Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 18th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well, you gave her about 10 seconds.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Is it true that there is more Canadian federal money earmarked for Gaza than there is for Haiti?

[Claudette Deschênes]

I have no idea.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

It's being reported in newspapers in Israel.

[Claudette Deschênes]

I have no idea.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Would you be able to verify that and get that information to the chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. Jennings, is that within her purview? I don't think it is.

Go ahead, Monsieur St-Cyr.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to come back to the issue of wait times. Mr. Coderre is wondering whether those people will have to wait four years. My concern is whether or not they will even be told how long they will have to wait. When people apply for permanent residence, they know more or less how long they will have to wait, given past cases. They can consult the statistics that you published and find out, for example, that similar cases submitted in a given country take a certain number of years to process.

The problem is that, in this instance, people have no idea how long it will take to process their applications. I know that you are reluctant to give specific figures, but could you still give us an idea of how long those people who turn to their MPs for help will have to wait before their applications are processed?

[Claudette Deschênes]

It is difficult for me to give you that information, because we do not have it. We intend to do much more, much faster. That might not satisfy you, but the only thing I can tell you is that we are currently devoting all our efforts to significantly speeding up the process. However, we have to find our rhythm, before we can speed things up. I will be better placed in a few months to give you a rundown.

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

You implemented a number of measures that are intended to speed things up, which you spoke of in your response to my earlier question. You are facing a number of additional obstacles at the same time, obstacles that normally do not exist, for example, the destruction of documents, and so on. Could you at least assure us that things are speeding up faster than the obstacles appearing in your way? Are we making real progress? If not, are we at least preventing additional delays? Do you understand what I'm saying?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Yes, we do want to outpace any potential obstacles. Does that mean that all cases are processed faster? No. That said, we will have to decide which cases can be processed faster. We will have to identify those cases and accelerate their processing.

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

Very well.

There was talk earlier of temporary visitors, people who want to stay in Canada temporarily. My understanding is that you are worried that if people arrive in Canada, even as temporary visitors, and decide to stay, we would not be able to send them back to Haiti because they could make a refugee claim, as well as because of the moratorium.

That said, does the moratorium that you implemented apply only to the people who were already in Canada when it was declared? If not, will it also apply to those who have arrived since then? Have you considered that it might not apply to those who, in the next few weeks and months, will be applying in good faith to visit Canada temporarily?

[Claudette Deschênes]

I do not believe that the policy allows us to make that distinction.

[Sandra Harder]

There is no difference between the two.

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

You have, therefore, not considered presenting the minister with the following scenario. People might be told that, for example, if they want to come to Canada temporarily, they will be issued visas but will not be covered by the moratorium. You have not considered that possibility.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Not to my knowledge, and I believe that even if we wanted to do that, we could not necessarily proceed in that way.

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

When you declare a moratorium, you have to establish who is covered by it. You explained that, in the case of the moratorium that was declared prior to the earthquake, a decision was made not to send those people back. However, they can be returned. The moratorium could also very well include a date.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We got a head shake. That's all you're getting.

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

I just want to know whether it is feasible. You are not prepared to answer that.

However, I do have other questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry, Monsieur St-Cyr, the time has expired.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have a turn.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you.

I want to follow up on a couple of things that I heard. The first comes from a question by Mr. Young. He was talking about the special measures. You said the first step was that someone comes with a story, and the second step is that they have to provide facts, some kind of proof in order to substantiate what they're saying.

I wondered about that, because it would be very difficult, would it not, to provide that kind of proof. Documents would be missing. I wondered exactly what that burden of proof is. Could you explain or expand on what you would be expecting people to be able to provide in terms of that proof?

[Claudette Deschênes]

I think they send a sponsorship first--and that's what we're talking about; the first part is the sponsorship to Mississauga, in which they indicate why their relative has been affected. That's the first start of the examination.

But, for example, if someone was to claim that their house was affected and it was outside the earthquake zone, then we would want to understand how that could happen, whereas if you're in the earthquake zone, we may be prima facie, because, as has been noted earlier today, the size of this is quite out of the ordinary in terms of the number of people who died, the number of houses that were affected, and the geographical area that was affected.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay. You talked about having 16 temporary CIC people, 11 TDs, and three other officers on the ground. The scope of trying to track all of this down must be quite enormous.

[Claudette Deschênes]

It is not easy, and that's why we try not to lose anybody in the.... We talk about 80% of our cases processed in a period of time, because there are always exceptions. But yes, that's where setting up the system so that we're not actually losing anybody is quite important.

So sending files somewhere to be sitting in a box wasn't helpful. Better to leave them in Mississauga and know what our process is going to be.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

The second thing I want to follow up on had to do with a question from Madam Wong. She asked a question about the health of people on the ground. We are approaching the rainy season in Haiti, and you said that some of the temporary staff were actually living in tents in less than ideal conditions. How are you protecting or following up or looking out for the health of Canadians? Do you have any information on that?