Evidence of meeting #5 for Canada-China Relations in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was immigration.
A video is available from Parliament.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Estimates at this stage would be largely speculation, I would say, just because of the variables at play. One of those variables, as mentioned, is the pandemic situation. The other would be the domestic conditions in Hong Kong.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
How many individuals would you estimate to be excluded from applying to your new economic immigration program because they do not meet the standard restrictions under education, age, financial requirements, etc., which are, again, pretty standard and would be applied to these even in the special stream? Do you know how many would be excluded?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Actually, these would be quite facilitative measures, as the minister outlined, targeted to complement what we already have in terms of many immigration options to come to Canada on both a temporary and a permanent basis. All these would be targeted to recent graduates from Hong Kong. Certainly, they would complement our existing immigration pathway.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Okay.
Do you know how many of the 10,000 invitations to apply to the 2020 parents and grandparents lottery program went to sponsors seeking to bring their Hong Kong-based parents to Canada?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
For that question, I may turn to my colleague, Dr. Giles. Because that program was just launched—the notices of interest to apply were received—we may not have those figures at this stage. It may be too recent.
Dr. Nicole Giles Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just to clarify, we are in the process of validating which of those applications are complete, so we do not yet have any specifics on the application packages themselves.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Can you tell us how many got through the lottery, though?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Not at this point. We're still in the process of doing that work.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Is the department able to commit to tabling that to the committee when it has those numbers? How many were approved under this year's parents and grandparents lottery, and how many were from Hong Kong? Can you commit to tabling that to the committee?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Mr. Chair, if you agree, the department can certainly bring that back if that is of interest to the committee.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Great. Thank you.
Just a little more general.... I believe the immigration website currently says that the spousal sponsorship program is 12 months. Again, this plays into how long it's going to take to get Hong Kong folks to Canada. All the experts we've talked to, particularly immigration lawyers and the like, and the people who have experience, who are in the midst, in the grip of spousal sponsorship, say that 12 months is not accurate.
Do you have a more accurate number for how long the spousal sponsorship wait is?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Mr. Chair, we recognize that family reunification very much remains a priority for us. We have introduced a pilot to digitize spousal applications, which will facilitate the review of these applications and allow our officers, both in Canada and abroad, to process remotely. We've also increased the number of decision-makers on spousal applications by 66% to increase the application assessments more quickly and to reduce the wait times.
We are aiming to process approximately 6,000 spousal applications each month from October to December 2020. Combined with processing to date, this rate will lead to about 49,000 decisions by the end of the year.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
I want to go over something that I spoke about with the minister. Just to summarize, this is the parents and grandparents lottery. There is a lot of interest in this. That's why I keep asking.
This is the process that we understand: They didn't make it into the lottery this fall, and—I'll go quickly, Mr. Chair—they have to apply for the lottery in 2021, win the lottery, submit a complete application, hope they still have the travel documents, wait two years or longer for the application process, and then hope to get to Canada in 2023 or 2024. Is that accurate?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan
I know you would, but I don't want to put her in that position.
Can we have a very brief answer?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Grosso modo, it does seem like the process, correct.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan
Thank you for being very brief. It's much appreciated.
I'll now give the floor to Mr. Dubourg.
Liberal
Emmanuel Dubourg Liberal Bourassa, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would also like to welcome Ms. Kim and Dr. Giles, who are both associate assistant deputy ministers.
Thank you for being here. This is a very important topic.
The minister's announcement last week contained a certain openness to the idea of streamlining the process. He spoke about the process for graduates, workers, families and refugee protection claimants.
At one point in his speech he said that, under normal circumstances, individuals who received a negative decision on their refugee claim or on a previous PRRA application would not be eligible to apply for a PRRA for at least 12 months.
Why did he need to clarify that?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thank you for your question. I'll answer it in English.
In terms of the measure—the PRRA bar exemption, as we call it—in the normal course if someone's claim has failed, so they have been found by the IRB or by the Federal Court to be ineligible for asylum, there will be a 12-month period during which they cannot apply for what's called a pre-removal risk assessment.
Given that that country's conditions have changed, the minister announced that there is an exemption to that usual 12-month bar so that those from Hong Kong will now be able to apply for that pre-removal risk assessment. That means, as the minister stated, that practically speaking they cannot be removed. They will have a chance to actually apply for that risk assessment so that before any removal happens, the risks against them can be assessed.