Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 30th, 2010

[Claudette Deschênes]

It would depend on the complexity of the movement. I would say it would also depend on the category, because you probably do want to have spouses and children come first.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Bevilacqua made it sound as though you're not doing a very good job at all in this big, urgent situation.

[Claudette Deschênes]

I missed that.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I think you do a pretty good job.

[Claudette Deschênes]

I didn't read it that way.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Yes, I think you're doing a terrific job. There are 252,000--

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

Point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We have a point of order. We haven't had one of those for a while.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

I never said that, and I think you probably never took it at that--

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

That's not a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Young, you have about ten seconds to finish up.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I think you do a terrific job.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dryden, welcome to the committee. You have five minutes.

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

I'd basically like to ask pretty much the same questions, although maybe in a different way, to try to understand better. Maybe I'll use one country as an example and one person as an example.

Let's imagine it's Russia. Somebody comes to your door. Can you help me understand the different processes that person has to go through and how long it takes for each of those steps to be taken, assuming they are just steps to be taken and that no waiting here or there for them will be required? If you could take me through that, it would help me to understand a lot better than I understand at this moment.

So it's Russia and it's one person knocking on your door. Tell me what the next step is and how long that step, the actual step, takes. Then take me through the process until the application's approved.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Okay. Can I ask you one more question? What kind of person is this, in terms of the category?

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Let's say it's family class.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Okay. Let's say it's a husband of a Canadian citizen. Is that okay? It's a goaltender, yes.

To start with, the person doesn't show up in Moscow. The sponsor in Canada submits the application for that person, the application for her spouse, along with the medicals, to Mississauga. Mississauga opens the application and then sends it to Moscow, at which point Moscow looks at it. I'm going to have to reconfirm the numbers, but I will say that within four weeks Mississauga opens the file and sends it to Moscow. The paper file is sent by courier, while a certain part of it is downloaded electronically.

At that point, depending on how many applications are in Moscow, within ten days the application is supposed to be starting to be looked at in Moscow. At that point, an officer will look at the documents.... Do you want to stop me?

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

The only thing that's really a problem is that it's at the end of ten days, depending, you say, on the numbers.

I'm not talking about the numbers at the moment. I'm talking about how long each step really takes, to get an idea of how long a wait is the optimal wait. I understand you're not going to reach optimal waiting times; I just want to know how long each step takes in order to get through.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Okay.

Part of our problem in my answering the question is that right now CAIPS is a system that exists in each mission. It's difficult for me to tell you, “In this mission...”, although you're asking me for Moscow, and we could run numbers.

So it's ten days, open the case, look at the documents, make a decision: does it move on or does it need an interview? If it doesn't need an interview, very quickly after—we're talking about days—medical examination issued. The person, if he really wants to come to Canada, will go to get his medical. Let's assume he has given us all the documentation. Also, the other aspect is that we're checking with our partners. I'm not surprising you if I say that organized crime and where money is coming from and all of those issues constitute a concern.

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

How long does that take?

[Claudette Deschênes]

That can take a fairly short period of time or a very long period of time.

Again, I know you're telling me to forget the wait load, but if I have a lot of visitors coming from Moscow that the security service has to clear for the Olympics, the processing time is short.

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

We're not talking about exceptions like that, about the Olympics and the rest of it. We're talking about the day-to-day; don't worry about the exceptions. I just want to get an idea of really how long it takes. It's only if we understand this that we can understand the whole question of resources.

[Claudette Deschênes]

For family class priority, right now 80% of the cases in Moscow are done from beginning to end in nine months.

At the point.... I'm going to say it takes a month or two for the medical to come in, although I don't think it takes that long, assuming he has gone to his medical quickly. There's the background check. Then we are ready to finalize the documentation. We need to write to the applicant to say please send us your passport so that we can put your visa in your passport. Let's say that takes a week or two, or three or four, depending where he lives in Russia. That arrives, and within days—I was going to say instantaneoulsy—the visa is issued and sent back to him.

Then that person makes a decision as to when he travels to Canada. At that point he can travel within the validity of his visa.

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

That's out of your hands. I'm just talking about things that are in your hands. You're saying nine months in the non-special cases is what it takes now. What I'm asking you is, if we weren't talking about backlogs, how long would each step take short of nine months?

[Claudette Deschênes]

I'm not sure I can answer that. I can submit a written answer by looking at an average to give you that information.