Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 18th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Today is Thursday, March 18, 2010. This is meeting number 3 of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we will have a briefing by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration on its role in the Government of Canada's response to the earthquake in Haiti.

Before we proceed, I'd like to correct something. I would like a motion that the supplementary estimates be reported to the House.

Mr. Dykstra.

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

So moved.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We will now proceed.

It seems you are here as much as the committee members, Madame Deschênes.

You have a presentation to make to us. You have the floor for a few moments, and then I'm sure the committee members will have some questions for you.

Thank you for coming.

[Claudette Deschênes, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Claudette Deschênes. I am the assistant deputy minister of operations at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

I am joined by Sandra Harder, who's the acting director general of the immigration branch at CIC.

I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak. Today I will provide you with an overview and update on the special immigration measures the department took in response to the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12 of this year.

As members of the committee are aware, the Embassy of Canada suffered significant damage as a result of the earthquake. Nonetheless, in the aftermath of the disaster, on January 16, CIC announced special measures that would be available to those who self-identified as being directly and significantly affected by the earthquake.

Foremost among these measures, CIC and our federal partners developed and implemented an evacuation plan for Haitian children who were at an advanced stage in the process of being adopted by Canadian citizens or permanent residents. From the time of the earthquake until the end of February, almost as many adoptive children arrived in Canada as would normally have arrived in two years, that is, 237 for the years 2008 and 2009 combined.

Of the 250 adoptees identified for possible evacuation, 203 are now in Canada with their adoptive parents, pending finalization of their immigration or citizenship process, and it is possible that one or two more children will be able to come to Canada under the special immigration measures.

As the situation in Haiti has stabilized, specifically with the return of commercial flights, the families of these children have been informed to make their own travel arrangements.

After close review, some of the children did not have the required provincial-territorial government approval for adoption. In other cases, the prospective adoptees were over 18 and not eligible to be adopted, were not matched with a family in Canada before the earthquake struck, or the parents were unable to obtain provincial approval to adopt. But the children may be able to come to Canada at a later date through the regular adoption process if all requirements are met. All of the parents whose adoptive children were not able to come to Canada under the special immigration measures have been contacted.

It should be noted, Mr. Chairman, that the interest expressed by many Canadians to adopt children who lost their family and friends in this tragedy is a testament to their generosity and open spirit. But it is international policy and practice to try to first find homes for children who have been orphaned in their own country before placing them in a foreign country.

The processing of any new adoption application will depend on when the Government of Haiti re-establishes adoption procedures. Anyone interested in international adoption of a Haitian child is asked to contact their provincial government ministries or adoption agencies.

Other immigration measures necessitated our working quickly to establish criteria that would allow for the priority processing of new and existing family-class sponsorships, including spouses, common-law and conjugal partners, dependent or adoptive children, parents, grandparents and orphaned family members such as brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and other grandchildren under 18 years of age.

We also established priority processing for protected persons with family members in Haiti, and citizenship certificates.

I am pleased to report that although service at the Embassy of Canada in Haiti was limited, the Government of Canada evacuated more than 4,600 Canadian citizens and permanent residents, while ensuring that all applicants met standard admissibility requirements.

Our processing centre in Sydney, Nova Scotia conducted more than 928 verifications for people who had lost their documents and expedited 257 proofs of citizenship, for the period ending March 12, 2010.

In order to respond flexibly to the urgent need for help, Mr. Chairman, CIC temporarily exempted certain categories of foreign nationals from the requirement to obtain a temporary resident visa to transit Canada en route to Haiti. This meant that passengers on board non-commercial aircraft bringing aid to and evacuating people from Haiti, and making stops in or transiting through Canada, did not require a visa.

We also waived fees on applications for temporary residents for Haitian nationals in Port-au-Prince and for extensions of temporary residents within Canada. As of March 10, we have processed over 1,500 applications for temporary residence from Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo, of which the majority are Haitian nationals. In addition, 168 permanent resident visas have been issued to Haitian nationals by authorities in Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo, and more visas will be issued in the coming weeks and months.

All removals to Haiti were temporarily halted, and although normally the Government of Canada does not deport people to Haiti except in limited circumstances, this rule applies in all cases. The visa office in Port-au-Prince has limited capacity to provide immigration programs and services to Haitians, so their services remain focused on Haitians affected by the earthquake.

To relieve pressure on the visa office in Port-au-Prince, we opened a new visa post in Santo Domingo to provide services to citizens and all others who were lawfully admitted to the Dominican Republic, including Haitians. With the exception of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, all other nationals of countries previously covered by Port-au-Prince must now submit their applications to the office in Port of Spain, Trinidad. We have also established a Haiti processing office here in Ottawa to support the ongoing activities of the mission in Port-au-Prince. This office has been designated to process all cases for those overseas who have self-identified as qualifying for the special immigration measures.

In response to overwhelming demand for information on the government's special immigration measures, CIC extended the hours of its call centres for three weeks, and out of concern for the fact that members of the Haitian Canadian community were being misled that paid immigration consultants could speed up the arrival of their loved ones, CIC also held information sessions across Canada. More than 3,200 people attended information sessions in Montreal, over 800 attended several sessions in Ontario, and one session was held for 45 people in Vancouver.

Given the return to normal processing, to the extent possible in Haiti, Mr. Chairman, CIC has lifted some of the fee exemptions that have been in place since January 16, 2010.

We will continue to waive fees for Haitians who are applying in Haiti, as well as Haitian nationals in Canada who are destitute and applying for a work permit. All other Haitian applicants, including those who are outside of Haiti, or who are in Canada but who are not destitute, will no longer benefit from the fee exemption.

CIC continues to process applications in the order that they are received, again to the extent possible in Haiti. Humanitarian and compassionate applications submitted in Canada prior to January 2012 are also receiving expedited processing.

Our highest priority will remain closest family members, as defined in the regulations, and urgent and exceptional cases. Other members of the family class will constitute our second priority, followed by applicants who meet the requirements of the Quebec special measures and who are not in the first two priorities.

Thank you. I would be pleased to answer any questions the committee might have.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you very much, Madame Deschênes, for your presentation.

We will now have the seven-minute round.

Monsieur Coderre is first.

Proceed, sir.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Good afternoon, Ms. Deschênes and Ms. Harder.

Ms. Deschênes, it is a pleasure to see you again. We know each other. I will begin with some specific questions. Following that, I will go more in-depth as to the very concept of what the department should be doing.

First, I want to recognize and thank the front-line workers. It was not easy, we know that. We also know that the embassy had problems. Which does not change the fact that steps had to be taken. The figures, in my opinion, do not say it all.

Am I to understand that the children that were being adopted needed a permanent visa? Because if they automatically become Canadian citizens, if you override the provisions and ensure that they legally do so, are you obliged to issue them permanent visas, 203 of them?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Among the 203, some will be granted citizenship and others will receive a permanent residency document.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

All right, so of the 168, how many will go to adopted children?

[Claudette Deschênes]

None of the 168.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

So this is apart from the 168.

Among the temporary visas, how many of those people are simply making the trip and will be obliged to go back home?

[Claudette Deschênes]

The vast majority. We expect that 784 cases of people having received a temporary visa will qualify for sponsorship to stay permanently in Canada.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

So this is the famous sleight of hand that allowed for the inland process. Is that right?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Precisely.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

You brought them over so that they could apply from inside Canada?

We have seen cases where these people, if we enforced the law to the letter, would not be eligible. However, for humanitarian reasons, you have the power and authority to let them in nevertheless. As opposed to what he said yesterday in the House, the minister has the power to sign off and he even has visa powers. How many ministerial permits has he issued in the case of Haiti?

[Claudette Deschênes]

I will tell you how many the department has issued, because the minister has not personally issued any. The department issued 1,263 temporary resident visas and 383 ministerial permits.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

That explains your figure of 1,500. Therefore, among your temporary visas you are including 383 ministerial permits.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Exactly. They were issued by the department and its representatives who saw they needed to do so.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

I know Haiti very well. You know that there is a rather difficult geopolitical relationship between Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince. As the trip to Santo Domingo takes 10 hours, it is somewhat unacceptable to tell people who are suffering already that once they get across the border, we will provide them with all the necessary services. Because we were well aware—we saw reports on that—that people were stopped at the border.

Do you not believe that we should have gone to the Cap-Haïtien side, where there was already an interesting landing point, rather than moving everything around? Do you not think that moving all of our workers there resulted in other problems rather than solving the situation?

[Claudette Deschênes]

What is clear is that we required a certain infrastructure in order to be able to work, that is to say to do the checks, know who to contact, and so on. That was available in Santo Domingo, but not in Cap-Haïtien. We had no Canadian embassy office there. Therefore, beginning there may have been a possibility, but we would have had to start from scratch whereas in Santo Domingo, we had the existing infrastructure.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

But you would agree that there is a political reality—and I'm not asking political questions—between the Haitian population and that of the Dominican Republic. Even though they are on the same island, there have been problems and the border has been closed because of those problems.

[Claudette Deschênes]

We worked with the authorities of the Dominican Republic to ensure that people who were requesting to travel to go and get documents were allowed to move through the border.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

You told me last Tuesday that you had had no news from Quebec. I now understand that there are some 2,000 new applications that have been filed since February 12, coming from Haiti, for new applicants, and that you already had 3,000 in the system. That does not include the 3,000 from the Quebec government.

Explain to me why you have had no news from the Quebec government. Is it a lack of cooperation on their part? You have not received any information, and what is the problem?

[Claudette Deschênes]

I do not know if that was what was said.

The intended message was that outstanding cases from before the earthquake were being dealt with and that new cases under the new criteria had not yet been referred to us.

We are working very closely with the Quebec government to ensure that the ultimate objective of helping people in Haiti is achieved.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Ms. Deschênes, you know that I have a great deal of respect for the department. I spent the best years of my life there, in particular as the minister. I have enormous respect for you.

However, when I see that only 168 permanent visas have been issued and objectives for the number of checks to be done in Sydney have been established, it seems to me that saying that there is a special unit just because the word "Haiti" appears on an envelope to ensure that cases are dealt with...

There is a domestic crisis right now within the Haitian community, and I am wondering why the numbers are so low. I understand about your 1,500 temporary visas and all that, but it seems to me that the minister could have used his authority to ask you not only to accelerate the process but also to put in place a kind of procedure that would have allowed visas to be issued much more quickly. Another possibility would have been to use the inland process much more—as you have done for some 300 cases—and tell these people to come to Canada, since we know they will come here in any case, in order to resolve the situation.

Do you think that things could have been done differently? Unless—and I know what the answer will probably be—you are sure that things could not have been done differently?

Members of Parliament, especially those from the Montreal region, are receiving a huge number of requests from the Haitian community.

Could the department have taken another approach?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Time is up, Mr. Coderre.