Evidence of meeting #43 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was immigration.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I appreciate you got the impression, but we have to deal in fact as much as we possibly can here. There are a lot of impressions as to what this legislation is about.
President, Canadian Ethnocultural Council
That's true, and none of us has a crystal ball. Obviously we can't know now whether the minister will, on every occasion, go to cabinet for their approval. She may believe, in my opinion, that she may not have to go back to cabinet.
If she's telling you that on every major issue she's going back to cabinet, I'm not here to call her a liar. If that's what her intention is and if her successors will be doing this and if we're going to have public input into where the immigration program in Canada is going, then what can I say?
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Thank you.
The other point you made is a serious and significant one, and I appreciate your bringing it up. It is the issue around unification of families. The issue of the backlog certainly is one of the reasons the changes are being presented as they are, but just as significant a reason is family reunification.
As a former employee of the ministry, I'm sure you keep close track of the improvements that have been made. Even just over the last two and a half years, family reunification situations and cases have improved by 20% to 40%, depending on the category. While the problem hasn't been fixed--and this legislation will address that as well--I certainly want to make sure that you know--and I'm sure you do--we have seen a significant improvement over where we were a number of years ago.
President, Canadian Ethnocultural Council
Well, the processing times are still unacceptable. I'll give you that. If the statistics show that we're a little bit better than we were two years ago, then that's a positive.
I guess where I'm coming from is that on a day-to-day basis I'm dealing with frustrated Canadian citizens who still have to wait four to five years. So if you're saying that we've shaved a month or two off a parent's application, for example, I don't think that's satisfactory. I don't think we should be content with that.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I would agree. I think all I'm suggesting is that we're taking steps in the right direction. This legislation is doing the same.
To repeat, this isn't about what our impressions may be; this is about fact. This is about families; this is about individuals who--as you've indicated on a number of occasions now--have had to wait four, five, and sometimes six years. That's not acceptable. No one around this table--regardless of political affiliation--believes that's acceptable. That's why the legislation is there.
We can argue whether you agree it's the right or the wrong step, but the purpose--the intent of this legislation--is to ensure that families in fact are brought together.
President, Canadian Ethnocultural Council
What I'm saying is that today the minister could send out a direction and give family-class reunification a higher priority. She doesn't need these amendments to do it. That's all I'm saying.
At the same time, we're hearing the minister say that last year we brought in 430,000, we broke all records. But let's keep this in perspective. We're talking about immigrants, students, people on work permits; we're not talking about—
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I appreciate that, but you're into a different subject now, and I want to allow Mr. Pang to respond to a couple of questions.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Pang, you mentioned your organization and the people you represent. What is the common theme that you deliver on their behalf here today, in terms of what is the one thing they are most positive about, when it comes to this legislation?
Acting President, Chinese Canadian Community Alliance
I repeat what I said when I did a presentation. There are two concerns. The backlog is a concern, and the right kinds of people who come into Canada. An immigrant wants to find a job to be successful. If they arrive in Canada and couldn't find the kind of job they intended, then it's not acceptable.
While on that question, when the minister was in Toronto last week doing a press conference she was talking about the backlog problem, and specifically she mentioned the three areas that we are doing to improve the situation. The first thing she mentioned was that with the drop of visa requirements in some of the countries in Europe, obviously the workload would decrease in Europe, and she's moving these people over to Beijing and India to help with the situation over there. Of course, I guess everybody knows that there's an extra amount of money being spent on this issue. She gave us a figure, but I couldn't recall it.
Acting President, Chinese Canadian Community Alliance
Thirdly, she mentioned that she was going to send out a letter to all those 920,000 people asking them whether they're still interested in coming to Canada, so we have some idea what kind of real backlog we are talking about.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you very much.
We'll now move on to Mr. Rae. You have five minutes.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Just very briefly, Mr. Bissett, would it be a fair assessment of what you've said that if we wanted to deal with the backlog we'd have to make more profound changes to the Immigration Act?
As an Individual
No, not necessarily. My problem is that if we're going to increase immigration levels next year to 265,000, and deal with the backlog, it's going to be a difficult task to do that.
My own view is that I almost would declare, perhaps, a moratorium on new cases, except for highly needed skilled people and spouses and minor children, and try to get rid of that backlog, because you're dealing with almost a million people. It would take from four to six years to clear that up if you did nothing but work on it.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Wouldn't you agree with me, though, that if you were going to declare a moratorium--as you're suggesting--that would require a change in the act? The minister right now can't just unilaterally say “You can't apply”.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
I go back to my first question. I asked you--if you were going to deal with the backlog--if it would require a more major change than is being proposed, and I hear you saying, at the end of the answer to the second question, it would require a major change.
As an Individual
Yes, and it would require many additional staff, I would suggest, too.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
And it would require many additional staff. Those changes aren't actually contained in this legislation?
As an Individual
I think the additional staff are implied with the additional $27 million over two years. I understand the minister is planning to use that money to have additional officers deal with the backlog.
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
When we look at the Australian system or other systems--and we'd have to have a chance to look at others--I have real problems with how in fact, unless you stop people from applying, or, as you suggested in the case of professionals, say your application will not be approved until such time as your professional skills are recognized at the provincial level.... It's very difficult for us to imagine a way of getting the number of applicants down, given the level of demand around the world, isn't it?
As an Individual
That's the problem with the current act. You can't stop it, because section 11 of the act--I think it is--says that if the people meet the requirements, they shall be accepted. As I said, prior to the 2001 act, there were many people who met most of the selection criteria, but we didn't take them because we didn't need them, or we thought we were getting too many people, so we turned the tap on and turned it off. That mechanism is missing in the current legislation.
I presume that underlying the change from “shall” to “may” is the minister's intention to be able to have some mechanism not to deal with the backlog, but to more effectively control the incoming flow, rather than simply letting everybody who meets the criteria into the country.
President, Canadian Ethnocultural Council
I have a particular issue with the words “may” and “shall”. I like the word “shall”. I don't like the word “may”. “May” is very vague. She may do this, she may do that. It's up to her what she wants to do, and that's dangerous.