Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 29th, 2006

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I'm also new to this committee, so I'm trying to learn your process. I have a couple of questions about the member selection process. I appreciate the fact that interested individuals make an application, and there's a preliminary screening and a test. I'm curious about what percentage of people who make those applications get screened out. Is a ballpark figure half of them or...?

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

I'll give you numbers generally, because I don't have them in front of me. Under the new regime we've instituted, we received roughly 250 applications. Keep in mind that I usually have 20 vacancies a year, but it can go to 40--in some years people reach the 10 years--so I go back to the selection process.

The selection process starts with the individual's completion of an application form. It is quite complete. They must meet the basic requirement, which is university graduation and five years of related work. That's the basic; then they write a test. The test is corrected by specialists I have in the group. They also give us information with respect to community work they do.

The panel of Canadians that I referred to--do you have the graph?

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Yes.

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

There's the preliminary screening right now, then the advisory panel is number three. They meet, and they've elected themselves a chair. I'm there as an observer in the sense that I don't speak unless I feel that one candidate or the other could be given consideration, in the sense that I may want to interview them. This panel looks at everyone, and at each one's test results, background, and so on. And they refer to me a number of candidates who I can interview and with whom I can continue the process.

Do you feel I'm taking too long, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

No.

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

We wanted to make sure we knew what we were looking for in a good decision-maker. So we sat down with an outside consultant and decision-makers and we identified the competencies necessary to be a good decision-maker. It's very clear there are nine competencies, and then you have the right tools to evaluate.

At the test, the conceptual thinking analysis and communication are ranked. In other words, we pass a judgment as a result of the test.

If they go to interview, I interview with my managers for the other five of the nine competencies. It's highly structured and done on comportments.

So to answer your question with rough numbers, about 70% didn't go further than the test; that's 70 out of 200 candidates. Out of the interviews, I would say approximately another 30% would have been dropped. I could stand corrected, if the numbers were in front of you. I'm going from memory, but I'm pretty close because I'm directly involved in the process.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

But the process you've put in place produces enough of what you would consider to be suitable candidates who have gone through the steps. That's not the bottleneck; the bottleneck is at the appointment?

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

Yes. The government has a sufficient list of candidates now for the complement that we have.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Are the appointments for three years?

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

It varies. We have appointments for three, five, and two years, provided you have a good performance evaluation, which gives you the maximum of ten years. Initially it's for three years, then for a second five years, if the performance evaluation is favourable, and for another two years at the end, which would give you the maximum ten years that they sit.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Right.

Am I out of time? I have a really quick question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have 15 seconds.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Do you have people in the system for three or five years who get removed because of performance? How frequently does that happen?

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

There are two or three things at play. First, once I make a recommendation to the minister on a new appointment or a renewal, it's the minister's prerogative if people are renewed or not. It's not necessarily based on performance. It's the prerogative of GIC.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Siksay.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Fleury, I want to come back to Mr. Telegdi's original questions about the numbers you need for a full complement. Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought I heard you say you needed 240 for a full complement.

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

I said that three years ago we were at 240. Today we are at a complement of 161 and I'm missing 32.

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

So you have 129. Is that right?

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

Yes.

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

Is that over all three divisions?

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

It's over two, because in the third one, they are public servants; they're not Governor in Council appointees.

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

In terms of the Refugee Protection Division, what's the situation there specifically in terms of—

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

Proportionally the vacancies would be about the same. My complement for the appeals side is 37. So I've re-deployed people from the refugee side to the appeals side. I'm still not at full complement in that area. The rest of the vacancies would be on the refugee side.

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

One of the documents that was in the kit that we were given said that the number of decision-makers in the Refugee Protection Division was 120.

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

Yes, 119 or 120.