Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 22nd, 2010

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for coming today. I really appreciate the fact that you were able to outline the benefits from each country, the successes, and all that stuff.

We're looking at about 3,000 people coming in per year, and the amount of inventory is skyrocketing. There are people out there who say open the doors and let more people in, and there are people out there who say we can only accommodate 250,000 people of all the various categories. There are different groups that would vie for certain groups to be let in, be they parents, spouses, blue-collar workers, skilled workers, or investors, although the investors come and spend $700,000—

[Pierre Emmanuel Paradis]

They spend $721,000.

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

There you go--$721,000—and they should be welcomed.

How do we go about maintaining the number we're allowing in--250,000 per year? Should we increase that number to 400,000, 450,000, or 500,000 to accommodate more people? How does the business community, the banking community, your group, see us allowing more people in? Is there a flavour to that? It is palatable to you? Or are you here to say just let the investors in, because they're spending $721,000, and never mind the rest? When you get somebody who wants his parents to be let in because they are glorified babysitters and will look after the kids when he and his wife go to work, if we're going to allow more people in, how would that fit in with the investors, the investment community, and the business community?

[Pierre Emmanuel Paradis]

If we allow more people in we could go from about 3% to about 5% of all immigrants in Canada, which would be a sizeable increase in the immigrant investors. But that would represent 1,500 families. We would benefit from 1,500 families spread out over all ten provinces. Granted, more of them would go to B.C., Ontario, and Quebec, which are the three main landing provinces. We're not talking about 150,000; we're talking about 1,500 families. They're all wealthy individuals who buy houses in the posher neighbourhoods and send their kids to private schools. The only counterpart to that is integration, and integration of 1,500 families could be improved right now with the current levels. But I don't think the marginal cost of this would be sizeable. We would benefit much more from having more than less.

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

Mr. Paradis, maybe my question was misunderstood. You're saying 3% to 5%. What I'm saying to you is do we allow more people into Canada? Probably this is what you were trying to address, but if you go from 3% to 5%, that would be something like half a million people per year into Canada.

[Pierre Emmanuel Paradis]

Okay, you're talking about all categories. I'm only talking about investors.

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

I mean not only the investor class, but all categories. If we allow more people in it would take care of the backlog you have in the investor class, but it would also bring other people in other categories. Increasing that from 250,000--or the 3% we have never achieved--to a 5% level, how does the business community see this? Instead of 220,000 to 250,000 coming to Canada, we're talking about increasing that to 500,000 to accommodate all the other backlogs that are out there and everybody else who wants to come to Canada--the family class, and business. What impact would that have on Canada and the business community if we increased the number of people per year coming into Canada from 220,000 to 250,000, to 500,000 ?

[Eric Major]

I'd love to take that one on, if that's okay.

Speaking as a banker and part of the business community, that would be marvellous. These are people of means, with networks and business savvy, and that's one of the key conditions or criteria of this program. It's not just money; you need to have experience managing and operating a business. That's a key criterion that I wouldn't touch.

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

Sorry, Mr. Major, but don't forget we're not only the investors; we're also bringing here....

[Eric Major]

I understand. So if you raised the overall levels, the business community would not only receive more investors, skilled workers, and other categories. There's some absorption room in this country of ours to accommodate them. Would the business community in general be in favour of that? As far as I'm concerned it would.

I personally think the mix should be reviewed. With roughly 3% to 4% of immigrants being investors, even if you bring in entrepreneurs that number is still very low. I'm of the view that we should be bringing in more of this profiled type of migration. I'll leave that to the policy-makers, but when you're talking about 3% being investors, that's too small in terms of what they ultimately bring.

Capital injection.... From the moment they land there's that injection of money. Then they consume. They have these networks. As a banker I'll tell you that 30% to 40% of my clients wind up.... They don't just twiddle their thumbs; they start up businesses and create links with their home countries. There are too many good stories there, and this report kind of taps into that.

Marc, I know you're biting at the bit.

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

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Are you going to let him speak?

Go ahead.

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

On my last question, should we allow more investor business people in and fewer parental class people who are just coming to...?

[Marc Audet]

I don't know how many years we've had a rule in Canada where about 60% of immigration is on the economic side, and 40% is on the humanitarian side. Do we have to change the ratio? That's a decision, you know--

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

Should we?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We'd better move on here.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I believe that's a policy question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Young, we're okay. We're finished anyway.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

That was an unfair question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Monsieur St-Cyr, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here.

I am going to start with an initial question about Mr. Audet's presentation. Obviously, I am very happy that a representative of Fiducie Desjardins, the great Quebec institution, is here today. As well, like my colleagues, I was very pleased to see the tables and presentations.

I would just like to examine section 1F in more detail. Right at the beginning, on the first line, it shows that the approval rate for applications from Quebec processed abroad is 98%, which is quite high. It seems to me, having been an engineer in the past, that this process is virtually useless. Ultimately, nearly everyone who starts the process finishes it, since only 29 were rejected. Compared to those applications, the approval rate at the federal level is 70%. So the process involves a larger number of rejections.

Can you tell us what explains the difference between the two approval rates? Also, do you have a breakdown of the rejected cases? Are those cases for security or health reasons?

[Marc Audet]

To answer your questions, Mr. St-Cyr, I will say that these are two different processes. As I mentioned earlier in my presentation, the Quebec cases have already been screened in part by Quebec. Quebec selection certificates have already been issued.

For example, out of 100 applications submitted in Quebec, about 75 get through at present, which gives an acceptance rate of 75%. It is those 75 cases that go through the federal process. Then maybe 72 or 73 of them are accepted at the federal level. The 70% acceptance rate for the federal cases is the gross figure, given that there is no CSQ issued for those cases; it is a residence visa that is issued. That is why you can't really compare the two figures.

As for the process itself, Quebec is responsible for selection, while the federal government is responsible for admission. That is part of the accord with Quebec. Admission has to do with the medical and security aspects. So that explains the 29 rejected cases. Admission can also be refused because the source of the funds was not proved.

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

So you don't know what proportion of those 29 rejections was for medical reasons, or for other reasons.

[Marc Audet]

Subject to information to the contrary, I would say that medical reasons do not come up often, because the people who apply already know how their health is, barring surprises. I would say that in 25 of the 29 cases I'm sure it related to proving the source of funds.

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

In your presentation, you recommended that a target be set of responding to applications from the Quebec program within 12 months. Is that because you in fact consider that a large part of the work of verifying the source of funds has already been done by Quebec, and so there is a kind of duplication in the activities of the two governments?