Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 8th, 2011

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Committee members, it's now a few minutes after nine. I just wanted to remind you all that the meeting starts at a quarter to nine.

Monsieur St-Cyr.

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

Thank you for that timely reminder, Mr. Chairman.

I find Mr. Wrzesnewskyj's questions interesting. We're all facing this problem in our constituencies. We have to process the files of people who are already in Canada, but who have to leave the country as a result of some immigration procedure. In my constituency, there have been some quite famous cases, in particular of people who have had to go as far as Algeria or France in order then to return to Canada. My question is for Mr. Gilbert. It's not necessarily about the case of Buffalo specifically, but rather about the program as a whole.

I understood the answer we were given about Buffalo. In the present conditions, things are done more quickly when the procedure is done outside Canada, among other things because people are sent there to do that. It was said that that was provided for in the act and that the act had to be complied with.

Do you know the basis on which Parliament included these restrictions in the act? Ultimately, these are highly theoretical restrictions. People go to the United States and they come back. Is this obligation under the act still relevant?

[Rénald Gilbert]

I must admit that's more a political than an operational question. When the act was amended in 2001, we essentially followed what had been done under the previous act. At that time, all the applications had to be filed outside Canada, except those from refugees. The exceptions Mr. Thornton referred to were created over the years. In the spousal cases Mr. Thornton referred to, people have a choice, but they very often prefer to file their applications in Buffalo. That's a change that was made after the fact. As for the reason for this state of affairs, I'm not necessarily the person who can answer that question.

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

Often when bills are introduced, we're given technical immigration briefings. The reasons for the bill are explained to us. I know that it's the minister and Parliament that ultimately decide, but you have recommendations. Don't you remember the reason behind all that and the benefit this represents for Canada?

[Rénald Gilbert]

I couldn't tell you. The original act, which changed that, dates back to 1976. But I wasn't here at that time.

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

I understand.

If I understand correctly, as a person taking part in the implementation of this system, you believe that the benefit of this system, apart from the fact that you're complying with the act, is what was explained by your colleague from Buffalo, that is to say that it's more efficient because the people there are used to processing these applications. Is that correct?

[Rénald Gilbert]

I couldn't really give you any other logical reasons. There are permanent residents and temporary residents. With regard to temporary residents, all applications from people who hadn't filed an application at that time must normally be filed outside Canada. That provision is still in the act. However, status can be renewed in Canada. That's what our Vegreville office does. It processes nearly 300,000 applications a year. However, the people who come here as visitors but change their minds along the way, to study, for example, must file their applications outside Canada. Once again, that's in the act. We essentially operate in accordance with the provisions of the current act.

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

I ask the question because I often face these situations in the context of my duties as a member, and it seriously irritates me. This is a stumbling block that seems to me uniquely bureaucratic. Before automatically denouncing it. I would have liked to know whether, for some reason that escapes me, this policy is included in the act.

I'm going to address the Buffalo question once again. In your presentation, you talk about applications from the provinces and about the fact that they have exceeded the number of visa applications issued for skilled workers. How is Quebec positioned in that regard? What percentage of these applications comes from Quebec?

[Burke Thornton]

We'll issue about 3,000 visas to skilled workers from Quebec in 2011, and we will issue another 7,500 to federal applicants in 2011, so that makes it approximately 30%.

Our Quebec movement is as large as it is because Quebec, like other provinces, has increasingly adopted a system through which they're bringing people in on temporary status and seeing how they work out, whether or not they are employable, whether or not they're going to.... Hopefully, they'll put down some roots in the province during the one, two, three years they're on temporary status, and they can then meet the Quebec selection criteria and submit an application through our Buffalo office.

Again, they have the option of submitting the application in their country of nationality, but most choose to submit to Buffalo because we'll process them very quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Allen, welcome to the immigration committee. You have up to six minutes to ask questions or make statements.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank you for being here. Olivia Chow sends her regrets that she can't be with us this morning. I thank you for the opportunity.

I appreciate my friends in Buffalo. I actually live in Welland, so we live less than a stone's throw away from one another. I think those of us who live in the Niagara region understand the difficulties and the numbers. I recognize you're here today to tell us that, but I think those of us who live in Niagara already know it, especially if you happen to be on the Fort Erie side of the border.

You outlined the different classes in your presentation--I'm sorry I was a little late and missed you actually saying it, but I've read through it. You talked about a great number of folks who actually reside in this country regardless of what class they happen to come in as.

I look at, for instance, the temporary residence class. You say that 75% of temporary residence applications are from foreign nationals residing in this country who actually come back to Buffalo to apply to come back. Is it your sense that is an efficient way to do an application process for some? I'm assuming that the vast majority or a good number of those 75% don't live in Niagara and certainly don't live in Fort Erie and are travelling all the way to Buffalo from, I would imagine for the majority, somewhere in Ontario but maybe from beyond that, to actually be processed. Does that make sense and is that an efficient use of our ability, or is there another way to do that?

[Burke Thornton]

I certainly don't want to disparage my inland colleagues, but we are in competition with them in a sense because, as members of the standing committee have pointed out, there is no necessity, except for the legislative provisions that Rénald has described, that there be an office in Buffalo. However, since there is, we want to make sure we can do the best work possible.

What clients are concerned about, in our humble opinion, is efficiency. I don't think there is an inland office that I know of where you can get same-day service: you can come down at eight o'clock in the morning and walk out with a temporary resident visa by 10 o'clock. I think clients are willing to trade off, if you like, the rationale of why they're applying in Buffalo for the efficiency they receive.

We know we're on the border and we've made every effort to try to make it more efficient for our in-Canada clientele to apply through our office, such as by establishing this post office box in Fort Erie where we will drop off and pick up their applications. Even if they mail in an application on the non-immigrant side, they're going to get an answer within two weeks for routine cases. I think it takes approximately four to five times that long to get an extension to your status if you mail an application to Vegreville.

So we're all about efficiency.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I can appreciate the fact that your office wants to be efficient. My sense is that we're asking folks to.... And you know as well as I that the community that talks to one another, in the sense of folks who need these services communicate quite well across the country, across the province, to find out where they can get things done quite quickly, which ultimately means at some point when folks recognize you're really good at what you do and your turnaround time is exceedingly quick.... We've known that in Niagara for a while. I'm not saying we kept it a secret, but nonetheless it won't take long before folks realize that. Because just looking at your own deposition here, your numbers are heading in an upward trend in not any normal fashion. They're on a graph in a sense of straight up. There comes a point where you get inundated as other offices do as well. And then we have the prospect of folks travelling, in a lot of cases believing it's best to come and see you because it's quicker, faced with the border back and forth, and finding out that perhaps you're no longer as efficient as you were.

My sense is that we need to look at what you do and perhaps do it in-country as well, as we're doing it in Buffalo. If we can do it in Buffalo, I'd be happy to see you in Niagara or elsewhere across this country, it seems to me.

Some of the challenges you're facing from folks in the different classes.... Because I noticed in your deposition you are looking at almost the whole gamut. Is there any one class, in your estimation, that is a little more challenging than others? At least anecdotally in Niagara, from my sense we have some difficulties with what happens with students, specifically because of the preponderance of colleges and universities in southern Ontario.

Do you see any one class that has more difficulty than the other, perhaps in a timely way, making sure they keep their status in a regular sense?

[Burke Thornton]

Our student movement and our movement generally are relatively clean in the sense that while fraud runs through all programs all around the world, it's not as high among our clientele as it is in some of the countries where we have large offices.

I don't think there's a particular.... As I say, in every movement there are grey areas and very marginal applicants. We have people who've dealt with immigration matters before; that's how they got to Canada or the United States. So relatively speaking, I think it's a fairly knowledgeable and sophisticated crowd. Having said that, of course, yes, you do get the student who didn't realize she should have renewed her visa two years ago, and you have to help out a little bit with that. But percentage-wise, we feel we've got a good movement.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

Mr. Dykstra.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair

Thank you very much for attending our meeting this morning.

As a fellow Niagaran, I certainly want to express to you my appreciation for all the work you do. It's not often that an MP has the opportunity to work with a consulate on such a regular basis, and I certainly appreciate all the efforts you put forward.

I know that between my office and yours we have a great and strong working relationship, including our recent trip to Albany, New York, to meet with legislators down there. I certainly want to thank you for the work you do. Please pass on my regards to the consul general. It would be much appreciated.

I have a couple of questions in regard to the fact that you are in close proximity to Canada. One thing is that if we're actually at your facility and we witness the processing of the work you do, I was surprised, certainly, at the amount of files that are actually so easily transferable between processing centres and consulates.

I wonder you could speak to that from a global perspective. In terms of our work with understanding these wait times better from region to region and country to country, a lot of us aren't aware of the amount of the transfer of files that takes place and the work that's done not just at your facility, obviously, but across North America.

I wonder if you could describe how that process works and perhaps the number of transfers that are made between your centre and those across North America.

[Burke Thornton]

Yes. Approximately 50% of our immigrant applications are distributed to our four partner offices in New York, Detroit, Seattle, and Los Angeles. They are smaller offices than Buffalo's, but they're full-service offices. It's a just-in-time process, so we want to ensure that a person's application is processed by the partner offices at the same time, if you like, as those of other people who applied around the same time. In other words, we don't want someone's application to be sitting on a shelf in New York City for four months because they can't get to it.

We're using those resources of these smaller offices. We're giving the visa officers in those offices the opportunity to process all kinds of cases. We feel we're being more service-friendly for clients as well, because if you're living in Vancouver or San Francisco, your application will be processed in Seattle rather than through Buffalo, so communication is that much easier.

So this network, again, helps us to be more flexible in the way we treat our cases. We're in constant contact with the program managers in those offices. Sometimes they're saying to give them more because they can do it right away, and we will be able to feed more files to them, while sometimes they say hold it. Then we can distribute those files elsewhere.

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

Excellent. Thank you.

President Obama and Prime Minister Harper met recently to engage in a more serious way regarding the security perimeter. One of the concerns brought forward by the opposition is certainly a concern that I think all of us have in terms of privacy and ensuring that an individual's record stays private. But in fact, the whole aspect of a security perimeter would allow both the United States and Canada to have a closer relationship with respect to our border security. I wondered if you could describe the process of how you believe that is actually going to work from a privacy perspective.

But probably more practically speaking, could you describe the process in which you deliver the services that you do, but maintain the privacy of the individual's records and ensure that in fact they are secure with respect to their own personal history, and certainly with respect to the current work they wish to do or the school they wish to attend?

[Burke Thornton]

On the security side, our proximity to Canada enables us to have a very close relationship with those we call the partner agencies. It's not uncommon for them to travel to Buffalo to review files, and sometimes to conduct interviews, which helps them fulfill their mandates.

As far as privacy is concerned, it's a very important aspect of our work obviously. We have good relations with our American colleagues in terms of enforcement issues and so on. All exchanges of information have to be done pursuant to a memorandum of understanding with the Americans, which was signed several years ago.

Again, each of these offices, as you probably have experienced, adapt to the practices and norms of where it is. Quite frankly, our office is not all that much involved in border security issues because that's the mandate of the Canada Border Services Agency.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Thornton, that concludes our time with you and Ms. Bailey this morning. On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank you for your presentation and answering the questions from the different caucuses. Thank you very much, to both of you.

The committee will now suspend for a few moments.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay, we'll reconvene.

We're having some technical problems with the British Columbia representative, but we can hear the video conference from Toronto, which is Sponsor our Parents. We'll hope that by the time they finish we will hear Mr. Kurland from British Columbia.

There are three of you representing Sponsor our Parents. Can you hear us?

[A voice]

Yes, we can hear.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I have three names: Felix Zhang, who is the coordinator; Fan Gu, who is the coordinator; Qun Li, who is the coordinator.

Just so the record will show, could each of you identify yourselves and raise your hand as to who you are?

[Felix Zhang, Coordinator, Sponsor our Parents]

Mr. Chair, I'm Felix Zhang.