Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 26th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll call the meeting to order. This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. It's meeting number 5 on Tuesday, November 26, and we are studying the temporary resident visas for visitors.

We have three witnesses before us this morning.

The first is famous. He's Professor Mel Cappe, and for those of you who don't know, he was Clerk of the Privy Council, he was a deputy minister, and the last time I met him I addressed him as commissioner, because we had lunch. He probably doesn't remember me.

[Professor Mel Cappe, University of Toronto, School of Public Policy and Governance, As an Individual]

I do.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I doubt if he does, but we had lunch at Grosvenor Square in London. I happened to be on the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association. The president at that time was Senator Lorna Milne. You kindly briefed us on issues in the United Kingdom, and I thought it a memorable time.

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

As did I.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Indeed.

Thank you for coming to the meeting, sir.

We have David Goldstein, who is the president and chief executive officer of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada.

Good morning to you.

Finally, we have—I'm going to have an awful time, sir, and you'll have to help me here, but I'll apologize in pronouncing your name—Feridun Hamdullahpur.

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

Feridun Hamdullahpur.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good morning to you, sir. You're from the University of Waterloo, and you're president and vice-chancellor. You're also vice-chair of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities.

Thank you, the three of you, for coming to give us your views on things. You each have up to eight minutes. You don't have to take it, but you each have up to eight minutes to make a presentation to the committee, and then the committee will have questions.

I will advise the committee that this meeting will end at 12:25 p.m., at which time we will go in camera for committee business.

So away we go with...we'll start with you, sir.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan, I need your help again to pronounce his name.

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

Mr. Hamdullahpur.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Hamdullahpur. Thank you, sir.

[Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur, President and Vice-Chancellor, Vice-Chair, U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, University of Waterloo]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to start by thanking the members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for inviting me to appear before you today. It's a pleasure to be here.

As vice-chair of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, I would like to thank once again and extend my appreciation and U15's appreciation, and in general the entire Canadian university community's appreciation, for the work that Minister Alexander and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration did during the recent labour dispute. Their efforts ensured that with only a few exceptions, international students were able to be on campus and in class for the beginning of the semester. The arrival and continued ability of international students to attend Canadian universities are essential for our operations and for Canada's economy. A Department of Foreign Affairs report determined that international students contribute $8 billion to the Canadian economy each year, by no means a small or insignificant number.

Today, I would like to focus on questions 1 and 3 of your committee's study, as neither my university nor the U15 have an opinion or issue regarding question 2. For the purposes of keeping to the eight minutes I have been provided to speak, I'm going to focus on two issues that speak to the integrity of the system: the classification of who are immigration representatives and the review of the international student program.

About two and a half years ago, the government enacted measures to strengthen the immigration and refugee identification processing system in Canada. The Government of Canada reduced the ability of organizations and individuals to defraud the system and applicants, a step wholly and completely supported by Canadian universities. An unforeseen, however, and unintended consequence of this action was that the department determined that university employees who provide immigration advice to international students or staff are considered to be paid immigration representatives and are therefore within the scope of section 91 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Under these provisions, individuals who receive a fee or other type of consideration for providing immigration advice must be authorized to do so. Authorized representatives must be one of the following: lawyers and paralegals who are members in good standing of a Canadian provincial or territorial law society; notaries who are members in good standing of the Chambre des notaires du Québec; or immigration consultants who are members in good standing of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council, or, in short, ICCRC. University staff are considered to fall under this regulation.

This had an unfortunate effect of increasing the work of CIC personnel, since our staff were not able to provide information to potential international students. To better understand where a solution to this situation may lie, the government has asked AUCC, our sister association, to gather information on how the regulation has impacted our staff, including developing a list of what activities international student advisers can no longer undertake.

In addition, the AUCC has been encouraged to work with ICCRC to determine whether the organization would be willing to develop special educational programs targeted at university staff. We understand that the ICCRC is an arm's-length entity from the government, and I understand AUCC looks forward to working with them to address the unique nature of our situation while maintaining the integrity of our system.

The second issue I will mention in my presentation about the integrity of the system is the proposed regulatory changes to the international student program. It is our understanding that the new regulations are intended to improve programming integrity and accountability and to enhance Canada's reputation as a destination of choice for international students.

If implemented, key changes will include new requirements for international students to both attend a designated learning institution—this could be a university or college, any learning institution—and actively pursue studies while in Canada. So there are two requirements. One, they have to be registered with a learning institution, but the second one is even more important: they must pursue their studies while in Canada. Institutions will be required to take on a reporting role to support these changes. The nature of this role is still under discussion between the federal and provincial or territorial governments.

We are, as post-secondary education institutions, very supportive of any activity taken by the government to enhance our standing as a place to study, and we look forward to working with them on this initiative and on other potential elements of the international education strategy.

As for the third component of your investigation, I think it's important to note that our system has both strengths and weaknesses when it comes to our peer countries. I can tell you that there are many American businesses that are very envious of our PGWPP, or post-grad work permit program, which allows students to apply to stay in Canada to find work after the completion of their studies.

In addition, I would be remiss if I did not mention the 2013 government announcement of $42 million over the next two years to be invested to support enhanced processing capacity with the temporary residents program. This includes study permit processing. This is very positive, and it is certainly news welcomed by my colleagues in the university sector.

Processing times for both study permits and temporary resident visas—for example, to attend interviews for faculty positions—continue to be a primary area of concern for universities. Average processing times, defined as the amount of time needed to process 80% of all cases within a given time period, vary significantly between visa offices and are impacted by staff resources and caseload complexity, such as incidence of fraud and level of security risk.

Among the top 15 source countries for international students, study permit processing times vary from as low as two weeks, for example, for India, to as many as 18 weeks in the case of students from Nigeria. I think it would be fair to say that Canada is somewhere in between, with visas being processed in around 60 days. That's a lot of time when we hear that Australians can get a student visa turned around in 20 days and the U.K. even less. I certainly think there's work we can do when it comes to speeding up the processing time, increasing the ability of students to apply online, or creating more streamlined parameters. We recognize that it is not an easy or quick process; however, we look forward to continue to work with the government on identifying best practices internationally, modifying them to work here, and doing our part to help make the system run more efficiently.

Again, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for your time, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you very much.

We now have Mr. Cappe—Professor Cappe, I'm sorry.

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

Thank you, Chair.

Indeed, I am now a professor in the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto. My mother finally understands the nature of my titles.

I was the President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal. I published several studies on the immigration system. Before that, I spent 30 years in the federal public service.

I want to make an important point. I served as deputy minister in several portfolios, never for Immigration, I might add, but when I was Clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet and head of the public service, it was for the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We won't hold that against you, sir.

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

That is my point, Chairman. I wanted to note that I was first appointed to the ranks of deputy minister by the Progressive Conservative Mulroney government. I've spent my entire career being non-partisan, and I continue to be.

It's just to show my cred.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

Yes, I know you will.

After having worked for three and a half years as a clerk, as I told the chair, I went to London for four years, under the Chrétien, Martin, and Harper governments.

I'm not an expert in immigration, but I have looked at the system in various ways at different times, and my insights may help the committee.

I would recommend to the committee that you focus on three things. The first is the need to identify the objectives of the policy. You can't get at an effective system without understanding and unpacking the multiple objectives of the policy. The second is to take a risk management approach. You can't have zero risk in this business, so you have to try to manage the risk. The third is that the benefits of the policy or program overwhelm the cost, and you should know that there will be both to anything the government does—both benefits and costs.

On the objectives, there are many possible objectives to a temporary visa program. They include keeping out the sick, excluding and restricting access to criminals and terrorists, ensuring the people do not overstay their visitor welcome, avoiding the back door to immigration or refugee claim, or just raising revenue. Several countries use it to just raise revenue. Each of these would entail a different strategy or program to address it. Keep in mind, there are multiple objectives and they require multiple instruments.

On the risk management point, you'd think about stochastic events and the probabilistic events. You have to be prepared to accept that there will not be zero risk to meeting these objectives. You have to assess what the risks to meeting your objectives are and you have to decide if mitigation of these risk strategies may work or not. You have to be prepared to accept some failures. This is tough for politicians, I know. It's tough for everybody.

If your overwhelming objective is to limit the time in country, then exit controls look attractive. But they don't actually help you in worrying about the claims to refugee status. If you're worrying about refugee status, then the restriction of entry is preferred.

In all cases, you will exclude some people you do not want to exclude. There will be false negatives. And some people will get through the system, the filter that you have, and you would have preferred to exclude them. These are false positives. That means that you will inadvertently exclude some of the students Dr. Hamdullahpur wants to admit, or some of the tourists I'm sure Mr. Goldstein wants to admit. You will probably and probabilistically let through some of the people that the chiefs of police would like to keep out.

The fact that constituents bother MPs with complaints about the time taken or about rejections is not evidence of a failure of the system. If the system worked and kept out the right people, you would still have your constituents knocking on your door. You have to interpret what the signal is when your constituents complain to you.

On the cost and benefits, there are inevitable costs of some of the solutions. You have to assess whether it's worth it or not.

If you will permit me a brief comment on administration, visa officers exercise significant discretion and authority. There's a demand to have an appeal process, and it may be warranted. But these decisions are not life-threatening or of dramatic significance. There is ultimately appeal before the Federal Court of Canada, under section 18, I believe.

However, the solution is more probably in providing the visa officers with administratively clear instructions and good training on how to administer their discretion and how to deliver the program. In that context, research will help in providing indicia of future performance and indications of what works and what does not. Relying on evidence to design a system is highly desirable. Evidence is not always used in policy development, and it should be in this case. Evaluation has been and will be helpful here. I know the committee has looked at the evaluations of the program.

Finally, in administration, I want to note that when I was head of mission in London, I was enormously impressed with the dedication and commitment of the staff, both locally engaged—this is one of the untold stories of Canada, that we have these foreign nationals who work for us, who do a brilliant and wonderful job—as well as the Canada-based staff who administer the system.

Let me just open a parenthesis on the question of the time taken, and Professor Hamdullahpur has made this point. Sometimes a decision, any decision, is better than waiting for the right decision. So if the objective is 14 days taken, sometimes it's better to get a decision you don't like that comes out quickly and removes uncertainty. Sometimes people prefer that to being held in limbo for 60 days or a year.

CIC has objectives that are stated as:

CIC has two main priorities in this area. First, we are committed to facilitating the travel of legitimate visitors to Canada, while at the same time protecting the health, safety, and security of Canadians.

These need not be inconsistent, but the instruments used to meet these multiple objectives must be tailored for purpose and based on evidence.

In conclusion, it is essential that you be clear, deliberate, and transparent about the objectives of your visa policy. It is necessary to take a risk management approach to your programs to address these objectives, and you should take account explicitly of the costs of your initiatives and minimize them to the extent valuable.

Mr. Chair, I hope my remarks will be useful to the committee.

I am now ready to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Professor Cappe.

Mr. Goldstein.

[David Goldstein, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to participate in your important study on this subject.

Again, for the record, my name is David Goldstein. I'm the president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, representing the full cross-section of Canada's travel and tourism sector, with a focus on growing Canada's international competitiveness as a global destination.

Our sector generates annual revenues of $82 billion to the Canadian economy. We employ over 600,000 people in every riding in the country, including over 204,000 Canadians aged 25 and under, making our sector the largest employer of young Canadians.

Generating $17.4 billion last year in international currency exchange, travel continues to be Canada's largest service export sector. Not only are we a significant export sector in and of ourselves, but a recent report from Deloitte demonstrated that there's a direct correlation between travel and trade and that countries that experience more joint travel experience higher levels of trade and investment.

The travel and tourism industry in Canada is in no means in dire straits, but it is in need of a course correction to seize growth opportunities for today and ensure stability for the future. The good news is that receipts were up over 7% last year, outpacing the Canadian economy, but this masks a very disturbing overreliance on our Canadian domestic market. Currently, 80% of travel revenue is derived from Canadian travellers travelling within Canada, which is up from 65% just a decade ago. Furthermore, our overreliance on the domestic market is at risk, as brand U.S.A. and other countries' tourism marketing boards are significantly increasing their marketing investments to the Canadian traveller.

The good news is that the global opportunity is enormous. Travel and tourism is outpacing nearly every other sector of the global economy, but Canada is lagging behind. Last year, Canada's inbound visitor growth was only 1.7%, which is less than half the global average of 4%. Simply keeping pace with global growth of 4% would have added half a billion dollars to our economy and over $150 million in additional government revenues.

In order to get to the 4% international average, Canada needs a balanced strategy that focuses on higher-volume mature markets, primarily the U.S. and western Europe, and the high-growth emerging markets, including China, India, Mexico, and Brazil.

While over 80% of our export revenue and travellers still come from countries without visas, the fastest-growing markets are the ones that do require visas, making visitor visas akin to export permits. In fact, China alone has become the fourth largest inbound source market for Canada, with inbound visitation growing on average over 20% per year, reaching 288,000 visitors in 2012. Since signing the approved destination status agreement with China in 2010, Canada has seen almost 100,000 more visitors per year, which is a 48% increase. Treating these visitors as temporary residents just doesn't make sense.

While we agree that there needs to be a balance between economic activity and safety, we also agree that Canada needs to be mindful of its immigration system. Canada does not have the illegal immigration problem, in our view, that many western countries do. And the government has taken recent measures to expedite the refugee status system, which will thwart illegitimate claims.

In a recent white paper entitled “Gateway to Growth: Progress Report on Canadian Visitor Visa Process”, produced in conjunction with the Canadian Tourism Commission, we have outlined some of the key improvements that have taken place over the last three years, including the introduction of 10-year multi-entry visas and an increase in the number of visa application centres. However, demand in key emerging markets is outpacing capacity, and we are becoming increasingly uncompetitive on the world stage.

To that end, our paper makes several key recommendations to cut red tape and streamline our visitor visa system, and we hope the committee will consider these as part of the study.

Broad recommendation number one is the reduction of red tape. That includes waiving visa requirements for Mexico and Brazil, visa transferability from expired passports to new passports so we can maximize the use of 10-year multi-entry visas, and the introduction of paperless visas through an electronic travel authorization program.

Recommendation number two is to optimize existing security infrastructure, including the potential of a Canada-U.S. reciprocal visa program and a transit without visa program or pilot with Canada's major hub airports.

Recommendation number three is to reinvest in the visa process. TIAC was encouraged, in last year's federal budget, with the announcement of a two-year investment of $42 million to increase visa capacity. But this will barely keep up with demand, especially in markets like China. We recommend that a small percentage of the revenues earned by visas, upwards of $400 million per year, be reinvested in building visa capacity in the system.

In conclusion, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, it should be noted that in 2002 Canada ranked seventh in the world in inbound visitation. In 2012, we ranked 16th. We believe that breaking down the barriers and aggressively promoting the Canadian brand internationally will allow us to surpass the international average of 4% visitor growth and enable Canada to get back into the top 10 by 2017.

We appreciate the time to be with you, and we look forward to your questions this morning.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldstein.

We will start the first round with Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to our witnesses for appearing before us today. Mr. Cappe, welcome back to the Hill. I'm sure it feels like home to you, and it's nice to see you here.

Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Hamdullahpur, thank you so much for joining us today.

Mr. Goldstein, we know that measures such as biometrics, information sharing, and electronic travel authority make it easier, safer, and faster to travel to Canada without compromising security. It's a key focus of our government and our immigration system to ensure that people coming to Canada do not pose any threats to Canadians, but we always try to reach a balance between security and tourism.

Do you believe that it reaches the right balance between security and the need for tourism?

[David Goldstein]

I think we have the right balance. All of my colleagues have expressed today the need to further efficiency and use our resources well.

As to Mr. Cappe's point, I think we have to do the proper risk assessment market by market.

I should state for the record that we're fairly agnostic about the issues, when you consider them broadly. We take the view that there are certain markets where both the federal government and industry have focused our economic attention, and therefore there isn't a one-size-fits-all process for different countries of different sizes.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

We've also been provided with a report called “Tourism Jobs and Businesses, Stats Can, Summer 2011”. I believe you provided this report to us?

[David Goldstein]

Yes, that's just a list of the tourism, businesses, and jobs per riding.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Well, let me just say I'm encouraged to see that in my riding of Richmond Hill there are 746 businesses employing some 5,940 people. I'm encouraged to see that, particularly because we're nestled in the heart of the greater Toronto area. It's nice to see that this statistic places us somewhere in the middle of the tourism industry in Canada.

In your report “Gateway to Growth” you said that the processing times and rejection rates continue to be cited as one of the biggest challenges for business and leisure travel. What progress has been made in this respect?

[David Goldstein]

The good news is we've been able to implement things like a 10-year, multi-entry visa that is increasingly being used, especially among business travellers. I think we have pockets of concerns in different parts of the world. One of the other members of the panel spoke of predictability and our competitiveness against other jurisdictions like Australia, which has moved well ahead of us in electronic processing.

There's nothing more frustrating for applicants than to go to a visa application centre or to a consulate and leave all of their personal documents, without any idea of what the process is or when they're going to get an answer. There has to be a way in this modern age to streamline the process. Other jurisdictions have implemented best practices in that area.