Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 28th, 2008

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

Mr. Chair, I know there was no question, but I was hoping I might be able to respond.

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

Let her take this question, Chair, and then she can answer us both.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Normal procedure, if the question is asked, is that the minister is given the opportunity to respond, so I was just asking whether the minister had a response. She put her hand up to me and said she wanted to respond, so I have to go to her.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

There are two points I'd like to clarify. One is on what I was asked earlier. Historically the information about the skills and trades and professions of those in the backlog has not been kept. We've only just recently started coding it. So to say that there are no electricians in the backlog is not accurate. We do not know, because those fields have not been coded yet. I wanted to clarify that.

Secondly, I'd like to point out that the point system that was put in effect to evaluate whether people had sufficient points to come here actually discriminated against the skilled trades. There are big points given for having more education, not for how relevant the education might be to our labour market.

People such as electricians, who may or may not be in the backlog, would tend to have lower qualifying points, and there may not be as many of them because of the point system that was brought in by the previous government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have fifteen seconds. I don't know what you can do with getting your answer, Mr. Karygiannis.

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

Mr. Chair, thank you.

Madam Minister, I quoted to you that Nigerian Canadian News is charging $220 for a full-page ad. That would be your ad, which I am showing you. On the front page is the Prime Minister; on the 37th page is an op-editorial from you.

Madam Minister, are you going to tell me you paid $220 for this ad? Where is the kickback? Come on, let's be clear about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order, please.

Madam Minister.

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

Mr. Chair, I'd like to repeat that based on the member's questions the last time I appeared before the committee, we contacted Public Works. They have looked into this situation. They have given us assurances that every ad was placed in accordance with existing guidelines that were put into effect in 2005 and that all of the costs for all of the advertisements were in compliance with the cost sheet that is used every day by Public Works.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Mr. Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you. I will be sharing my time with Mr. Komarnicki.

Minister Finley, I would like to come back to the question I did not have enough time to finish earlier.

In Quebec, there is a serious shortage of doctors. And the population is aging. Perhaps our universities are not able to turn out a sufficient number of doctors at the pace we require. At present, there are many doctors knocking on the doors of Canadian embassies abroad. These people have skills and diplomas. They come from places like Cuba, Venezuela, France, etc.

We have made our language choices. When an immigrant arrives here, he or she is seeking one thing, a new status, a better life, more money, etc. In some cases, they have travelled more than 5,000 km to come to Canada and are willing to travel 500 more to Toronto if the prospects are more lucrative. In the last budget, you earmarked approximately $200 million for Quebec alone. Through the newspapers, we have learned that the money was not necessarily spent on immigrants.

Do you have a monitoring system that ensures that funds are truly spent on immigrants? Or is the money being used on roads and bridges? I know that this audit does not necessarily fall within your purview, but does the department have a way of making sure that money transferred to the current Quebec Liberal government or other provincial governments is truly spent on immigrants? You're dealing with immigrants like me, and I do not want to see the money being diverted from where it should be spent.

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

Under the Canada-Quebec Accord, the province has certain responsibilities with respect to immigration, and select the refugees who will settle there. Our responsibility lies with safety and health. There is money tied to the agreement, but this is a grant, and not a contribution. The federal government, which is the one giving the money, does not have any way of making sure that provinces are spending it where it should be spent. This is the responsibility of the province. We encourage the provinces to spend the money where and when it should be spent.

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

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have two minutes and 31 seconds.

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

The former Liberal minister said that simply adding applications to a system that's backlogged is not the answer, and that an answer needed to be found. Unfortunately, over a period of thirteen years, he did very little to address that. Bill C-50 certainly goes in that direction.

When we talk about numbers, Mr. Bevilacqua will take issue with that. When you add the temporary foreign workers we've brought in and the foreign students, the number is approximately 439,000 newcomers to Canada, a number that's greater than any other number over the last 100 years. So we've certainly processed a great number of people in numbers that haven't been seen for a long time.

I agree with your statement that those who have jobs waiting for them are more likely to succeed and immigrate because they have a base to start from. You mentioned briefly the provincial nominee program. That's an opportunity for the provinces to say they need these types of people, as Mr. Telegdi was saying, in a particular area, in a particular region.

Will Bill C-50 recognize the provincial nominee program and what the provinces need for occupations? Will the funding that we have and the work that we do in some way assist or enhance the provincial nominee program?

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

The provincial nominee program is not directly impacted by the changes introduced through Bill C-50. We have, however, worked with the provinces. We're in the process of removing the caps on the number of nominees that each province can bring in to meet their individual regional needs. We believe that's very important. That's why we've expanded that program and are in the process of doing so right across the country.

The categories of priority processing under Bill C-50 will not affect the provincial nominee programs. In many ways, they complement them. Setting national priorities frees up capacity at the provincial level to identify specific needs for them. For example, if lab techs are in demand right across the country, provinces won't have to use their limited resources to each set those as a priority. They'll be able to expand their provincial nominee programs to other areas, other occupations where they do have specific needs that are local.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm sorry, I have to stop you there.

Is it the committee's wish to give our associate member the last five minutes?

Mr. Komarnicki, did you have a point of order on that?

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

We discussed it; it depends on how the Bloc party feels. We have an issue dealing with estimates and we have permanent members of each party on the committee who will want to have questions. We have an additional member who comes here but is not really part of the immigration committee. It would seem that the time would be better allocated to the parties that are represented on the committee on a full-time basis.

I appreciate that we have indulged the member from time to time, but in this particular case, I think it is important that the members of the parties, because we're allocating minutes five and five, back and forth, get the opportunity to use the time. That's not on every occasion, but on this one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I would just tell members that the rule I want to quote says:

Members of the House attending committee meetings who are not committee members or substitutes may, at the discretion of the committee, participate in the deliberations.

I would ask all of you—maybe we'll just have a show of hands—who might be in favour of—

[Wajid Khan, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Chair, maybe we should find out whether there's another member who is interested in asking a question—a permanent member of the committee. It may be the Bloc; it may be the NDP....

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

There is a speaking order that we have allocated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm going to go to Mr. St-Cyr, Mr. Telegdi, then Mr. Wilson. We are rapidly running out of time here. If Mr. Wilson is to have five minutes, I want to give him his five minutes.

Mr. St-Cyr.

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

On any given topic, I'm not against having a member being involved in the committee and making remarks. This does not bother me. However, this has become a systematic practice, which is unusual.

If I recall correctly, at the Industry Committee, the Conservatives gave up one of their seats to an independent member. Very well. If the Liberals want to give up one of their seats to an independent member, I have no problem with that; but there are 12 members per committee and those 12 members should have priority in the speaking order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I don't think it's necessary to take any more points of order. You've heard the rule, and I'm going to ask the committee now whether they are in favour of Mr. Wilson being given some time.

Let's have a show of hands on that, please. All in favour of Mr. Wilson being given the last five minutes, please raise your hands. There are four.

All opposed to Mr. Wilson having that time, please so indicate. There are six.

I am disappointed, but this is at the discretion of the committee.

Will we now go to the committee's consideration of the estimates?

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

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, before we do that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Karygiannis has a point of order.