Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 1st, 2007

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

That's what John said, too.

[Heather Macdonald]

I would say also that the program was designed to be responsive to mass numbers. Over the years it has changed. The system hasn't changed, but it's become far less resourced. There are fewer of these posts around the world.

I really do believe that our visa officers, the staff, are underresourced. There should be more of them. They should have more resources available. We have some responsibility, and we maybe have put in cases because we see the humanitarian need. We are now cutting back and screening. But no matter what we do, as long as that backlog is there and not systemically addressed, nothing is going to work.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I heard earlier that the UNHCR applications tend to have a faster turnaround. Is that accurate?

[A voice]

Yes.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Why do you think that is? Are they processed differently, or are they processed through the same visa officers?

[Martin Mark Ill]

The UNHCR applications are processed differently in both those ways. First of all, the UNHCR submits the profile to CIC to see whether they are interested in this type of refugee, and second, the average processing time in that case is about 12 months.

You can predict in 12 months the refugee situation, but you cannot predict it three, four, or five years in advance.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I'm just curious. Why does the UNHCR have a faster turnaround than private sponsorship?

[Martin Mark Ill]

It is because of the processing.

[Heather Macdonald]

It is because of priority access.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Are they processed by the same missions, or are the UNHCR ones processed here? Okay, you indicated they are processed by the missions.

We have a briefing note that says you met with the minister on October 18 of last year. How did the meeting go? Did you get any commitments or direction from the minister?

[Carolyn Vanderlip]

That was for the elected SAH representative, so Martin and I and our colleagues on the NGO-government committee met with the minister.

We felt that the meeting went really well. We made basically the same recommendations: that the processing be increased, that we get rid of the backlog, and that we move the program into the present rather than be haunted by the past that we're speaking about.

He obviously didn't make any commitments as we sat there with him that day, but we did also recommend that the targets increase—that the target range increase—and he did subsequently announce an increase.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

He did.

[Carolyn Vanderlip]

He did, but we're only meeting the bottom end of the range, so I don't see how the top end of the range is going to be relevant or is going to make any difference at all unless the resources are increased to meet that.

[Heather Macdonald]

I would say increase the minimum, not the maximum.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Alghabra.

I want to thank the witnesses for your presentations today. They were very interesting, indeed. We had a lot of great questions and comments, so I want to thank committee members again. You've given us some great information. I'm sure the committee will benefit a great deal from all that and use the information whenever we can in our deliberations.

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

Can we ask another question?

Can you provide us with the statistics, to today, as to how many private sponsorships there are? The data I have is dated July. I think by December 31 they probably have a big picture of what their targets are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. We'll leave that with the clerk and the analyst to get that information for you.

Many thanks, and we look forward to seeing you again some time, I am sure.

We'll just let the witnesses leave the table, and then we'll go into additional business.

We do have three items that we want to deal with, and some of these might require a little bit of time. So I am going to go immediately to the clerk, who will give a report on the steering committee meeting we had today.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. William Farrell]

The Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure agreed to—what I'll be reading into the record right now—

That the committee undertake a study entitled “Loss of Canadian Citizenship, 1947, 1977 and 2007”.

That the Hearings be televised if possible and that the Committee sit on the following dates:

Monday, February 12, 2007 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Minister and Senior Officials from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Monday, February 19, 2007 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Interested groups and/or individuals

Monday, February 26, 2007 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Interested groups and/or individuals

That Members provide the Clerk names and contact numbers of interested groups and individuals no later than 12:00 noon, Tuesday, February 6, 2007.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Discussion?

Mr. Karygiannis.

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

Mr. Chair, there was a motion from me, and I think all our colleagues have a copy of that motion—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

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

--and I think the motion the subcommittee has come up with certainly addresses some of the concerns I have.

I was wondering if we can take my motion--and certainly I'm looking for the advice of the committee. Take the preamble, leave the first two words...“countless Canadians have lost their Canadian citizenship under Section 8 of the Citizenship Act.” I'd like to change it a bit, “WHEREAS the Committee asks the Minister of Immigration to tell us what she's done to advise Canadians what measures have been taken to ensure that these Canadians regain their citizenship”. And certainly the dates--be it Monday or Tuesday--we can look at, and I'm not sure if we need the three dates. Maybe we can do two dates, one for the minister, one for stakeholders.

We've got to move on this immediately, and if we've got to move on this immediately, we've got to make sure that we're able to respond to people and certainly work with the minister or work against the minister, whatever the situation is, for us to be able to advise Canadians what they're doing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. Well, we have the three dates set, and if we don't need these dates, fine. If we can do it in two, fine. Whatever comes out of the steering committee—we might have to even go an extra one. Who knows? But we have three set, so maybe we'll just leave the three in place right now.

But what I'm understanding, just to make it clear for committee members, is that—

Okay. The member is asking that the first two parts of his motion that was submitted would—Okay, we'll read it now, what we want.

Mr. Agha.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Samy Agha]

The amendment reads as follows:

WHEREAS countless Canadians have lost their Canadian citizenship under Section 8 of the Citizenship Act.

AND WHEREAS the Committee asks the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to advise the Committee what measures are being taken to ensure that these Canadians regain their citizenship.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

Would that be okay? That the committee is asking the minister to advise Canadians what measures are being taken to ensure that Canadians regain their citizenship? It's only a very slight change.

All in favour of that?