Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 3rd, 2011

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thanks.

You're saying each case is approached strictly on a case-by-case basis.

[Hazelyn Ross]

Yes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

In regard to the dozen or so Iraqi war resisters in Canada, who make up less than 0.5% of the backlog, Ms. Elizabeth McWeeny, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, stated that their numbers are minuscule and have no appreciable impact on delays in the system.

She said the 0.5% is minuscule and has no appreciable impact. Would you agree with that statement?

[Simon Coakeley]

I'm not exactly sure what she's referring to, but 0.5% of our caseload is comparatively small and should have a minimal impact on the overall delays, yes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

A couple of days before an Iraqi war resister's hearing before a board, when Minister Kenney stated that these cases of Iraqi war resisters were “clogging up the system”, it was political fluffery.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I don't know whether that's fair. I'm going to end this. I think we'll end it on the word “fluffery”.

I'm sorry, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj; we're getting into politics, and I think it's unfair to these witnesses.

I'm going to suspend the meeting.

Thank you very much for coming.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to reconvene. We're going to end this at 10:40 to do some committee business.

We have the Canadian Bar Association. I recognize two people who have been here before. I'm not sure, and maybe you've all been here, but I certainly recognize Kerri Froc, who's a staff lawyer of law reform and equality. Good morning to you.

We also have Chantal Arsenault, who's the chair of the national citizenship and immigration law section. I'm pretty sure you've been here before. Good morning to you. Also with us is Deanna Okun-Nachoff, executive member the national citizenship and immigration law section. I'm not too sure about you, but welcome.

One of you has up to seven minutes to make a presentation to the committee. Thank you for coming.

[Kerri Froc, Staff Lawyer, Law Reform and Equality, Canadian Bar Association]

Mr. Chair, we're going to split the time between us, but we'll take the seven minutes.

The Canadian Bar Association is pleased to appear before this committee today on its study regarding immigration application process wait times, particularly for the investor class and family class applicants.

The Canadian Bar Association is a national voluntary association with about 37,000 members across the country. The citizenship and immigration law section is made up of about 900 lawyers with expertise in all areas of citizenship, immigration, and refugee law. The primary objectives of the organization are improvements in the law and the administration of justice. In that light, our representatives are here today with some practical suggestions on how to mitigate the impact of delays on applicants and on how to streamline the system.

For the purposes of our appearance today, we've circulated to you our written submission. The chair of our citizenship and immigration law section, Chantal Arsenault, and our executive member, Deanna Okun-Nachoff, will take you through the substance of our submission and answer any questions you may have about it.

With that, I'll call upon Ms. Arsenault to start off with our substantive comments.

[Chantal Arsenault, Chair, National Citizenship and Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Good morning. I am pleased to be here this morning to share with you our views on immigration application process wait times, and to offer you a few suggestions of ways to reduce these wait times for applications under the family class or the investor class.

We understand that finding a balance between all priorities in immigration is difficult. We also understand that if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. Allocating resources, processing applications in an efficient way, assessing the risks involved, and respecting goals and targets—these are formidable challenges. We hope, however, that our suggestions can be put to use to alleviate the impact of long wait times, and we are happy to continue the discussion on those subjects.

Allow me first to touch on investors. As we indicated in our submissions, we strongly believe that if the government has determined that the investor class and the entrepreneur class are beneficial to Canada and should remain an option, immediate steps should be taken to ensure that CIC can process applications in a reasonable timeframe so that they make business sense for those willing to embark on the process. Long processing delays seriously undermine the viability of these programs. If who we want are the best and the brightest, we cannot make them wait around for years. They have other options; they will decide to invest in other countries, and this will be our loss.

We realize that investor files are complex. Applications typically contain a large number of documents, and the requirements to evaluate and assess the proof of funds and the value of business can be time-consuming. We suggest that applicants should be given the option of providing an expert report from an authorized third party, thus reducing the amount of work required by the officer. This model of delegating a portion of the examination to industry experts has been adopted by CIC in other areas, such as language testing.

We would also suggest that the assessment of the source of funds carried out by the ministère de l'Immigration et des Communautés culturelles, in those cases originating from Quebec, be taken into consideration and granted the evidentiary weight it deserves. Our analysis tells us that these cases should not take up officers' time unnecessarily.

It is the prerogative of the government to decide whether it supports one program or another. If the decision is to offer the program, in order for the program to be a viable option it must be implemented in such a way as to be transparent and efficient, with realistic targets and timelines. This is true for the investor program as much as it is for other categories such as family class, including applications for parents and grandparents.

I will now give the floor to my colleague Dianna Okun-Nachoff, who will discuss the issues regarding family class applications.

[Deanna Okun-Nachoff, Executive Member, National Citizenship and Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you for the opportunity to address you today.

I'll jump right in, beginning with our recommendations for the high-priority so-called FC1 applications for the spouses and dependent family members.

It is our understanding that the benchmark for processing of these priority family class applications is six months and that many visa offices are meeting or even beating this target, while others are falling far short. Given the obvious hardship of prolonged separation from beloved spouses and children, sponsors must be reunited with their family members as quickly as possible. The existing disparities in processing times across the different missions must be addressed.

Disproportionate delays are also faced by the FC1 applicants who are refused at the first instance but then succeed on appeal to the immigration appeal division. It's our understanding that the department has initiated a pilot project whereby these redetermination requests, following a successful IAD appeal, will be sent to national headquarters for processing and not back to the visa office. We do commend the department for this initiative and we recommend that this pilot project be expanded to all visa offices as soon as possible.

We also recommend that new forms, including updated work histories, medicals, and police clearances where required, be requested up front, at the conclusion of a successful IAD appeal, to facilitate these redetermination decisions.

I'll move on to the more contentious FC4 category, and that's the parents and grandparents. Simply put, processing delays in the FC4 category are so long that they fundamentally undermine the viability and the utility of this program as a whole. Surely you've heard it said many times before that too many applicants are deceased, medically inadmissible, or simply no longer interested in coming to Canada by the end of the six-plus years of delay.

The reality is this: unless there is the will to increase the targets, we must ensure there are viable ways for families to reunite in the interim, during this lengthy period for processing of the permanent residence applications.

Immigration has encouraged visa offices to be more flexible in issuing long-term TRVs to FC4 applicants who are in the queue for landing, but our members continue to report that TRVs are still being routinely denied for parents who lack sufficient ties to the country of origin.

Our submission is that objective criteria should be employed, and visas issued, where FC4 applicants can establish, one, that they have been sponsored by an eligible family member; two, that their sponsor meets the minimum income requirements; three, that the applicant is not medically inadmissible; and four, that arrangements have been made for private health coverage.

Once a TRV has been issued on these criteria, we also recommend that the department not revisit the decision about medical admissibility when the PR application is finally determined.

These are some of our recommendations. Others are in our written submission.

At the end of the day, if targets remain fixed, the net result of processing deficiencies will be moot. They will remain a problem as long as the volume of applications received is larger than the targets that visa offices are permitted to issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, to all of you.

Each caucus now has up to five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I note in the brief that there's been a 60% increase in appeals and that 70% of those are sponsorship appeals. I also saw some statistics that said 40% of those appeals were overturned. Those appeals were in fact confirmed positively for the appellants, so that means about 28%, or almost a third, of the time we're actually getting it wrong.

You're saying it should take six to 12 months. How long would the process typically take to bring a spouse--a father or a mother of children--to Canada in this sort of situation?

[Deanna Okun-Nachoff]

You're talking about how long it takes when there's been a recusal--

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I mean if they were recused and then had to go through the appeal process, etc.

[Deanna Okun-Nachoff]

The waiting times for an appeal are very regionally specific.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

What are they for eastern Europe?

[Deanna Okun-Nachoff]

I mean in terms of where the appeal would be heard. Often it's a year before you get a hearing, and then there's the problem of having to get the file sent back to the visa office, so it is a substantial delay.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Could the process end up taking two or three or more years?

[Deanna Okun-Nachoff]

It could, easily.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

If a third of these cases are overturned, doesn't that seem to indicate somehow that our officials in the missions overseas are getting it wrong way too often, and that perhaps there is an institutional culture that says it is safer to say no and get it wrong that way, and then people can appeal if they want to and let them sort it out?

[Deanna Okun-Nachoff]

This is a difficult one to answer, because we must remember that the appeals are hearings de novo, meaning there can be a lot of material before the IAD that wasn't before the visa officer. It is hard to make a general statement in answer to that question.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Some witnesses previously stated that when they read the decisions from the missions' officials, some of the statements are almost borderline racist, which I found quite disturbing to hear.

I will read you comments from an official at the mission in Kiev, Ukraine, where a father was denied the opportunity to reunite with his wife here in Canada--a Canadian wife--and their four children. They had just had twin infant boys:

At such a young age, the best interests of the newborn twins is to remain with the mother, and it presumably makes little difference to them physically, emotionally, or developmentally whether this is in Ukraine or in Canada.

The official is denying the father the opportunity to come to Canada to be with his wife and four children. Instead, they are suggesting in their decision that the wife and four children move to Ukraine.

How would you view that sort of decision?

[Deanna Okun-Nachoff]

I don't think those are relevant criteria. There are very established criteria for when somebody is eligible to sponsor a family member. The relative benefits for those family members as to whether or not they should be reunited is really not relevant to that decision.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I find it incredible that an official in one of our missions would suggest that Canadian children, born in Canada to a Canadian wife, should move to Ukraine if she wants to reunite with her husband.

There is no criminality. There are no other issues around this case. It's just a decision that it's best for the kids emotionally and developmentally.

It goes on to say that:

Ukraine is a developed country with advanced health and social services including pre-school and primary school education, medical care...and all the necessities for normal life. I therefore consider that the best interests of the children would not necessarily be better served by moving to Canada than remaining in Ukraine.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

Monsieur St. Cyr is next.