Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 2nd, 2007

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

Is this still in effect?

[Mark Davidson]

The Benner decision, Mr. Chair, turned on a group of individuals under paragraph 5(2)(b) of the act, which dealt with individuals in a particular group who had access to a grant of citizenship for a temporary period of time. These are individuals who were born outside Canada between 1947 and 1977. That temporary period of time was originally stated by Parliament in 1977 to last two years, or such further period that the minister authorized. That further period wound up in August 2004.

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

Thank you.

Finally, Dr. Barry Edmonston gave us numbers and so has the CBC. I take it that you dispute those numbers. I want you to file with this committee the basis for disputing those numbers. Dr. Edmonston talked about a couple of hundred thousand, the CBC upwards of 380,000 people at risk. I want your department to file and come back and explain to this committee at some point on what basis you challenge Dr. Edmonston's numbers. He's an expert in this field.

[Mark Davidson]

Mr. Chair, Professor Edmonston is a noted demographer at the University of Victoria, and we welcome his analysis of this demographic issue. As he said in his brief to you and as he said in his testimony to you a while back, he had done some analysis based on a number of data sources, including the Canadian census and the American census. His analysis dealt with particular population groups. He defined those groups as border babies or war brides or children of war brides.

Professor Edmonston himself said this analysis is not an indication that these are the number of people who have citizenship problems. He went so far as to say the one piece of data we can be sure about are those who have come to bring their case forward to the department. So Professor Edmonston's statement goes to how solid that information is in terms of the cases we know about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Davidson.

Mr. Gravel, I believe you're splitting some time with Mr. Gaudet? Okay, thank you.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you for coming.

Ms. Faille is not here today, and I am new to this committee. I don't know if I understood correctly, but I think I heard that you had only 400 cases of lost Canadians. Is that true? There must be many more, I think, who have not come forward and who don't yet know that they are lost. The individuals in question do not all know that they are lost Canadians.

Do you know approximately how many people in Canada are in this situation?

[Clark Goodman]

Mr. Chairman, in response to that question, one of the reasons why we're going forward with a promotional campaign is to make people aware of needing to regularize or to find out about their citizenship status.

In response to the question about the 400 cases, those are the cases that we do know about and that we have in front of us right now to look at.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

That does not answer my question, but anyway—

Earlier, you said that you were speeding up the process for lost Canadians. What measures are you taking to speed up the citizenship recognition process? What is the department doing?

[Clark Goodman]

Chair, at the direction of the minister we have created a special call centre unit to respond to people who are phoning in to check their status from within Canada. The case processing centre, or CPC, in Sydney has dedicated agents waiting to take calls when people phone, and if they think they have a question about their citizenship, a qualified agent in the case processing centre is there ready to answer them. They have also dedicated resources to prioritizing these cases and ensuring they receive fast service.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

How long must these people wait to recover their citizenship?

[Clark Goodman]

I believe that it takes approximately three or four months.

Rosemarie, can you speak to that?

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Some witnesses who appeared before us have said that, in some cases, it was painful and difficult. Yet, we are talking about people who have always lived here. So, it's a bit difficult to understand.

[Clark Goodman]

Mr. Chair, I believe that it takes on average three or four months. In some cases, it may take a bit longer, but it usually takes approximately three or four months.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Citizenship and Immigration also told us that an order in council could be used to resolve certain cases. Has this order been issued?

[Mark Davidson]

The Governor in Council mechanism is indeed subsection 5(4) of the Citizenship Act, this special grant of citizenship that I referred to in my opening statement. When the minister was here in February, I think she indicated that at that stage the Governor in Council had made a positive decision in 33 cases. I believe now the more updated figure is 46 individuals who have received a special grant of citizenship under subsection 5(4), as directed by the Governor in Council.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I have no further questions, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

You have about three minutes, Mr. Gaudet.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

When you meet with lost Canadians at Immigration, what problems are they experiencing? In other words, what steps does an individual born in the United States need to take in order to be recognized here? What step is taking so long? If an individual has worked for 40 years in Canada, I think that it shouldn't take so long. If we are talking about a Canadian citizen who was born down there, their case should be able to be resolved in 10 minutes.

[Mark Davidson]

There are a number of steps that are taken, and actually I'll ask Rose Anne Poirier from Sydney to start describing those steps, and then turn to our colleagues from case management to pick up the file from there.

[Rose Anne Poirier]

Mr. Chair, I'll try to answer the question as best I can.

Anyone who has the need to get their proof of Canadian citizenship is asked to file an application and submit the application with the case processing centre in Sydney. If any of the cases that are received fall under the categories of the criteria that were identified by our minister as requiring expedited service, those cases are identified up front and are processed urgently. Resources have been deployed to ensure that this is happening.

For cases that are of a more regular nature, that can follow the normal course of process, those cases are being processed within a two- to three-month period for the time being.

Cases that are identified as requiring urgent processing are dealt with immediately. Clients are being contacted by a special group at the case processing centre, the program support officer group, and clients are counselled specifically on the basis of their individual cases. We are providing this service quickly within a 24-hour period, whether it's clients who are coming to us via the format of an application or contacting us by phone through our call centre. So we are trying to focus a lot of our resources in making sure that the commitment made by the minister is followed.

For cases where we can identify that need that can be processed through the discretionary grant process, those are immediately identified as well, and they are sent to the case management branch unit here in Ottawa.

Perhaps my colleague Rosemarie Redden could expand on the process at that point.

[Rosemarie Redden, Manager, Citizenship Case Review, Case Management Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you.

Once the file gets to the case management branch in our unit that handles citizenship cases, staff have been instructed to treat these as a top priority, which we are currently doing. A case summary is prepared and it is reviewed by the analyst, the director of legislation and program policy, as well as the legal adviser, to ensure that it fits within the parameters of the types of cases the minister has asked us to focus on and that it fits within the parameters of subsection 5.(4) of the Citizenship Act.

Once we determine that it is a case that falls within that parameter, the client is contacted by an analyst and provided with individual counselling. An application under subsection 5.(4) is invited. Once the application is received, the clearances are initiated and a submission is prepared for the minister to forward to the Governor in Council with a favourable recommendation. And by clearances, I'm talking about the regular security and criminality checks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Redden.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I have another quick question to ask.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Well, I think I have to interrupt you there, sir. We have gone to eight and a half minutes. It was a rather lengthy answer there, but we'll try to pick you up at another point.

Mr. Siksay.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. I have to apologize, because I have to leave committee early today. It's not a protest. I just have another responsibility this afternoon.

I wanted to come back to the issue of the number of cases that are outstanding. Of the 400 cases that are currently being worked on, does that include the 400 cases related to the Taylor case that are in abeyance? Is that the same number, or are we talking about 800 cases that are on hold related to these issues?