Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 30th, 2010

[Heidi Smith]

Yes, it's always a risk. We hear these kinds of complaints often with regard to investors. Obviously, having to wait four or five years is not what anyone wants, but as Ms. Deschênes said, some will—

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

They will come anyway.

[Heidi Smith]

Yes.

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

I would like to ask you a question about the fact that a large part of the process is undertaken abroad, in the embassies. I have already asked this question. Why do we not do more of it in Canada? You told me that there were things that could only be done locally and that it was more efficient to do it locally.

However, it seems that, in this day and age, given the availability of electronic computerized systems, this is becoming less and less true. I recently had the opportunity to meet with the ambassador of Madagascar in Canada. He told me that, frankly, sending a file to Nairobi or Canada made little difference to the people there. I do not know what our Nairobi officers know about the situation in Madagascar or in other countries. Africa is not a single homogeneous entity. There are differences. So, is it a will to locally repatriate—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You're well over time, Monsieur St-Cyr.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Do you want an answer?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Sure.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Yes, that is what we are currently testing with regard to the Skilled Worker Centralized Intake Office in Sydney and north of Port-au-Prince. If someone living in Madagascar has to have an interview, it is less expensive from Nairobi. The individual can go to Nairobi or vice versa. There are indeed many things that we can do in Canada. We talk here about the back office and the front office. That is what we are currently planning with the GCMS framework.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Chow, you have questions, do you not?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Yes. I'll go back to where I left off, which was about learning from the Immigration Appeal Division.

Would you be able to give provide us with an analysis or evaluation of cases that have been overturned, such as refusals in spousal cases, if there were a whole batch of such decisions being overturned, especially in some Asian countries?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Again, that's a bit like comparing apples and oranges, but we've done a bit of a—

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

It's the same family, though.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Yes, but it's a de novo application. If you have 18 months to demonstrate that you've created a relationship, even I could create one. It doesn't mean that the initial decision that it wasn't a bona fide relationship was wrong. It simply means that 18 months after the initial decision, you've been able to create enough of a relationship. Either it's bona fide now, or maybe it wasn't then. However, it doesn't necessarily tie together that because you refused it once, and the IAD overturned it, that it is correct.

We've done a bit of an analysis of that. It didn't give us exactly what we needed, but we certainly could share the analysis with you to show you some of the complexities involved. One of the things we face is that we don't have all the resources we need to do all of the analysis. Of course, it doesn't serve much purpose to us to refuse a case that, in the end, is a bona fide case, because all we would be doing then is processing the case twice—albeit I'm not saying we never make a mistake.

I really want to clarify that an overturned decision at the IAD does not mean that the first decision was wrong.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

On the first decision, you said that the couple was not real. If the couple were not real, why would they stay or live together for two more years, and then maybe by that time had one or two kids, whatever?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Maybe I'll give you the example of a case where—

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Just allow me to finish. Hang on a second.

I've seen cases where there are children involved. The couple has kids and yet is still turned down. Okay, you can say that it must be a marriage of convenience, but here's a kid, a child, who has been born of a marriage. You can say it might be a marriage of convenience and it gets turned down by the CIC, and then the couple appeal. The appeal procedure takes two years also. So they've already waited for a year and a half, they get turned down, and then the appeal takes another two years. Then the whole thing starts again.

Why wouldn't you take the appeal division's decision and say we don't need a second interview—because by that time it would be the third interview—and then just process it? If the appeal division says it's fine, that it's genuine, then you just issue the visa.

Instead, what's happening now is that they wait for a while, they get the appeal, and then wait for another six months or so before they can actually come. I've seen couples that end up being separated for four or five years. Imagine the hardship for that child, who is either staying with the dad or the mom and thus missing a mom or a dad for four or five of his or her formative years. That is absolutely insane, to my mind.

[Claudette Deschênes]

I'll comment that we normally don't re-interview. What they do have to do is security and medical screening.

I'll also refer you to at least two cases before the courts where we actually refused a marriage of convenience, but they won at the IAD. The sponsorship broke down when they arrived in Canada, because it was a marriage of convenience. We're being taken to court because we should have known it was a marriage of convenience. So I think there are many cases in which we can always find an exception—

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Can you provide the number of spousal cases IAD has overturned, and provide it according to visa offices overseas? Can you break that down?

[Claudette Deschênes]

We'll provide you with whatever information is actually available.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

That is undertaking number four.

Dr. Wong and Mr. Young are sharing five minutes.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In your presentation you mentioned organized crime a number of times. You mentioned incidents in certain places where the CIC office has found there's organized crime involving spousal sponsorship. Is it possible to elaborate a little bit on that, or are you unable to list the details for security reasons? I've been to the Hong Kong office and I was told the same thing.

[Claudette Deschênes]

I would just say that when I talk about organized crime, it's an organized network matching Canadian sponsors or people living in Canada as permanent residents with people who want to come to Canada, either just because they want to emigrate to Canada or for other reasons. The network is organizing the relationship.

Rénald, is there anything else?

[Rénald Gilbert]

No, but I can add that it's probably more the exception than the rule. In terms of marriages of convenience, what we see are more one-off. There's an agreement between families or between individuals. Organized crime cases for a spousal sponsorship may not be good business, because of the length of time to a certain extent, but what we found out from our office in Hong Kong is that, especially in the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, there were groups that were organized to do exactly that. I would say it's not the norm with regard to spousal sponsorship, but it's certainly the case there.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

In that case, it would take a longer time to process this to make sure that we won't allow that to happen.

[Rénald Gilbert]

Yes, exactly. Once we found a certain number of cases that had the same pattern, each time we saw another case that fitted exactly the same thing, we were more cautious, of course.