Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 11th, 2014

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Great.

I was hoping to talk about processing times and closing IRB offices, and if time permits, some departmental spending—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The minister has to go. I made a mistake.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

On a point of order, I don't understand why Mr. Menegakis is deciding when the minister has to go, and I don't understand why the minister has seven more minutes for the Conservatives.

Can you explain that to me, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes, I'll do my best.

I was advised by the Conservative staff that the minister has another appointment. He was originally scheduled to leave here at 4:30, and of course the bells stopped us from doing that.

I finished the first round. I thought it was fair to finish the first round. I made an error by starting with Mr. Donnelly, and I'm going to let him finish his question. Then the minister can go.

You'll have time. He'll be short.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll ask one question on the processing times, if I could, then.

Through these main estimates, the government is requesting $45.5 million in additional funding relative to the previous year, due to the increased volume demands in the citizenship program and temporary residence program.

I'm wondering about wait times. Are average wait times increasing as a result of these increased volume demands, and how will the additional funding be utilized to address this increased volume demand?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thanks for those questions.

On citizenship, wait times are not growing. They are, in our view, unacceptably high—two to three years—but they are starting to come down as we move through a much larger number of cases. Already this year we have gotten through 100,000 in the first five months, and with the measures in Bill C-24, we will get through them at a much faster rate in the second half of this year. This means that by early 2016, wait times for citizenship applications will be under one year once again.

For temporary resident visas, which we are issuing in record numbers around the world, in the first three months of this year, demand was up 30% in China, our biggest market, if you will. We issue well over a million every year.

We are put to the test to meet this demand, to stay within our 14-day service standard. I haven't checked the numbers this week, but as recently as early this month and late last month, we were within those service standards, and in many parts of the world, including China, we were well below them.

As you know, we announced CAN+, a service for Mexico and other countries whose visitor visas are processed in Mexico City by us. It will ensure that a large class of visitors from Mexico will have service in seven days or less.

We're also issuing, in some missions, a record number—as much as 90% or more—of multiple-entry visas, 10-year multiple-entry visas, which means that Chinese citizens, Indian citizens, and Mexican citizens, in unprecedented numbers, are coming and going as they see fit to visit family members or to do business. That's a very positive and popular measure, but we've really accelerated it in this past fiscal year, and we plan to continue to do so as our trade relations, economic relations, and tourism with all of these countries continue to grow.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Stop the clock. We have to—

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

He didn't answer about the $45 million.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Is that okay?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

The $45 million has gone to both of these tasks, including citizenship processing, which means more people are doing it and supporting our citizenship judges. There have been more ceremonies—we've seen an unprecedented number this year—and better administration.

I mentioned that in the past two years we had residency questionnaires in large numbers because of suspected abuse in thousands of cases. We have focused investigations now on the really high-risk class of applications and have freed up the others for processing, which means they're moving forward faster. On temporary residency visas, we have actually deployed new people to the field and given ourselves new capacity across our global network to process these record numbers of visitor applications.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Thank you, Minister.

We'll suspend for a minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We'll reconvene.

Mr. Donnelly, you have a little over a minute left.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As part of the cost reduction measures set out in the budget 2012 spending review, the federal government decided to close the Ottawa hearings office of the Immigration and Refugee Board effective April 2014. As noted by the IRB:

...individuals residing in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec with a proceeding before the Board will be expected to travel to the IRB Regional Office in Montreal for their hearing instead.

As well, the IRB announced that it is closing its in-person hearing offices across the Prairies in favour of establishing video conference facilities in Edmonton and Winnipeg.

I'm just wondering what the effects of these closures are and what effect they've had on the tight hearing timelines for those who do not live in the major centres where the offices are now located.

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

Mr. Chair, perhaps I can just begin my remarks by indicating that the Immigration and Refugee Board is responsible for undertaking its own measures. This was not an undertaking of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration in terms of actually looking at measures to achieve certain savings.

My understanding, if I can just comment on the IRB's decisions in terms of offices, is that they offer hearings in Montreal since they closed the Ottawa office, and that move was based on the number of hearings that take place. They basically are looking across their network and trying to rationalize, certainly from the point of view of where the numbers are, and they feel they can actually meet their requirements. It's not unusual in other locations that people have to travel a certain distance to attend hearings.

It would really be more appropriate for the Immigration and Refugee Board, which is not present today, to reply to that question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. Biguzs.

Mr. Opitz.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Through you, Chair, thank you, all, for being here today.

Citizenship and Immigration received the passport program last July, and as you know, our government is committed to fairness and respect for the hard-earned tax dollars of our citizens while ensuring, of course, the delivery of a quality service. The passport program does provide one of the highest levels of service, and the service standards in Canada are being respected in over 99% of the cases.

Would you be able to tell me how many passports were issued last year?

[Anita Biguzs]

In terms of the new 10-year passport, I can advise that since it came into effect, which was July 2013, some 2.4 million 10-year passports have been issued. In total in 2013-14 five million passports were issued.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

That's great.

The e-passport is benefiting Canadians. How many of those have been issued?

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, the number of e-passports, since they became available in July, is 2.4 million.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

That's significant.

A majority of the main estimates is for grants and contributions. What do those entail?

[Anita Biguzs]

The bulk of the funding in grants and contributions is for settlement programming. Some $900 million in total is for settlement services that we provide through the settlement organizations across Canada. Those provide programming to facilitate the integration of newcomers to Canada. It includes language services and referral job-counselling services to try to match individuals with appropriate jobs, to accustom them to Canada and the experience of being in Canada, and to facilitate their successful integration into Canada.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Roughly what amount goes into that?

[Anita Biguzs]

In total it's about $900 million nationally. Of that amount, $300 million is allocated to Quebec, and the balance is to other provinces. The funding amounts, or the allocations, are really determined on the basis of the number of newcomers, the number of people settling. There is a formula for that based on the number of immigrants settling in different parts of the country.