the number of new claims, this means that we are even further accelerating backlog reductions. Should current trends continue, we will be on track for a working inventory, as it were, meeting the new timelines of the new asylum system within a couple of years.
We have seen enormous progress in almost all areas of our immigration system when it comes to this acceleration. It is not just a matter of figures; it is a matter of lives and people. We want to give qualified individuals reasonable access to Canada.
I would remind my colleagues that we are competing for the talent of the best potential immigrants who could help us build Canada. New Zealand and Australia accept qualified immigrants in a matter of a few months. We cannot contend with that competition when we have a system that takes a number of years to do the same thing.
Furthermore, to link potential economic immigrants to available jobs in our economy, in our labour market, we need an accelerated, fast and flexible system. We are in a very good position. We will soon have a new expression of interest system, in other words, this huge reform of the economic immigration system, which will be in place by the end of 2014.
I intend to bring forward legislative amendments—hopefully in the second budget implementation act, Mr. Speaker—for legislative authorities for the expression of interest system, on which I have briefed this committee and which we hope to put in place by the end of 2014. That system is predicated on a fast and responsive system. Thanks to the enormous progress we have made and will continue to make on backlog reduction, that new system will be in a position to work and to deliver results for Canadians.
Thank you for your attention. I would be pleased to answer your questions.
