Finance Committee on April 28th, 2008

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Does that sound right?

[Andrea Lyon]

We'd have to confirm that number.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

And the board is about 150 people?

[Andrea Lyon]

That's right.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So your staffing complement is about 60% of capacity. Is that fair?

[Andrea Lyon]

I don't have the numbers, so I can't confirm those.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Can you tell me whether the effect of the change with respect to the advisory panel was that instead of the advisory panel essentially making the appointments, effectively the minister now trumps the advisory panel? Is that a fair observation?

[Andrea Lyon]

I don't know that I would necessarily say trump. I think what the process provides for is a final decision by the Governor in Council.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

That's essentially the minister.

[Andrea Lyon]

Yes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So it's trump, by any other word. Before this change of process, the minister was essentially obliged to take the advice of the advisory panel, because it was, if you will, an arm's-length and quasi-judicial appointment. Now we've turned it into, or now the minister has turned it into, a position whereby the minister says these will be the appointments. Is that fair?

[Andrea Lyon]

That's generally the process.

I must apologize, I'm not an expert on the IRB. I thought we were discussing Bill C-50.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Over the course of this minister's watch, we've run up the refugee backlog by something in the order of 100% on your numbers, 200% on other people's numbers. We're down to about 60% complement on the board, and she gets to decide who is on the board and who is not. Is that a fair summary?

[Andrea Lyon]

Sorry. I am looking at some numbers in terms of the backlog inventory. What I can say—and I don't know what the precise situation was in terms of IRB complement at various points in time—is that the numbers have gone from 41,000 in 2003, down to 27,000 in 2004, and then up a bit, so there seems to be an ebb and flow.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Of course there's variation.

[Andrea Lyon]

Exactly.

What I can't say is whether or not there were commensurate decreases in terms of the IRB complement at that time.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

The minister said that's because we're getting rushes from third countries, but we have this third-party agreement that a lot of these refugee claimants, particularly from the United States, are turned right around. You don't have that system that existed previously, you're still not adequately staffing the IRB, and you're running up the backlog. Then you put a section into the bill and say, “Trust me. I want to have more discretion. Look what I did with the IRB. Didn't I do a good job?” By any statistical measurement, let alone political measurement, the minister has not done a good job. She has run up the numbers on the backlog and she has reduced the numbers on the board. It makes it very difficult to say, “Trust me. I'll do a better job next time.”

Thank you.

[Andrea Lyon]

I guess I can only comment as an official on the facts that are before us, and the facts are that we have a backlog at the moment of 925,000 people—a reality that is greatly constricting our ability to do our work.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

To which you are applying $22 million.

[Andrea Lyon]

The large component of that constitutes the federal skilled worker program. What the government is pursuing is a strategy for resolving or helping to tackle that backlog, the existence of which impedes our ability to deal with the immigration system as a whole, because it is one system that deals with all the different categories.

You talked about the budgetary investments. The minister elaborated on what we intend to do with those moneys, in terms of letter-writing campaigns to confirm the interest of people who are currently in the backlog, in terms of attaching additional resources to some of our high-volume missions, and to undertake some administrative efficiencies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I'm sorry, your time is gone.

It's a good try. I already told you that.

Mr. Laforest, the floor is yours.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We are seeing something quite new. I would like you to give me your view. Is the introduction of criteria like employability and professional qualifications in the immigration process something completely new?

[Andrea Lyon]

Do you mean the issue of identifying particular priorities?

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Is prioritizing immigrants based on their professional qualifications something entirely new? Did it exist in part?

[Andrea Lyon]

It's certainly not new in terms of other jurisdictions. In fact, Canada I think is one of the only major immigrant-receiving countries that currently lacks the ability to go through some sort of occupational filter to ensure we are matching skills with needs in the domestic market. Other countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K., have similar sorts of systems that allow them to establish priorities based on labour market needs.