Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to welcome my colleague Mr. Denis Coderre and Ms. DeBellefeuille.
Mr. Coderre and I have known each other for a long time. He is new to the world of immigration, but I still think he will have a great deal to contribute.
I would also like to acknowledge the presence of my deputy minister,
Neil Yeates; chief financial officer Mark Watters; assistant deputy minister for operations Claudette Deschênes; and associate ADM Dawn Edlund.
Mr. Chairman and colleagues, I am pleased today to place before the committee our department's main estimates for the fiscal year 2010-2011 and supplementary estimates (C) for fiscal year 2009-2010.
The total main estimates for 2010-2011 are $1,532 million, an increase of $174.2 million from the previous fiscal year. This change is primarily due to increased funding approved to support settlement services across Canada, including Quebec--that's nearly $96 million--and implement a temporary resident visa for Mexico, $48.4 million. I should mention of course that we also generate revenues from visa fees that go to the general revenue fund. We're also modernizing the immigration system and managing the backlog with $21.9 million and we are reflecting the transfer of the multiculturalism portfolio from Heritage to CIC.
With respect to supplementary estimates (C), the most significant items included address our actions to respond to the earthquake in Haiti--that's $4.8 million, about which I will speak more shortly--and reallocation of resources to support additional pressures on the interim federal health program. That's in part due to our additional coverage for Haitian nationals in Canada. We're also transferring funds to DFAIT for shared costs related to the renovation of our mission in Tunis and transferring funds to the Department of Justice to assist with pressures on the immigration and refugee legal aid envelope.
I would like to answer your questions regarding these and other funding matters, Mr. Chairman.
By helping immigrants find meaningful employment and successfully integrate into Canadian society, we are committed to using immigration to strengthen the economy and build the future of Canada. This future also depends on a successful refugee asylum system. As many of you know, Canada has been a leader in the international challenge to help refugees. Since 1947, more than a million people have been granted protection by Canada, and in fact Canada receives one of every 10 resettled refugees globally each year. We welcomed over 33,000 people who came to Canada seeking asylum in 2009 following an increase of 60% between 2006 and 2008. In fact, our projections were for substantial increase in 2009. That was only precluded by the difficult but necessary decision with respect to TRVs for Mexico and the Czech Republic.
In spite of finalizing over 26,000 claims last year at the IRB, there is still a backlog of approximately 60,000 claims. The good news, though, is it's now beginning to track down a little bit.
I'd like to commend the IRB for, even before they had a full complement of members, managing to perform above their budgeted target of 25,000 finalizations per year.
We have addressed the growing backlog in our refugee protection system with appointments to the IRB. I have personally made 61 appointments and 28 reappointments, so that the Refugee Protection Division of the Board is close to its full complement. It is currently at 96%, and will be increasing shortly.
But still, the number of refugee claims made in Canada each year exceeds our ability to keep pace. So it now takes about 18 months for refugee claimants to have their claims decided and years for failed claimants who pursue the multiple avenues of stays and appeals available to them.
This is unacceptable. Those who need protection should not have to wait for over a year to be processed.
We also can't continue with what I have called a two-tier immigration system, one for legal immigrants who patiently wait in line to come to Canada through our fair system and another for those who make manifestly false asylum claims in seeking to come to Canada through the back door of our refugee system.
That many of our asylum claimants do not need Canada's protection is demonstrated by the fact that 58% of claims are rejected by the IRB. More are abandoned or withdrawn before they get to the IRB. For example, of the roughly 2,500 claims made by nationals or citizens of Hungary last year, 100% were either withdrawn, abandoned, or rejected, and out of the 2,500 only three claims were finalized with approval by the IRB.
There are organizations that offer to sell advice on how to use Canada's asylum system as an easy way to get into the country and to remain here for years. I recently saw one that offered a service to help people travelling here as tourists to make manifestly false claims. They actually offered to construct a motive for such a claim.
We need balanced and fair reforms to our refugee system.
To achieve this, we are looking at ways to improve the system, to enable both faster decisions and faster removals of failed claimants, as well as ways to increase the support we give refugees to start new lives in Canada. This would help those who truly need our protection and deter applications from those who try to misuse our asylum system. And it would aim to do so at less cost to taxpayers.
Mr. Chairman, on another matter, the government is committed to fighting immigration fraud.
We will work to ensure fairness and the integrity of our system for obtaining temporary and permanent residence in Canada as well as citizenship. As the Speech from the Throne said, we will work to protect would-be immigrants by taking steps to shut down unscrupulous and unlicensed immigration consultants. We plan to proceed with legislation this spring to impose tougher penalties on people who break our laws or provide fraudulent advice seeking to exploit applicants for immigration to Canada. By regulating consultants in this country, we will crack down on “ghost” consultants as well as others who advise immigrants to make false declarations.
I believe, Mr. Chairman, that we must also guard against fraud by those seeking to violate our very generous citizenship laws.
While I obviously can't discuss individual cases, I expect committee members are likely aware of media reports regarding investigations of fraud. For example, Radio-Canada did one on a fraud network in Montreal; they identified that 1,400 people appeared to have used immigration consultants to set up fictitious lives in Canada as false evidence of permanent residency in their citizenship applications. Another case is under investigation in Mississauga. It involves as many as 300 people who claim to be living at the same address, if you can believe it. They are claiming to be legitimate permanent residents in Canada.
Mr. Chairman, we need to acknowledge that the problem is out there and known. The law is clear: citizenship can be revoked if a person commits fraud, or conceals material circumstances when they apply for citizenship or permanent resident status.
To respond to the recent earthquake in Haiti, staff at Citizenship and Immigration worked to give priority to new and existing sponsorship applications from Canadian citizens and permanent residents who have close family members in Haiti. As the Canadian Embassy sustained substantial damage and CIC's services were affected, an office in Santo Domingo was set up and assigned the caseload normally processed by Port-au-Prince, particularly for temporary visa applications.
As well, CIC set up a unit in Canada to provide support to the visa office in Port-au-Prince. Over 1,500 temporary resident visas have been issued, the majority of which were to people accompanying Canadian citizens being evacuated from Haiti.
My time is running short, Mr. Chairman. I would just very briefly say that we have recently announced additional investments to accelerate the integration of newcomers through the foreign credential referral office, including an extension and enlargement of our overseas immigration integration project. We have expanded it to a number of other countries by opening an office and making free seminars available to selected permanent residents in London, England, to serve the Gulf States as well as Scandinavia. We're now providing roughly two-thirds of our permanent resident intake with access to these free seminars.
Of course, in November Minister Finley and I, along with the provinces, announced the pan-Canadian framework for the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications, which is part of the $50 million investment in Canada's economic action plan.
I look forward to taking questions on that issue or on any others of interest to committee members.
Thank you for your time, Mr. Chairman.
