Evidence of meeting #9 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was 2003.
June 5th, 2006 / 5:20 p.m.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
However, it is always Canadians who make the final decision, except in very rare cases where local designated staff have that responsibility.
5:20 p.m.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Could you please have the Department's confirm that? We are hearing something quite different.
5:20 p.m.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
We audited this in 2003. All files go through a Canadian Immigration officer.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you.
We have about a minute left. I think you have a fast, very short question.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
I have a very fast question. It follows upon Madame Faille's.
I'm thinking of one or two Canadian posts very clearly and concretely. It's not so much who takes the decision. It's more a question of people who say “You'll have to come back next week”, or next week again, “unless”—this is called “baksheesh” in Arabic—“something goes on under the table.”
When you say, Mr. Morse, that it's a Canadian who takes that decision, I'm willing to admit it, but before that decision is taken, very often the prospective immigrant will be told to come back next week, or come back in two months. After a while, that immigrant really feels that something else has to be done before his dossier is even studied.
Could you react to that?
5:25 p.m.
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
This is not an issue we have specifically examined. However, we can certainly look at the management of human resources and the way in which the Department ensures that the right decisions are made.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you for coming in today on behalf of the committee and sharing an awful lot of good information with us. Thank you. We really appreciate it, and we want to apologize for the pause that we had.
We have a list of about 17 items the committee is going to be looking at over the next couple of months. We'll share that with you, if you'd like to have a copy of it. It probably dovetails a lot of the concerns you had in your previous reports. So we'll give you a copy of this, if you would like.
Again, thank you; we really appreciate it.
5:25 p.m.
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Thank you for inviting us to appear. You never have to apologize for giving us a pause in life.
I very much appreciate the suggestions for the audit. We would be most pleased, if the committee has other ideas or areas they would like us to look at, to consider that in our planning. If the opportunity presents itself, we'd be glad to come back and talk about the results.
Thank you very much for your interest.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative