Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to my colleagues for inviting me here today to speak about two initiatives that are very important to my department. The first concerns citizenship, in particular passports, and the second concerns our immigration programs, of which we are all very proud.
I will make a few opening remarks about these two subjects. I am also open to answering your questions.
Before l begin, let me say what a pleasure it is to be in front of your committee for the first time. It contains so many friends and colleagues who I know are as committed as I am, and as we are in the department, to making a success of our citizenship and immigration programs. I look forward to all of the opportunities we'll have down the road to continue this discussion and deepen it.
The transformational change that we are undertaking, particularly in our immigration programs, is very much at the heart of what I have been invited to discuss with you today.
This is not just a side issue we're discussing today. It's something that goes to the heart of the reforms we have been bringing forward for several years now. We expect these reforms to culminate in a major watershed for Canada's immigration programs—the launch of the expression of interest, or EOI, system at the beginning of 2015.
Bill C-4 is the legislative expression of our commitment to foster prosperity and opportunity for Canadians. This is also true of the portions of the bill that pertain to the immigration system.
There is a direct link, and I think we see that link more and more clearly as the days pass between our economic success and the success of our immigration system, a system we want to be free of fraud, but also to be fast, fair, and flexible. We want to target the best and the brightest around the world, many of whom we know are interested in coming to Canada.
The rest of the world, fortunately, is enjoying recovery at one pace or another. Canada in many ways continues to lead the field, but we still have a genuine opportunity to build on our ingenuity, our immense natural wealth, our values and stability, and to use the immigration system to leverage that potential even more.
Let's be clear. The demographic pressures, the skills deficit we see in a number of areas, mean that we are relying on immigration now more than ever just to meet the current needs of the Canadian economy, never mind the future needs. There was a time when it was 20% or 30% of our labour market needs that we were meeting with our annual immigration. Now some studies are saying it's already 65% and perhaps climbing to 75%. In other words, the job, the skills deficit, the inability to find the right skilled people to fill jobs across the country, in almost every region of the country, would be even more acute if it weren't for our economic immigration.
Now let me give you a little context before commenting on EOI directly. We continue to tackle backlogs. We realize that eliminating backlogs—and that is our goal—is a prerequisite for full implementation of EOI. If we hadn't taken the actions we've taken with regard to the federal skilled worker program, and other categories, our backlogs would have grown to over 1.7 million this year and to 2.3 million in 2015.
Instead, and I know we've had exchanges on this question before, the backlogs are down to 600,000 this year, and are projected to go down to 400,000 in 2015 at the current pace. There may be other measures we can take to eliminate backlogs even faster, and I look forward to discussing some of them with you.
In the FSW, or federal skilled worker, program, if we had followed the old path—let's be honest: the pre-2006 path—the backlog would be 1 million with 10-year wait times in that program alone, growing to 2.5 million in 2015 with a 15-year wait time. Instead, the backlog is under 100,000 this year, with only a one-year wait time on average, and is estimated to go down to 10,000 in 2015. We're driving towards a just-in-time system. We're driving towards a transformation that will link our immigration programs much more closely to the changing needs of the Canadian economy and labour market.
That is why this new recruitment model, highlighted and carried forward in important ways in the current BIA bill, is so important. It will select immigrants based on the skills Canadian employers need. It's called expression of interest. The name is not exactly catchy, we agree. It has been inherited from other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, which launched the thinking in this regard. I welcome the suggestions of the committee about how we relabel, reconsecrate, or rebrand this program in a way that expresses all the potential we see in it.
The intent of this system as a job market recruitment model is already clear, and its goal is vitally important. It's a new way of managing immigration applications that will create a pool of skilled workers to be matched with employers and fast-tracked through the system. Our goal is to have this system in place by New Year's Day 2015, just over a year from now.
The most important part of this is that only the top-ranking candidates in the pool, who are identified as possible candidates by provinces, territories, employers and the federal government, would receive invitations to apply for permanent residence. There are many people who will express their interest. However, only those who are needed by employers, territories, provinces, and the federal government will be invited to apply, and the resources made available to handle these applications will correspond to the number of invitations sent out each year.
Among the many benefits of this new system is that it's faster. We are aiming to see skilled newcomers arrive here in months rather than years.
It's more effective. As I said, we will invite only the most highly qualified candidates from the pool rather than simply those who apply first, and as the system becomes known, we expect the quality of people in the pool to go up. Not everyone around the world knows how the new point system for our federal skilled worker program works.
It is very competitive and very attractive, especially, I think, for English or French speakers around the world. EOI is going to help us publicize that opportunity to a larger audience than ever before. It's also going to be more responsive to the changing labour market needs of employers. Over time, they are likely to be more skilled applicants with valid job offers and a clearer shared understanding of how their credentials translate into a Canadian context.
Before my time runs out, I would like to make a few brief comments on Bill C-4 and the amendments related to the transfer in responsibility for Passport Canada to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. This transfer came into effect earlier this year, two weeks after I arrived at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.
Among many benefits, this transfer makes the passport program more efficient and cost-effective. As you know, CIC is responsible for determining Canadian citizenship for all people subject to the Citizenship Act. Only Canadian citizens are eligible to apply for a Canadian passport, so integrating the passport program into Citizenship and Immigration Canada is a natural fit.
In fact, Chair, I would say that a Canadian passport is one of the most tangible and prominent symbols of Canadian citizenship. It's an internationally recognized symbol.
We have a new, secure, 10-year electronic passport—the e-passport—that has been more popular than any previous product, with a million of them issued in a question of months, which shows that Canadians are travelling, Canadians want secure documents, and Canadians want them for the longer term. It's also more cost-effective to buy a 10-year document.
So the measures contained in Bill C-4 are there to complete the transfer of the Passport Office to Citizenship and Immigration, to make sure that it is more responsive than ever to Canadians' needs, so that we can deliver passports by as many channels as possible—mail, Service Canada, passport offices, online applications. All of that success is reflected in the very strong statistics showing the growth in the demand for the Canadian passport, which I think in recent years has gone beyond anything we dared to expect 10 or 20 years ago.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am ready to answer questions from members of the committee.
