Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 17th, 2011

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

The other thing is, and you still didn't answer my question, if the numbers are increasing in what seems to have been something entirely unexpected by this government.... In November the reports were that everything was stable, and suddenly, whoa, we are at unprecedentedly high levels.

I guess the question is, now that you are at unprecedentedly high levels, is it still wise to continue cutting the settlement services and the needs that exist? What exactly happened? How were you caught unawares in your predictions and your expectations?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

My deputy is saying it's the department's fault.

Mr. Chairman, in June of this year I announced that we were bringing in new ministerial instructions to cap intake under the federal skilled worker program to 20,000 new applications a year. I also announced that we would be adding approximately 10,000 additional federal skilled workers because we had received additional money from the budget in 2008 to process more skilled workers—to draw down on the backlog as part of our action plan for faster immigration. So that accounts for this year's discretionary uptick in the number of federal skilled workers that we decided to admit.

You see, this was the thing about the settlement funding. Settlement funding previously was based on 2005 numbers, not current numbers. Now at least it will be based on a rolling average of three years of admissions, so there will be a closer correlation to the number of newcomers arriving and the allocation of settlement funding under the new formula.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Sorry, Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Minister, we will have to move on.

Ms. Grewal.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

The Liberals have complained that Bill C-49 isn't tough enough on human smugglers. Have they or the other opposition parties any constructive suggestions on improving Bill C-49 and making it tougher? Do you think that if they were really very serious about this issue that they would have allowed Bill C-49 to come to the committee, where it could be studied and discussed productively, like the refugee reform and cracking down on crooked immigration consultants?

What is your say on that?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you.

I think, Ms. Grewal, you're pointing to a number of issues that I would categorize as reinforcing and defending the integrity of the immigration system. One positive step in that direction was the adoption of Bill C-11, the balanced refugee reform act, which is in process; we're working towards its implementation later this year. That will, we believe, disincentivise false asylum seekers from abusing Canada's asylum system. In the end, it will result in fewer false asylum claims being filed in Canada, which will, we project, save taxpayers as much as $1.8 billion over five years.

Secondly, as you know, we brought in the cracking down on crooked immigration consultants act, which is now in the Senate. By the way, I encouraged the official opposition to ask Senator Jaffer to get that bill through the Senate. It received unanimous support. That will help us to deal with ghost consultants, make it a criminal offence for them to operate without being licensed immigration consultants of the recognized regulatory body, and we're also, as you know, working on the process of designating a regulatory body.

Also, it's very important that we address, as you mentioned, the issue of human smuggling. We believe that Bill C-49 represents a strong but balanced approach to addressing the smuggling networks, basically criminal gangs, that are targeting Canada. These are groups that don't really care about human life. They regard people as commodities. Particular syndicates used to run guns and other contraband into Sri Lanka during the civil war; now they're running people. Every year, thousands of people around the world die in smuggling operations. We've seen that recently in Britain, in Australia, in Mexico, the United States. Certainly one person passed away on the last vessel coming to Canada. These syndicates are using dangerous, decommissioned, leaky vessels to cross the Pacific Ocean.

I don't think any of us as parliamentarians, as Canadians, should be sanguine or indifferent about the threat that poses to human life, or indeed the integrity of our immigration system. That's why we have a balanced bill that seeks to send a message to the smuggling syndicates and their prospective customers, who after all are willing customers, that they shouldn't be willing to pay $30,000 to $45,000 to a smuggling syndicate to come to Canada. They should think twice about it. We think the five-year period in the bill does that, and we would call on the opposition to take seriously the expectation of Canadians that we will defend the integrity of our system against those who seek to abuse it.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

The rest of my time is for Mr. Dykstra.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'd like to ask one question before Mr. Dykstra.

You may not know the answer to this, Mr. Minister. I read in the papers that the cost of the Sri Lankan boat incident--I don't know how else to describe it--was $25 million to date. I think that was the figure.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

There are other costs from other ministries. Are you able to tell us what the total cost to the taxpayer of that incident is to date?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Chairman, I'll undertake to get back to you with more complete information. The $25 million figure relates primarily to the costs incurred by the Canada Border Services Agency, I think $18 million of which is related to detention costs. There's a huge amount of legal costs involved.

I don't like the fact that we're spending that kind of money on this kind of illegal migration. That's one of the reasons why we need to take strong legal action to disincentivise criminal networks from targeting Canada for their smuggling enterprises.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Dykstra, go ahead.

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

Mr. Shory had one more question he'd like to ask.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Shory.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I have another quick question. I have heard the complaints about Bill C-49, human smuggling, that you were just talking about, and I'd like you to comment on this. Did the opposition make any constructive suggestions regarding Bill C-49? If they have not, do you think they're serious about this human smuggling issue?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Shory, this is the immigration committee. I realize we're into estimates and that almost anything can go. The difficulty is that there's a legislative committee that may be dealing with that topic, so just remember.... I believe where you're going is more appropriate for another committee, although we'll be lenient, because we can talk about anything here.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Let me go back to the settlement fundings, Mr. Chair.

One of the Liberal MPs, Frank Valeriote, suggested that these minor reallocations of funding meant that we wanted the immigrant experience in Canada to fail. I'd like you to address the comment.

Also, I'd like you to consider how much more difficult it would have been for an immigrant if the prior government's level of funding had been maintained, and also—I appreciate that you reduced the right-of-landing fee from $1,000 to $490—if the immigrant still had to pay similar kinds of fees as well.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

First, let me underscore that according to all of the research, the single most important factor in economic success for immigrants, particularly foreign-trained professionals, in Canada is language proficiency. Regrettably, the previous government decided that there was a very minimal federal role in supporting language training for newcomers to Canada.

As I said, we've substantially increased the funding, by over 300%, and even after these reallocations Ontario, for example—Mr. Valeriote's province—will be receiving 319% more than it did in 2005. In the world of most ordinary Canadians, a 319% increase is a huge increase, certainly not a cut.

So much more service is available, and the map tells the story. One of the maps in the package of slides you have shows what kinds of settlement services were available in Toronto in 2005, and the other the settlement services available next year, after the reallocations. I think that says it all. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Mr. Chairman, in addition, as was mentioned, saving on average $1,900 for a family of four coming to Canada through reductions in the right-of-landing fee—that is, a family of four with two adult children—is very significant.

You arrived as a newcomer to Canada; $1,900 could mean the down payment on the apartment. It can be an absolutely essential difference in getting started.

So I really think that some of the rhetoric we've heard coming from the official opposition is unfortunate. It's certainly not reflective of their own priorities when they were in government.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Do I have more questions?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Dykstra, are you asking questions?

You have a little over a minute.

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

Oh, really?

This is a question, actually....

We're going until a quarter to the hour, are we not—another half hour?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have a little over a minute.

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

I think you understand that this isn't the final round; that was my question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have a little over a minute.

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

Minister, one of the things I see noted on the estimates is the funding for grants to support community historical recognition programs. I know from dealing with Parks Canada that they do a lot of work on the same type of programming. We're investing $41 million. I'm wondering—this is a question to perhaps the deputy or to the minister—how that funding will be spent and whether or not we are actually duplicating some of the services already being provided by Parks Canada through the historical program.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thanks for the question.

This funding relates.... Just let me give you the perspective. We created the community historical recognition program to provide funding for projects related to the commemoration of an education about immigration restriction and wartime internment measures. A number of envelopes were set aside. One of those was as a result of an agreement that I signed with three organizations from the Ukrainian Canadian community—the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association—with respect to the commemoration of the internment of some 8,000 former subjects of the Austro-Hungarian empire between 1914 and 1920, most but not all of whom were ethnic Ukrainians.

We transferred a $10 million endowment fund to the Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko, and in addition we undertook to work with those organizations in creating interpretive centres and in commemoration of some of the internment sites from the First World War that are now in national parks. For example, there's Cave and Basin, I think it's called, in Banff park, where a number of Austro-Hungarians were interned—