Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 3rd, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration meeting 46. Today is Thursday, March 3, 2011. The orders of the day, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) are for our study of immigration application process wait times.

We are continuing with this study and, of course, you'll see from the agenda that we're going to stop the meeting towards the end of the meeting, perhaps in the final five minutes or so. The subcommittee met, and we need to have the report of the subcommittee approved, so towards the end of the meeting we will go in camera to adopt that report.

We have three witnesses in total for the session today, and they have 40 minutes each. First of all, by video conference from Hong Kong, we have a number of witnesses from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. Once again we have Mr. Gilbert, director general of the international region, who is here to help us.

Thank you, sir. You're a regular attendee at these meetings. Thank you for coming. I'm going to let you introduce your colleagues from Hong Kong. We appreciate their taking the time late at night there to appear and assist us.

Sir, you have the floor.

[Rénald Gilbert, Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I won't go into details; I'll just mention my colleagues who are there. Jim Versteegh is the immigration program manager in Hong Kong, and Angela Gawel is the deputy program manager of the same office. We also have two of the team leaders: Lorie Jane Turner, who is the economic immigration unit manager, and Scott Paterson, who is the team leader responsible for family class. Essentially you have the management team of Hong Kong there on the screen.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Versteegh, can you hear us?

[Jim Versteegh, Immigration Program Manager, Hong Kong (China), Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for giving us the opportunity to address you today.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The pleasure is ours, sir.

[Jim Versteegh]

Can you hear us?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We can hear you very clearly, and if you could make a submission of up to 10 minutes, we'd appreciate that.

[Jim Versteegh]

All right; I'll try to keep it below that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, sir.

[Jim Versteegh]

I'll begin with a short overview of what this office does.

Hong Kong is a full-processing mission responsible for the delivery of the immigration program in Hong Kong and Macau, and we share responsibility with Beijing for the immigration program in China. Family class applicants from the four southern provinces of China are processed here in Hong Kong, in part because of Hong Kong's Cantonese language capacity. All other immigration applicants in China have the option of applying either in Beijing or here in Hong Kong. Since the opening of the visa application centres in China in July 2008, People's Republic of China residents rarely apply here for temporary resident visas. There remains, however, a large Hong Kong-based temporary worker and student movement out of the office in Hong Kong.

The immigration section in Hong Kong consists of 10 Canada-based officers and 62 locally engaged staff, including seven designated immigration officers. Two of the CBO positions are migration integrity officers filling CBSA positions here. Hong Kong works with the regional medical officer and the FCO based in Beijing and the RCMP liaison officer here in Hong Kong. The highest production office of the Service de l'immigration du Québec is also located here in Hong Kong in the same office tower, just below us. That office has regional responsibility for all of Asia.

The Hong Kong visa office issued just over 16,000 immigrant visas in 2010, and we expect to issue a similar number in 2011. Almost all visas issued by this office are to people resident in mainland China, with over 80% being in the economic categories. Output, however, continues to be lower than intake. As a result, the inventory of cases in Hong Kong has grown from about 22,000 early in 2008 to over 34,000 today. That represents about 95,000 people. The largest component of our inventory is federal investor applications, of which we have about 16,000 cases and over 50,000 people. The next largest part of our backlog is pre-Bill C-50 skilled worker files; we have over 10,000, or about 24,000 people, with the oldest cases dating back to 2006. We issued about 1,500 visas to Bill C-50 skilled workers in 2010.

Hong Kong has a large temporary worker population originating from many source countries in the region, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Nepal, and China. The majority work in the domestic sector and in construction. Though Hong Kong relies heavily on foreign workers, it remains difficult to obtain permanent resident status here, including for people from the People's Republic of China. As a consequence, accepting a temporary work contract here in Hong Kong is seen by some, particularly domestic workers, as a stepping stone for a subsequent move to Canada. Hong Kong processed over 3,600 temporary work permit applications in 2010, mostly to LCP applicants, and our refusal rate was about 12%. The number of applications for temporary work permits received in 2010 was comparable to that of the previous year. Fifty per cent of temporary work permit cases were processed in about two months.

Counteracting fraudulent activity is a major preoccupation here in Hong Kong and is addressed by way of a multi-faceted anti-fraud and quality assurance strategy. An experienced case analysis unit that is skilled in document verification works closely with an anti-fraud unit that is part of our migration integrity unit. Site visits are also carried out on a regular but exceptional basis by the migration integrity officers stationed in Guangzhou and Shanghai.

A major focus of our anti-fraud activities has been spousal applications; in this area, marriages of convenience have been found to be endemic. The family class priority processing timeframes incorporate the assumption that 80% of such cases are non-problematic; in Hong Kong, the reverse is true. We have serious fraud concerns for 60% of our spousal movement and have some concerns for another 20%.

Although in most countries FC1 interviews can be waived, that is not the case in Hong Kong. About half of our spousal applicants are interviewed in order to give them an opportunity to address our concerns in person. Of those seen at interview in 2010, 70% were refused because of confirmed or highly suspected marriage fraud. The information and evidence collected suggest strongly that the movement is organized and very lucrative for the organizers. Our high refusal rate has resulted in a decrease in new applications received in that category in the past two years, as those intent on abusing our system are now less likely to apply. As a consequence, our refusal rate has started to go down; it down from 57% in 2009 to 47% in 2010. Constant vigilance, however, is required to curb abuse.

Priority processing has been maintained for genuine spousal cases. We have instituted measures such as tracking case processing at the front end stages, doing upfront background checks, increasing our interview schedule, and requesting the passport early on in the process to meet the new service standards, but we're not there yet. The extra time required to investigate many of our most problematic cases adds to our average processing times, but with the ratio of illegitimate cases decreasing, we are focusing on bringing down overall processing times in the next months.

The changes to the federal immigrant investor program that took effect on December 1, 2010, served to moderate the intake of new applications. At the time of the moratorium on investor applications in June 2010, we had already received about 9,000 such applications that year. Following the reopening of the program in December and the doubling of the personal net worth and investment requirements, the number of new applications received dropped to a more manageable 300 per month. Active recruiting for business immigrants by consultants continues to take place in the PRC, and we do not discount the possibility of renewed growth in our intake. The visa office in Hong Kong processed about half of Canada's 2010 global target of federal investor cases and will do so again in 2011.

New applications, however, still outnumber finalized ones. As a result, a backlog of new federal investor files is already being created, while there is little reduction in the inventory of old files. We are currently processing applications received in mid-2008 in that category. The majority of Quebec and provincial nominee cases processed in Hong Kong are also in the investor categories.

I'll stop there, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, and I'll be happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, sir. We appreciate your presentation, and committee members will have some questions. Each caucus will have up to five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Trudeau.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to all of you for being here from Hong Kong. What time is it in Hong Kong?

[Jim Versteegh]

It is about five minutes to ten at night.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you for staying late.

My first question is to try to understand what the difference is in general between Beijing and Hong Kong. What sort of different populations do you serve, other than the southern four provinces, with the Cantonese? You mentioned you were serving other countries as well as temporary foreign workers coming through. I'm just trying to get an idea of the difference between Hong Kong and Beijing in general.

[Jim Versteegh]

The only real difference is that we have defined which provinces are dealt with by Hong Kong and by Beijing in the family class, and only in the family class. In that category we deal with the southern part of China, which is primarily Cantonese-speaking, while Beijing deals with the rest of China.

For all other immigration applications—all categories, including investors, skilled workers, provincial nominees, and Quebec cases—we share responsibility with Beijing, and it is the applicant who decides where to apply.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you. That's helpful, particularly because when we look at family class, we can see that wait times for parents and grandparents from Hong Kong are already, as you mentioned, quite long at 22 months. Furthermore, your office will be getting a cut of 68% in these visas from 2009 numbers, down 450. How much will that aggravate current wait times? Are the wait times for parents and grandparents expected to go up from the 22 months since you're receiving a reduction?

[Jim Versteegh]

It's fair to make that assumption, given that we have more applications in process than we can issue visas for. I understand, however, that the reason for that reduction in Hong Kong was that the inventory of cases in Beijing was older than the inventory of cases here in Hong Kong, so there was an effort to be fair to everyone in China and treat them the same way.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I understand the policy concerns, but I'm interested in the impact on the families for whom wait times on parents and grandparents has been a real issue, as we've seen right around the world. I'm concerned that increasing wait times is not going to be desirable in its impact on Canadian immigration.

The issues surrounding fraud are interesting to me as well. The numbers are high, but pleasingly on the decrease, so it looks as though your impacts have given fruit. Is that going to shorten wait times for spousal applications, the FC1 applications? If someone legitimately does apply, are you expectied to be able to process them more quickly, perhaps because the number of applications is declining?

[Jim Versteegh]

That is the intent and the expectation. Yes, that's what we're aiming for.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

On investor applications, we're talking about doubling the target numbers for both accounts and the investment. What impact are you seeing on the investor class? What response are you getting from the potential investor community on those new numbers?

[Jim Versteegh]

The intake prior to the change was unmanageable. The last month that the old program was in place—that was in June—we received about 1,000 investor applications in one month. In 2010, in the first six months, we received 9,000 new investor applications. It was completely unmanageable. When the program was reopened on December 1, 2010, the initial intake was fairly high because of pent-up demand from July to December of 2010. It is now averaging about 300 new applications per month. There's been a significant reduction—60% to 70%—in the number of applications received, but we are still receiving a significant number of applications in that category.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. St-Cyr is next.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

In our ridings, we see a lot of cases of temporary resident visa applicants from China. Often, these people, who simply wish to visit with their family, see their application rejected. I would underscore the fact that I have no quantitative assessment. However, this has been observed. If often happens that people wish to join with the rest of the family because a parent has died, or one of the children is to be married, etc.

How is it that there are so many cases from China, and what reasons bring an officer to refuse a temporary resident visa to someone who simply wishes to attend the funeral or the wedding of a relative?

[Jim Versteegh]

I should have mentioned in my opening comments that the office here in Hong Kong does not deal with visitor visa applications from China on a regular basis. We opened four visa application centres in China in July 2008 and we have a contract with a private service provider that takes in the applications for persons who want to visit Canada. Those applications all go to our office in Beijing for processing. Persons from Hong Kong do not need visas to visit Canada, so we don't deal with many applications from China for visitor visas.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I understand. You could perhaps relay the message to your colleagues in Beijing when you cross paths with them.

As for the investor immigrant program—that of Quebec, among others—, I have received a lot of comments on the part of people who work with these investor immigrants. Their impression is that there is duplication with regard to the work done to verify the source of their funds. In their view, when a request is made to the Government of Quebec, the provenance of the funds is verified so as to ensure that they are not the product of criminal or fraudulent activity, after which the file is relayed to Ottawa, in this case to your embassy. We have the impression that the work is done a second time, whereas the refusal rates of candidates by Quebec and the provinces are extremely low.

What measures are you taking to ensure that the wait times are as short as possible, given that the verification work as to the origin of the funds has already been done?