Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 10th, 2011

[Rénald Gilbert]

Actually, in both missions there, the processing time with regard to immigrants is lower than what we have in other missions. Certainly if I just look at Kiev, for instance, for spouse cases, it's 11 months, while it's 14 globally. For parents and grandparents, it's 27 months; globally it is at 32. So in those two missions, the processing times are lower than what we have globally.

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

Thank you.

You mentioned this from a Moscow perspective that our numbers are down. Thomas, could you perhaps give us an indication as to why overall the numbers are down, from an economic and family and refugee perspective in Moscow?

[Thomas Richter]

I could give it to you for Kiev. I can't speak for Moscow.

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

Okay. Oh, sorry. Kathleen, could you?

[Kathleen Sigurdson]

Why the numbers are down for economic...or you said—

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

Overall, yes. If you look, economic, family, and even refugee applications are down in 2010 from 2009. I just wanted you to expand on that a little bit.

[Kathleen Sigurdson]

Yes. It's only a guess, of course, but the recession in 2009 did hit Moscow, did hit Russia quite a lot, but if you look at the GDP for last year, it went up 4%. So Russia is doing very well—not all regions of Russia, but a lot of the applications we do get are from the bigger cities, and with the financial situation, people are doing quite well here. So they don't necessarily have as much of a push factor to leave and to immigrate.

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

If you look at it from a trending perspective, how do your annual processing levels in each of the classes you deal with...how would you compare today's numbers to where we were in 2005?

[Kathleen Sigurdson]

The communication between us is very, very good, but sometimes it's a little halting, and I'm sorry, but there was a key word that I missed. Can you please repeat?

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

Sure. No problem.

[Kathleen Sigurdson]

No, it's true.

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

No, no, I believe it. It's just that one of my colleagues across the way indicated that it was my fault and not the feed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Dykstra, there's probably a time break here, so maybe you could repeat the question.

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

Sure. No problem.

Basically, what has been the trend in your annual processing levels in each of the classes you deal with since 2005, and how do the current numbers actually compare with the 2005 numbers?

[Kathleen Sigurdson]

Unfortunately, I don't have even 2006 or 2007 numbers. I have only looked back to about 2009. Personally I've been in Moscow six months, so I've been concentrating on the last couple of years. The numbers are down from 2009, but I don't know what they're like if compared to those for 2005 or 2006. I just don't know.

But they are down since 2009, although visitors are not. Visitors, especially for the first two months of 2011 as compared with the first two months of 2009, are almost identical. We didn't compare with 2010 because there was a lot going on—Olympics and other things. So I'm sorry, I'm at a loss.

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

That's fine. It's a bit of a tough question.

Thomas, do you have a response from a Kiev perspective?

[Thomas Richter]

Kiev has seen a decrease in the number of provincially sponsored immigrants, for the very simple reason that the recruitment in the last couple of years has dried up, given the world economic recession. Now, with the economy picking up, we expect Saskatchewan and Alberta to start larger recruiting, which will bring first temporary workers to Canada, and then subsequent to that we will expect to see the immigration applications from this movement.

In skilled workers, Bill C-50 has resulted in a very low intake of applications that are successful, primarily for reasons of English and transferability of skills.

We've seen an 86% refusal rate for cases under ministerial instructions. Previously, any occupation was acceptable; now we have a limited number, which narrows the focus. Then within that field, if you don't have a very good degree of English, you're simply not going to make it on points.

At the same time, Quebec Immigration has done fairly strong recruitment, and the target for Quebec Immigration is a fairly high component of our economic target.

So the numbers are shifting within the economic field.

In family class, we are processing all parental cases that come in. There are no cases backlogged. In fact, last year I ensured that all family class cases were put into process, which is why our inventory of cases is actually decreasing. The number of active cases, as mentioned before, is only 776, and this is decreasing by the day as visas are being issued. The primary reasons for that are economic.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry, Mr. Dykstra. We'll have to wait for another time.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Oliphant, you have up to five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here. And thank you for the work you do on our behalf around the world.

I particularly want to focus on the Moscow office for a moment, on a couple of issues.

I was in Yerevan, Armenia, in the fall and encountered a number of people there who are working with your office, even though it's a very long distance and it's very costly for them to get to, which is another problem I would like the government to deal with.

A letter I've received since then from one of the people I met indicates that they are attempting to apply under the skilled worker category from the Moscow visa office. On the website it says that in 2009, processing times for 80% of applications made after November 28, 2008, were nine months. In 2010, this number is 14 months.

However, my friend has been working with more than 20 families who are now waiting more than 18 months, and only two or three that he knows fit into the timeline that is given in the statistics. He himself has been waiting 23 months—a skilled worker, a professional artist, a very interesting person. He says that in all major Russian immigration forums, there are lots of complaints about the huge slowing down in the last four to five months, and they don't know why.

I'm wondering whether you can explain what's happening, because the reality is that medical examinations are expiring, this is costing a lot of money, their security checks are only lasting six months, and they're worrying about whether or not we really are helping Armenians who are qualified and skilled get to Canada in a reasonable amount of time.

[Kathleen Sigurdson]

Whether they're in Armenia or Uzbekistan or any other country, we don't treat them any differently. There is a distance, there's no doubt about it, but with e-mail it really isn't much of a factor, although when we do need a document, it may take a little longer to get the document.

I can't explain in this particular case why there are delays, and I am sorry to hear that. Some of them are security concerns. For some of them, it just takes more time to do background checks. So it's very difficult to talk about particular cases. I can only go by statistics when I do the runs and I look at the statistics. I don't do statistics on Armenians versus Russians versus Uzbeks, because for me they're all part of my network and my clientele. So I don't segregate them that way.

As I said, 2010—I'm sorry, go ahead.

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

I guess my concern is that maybe we should be segregating those, because the connections between Armenia and Canada are extremely important. The economy in Armenia is extremely difficult, yet the level of skilled workers, the level of literacy, the level of post-secondary education is one of the highest in that part of eastern Europe or that part of the world. I have a strong concern that we should be keeping those statistics, because there may be a pattern there that in the statistical body you have, 80% are being satisfied within 14 months, yet 20 families are now waiting more than 18 months, and he's waiting 23 months. I can't believe there's any security issue with a composer. I don't know. It seems to me that there's something problematic in the way we are helping Armenians who wish to come under that category to Canada.

[Kathleen Sigurdson]

We do expedited processing, of course, with certain cases—for instance, family reunification. That's one way we do triaging. But when it comes to processing skilled workers, it's based on first come, first served, and then as fast as we can get the documents that we need and make the decision. So we're more than happy to finalize cases as soon as we can.

We certainly don't segregate Armenians from any other clientele and make them wait longer for any reason. We just don't. They're organized in such a way that...when did they come in, when did we ask for documents, what's missing, what are we waiting for.

So again, I can't tell you why those particular cases seem to be taking longer. I would be more than happy to look into it. I'm always willing to look into it because I can never say that the system is flawless. But I can say with absolute certitude that we do not segregate and penalize or procrastinate with Armenians. It's just not true. There's no way.

You know, taking positive decisions is always a pleasure for any visa officer.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.