Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 13th, 2008

Evidence of meeting #44 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was instructions.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Consideration of the subject matter of Part 6 of Bill C-50, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Richard Fadden Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Les Linklater Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Andrea Lyon Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada

Joan Atkinson Visiting Assistant Deputy Minister, Canada Public Service Agency, As an Individual

Daniel Jean Associate Secretary, Senior Associate Secretary's Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, As an Individual

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB

We've established, then, that there's no way we can do that discriminatory policy, so now it comes down to how we look at these instructions to have the flexibility, and that's the whole reason we're going with ministerial instruction: to have the flexibility to meet the needs—of Canadians, of Canadian businesses, of family reunification, as well as of those of the immigrant community who want to come to Canada.

Can you, then, talk about how the flexibility ties in with the instructions, rather than having something set in stone and going on in perpetuity, which we have right now and which hasn't served Canada well?

5:05 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Richard Fadden

Mr. Chairman, the basic system has us treating every file we receive, and fundamentally treating it in the order we receive it. There is no direct connection on the economic side with any labour market demand in Canada. One of the things the instructions will allow the minister to do is tell the department, after consultation with the provinces, the private sector, and civil society, that there are a variety of occupational groups who deserve priority treatment.

At the same time, the instructions are phrased broadly enough that the minister can also provide for program priorities. I think she has indicated on one or two occasions that she would probably use this to indicate to the department that we'd have to continue to give priority to provincial nominee programs, the Canada-Quebec accord, and the family unification programs.

Fundamentally, though, in developing the instructions, the minister is going to have to have regard to the operating principles that guide everything that happens in IRPA, and there are three objectives: there's an economic one, there's a family reunification one, and there's a humanitarian one. I have not seen any indication that the government is not going to do this, but if they did not do it, there are plenty of recourses to force the government to rethink this.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB

So we're going to make sure we respect the three fundamental goals. The instructions are being issued. But what consultation process are we looking at then in making sure the community at large, civil society here in Canada, is being listened to and that we're meeting the labour market needs we have?

5:10 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Richard Fadden

Mr. Chairman, first I should say that we have not dotted every “i” and crossed every “t”. Parliament hasn't passed this legislation yet, so I'm giving you a preliminary indication.

First of all, we want to get, at a national level, the views of the Bank of Canada and HRSD on the national labour market. The bill requires the minister to consult with the provinces, so we're going to develop a process whereby we will ask all of the provinces to try to articulate for us, to the extent they can, what their labour market is like. At the same time, we'll talk with representatives of the private sector and with representatives of civil society.

We haven't, as I said a moment ago, sorted out exactly how we're going to do it. We're hoping we can do it on either a sectoral or a regional basis, to make it as efficient as we can while still providing everybody with an opportunity to be heard.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB

So the criticisms we've heard earlier about this committee not being involved, although the committee has the power at any point in time to study any issue they feel is important and develop policy to recommend back to the House of Commons and to the government.... We're going to have the consultations as required, I guess, as we move forward in meeting the needs we have here in Canada.

Could you just clarify for us, though, how the concurrent processing will proceed with respect to applications processed under instructions and applications from the existing backlog?

5:10 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Richard Fadden

The intention, as I was saying in reply to an earlier question, is that once the instructions come into force, the existing backlog is going to be frozen. The bill provides that we have to deal with people who are in the existing backlog under the existing rules, so by and large, we're going to go “first in, first out”, and our current thinking is that we will allocate something like 70% of our operational resources to eating away at the backlog.

At the same time, we'll be writing, on a pilot basis, to some 50,000 of the older files asking whether they want to be sustained. As I told Ms. Chow, we would also be mining the files in order to determine whether any of them can be referred to the provinces. So we will keep eating away at the backlog. The key there, though, is that it's frozen. We're not going to be able to add to it.

On the working inventory file, where we hope to allocate something on the order of 30% of our ongoing resources, the ministerial instructions will be used to enable us to pick and choose those that reflect their priorities, and the files that don't meet those priorities will be returned to the individuals at the end of a processing period; it may be a year or it may be a year and a half.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle

Thank you, Mr. Fadden.

That completes the seven minutes. We'll go to five-minute rounds. We have until about 6:15, and then we're going to break for about a 15-minute supper break and bring on our witnesses after that.

Mr. Karygiannis.

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON

Mr. Fadden, in the time this minister has been the minister, and you being the deputy minister, how many times would you say the minister has not followed your direction, your suggestions?

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle

I am not going to allow that question. The rules are clear and I have them in front of me. I don't want to eat into people's time by reading those rules out, but I'll read them if necessary.