Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 15th, 2011

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

In other words, you cannot say that these grandparents have to wait forever to see their grandchildren, because there is another channel to help them at least come over to see their grandchildren.

[Rénald Gilbert]

That's correct.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Wonderful, thank you.

I understand that each mission.... It's just about the situation in Beijing. The reason you wanted to do more in a certain mission is the backlog and you wanted to make sure the backlog could be solved faster. Am I right to say that?

[Rénald Gilbert]

That's correct. It's also to try to make processing times among missions more even. It is very long, but we try to make it even as much as possible.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

In other words, the backlog, especially in Beijing, used to be, and still is, much bigger than in the other missions. Therefore you wanted to make sure that you were able to solve that challenge. Am I right to say that?

[Rénald Gilbert]

That's correct.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you very much.

Now, can you also explain how the challenges in your missions are different from the challenges that might be experienced in, say, London or Paris? I'm asking all of you.

[Rénald Gilbert]

I'm not sure with regard to really different challenges. Definitely, it's a question of the layout of the offices. Some constraints have to do with offices, more specifically.

Communication is probably the key thing. One of our major problems in Africa, for instance, is communication with clients. In certain countries the mail system works very well; in some others it does not. We encourage offices as much as possible to use e-mail to communicate with clients more quickly, but not everybody has provided an e-mail address or has given us permission to use e-mail to communicate with them. So communication is probably one of the main things.

Reliability of documents is also key. If we get a certificate from the police from the U.K. and one from Bangladesh, we may not look at them the same way. We sometimes have to do more verification in certain countries than we do in others. In some countries, the document simply does not exist, so we have to look at other ways to find out the information required.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Yes, when I visited Manila, I was told by your staff that in some situations, for family reunification, it's the spouse who kept delaying sending you the necessary documents. Am I right to say that in Manila...?

[Micheline Aucoin]

Are you talking about the spouse who is sponsoring?

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Yes.

[Micheline Aucoin]

Yes, in some cases that happens. In Manila, of course, we have specific challenges. There's no divorce in the Philippines. Some people were married early in their lives and have separated. But on paper, that marriage is still valid. Then they remarry 10 years later. That's a problem, because on paper it means that they've married twice. So the lack of divorce is a specific challenge in the Philippines.

We have other challenges. For example, 10% of the Filipino population works abroad or has worked abroad. So they will give us their police certificates from the Philippines, but we also need to see the police certificates from these other countries, and so on.

We each have individual challenges. Those are specific to Manila, but my colleagues here would have their own specific challenges.

[Rénald Gilbert]

Maybe one that is more generic with regard to parents and grandparents is that the reply to request is much slower than in any other category. Also, the use of visas is done more slowly than most categories.

It often has to do, as somebody mentioned, with the medical. For instance, many parents and grandparents have to do a furtherance of the medical. It's something we notice fairly broadly. And many parents and grandparents never submit the follow-up application. Their children want them in Canada, but they don't want that. That happens as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Dr. Wong.

We'll go to Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

There are a couple of things you mentioned in your report, Ms. Aucoin, that I was hoping you could elaborate on a little bit. The first was the large increase in the provincial nominee program in Manila and the changes that have been made here to give the provinces more jurisdiction in terms of numbers. You mentioned that over 10,000 visas were issued in that category and that the vast majority were processed in less than a year.

Could you expand a little bit and how you've changed the process somewhat based on the provincial nominee program having grown so substantially since 2005-06?

[Micheline Aucoin]

Yes, the provincial nominee is one category that has a priority attached to it, so we do process those very quickly.

We had an increased number of applications. At one point, we feared that we would be developing a backlog, but then our target was increased to match the number of applications. So despite a significant increase in the number of applications in that category, we have been able to maintain processing times at less than one year.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

One of the other challenges you noted is the fact that divorce is not available in the Philippines. Could you expand on why that is an issue?

[Micheline Aucoin]

I mentioned that many people separate. They marry young, and then they separate, but they never divorce because they cannot. It's possible to annul the marriage, but it's a very costly and lengthy procedure so most people don't bother. It is an issue when they remarry, but strictly speaking, legally they're not really allowed to remarry so when they marry a Canadian who wants to sponsor them, then we get into processing issues.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

You also mention that the global case management system has just been implemented after two to three months. I know you didn't want to expand on it in your comments here, but maybe just very briefly speak to the advantages it has given you so far and where you see it helping you in terms of lowering times and processing more quickly.

[Micheline Aucoin]

I think David and Rénald have talked about that, so I will just echo their comments.

GCMS will allow us to very easily reallocate work to where the resources are. There are some other features. The group processing feature David mentioned will be a very useful tool to reduce processing times, especially in the temporary resident category, and then to reallocate resources to the permanent resident category.

We're still taking baby steps, so right now we're still trying to find tricks, exchanging best practices and so on. But we already see the possibilities.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

That's great; very good to hear.

Mr. Frank, one comment you made piqued my interest. We've just spent a great deal of time as a committee, as you are probably aware, passing Bill C-35. You referred in your comments to the fact that:

We are aware that consultants are promoting the investor programs in China as an alternative to the more restrictive Ministerial Instructions of the C-50 skilled worker category.

I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit. One of the big questions that came up during Bill C-35 that was very difficult to get answers to, or determine, is we strengthened the legislation with respect to our justice system to allow these consultants to face stronger criminal charges here in Canada, but of course it's very difficult for us to be able to charge someone in another country; in fact it's impossible.

You mentioned it here, so I wonder if you could expand on how these consultants have learned even just this process here, and how much time they spend in the offices to determine how Canada's legislation has changed and how it's going to impact them in terms of trying to convince folks to come to Canada.

[Sidney Frank]

I should preface my comments by saying these consultants aren't necessarily committing fraud when they're advising someone to apply under a category. It might not be the type of people we are envisaging with our new regulations for investors, but it is possible if you have property in China and you may be a manager in an office and you may meet the requirements. What a consultant looks for is a way of getting a visa for his clients.

That said, many consultants in China submit fraudulent information on behalf of their clients. It's a serious problem and it's something that makes our work more difficult. Certainly we'd welcome something that would assist us in terms of dealing with those consultants.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

I have one brief question that the analysts have suggested.

Some countries process a significant number of immigration applications in-country as opposed to missions abroad. Can you tell us—this is to any of the witnesses, but perhaps the witnesses from the missions abroad could answer it—what part of an immigration application is perhaps more appropriately reviewed in overseas missions?

[Rénald Gilbert]

You're talking about the difference between a mission overseas versus in Canada?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes.