Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 1st, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

If you want to get an answer, you're going to have to stop.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Chairman, I'm obviously unfamiliar with the specific cases that have been presented. However, I can say that, on the whole, we give priority to spousal sponsorship cases. I believe that, on average, we process those cases in eight months. That's too long for the people concerned, but the problem is that we are processing millions of cases. The situation concerning the people who want to come to Canada in the context of a sponsorship application is very difficult.

The case of a permanent resident in your riding who is a skilled worker, an economic immigrant, may be under Quebec's responsibility, in view of Quebec's selection certificates. I don't know.

Claudette, do you want to add anything?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Maybe we'll have to continue that on another round.

Mr. Young, go ahead, please.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome, Minister, and to your senior staff as well. Thank you for being here today.

Minister, I want to thank you, first of all, for what you've done with regard to increasing the settlement funding.

The Halton Multicultural Council in Oakville does a fantastic job of serving new Canadians in a whole range of areas. It's actually been able to expand its space. It's serving people, I think, in about 30 different languages. It does language training and computer training, and it is invaluable in helping people find new jobs. So it's making a huge difference in my riding. I'd like to invite you, on the record, to visit Oakville if you can, some time, and visit that site to see what's going on.

The other thing is I want to congratulate you for yesterday's announcement. This problem of foreign credential recognition is one that all of us in public life have seen, because it has been around for literally decades, so that foreign professionals come here and can't find a job in their area of expertise and end up driving cabs, etc. So this is a huge step forward, and I want to thank you for that as well.

My question is with regard to refugees. As of yesterday, I understand, the Immigration and Refugee Board is filled to 98% capacity, which is effectively 100%. You're always going to have some turnover. Can you tell us about the new process of selecting and filling the board's seats with qualified individuals?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you.

First of all, actually I did visit the Halton Multicultural Council for their Canada Day picnic celebration, north of Oakville, and I would like to come back and actually see their operations. I personally benefit from seeing how the services are delivered. I like to go in and actually observe the language classes, etc., because it gives us a much more concrete feeling of the good work on the ground that these settlement agencies are doing.

In terms of the Immigration and Refugee Board, as you know, we have been making aggressive progress on filling GIC appointment positions, and as of today we are at 98% capacity. There are 164 GIC positions, and we're at about 160 positions filled, if I'm not mistaken. There will be a press release coming out later today on that. I anticipate that before Christmas we'll be pretty much at 100%.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

That's great.

Minister, you talked about how you addressed the problems we've had in the refugee system. Can you talk a little bit about the economic impacts of the changes you've been able to make, including, potentially, the change announced yesterday? What would be the economic impacts on our economy? How much would there be in new revenues? What would be the value of getting, for example, foreign professionals into Canada more quickly and dealing with refugees more efficiently, etc?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Well, I've addressed the issue of foreign credential recognition, on which we are making progress, but I want to be clear. There is no silver bullet on that. We're not going to magically resolve the problem, and everyone who is waiting for an answer now is not going to get one tomorrow, nor can we now or will we ever be able to guarantee a yes answer for everyone who comes in. We want to make sure that doctors who are licensed are properly trained, that the engineers building bridges know what they're doing. So we cannot guarantee 100% success for newcomers.

In fact I've asked my ministry to make sure that applicants for our federal skilled worker program know that there is no guarantee that they will get a fast or positive decision on their credential recognition application. I'm told that our visa officers often find that when they tell people this, the response is they'd like to take their chances anyway. They understand that there's no guarantee and it might take time, but they'd still like to come to Canada and make an effort.

In terms of the refugee asylum system, as I've mentioned, it's our intention to come forward with improvements to the system that will make it more balanced, to provide much faster protection for real victims of persecution and people facing risk in their countries of origin, while at the same time removing the incentive for the fairly widespread abuse that we have seen. In the past two years we've seen a 60% increase in the number of asylum claims made in Canada. Most other western democracies have seen no increase or a reduction in the number of asylum applications. The 58% rejection rate at the IRB, the acceptance rate of which, by the way, is about twice as high as that of Britain or France, indicates to me that there is a fairly significant degree of abuse.

I know people criticize me for saying this, but I'm going to tell the truth, which is that there are de facto immigrants who come to Canada through the back door of the asylum system, and we need to indicate to those people that doing so is wrong. That is violating our laws and our generosity as a country, and it is my intention to address that issue in the near future.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Ms. Mendes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, minister, madam, gentlemen. Thank you for being here.

Minister, I want to second the comments by Mr. Dykstra, who thanked you for being here. I had the sad experience yesterday afternoon of learning that three ministers of state had refused to appear before the committee. It is therefore very pleasant to see you here every time we invite you.

If possible, I would like to address the issue of computerization at the department. This is something the Auditor General mentioned in her report—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Go ahead.

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

I'd like to talk about the issue of computerization of the department, about the program introduced in 2000, which has experienced a series of failures and cost overruns. This will be my number one issue. Today, in the 21st century, I believe our department is a little behind in this regard, not to say far behind. I am deeply convinced that upgrading it will help us enormously in dealing with and resolving the backlog.

I would like you to talk to me, if possible, about what is being done and to tell me what timetable is set for implementation. It doesn't seem that that will go ahead before 2010.

Then I'll have another question on family reunification. The levels are declining and that's a concern for me. I'd like us to touch on that.

If I have time for other questions, I'll go back to sovereignty.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you very much, madam.

First of all, we had to meet some challenges with regard to the Global Case Management System. That's necessary. That project started in 2002-2003, I believe. It has been underway for a long time, and it was implemented in September 2004. We need this kind of system. If you visit our missions or offices, you'll see that there are enormous rooms full of files. This is ridiculous; we need a much more efficient system, a computer system. That is the purpose of the Global Case Management System.

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

It may be better in environmental terms as well.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes, that's correct; fewer trees will be cut down as a result of our files.

The first phase of the GCMS concerning the citizenship sector was implemented in September 2004, as I said. It currently permits processing of 200,000 Canadian citizenship applications and proofs of citizenship a year. The next version of the GCMS is under construction. The results of the June 2009 independent review conducted by an outside IT auditor—

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

Could we have those results? Could we have a copy?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

That's possible; why not?

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

I would appreciate that very much.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

It's always available under the Access to Information Act. We can provide them to the committee. The independent project review confirms that the project plan is achievable, that the technological choice is well founded and that success is within our grasp.

With regard to the family class issue, I can tell you that, in overall terms, we have maintained the targets for permanent residents in the family class, except that the targets have been slightly lowered for next year, especially because we observed an increase in fraud in family sponsorship cases. At some overseas missions, such as Hong Kong, nearly 50% of sponsorship applications are false, according to our officers.

Can you add anything, Ms. Deschênes?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Don't forget that the rates are based on who will be coming to Canada. We will probably do the same amount of work, if not more, but because our acceptance rates are lower, we expect that fewer individuals will receive a visa to come to Canada. That's why the figures are lower for the coming year.

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

That concerns me as well because the number of applications has not declined.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Yes, but the acceptance rate, especially in Hong Kong, is much lower than in the past because of the nature of the cases. There appears to be a network that is trying to get people in.

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

That's recent.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Calandra, I apologize for putting you out of order.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

That's okay, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thanks again to you and your officials for being back before us.

I want to echo what Mr. Young said about foreign credentials recognition. I represent part of the most ethnically diverse town in all of Canada--Markham--and foreign credential recognition is an enormous issue. It's something that I've been listening to governments talk about for a long time--even in my time as an assistant in the provincial government. Finally we're seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, so congratulations.

I've had so many requests in my office for copies of the new citizenship guide. I don't know how I'll ever keep up with all the requests and all of the links we've been sending out. It's a huge success.

On the temporary foreign workers program, my riding has an urban component as well as a very important rural component. I talk to my farmers all the time and they tell me the same thing. They don't know how they would ever get their crops in the ground and back out if it wasn't for the temporary foreign workers program. I'm blessed to see the workers in the fields throughout much of the summer--so extraordinary work there.

In her report, the Auditor General said that one of the big factors in the growth of the backlog was the change in the act in 2000. She said it was a key factor in the growth of the inventory. In 2003 there was a reduction in the target levels for foreign skilled workers, and that was another key factor. There are obviously some lessons to be learned there in how new legislative changes can have a huge impact on hundreds of thousands of people.

Further on in her report she singled out some of the work that had been done on the Canadian experience class. She said it was a good example of how programming decisions should be supported.

Obviously some planning will go into any future changes, but what are some direct things that are being done to ensure that we start seeing an even greater reduction in the backlog? I know we're going in the right direction, but perhaps you can comment on some specific things we're doing to address the backlog.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you.

As I've said to this committee before, the single biggest challenge that our ministry faces is managing what we call the various inventories, the backlogs. When our government came to office in 2006, the overall immigration backlog was pushing up to one million cases.

Let me say first of all that in the main stream of economic immigration--the federal skilled worker program--we've made enormous progress. The backlog had peaked at 640,000 cases, I believe. Had we not taken action through the action plan for faster immigration involving the ministerial instructions and related operational changes, we would have seen that backlog for federal skilled workers grow to over 800,000 cases by now. On processing times, the five-plus years edging up to over six-plus years was unacceptable. The system was on the brink of collapsing under its own weight. Something had to be done and was done through amendments to IRPA and operational changes, in addition to a $109-million incremental investment in budget 2008.

Thanks to those measures we have seen the backlog in the federal skilled worker program processing reduced by 32%, which is the latest figure I have. People who are making applications--as of February 2008--are now getting answers within a year. I have to say that when I speak to immigration practitioners, lawyers, and people who follow this closely, they are delighted with the program and how it's working.

The Auditor General has pointed to certain challenges, and we take her comments very seriously. She appeared to make her comments or projections based on the assumption that we will maintain the 38 categories indefinitely into the future. In point of fact, we've always indicated that we will adjust the ministerial instructions for the occupational categories as necessary. If that means we'll need to refine the categories following consultation with the provinces and other stakeholders, we will certainly do so. In fact it's our intention to refine the ministerial instructions. That will help us maintain the progress we've made on backlog reduction for the skilled worker category.