Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 12th, 2008

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

The fact is, sir, that I've stated in the House the facts I've told you. The parliamentary secretary was there; he didn't contradict them. The facts are that processing times out of Beijing have gone up. The facts are that for Beijing the rejection rate for visitor visas has gone up. And the fact is that the minister, on TV, on public record, said half of China can qualify to come into Canada.

[Tom Pang]

I didn't hear that part, but somewhere in here--I can't find it right now--there's something from the ministry saying that family reunification wait times had decreased by 25%.

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

Not so, not so.

[Tom Pang]

It says so in here somewhere--unless you're telling me that the ministry is lying.

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

Not so.

[Tom Pang]

As a layman, there's no way I can find out.

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

I will gladly give you the facts and figures that you get on the immigration website, as well as the facts and figures that minister released to me besides that.

She's not saying in this new application that they're going to do.... She's going to say qualified new skilled immigrants, not family reunification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order.

I have to go to Mr. St-Cyr now.

Mr. St-Cyr, please.

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

Would you allow the witness to answer the question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

In the process, we're trying to manage the time—

[Tom Pang]

I don't know how I can answer the question. I'm just facing whatever information I have.

This is the first time, Mr. Karygiannis, I hear mention of the situation in Beijing. It will take time for me to really dig into it and find out what the real situation is in Beijing.

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

I'd be more than glad to give it to you in traditional Chinese and in English.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. St-Cyr, five minutes.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your presence here.

I would first of all, on behalf of all Committee members, like to apologize for the noise that you heard earlier, when the meal arrived. Our apologies to you, and especially to Mr. Tan, who must have been extremely focussed in order to be able to pursue his brief presentation despite all of the commotion going on around him. You have our thanks. I would ask for your indulgence and understanding.

Mr. Pang, I would like to make a comment, as I do not have a specific question to ask. It is a good thing that you stated at the outset that you were in favour of the bill. Upon listening to the rest of your presentation, I had some difficulty understanding why you are in favour of the bill. Throughout your statement, you talked about problems with delays, with wait times, and you mentioned several situations. However, in this bill, all that is stated is that there is a waiting line and that the order of the people in the line is going to be changed. If that it what is done, then in the end the lineup will be of exactly the same length. In any event, I would invite you to continue to reflect upon this.

I have a question for Mr. Jovel. I would as a matter of fact like to thank you for having done a good portion of your presentation in French. You gave examples of promises not kept and such that it is difficult to place one's trust in the ministers that succeed each other, no matter what the party. I would like to invite you to give some thought to the Refugee Appeal Division case. It seems to be proof that the situation is worse still. The Act provided that there be a Refugee Appeal Division, and parliamentarians, in good faith, trusted the minister who was to decide when this division would be set up, for bureaucratic reasons. It was adopted. That was the reason that was given, the compromise negotiated with parliamentarians in order to change the number of officers examining the applications. Previously, two officers examined each application; with this change, there would only be one. The excuse we were given at the time, as a matter of fact, was that this would reduce wait times, but we were told that in order to ensure that the system be fair and proper and that applicants be able to appeal a negative decision, a Refugee Appeal Division would be set up, but that was never done.

If the successive ministers from both parties, that are in power in rotation, are not even able to implement a clause of the Act, then how can we, in your view, trust them to take measures that have not even been discussed and that we do not know the nature of?

[Roberto Jovel]

Exactly, the Refugee Appeal Division issue has been around for years. I believe that it is an affront to Parliament because Parliament itself adopted the legislation. I am not saying that it is ridiculous, but it is rather shameful that Parliament is now being forced to adopt another bill, Bill C-280, if I am not mistaken.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Yes.

[Roberto Jovel]

It is legislation in order to enforce an act that already exists. So how much telescoping — I do not know how else to put this — will have to be done? It is indeed the matter of the limits over the executive power of the government that is at play in Bill C-50. The minister, among other things, met with the Standing Committee on Finance to say that there truly are control measures.

She mentioned the three Cs: the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the consultations that the government promised to hold, and Cabinet. The Cabinet is in fact the government itself, the executive power itself, and it is really the team that is the closest to the decision makers. This is not really a control mechanism. As for the consultations, this will most closely involve the private sector, with perhaps a few other departments, but it is still the executive branch of government, and workers' organizations have also been included; that was a late addition. In any event, this to our minds is vastly insufficient as far as control measures go. There should be other Cs as well, such as your Chamber, through its Committee, as well as the immigrant communities, which they too have an interest in this issue. Why not consult the communities and the community organizations? This commitment was made by the federal government in 2002, under the Voluntary Sector Initiative. There is an agreement between the federal government and the community sector to develop policies with input from the community sector.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Jovel.

Mr. St-Cyr, thank you.

Madam Chow.

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

Especially to OCASI, I know you represent many, many immigrant-serving agencies. Am I correct in assuming that a lot of the front-line workers that assist immigrants right now may not know or understand the changes that are in front of us? Probably like any ordinary Canadians, they would be semi-confused to see a big, full-paged ad, paid for by the citizens of Canada—I think the total cost was $1.1 million—and yet the ad talks about backlog, flexibility, fast....

Do you think the information going out to the public right now is enough; is it correct; and is there any chance for meaningful dialogue?

[Roberto Jovel]

Well, it has been a challenge for us to get our analysis and our information and all of our sensitization materials across to the front-line workers, and to the users of the services, and to the public in general. It's difficult for an organization to have that outreach, and those means, to go as far and as deep as the government is currently intending to do with that $1.1 million, through the advertisements to be introduced mostly in ethnic media or third-language media, as they are sometimes named.

What I have seen so far, in terms of the information that the government is circulating--I've seen it in documentaries at the CBC, for instance, with Minister Diane Finley herself responding to questions--is, I think, incomplete, inaccurate. We keep on hearing that this is a solution to the backlog, which is not true.

The other day I was interviewed by a journalist from a particular community newspaper and she said, “I just spoke to the minister five minutes ago and she says that these changes are not going to affect humanitarian and compassionate applications, and they are only meant to affect skilled workers.” We were on the phone, and I said, “Open the web page with part 6 of Bill C-50 and we're going to read it together.” And we pinpointed the places where it said if you are in your country of origin applying on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, you may or you may not be dealt with properly. If you have, in the case of family reunification, a sponsorship application, you also may be submitted to particular instructions issued by the minister.

The journalist was asking me, “So are you saying that the minister is deliberately misleading the public?” And I was like, “I haven't said that.” So she asked me, “But do you agree with that?” And I said, “Listen, all I have is the messaging that's coming from the government and you and I, both of us, looking at what the proposed legislation says.”

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

So you're saying that what gets presented is one thing; what's in writing, black and whit, is something completely different. That is probably one of the reasons why the lawyer who was in front of us, Mr. Warren Creates, was initially supportive of it but later, after he read the fine print, said it was terrible and was against it.

Do you think it would be useful for the House of Commons--whether it be the immigration committee or the finance committee, because right now the matter is front of the finance committee--to conduct cross-country hearings so that people from different ethnic organizations, groups from coast to coast to coast, would actually have a chance to hear precisely what's being proposed and what impact it would have on the community? Would that be helpful?

[Roberto Jovel]

If it's the only solution available, that would help a lot in clarifying what's at stake. The ideal would be that any changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are not made to play the role of a pawn in a political kind of exchange, and be made a matter of confidence.

So I would say any changes have to be submitted as a separate legislation project and should go through the regular procedure, which includes consultation. If the only solution at this point is to have the consultations that you are suggesting, let's go for that. It's better than what we've had so far.

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

Is that perhaps a recommendation that should come out from this committee? Would you support that? Yes?

I'd like to ask Mr. Pang and Mr. Tan a question....

No? I'm out of time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I think I'm going to have to go to—

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

Oh, I wanted to ask them a question.

Okay, thank you.