Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 5th, 2006

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

As a follow-up to that, when you look at the system as it's designed in terms of the scoring process and the qualifications for coming into the system, is it something that you might also look at? Does the design itself work as well for the needs of the people who are classified as it does for those who are not coming in through the regular way?

[Sheila Fraser]

We would certainly look to see how the department measures its own effectiveness and how they know that the scoring system is effective.

In the pause we just had, Richard and Paul told me that in many of the missions abroad, they are still working with pre-2002 inventories and the old criteria are still in effect. I would suspect it's probably difficult for the department to know the effects of the new criteria if they haven't started processing people on that basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ed.

We'll go to Blair.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Fraser.

As a former auditor and chartered accountant, I always enjoy it when other auditors or accountants come to speak.

Having said that, I've got about four or five questions. I''ll see how quickly I can get through them.

The first one is more on a general note. I'd like to ask a question of you and your staff on the human resource capacity within the department of immigration.

I know that we talked earlier about targets for the number of immigrants who we'd like to bring into Canada. It was about 260,000 people last year, and the hope is to get close to 1% of the population or greater if we can. Is there a current capacity within the department right now to be able to move up to 1% or to 350,000 people?

[Sheila Fraser]

When we did the audit in 2000, it was one of the issues that we brought forward. We really questioned whether the department had the capacity to meet the targets that were set then.

As was mentioned by Mr. Flageole, the department is actually exceeding the targets that have now been set.

If the target were to go higher, would they be able to meet that? It's a question I don't think we can answer. But the actual intake is higher than the targets that have been set. It would be an indication that the capacity is there to be able to deal with it.

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

When looking at the trends, it appears that the efficiency rate within the department is improving, and in some areas the actual number of applicants is declining, so they can kind of chew through the backlog a little more quickly.

I was looking at the area of the skilled worker class: 500,000 of the 800,000 people are in that class, and it's a 58-month processing time. I look at our Canadian society, especially western Canada, where there is a great demand for skilled workers. There is a great demand and we've got a great supply sitting there. We only need the political will to put the two together to solve the equilibrium.

The other question I had goes back to what you were talking about earlier on the temporary residence permits. I only want a clarification. Did I hear that 50% of the files didn't have sufficient documentation to render a decision?

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, that's right. I believe that 50% did not have sufficient documentation in order for us to assess on what basis it had been accorded.

[Richard Flageole]

It's very close. We found that overall the decisions were supported in 60% of the cases, but for cases involving serious crimes or security issues, it went down to 52%. For those security cases, in about one out of two cases we didn't find enough explanations in the files to explain what they were.

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

That was based on the 2003 audit. Do you have any record, or has there been any audit since 2003?

[Sheila Fraser]

No, we haven't done any audit work since then.

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

The other question is on the reports that are tabled in Parliament with regard to the department. In your view, did your prior recommendations in 2003, based on reports the government has tabled, show changes in inventories, processing times, and the number of principal applicants and dependants? Has there been a follow-up on what's been presented to Parliament since the audit?

[Sheila Fraser]

We haven't done any specific audit work to verify that.

I don't know if Mr. Flageole wants to comment on it, but we tend to be a little hesitant to make comments about whether progress is good or not good if we haven't actually done any audit work.

I don't know if you want to add anything more, Mr. Flageole.

[Richard Flageole]

Just briefly, there is an information number for the department, which is made available by the department in their reports and in other ways.

You mentioned a couple of figures, including the 58 months. Those are current figures from the department. It was not that long a period in 2000, so I guess the delays are extending. But as Ms. Fraser said, we haven't done any systematic analysis of all those data on delays and inventories.

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

On a more general note, then, what recommendations would you have for the department in their reports to Parliament to increase their accountability and the transparency of the reports the House of Commons receives?

[Sheila Fraser]

We'll have to do the audit before we can make recommendations.

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

I mean based on your 2003 findings.

[Sheila Fraser]

For example, there was the question of the numbers of people who had been accepted; that they needed to give more details, because the economic component of the skilled workers included dependents in the number as well. We said, you need to break it out to say what the figure is for skilled workers and what it is for the dependents, so that parliamentarians have a better understanding of the number and can't misinterpret the numbers. I think those were the kinds of recommendations we made.

We also have made recommendations about the effectiveness of the program; that tends to be a recommendation we also make.

I'm trying to see whether there is anything else. We talked about processing times and the number of applications on hand. That goes back to 2003.

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

Let me change gears; I have one more minute.

No? Am I done?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Go ahead, anyway.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I noticed in the report also that there were some discussions with Health Canada regarding mandatory testing for HIV and hepatitis B in all immigration medical exams. Are these now being tested?

[Sheila Fraser]

I don't know. At the time, I know the only mandatory testing was for syphilis and tuberculosis, and we said that with these new communicable diseases, they should certainly consider making some of these other ones mandatory. I don't know whether that has happened or not.

In the last audit we did, in 2003, we had an issue with people who had inactive tuberculosis. They were tested, and it was noted, but the person wasn't informed, and there was actually no tracking of those people. As we know, tuberculosis can easily go from inactive to active, and they should be informed, and there should be some monitoring of it. we will have to go back to see if anything has changed in that area.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Blair.

Madame Deschamps.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

If I may, I will share my time with Ms. Faille.

I'm very happy to meet you Ms. Fraser, as well as the members of your team. You are someone we have been listening to very carefully in recent years. I have a great deal of admiration for the work you have accomplished.

After the last policy statement made by the preceding government, we saw a number of embassies close, including some in Africa. Is it possible for you to assess the impact of those closures? What happened to applications made to those embassies, applications that were transferred to other service centres? Did those additional applications burden their processing system? Was this a factor that discouraged people? Did a number of applicants withdraw their applications, given the place where they were being sent, the political situation, conflicts at the time and the more difficult economic situation in those countries? Did the closures have a negative impact on applications? Where did those applications find themselves routed? Was there an impact on delivery?

Applications were routed to Gabon and Cameroon, for example. We mentioned Abidjan. During today's question period, a colleague noted that applications from Lebanese sources had been routed to Syria. Were more staff assigned to process those applications? Are there resources to accelerate the process? If so, does that not make the existing structure more cumbersome?

[Sheila Fraser]

There are two things we rarely mention in our reports — government policy and the way government is organized. The Auditor General has always believed that the government has the right to organize itself in any way it wishes. Our role is not to comment on that issue or on government policy. Rather, what we do is examine the way government policy is instituted and implemented.

Moreover, we do not assess programs. Our enabling legislation is quite clear on that issue. We can audit the way in which the government assesses a given program, and determine whether the government has the documents to demonstrate it has conducted that assessment, but we do not ourselves conduct the assessment.

As for the impact of closing a given office, we do not comment on closures as such. However, if those closures have a significant impact, we would expect the Department to disclose them in Parliament and indicate the way in which they have been managed.

With regard to information submitted to Parliament, we would examine the impact of the given decision and the way in which the file was processed, or handled. We could also look at waiting times, but we conduct no direct assessment of the impact closures have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have a minute, and then I have to move on because of the speakers list.