Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 8th, 2011

[Fan Gu]

Also, I would like the government to enlarge the numbers, or reduce the numbers so they treat all the parents the same no matter which country or province they are from.

[Qun Li]

In terms of fairness, I don't know if it's possible to put all applicants in a line instead of giving different quotas to different offices, which always causes an imbalance worldwide.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

You have another minute, but we have Mr. Kurland on the line.

Mr. Kurland, good morning to you. Can you hear me?

[Richard Kurland, Lawyer, Policy Analyst and Editor-in-Chief, Lexbase]

Oh, thank goodness, yes, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

So it's 6:30 in the morning, and it looks as though you're in a storage room out there.

[Richard Kurland]

That's just about it, but that's a Pacific morning for you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry we had some technical difficulties, and we're glad you're on the air. You appeared before us before, I think, for Bill C-11. We thank you again for taking the time to speak to us on this subject.

You have up to five minutes, sir, to make a presentation to us.

[Richard Kurland]

I'll cut to the chase.

Merci, Monsieur St-Cyr.

I think the best way of handling this, practically speaking, is to have two forms of information flowing from Immigration Canada. Presently, there is historic information. How long will my visa take if I applied a year, two years, five years ago? That's one category. The missing category, the most important category in terms of consumer protection and consumer information, is if I apply today, how long will it take before I get my visa? If this committee....

Mr. Chairman, I see you gesturing. Am I coming through?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You are, sir. You'll have to ignore me, I ramble up here sometimes. You just go right ahead, sir.

[Richard Kurland]

No one can ignore you, sir, but I'll continue.

The creation of a brand-new stream of information answering the simple question, “If I apply today, how long before I get my visa?”—a prospective processing time—would eliminate a lot of the fuss by members of the public regarding processing times. They would know at the outset, for example, that it will take ten years before a parent or grandparent will see a visa, minimum. The investors will know, as a business decision, how long it may take before they see a visa in hand.

Gone would be the hocus-pocus of statistics explaining the levels—for example, parents are not 12,000 but really 18,000. The key measurements are these. What is your inventory? In the case of parents, 150,000 parents were in queue on or about October 21, 2010. And how many do you attempt to admit in a year? In 2011, it is apparently as high as 18,000. So when you look at the 18,000 to be admitted and the inventory of 150,000—that's in October, not January 2011—you can guesstimate that you're going to have a ten-year delay.

My first point is give the consumers basic information before they pay the visa fees. They're entitled to know how long it will take if they apply today. And treat the replies to this question by the officials of Immigration Canada as you would those of elementary school students who don't want to do their homework. They'll give you 10,000 reasons why it can't be done or shouldn't be done, to wiggle out of delivering a commitment date. But if you can get a commitment date out of Immigration Canada, the lives of members of Parliament will be made easier, because you can refer to the commitment of Immigration Canada when they applied for their visa. That should improve the world for everyone.

The last point is in relation to parents' and grandparents' money and investor file processing. For the parents' money, how is it that Immigration Canada can take $50 million up front, in permanent resident processing fees, when it knows full well that the condition precedent to that permanent resident application, legally existing--the acceptance of a sponsorship--can't happen for about a decade if you apply today?

A couple that's paying $1,040 for permanent resident fees and has to wait for a sponsorship decision for a decade is giving, in effect, an interest-free loan for an application that cannot legally exist for ten years—$50 million. When Immigration Canada is ready to process that permanent resident file, it should ask for the money. It is returning documents anyway in support of that permanent residence file in this year—whatever it is—plus ten years. Why can't it collect the money then?

The reason is that Immigration Canada does not want to change the immigration fee regulation to decouple the sponsorship payment from the permanent resident fee payment. That's the main point.

The second one relates to investors—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Perhaps you can wind up, sir.

[Richard Kurland]

I'm winding up right now.

If you want to reduce processing times on immigrant investor files, raise the price. It's too cheap. And I'll get to that next.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, sir.

Monsieur St-Cyr, you have up to two minutes.

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

You suggest that wait times be determined in advance; that is to say that, once an application has been filed, we be able to tell the person how long it will take for him or her to receive an answer. In that way, at least they will know what to expect.

If I understand correctly, when the applications are received, they aren't immediately reviewed and processed. Instead they are set aside, and in some instances it is only a few years later that the enveloped is opened, that an acknowledgement of receipt is sent and that it is realized that such and such a document or item of information is missing.

How is it, technically, that a date could be brought forward, whereas Citizenship and Immigration Canada do not even conduct an initial processing of the applications received?

[Richard Kurland]

That's very feasible because people pay the fees in advance directly to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. So it's a simple accounting matter. The department knows very well that it's in possession of $50 million.

They can also trace each payment to each credit card. In the same way that if you cancel a sponsorship package, you would get a refund, they know where the money is.

They know how many files come into the system. They know which files are processed as sponsors of parents and grandparents, the category FC4. They report it in the quarterly data and information that they send to members of Parliament and the public.

If they don't know that they have 150,000 payments, the Auditor General should have been brought in yesterday.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Trudeau, you have up to two minutes with this witness.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'd like to go back. Along with all members of the committee, I think we're fairly surprised at the clarity of your math. There are 150,000 people on the wait list, and they've all paid $1,400 or so. It's an awful lot of money.

In your assessment, is this a question of the government making money off people's wait times? Is that what you mean when you talk about interest-free loans?

[Richard Kurland]

What cannot be denied is the existence of a financial incentive to prolong processing times. There's no doubt about it. The longer you do not process the file, the longer you retain the money for services not yet rendered.

If you did that for a car, where you paid in advance and took delivery ten years later, you'd be out of business or in court.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Okay. You also had a question about investor wait times. The government recently doubled investor class targets for the amount of money to come in. Do you think that's sufficient, or does it need to be further raised?

[Richard Kurland]

It's an excellent first step. If there were ever a category of immigrants who fully play out the rules of laissez-faire economics, it's the business immigrant category. By increasing the amounts, the suspicion was that we would reduce the intake so that we could quickly deliver visas. Well, guess what? The pipes are clogged again.

On a regular basis, we should feel no ill will on continuing to increase the investment amount until such time as the intake on the Canadian immigrant pipeline for business investors grows to a deliverable stage. All this means is that the demand is outstripping supply, and we have to increase the price to reduce the supply.

There's a reason we're the number-one country and so popular among the millionaire-plus category. It's safe, secure, and an excellent vehicle in which to deposit foreign currency.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

[Richard Kurland]

We have to regularly review it and increase the amount to be invested.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Allen, it's your turn. You have up to six minutes for either witness, either Mr. Kurland or Sponsor our Parents.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If I can go back to Mr. Zhang, it was interesting to hear what Mr. Kurland said about sponsoring parents, the length of time, and the numbers in the queue. But let me ask you a question concerning choice in the sense of looking at when you decide to immigrate somewhere.

I know my father was faced with this when he made the decision to come here. He had three places where he could choose to go. Because of the skills that he had at the time, all three countries were willing to allow him to bring his family. I had the reverse situation. I actually came with my parents. I didn't come as a worker per se.

When you have those choices, if you have a statistic in front of you, as Mr. Kurland suggests, whereby if you want to bring your parents, you know it's going to take you x number of years. Whether Mr. Kurland is accurate or not, and I'll take his word for it, it's about ten years. Option two is that another country said you could bring your parents in five years. Option three is that you could bring your parents in 18 months. Would that affect the decision you make as to which country you would actually go to as a new immigrant?

[Felix Zhang]

Yes, definitely. Once we applied to immigrate to Canada, we knew of the program for us to bring our parents here. At that time the wait time was about two or three years, and we made the choice. We immigrated to Canada, we found a job, we are paying taxes.

Now for our parents to immigrate to Canada, the wait time is five, ten, fifteen years. If we knew it would take ten or fifteen years, we would have chosen other countries. So our point is that immigration policy has to be consistent and attractive to recruit the best intelligence in the world.