Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 5th, 2014

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

—and you want us to believe that after the election you will have spent the money, none of which according to the estimates you spent.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Could you give a 30-second answer.

[Anita Biguzs, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Chair, if I may on behalf of the minister, I would just indicate that in fact we are investing internally. It's a question of staffing positions. A lot of this processing requires people, and we have launched very significant staffing processes. In fact, we're already bringing on board several hundred employees, and that process in terms of just government public service processes actually takes many months. We will have many more positions on stream that will deal with processing. We already have people coming on stream now. So we will see the bulk of these actual—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're way over. We have to stop. I'm sorry.

Mr. Leung.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, sir.

Ms. Anita, I just will allow you a little time to finish your comment. I think there's merit to how you were responding.

[Anita Biguzs]

I will just complete that, Mr. Chair.

It takes time to staff positions. A lot of the workload requires resources in terms of being able to process at the same time that we are trying to re-engineer our processes to make sure they are efficient as possible. As the minister mentioned, the change to the new decision-maker model will actually have a significant impact as well in our processing capacity.

Although the budget funding that was identified was over two years, we have internally allocated resources this year in terms of meeting our needs. But the bulk of our requirements will actually be reflected in 2014-15 because it will be a question of just reprofiling resources that will meet our requirements in the next year. It may not necessarily match what we may have seen originally in the original budget documents, but in fact we will be spending those resources, and a lot of it will be associated with staffing processes that will be completed certainly for 2014-15.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Chair, at this time I would like to table these two documents, which I'm sure Mr. McCallum has, but I see that he may not have in Technicolor. It's called “Strengthening Canadian Citizenship: Shortening Processing Times”. You don't have it in Technicolor but—

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

It is in colour.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Okay. This one is in colour, and what it shows is that—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Stop the clock for a minute. Everybody's got one except the end of the table or the opposition.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Or the official opposition.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I'm tabling it. The point I want to make is—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

No, I need to consult with the clerk. Just a second.

Mr. Leung, if you give the clerk a copy, she will send an electronic version tomorrow. It's a little unusual for you to give evidence as opposed to this end of the table giving evidence.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You can table it. The members might not see it until tomorrow.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

That's fine. I think it's in black and white.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're going to start the clock again.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Yes, sir.

The point I wish to make is that—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Point of order now, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry. Hold on again.

Stop the clock.

You have another point of order?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I just want to make sure that the documents are in both official languages.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Yes, in both official languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I don't even know what the document is at this stage, but if it is...if it requires that, it will be in both official languages.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.