Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 7th, 2007

[Lois D. Figg]

Thank you for your questions.

With respect to the first, I'm sure this committee knows already that each member is required to make a decision based on the evidence that's before him or her in that case. It's very misleading to look at a broad statistic and make too many assumptions.

I'll give you an example, if I may. In Toronto, where volumes warrant, we group, geographically, teams. You might have heard us talk about teams before. I had been the manager of the Americas team. On the Americas team, you might have claims from what could typically be a refugee-producing country like Colombia. Another team may have western democratic countries before them. So I would just advise anybody who is looking at statistics to be a little bit wary of drawing too many conclusions.

Each of our decision-makers has to take each case on a case-by-case basis and make a decision based on the evidence that's before that decision-maker. I hope that answers your question.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

My second question was about the—

[Lois D. Figg]

Yes, I was going to move on to the second question.

You wanted to know about my gender and whether that makes a difference. That's an interesting question. It requires, probably, a bit of reflection.

My instinct is that I don't think so. I've seen tremendously compassionate male decision-makers and female decision-makers. I think what's tremendous about our board is that we have this wonderful international reputation. We have guidelines on vulnerable claimants. Both the public servants and the GIC decision-makers who form part of our board are truly interested in human rights and in balancing efficiency and quality decision-making.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have three and one half minutes left.

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

In that time I'll direct some general questions first to Ms. Figg.

Obviously you have a lot of passion, I can see, with respect to what you do. That's always great. Certainly you have quite an accumulated background, as was mentioned by Ms. Grewal, with respect to your human rights background. Obviously it's a significant background that would be helpful in what you're dealing with.

You mentioned that you had passed a test and you were interviewed initially. As you know, in the recommendation that came forward from a report just recently, part of the recommendation was that all applicants would not only take the test, but that there would be a passing grade for the test and that only those who passed the test would actually move on to the next level in the process before appointment.

What are your thoughts about that? You can certainly tell us how you feel about the job you do and maybe tell us about how you feel about the process and the recommendation with respect to requiring passing a written exam and have a passing mark.

[Lois D. Figg]

I'm not exactly certain how to answer your question, because I feel it's certainly not my role to advise the government on how to set up a selection process.

We have one that's in place at the moment. From my end of it, I have been on a panel that interviews candidates and deems them to be qualified or not, and then they are floated up to the minister. From my end, we see people from all sorts of backgrounds. We have nine competencies, which we worked very hard to develop. We're ensuring that each of the people we deem to be qualified is qualified.

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

Do you have objections to there being a written examination with a passing mark and requiring the applicants to meet at least that standard in that area?

[Krista Daley]

If you don't mind, I think the two members are here really to discuss their own competencies and their own appointments. The issue of the appointment process is really not one that either Ms. Figg or Mr. Sandhu is involved in.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

On a point of order, I don't think the questions the parliamentary secretary is asking the witnesses are appropriate. I think you should rule on the questions. I don't think they're appropriate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I have to confess I didn't hear the last question, because the clerk was making a point of order to me, so I leaned over and didn't hear the final question.

Mr. Komarnicki, could you clarify what the last question was that you asked, so that we can make some kind of ruling on it? You have approximately 10 seconds to do that.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Chair, he's asking for comment on potential government policy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I think everyone is aware, if that was the question, that asking witnesses to comment on potential government policy is not something that the witnesses should get into.

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

That's fair, and you can rule that way, but just to be sure, the question was about their points of view with respect to the requirement of having a written test and a passing mark for people to advance past that test. The question was that specific. If the answer is that they can't answer because it's a matter of policy, I'm prepared to accept that, but that was the narrowness of the question. If you rule that way, so be it, but it wasn't broader than that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That would be a matter of policy, I think, and the appropriateness of answering that question would come into question.

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

Mr. Chair, speaking on that, I think given the fact that Ms. Figg has experience with the board from the day it was formed, when we had incredibly highly partisan appointments by the Mulroney Conservatives, and that the quality of appointees has greatly been enhanced, particularly when we withdrew the political interference with the work of the board, Ms. Figg is in a very good position to tell us how the decision-making was greatly enhanced and reached a peak when we got to Mr. Fleury's leadership.

There are very few people you're going to get who will be able to make that kind of comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Telegdi.

Did you have a submission to make here, Mr. Karygiannis?

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

Mr. Chair, I'm just wondering if we've gone over the time that Mr. Komarnicki was allowed. If so, can we move on to the next person?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I think I will rule that we're wandering into an area of policy here that the witnesses may not want to get into, or need to get into, so I'm just going to leave that there. Of course, we've wandered into a nine-minute period here, so I'm just going to move on now to our next questioner, which is you, Mr. Telegdi, and undoubtedly you want to make additional comments on that in the time allotted.

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

Thank you very much.

First of all, let me say that I think it's a great day for you to be here in front of a parliamentary committee, because certainly you and Ms. Figg have come a long way in terms of coming to this country, and you're a testament to the kind of country we have. My disappointment is going to be when the House adjourns next week, probably. I'm going to miss June 19, which we had a committee meeting scheduled for, because that was the day my family arrived in Vancouver as refugees to Canada, and I would have thought it would have been appropriate to be sitting in a citizenship and immigration committee meeting at that point in time.

Given my experiences and my background, I have a particular passion, if you will, for what happens to refugees and how they're treated, as well as what happens to Canadians, particularly those of us who are not born in this country, and what kind of status we have as citizens.

Now the question I have for you is, what's the backlog right now?

[Ken Sandhu]

Sir, in the refugee protection division it's about 26,000.

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

The other question I have is, how many officers are we short?

[Ken Sandhu]

In the refugee protection division we are short 45.

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

And how many are we short in the immigration appeal division?

[Ken Sandhu]

I believe, sir, we're short 10 in the immigration appeal division.

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

Okay, and what kind of timeframe do we have for people who want to be heard by the immigration appeal division?