Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 21st, 2006

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

Madame Young.

[Wai Young]

If I may respond—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Just quickly, because the last five minutes are allocated.

[Wai Young]

I have not heard of this. Recently I attended a medical panel with the donation people, and they have very clearly stated that for people to donate any kind of organ in Canada and to receive any kind of compensation for it is highly illegal in Canada. I have not heard of it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Karygiannis.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Just to follow up on some of the questions you've been asked, I want to talk to you about the length of time it takes to process paperwork within Canada and the length of time it takes to process a family from overseas. Over the last few years we've been noticing that the length of time has certainly increased, especially in Vegreville. Can you comment on what your people have been experiencing?

[Wai Young]

I think this is a direct result of 9/11. The lengthened processing time is because they have spent more time in the last number of years on security. That's one reason, processing the security aspects of the application.

We were recently in a meeting with the director of operations responsible for processing. He said it's basically a numbers issue again and a resource issue. Obviously if we wanted to decrease the length of time, it's a matter assigning more case officers towards the processing.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

On the numbers issue, I don't think we're getting more or fewer refugees than we were ten years ago or one or two years ago, but the length of time certainly seems to have increased. I just got a fax from Vegreville the other day, saying they were dealing with that particular day. It's not consistent with what it was like a year or two years ago.

Has the length of time it takes doubled in the last year?

[Wai Young]

I think it's primarily due to the complexity of where the camps are, where the refugees are coming from, and getting the documentation.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I'm talking about processing time inside Canada.

[Wai Young]

Did you want to comment?

[Fariborz Birjandian]

Even inside Canada.... I'll give you one story. I know of one lady who came as a refugee to the United States and married a gentleman who came here to Canada as a refugee. Actually she's in Canada, as they're married now. The Canadian government expects the Iranian government to give clearance to this young lady who left because of religious issues, because she was not a Muslim and had escaped Iran. That itself has delayed the issue.

Security or security clearance is something we understand is important. But sometimes we are asking people to do things that are really.... I can't believe it. That particular letter has to come from the Government of Iran; otherwise they won't process the case here. It could take up to two years for them to settle that.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

In your experience and in working with your community partners, would you say the length of time it takes to do things over the last year has doubled, or increased by 30% or 25%? What would you estimate?

[Fariborz Birjandian]

Again, it's hard for me to say for the past year, because I really don't have a study done in the past year. But I would say that in the past five or six years, the length of time or waiting time has gone up for all of them—for citizenship applications.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

So it has been increasing; it hasn't decreased. Can you see any decrease in the near future?

[Fariborz Birjandian]

Again, with the new funding, we don't know. It may happen, hopefully, because we are hearing there is going to be more investment. I hope as a result of that, the waiting list will decrease. I hope, but we don't know yet.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We're doing very well on time, and that will allow the 30-second question Andrew wanted. We'll wrap up at five to eleven.

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

Just to finish off, Ms. Young, the discussion about family members being able to join people, particularly in small communities, essentially what you're talking about is trying to get some kind of critical mass so that people will stay and feel welcome.

[Wai Young]

I want you to know that all studies regarding settlement and integration, and therefore retention, indicate that the key reason people go there and stay there is family members or friends. So if you have somebody who is established within a community and if you are a new immigrant or refugee who comes to that community, there's an extremely high retention rate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you for your presence here today. It's very much appreciated.

Your request for a study is noted. We have an agenda that will take us right into Christmas break, but our subcommittee will be meeting to talk about our agenda early in the new year, so it's possible it might be put on that agenda.

Thank you very much.

I want to thank the committee members for coming this morning.

The meeting is adjourned.