Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 15th, 2010

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

But the Government of Quebec does that verification?

[Rénald Gilbert]

Oh, if you say so.

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

No, but—

[Some hon. members]

Ha, ha!

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

To your knowledge? That is not a concern on your end?

[Rénald Gilbert]

On our end, as with all cases approved by Quebec as independent cases—they are literally in that category—we do not do any verification of whether there is a family connection in Quebec.

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

Now, on a more general level, in response to an exceptional circumstance, such as the events in Haiti, Kosovo and various other parts of the world, the government always seems to take a somewhat piecemeal approach. That is the impression we, as elected officials, have and that the public has, as well.

Is there an overall emergency response policy, a ready-to-go model that can be used in future disasters? To my knowledge, there is not, but perhaps I am wrong.

Even though you are very busy dealing with the situation in Haiti, has the department given any thought to an emergency plan that would allow it to take immediate action in the wake of a disaster, ensuring that it knew what to do, which measures to implement, how to proceed and so forth?

[Claudette Deschênes]

I will say a few things on that, and then I will ask Mr. Gilbert to comment.

There are criteria regarding the type of situation and our response measures, ranging from how to handle removals by the Canada Border Services Agency and people here in Canada to immigration procedures.

We have an outline of such a plan, but obviously, we must assess every situation in relation to Canada's responsibility towards the community in question. So there is a policy component to that.

There is another component I would like to point out. The responsibility of our officers abroad—even though they are there to deal with immigration—is, in the event of a crisis, initially to support Canadians and the department of foreign affairs.

It is very important to understand that, when a crisis occurs, the first 36 hours or the first week are spent first and foremost helping Canadians. Then we take other measures.

If you wonder why it takes more than 24 hours to respond in a crisis, the reason is that our first responsibility abroad is not to worry about immigration, but to help with consular work and to take care of Canadians.

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

I was not asking about delays in responding to a crisis. I asked whether there was an emergency response plan in place. All the activities you just mentioned, are they part of some plan or document?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Yes, with some discussion after—

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

You have the ability to say to the minister this is what we did in the past, this is what we can do, this is what poses a problem and so forth?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Yes, exactly.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Trudeau.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I have a few questions along the same lines. In terms of lessons that Immigration Canada learned from this crisis, you said there were things that you had never done before and that some things worked very well.

Are there any principles that you want to maintain, such as the idea of Haiti North? Do you intend to set up processes here?

Were there any success stories that will help you ensure a better response in future situations?

[Claudette Deschênes]

As far as Haiti North goes, we had already considered that, not in the event of a crisis, but, for example, when there is a sudden spike in workload and there is not enough space to accommodate additional officers in the mission. We were already considering that. We have already seen that it works.

I think the whole idea of using resources in Canada to support programs abroad, as far as community outreach goes, is obviously another best practice we discovered.

[Rénald Gilbert]

In terms of the office that was set up for Haiti, if a crisis were to hit tomorrow morning, somewhere else—such as the Ivory Coast—we could certainly use the same structure to provide assistance in another situation.

That is, to some extent, why the office was set up for surge capacity, not just to deal with crisis situations, but also to handle backlogs that may arise for various reasons.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Now let's touch on the specific resources of the embassy in Haiti, which were not very plentiful. There has been a surge in resources since then. In fact, the minister has said it often, as did we all during the emergency debate: rebuilding Haiti is a 10-year project.

Do you intend to maintain additional consular resources in Haiti, especially to deal with immigration?

[Claudette Deschênes]

We want to ensure that we are able to deal with surge capacity. It is our view that because of the situation in Haiti and a number of other places, including the Ivory Coast, we need a procedure to meet the needs. So, right now, we are considering ways to make better use of existing resources by shifting them around, as needed.

Under the new system—known in English as—

global case management,

we will be able to say, for instance, that if one area is more of a priority, the officer may be able to process a part of the file. Officers in Port-au-Prince do not do as much processing, but they do handle files considered to be critical.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj can have any time that is left.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

There were approximately 6,000 visas issued at that time, which were split half and half between permanent resident and temporary resident visas. Considering that about 95% of the Haitian Canadian community is in Quebec, if the same rules about an expanded family class had been applied to the rest of Canada and you used the same proportions, that would have meant an extra 300.

Was there any difficulty administratively to handle an extra 300, if you were already handling an extra 6,000?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Our priority was family class, and that's where we wanted to put our efforts.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

There were these 6,000 you've referenced here. In Quebec they expanded the family class, so that's 95% of the Haitian Canadian community.

It would have meant that if the family class maximum—because we don't know how it all shook out and how many of these were family class.... There may have been an additional 300 applications under an expanded family class in the rest of Canada. My question is would there have been bureaucratic difficulties that prevented the federal government from expanding the family class in the same way that Quebec had?

[Claudette Deschênes]

I'll answer that by saying as a public servant I delivered the act as it exists and as the program exists. That question I think would need to be addressed to the minister.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So we were able to deliver for 95% of Haitian Canadians, the ones who were in Quebec, but not the ones outside Quebec.