Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Young.

Ms. Grewal.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Fraser, for your time this morning.

You mentioned in your report that there are some initiatives that Citizenship and Immigration Canada has taken to address inefficiencies in the processing of applications abroad, such things as tools to validate diplomas, third-party language tools, and visa application centres.

Can you please explain how these initiatives are improving efficiencies in Canadian missions abroad?

[Sheila Fraser]

I'll ask Mr. Flageole to address this.

[Richard Flageole]

As an example, when we did the last audit in 2000, we saw that immigration officers abroad were spending a lot of time assessing language skills. One of the only ways to do that is to have interviews, so they were interviewing a very high number of people, and that took a lot of time with scheduling and meeting and whatever.

Since then, they have moved to using those official language tests. The number of interviews was reduced very significantly, since those interviews were done mainly for language purposes. The visa application office is a fairly interesting concept too. People are applying there. It's like a service provider. They do a lot of work, reviewing the application and putting the files together. People have a chance to talk to them. So when the file arrives at the mission, it's in very good shape.

Immigration officers were quite impressed by the quality of the applications they were receiving once they went through a visa application office. That's quite a new initiative that the department has not yet done any evaluation on, but it's quite an interesting concept in terms of efficiency.

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

Mr. Chair, do I have some more time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You do have more time.

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

I'll pass the rest of my time to Madam Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Fraser, and all of you who are here.

The government definitely recognizes the need to bridge temporary and permanent resident status to retain skilled foreign workers with Canadian experience. That's why we introduced the Canadian experience class in September 2008.

In your report on page 28, I read:

We found that the work carried out by CIC to design and implement the Canadian Experience Class category included detailed options analysis, assessments of potential impacts on other programs, and a detailed risk assessment. In our view, this is a good example of how programming decisions should be supported.

I'd like to ask all of you which aspects of the program, in your opinion, are well designed and implemented. Can you shed some light on that?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is, as was mentioned, a new category that was created in 2008, under which workers who come into the country temporarily, after a certain period of time—I think it's three years—can apply for permanent status without having to leave the country before coming back in. As well, there are international students.

This was brought in, of course, so that once those people were here, we wouldn't lose them by making them go back home and reapply. We found that the analysis regarding the introduction of this was very well done. There were considerations of various options. There was a good assessment done, and we could tell that there was a lot of thought given to this category before it was implemented. This is the type of analysis we would have liked to see more broadly.

We point this out as a very good example that we think can be applied more broadly. The department can obviously do it.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you. I'll give the rest of the time to Mr. Dykstra.

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

How much time is left?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have less than a minute.

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

I have a few questions, and obviously we've got a little bit more time.

One thing I want to expand on when I get an opportunity a little later is the relationship between the provinces and the territories. One of the points you make throughout the report in terms of recommendations and analysis is the inherent difficulty of trying to make sure that the federal government is actually creating the programs and ensuring that they are being run, while at the same time the provinces and territories have responsibility for implementation.

A number of the points you make here relate to what the provinces are doing. Perhaps I'll come back to this in the next round, but could you briefly outline how you think the provinces and the territories need to assist us in terms of addressing the issues you've outlined?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As we see in the report, the provincial nominee programs have grown quite significantly and are expected to continue to grow. They are not subject to the same system as the federal skilled worker program is federally. They are, as we mentioned in the report, quite diverse. Criteria vary from province to province, and even though there is a requirement that they furnish information to the federal government, that information is often lacking, so the federal government doesn't have a good understanding of what the various programs are and who is coming in under those programs.

There is mobility in this country, so you would expect much greater coordination, or at least an understanding of who the immigrants are who are coming into the country under the programs and whether they are filling the labour market needs today and also going forward. We would have expected to see that broader analysis done.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Mendes.

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

Ms. Fraser, Ms. Therrien, Mr. Flageole, thank you very much for coming.

If possible, I would like to talk about the IT management of our files abroad and the infamous world case management system, which does not seem to work very well. This exercise was started in 2000, if my memory serves me. It seems that there were a number of failures during its implementation.

Could you tell us the main reasons for these failures during the implementation of the system?

[Sheila Fraser]

I will ask Mr. Flageole to talk about that.

[Richard Flageole]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The overall case management system was a response by the department to a recommendation we made in 2000, dealing with all the technological difficulties. The project commenced in early 2001.

In 2006, the office conducted another audit on major IT projects: we had already noted numerous difficulties related to the system. So we looked at it and we noted quite a wide range of problems in terms of the definition, scope and management of the project.

Obviously, some things were important. For example, in 2003, when we separated the activities... we sent a number of things to the Canada Border Services Agency. This led to questions about various things.

The project experienced significant cost overruns. The scope of the project had to be restricted. Ultimately, it should be in place by June 2010. So we see the light at the end of the tunnel. Let's say that it was not a great IT development success story.

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

There were failures and all kinds of problems. Do you think that evaluations were done and corrective measures—we hope—made that will have an impact on the infamous backlog? Could this help reduce the infamous backlog?

[Richard Flageole]

This should certainly have an impact on efficiency. However, it's important to realize that it took so long to develop the system that in the meantime, current technology has taken great steps forward. We refer to that in this chapter. This means that the department is now considering other types of applications—for example, electronic applications via the Internet to be able to accept electronic payments.

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

If I may... this is already being done. In terms of immigration, electronic payments are already accepted using a credit card. Citizenship and Immigration Canada already has this in place.

[Richard Flageole]

Yes, for some things, but not for others.

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

It is possible for almost all the programs, is it not? For the permanent resident applications, work permits or student permits, it is possible to pay online using a credit card.

[Richard Flageole]

You are referring to documents that for the most part have been issued by Canada from the Vegreville centre in Alberta. Here, we are talking about what is being done in the missions abroad.

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

Okay.