Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 11th, 2010

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

Thank you.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Minister, earlier this month in Vancouver, after an investigation by the West Vancouver Police Department, immigration consultant Mr. Hadad was sentenced in provincial court to one year in prison after defrauding a man seeking to immigrate to Canada from Iran of over $49,000, and for using a document as if it were genuine while knowing that said document was forged.

Mr. Minister, could you please comment on this?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Sure. I am glad to have seen that this action has come to a conclusion at the court with a conviction. I think it sends a very important message to those who would prey on prospective and actual immigrants that they will face the weight of Canadian law if they seek to exploit people by providing them with false advice, or by taking their money and not providing services. In this case $49,000 was taken from individuals and it involved the forging of a document. So I think this is very important.

I can tell you that I've spoken to the director of the Canada Border Services Agency about the importance of focusing on violations of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. As well, I know that the RCMP has a number of ongoing investigations with respect to contraventions under the Citizenship Act. And, as I've mentioned, we intend to bring forward even further statutory amendments and operational changes this spring, which will facilitate more vigorous prosecution of offences by ghost consultants and those who seek to exploit immigrants and violate our immigration laws.

This is a very important message to get out there. There's far too much of this, but I hope that people will learn from this conviction that they will not get away without consequences if they so clearly violate our immigration laws and exploit newcomers.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

Minister, I recently had some good news in my riding. A lady who had been trying to bring her husband from Haiti for some time was successful, and he's headed back to be reunited with his wife. I know there are some good things going on at your ministry.

There's a lot of money in the supplementary estimates, a substantial amount, to deal with the earthquake in Haiti. Can you tell us what your department has done to expedite immigration files from Haiti, including family class and adoptions?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

We covered some of this ground in response to Mr. Coderre, but I can certainly say that our department did remarkable work in accelerating the applications for adoption by Canadian parents. When the earthquake happened, we were contacted by a number of MPs from all parties expressing concern about kids who were abandoned in orphanages and were waiting for a finalization for approval to come to Canada.

In terms of prioritizing or triaging our immigration response to Haiti, we felt it was appropriate to focus on children, who were probably most susceptible to disorder, to a lack of clean water and shelter, to the crisis in general. This is why we proactively contacted parents who had made applications for adoption of Haitian children. We worked with the provincial child welfare agencies responsible for overseeing adoption sponsorships and we worked directly with the orphanages in Haiti and our missions in Port-au-Prince.

I can tell you that as a result of all that, within the first two weeks we succeeded in bringing to Canada about 150 Haitian children to be united with their Canadian families. I want to point out that many of these families were Canadian families of Haitian origin who were helping young Haitians to have a new beginning here. Since then, I think we brought roughly an additional 50 children. There are 203 Haitian children whose adoptions we have accelerated.

In terms of the other cases, we have added, as Madame Deschênes mentioned, resources in Santo Domingo. In Port-au-Prince, notwithstanding the damage caused to our mission there, we've reallocated, and redirected individuals in our Montreal office to be specifically focused on handling inquiries. We opened a designated 1-800 call service for people with inquiries about relatives in Haiti. We triggered extraordinary measures, including accelerated treatment for qualified individuals in Haiti who can be sponsored here as family class.

We have also in a number of cases demonstrated extraordinary flexibility in granting TRVs in extraordinary humanitarian cases.

On the whole, I think our response has been quite remarkable. I would like to commend our officials, particularly those working on the ground in Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo. As Mr. Coderre points out, once we begin to receive cases that are referred to us by Quebec, we will have several thousand cases: those that were in the queue before the earthquake, the 2,000 or so that have come to our attention since the earthquake, plus some additional ones from Quebec. It will be a challenge.

Because of the limited capacity for medical verification—although that's coming back on stream—we now have a new arrangement. We're back on stream with medical doctors in Haiti who are designated to provide certified medical checks. Of course, we have some logistical challenges regarding security checks because of the destruction of the records in Haiti and the virtual non-existence of the police and the judicial system. But our agents will be using their good sense and due diligence in applying IRPA for applicants to come to Canada, to ensure that they actually are legitimately related to Canadians, that they're qualified to come, and that they meet the medical and security requirements of IRPA.

It's my hope that.... As you see, we've already processed some of these applications, and every week we will be processing more and more. I think the special program will pick up momentum. We have learned lessons from special measures implemented for the Sichuan earthquake, the south Asian tsunami, and so forth.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You don't have much time, Mr. Calandra, so talk fast.

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

In your opening remarks, Minister, you referred to two things: the need to reform the refugee system and the need to crack down on citizenship fraud. I'm wondering whether you might expand on both of those.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

In terms of refugees, I spoke to that in my opening remarks, that this was in the throne speech. The government is committed to introducing legislation this spring to streamline and create a more balanced asylum system, a system that provides robust procedural protections for refugee claimants and provides faster decisions for legitimate refugee claimants while at the same time discouraging false claimants from seeking to come into Canada through the back door of the asylum system. We are essentially putting the finishing touches on a package that we intend to present to Parliament in the not-too-distant future, and I anticipate that this committee will be charged with that issue. It will be a very serious issue for study.

It's really my hope and my plea that this issue.... It's a very important issue. I will simply say that the package that we have designed and will be unveiling is a very balanced package that the vast majority of refugee advocates can and should support, and I hope this committee will treat it in as non-partisan a fashion as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Karygiannis, you have two minutes.

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

Thank you.

Minister, I heard your parliamentary secretary talk about transparency. I want to quote a previous minister, Minister Finley, who said:

These principles will ensure Ministerial instructions today and in the future remain fair, open and transparent.

Minister, you talked about timelines. I was on your website this morning and I could see the timeline for processing skilled workers previous to February 27, 2008, was up to 60 months or 78 months.

Minister, you said you were going to update the website every three months. How come you haven't put anything for skilled workers on your website after February 26, 2008?

I'll read you what it says: “Current processing times for Federal Skilled Worker applications received after February 26, 2008 will be available with the next update, in January/February 2010.” We're in March, Minister.

That is the first question, Minister. The second question--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Why don't we stick with the first question? You're going to run out of time.

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

I've got two minutes. The minister can respond.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

All right. I'm going to cut you off at two minutes. Go ahead.

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

You said you were going to allocate $109 million over five years to have SWAT teams go around the world. This is what Minister Finley said.

In terms of IDP camps and people in Sri Lanka who sponsor their parents, a letter was sent to one of my constituents: it said that they had received in the office the application on 10/11/2009, and it would not be dealt with until 10/11/2010.

Is that your sense of fast-tracking, Minister, for people who live in Sri Lanka in IDP camps?

The only person getting away here, Minister, is you.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

I'm sorry, what was that? The only...?

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

The only person getting away is you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I don't know, but do your best, Mr. Minister.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

The information you were requesting in terms of wait times under the ministerial instructions of the action plan for faster immigration were put on the web as a result of the announcement I just made, Mr. Karygiannis.

If you have a BlackBerry, you can go to cic.gc.ca and download the information--

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

I just downloaded from your website. They're not there, Minister.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

It's in the information that we just released as part of our first quarterly report. It will be regularly updated every quarter.

I would point out that--

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

Minister, I'm going to give you a chance to rephrase--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Karygiannis, please.

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

--to make sure what you're saying, if those stats are on the website--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Order!

Mr. St-Cyr has two minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to question the Minister about the latest appointments he made. Once again, I have some problems with them. I am talking about two former Conservative candidates who were appointed citizenship judges. They are Marc Nadeau, a candidate in the 2006 election in Sherbrooke, and Mr. George Khouri, a Conservative candidate in Pickering—Scarborough-East in 2008. We can also add to this the renewed term for Mr. Atkinson, who was an MP in the parliamentary secretary's riding for a number of years and the appointment of Pharès Pierre, John Cryer, Darcy Tkachuk and Cheryl Walker, who are all recognized and recognizable supporters of the Conservative Party.

I understand that there are Conservatives in Canada. There are 75 Conservative candidates in each election in Quebec, but there are also 75 Bloc Québécois candidates, 75 Liberal party candidates, 75 NDP candidates and 75 Green party candidates.

How is it that there are so many former Conservative candidates among your appointments? Would this not be yet more evidence that, despite all your fine words, you and the Liberals are of the same mind when it comes to partisan appointments?