Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 30th, 2008

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

What about the translation?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Oh, I'm sorry. Our German is not as good as yours.

[Volker Schneider]

I am sorry to say that unfortunately, we do not have any model that is in anyway similar to yours. In fact, what happened during the 1960s and 1970s is that we brought “guest workers“ over to Germany. We consider that they are guests. They come, they work, and they leave. However, that is not how things happened. They stayed and they took the opportunity to bring their families over. The problem is we do not see ourselves as a country of immigrants. Therefore, we now must solve the problem. We are still at the very beginnings of this process of adjustment. We still have problems that may seem hard for you to imagine.

For example, the problem of dual citizenship was a big one sometime ago. Now, dual citizenship is possible in Germany, but as I was saying, we are at the very beginning of a long learning process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Mr. Komarnicki, do you have any comments?

Mr. Komarnicki is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Ms. Finley, whom I do believe you've met with already.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Certainly I'd like to welcome all of you from the delegation here to Canada. I hope you enjoy your stay and visit. I know it's tiring, for sure. You've done a lot in a few days. I know what that can be like.

As the chair said, you've met with the minister, so if I say anything contrary to what she said, accept that as the fact and we'll work from there.

In our immigration system, as we now have it, we have a number of pillars. We have the economic class, the family reunification class, the refugee protection class, temporary foreign workers, and foreign students, who come into our country. And those are there as we work with....

But I can tell you that our backlog has now grown to 900,000-plus, so I'm not sure you want to learn that part of our system. We are looking at making modifications, improvements, and reform to that system, and that's the subject of a fair amount of debate.

We find that if newcomers can have a job, a roof over their head, and a family who can reunite with them who are also able to work, that will go a long way toward settlement and integration.

As a government, we have committed $1.4 billion, over five years, to help with settlement and integration, primarily in helping those coming to our country for the first time to understand a bit about the culture, how society works, and to help them with the English or French language. We have certain classes that are offered to them. There are over 400 different organizations that work with us in providing those services, and those are funded across the country. One of the issues that come up, of course, is national standards, because we obviously have differences between provinces.

We have found that with some who have come here without a specific job but who have a qualification, there are some concerns about whether their credentials will be recognized. We've taken some steps to have a Foreign Credentials Referral Office that helps to refer these individuals to the appropriate agency—and there are over 400 of them as well—to have their credentials assessed.

We've introduced a program called the provincial nominee program, which allows the provinces to nominate the people they need for their economy. We allow them to nominate these people, and we simply look at the security and health aspect. We find that when the province brings them in, they're likely to integrate into the community and to stay there.

We've also found that the temporary foreign workers, or the guest workers as you call them, have looked for a pathway to become permanent residents. We have said that makes some sense from the point of view that they're already here, they have experienced some of our culture, and they have integrated in one fashion or another. We're looking at pathways to make them permanent residents.

We have something called the Canadian experience class that we're experimenting with. We're saying that for certain skilled workers and foreign students, we'll provide a pathway for them to become permanent residents from within Canada.

I'll just finish with a brief note. I was wondering if you had any comments about finding a pathway for temporary foreign workers, and if you had any questions.

I can say that a lot of people express concerns about our system being complex, that it may be difficult for newcomers to comprehend fully, and that the wait time to get in is far too long, which has been a general complaint. We are trying to address that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

If you want to make a comment, you go right ahead.

[Klaus-Peter Flosbach]

I have just a few words.

We have five representatives from four different political parties, and tonight we're very likely going to have a beer or a glass of wine together. Nevertheless, we have many different opinions. I would be interested to hear whether there are any big differences of opinion among Canadian parties on the issue of immigration.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Klaus-Peter Flosbach, Interpretation]

I read newspaper articles on Canadian immigration policy, some critical articles as well, talking about the situation in Vancouver, for example. So obviously not everything is running completely smoothly.

You are all members of Parliament, so could you tell me in just a few words what the major differences are on the issue of immigration between the different political parties?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I think we could talk for hours about the differences between our political parties on some of these very, very important issues.

You can see there are hands going up everywhere. People want to speak about this issue, but I think I'm going to have to stay with the list of people I have here. I only have about eight minutes left and will have to go to our UNHCR witnesses next.

I have Mr. Karygiannis on my list right now, and then we will have a comment from Mr. Carrier and Ms. Chow. So perhaps I could work them in within eight minutes. It's going to be difficult, but I'm going to be very, very strict on the timing.

Go ahead, Mr. Karygiannis.

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

Thank you for the next five minutes, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

No, it's not for the next five minutes. You go right ahead, though.

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

As an individual in the late fifties and early sixties, I did go to Munich. My father was there on an Arbeitvisum. You had difficulties at that time in Germany, and there were a lot of difficulties towards young people and older people. A lot of work has been done since then.

I would recommend that if you really want to know how we're successful in Canada, there's the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has been translated in over 35 languages. It's available in German. I'm sure that if you leave your addresses with the chair, we can make sure you get copies of that. It could probably be a start for you...if we had a success or did not have a success.

As far as the differences between us on the system of immigration are concerned, or our thoughts on immigration, they go from right to left. From the right, the governing party is for non-inclusion; to the left, everybody is welcomed in.

Thank you very much for coming to see us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

All parties except the NDP have been given a chance to speak. So do you have any comments you want to make, Ms. Chow?

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

Chair, I still have a couple of seconds left.

One of the things I think we're all interested in is the Iraqi refugees, which we're studying at the moment. Maybe the delegation can elaborate on this at the end and tell us how they're facing the problem in Germany. Maybe they can take a couple of minutes at the end to tell us what they're doing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Maybe we'll have some wrap-up comments, if anyone wishes to do that.

I'll go to Ms. Chow for the last four minutes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I'll only take two minutes, so Mr. Carrier can have two minutes.

I note that there's a debate in Germany about the point system. A point system is rational and clear. The key thing it has to do is to balance the categories of highly skilled and manual labour. In Canada in the last five to eight years, it has not been that balanced; it's been mostly for high-skill, not low-skill labour.

The debate in front of Parliament right now is whether to put aside the point system or allow the minister under the point system to take categories of people and bring them up and down in terms of the wait list. The Social Democratic Party, like the NDP, the New Democratic Party of Canada, prefers just using the point system, so that it is logical and systematic. If the points are wrong, then you change the point system in a way that allows in more types of skills; you do not let the government bypass the point system. That's the centre of debate right now.

That's all I need to say.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I just want to say welcome, and thank you for being here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Carrier.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

I am also very happy to meet you. I am with my colleague from the Bloc Québécois, Thierry St-Cyr, and we are members from Quebec, which has a very particular approach. We do not have a great deal of time to discuss it, and I am sorry for that. We could learn a lot from each other.

In the current debate on the bill concerning immigration, we do not agree that the minister should be able to use discretionary powers in order to choose immigrants. We want it to be based on a well-defined point system.

I'm going to ask you a question that will be of mutual benefit. I read in the briefing notes that you are currently experiencing a decline in population that was compensated for with a lot of immigration. However, you do not want to turn to immigration in order to settle your problems. On the other hand, you have been part of an agreement with Canadian employers that would see them recruiting temporary workers from Germany.

During our three weeks of travel, we realized that foreign temporary workers cause a great deal of problems. These are people who also want to remain in the country. We have a great deal of thinking to do about that.

I see that you are cooperating to make it possible for Canada to go to you for temporary workers. I would like to know how you see that aspect, given that you are experiencing a decline in population.

[Klaus-Peter Flosbach]

I can give you a very brief answer. Our problem is of a different nature. We are looking for skilled workers, but of those who come, none are skilled. The problem is that they are immigrants who are above all looking for a social system. Even if they have no work, they have a right to approximately $1,000 Canadian paid out by the state. We must find an immigration system that will allow us to solve that problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you. For one of your final comments, some of the members want to know about Iraqi refugees. I guess you have a number of Iraqi refugees in Germany as well.

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

I think it is only fitting for us to let them know that this committee is currently doing a study on Iraqi refugees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I was about to do that.