Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 26th, 2013

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay. I don't have much time, but do you agree with my assessment that in some areas of immigration the United States is being more nimble and agile and quicker than we are? I think that in itself is the problem.

[David Goldstein]

Mr. McCallum, sometimes when it comes to the security issue, we're trying to be more Catholic than the Pope.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Exactly.

My next question is about students. A lot of students come to Canada with the promise that they at least have a chance to apply to be a landed immigrant. Recently, having invested in coming here, having spent the time and money to be here, a whole lot of them were just told, “No, you're cut off. If you're in certain occupations, you cannot apply.” I know we have to be concerned about jobs for Canadians as well, but it seems to me this is inherently unfair or a breaking of a contract to those foreign students. Maybe there could be some grandfather clause or something for those already here to have a chance, as opposed to just getting cut off.

I guess my related question is this. If the total number of hours of work are limited, would there be an advantage to letting foreign students work off campus instead of just on campus? Maybe it's not more hours in total, but I think it would broaden their experience without necessarily taking work from Canadians.

[Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur]

There are two elements to it. I believe at the University of Waterloo those students who come into our co-op programs can work anywhere. They have that work permit granted to them as they are admitted to the university. I don't see that part of our competitiveness as a big issue. I believe Canada has a very good program in place right now to enable our graduates to stay in Canada and find employment. If they are happy with their employment and if the employers are happy with them, they can extend their stay in Canada.

The issue goes back to the ability of attracting absolutely the top students and the top talent to come to Canada. The world out there is so competitive right now. You gave a very good example of the United States. We can no longer afford to stay in our offices and expect that those very high-quality, talented students and faculty members will come here. We need to be out there very aggressively making sure that they will see Canada as a place where they can live safely and happily, advance their careers, and raise their families here. For that, I think we need to make sure that we expedite their process and provide them with a very welcoming attitude to come to Canada. As Mr. Goldstein put it, 95% to 96% or 98% of them have absolutely no issues whatsoever that we should worry about on their background or security.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Leung.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Hamdullahpur, I wish to follow through on the question that my colleague Mr. McCallum mentioned.

I would have thought that a foreign student coming to Canada, especially for post-secondary education, would be looking more at the research capability, the reputation of a university, perhaps job prospects after their education here. That is different from the fact that Canada is quite generous in allowing them to apply for permanent residence, eventually on a pathway to citizenship.

The question I wish to ask you is, would it be expedient for us if the university that does the pre-screening of these students, just by admitting them, at the same time says, all right, if you're here for a four-year program...? They can actually stay for those four years and it becomes a multiple-entry visa for that period.

Is that the case right now, or do they have to reapply for the visa every year?

[Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur]

It used to be the case, but I don't think it any longer is the case. They do not have to reapply to come back to Canada after every year.

We were behind in this, and for that reason students were preferring to go to the United States or other places, because those places only needed it once. But I think that has been corrected.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

That's a good thing.

Has that helped the situation with our students?

[Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur]

It has, yes.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Let me then turn to Mr. Goldstein for my next question.

We have spoken before about the temporary resident visa being this big basket of things that I would say tends to illogically label the types of visitors who come to Canada. People come to Canada as students, as tourists, as business persons. For expediency, would not the best practice be for the business person to have a 5-year multiple visa or a 10-year multiple visa. For a tourist visa we would limit it to 30 days, and for the student it would be for the length of their course of study.

You mentioned trusted traveller status. That requires a change and a significant investment in our whole entry and exit control, as with the NEXUS program with the United States, and the fingerprinting and iris scanning that I've experienced in Singapore and Japan.

Would you share your thoughts with us on how we can improve that?

[David Goldstein]

You're absolutely right.

The key is to get as many people out of the line as possible. Multi-entry visas are probably the best way to do that, and trusted traveller programs and electronic travel authorization.

It's effectively pre-screening people before they get on planes to come here in a more efficient manner. I think you can set up different criteria. I would worry that we could set up too many criteria. If there are too many categories to fall under, it might make things more cumbersome. But I do think there is a role for that segmentation.

Let's be frank. We have a trading partner in the United States. One of the points to the Beyond the Border process was to harmonize some of these issues with the United States. We've now done that. We're sharing information. There's very little reason why someone who has a 10-year multi-entry visa to the United States shouldn't be able to use a short form to get a short-form visa to come to Canada. Since we're already sharing that information, that's a very easy efficiency to the system, and one that's happening between countries like the U.K. and Ireland.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Another question that I frequently encounter is regarding China. They're a little uneasy or unsure about how the approved destination status works.

To me, if a group comes in on a group tourist visa and the whole group leaves, we could easily facilitate this.

Has this not been the case in your experience with visitors from China?

[David Goldstein]

Yes.

We've had a very low number of absconders from those groups. It has been a very successful program. I think it's an area where we should laud the work that the CIC officials in China are doing.

One of the things we've done specifically with the approved destination status tour operators has been to find best practices amongst tour operators who are helping to ensure that the clients they are bringing on their trips are filling out their documentation properly. It's diminishing the number of rejections and shortening the amount of time for approval. There is a way to get the best practices, both with the industry and in market.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I have a question for Professor Cappe.

With the opening up of the common market with Hungary, Poland and Romania, how did the U.K. handle people coming in to work and illegally staying?

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

With great difficulty. But they weren't illegally staying; they were legally staying. In fact, right now if you read the U.K. press—and I'm just back from London on Sunday—the dominant issue is about Bulgarian and Romanian visitors who are taking jobs from potential U.K. workers. The fact is they are EU members from member states and therefore they have rights.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I can see this as a problem as we move toward the CETA agreement and are opening up our borders to people in the east. Will we face the same issue?

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

Very briefly, I think you have to remember that when we get visitors coming, they bring hands and they bring minds. While it may look like they are supplanting Canadian jobs, they are bringing the possibility of creating Canadian jobs. We shouldn't lose sight of that.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to try very quickly to go through each one of you in the order that you spoke.

Dr. Hamdullahpur, we spoke a little with the witness here on Chungsen's questions about the change from the need to apply for a visa each year and the students being able to have that. But speaking with student groups across the country, they've told us that they support the elimination of a single-entry visa for international students in favour of a multiple-entry visa that lasts the duration of their study period, which allows for them to reunite with family for any emergencies or whatever it might be. How do you feel about this proposal?

[Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur]

I think it's a good proposal. It should work. It should expedite.... Once a visa is given, the student has satisfied all the requirements, so there should not be any bureaucratic obstacles in front of them.

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

Thank you.

Professor Cappe, you spoke of false positives and false negatives. Several witnesses have told our committee that contrary to the visitor visa system that we have in Canada, an appeal mechanism exists in our sister countries of the U.K. and Australia. We know that in Canada we have judicial reviews available to us. Do you believe that the visitor visa applicants in Canada should have a right of appeal, as is available in the U.K., instead of the current judicial review and the Federal Court's appeal process?

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

But as well as the Federal Court process they have the ability to reapply, so they will end.... I understand that the administrative practice is that a different visa officer would review the second application, so that in a sense is already an appeal process.

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

You're saying that the second application is an appeal process.

[Prof. Mel Cappe]

Right, and if you've gotten rejected and the problem is that you haven't satisfied a particular requirement, you can show that well, as a matter of fact, you didn't notice that I did have a permanent residence in...wherever.