Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 3rd, 2011

[Jim Versteegh]

It is difficult to make that conclusion at this point, given that we still have the large inventory of cases. We have almost 16,000 investor cases in our backlog. The oldest go back to 2008. We process the oldest cases first, so we will be processing fewer cases this year than we will be receiving new ones. At this time I can't predict what the processing times will be. Those that we do process will not be in process longer than in 2010, but as we get toward the end of the year and our targets are met and more applications come in, then the processing times may go a bit higher.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

To me, this investor's category should be simple and straightforward, but you touched on some fraud issues also. I'd like you to shed some more light on the challenges you face in processing this category in a timely manner.

[Jim Versteegh]

In terms of fraud, our primary concern is the source of the money that they have. Given the very rapid development of the economy in China in the past 20 years, there are persons who have attained their wealth through unsavoury means, so our principal objective is making sure that we don't allow someone into Canada who obtained their money illegally or through means that we would not accept in Canada.

That said, it is not a particularly difficult movement in terms of fraud. Our refusal rate is only in the range of about 12%. Well, it's a little bit higher than that. It ranges from 12% to 18%. It's not particularly high, but we do need to be vigilant.

In terms of how long it takes to process, that depends to a certain extent on the inventories that we have. It doesn't take that long to process an individual case, but if we have thousands waiting to be processed and we have a limited number that we can process each year, then obviously—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're out of time.

[Jim Versteegh]

—those that are left over will take longer to process.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

If you have something for five to 10 seconds, you can go for it, Dr. Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

I understand that marriages of convenience have become a big issue for applicants going through Hong Kong. There is evidence that it is organized.

Can you briefly comment, since we don't have a lot of time?

[Jim Versteegh]

It's certainly clear to us that it is organized, because there are patterns that we see, and that's what we use to identify the fraudulent cases. Quite frankly, we have numerous admissions from persons we have refused, who tell us that they paid $40,000 to $60,000 to an organization to arrange for the marriage and subsequent visa to go to Canada.

There's no question in our mind that it is an organized movement, and a very lucrative one.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Dr. Wong.

Mr. Oliphant has a brief question.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

It's just a brief question.

Thank you for being here today.

It relates to a number that you gave. You said that under the family class for parents and grandparents, your target for 2011 was 560. Was that correct?

[Jim Versteegh]

Yes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Yes, that's what he said.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

The document that I have, dated January 6, which we got under access to information, said 450. That's dated January 6, so I'm wondering whether a new target has been set that we don't know about. It may be for Mr. Gilbert to answer. Could we have tabled, in this House, the actual numbers? That's a significant difference. It's a 25% increase over what we thought was the number from January 6.

[Rénald Gilbert]

First, I should clarify. As I think I mentioned last time, we do changes during the year, especially at the beginning of the year. Just in the parent and grandparents, we did 17 changes between January 6 to the one that we did on January 31. I have to check, but we have the new target for January 31. I mentioned it the other day. I thought we had sent it since last Tuesday, but I can make sure that you get it for the next time.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

If we could just have the most up-to-date numbers, that would be helpful.

Thank you.

[Rénald Gilbert]

Yes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

It's just to clarify that the January 31 numbers are the most up to date, but the minister keeps changing his mind.

[Rénald Gilbert]

The minister has no impact on the individual target. The final decision on the target, so far, is done. Some of the analysts working for me do the tweaking, as we call it; otherwise, it's my decision.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Those tweakings are several hundred families in my riding waiting for family sponsorship. It's not tweaking to them. That's my concern.

[Rénald Gilbert]

What I mean—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay.

I have one final question to either Mr. Versteegh or Mr. Gilbert.

Is your office, Mr. Versteegh, processing the backlog of old investor-class applications before processing the new post-2010 investor cases?

[Jim Versteegh]

We are processing both at the moment. We're processing primarily old cases, because we have such a large backlog, but we're processing some of the new cases as well, to get both cases in process.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

But the old cases have priority.

[Jim Versteegh]

I suppose we're doing about twice as many old cases as new ones at the moment.