Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 15th, 2011

[David Manicom]

We don't require officers to spend their entire career in India, for example, though we certainly have some who would like to do that. It's a fascinating country. We have a local training program for new officers, where they learn a great deal about local marriage law, which is very complicated in India, as well as customs, and ways of identifying problematic cases so we can decide which cases to interview.

So we do have a local training program. They are mentored with experienced officers. Then we have a unit of what we call case analysts, locally engaged staff who have been working in the program for many years and who provide an initial analysis of the case before it goes to the officer to make the final decision on whether or not to waive the interview or to convoke an interview. We have techniques like that.

We also maintain an extensive legal library of Indian family law as well as decisions of the immigration appeal division of the IRB and of Canadian courts in our legal unit in Delhi. We have elements like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj has some questions, but first, Mr. Gilbert, on average, what is the length of time that staff are at each mission?

[Rénald Gilbert]

It varies according to what we call the hardship level, which is essentially mirroring what the Department of Foreign Affairs does. Where conditions are more difficult, it is a two-year posting. Where they are not as difficult, it is three years. Let's say in the United States or western Europe, it is four years.

Very often there are extensions given as well. That's why Sid has been in China for....

Is it six years now?

[Sidney Frank]

If you include a previous posting and time in Hong Kong, I've actually dealt with a Chinese caseload for close to 10 years.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Is that good or bad? I know it's almost tempting to make a smart remark back, but obviously, is there a time when it's more appropriate to move to another mission?

[Sidney Frank]

I didn't do that consecutively. I've had a career of close to 20 years, so I've been there on and off, and in different capacities.

You were talking earlier on about having knowledge of the culture and so on. I believe I have that knowledge--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Indeed, after 10 years, I am sure you do.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj has some questions.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Gilbert, you've had this question asked of you several times and when you presented your introductory remarks, a number of times you referenced ministerial instructions. Mr. Uppal asked you this question. You said that the global numbers are set by the minister or the minister's office, so the number of 11,200, for parents and grandparents, family reunification, would have been set by the minister's office. Is that correct?

[Rénald Gilbert]

What is set by the minister's office is not the actual 11,200. The levels are set in the report that is tabled in Parliament in November. I am sure you have a copy of that. Following the levels tabled to Parliament, then the machinery looks at, okay, in order to get 12,000 grandparents to Canada in 2011, how many visas would we need to issue? We have to take into consideration visas that were issued in the last part of the previous year, that are currently in the hands of individuals, plus we have to calculate what we call the wastage rate, which are visas issued to individuals who never use them.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Without getting through the whole formula, the instructions come from the minister's office and then you find a way to meet those instructions. Is that correct?

[Rénald Gilbert]

That's correct.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay, thank you. That means instructions came for 11,200 and you tried to figure out a way to actually meet those targets or those quotas.

[Rénald Gilbert]

That's correct.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

The quota for Beijing is 2,650. Out of a global number, a target or a quota for immigration of 217,800, 11,200 is about 5.1%. Previously, under the Liberal government, it was around 10% with variations, but it was around 10%. So we are seeing a reduction by half.

Now, it's 5% as a target globally, but in Beijing it's 2,650 out of a target of 9,425, which is 28.1%. Basically, one out of every three immigrants out of Beijing are in this small category of parents or grandparents.

How do you arrive at this decision that the vast majority of parents and grandparents are going to come—or a significant minority, one out of every three—out of this Beijing office? Is it because that's where the resources are and a combination of resources, and the backlog? How do you arrive at that?

[Rénald Gilbert]

It depends on where the applications are. For each year, close to 50% of the worldwide applications we receive come from China or India.

When we talk about Beijing, Beijing and Hong Kong actually have essentially the same workload. The work is divided by province, but ultimately they're all from the same country.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Let me interrupt there. You say 50% come from those two places.

[Rénald Gilbert]

Roughly 40-something percent.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay. If we take a look at New Delhi, it's 2,500. In fact, that's correct based on requests for parents and grandparents reunification; you're feeding these numbers. But when you take a look at Beijing with 2,650, parents and children are only 2,000. You actually have a higher ratio of grandparents who are being flowed through the system than parents and children.

At what point does this system become self-reinforcing, where you have extra resources...? For instance, you said 150 staff in New Delhi, so you have the extra resources and handle higher capacity. I've seen lineups at not well-resourced consular sections, and people know: listen, you have to stand in line for a day or so, and it's not worth it; you get turned down.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're running out of time, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

On proportionality, you said pretty much that you try to have equal wait times globally, yet when I take a look at the extrapolations on some of these, and on some of your consular sections, the extrapolations are up to sixteen years as opposed to a year or two years in some of these very well staffed locations.

When is that going to be addressed? When are those communities here in Canada going to have some answers as to why they have to wait seven years, nine years, ten years, or fifteen years, because they just give up?

[Rénald Gilbert]

One thing I should clarify. I don't know which communities you're referring to, the sixteen years or the seven years, but I think the extrapolations are based on a fixed target and would be the same every year.

Actually, the set of targets that you have in hand was done in early January. We've changed it twice since then. It's something that changes over the years, as we've demonstrated I think. In the case of China, we have more than doubled the target for parents and grandparents this year and we reduced the one in India. We can't just take the number and multiply by the number of years. It simply doesn't work that way.

The reasons for the increases or decreases have to do with the size of the older inventory and we try to even it out. I don't say that we have succeeded. We'll probably never succeed to get it perfect, but we're trying to even out the processing time between missions and between communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Dr. Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, colleagues from overseas.

Again, with my own dime and time, I visited at least two of the offices. Welcome back home. I must compliment you on all the good work you've done overseas. It's only when we have this opportunity face to face that we realize the kind of challenges you have.

It seems that there has been a lot of attention given to parents and grandparents. I want to ask once more if we are now issuing multiple entry visitor visas to parents and grandparents while they're waiting for a permanent residence visa. Am I right to say that?

[Rénald Gilbert]

We certainly encourage all the missions to do it. Maybe my colleagues can talk about their own experiences.

[Micheline Aucoin]

Yes, we do see a lot of parents and grandparents applying for visitor visas while they're waiting for their permanent resident applications. By and large we facilitate and issue the visas.