Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 21st, 2013

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

Right.

[David Manicom]

Canada has never had an open-ended immigration levels plan. We have managed and established priorities between immigration categories for many decades.

What happened in the parent and grandparent program was that for many years we accepted far more applications than space allocated under the levels plan. So we were taking 35,000 to 40,000 person applications per year and allotting level space of 15,000 to 20,000. I can't anticipate what the future levels will be in the parent and grandparent program, but last year, and again this year, the government set the levels plan at 25,000, which is the highest in many years.

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

But that was of course during the moratorium of applications for parent and grandparent class.

[David Manicom]

That's right. It was to ensure that we weren't taking applications that we would not be able to process for many years.

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

Following up on that, how does the government plan to prevent any future backlogs for families attempting to reunite here in Canada with their parents and grandparents? I ask because I'm talking to people in the community and they're waiting for that moratorium to end. On day one, there are going to be 10,000 applications coming from Scarborough—Rouge River. I'm sure that all other 307 constituencies will have similar situations. What are we doing to prevent backlogs in the future?

[David Manicom]

For 2014, the government has established an intake cap of 5,000 cases, so 10,000 to 11,000 individuals. The backlog is much smaller than it was. It was 160,000 persons. It's going to be around 80,000 by the end of the year, but that's still a significant backlog. And depending on levels going forward, that backlog will represent at least several or three or four years' worth of processing. So taking a large number of applications in 2014 would simply doom individuals to long waiting times. So we want to continue to manage down that backlog so that in future those applications that we do decide to accept, based on the levels planned, will be processed rapidly.

The government also introduced a longer stay temporary resident visa, which it called the super visa, that provides individuals with multiple-entry visas valid up to 10 years and the ability to stay in Canada for up to 2 years at a time without renewing their status.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

The bill indicates that the minister may communicate personal information, that he may give direction, that he may rescind them, and so on. In this bill, changes are made in the process and regulations through departmental directions. Personally, I find that very concerning because we are giving someone else the power that we have, as legislators, to make legislation. We are in the process here of legislating from regulations, and that's a concern. Do you have anything to say about that?

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

I'm sorry, Ms. Ayala, but your time is up.

Mr. Shory, you have the floor.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Why, thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, witnesses.

I am a guest here today after not sitting on this committee for a while.

Mr. Manicom, I believe you have been around more than any of the members here—or at least you understand the system better than me, I would say. Based on your knowledge of the system, do the changes recently made by our government have any positive impact on processing times, or the quality of immigration? We are trying to match the demand of the day. For example, we dealt with foreign credential recognition, which is my issue. Does that have a positive impact on our Canadian society?

Another issue is fraud marriages, or marriages of convenience. All those changes that were introduced in recent years, do they have any positive impact on our Canadian society?

[David Manicom]

That's a very broad question. I'm not sure how much time I should take to answer it, Madam Chair.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

She'll cut me off soon.

[David Manicom]

Certainly, a number of changes made in recent years, we think, have enhanced the timeliness and efficiency of our economic categories, particularly in managing intake in such a way as to be able to process applications more quickly. In recent years, we've also introduced the Canadian experience class to take maximum advantage of international students and other temporary foreign workers who have already demonstrated success in the Canadian labour market. This enables them to apply under a program that has very fast processing.

We've taken a number of steps to combat marriages of convenience. It's a great challenge in many of our missions abroad. I've worked in several of them—China, India, Russia, and Pakistan. The vast majority of marriages are genuine, but there is a significant amount of abuse of that program. Government has taken a number of steps in recent years to combat that, including a five-year bar on sponsoring someone else if you've been sponsored to Canada, and a two-year conditional status for people in new relationships, which requires them to maintain that relationship for a two-year period. Those are some of the changes that I think touch on your questions.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Let's talk about this Typhoon Haiyan . Almost 10,000 Filipino community members live in my riding of Calgary Northeast, which is the hardest-working riding in Canada.

I'd like one of you to expand on the special immigration measures that Citizenship and Immigration Canada is taking to help those who wish to immigrate to Canada from that region.

[Diane Burrows]

Our first priority on this point is to listen to the family members and other persons related to persons in Canada who have been afflicted or affected personally by the situation and are from the affected areas.

In some cases, our people on the ground are going out with delegations in the field to the most affected areas, basically day in, day out, to see if they can find people: in the first instance, Canadians who have been reported missing. They're also working with lists to see if there's anybody who needs to be reached. This has happened for a couple of days now, and we're trying to do it in concert; it's being managed out of the mission.

Otherwise, away from the mission, we're trying to provide good answers about the situation, about getting people the right information they need to make applications to us. We're looking at basically the whole gamut—i.e., if anybody wants to ask us a question, how do we help them to get the outcomes they need?

Where we're maybe less.... We are screening, because we're not necessarily facing at the first instance the situation of people who would be outside the affected area, or people who may want to assist people, but we're helping them to make the right connections.

Our first priority is the family members of permanent residents, of citizens, and then looking at the persons who are temporarily in Canada working, for example, who have family members in the Philippines in the affected areas.

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

Thank you very much. The time has expired.

Madam Block, you will be the last one to speak. You have five minutes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I am not a regular member of this committee, but certainly I welcome the opportunity to be here. I know that all members of Parliament typically deal with these issues back home in our ridings and in our offices. That's really where the questions come from that I'm going to ask.

Over the past number of years that I've been a member of Parliament, I've seen a dramatic increase in the number of constituents we are serving, newcomers coming to the city of Saskatoon, certainly settling in my riding. They come to us with a number of issues, be it sponsoring a family member or family members to come to Canada, or looking to become permanent residents.

Not only are they coming to talk to us about these issues, but we also have constituents who have tended to start to look at our office as a resource. They look at our office as a resource not only for immigration issues but also for travelling abroad. One of the ways we have sought to provide service to our constituents is to hold passport clinics, where we give individuals a bit of an understanding with regard to what may be required. We often help them with their applications.

I know that our government introduced the ePassport, which is the 10-year passport that provides a lot more convenience, I think, to Canadians and that continues to facilitate secure and safe travel.

I wonder if you could just expand a little bit on the benefits we are seeing with this passport, and maybe give us a bit of an understanding with regard to how many 10-year passports you have seen Canadians apply for.

[Jean-Pierre Lamarche]

Thanks for your question.

The ePassport started to be available to Canadians in February 2012. As of July 1 last summer, on Canada Day, five-year and 10-year ePassports were made available to all Canadians.

Since then, we've issued more than a million 10-year ePassports. I can report that close to 80% of the passports issued are 10-year ePassports.

We used to have only a five-year passport. When we looked at our international partners, the international community was moving toward 10 years. We took the opportunity to have a more robust passport book and to move to 10 years along with our international partners.

I don't know if that answers your question or if you'd like a bit more information.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

I would just follow that up with something you said about the international community. So in fact, we implemented the 10-year passport because many other countries were doing that?

[Jean-Pierre Lamarche]

Well, the 10 years is the validity period that countries were using the most, but also, having the ePassport was very important, because with the ePassport right now Canadians can benefit from their passport when they're travelling because they don't need any.... We are one of the countries who need fewer visas to travel around the world, and the ePassport is becoming the international norm. With it we ensure that these countries will not require visas for Canadians to travel abroad.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Madam Block.

Once again, in the name of this committee, Mr. Manicom, Madame Burrows, Monsieur Lamarche, and Madame Imrie, thank you very much for your time. It is very much appreciated.

With that, I declare this meeting adjourned.