Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 7th, 2006

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

We're sharing questions.

This one may be a bit tougher, Minister. However, I feel we should ask this question now.

An administrative change concerning the recovery of costs to process files was introduced in 1994. So we're talking about fees for processing an immigration file. I know that a question will soon be put to the Federal Court and that a class action suit has been filed in Vancouver over violations of the act concerning public administration of the collection of those fees by the department.

On Monday, we heard from the Auditor General of Canada, who also confirmed some of those allegations and said she would conduct a review of what happened.

I know this dates back a long time. All these figures are verifiable; they appear in the reports. This doesn't necessarily date back to the time when the Conservatives were in power.

Can you in fact tell us how many people were affected and will have to be compensated? And how much will that cost us?

The reason I ask you that question is, when we examined estimates in previous fiscal years, there was a writ of mandamus. Consequently, at the time of the writ, we were able to determine how much that cost us. However, the department's representatives had to come back here before the committee seeking supplementary estimates.

In this case, if a writ of mandamus has been issued, I hope you have an idea of the costs. Perhaps you can inform us of them in advance, if possible.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

As you pointed out--and I hate to use this--this is a matter before the courts, and it's very difficult for me to comment without compromising our own position. I would ask your indulgence. I want to be transparent, but I don't want to jeopardize our situation.

I appreciate the concern; your concern is noted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

If there are no additional questions, I'll go to Mr. Siksay.

Mr. Siksay, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, in the past the per-immigrant amount for settlement funding has been important to the standing committee. I think five or so years ago the committee recommended a figure of $3,000 per year per immigrant as an appropriate level of funding. I'm wondering if it's possible to provide us that detail.

I know the last time you were here I mentioned some numbers, and you weren't too happy with those. I'm wondering if you could give us a per-immigrant level of funding for the current situation and one for after the $307 million comes online.

Could you tell us what the funding would go up to by province?

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

When it's fully implemented, the funding will go up to about $3,000 per immigrant. I would point out, too, that there are differences from province to province for this reason. In some provinces, you have large volumes, so you have already economies of scale in terms of administration to handle that. In other provinces, where arguably there's just not nearly enough immigration, you'll have the same administration, because there's a level of critical mass for administration that you have to have, and you'll be dealing with fewer immigrants. So this is always the challenge, and in fact in those provinces, they're really trying to find ways to bring people in, and in a way they are going to be spending some resources to attract people. So it doesn't always work out exactly the same way in every province. That's part of a discussion we have with the provinces, and I think they understand the challenges, even if they don't always agree with how we approach it.

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

Do those statistics exist, though, of per immigrant, by province, and is it possible to provide that information?

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Yes, I think they would, because we know the amount of money that's spent on funding right now per province. And it would obviously vary wildly among some provinces. Newfoundland I think had 411 immigrants last year, and P.E.I. had something like 173, and then of course you go to Ontario with...I forget the number, 120,000, a very large number. So again the economies of scale mean that the amount spent in some provinces would be a lot less than in others.

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

That would be helpful information. If you could provide it to the committee, that would be important.

In our last meeting the committee met with the Auditor General, and we were looking at her reports from 2000-03. In the 2000 report, the Auditor General raised concerns about inadequate security clearance measures and that there were problems in the department with that, and I know it's come up already this afternoon.

A couple of weeks ago, at a Senate committee, the second in command at CSIS raised the concern that about 90% of immigration applications from Pakistan and Afghanistan weren't being screened, and he raised this as a serious concern.

I'm wondering if you could comment on that, Minister. Is that an acceptable situation to you? Are measures being taken to correct that? How does that affect Canadians' confidence in the immigration system?

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Well, it's difficult for me to know exactly what Mr. Hooper was referring to. I looked at his comments. Everyone is screened. Every person who applies to come to this country is screened. They are screened by visa officers who are trained in identifying what to look out for in terms of protecting the security of Canadians. So they are screened. They are screened against risk profiles that ensure that if there are problems in a country, we identify what those problems are and we look to see if people are in any way connected, for instance, with organizations that might promote terror, as an example. If there's any concern at all about the security side of it, those applications are referred immediately to CSIS and the Canada Border Services Agency. They do not move forward until such time as they have been signed off and given a green light. Ultimately, those visa officers themselves have complete authority to turn down anyone they wish if they have a concern about the application that's made.

So I take issue a little bit with what Mr. Hooper was saying at that committee.

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

Have you pursued that with representatives of CSIS to find out exactly what was meant by those comments?

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

There have been discussions between the departments, where we have made it very clear what our process is, and I understand completely the position of CSIS, which has responsibility for protecting the country. They've apparently done a pretty good job here, given what occurred last weekend, but we think we also do a very good job of providing that screening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Bill.

Ed Komarnicki, and Andrew.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Minister, it was refreshing to hear that it's not just a question of numbers and indicating for political reasons that you want to have the people come in without the appropriate funding...to ensure they can succeed. Hearing that the funding was frozen, yet you wanted to get more numbers, is kind of counterproductive. Integration, and making sure that people who come here do succeed by making provision for them, is an appropriate consideration.

There were considerable dollars placed into the refugee programs--some $20 million. There were several other things that were planned for financing, such as international students, the “Going to Canada” website portal, and biometrics. That was a series of specific areas that was going to be beefed up by the department.

Would you care to refer to any one of them? I know the international students issue is a recent announcement by the government, and of course the refugee program itself needs some additional funding.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

There are a number of new initiatives. Some of the more important ones I think are the funding for refugees. There are two aspects to that. One is backlog, and the other is interim federal heath, which is very important in helping to make sure that when people arrive, they have access to health care. I would point out, by the way, that this also includes victims of human trafficking.

The biometrics initiative is very important. It's a new pilot project that will get under way this fall, and it is designed to ensure that we're doing all we can to get ahead of fraud and fraudulent documents. One of the disturbing things, when you get a good look at what goes on in the world with respect to immigration, is the ability of dishonest people to create documents that are very, very convincing and very hard to detect. So biometrics is very important. This is something that a number of countries are looking at. Hopefully, this will make sure that people are even more secure than they are today.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I suppose a follow-up to that is the global management system that you referred to earlier, which allows various agencies to use the data and speak to each other. It complements that aspect.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Let me just say something about that. I've been to Vegreville and have seen data entry operators taking information from one screen and having to re-enter it into a computer to go to security agencies so that they can check individuals to make sure they meet the security criteria. You obviously eliminate that step when you have computers that talk to one another. There are probably many other examples of that, but that's something I've seen. It's obviously very inefficient. People's time is better spent doing other things, such as making sure we reduce the time that people have to wait in line.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ed.

Andrew, or Blair, or Madam Folco.

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

Thank you very much.

I want to get back to the undocumented workers, because you mentioned, Minister, that it would be compromising the integrity. It seems to me that the previous ministers we had all saw this as a problem and they were all working on it.

My dealing with the department goes back to 1998, and I have always detected a level of hostility from the bureaucracy, particularly in doing something like regularization. The fact of the matter is, when you're looking at spending a great deal of resources on rounding all these people up, getting them out of the country, spending lots of money on getting them on the system, and waiting for five years to get them back in, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I mean, if anybody messed up and this was changing those numbers....

When we say that immigrants aren't doing as well as they've done in the past, well, they're not. Obviously, if a physician or a scientist or a lawyer or a teacher drives a taxi, they're not going to do as well as lawyers and teachers and scientists and accountants, if you will, who are employed in their particular profession. The point I'm trying to make is if you get a plumber who is working in the construction sector, and it depends on the plumber, but you compare that plumber to another plumber, I dare say the gap would be a lot more. The point I'm trying to drive home is this problem got created with the point system and is one of the reasons why the numbers have gone up.

Minister, I would urge you to work with all the parties to come up with a direction on this, and I think we can accommodate most of the people who are here. In some respects you could look at them as immigrants on probation. You can't let immigrants into this country on probation. Once somebody is an immigrant, they're an immigrant and they're in. In these cases, if the person has shown that they are contributing to the economy and contributing to the society, then I think there's definitely a case to be made for regularization and letting them work toward status, a landed status, and citizenship.

This is a direction the Americans have taken for their own reasons, because they know if they got rid of all of the undocumented workers in the United States, they would go into a depression. I dare say in Canada we could probably go into a recession.

I urge you to work with all the parties to try to come to a solution on this. Ask your officials to bring you the plans that were being put together for the previous ministers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We do have a long motion to deal with, and of course we have to vote on the estimates, but if you have some closing remarks, maybe we could get moving.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I think my friend deserves an answer.

I would say the first discussion that has to occur is the one of how to get people with those kinds of skills here through regular channels. I want to make sure that we can meet labour market needs through legal channels. That way we also are being fair to the people who currently wait in the system.

I understand the people you're talking about now cannot come through the system today because they don't meet the point standards. I understand that. Let's first have the discussion about how to get people here with those skills and abilities, because we do need them. I appreciate that these are good people who want to come to a great country. They are in much the same position as our forebears were, but let's try to get them here legally and let's make that the first discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Minister.

With the committee's concurrence we will go to a vote now on your estimates.

CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

Vote 1--Operating expenditures..........$471,886,000

(Vote 1 agreed to)

CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

Vote 5--Grants and contributions..........$711,702,000

(Vote 5 agreed to)

IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BOARD OF CANADA

Vote 10--Program expenditures..........$103,259,000

(Vote 10 agreed to)

Shall I report the main estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Minister, for appearing before the committee today. I want to thank your officials as well.

I want to thank the committee for some great probing questions. The information we had today will keep use busy, I'm sure, for quite some time, and we will be able to use that information in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

We will move to the notice of motion.

Madam Folco.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Can we have two minutes for the minister to withdraw?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

It's been requested that we give the minister a moment to withdraw before we get into the motion.