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.
7:10 p.m.
Associate Secretary, Senior Associate Secretary's Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, As an Individual
They have a lot of the same criteria. These criteria, in simple language, are like trying to predict the likelihood of success. There's a lot of research that has looked at how good these criteria will be in predicting settlement success of immigrants, and the experience of Canada is not different from that of Australia or many other countries--that, for example, the knowledge of the official language is one of your best predictors. Education is a good predictor.
So these are what the criteria are. As I said before, it's only one channel for bringing people in. There are other channels.
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Good. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Chow.
Mr. Karygiannis, five minutes, please.
7:10 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you.
You both had long careers in immigration, and certainly some of the problems we have right now...I wouldn't say they could be attributed to you, but they could be attributed to how the immigration department is run.
You appeared before this committee in your previous lives. Did you ever give misinformation to this committee?
7:10 p.m.
Associate Secretary, Senior Associate Secretary's Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, As an Individual
No. I've always tried to answer the questions to the best of my knowledge and what I see as the facts.
7:10 p.m.
Visiting Assistant Deputy Minister, Canada Public Service Agency, As an Individual
I would have to second that. I've always done my very best to provide the facts that are relevant and the facts I had at my disposal to answer the questions as best I could.
7:10 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Did some of the information you gave to this committee in the past give direction to the committee to go in a way it should not have gone?
7:15 p.m.
Visiting Assistant Deputy Minister, Canada Public Service Agency, As an Individual
I can only say that I provided information to the committee to the best of my ability, to attempt to answer the questions that were put to me by the committee.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
You know what I'm driving at, don't you.
Should I read it? It says:
The representative of the respondent misinformed the parliamentary committee about the number of visa applications filed before January 1st, 2002, which were expected not to be processed by the deadline...
And it goes on. I believe that was in the court that....
7:15 p.m.
Visiting Assistant Deputy Minister, Canada Public Service Agency, As an Individual
I can only say, again, that I have never knowingly or unknowingly misled the committee.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Okay.
Mr. Jean, I understand you are the associate secretary...in the senior associate secretary's office in the Treasury Board Secretariat at this point in time.
7:15 p.m.
Associate Secretary, Senior Associate Secretary's Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, As an Individual
I'm the associate; I'm not the senior associate, but I'm glad I've been given a promotion.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Okay. Well, that's what it says here, so I'm just reading from it.
So would any money the government spends be coming through your office?
7:15 p.m.
Associate Secretary, Senior Associate Secretary's Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, As an Individual
We look at the existing spending, yes, the estimates and all of these things.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Have you looked at the amount of spending we're doing right now on advertising on backlog for the department?
7:15 p.m.
Associate Secretary, Senior Associate Secretary's Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, As an Individual
I'm not sure I understand the question, sir.
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
The department is spending about $1.6 million—$1.1 million and everything else—to buy advertising.
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Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Has your office done any work on it? Are you familiar with it at all?
7:15 p.m.
Associate Secretary, Senior Associate Secretary's Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, As an Individual
I am not familiar with the specific spending of the immigration department in advertising, no.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
7:15 p.m.
Bloc
Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good evening.
Mr. Jean, I see that you have lengthy experience at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. You are therefore very familiar with this issue, certainly more than I am. I have been a member of the committee for six months only.
The points system considered a number of factors in evaluating any immigration application. A good citizen needs a number of different qualities. The present bill seems to start from a list of already established priorities. Nothing tells us which other factors could be considered. Could we have kept the points system while still prioritizing the various government wishes and still allowing applications to be examined?
The present bill says nothing about how the applications will be subsequently evaluated, even those on the priority list. I see a problem there. How can the other important elements of an application be evaluated without a points system?
7:15 p.m.
Associate Secretary, Senior Associate Secretary's Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, As an Individual
I cannot comment on the bill, and, to be honest, I am not very familiar with it either. But I can say that there are different possibilities. Historically, Canada's immigration policy has always contained ways to manage the volume of applications received. Over the years, legislative and administrative priorities have been established to deal with some cases more quickly. For example, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration has been trying for years to encourage family reunification by giving priority to applications from spouses. It tries to deal with most of those cases in six months or less. That decision was made in order to give priority to one group over another.
I invite the committee to look back to its work in 2002. The problem of the backlog and the difficult choices is not new. My first appearance before the committee dealt with this matter. Let me read you this:
“Our current immigration program has been described as a fully loaded airplane for which we keep selling tickets.”
It was the committee that wrote that in 2002. Further on, it says that, based on certain principles, it was probably going to have to make choices in selecting immigrants, in saying who can come and who cannot. So this is not a new problem, it is a problem that existed then and that has always existed. Other countries are dealing with it too.