Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 13th, 2008

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

Applications in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds continue to be made. In fact, all of the bill has to be charter compliant, so there can't be any discrimination on race or nationality or any physical disability or any other of the charter protections. And not only must the bill be subject to the charter, but the instruction, when it eventually issues, needs to be charter compliant, and the process under the instruction needs to be charter compliant. That's comforting.

I'd like to read something that was in the press. It was by the president of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada. He recently said, and I quote, “It is important for the Government of Canada to communicate with Canadians of all backgrounds. The current legislation regarding immigration reforms”—

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

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

A point of order.

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

The parliamentary secretary is reading something. Could he table it? Will he put his BlackBerry down as evidence? If not, I'd like to see that letter.

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

—“will have a direct”—

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

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

He's reading something. I'd like to have it tabled.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm sure the member will table it at his earliest convenience.

There is no point of order.

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

We're not in the habit of tabling anything we're reading from in the committee.

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

Mr. Chair, a point of order.

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

I'm going to finish reading part of the press release—

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

Just a second.

Mr. Chair, he's reading something. Either he's able to table it or he's not.

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

I will table it for the benefit of the member. I will read it, if he would just stop interrupting so I can do that in my time.

The president of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, Thomas S. Saras said:

...the government should be applauded for their efforts to communicate the intent of this legislation through public notices in the ethnic press and media.

... The NEPMCC strongly believes that advertising in non-official language mediums is essential in a multicultural society as part of our democratic institutions and at the same time cost effective.

... The majority of new Canadians and members of the ethnic communities rely on the ethnic press as their primary source of news and information. Advertising important legislative amendments that will have direct impact on our communities is the right thing to do.

There has been a lot of misinformation, and this was a good opportunity to put some real information.

Another misconception has been whether or not there will be any consultation with respect to the instructions. What many people don't know is that this bill does not contain the instructions; the instructions will come at a later date. Do you intend, indeed, to have consultations, and what might they be?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

They will be definitely at a later date. That's part of the way we set this up, to make sure there are no arbitrary decisions and no one is subject to whimsy of the minister. We want to make sure what we do is objective and transparent and does involve consultations, because this is an ongoing process.

One of the great benefits of this legislation is that it will allow any future government flexibility and authority to manage the application process, to manage the incoming applications in a way that meets the needs of the immigrants and of the country. Even as circumstances around the world or indeed within Canada change, all future governments will have the flexibility to deal with the immigration system efficiently and effectively, unlike the current broken system we've been saddled with today.

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

Thank you, Minister.

Certainly past ministers, including the Liberal minister for York West, have said we're not doing the system justice by taking applications that aren't going to get processed for years and years and years. It doesn't make any sense for us to be continually taking these names. The reality is that we need to change the system. We need an immigration system that is, in this regard, more flexible in response to employers, provinces, and our cities. Now, after 13 years and a backlog that grew from 50,000 to 950,000, saying we need to do something but not doing anything is not the answer, Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Twenty seconds.

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

What are we doing in this bill to ensure it meets the upcoming needs of the country?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

We're doing two things. The first is only agreeing to process as many applications as we can in a given year. I don't believe it's fair to give would-be immigrants false hopes that they might get in here sometime in the next six to ten years. I don't think that's fair to them at all. This way, what we're doing is being upfront with them and being realistic with them so that they can get on with their lives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Telegdi.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Minister, welcome.

I want to deal with some misconceptions. I've been listening to you and the parliamentary secretary long enough. There are sound bites, talking points, that are coming through. Yes, it has to be charter-compliant. Minister, as I told the parliamentary secretary, a security certificate was not compliant with the charter for 25 years and it was in place. So saying it's charter-compliant might be a wish, something that gets dealt with down the road.

There's another issue I'm bothered about. Right now we have an open, transparent system, the point system, the objectivity of which was established in 1967. It has been copied by Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. The United States Senate started a major study on it a year ago. The problem, from my perspective, hasn't been the openness or transparency of the system—those are good things. The problem has been the way we allocate points. It wasn't the politicians or the committee who made up the point system back in 2002; it was the bureaucrats.

When you compare our point system to Australia's and New Zealand's, it doesn't make any sense. We give 10 points for the maximum age, for someone who's 49 years old, whereas both New Zealand and Australia cut them off at a younger age. If we're going to get people over here, we need to get them over here early.

I think we could have had a fix on it if we had just done that. I said it was the bureaucrats who drove the point system in 2002. In Dragan v. Canada, the court issued an order of mandamus. The court makes it clear that a big problem has been that the bureaucrats misinformed this committee and the Governor in Council. But guess what? They got off scot-free—none of them ever had to deal with it.

I have in my hand a memorandum to the minister. It's been floating around for a long time. It makes it clear that the problem has always been that the bureaucracy has artificially been constraining resources. That's the only control they had over processing. So there's no issue. If we wanted to get people in quickly, we could. They don't have to wait six years. We can get a temporary foreign worker in for 35 days or a couple of months. They can get them in, no problem.

Minister, you're the first minister in this decade who has missed her numbers, meaning the forecast. In this last session, instead of coming in with a 240,000 to 265,000 range, you're going to be coming in with less than 237,000. Minister, under your watch, we have created a crisis on the Immigration and Refugee Board. We went from a backlog of 18,000 to something like 45,000, and we're going to be over 60,000 by year's end.

I have a real concern about who's in charge over there, and I have a real concern about the underhanded way this whole process is being snuck through Parliament, being put in legislation. You're accommodating the bureaucrats' dream—the bureaucrats who have spent so much time misinforming members of Parliament and the Governor in Council, and who are responsible for a big part of the mess we are in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Minister?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

You raised a number of different subjects.

I would like to say that the staff at Citizenship and Immigration do work hard. I've been to facilities outside this one. I've looked at how they are working to improve the process and trying to deliver better service, and I'm very proud of the work they do.

You do raise one really interesting point, and that is about the point system. When we were looking at immigration reforms, one suggestion was that we raise the number of points to stream people out so we could manage the backlog or the intake better. I disagreed with that for the simple reason that this would benefit those with more education, not necessarily with the education we need. As Ms. Chow pointed out, we also need welders. We need cooks, and those people would have been screened out, so I recognize that raising the points isn't good.

There are certainly some challenges with the existing point system, and I would encourage this committee, based on the fine work you did on the lost Canadians issue, to go ahead and take a look at the point system to see if you can find ways we can remedy that program to make an even more effective immigration system. I'd welcome those recommendations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Minister.

Ms. Grewal.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Madam Minister, I would like to thank you for coming, for your time, and your presentation.

I would just like to clear up one thing. Some of the critics say that all the immigration system needs is more resources. Pump more money into the system and everything will be fine. How do you respond to this proposal?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

It's really quite simple. When you have a system that is fundamentally flawed to start with, throwing more money and more people at it isn't enough to fix it. Yes, it's necessary, but it's not sufficient. We have to find ways to fix a very badly broken system. That's what we're proposing with our legislation, but along with our legislation we're also making administrative changes and putting more resources into it, so we are taking the advice of more resources, but that's not enough. You just can't keep piling it on, because if you do that, people will say we are processing faster so they will flood us with even more applications, for which we need more people, then more applications, and it becomes an out-of-control spiral.

The country only has a finite capacity each year to welcome newcomers, whether it's in housing, schooling, any sorts of jobs for these people. We want newcomers to succeed when they get here. This is why we're saying let's welcome the newcomers and give priority to the newcomers who are going to be able to get the jobs here. Those are the jobs that need to be filled. That works for the newcomers and their families. That works for Canada, and that's what we're after. We've seen statistic after statistic showing that newcomer success rates have been declining over the last 10 to 12 years. I don't think it's a coincidence that during that same period of time, settlement funding was frozen by the previous government. That's why we are investing $1.4 billion in new money in settlement funding, so that newcomers get the chance to succeed quickly and integrate into our culture.

We're taking a lot of steps. We're introducing the Canadian experience class this summer. We've launched the Foreign Credentials Referral Office to help would-be newcomers identify where and how to get their credentials evaluated before they even get here, and then if there is a gap between their skills and our standards, they have the opportunity to upgrade to Canadian standards before they even land, helping to ensure their success once they get here.

We want to change that past trend of the downward slope of newcomer success. We want to get more newcomers here faster and we want them to succeed sooner.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

How are the changes contained in Bill C-50, combined with recent funding announcements from your department, going to improve the immigration system and help new Canadians succeed in this country?