Evidence of meeting #43 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was beijing.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Immigration Program Manager (Beijing), Area Director (North Asia), Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Always right on target, yes.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Okay.
Do you folks track how many people died while waiting? This is the parents who ended up abandoning their applications.
February 15th, 2011 / 9:40 a.m.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There are a number of reasons why people would want to abandon their applications. What happens is that sometimes we ask for people to provide documents or to do a medical exam, and if they don't do it then we have to close the file.
So we don't necessarily know why. Some people change their mind sometimes.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Right.
Approximately what percentage of all cases are abandoned, in terms of parents?
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I don't have that information. With the current system, when there is a refusal we cannot register the reason for the refusal, whether it's a relationship of convenience, whether it's because the person died, or the person changed their mind. We don't register the reason, so we wouldn't know.
With the GCMS in the future, with our new system, we'll be able to record the reason for refusal, but that's not currently the case.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's almost implemented everywhere; 85% of all the offices have it now. New Delhi and Manila have it, Beijing will in two weeks, and on March 16 our office in the U.S. will be the last one. So abroad it will be done, but not in Canada.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Not in Canada.
On another note, why did you move the administrative processing of skilled workers from Islamabad to London in...?
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There are a number of reasons. One of the reasons is the conditions in Islamabad. It's very difficult, first of all, because of the security situation there, to increase the size of our staff. Essentially, we would have to increase the size of our staff when at any given point they're asked to stay at the compound, in their house. It's for security reasons, that part.
We had the capacity to do it from London. London's already responsible for all the gulf countries, for instance. It was one more country. So what we're hoping for is to achieve efficiency out of it and allow Islamabad to concentrate actually on family class cases and on visitors where there is a significant challenge.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
I have a question for Mr. Frank.
Now that the Beijing number, the target, has gone up, do you see that the wait times could drop somewhat? I mean, 37 months is on the high end of the average of all the other countries.
Immigration Program Manager (Beijing), Area Director (North Asia), Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Definitely, yes; our inventory is at —
Immigration Program Manager (Beijing), Area Director (North Asia), Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes. If we're doing a target of 2,500, in most instances that'll be two people, so it's going to make a difference.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Can you project what you think it might be for this coming year?
Immigration Program Manager (Beijing), Area Director (North Asia), Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I wouldn't want to do that.
Immigration Program Manager (Beijing), Area Director (North Asia), Department of Citizenship and Immigration
In some instances, cases can take time; parents have medical conditions, or there's a need for further medical examinations. One of the things that actually slows down processing is the parents are in Canada because we issue visitor visas to them. They travel to Canada, we write to their address in China, but they're not there. So it goes back and forth.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
How many are like that? I thought that if you were applying for a family class application, the likelihood that you could actually travel, and get this visa, was quite remote.
Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We don't have a record of how many do have a visa now, but 50% of the parents and grandparents who are currently in the inventory had a visa at some point. So it's a fair number who are travelling back and forth between the two countries.
With regard to the processing time, there's just one thing to keep in mind. Where we're finalizing a lot of old cases, the processing time does not go down sharply because of that, because when we finalize cases that are 35 months old, the processing time will be 35 months. It's only after time that it will go down.
Conservative
Devinder Shory Conservative Calgary Northeast, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for coming.
This morning, Mr. Chair, my comments might be seen as partisan politics, but the fact is that it was the Liberal government who increased the right of landing fee to $975 and who ballooned...who let the inventory of skilled workers balloon more than 650...which was taking more than six years.
Also, the fact is that this government has brought the right of landing fee to almost 50%.
Also—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Mr. Trudeau, on a point of order.
You know, before you say anything....
It's your dime, and you can say what you like, but the difficulty is that I'm trying to keep order here. I quite frankly think that probably would antagonize the opposition.
Mr. Trudeau has a point of order.
