Debates of May 18th, 2005

Supply

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, these are technologically advanced times we live in. Improving service provides us with opportunities for savings. The government has put in place a program to allocate funds to certain priorities, which can be redistributed.

We have done that and we are doing that. On occasion, we find an opportunity to use moneys elsewhere.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I have one last question for the minister, Mr. Chair. No funding has been made available to implement the refugee appeal division. This appeal function was to be implemented upon the legislation coming into force, in June 2002. At the same time, the minister suspended the refugee appeal division. In fact, Canada was criticized for that by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, with respect to the equity of this system.

The minister later promised to restore it to ensure that asylum seekers have access to a right of appeal consistent with Canada's international obligations with respect to refugee protection. Since it is often a matter of life and death, it is essential that the government take action as soon as possible on this issue by going ahead and setting up the refugee appeal division.

I would like the minister to tell me why the government has once again missed a great opportunity to basically respect its own legislation, passed by the House of Commons, which is needed so much to ensure fair and equitable treatment for refugee claimants.

With the surpluses the federal government is raking in, it is a disgrace that it is not able to commit the modest funding required for the establishment and operation of the appeal division, namely $2 million in establishment costs and $8 million in annual operating costs.

I ask that the minister justify the element of arbitrariness in the system, which is being magnified by the government's inaction and the piecemeal approach taken to implementing the new legislation.

The federal government has been stubbornly postponing for three years the establishment of the refugee appeal division, when the legislation calls for it.

[The Deputy Speaker]

On Questions and comments, The hon. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, it is not just a matter of money or funding. It is a matter of making a rapid, efficient, fair and final decision. In order to do so, we must consider the fact that we have already implemented measures in Canada to achieve those results. We implemented a system in which individuals with certain skills act as members.

I am sorry that my French is a little slow and I have to grasp at those words.

We are putting individuals in place who go through a merit based analysis. In addition to that we have put in place a system that has decreased the number of applicants because we have a safe third country agreement. Because of the systems already in place, we have been able to reduce the backlog on refugees from over 50,000 to a much more manageable 26,000 merely last year. The pressures for this refugee appeal division are that much diminished.

The committee asked me to consider and to return in six months, at the end of June, with alternatives if I would not implement this appeal division. We can talk about this some more, but the fact of the matter is that June is not here yet.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Chair, I want to thank the minister and his officials for being here this evening.

In the relaxed seating that we have in committee of the whole it is interesting to be sitting on the government front bench. I want the government to know that I aspire to this position and the NDP will achieve it through an electoral victory in this country, not by other means. Some day I hope to be sitting here.

I want to continue on the line of questioning that my colleague from Vaudreuil-Soulanges started with regard to the refugee appeal division. She mentioned that this is not a significant government expenditure. The former minister and I believe the current minister corroborated for us that it would take $2 million a year to operate the refugee appeal division and $8 million to set it up initially. This was a measure that was proposed by the government. It was part of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that was passed by Parliament in 2002, and yet the government and the minister and his department refuse to implement it.

I would like to know what the minister's relationship is with legislation that was proposed by the government and which was debated and passed in this House. Why does he refuse to move on that legislation that went through the process here?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, it is an interesting question, because the relationship we have with all legislation is that we think that legislation is supposed to serve the best interests of Canada. At the time the legislation was passed by Parliament--and it did not happen yesterday; it happened, as the hon. member said, two years ago--the question was, can we bring greater efficiency? Can we reduce the backlog? Can we deal with the refugee issues, with the refugee questions in the fashion that would accelerate the process? One of the first circumstances that people were contemplating was how can we diminish this?

We put our minds to it and said that if this was one of the things that we were going to do, we would take a look at it. Is it a just system in that if someone makes an application, has it considered and perhaps it is turned down, does that person have an opportunity to appeal? Yes, to the Federal Court. If the decision is negative again, they can have a pre-removal risk assessment. They can appeal that too. Through all the course of it, they can put forward a humanitarian compassionate application. All of this indicates there is protection for those who want to make an application.

The other part of the issue is, are we doing the right thing with this for all Canadians? We said that we should ensure that we have resources in place, first of all, to process the applications in a timely fashion. By the way, this is the fourth of one of my priorities and the member knows this well. Let us do this in a timely fashion. Let us be proactive. Let us take a look at some of the causes.

One of the things we did in the interim, as the member knows, is we signed a safe third country agreement with the United States. It did not make sense to a lot of people that 55% of all the refugee claimants would come through the United States. The United States is not one of the refugee producing nations in the world. It is not supposed to be considered as such. I am not being sarcastic, but the member understands what I mean. That safe third country agreement eliminated a lot of the things at the front end so that we could deal with those that are in the system in a much more appropriate fashion. When I say appropriate, what does that mean?

How does the international community view Canada's immigration and refugee system? The United Nations says that Canada has the best refugee determination system in the western world. The member is right. He wants to improve something, but let me remind the member that what he wants to improve is already considered to be the best.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Chair, I find it interesting that the minister in his remarks and his answer talked about efficiency and about processing times. The word he did not mention at the beginning of his answer was “justice” and what is fair and just for refugees in this country and for people who need a hearing.

The fact remains that every major refugee serving organization in Canada and many around the world have called for the implementation of a merit based, fact based appeal which does not currently exist in the process.

I still remain very concerned that the government would propose something like this with all of the information that the minister talks about at hand, would make it go through that entire process, would allow people to believe that we were on the verge of improving the system and making it more fair and just ,and then would back away from that proposal after it had been passed by Parliament. I still think there is a very serious problem there.

I want to go on to another question. The last time the minister was before the committee I asked about the proposal for changing the system of how settlement contracts are awarded in Ontario through the government. I talked about the request for proposal system and I said to the minister that there were rumours the department was planning on switching to a request for proposal system in Ontario. The minister said that he did not respond to hypotheticals or to rumours. I understand, however, that officials from the department have been having consultations both in Ontario and in British Columbia, where the provincial government that manages the settlement funding goes through a similar request for proposal process.

In British Columbia our experience of that has been absolutely disastrous, to put it mildly. It has taken a sector that was incredibly cooperative, that had built relationships over many, many years, that was effectively covering the province and making sure that settlement services were available across the province in an effective way and it set these groups into a competitive process. They were competitive with each other. It is a very complex process in which some groups just did not have the resources to participate and one that has left gaps and incredibly hard feelings.

I want to ask the minister again, is this kind of process being proposed for Ontario, a request for proposal process? Why would he go down that road when our experience in British Columbia has been so disastrous?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I cannot speak to the experience in any one particular province. I can tell the member that as a general rule the federal government is a service provider, but where it is not, when we use service providers we need to go to a process that is competitive, fair and transparent. Those are the elements upon which we operate when we deal with service providers that are not part of any of our departments.

In most cases these things work well. I thank the member for giving us an indication of situations that might not fit that category. We have not had, to my understanding, the kinds of negative experiences the member has indicated happened in one particular province.

I want to build on that. Just two weeks ago we entered into an arrangement with the province of Ontario and put in place certain measures that would be transferrable to other provinces, outside of Quebec. We put in place additional resources for settlement and integration services that would engage us in an environment where we would have to bring into the fold many more service providers with the expertise to help us achieve our larger national objectives.

It would be unfair to the Canadian public, some of whom are watching this debate tonight, to tell them that we would not go through a competitive, fair and transparent process when we are talking about utilizing public funds for a common good and a common goal.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Chair, I hasten to add that there is another government department that is going through some extremely serious questions about a similar process in the Ontario region. There were major questions raised in the human resources department about a similar kind of process with similar kinds of problems that we have experienced in British Columbia. The minister probably knows a lot about that certain situation.

I have a couple of other questions about settlement. The minister raised the question of the new arrangement with Ontario that was recently announced. I think we all agree that it is good to spend more money on settlement services. We have been calling for that across the country for some time. Ontario certainly needed that assistance, but we are seeing great disparities now between the settlement services available across the country. Ontario has a great deal at the moment, but other provinces are not doing as well in that department.

When the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration was in Alberta, we heard how a lot of new immigrants to Alberta first landed in Ontario. Ontario got the settlement money that was available, but Alberta is doing the work because people end up in Alberta fairly quickly. It is a very unfair situation and is putting huge pressure on the agencies serving immigrants and refugees in Alberta. I am wondering if the minister has a proposal for dealing with that.

In British Columbia a recent report by Simon Fraser University looked at the settlement services and language training services. It showed that a full 47% of the money that the federal government sends to British Columbia for those services goes into general revenues in the province of British Columbia and that it does not go for the services to which it is directed. The provincial government claims that it goes into general revenues and is then spent by colleges for language services, but that is fee for service language instruction. My understanding is that is not what that money from the federal government is to go toward.

I am wondering what steps the minister will take to correct that situation in British Columbia and make sure that the money that is being sent by the federal government for those services is actually spent for those services in British Columbia.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, when we sign a deal with any province, it is usually under a contribution agreement that has terms and conditions. We fully intend to ensure that our partners on the other side of the table adhere to the terms and conditions. We have a monitoring process and we will ensure that they meet that standard.

As to the first part of the question about whether there are people who land in Ontario, go elsewhere and, therefore, that elsewhere does not get the settlement and integration dollars, it is a dynamic in the country that speaks to the enormous potential that other people realize.

Rounded out, we have about 140,000 landings in Ontario every year. The vast majority of them end up in the city of greater Toronto. That means a city the size of Thunder Bay is replaced in Toronto every single year. Does that create an increased magnet for people to come to Ontario? Yes, perhaps it does. There is a certain dynamic, a critical mass of economy, culture and society. All these things come together. They create a certain formula and attract more and more people.

For each and every one of those people, yes, we have a particular formula that says there are integration and settlement dollars that accrue to the provincial jurisdiction in which these people land, but that is not an eternal lifelong settlement or integration dollar. It is defined in time.

When an individual moves, those funds do not follow but other funds follow. Whenever residency is established in a province, Canada health and social dollars accrue to that province. There is no taking away from Peter to pay Paul. The federal government uses these funds to provide greater flexibility and stability in the movement of people.

The member is right. The economy of Canada, if may I be blatantly partisan for a moment, is in good shape thanks in large measure to this government for its fiscal policies. Over the course of the last 12 years, we have had nine balanced budgets. The interest rates have gone down to the floor so one can actually own property now with mortgages that in some places are below 4%.

We have unemployment rates that in certain provinces like Alberta are below 4.5%. Good heavens, they are probably coming to Ontario and bringing people to Alberta. Why? Because they need people. They have to bring them everywhere they can. Do they need the integration dollars? No, they just need people. They are willing to pay people to work.

What we try to do is facilitate that, thanks in great measure to the good, sound economic and demographic policies of the government. Look at the wealth that is being created around the country. Who ever heard of unemployment rates at these levels? Nobody has. That is why people are moving from great, rich Ontario to even richer Alberta.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Chair, even though this is a nice and comfortable informal atmosphere, I prefer sitting back at my desk.

The minister has done some good things since he came into office, certainly with parents, grandparents and out of status spouses. However, I am not going to paint a totally rosy picture. We have many good policies in this government. Interest rates for housing are at a 50-year low for mortgages. Yes, I acknowledge that. However, immigration is the lifeblood of the country. It has been in the past and it will be in the future.

The previous minister from York West said that we had some problems. It is incumbent upon us to recognize those problems. If we do not recognize those problems, we will be unable to solve them. I welcome Madam Charette, a relatively new deputy minister who is with us today. I look forward to working with her and I think the Committee on Citizenship and Immigration looks forward to working with her.

However, one of the problems I want to point to initially is this. We have, and we do not know how many, hundreds of thousands of people in the underground economy. Why are these people unable to find their way through the system to get in here?

Let me give an example. A couple of weeks ago I was back in my riding and I talked to a very unhappy constituent. He was an engineer from Pakistan. He came here about two years ago. He left a good job in Pakistan. He had a nice house. He had a nice job. He had a chauffeur. Life was good. However, he thought he could do better in Canada. He is here in Canada. He cannot find a job as an engineer because he has trouble with accreditation.

Quite frankly, we have a lot of engineers in Canada. We have to be very upfront when we attract people here because the point system we have set in place is way too high to allow people in the trades, to allow people who find a way into the underground economy. That has to be revisited. We have to look at whether there is a match between the needs and the people who are coming here. We do nobody any favours getting professionals from other countries if they cannot work here. Unless there is a demand for those kinds of positions, we are always going to have that problem. We must give much greater points to jobs that are needed. That is one.

In the sixties I worked in the construction industry in Toronto. The minister would know about that because there were a lot of ethnic people working in the construction industry in Toronto, Italians, Portuguese, name it. None of them could qualify to come into the country today. I dare say 90% of the immigrants who have come to the country would never qualify under the present point system.

The other problem we have is the whole issue of visas. We have people who come to Canada. Six million Canadians were not born in here. That is a pretty big number. Guess what? These people have brothers, sisters, parents, other relatives and even friends who might want to come and visit. In 1997-98, 70,000 people were turned down. In 2003-04, 150,000-plus people were turned down on visas.

How is this in my constituency office? About a year ago, I had a young couple who came from India. They were in their early thirties. They had two children. The wife found out she had inoperable brain cancer. She had a very short time to live. All this information was provided to the immigration officials. All she wanted was for her mother and her sister to come over. These people did not have an extended family here, but this was a reasonable request. She was a Canadian, she was dying, surely to God she could get her mother and sister over. They did not come. She died about 28 days after we sent the letter.

Just last week, the mother of three brothers, who are from Pakistan, died here. They have an older brother in Pakistan. They wanted him to come here for the funeral. It would have been nice to have him come to Canada. He did not come.

These are the things we are talking about when say people are being turned down for visas. When people are in Canada surely to God it does not mean they are exiled from their family. Surely they can come and visit them in their home. Something has to be done.

I have another issue which you, Mr. Chair, are aware of as is the minister. It has to do with the whole issue of citizenship.

Back in 2000, when I was parliamentary secretary to the minister of immigration, I discovered that my citizenship, because of the section on revocation of citizenship, first, made me a second class Canadian. Second, if anybody comes after my citizenship, it is more of a political decision than a judicial one. It is a decision that is open to lobbying of politicians and ministers by different ethnic groups. We have all received letters in that regard.

What did I want to do? I said the Citizenship Act preceded the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 and the act of 1977. I said that the legal section of the charter should be applied. Coming from a communist dictatorship, I know the importance of a judicial system versus a political one. I said in the House that if somebody was ever going to revoke my citizenship, I wanted it done by due process of law, by the courts, according to standards in the Criminal Code. I would not want it done by a political decision that is open to lobbying by different groups. This is incredibly important.

Members on the citizenship committee were promised by the previous minister that a citizenship act would be tabled with us early in February. We still do not have the bill. We spent the month of April going across the country, and we still do not have the promised bill.

What are we going to do to improve dealing with visa refusals? What are we going to do to make our system less political? What are we going to do to regulate the people who are now working in the underground economy, which is very important because they have families and children and they are helping our economy? What are we going to do about getting a citizenship act before committee?

I look forward to the minister's response.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, there are quite a number of questions there and all of them legitimate. I have already given some initial responses to a couple of them.

I would like to begin with the last question regarding the regularization of undocumented workers. I indicated that it was going to be one of the priority items that would drive my stay in this office. By the way, as an aside, and I do not mean to make light of it, but immigration ministers typically have a short shelf life. I hope that members will keep that in mind tomorrow when they vote because I want to prolong my shelf life a little longer. I have not accomplished all six priority items and I know members will want to help me get to that.

The member, who is the chair of the citizenship and immigration committee, knows full well that we are addressing undocumented workers. First, let us see how this happens. Undocumented workers are those who come here to fill a job that one of our own Canadians may not be in a position to fill. There are quite a few. They are in the garment industry, restaurant industry, entertainment industry, construction industry, food and food processing industry, and the pipeline and oil industry. They are virtually everywhere.

What happens? Many of our young men and women do not aspire to those jobs. They are in other positions. We are making a huge investment in this country at the federal and provincial levels in ensuring that our young men and women achieve a level of education that allows them to engage in value added professions.

Like the hon. member, I too had an opportunity to work by the sweat of my brow, as they say. My dad did not think I worked hard enough, so I ended up in this position. It is an ennobling thing to be able to work. Many of those industries are starved for workers. We do not produce them. Our birthrate is among the lowest in the world, not just the western world but the world. We are not reproducing ourselves. We are not providing the marketplace with people to work.

What happens? Employers look for workers wherever they can find them. They bring them here. The member is right. Many of these people would not pass the point system that we have put in place. Why? Because we have put in place a system that puts greater value on formal education, specialized training, and linguistic abilities no matter where it is received. We are not interested as much, or have not been recently, in those who can fill the jobs that other Canadians are unprepared to fill.

They come here and some would say that the situation is unhelpful, but the economy does need them. They are here. We have to deal with them. We have to regularize them. We have to bring them to a point where they can be like all others who are landed legitimately, and all others who have become productive and contributing members of our society. They are valued and ennobled. They have dignity and we need to treat them in that way.

I made that commitment. It was one of the first things that I said I would do. We would regularize those who are here. However, we must identify them where they are.

By nature those who are undocumented do not go around and say that they are undocumented. They do not tell us where they live, so if we find them, we could send them back. They do not do that. They actually go and work as many hours as they can. They labour. They get around the enforcement agencies that might be available and we want to bring them into the fold. We need to bring them into the fold because they are good for us. They help the economy. They generate society.

Mr. Chair, I do not know why you are rushing me because I have all of the answers--

[The Chair]

If I could interrupt the minister, the member for Kitchener--Waterloo requested a couple of minutes at the end to wrap up his remarks as well in response to you. It is now his time, so I will recognize the member for Kitchener--Waterloo.

I know we are going to get through all six points with the minister before the end of the evening. The member for Kitchener--Waterloo has the floor.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Chair, the way to fix regularization is to also fix the point system, so that the people the economy needs can come here legally. I think that is very important. We have too many professionals, too many degrees, but not enough people with trades. In many areas we are dying for trades.

The minister did not answer my question regarding visas and I would like to have an answer to that question. If we have people who are going to come here, live here and become Canadians, they have a right to have their relatives come and visit them.

Let me say to the minister that we will be looking forward to him coming to committee with his able deputy minister. We will be looking for answers on how to improve the visa situation.

The other issue that the minister did not touch on is the whole issue with citizenship which is really my passion. I am sick and tired of being a second class Canadian and essentially under the Citizenship Act that is exactly what we are. If we were not born in Canada, when it comes to revocation, we should forget the charter because it does not apply right now. I want to see that bill come before the committee. The committee made it its number one priority. We were promised that by the government when it said it was going to modernize the Citizenship Act. We were promised by the previous minister back in February. We are now in May and we need that bill.

I and the committee look forward to working with the minister because we have a good system, but I think we can make it better. Everything is not perfect in the system, but we can improve it and we can do a better job.

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary South Centre, AB]

Mr. Chair, in respect of the new system that you are operating under here tonight, I will give notice that I intend to devote the first five minutes or so of my time to outline some of the problems with the current immigration system and what my party proposes to do about it. I will follow that with questions for the minister and I would expect to receive responses proportionate to the length of time of the questions asked.

It is pretty clear already from the discussion here tonight that we have an unfortunate situation in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. It is in a mess. The system has serious problems. There is a perception problem as well in the country and internationally with regard to Canada and our immigration system. There is a sense that there is a partisan influence that is ill-effecting the department and that the employees are demoralized as a result of this effect. There is this perception of partisan motivation, changing the system, and people jumping queues. It has created a massive backlog. It takes up to four weeks to process a simple passport application, 22 weeks to receive a permanent resident card and 8 to 9 months for a citizenship card.

This reflects badly on our country as well as the anticipation and eagerness of people wanting to come to our country and to welcome family members to join them here. Policy is being made on the fly. We saw this in the case of the unfortunate tsunami victims who were mentioned by my hon. colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill earlier.

A program was cobbled together very quickly to say we were going to step up to the plate and help these people without the assets or resources to do that. The department had to take people from other embassies and consulates around the world into these areas. What happened to the people waiting in line at the time? Well, they were just pushed farther back in line and had to wait a little longer.

It was political posturing causing those people to be stuck longer in queues waiting for their loved ones, having paid their money and having sent in an application. There is this whole notion of the Liberals tackling immigration policy by politically advantageous announcements and reacting in a piecemeal fashion to crisis, scandals and mismanagement rather than a real effort to fix a broken system. This is not something we take lightly on this side of the House because it affects us all greatly.

Members' staffs of all parties find they are spending up to 70% or 80% of their time, while others wait to deal with immigration matters because the department is so overloaded and overworked that it cannot deal with the demand of Canadians to access the system. This of course increases as the inefficiencies increase, and the workloads and the backlogs increase.

Unfortunately, as we have heard tonight, the department is not a priority for the Liberals. They cut Citizenship and Immigration Canada funding in the early 1990s. Face to face processing was eliminated. Offices were closed and 35% of the officers abroad were cut. Interviews that were waived added to an increased reliance on local staff, the offloading of immigration problems, as I have mentioned, to offices of members of Parliament. There is a lax removal policy where we have people who should not be in the country just lost within our system.

As was mentioned by my colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill, we are grateful for the work and the extra effort that has been extended over the years by front line workers in the department, but we find there is a morale problem. Employees are stressed and overworked. There is a lack of resources to keep up. The minister admitted this when he first came into this portfolio. As late as March 9, I read in the Montreal Gazette that the minister said: “But that is the same Parliament that never put an additional penny forward for immigration in the last five years”. Even he admitted that his department was not a priority with the government.

Here is what we might do to rectify this problem. As my colleague has mentioned, the Conservative Party and the member of Parliament for Calgary--Nose Hill in particular have worked tirelessly to develop a sensible, mainstream set of policies and reforms.

At a policy convention held by the Conservative Party in Montreal recently, we passed a number of strongly supported motions outlining a welcoming and well managed immigration system, with a plan to reorganize the application process so that applicants are getting accurate information as to what to expect when they apply, so they are ready and able to obtain information on the status of their files and so they are given service in a considerate and professional manner.

We have also conducted a series of round table consultations on immigration, meetings we held coast to coast to seek advice, ideas, concerns and suggestions from people directly involved in the system. We got a number of consistent replies from people who were heartbroken with the length of time processing took. We are also working on proposing solutions to growing problems.

What we heard over and over is that the system reeks of political favouritism. This is sullying the department and the perception of Canada as being a fair and just country. There is a lack of resources to deal with even the most pressing concerns. These problems need to be addressed. We look for answers to these questions, hopefully in the very near future with a new minister of immigration and a new government.

I would like now to ask two questions. I will try to limit the length of the questions and hope that for a change we can have the minister limit his replies to a proportionate time.

On April 18, 2005, the government announced it would increase the number of sponsored parents and grandparents that are admitted. What the minister has not told the public is that the backlog of these applications for sponsorship approval is now estimated to be over 110,000. Many of these applications include multiple applicants; it is only after stage one, sponsorship approval, that the application is sent to the appropriate embassy for the real work of medical exams, criminal security interviews, et cetera, and this can take years.

Even worse, those 110,000 applications currently backlogged for parent and grandparent sponsorship approval do not even cover the applications waiting at embassies around the world. There is no excuse for the minister not to inform prospective applicants as to how long they can reasonably expect to wait.

I ask the minister this. What is the estimated number of outstanding applications at embassies and consulates? What is the estimated timeline and year that applications will be looked at?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, let me address some of these things. I guess I will have plenty of time to address some of the issues that were raised.

First, the permanent residency card processing is now at about four weeks and people can get something on an urgent basis in 48 hours. For those who are concerned about the accelerated process, people are actually putting resources and technology in place so that we can get these things done in a timely fashion. Just think about that: four weeks and then 48 hours for emergencies.

Second, the member wanted to know how many applications there are abroad in the backlog inventory for parents and grandparents. I indicated at the beginning of my remarks that there were about 110,000 people. I think the exact number is 105,677, but that number indicates people, it does not indicate applications. And of course we have to provide the appropriate health and security checks. That has all been done, but how have we done that already? We are not waiting for a new minister. We are not waiting for a new government--

[The Deputy Chair]

Thank you, Minister. We will hear from the hon. member for Calgary Centre.

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary South Centre, AB]

Mr. Chair, again I will try to keep my questions brief to follow with the new format and the rules of the House and hope that the minister would also do the same.

In June 2003 the government stopped indexing applications; this means opening the application, assigning a case number and putting it on line to prepare for processing. All the department has been doing since is counting the envelopes, so there is no idea of how many people these envelopes represent.

While the government is not processing the applications, it is still cashing the cheques. It is about $1,500 that people put in their envelopes. They are received at the department, the cheques are taken out and the applications sit and sit and sit. This was pointed out earlier by my colleague.

In addition to that, the revenue gained from these envelopes, these applications, has doubled. The fees have doubled since 1994 while the departmental budget has been reduced, so what is it with this money? Is it fair to people to have their money taken in great anticipation and expectation that their applications will be processed when they are going to take years to process?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I thought we were having a reasonable discussion and debate. We have to make sure that we understand exactly what it is that happens in the process. There is an application fee and then there is a landing fee, so when we are talking about $1,500 we are talking about the overall amount once everybody has landed. But that is not the amount of money that people necessarily have to put forward.

The idea is that, yes, this does take place, but over the course of the last four months that we have been here we have been addressing all of these concerns that have been highlighted by members of the committee. The committee members are right here with us. They did not hide. They did not run away. These are the people who have been working on this for many years and they have been providing feedback to people who are here.

The fees have not changed. They have not doubled. Nothing like that has happened. We have to be able to tell the facts, to tell the truth, so that when we are going to make a statement, whether it is for political purposes or not, it has to be accurate. There has been a spike in the amount of revenues, but not a spike--

[The Deputy Chair]

On a point of order, the hon. member for Calgary Centre.

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary South Centre, AB]

Excuse me, Mr. Chair, I would like to defend my position. He has to stop these accusations. He constantly does this. There has been no answer here at all. It is a constant cheap shot that people are not telling the truth.

That is not what I said. I simply said that the revenue this department has gained, not the individual applications going up, yes, that is $1,500--

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, that is $1,500 because that is the amount of money in total that is sent with these applications--

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary South Centre, AB]

The revenues have gone up, doubled, in the last 10 years.

[The Deputy Chair]

The hon. member for Calgary Centre has asked a question of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. The minister was in the middle of answering his question. I am sure he was getting to the point that the member wanted to hear as an answer. Let us let the minister finish the answer.

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary South Centre, AB]

I have objected to that--