Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 30th, 2010

[Heidi Smith]

I would like to answer in English.

It's in Quebec's best interests to do the best job they can on the source of funds. So, yes, they do a lot of work towards verifying the source of funds.

Refusals down the road at the federal level involve a cost to the Quebec government, so it's obviously within their best interests to ensure that the cases that come to us have as high a chance of success as possible. So they do devote a significant amount of work to looking at the source of funds.

That being said, as Madame Deschênes has said, we still have a responsibility at the federal level. We can't simply get out of that responsibility for source of funds and admissibility, but we are working together to see what checks they're doing up front and how we can work on that process.

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

What percentage of applications from Quebec are refused by the federal government because the source of funds is unacceptable?

[Heidi Smith]

I do not have the exact percentage, but it is very low. I believe it is approximately 2% or 3%.

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

Is the duplication really worth it? Could we not simply ask Quebec to ensure that these 2% do not get through and rely solely on what is being done by Quebec?

[Claudette Deschênes]

If we could make sure that this 2% would not be referred to us, we could do that, but I am not convinced. It is clearly the federal government's responsibility. I think that we should coordinate our forms and processes to try to reduce the time it takes to go from one to the other. This is something we want to do. With regard to timeframes, often a file is waiting on a shelf before it is seen by an officer. Here again, it is because there are too many applications compared to the number of individuals that can be accepted each year. You should not forget that in the vast majority of cases, investors from Quebec will not settle in Quebec.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay. I think we're finished.

Thank you very much, Madame Deschênes and your colleagues, for coming once again. We may need you before the end of the study. If not, we'll probably see you with the bill. We're looking forward to that.

The meeting is adjourned.