Evidence of meeting #14 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was irb.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond, BC
Okay.
My next question is this. Does this mean you did not have the opportunity to take into account the substantial number of appointments made since October 2008?
9:35 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
No. That is correct.
9:35 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
That's correct.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond, BC
For everybody's information, and also for you to comment on maybe, the current minister has appointed 29 individuals, and we appointed 8 individuals to the IRB, which leaves the IRB right now with close to 90% of its full complement.
This is my question. Is it fair to say this constitutes substantial progress or process towards a stronger IRB, looking at the recent numbers?
9:35 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Obviously, yes. The fact that appointments are being made is a good thing. I think what is preoccupying us, though, is the current backlog and how that is going to be resolved. We were informed that with a full complement of experienced board members, the IRB could handle about 25,000 cases a year, which means with a backlog now at 58,000 and likely increasing each year, the backlog is just going to increase. So yes, it was good that the appointments were made, but there is still a significant problem that needs to be resolved.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond, BC
In other words, besides the number of board members—now it is almost 100%—there are other measures you recommend or you would like the committee to consider.
9:35 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
We would certainly like the government to determine how it is going to deal with this backlog. If the IRB can only deal with about 25,000 cases a year, and there is a backlog now of close to 60,000, and we hear that there are more than 25,000 cases coming in each year, people will be in the country potentially two or three years before they have a hearing. They become established; they may have family here; they have participated in social programs. One has to then question what the likelihood is of returning someone to their country after two, three, or four years. There is an issue about the timeliness of dealing with these cases.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond, BC
Okay.
My next quick question is this. After looking at the reason, the way of appointing qualified individuals, is it fair to expect that qualified individuals selected under the new process would be better able to perform their duties and more likely to be reappointed or to be interested in serving for subsequent terms? As Mr. Coakeley has mentioned, there are people who may not be interested after x number of years. That's the question I want to pose to you.
9:35 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
We note in the report that we are satisfied with the process that is in place. We believe it is a rigorous one. The candidates that are being proposed should be qualified and apt to play the role of the board member. As I mentioned earlier, a certain turnover is to be expected. People shouldn't stay on these boards for years and years. I think, as for many positions, there should be a rotation, but it needs to be managed. When we see that more than half are in their first term and now I would imagine an even more significant portion of the people will be less experienced, that needs to be managed, going forward. What is an appropriate turnover rate?
April 28th, 2009 / 9:40 a.m.
Conservative
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I wanted to just enhance the comments you made, Mr. Coakeley, with respect to the selection process. It's transparent, it's merit-based, and it ensures only qualified candidates are considered for appointment. Could you just enhance that a little bit and describe the process very quickly? I apologize. We only have a couple of minutes and I have one other question I wanted to ask.
9:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Well, as I indicated earlier, there are two very formal parts of the process for the candidates. There's the written exam, which assesses four competencies, and then there's the interview process, which assesses six competencies.
The interview is a behavioural-event interview. People are asked, “Tell us about a time when you...”, and they have to give very concrete examples from recent experience, which is usually felt to be within five years, that can be independently verified. For example, in terms of cultural competency, they might be asked to tell about a time when they had to deal with somebody from a different culture and had to sort of work between the two cultures. So they have to come up with a very real example that can then be independently verified.
Each of those competencies are assessed on a pass/fail basis. So the person either demonstrates they have the competency or they do not. The decision of the interview board is a consensus. It's not a vote. Strength in one competency does not counterbalance weakness in another. Every single competency has to be demonstrated.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Thank you very much.
Ms. Fraser, one of the interesting aspects of all of this, and Mr. St-Cyr brought this up somewhat, is in terms of the work that takes place, not just in terms of checking the appointment process and how that's working, but the actual process of what's undertaken to do the work.
One of the things the report calls on is for the government and the IRB to work together to try to find a solution in terms of appointments and/or solving the backlog issue. It's fairly clear that just raising the numbers isn't going to solve the problem. I'm wondering if there are any other recommendations based on your review that you might suggest would assist us in terms of working through the backlog. As you know, our budgets are where they are, and simply being able to hire 100 extra to go through the process simply isn't going to be an option. If you do have some recommendations as to how you think it might work, it would be much appreciated.
9:40 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Thank you, Chair.
We didn't look at the operations of the IRB per se. It was really looking at the appointment process across government. So I would be very reluctant to say anything if we hadn't actually gone in.
I would presume that the IRB itself would have some suggestions to make to government as to how perhaps the process can be streamlined, or if, for example, the staff of the IRB could do more work in order to reduce the burden on the members. I mean, there may be different things that can be done that way. Obviously there's a significant challenge, especially with the increasing number of refugee claims coming into the country.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
The point you make is fair. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like the solutions to these issues are not simply adding employees to the IRB.
9:40 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I'm sure if there were double the number of board members.... Actually, when you look in the report you will see that the number of board members has decreased. There were over 200 at one point, and because the backlog was decreasing, the number of board members decreased. So there has been in the past history a far higher number of board members to deal with cases.
But you're right. Given the training that's needed and the time, I don't believe there's a quick solution to this.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Maurizio Bevilacqua
Thank you, Mr. Dykstra.
I'm just going to follow up on something Mr. Coakeley said. You stated something along these lines, that these are difficult economic times and therefore resources are not available. Wouldn't it make sense--if in fact these are difficult economic times and resources are not available--that you would use people who are already trained rather than investing money in people who are not perhaps as productive or efficient during these difficult economic times?
9:45 a.m.
Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
There you're into the zone where the reappointment is the prerogative of the Governor in Council, so it is the Governor in Council's prerogative to decide who is reappointed to the board.
From an operational point of view, there is no doubt that an experienced board member is able to deal with more cases than a person who is newly appointed, until such time as that person is up to speed. So for a period of about 6 to 12 months, the productivity of a newly appointed person is noticeably less than the productivity of a person who is an experienced board member.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Maurizio Bevilacqua
I only raise this issue because you brought up the point that resources are in fact limited, and I was just wondering if a different strategy would have perhaps been better. But as you correctly pointed out, you're not the person who makes the decisions. I guess I'll take up those questions with the person who does make the decisions.
Mr. Karygiannis.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Good morning, and thank you for coming.
I was wondering if you had a chance to look to some historical data going back five or six years, such as the amount of people who were at the board, the amount of people who were applying, relatively, percentage-wise, and the length of time they took to process an application--a spousal application, for example.
9:45 a.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Chair, the only data we really have is from the beginning of 2004. We have two charts in the report, one on page 29 in the English version and one on page 31, which show the authorized positions at the board and then the number that were actually filled. Then on page 31 it shows the number of claims by quarter.