Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 29th, 2009

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

In what year was the switch made from centralized intake?

[Marc Audet]

It was 2003.

[Imran Qayyum]

As you know, IRPA came in, and under R11 there are designated areas that process your application based on your country of residence or citizenship. That was one of the reasons.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Right.

I noticed that the targets have not changed at all, really, but there seems to be fairly dramatic increase in the last two years. Can you tell us why that is the case? The number has almost doubled since 2004. Is it because more people are learning about the program?

[Marc Audet]

A couple of things happened. For example, we used to have the business provincial nominee program. It was cut last year, and some of those applicants switched to the Quebec or federal immigrant investor program.

You have some emerging countries too. As you know, China is by far the biggest provider, and they have a new millionaire every day. In China there are 500 immigration consultants promoting immigration. The first country they will promote is Canada. Those people cannot qualify under the selection grid because they don't speak any English or French, so their only solution is to apply through the investor class. If you check in the other categories, there are not so many Chinese.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

This is the last question. If we have increased the annual targets, shouldn't the targets really be more honest? I always thought the target was what was approved, so my jaw just dropped. I couldn't believe that in fact the target of 2,155 included the other half that were not accepted. Has that always been the case for the last--

[Imran Qayyum]

Yes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Okay, so even if I look at 2002, when the number is 1,234 as a target, 50% of them could have been withdrawn or were not approved.

[Imran Qayyum]

FD basically means the file is closed when you're doing a final disposition, so the file is closed.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

So should the target really be more accurate to say that it is the number of people that have been approved?

[Imran Qayyum]

Well, that's what Quebec has done; for 2009 they've set it to actual investments made and landings rather than that the file is closed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Qayyum.

Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to take a minute to apologize to witnesses. I won't get a chance to comment again, but the first panel of witnesses had Mr. Karygiannis making a comment that was completely unacceptable for both the individual who was sitting there, the department, the ministry, and quite frankly the government.

He actually apologized earlier in the year for a comment he made, and I took him at his word when he said he was going to learn from that experience and these type of comments weren't going to be made again. They were this morning, and I take his explanation as a half-hearted attempt to try to discard this. I personally won't accept that, because I don't think you have discarded it. As an individual, it's disappointing that you would do what you did.

You also made a comment that this continued to be something having to do with Africa, yet of the six countries that you include, you also include Port-au-Prince and Kingston, Jamaica. Those are not countries in Africa, so your comments are much wider than just toward one country and toward African people.

But hopefully getting back to more enlightening efforts that we're trying to make to actually build a better system, I apologize to you folks--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

A point of order, Mr. Karygiannis.

Stop the clock, please.

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

I think some of the responsibility for my frustration should be on Mr. Dykstra. This morning we had people in here who were supposed to give us information and we did not get the right information.

I did say “African source countries” and Port-au-Prince is an African source country.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay, let's keep this thing moving.

Mr. Dykstra, would you proceed with what we're here today about, please?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I'll do my best, Mr. Chair.

Imran, you were very supportive of clause 6 of Bill C-50, the changes that we made to the immigration--

[Imran Qayyum]

I was actually here last year and I was the only one I think at that time. I was the vice-chair of CSIC and we actually came in support of Bill C-50.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I appreciate that. I wouldn't mind just getting your comments in regard to that.

I know previously the ADM spoke about the changes that the legislation actually allowed the ministry to implement. Do you have some further comments based on the fact that we've seen some time pass and obvious changes to the system have meant something, including the ability for us to list out, at least in 2008, the 38 specific occupations, such as specialist positions, crane operators, and university professors?

I know we're speaking about investors, but it certainly pushes us in the right direction in terms of where we're going. I just want to give you a chance to comment based on your support originally.

[Imran Qayyum]

Unfortunately, I have no hard numbers with me. We're going to be back here on November 20 in a CIC immigration practitioner meeting. We've asked the department for hard numbers regarding the CIO.

I can only comment that, overall, we have over 1,500 fellows who belong to CMI. We have a very robust community, and on the whole, the changes brought about in federal skilled worker processing have been positive.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thanks. I appreciate that.

I wanted to get a little more from you on the concept of the centralized intake office. It is something that we are beginning to work with and try to move forward. One of the issues we always face in this ministry is the ability to pay for increased services and where we are going to find those funds. You've done a pretty good job of providing detail as to how the office may get started and its purpose, so I wondered if you'd done a little bit of research as to how we might coordinate the financial accountability to make it happen.

[Imran Qayyum]

We are actually preparing a more fulsome report for the committee. Unfortunately, it was only confirmed on Monday that we would be appearing on Thursday and speaking about these issues, so the best I could muster is my speaking notes. But we will be bringing something forward to the committee.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I know Mr. Bevilacqua earlier asked about some additional reports in terms of focusing directly on this. I don't think his request is unreasonable, and perhaps this actually fits that strategy in terms of being able to assist us with some of those details.

[Imran Qayyum]

Sure.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you. I'd like to turn over the rest of my time to Ms. Wong.