Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You're doing fine. It depends on whether you want to use your whole five minutes or not.

Go ahead, Ms. Fraser.

[Sheila Fraser]

Mr. Chair, I'll do my best. I'll just start by saying that we only looked at the federal skilled worker program. We did not look at the family program. That might be something the office would want to consider looking at in the future. So I really can't comment on that.

On the question of the backlog, we used the numbers that the department itself uses to track its processing. I'd like to be clear, because this is an issue that concerns me. The backlog that we mentioned—the reduction of 29%—is the backlog that was created under the 318 job categories, before the ministerial directives. That's a backlog that has been reduced, because in fact while the process was being changed, there was no processing of new applications under the 38.

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

Just a clarification. While the backlog was being decreased, did you take into account how many people abandoned their files?

[Sheila Fraser]

No, we wouldn't have. I don't think there were very many, but what many people might end up doing is abandoning that and trying to apply under the new category, because in effect government would appear to be processing the new applications, not the old. That's why the backlog that existed at the beginning of 2008 would take eight to 25 years to clear, potentially.

The issue now is that a new backlog is being created with the new applications, and the overall backlog, as we mentioned in March, has only been reduced about 5% to 6%.

We've got some recent numbers. About 120,000 applications have not even been opened.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Karygiannis.

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

May I finish?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I am sorry. I'm telling you, you are finished. We are going to move on to Ms. Thi Lac.

Thank you.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming here to speak with us.

Ms. Fraser, you said that the plan presented by the department was flawed and that a strategy needed to be developed. I agree.

You also mentioned that the wait times had a significant impact on applicants, but also on their employers. You also spoke about changes to the number of categories. My colleague, Mr. St-Cyr, properly identified the source of this by confirming that these wait times were likely leading to that phenomenon.

In point 8, you said that many resources were devoted to assessing applicants, but that there are few resources to ensure a follow-up with employers to determine whether they were respecting the terms and conditions. We know that, for most programs, applicants are linked to an employer and not to a job, which in many ways puts workers in a weaker position because they could lose their job arbitrarily.

We have talked about the wait times that can be as long as 63 months when an applicant already has a permit tying him or her directly to an employer and that applicant loses his job abruptly. There are also abnormal delays for employees who would like to qualify for the same kind of position but with another employer.

[Sheila Fraser]

Mr. Chair, I understand the question, but our study does not look at individuals already settled in Canada who lose their jobs, and the time it takes for them to find another employer. The issue of monitoring conditions is more in terms of the conditions imposed by an employer for a permit, meaning salary or housing conditions and so on. We feel that there has been little follow-up in this area.

I would like to also clarify that we are not recommending a follow-up of all employers because this would be impossible, but at the very least, the department should undertake a risk assessment, it should assess cases that could present the greatest risks and follow up on them.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Do you also believe that vague criteria are unduly increasing the number of applications? If the selection criteria were clear, this would not lead applicants to believe that they were eligible. Since the criteria are perhaps vague, has this not led to an increase in the number of applications? Some will not be eligible, but they don't know it initially because it is not always clear.

[Sheila Fraser]

I believe that the system was amended with the opening of the Sydney office, where preliminary assessment is done of an individual's eligibility, prior to any detailed analysis being done in the mission. Obviously, the reduced number of classes also was intended to improve clarification, but we see that there is still a significant number of applications, and this has perhaps not had the desired effect.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thierry, do you have another question to ask?

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

Yes. I would like to continue with what we started in the previous round, meaning the wait times that are often used as a management tool.

We also addressed the issue of wait times being different depending on the country. This gives the impression that without putting in regional quotas... In passing, I agree that there should be an overall quota. I understand that we can't let everyone in. In the absence of a regional quota, we have established a de facto quota by allocating more or fewer resources to slow things down in some areas or speed them up elsewhere, geographically speaking...

Is this also your impression as a result of your analysis?

[Sheila Fraser]

I think that we can understand that the number of files that can be processed in a year depends on the staff in place to do the work. Obviously, the number of resources allocated in different offices will have an impact on the number of individuals that can be approved.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you. We're way over, I'm afraid.

Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Madam Fraser, for another thorough report.

Just for the record, I'll note that the report goes back to 2002. I was glad Mr. Bevilacqua decided not to be partisan, because this doesn't relate to any single government. It relates to governments that go back to 2002.

I see that the departments have agreed with every one of your recommendations, which demonstrates the quality of the audit. They are working to improve, but it appears that the processes themselves are in transition. In the private sector, we used to call that “continuous improvement”. In many cases, your concern seems to be centred on a lack of information. This seems to be a primary concern, a theme of the report.

It appears that things are moving so fast that the analysis hasn't kept up with the innovations, and the people at Citizenship and Immigration Canada have been innovative. I look at pages 18 and 19 of the report, and I see that there are at least seven innovations designed to manage the inventory of the federal skilled workers category and reduce the number of applications. Do you have any insight into why these innovations weren't as successful as expected?

[Sheila Fraser]

There have been some administrative measures that have improved the processing and the administration generally. There were also ministerial directives designed to reduce the number of job categories, which was an attempt to try to better target the workers Canada needed and to lessen the backlog. At the time of the audit, we said it was still too early to see if this was successful. Early indications were that the number of applications were not going down significantly.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

You don't have enough information to tell why they're not being successful. Do you still have some hope that they will be?

[Sheila Fraser]

We are recommending very strongly that the department track this closely. Early indications are that they will not be able to meet the six- to 12-month time for processing that they established for themselves, so they need to have a better sense of what the inputs are.

In addition, I think they need to be clearer about what they mean by “backlog”. We just learned that they count the backlog from the time someone is accepted as being eligible, but there can be a long time before an application is opened and assessed for eligibility. The average Canadian would expect backlogs to be counted from the time you submit an application, not from the time you're deemed eligible. This might be something the committee would want to explore with the department. But in any case, we want to recommend that the department track this carefully, because the measures that were put in place may not have the intended effects.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

One innovation that worked was the expedited labour market opinion. You reported that they have cut in half the average processing time for a labour market opinion since we became the government. Can you tell us about these initiatives and how they are making the system more efficient?

[Sheila Fraser]

I'll ask Mr. Flageole to address that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Sure.

[Richard Flageole]

That's a new initiative that was launched, which really facilitates the process for employers, under a number of conditions, to obtain those labour market opinions. That is a good example of a way to really improve the process. There was a very significant reduction in the time required to get the approvals under that.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

Does this expedited labour market opinion process help the government make sure that employers are complying with their obligations? How does it do that?

[Richard Flageole]

That's related to the whole issue of following up on conditions. Again, you'll see that we indicate in the report that the department indicated to us that they didn't have the authority to do that. If an employer wants go through the expedited process, he has to agree to voluntarily be subject to a follow-up on conditions.