Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In closing, I would like to speak to quality control of the process. You made a number of recommendations in this regard, both in 2000 and in 2006, but there does not seem to have been any follow-up. There is no framework to ensure service quality and especially—and I know this is a concern to many of us—fair processing of the applications.

When the applications are reviewed by our officers abroad, the criteria applied and the responses given should be relatively similar to those used everywhere else. It seems to me that the computerization of this process would be an asset, because the evaluation of the files using this method would be fairer and less subjective than on paper. In the latter case, the quality of the presentation, the paper or the documents is always a factor.

[Sheila Fraser]

This has been an issue for a very long time. When we conducted our audit in 2000, we recommended that a quality management framework be set up. We had indeed noted that the decisions were not always uniform or consistent. Obviously, given that there are offices the world over, there is a fairly high risk that some decisions will be inconsistent.

In this report, we noted that no progress had been made in this regard. We reissued a recommendation. The department agreed and stated that it would tackle this problem within the next two years. There again, there should probably be a more specific plan setting out exactly what will be done, by whom and in what timeframe, as well as the resources required. I presume that there will be training, follow-up documents, internal audits and perhaps other things. All of these elements should be implemented in the case of a quality management framework.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Have they not been?

[Sheila Fraser]

No. I will ask Ms. Therrien to give us more details.

[Suzanne Therrien, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Further to our audit, we developed a quality control framework, in other words, tools to help assess quality. Unfortunately, this framework was not implemented, in some cases due to a lack of time. People working in the missions are very busy and often give priority to processing applications, of course, rather than implementing a quality management framework.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

So you are saying that not only must they process applications, but they must also look after quality control themselves.

[Suzanne Therrien]

Yes.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

So this is not assigned to an outside position.

[Suzanne Therrien]

No.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

In the long term, they would do so. Thank you.

I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Karygiannis.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have two minutes.

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

Thank you.

Madam Fraser, you said that all the posts are meeting their targets. You also mentioned the level of staffing that has been assigned. We are doing a couple of studies and we have noticed that in posts such as Nairobi, Ghana, and Kingston, Jamaica, as well as some of the other posts in African-sourced countries, the waiting times in comparison to other areas are much longer.

The minister is staffing those posts and they're meeting their targets, yet these inequalities are visible in immigration posts in African-sourced countries. How does one explain that?

[Sheila Fraser]

Chair, it's a question of the target that has been given to that particular mission as compared to the number of applications. The committee might want to ask the department what the target levels are for those missions and then how many applications they receive in a year. Obviously if they're receiving many more than the number they can accept, the backlog is going to go up.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Karygiannis.

Monsieur St-Cyr is next.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Fraser, I would like to return once again to one of your previous reports that mentioned the turnover rate of immigration commissioners and, among other things, long wait times before commissioners found out whether their positions would be renewed or not.

Have you observed any progress or developments on the part of the government in this regard? For the benefit of the committee members, could you please remind us of the consequences ensuing from this situation?

[Sheila Fraser]

I hope my colleague has figures with him, because that would help me. We published that report this spring, and in it we reviewed the Governor in Council appointment process, including appointments of IRB members. We noted a very high vacancy rate, that is, close to 30%, which results in long wait times for file processing, but also backlogs in the processing of files.

Mr. Flageole may recall the exact figures.

[Richard Flageole]

There is a backlog of about 50,000 files. Clearly, the fact that the member positions were not filled and that there were many vacancies had a significant impact on the ability to process these cases. This report is fairly recent. Of course, we have not done any follow-up in this regard, and—

[Sheila Fraser]

We raised the question of wait times for file processing. Obviously, these people are already in Canada. It's more difficult to send them back for that reason.

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

In that same report, you also addressed the question of the performance of IRB members. I imagine that it must be difficult to evaluate that type of work. Besides the number of cases processed, there are not a great deal of quantitative measures.

Has any work been done to assess the consistency of the decisions? That is an important question for the integrity of the system. Does a given situation always lead to the same decision? I can give you the example of two brothers from Palestine who came to Canada at the same time, who had the same arguments, the same attorney, and the same file. However, one brother's file was accepted by one member, while the other brother's application was denied by another member.

Have measures been put in place? Does the government do any monitoring? Is this type of incident exceptional? Many of us claim that this clear lack of consistency in the decisions is a recurring problem.

[Sheila Fraser]

Mr. Chair, I don't believe that we studied this question during our audit. We looked at the appointment process of the IRB members, not the operations of the board as such.

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

I don't know whether this is part of the Auditor General's mandate, but I think it would be a good idea for you to try and determine whether there is a process, within the Immigration and Refugee Board for example, that seeks to ensure that similar cases lead to similar decisions.

Is that something that you could envisage?

[Sheila Fraser]

We can study that, but the committee could also ask the board to identify which quality management assurance programs have been put in place.

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

IRB members must often wait a very long time to find out whether their mandate will be renewed; could you please remind the committee members of the consequences that this can have on their work? I don't recall the figures, but you provided us with statistics on the time it takes for IRB members to find out whether their mandate has been renewed. In some cases, it was not until their mandate had actually come to an end.

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, if I remember correctly, we noted in the report the time required to train an IRB member: it was at least one year or even a year and half before that person acquires all the relevant knowledge and can work efficiently. It takes a certain amount of time. We were concerned about the turnover rate and the vacancies. It is important there be a certain number of experienced members working with the new ones. There should be a better planning process.

As concerns appointments, it was more general than that. It also affected directors of government corporations and so forth, who should communicate better when people are not appointed, and even, in some cases, when they are.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

We have time for one more question or maybe two.

We'll have Ms. Chow.