Evidence of meeting #5 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was resources.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Permanent Resident Policy and Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, we can look at that.
Conservative
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond, BC
I'm also interested in the flexibility that CIC has adopted. Page 2 of your presentation says:
CIC has adopted greater flexibility so that parents and grandparents who wish to visit family in Canada while waiting for their immigration application to be finalized may apply for a multiple-entry visa. This flexibility allows them to enter Canada several times during the period their visa is valid.
Can you comment a little more on this and say what benefits it's going to bring about.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
At the moment, there's a major backlog in the number of cases of parents and grandparents that we can deal with every year. But we also recognize that parents and grandparents might want to visit and so on. If there's a sponsorship and they make an application for a visitor visa, we examine it in terms of issuing a multiple visa, valid for the time their passport is valid, which would permit them to come and go as they want while the case is still waiting in Mississauga to be sent to the mission for active processing.
One of the things we are finding in the parents and grandparents line of business is that it is sometimes very difficult to get the applicant to submit the medical and other forms they need, because they have less interest in coming to live permanently in Canada; they want to come when the weather is warm and go home when it's not. This permits them to come and go as they want in the period of the validity of the visa.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you, Chair.
With respect to family class, you comment in your submission that the spouses and partners make up roughly 90% of the family class applications. Home is where the heart is, and those are the cases we get in our Oakville office. A lot of them are spousal, and they're heart-wrenching, some of them. We do our best to try to reunite married couples.
Can you please describe briefly how they are handled in active processing? You say that you put them at the top of the pile, is that right?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's right. As soon as they come in they are put into active processing; then they would be processed to finalization. Many of them don't need an interview. Those who need an interview are asked to come for an interview, and sometimes there's a queue, so there would be a period during which they might have to wait. As soon as their interview is done, if they're considered to be bona fide, we will finalize the security and criminality checks.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
They are first priority—first priority of any priority.
Conservative
Director, Permanent Resident Policy and Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It was just over 252,000, I think.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
I don't want to ask an unfair question. I guess what I'm asking is, if you had double the resources, what would be the ideal wait time, for example?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I guess I would simply say, although it is a resource issue in part, that this is not the entire story. The story is about the levels plan we put in front of Parliament every year.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
You commented with regard to a high degree of fraud in some corners of the world. How much does fraud affect wait times? How much of your wait time issue is caused by fraud?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We often talk about 80% of cases. That's a global number that says 20% of cases are complex. They're complex either because the relationship may be of convenience or because there's a medical issue, a security issue, or a fraud issue, and that depends on the movement.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Okay.
How much is caused by political instability and civil unrest? Can you estimate how much of the problem with wait times is related to that?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's the case in some places more than others. I remember, for example, when I used to serve in Sri Lanka, people who lived in Jaffna had to get a pass to get down to Colombo to do an interview. Sometimes they were able to get a pass very quickly; other times we had to reschedule them two to three times before they did that.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
I'm just trying to get a handle on it. If you had double the resources and you had your global processing system, what, realistically, would we expect for processing times?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
If I didn't have to put cases in a waiting queue, I think we could--I'm going to get shot here--process cases within 12 months. Many of the cases are held in queue either at the beginning or at different times, because that's the nature of the exercise.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
If you had an average of 12 months across the board, would you say we're where we want to be?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'll turn that around and say that even if I said that, somebody would tell me it's not good enough.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Well, exactly. What I'm trying to relate is that with surgeries, for example, some people say waiting a month for knee surgery is too long, while other people think it's quite reasonable. For heart surgery, they say waiting a week is too long, but others think it's quite reasonable. I'm just trying to get a realistic handle on it. With the proper resources and a really well-run system, what would be reasonable? I assume it would vary from country to country, because there are 60 different offices. Is that fair to say?
