Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 6th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Dr. Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for coming.

We understand that our immigration system has been facing a lot of challenges because of the inherited backlogs and also because of the success of many of our programs. Now we have introduced a global case management system. What's the importance of it, and what is the current status, please?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

The GCMS, or global case management system, was introduced in our mission in Port of Spain in June of this year, and we've since rolled it out in a number of other missions. All of the reports I have received have been positive, but I'll invite officials to supplement my answer.

I know this program has been of concern to this committee for several years. When it started some years ago, there were a lot of start-up investments in the information technology. It was behind deadline and overbudget initially. But three years ago, there was a re-scoping of the program by Treasury Board. The program was undertaken in a more limited way. I'm pleased to say that we are now on target. I think the problems of the past have been corrected, and so far implementation has been successful. This is very important, because the kinds of issues that people like Mr. Wrzesnewskyj are raising are a reflection of the fact that we still have a sort of 1960s system of paper-based files, which is inefficient.

Once the global case management system is fully implemented, if visa officers in India, say, have reached their targets on time, they'll be able to shift over to a different country and pick up cases from a mission where we are behind in our targets. This will help to equalize the processing times for files all across the world and will result in a more efficient use of scarce resources.

Could I invite Claudette or the deputy to supplement?

[Neil Yeates]

Sure.

I can add that we are about 50% complete in our rollout to the missions around the world. We are on track to complete it by March 31, so we're pleased with the progress that's being made.

We have been using GCMS for a while in our citizenship program applications. It's given us a new ability to look at things like common addresses, which is what led to some of the fraud investigations, where we had 300 people using the same address. We didn't have that ability under our old legacy system. This new system has a lot more functionality and is going to improve detection of fraud and abuse, as well as processing times.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

My second question will be about language training—not just English but also French. I used to be an ESL trainer myself and also a curriculum designer. We know that some of the programs may not be as good as they should be. That is probably why the language training vouchers pilot was introduced. There was a study done not long ago, so could you please update us with the latest results and tell us where we go from here?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Right. As I said in my opening statement, one of the things that concerned me early on is that our government more than tripled funding for settlement services, including language instruction for newcomers to Canada, with a very small increase in enrolment amongst those eligible for free classes: all permanent residents in Canada.

Now, obviously some of those permanent residents—the 20% who have been assessed for their human capital, foreign skilled workers, provincial nominees to some extent—are less likely to need language instruction. Presumably they already have some proficiency in English or French, and secondly, they're working, so it's more difficult for them to find the time.

Often women tend to be our primary clientele. I think around two-thirds of the enrollees in our language instruction classes tend to be women. That is a good thing, I believe. Many often come with lower language proficiency levels than primary economic immigrants, who tends disproportionately to be male. But still, not enough were enrolling. That's why one of the things we did when we expanded the funding was to provide for greater child care availability through the service-providing organizations and also to increase the quality of instruction.

Now we're looking at innovative ways to increase the enrolment. About 18 months ago we took 2,000 eligible permanent residents and we sent them vouchers. We said they were worth so many hours of language instruction. It was a way of getting a tangible value in front of them. Rather than expecting them to hear about the free classes from word of mouth, the vouchers would arrive in their hands and they could think about how it might be worthwhile to enrol. We found that 7% of those who received vouchers used them to enrol in a class within six months, whereas only 3% of the control group, who did not receive the vouchers, enrolled in the same period of time.

That would suggest there was a much higher rate of enrollment. There will be a final study done on the voucher pilot program next spring. If it's successful, I will certainly ask the department to explore options for rolling this out on a broader basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you as well, Minister, for coming here today.

Something I've noticed in my riding in Oakville is that people who are new to Canada—new Canadians—are not just as supportive of the measures you've introduced for fairness and integrity in the immigration system, they're actually more supportive. Some might think, well, they came new to Canada, and they don't care so much about the rules, because they just want more of their people to have the opportunity. But that's not the case. They are more supportive.

Has that been your experience, and can you please outline why?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes, it has been, overwhelmingly. I think the public opinion polls confirm that typically new Canadians are most supportive of measures to protect the integrity and fairness of the system. In part that's because the vast majority of people came here patiently—the legal way. It took time, sometimes years, and often they're waiting years for family members to be able to come to Canada. For those reasons I think they feel particularly aggrieved when they see people taking advantage of Canada and not waiting their turn.

Also, I think most new Canadians intuitively understand that broad public support for immigration, and frankly diversity in our society, is contingent on having a well-managed, rules-based, fair immigration system. I think they understand we all have a stake in maintaining such a system.

I'll give you one specific example: marriages of convenience. We have a very significant problem with fraudulent spousal sponsorship applications in our immigration system. This is not a new problem. It is becoming higher profile in recent months because of some high-profile cases. But I'll tell you, there are very few native-born Canadians who have ever raised the issue of bogus spousal sponsorships with me.

I have held a series of public fora across the country, and hundreds of people have come out, in Brandon, Vancouver, Montreal, and elsewhere. I think all, or almost all of them, are immigrants to Canada, and they have insisted that we find ways to tighten up both the rules and the enforcement of the rules to prevent bogus spouses from coming to Canada as permanent residents.

That underscores for me--both anecdotally and, frankly, in the public opinion polling, empirically--what you're saying about support amongst new Canadians for integrity in the system.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

The action plan for faster immigration is focused on improving processing times and addressing the application backlog for the federal skilled worker program.

To follow up from a previous question, what is the status of the backlog in total--that is, in regard to every country that people want to come to Canada from? And has the backlog been reduced as planned?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes, we've made significant progress since Bill C-50 was adopted in the last Parliament, and then we implemented it as the action plan for faster immigration. Beginning in October 2008, we've seen about a 300,000 file reduction in the overall inventory that existed prior to the adoption of Bill C-50.

The new applications that are being received for the foreign skilled worker program are now being processed in about 10 months. Now, that's as opposed to what we were at...about six years. So it's huge progress.

But as you know, the ministerial instructions we introduced on October 2008 were based on, I think, 38 in-demand occupations. Over the course of the ensuing 18 months, the immigration industry figured out how to counsel people into making applications in certain of those occupations, like college instructors, and we started to see the inventory balloon back up again. That is why in July of this year I had to bring in our second set of ministerial instructions, imposing an overall cap on the new FSW applications, which we will process, at 20,000 for this year, with an exemption for those who have an arranged offer of employment, which we find is the most successful indicator of economic results for economic immigrants.

Do you have anything to add...?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I don't think so.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Okay, that's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Oliphant.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

First, thank you, Minister. I want to go back towards multiculturalism. Your officials were generous in their time with me as a new critic, briefing me on multiculturalism. They presented a number of the historical trends in multiculturalism as well as looking at the future.

I asked the departmental officials about the effects of not having a long-form mandatory census on the kinds of data that your department will have to do estimates, to do planning, to do the kinds of work we're doing.

They indicated to me, and your staff was present, that this was a problem for them. Finally, they admitted they would have information, but then they acknowledged the information could not be trusted. When I asked your staff person whether or not you had an opinion on this, he suggested I ask the Minister of Industry.

I don't have the Minister of Industry here, but I have you here, and I just wanted to check on your concerns that you might have about your department's ability to plan for multiculturalism without a mandatory long-form census.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Sure.

Well, Mr. Chairman, obviously, I think it's important for government to have data on Canadian diversity, and that data will be available through the alternative voluntary form that the Minister of Industry and Statistics Canada will be publishing.

The reality is that I haven't encountered a single Canadian--outside of Parliament, really--who's particularly keen on penal or other sanctions for not providing the government with information on how many bathrooms they have or what their religion is.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I don't want to get into a debate about the census. It's a genuine question: how is your work going to be affected by this?

We know that newer Canadians may not fill out the form as easily as long-time Canadians, or at least that is what people in Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park tell me.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I don't want to get into the long-form census in this committee.

[An hon. member]

No, it's not on that.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

It's not on that; it's on the information of how he's going to plan for his department's work.

We're doing estimates. Estimates are based on the work.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

I would say the most important piece of data for us in our ministry is the tax data that we're able to obtain, obviously cleansed of any personal information. We're able to get aggregate tax information on incomes and we are able to associate that with the programs in which people came into the country. We're actually able to assess people's economic progress through the tax data that is unrelated to the long-form census.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Switching topics, I want to talk a little bit about Ontario, as I come from Ontario.

Obviously, between 2001 and 2009, there's been a huge decrease in the number of federal skilled worker principal applicants. There's been about a 57% decrease, actually.

When you bring in family reunification and refugees, it adds a burden on the settlement services, on language training, and all of those things.

There was an agreement with Ontario that would have provided a base allocation--plus the Canada-Ontario immigration agreement, that was $920 million--of $540 million, and yet there's a shortfall in those five years of $207 million.

You're very proud of talking about the number of immigrants we bring in, yet Ontario, the largest recipient of immigrants, is not getting its fair share of negotiated dollars.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

[Inaudible--Editor]...exactly the opposite of the truth. Ontario is getting way more than its share of funding on a per-immigrant basis. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, it's about $3,500 per immigrant that we're providing compared with about $2,800 or $2,900 for the other provinces—all of this excluding Quebec, which has its own agreement.

Ontario is getting about $700 per immigrant more in funding, in part because, you're quite right, funding levels were established in 2005 based, quite frankly, on an arbitrary decision that year to bring Ontario up to Quebec's levels. Since that time, the number of permanent residents landing in Ontario has gone from about 140,000 down to about 105,000. So there's been a 35,000 reduction in the number of PR landings in this province, or 25% fewer.

Frankly, I think that's a good thing. One of the things all of my Liberal immigration minister predecessors said was that we needed to get a better allocation of newcomers across Canada, so that all of them would not go to two or three big cities. We've achieved that largely through our partnership with the provinces in expanding the provincial nominee program. So now those 35,000 permanent residents are instead settling in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C., and the Atlantic provinces.

They're being underfunded in terms of settlement funding. So yes, there will be a reallocation, away from Ontario, to follow the immigrants and where they're going.

I make no apology for saying that we should try to approximate an equal per-capita funding level for settlement services based on where people are choosing to go.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you--