Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 21st, 2013

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay.

Would you care to expand on why integration is important?

[David Manicom]

I....

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I understand that it could be beyond the scope of the presentation here today.

[David Manicom]

I think it's a self-evident good that immigrants become full members of Canadian society and be able to participate in our civic culture and labour market and, most importantly, I guess, that they're happy.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

I'm looking at the first page of the package that you gave us. The graph is quite striking, actually. If we look at this, we see two big spikes, and they both happen around the two world wars, with immigrants wanting to come to Canada after the First World War and the Second World War. That's a striking. It's understandable that people would want to come to a country that respects freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, especially after a time of war.

Just taking a look at the last 10 to 20 years, the level of sustained immigration into the country is unprecedented in the country's history. Certainly, that has contributed to the difficulty in dealing with backlogs. Would you agree with that?

[David Manicom]

No, I wouldn't, sir.

The accumulation of backlogs is not directly related to levels; it's related to a disjoint, if you will, between the levels plan and the department and the government's policies with regard to managing the intake of applications. For a number of years, we had no effective tools to manage the intake of applications. The front end of the system, if you will, was open-ended, yet we were obliged, as a department, to carefully manage output to the annual levels plan as presented to Parliament. That disjoint was large in some categories, small in others, but overall it lead to the very significant accumulation of inventories, which, of course, had a number of negative effects, both with regard to the service you provided to clients, the costliness of maintaining such a large inventory, and the loss of efficiency, and so forth.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you, Mr. Manicom.

Sorry about that, but your time is over. Thank you, Mr. Menegakis.

Madam Sitsabaiesan, you have the floor for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, first of all, to all of our officials.

On page four, you speak of the EOI and say it's under a consultation process. I just want clarification that the EOI, first of all, is for the economic class of immigrants. What we were told by other officials is that for people who come under the EOI, their families will be processed at the same time as well. Is that correct?

[David Manicom]

That's right.

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

Okay, great.

We've heard concerns from organizations like the Canadian Bar Association about the EOI system, in general, that it possibly changes selection rules and procedures that would be made by ministerial instructions and not policy recommendations by Parliament. They were concerned about that. We were told that that in the fall of 2012 consultations were held with employers on the EOI system.

Can you tell us who and how many employers attended those consultations and how many meetings were held?

[David Manicom]

No, I don't have the details of that. I know there were a number of sessions and a large number of employers engaged. We can provide that information in the follow-up.

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

Fabulous. Thank you. If you could provide to the clerk who and how many employers attended those consultations and how many meetings were held, that would be greatly appreciated.

I'm getting some of this information from the letter that the bar association sent to this committee. The bar association believes that consultation would help rather than impede the implementation process. Looking at page four, it says that consultations are under way right now, so I'm assuming there are more consultations that are continuing to happen, based on information you provided to us on page four here.

I'm just wondering if these consultations that are under way right now are going to be open to the public. Will they be transparent? Are labour and other industry groups also going to be invited to these consultations?

[David Manicom]

Yes. Because of the absence of Sandra Harder, who is ill and was supposed to be here today, and is the lead on that file, I don't have the details of the future consultation plans with respect to expression of interest. I do not know of any plans to have completely open, public consultations. We are in regular consultations with the provinces, particularly, right now, as we try to define how the provinces will participate in the program. Due to the large number of consultations with industry in the past, I don't have details about future ones, but there already have been a large number.

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

Fantastic. I'm just going from what's on page 4 here. It says that consultations are under way, so I'm assuming they're still happening.

Could you please provide that information to the clerk as well, because you said your colleague is not here to provide us those answers? If you can provide details in writing as to the future consultation meetings that are still continuing, open to the public, transparent, and also whether labour and industry groups will be invited to participate in those consultations, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Now changing gears a little to the annual report to Parliament on immigration, it describes various measures that the federal government had pursued to eliminate backlogs and reduce processing times, including, of course, limiting or delaying the intake of new applications, terminating applications from previous years, and creating centralized management processes. This is page 6 and 7 of the report.

What impact have these measures had on the efficiency of the programs that had been experiencing significant backlogs? How many applicants have had their applications terminated? How many applications have been delayed?

[Diane Burrows]

If you don't mind, could you repeat some of the questions a little bit for me? We're trying to find the pages as we go.

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

Okay, sure.

This is all from the annual report. What impact have these measures had on the efficiency of the programs that had been experiencing significant backlogs? How many applicants have had their applications terminated? How many applications have been delayed?

[David Manicom]

For the number of applications terminated, I don't have the exact figure with me, but it was approximately 300,000 individuals in the federal skilled worker program. I don't think I can provide an answer to a question like how many applications have been delayed, because I don't know what your definition of delay is.

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

It would be further than the advertised time on the website. We know the times on the website are probably not the reality for many people. That's the case anyway in my constituency for people that—

[David Manicom]

The information on processing times on the websites is statistical information. They represent the processing time for 80% of cases, so there are 20% of cases that fall outside of those processing times by category and by office.

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

Maybe all of those 20% are living in Scarborough. I don't know. All 20%, those statistical anomalies, live in my community it seems.

[David Manicom]

That ones that go very fast don't have a strong tendency to approach their members of Parliament.

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

This is true.

Maybe you can provide those numbers to the clerk as well. You said you don't have the exact number and you were giving us a guesstimation, so could you provide an actual number?

[David Manicom]

The number of applications terminated is about 300,000. We can provided the exact figure.

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

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Once again, from the report, are the changes that are taking place being communicated to previous applicants who had their applications terminated? Is it being communicated to the 300,000, or whatever the number is, whose applications have been terminated? If so, how are the changes being communicated?

[David Manicom]

Sorry, is what being communicated?