Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the committee for inviting me to speak.
My name is Sidney Frank, and I'm the immigration program manager in Beijing and area director for north Asia.
I'd like to provide a short overview of the program in Beijing, emphasizing topics that I believe are of most interest to the committee.
One of the largest visa offices in Canada's overseas network, Beijing has close to 100 staff. As a regional program centre, Beijing oversees satellite offices in Shanghai, which handles temporary resident applications from four Chinese provinces, and in Guangzhou, which handles the migration integrity program in southern China.
Hong Kong is responsible for family class applications from southern China, and has jointly handled all economic category applications from China in conjunction with Beijing since the mid-1990s.
I'm certain you're all aware that in spite of the current worldwide economic downturn, China continues to demonstrate near double-digit growth. With a growing middle class, increasing numbers of Chinese are able to travel, study, and do business abroad. In 2010, 151,647 temporary resident visas were issued to Chinese nationals to visit Canada. Over half of those visas were issued in Beijing.
Canada was granted Approved Destination Status, or ADS, during the Prime Minister's visit in December 2009, and the first ADS groups travelled to Canada in August 2010. Last year, 6,540 tourists travelled to China as part of ADS groups and a similar number travelled to Canada on their own. We anticipate that the number of tourists destined for Canada will increase more rapidly this coming summer. We have been working with Chinese travel agencies recommended by the Canadian Tourism Commission to handle these tourist groups.
A significant portion of the Chinese population has not benefited from economic growth. Consequently, strong push factors for migration remain, and fraud and misrepresentation are widespread. Canada continues to be an attractive destination for illegal Chinese migrants and for economic criminals who target our temporary and permanent resident programs to gain entry to Canada.
In spite of high levels of fraud, 84% of temporary resident applicants were approved in 2010. For business visitors the acceptance rate was 89%. Refusals are extremely rare for business persons who work for state-owned enterprises, a significant proportion of our business visitors. The service we provide is comparable to or better than Australia, the United States, or the United Kingdom, with 66% of our private business visitors processed the day after receipt in our office. Visa application centres in four major cities in China make the application process more convenient for private visitors, tourists, business travellers, students, or temporary workers.
In 2010 Beijing issued 17,195 study permits, making China the largest source of foreign students for Canada. The student program continues to grow at a rapid pace, with a 17% increase in applications in 2010 compared to the previous year, and more than double the number received in 2005. The student program is expected to continue to grow through the recent expansion to China of the student partners program, the SPP, between CIC and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges.
With the introduction of optional up-front medicals that allow a student to undertake the medical examinations prior to the submission of an application, processing times have dropped significantly. Approximately 67% of the applicants now take advantage of this new procedure. Of these cases, 80% are processed within 13 days, compared to eight weeks in 2008 prior to the procedure's introduction.
High levels of fraud and misrepresentation in the student program mean that considerable resources must be devoted to the assessment of these applications. Students comprise 33% of our refusals for fraud. Nevertheless, we have managed to maintain a relatively high acceptance rate of 75% to 80% for students over the past few years without a negative impact on program integrity.
China has been the number one source of immigrants to Canada for more than a decade. As I have explained, Beijing shares the processing of permanent resident applications submitted by Chinese nationals with our mission in Hong Kong. In 2010, Beijing issued 9,391 visas, about 59% of the total issued by Hong Kong.
At the end of 2010, Beijing had an inventory of 9,034 permanent resident cases, declining from 12,646 cases in 2008, a drop of over 7,000 persons. This can be attributed to the transfer of 1,500 Bill C-50 skilled worker cases, which were not eligible under ministerial instructions, to the Centralized Intake Office in Sydney for finalization, and to the fact that there were more cases finalized than applications received.
The number of skilled worker applications received in Beijing and Hong Kong declined dramatically after IRPA came into effect. The higher language requirements imposed by IRPA and the increasing ability of the Chinese economy to provide well-paid employment to highly skilled workers contributed to this decline. With the implementation of Bill C-50, skilled worker intake has declined further.
We are aware that consultants are promoting the investor programs in China as an alternative to the more restrictive ministerial instructions of the Bill C-50 skilled worker category. Current real estate values in first- and second-tier cities in China make it relatively easy for many of China's middle class to meet the new minimum net worth requirement of the investor category.
Unlike Hong Kong, which has seen huge increases in investor applications prior to the introduction of the new regulations regarding the investor category, the business intake in Beijing declined by 26% in 2009 compared to the previous year, with 355 cases received. In 2010, intake increased by 9% with 386 applications received. Among business categories, Beijing gives priority to investors. Between 2004 and 2009, processing times for 80% of federal and Quebec investors went from 47 to 30 months.
A significant portion of our business caseload is comprised of wealthy applicants claiming to have made very large sums of money during a period in China's economic development when this would have been an exceedingly rare accomplishment. Even rarer is the verifiable paper trail that would establish their wealth was legally obtained. It has proven very difficult under these circumstances to differentiate between legitimate businessmen and those who obtained their wealth illegally.
Beijing's family class unit handles a large volume of sponsored spouses and dependent children. With a high risk of marriages of convenience, approximately 33% of applicants are interviewed. Nevertheless, 80% of cases are completed within four months from when the sponsorship is received at the case processing centre in Mississauga.
During our low season for temporary residents, we shift resources to permanent resident processing, enabling us to process spousal applications as quickly as one month from their receipt in our office. Approximately 85% of applications assessed in 2010 were accepted. Targets for sponsored parents and grandparents are managed globally. Current processing time for this category in Beijing is 37 months for 80% of cases.
For many years, Beijing has been a centre of innovation, using information technology to reduce the clerical work required to process applications. I am pleased to advise you that these innovations have been incorporated into our new global case management system, whose implementation abroad began at the end of June 2010. GCMS is scheduled to be implemented in Beijing at the end of this month.
I wish to assure you that the team in China is committed to the expeditious processing of all types of cases while protecting Canada from those persons who should be denied entry.
I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Thank you.