Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 17th, 2006

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for an excellent presentation—even if we did ask you to slow down so that we could catch up.

[Daniel Jean]

It's a big fault that I have.

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Maybe you are just too knowledgeable, that's the problem.

With all of Canada's net labour force growth coming from immigration over the next 15 years, the government obviously needs to invest in international resources by speeding up the processes by which the full potential of immigrants coming into the country can be put to good use.

The question I have deals with foreign credentials. I noticed in the budget that it was $18 million. The previous government announced some $68 million to deal with the issue. Is the $18 million on top or above the $68 million, or is this a budget cut when it comes to this program?

[Daniel Jean]

No, that's correct, it's incremental funding. The $68 million was primarily to try to focus on some key occupations, particularly in the health care sector, because the FCR—foreign credential recognition—is also an initiative led by Human Resources and Skills Development. In this particular one, they were also working very closely with Health Canada.

The $18 million is to try to see how we can streamline, in consultation with stakeholders and provinces, the access of people to recognition.

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

So it is incremental, then.

The previous government had also made a commitment to the $700 million. Did I understand you correctly in answering my colleague that this no longer...? I believe the previous government had put in $700 million to tackle the backlog of more than half a million applicants that was keeping families languishing apart. Is that no longer in the budget? It has disappeared. Am I correct in that?

[Daniel Jean]

There's no money appropriated for that, no.

What I would offer—

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

So how are you going to deal with this? I presume you had already adopted some sort of work plan to accompany that $700 million infusion. How are you reconciling—

[Daniel Jean]

There had not been any appropriation process for the new funding.

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

So you had not worked on any kind of game plan to absorb that money?

[Daniel Jean]

That announcement came in November, right?

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Okay.

We've all heard of tremendous delays that people experience in spousal reunification and about the family sponsorship backlog. In your estimation, would additional resources actually make a difference when it comes to the fact that our quota is over 260,000? Or has there been a reduction in our quota?

[Daniel Jean]

Spouses and minor children are our number one priority. I was looking at some of our data, and Janet can probably pull the exact data, but at the beginning of this current century, in 2001, we were not even processing 40% in six months or less. We're now processing 67% in six months or less. If I take our number one source country, India, we are processing 50% in two months or less, and we're processing 80% in four months or less.

So this is one of the areas where we've made a lot of progress. We would like to get 80% everywhere, and that's what we're aiming for, because we appreciate that if you're married or you're waiting for your minor children, you want that reunification to be quick.

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

It's commendable if you've managed to reduce that substantially.

I was visited recently by a number of refugees who have been in the country for as long as six years, and they can't be landed because their identities and points of origin have yet to be confirmed. I'm just wondering if you have any kind of work plan to deal with these people. It seems to be cruel and inhuman punishment that they are left in limbo indefinitely. How is the department contemplating dealing with this issue?

[Daniel Jean]

It's a very difficult issue. For a fact, when we were looking at our administrative measure around refugees, one of the things we wanted to do with those measures was to give status to people sooner, because the sooner they have permanent residency, the sooner we can put them into our integration program. We can then assist them in terms of outcomes.

It's difficult with that particular group, because it's a matter of balancing program integrity. We're trying to put the onus on them to show us who they are or what their identity is; at the same time, we understand that it's not always possible for these people. So it's a matter of finding the right balance.There is some work being done to try to see how we can do better in finding that balance, but it's not an easy situation to resolve.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, thank you.

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

If I could just ask him a quick question—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, go ahead, I'll let you continue your train of thought here.

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

As a very quick footnote, if these people have been here for an extended length of time—six or seven or eight years—and haven't committed any felony, is there any consideration given to having some mercy on or giving some leniency to these individuals?

[Daniel Jean]

That's part of the consideration we need to look at, right? Is it just a matter of time, or is it more than that? But at some point you have to find some resolution. We have some people who are examining options, but this is not an easy issue to resolve.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Andrew, please.

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

Let me return to the $700 million, which was essentially to build capacity and to really deal with the issue of the backlog; that's what it was about, to help you speed up the backlog. So if you take the $700 million out or you don't make the $700 million available, you're not going to have the extra resources to speed up dealing with the backlog. Am I correct?

[Daniel Jean]

The $700 million was for backlog reduction. It was also for the creation of the in-Canada class, to assist people who have temporary status as students or temporary workers in Canada and who want to adjust their status to permanent residency.

Yes, in the absence of that money and those resources, it's difficult to reduce the backlog, but as I said before, the issue of the backlog is not just an issue of processing capacity. You also need to make sure that the people you bring in will do well. And as a matter of fact, when you look at the cost of bringing immigrants in, the money you need to put into integration programs is much higher than that for processing capacity.

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

Let me put it another way: it would speed up the time it takes for people to get in, by building capacity.

[Daniel Jean]

What I am trying to say is that if you were to try to.... What your question leads to is an effort to bring more immigrants to Canada, right? Every year the government needs to set its plan and to table with Parliament how many immigrants there will be. The government does this following consultations and after trying to see what the right numbers are, given how immigrants are doing. Let's make sure our immigrants will do well. So it's not just a matter of bringing in more immigrants, but also a matter of making sure that once they arrive here, they will do well.

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

But one of the issues we have is that in the skilled workers class, it takes us 58 months to have somebody come in—58 months. You're talking about six years.

I had a case when I was over in India. The chap applied when he was 37 years old. He will finally be arriving in the Lower Mainland. He was a lawyer in India. He's going to come and work as a paralegal in the Lower Mainland, and he's going to get here when he's 43 years old. It seems to me it would have been better for Canada to have him here when he was 38 years old than when he's 43 years old. I thought one of the things this $700 million was going to do was to speed up the processing time.