Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 13th, 2010

[Wilfrid MacKinnon]

If the application isn't complete, we have to send it back to the applicant to include what is needed. Then it comes back into the mail system again. Now, not only has the application been delayed, but the extra information we needed on the applicant has also been delayed. So we're then adding more months to the processing of that application. Sometimes it takes up to two years on what we call our BF shelf, for whatever reason, before we can produce the citizenship card and send it to the local office.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Okay. Thank you.

You brought up the issue of the young athlete. I can tell you that in my office there are a lot of people who say, “Look, my job offer is going to be rescinded if I don't get this in time.”

So I have a question either for Ms. Go or Ms. Casipullai. Could you describe to us some of the hardship that you see because of the delays? What actually comes through your office door?

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go]

In terms of family class sponsorship or citizenship--

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

What about delays with the PR card?

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go]

I guess the PR card is not as big an issue for us, because the person is still a permanent resident whether or not he has that card in his hand. But citizenship can be quite a big challenge, because, as was mentioned, it's 18 to 24 months; that's two years. That means someone has to wait an extra two years before he would be eligible for certain positions, before he would be eligible to vote.

Although it may or may not impact on the sponsorship issue, because you can still sponsor families from overseas, some people don't want to leave Canada until they become a citizen, because it's better that they go back as a Canadian citizen to the country they're returning to. So those kinds of issues can be a problem.

For us, the delay usually happens with the other things I talked about--sponsorship, H and C--and those are horrendous, because a lot of times, while you're in the process, if you're inland...the person waiting for the status may not be eligible to work. He or she is not eligible for health benefits, so it's a huge burden for the entire family just to wait around doing nothing, basically.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

If I have a bit of time left, Ms. Meunier-McKay, can you describe, across Canada, the staffing levels in the last five or six years? Have they gone up, down, or is it just this shell game that you were describing?

[Jeannette Meunier-McKay]

I think in the last five or six years it has spiralled up and down. There's a lot of use of terms and maybe casuals, so that does create a problem, because it's not just the issue of being understaffed. The workload continues to come in. The workload doesn't stop, so there's always an increase in the workload, and with all the changes in immigration, where they're allowing more immigrants to come in, it's not going to get any better.

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

Can I just jump in on that one? No? I thought you could split the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

She has a minute, Ms. Chow, but that's about it.

A point of order, Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I understand this committee has been reconstituted, or--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We can have guests come here, and Ms. Leslie has signed in for Ms. Chow, so technically Ms. Chow is a guest. And you may speak for....

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

One minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Maybe not quite that, but talk fast.

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

I just want to follow up and see whether there is a 10-year trend, because I know that in the mid-nineties there was a dramatic cutback on all the resources. As a result, there was a lot of backlog. There were fairly dramatic cutbacks. Is the staffing level that dipped during the late nineties now levelling up? In terms of the last 15 or 20 years overall, what has it looked like?

[Jeannette Meunier-McKay]

If you look at the last 10 years, the staffing overall in the immigration department has gone down quite a lot. Even in the early nineties, when there were some cuts--federal departments all had to face cuts and there was a cut in the overall public service--Immigration was one of the departments that lost staff, and we're still losing staff. Now we have a budget freeze and we're losing staff again.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dykstra has up to seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to pound through these rather quickly. I've got seven minutes and I've got a lot of questions.

Jeannette, I'm having a bit of a hard time following all of what you said, so I want to get some clarification on a couple of things.

You said that the ministry has cut staff over the last 10 years. Could you specifically say in which years those were cut?

[Jeannette Meunier-McKay]

It's not in front of me, but I can certainly tell you that we know, just within our membership lists--it's been around since 1996--that staffing levels have gone down. If we have to go back and get it for every year, we can go back to our membership lists and do that.

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

Are you speaking specifically about full-time or are you including temporary in what you're commenting on?

[Jeannette Meunier-McKay]

There's full-time involved, where they're not replaced when they retire.

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

Is it just full-time, or is it temporary and full-time?

[Jeannette Meunier-McKay]

There are both.

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

Okay, so we need to separate this. Even though individuals are notified when they come on board that they are going to be working on a temporary basis, you're now saying that you're including those in the massive reductions the ministry has made over the last 10 years.

[Jeannette Meunier-McKay]

Correct. How can you not?

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

Okay.