Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 13th, 2010

[Jeannette Meunier-McKay]

It's a cut. It appears in the federal budget that has just been presented. We can't get away from it. Additional funding was granted so we could try to eliminate the backlog. As a result of this cut, here's where we stand.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Merci.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Monsieur St-Cyr.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here today.

Ms. Casipullai, in your presentation, you asked that the sufficient financial resources requirement be removed in the case of sponsorship applications. You're asking that welfare recipients be able to file a sponsorship application. Is that correct?

[Amy Casipullai]

Yes.

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

Don't you think that goes somewhat against the spirit of sponsorship? A sponsor supports an applicant while he or she is in the country. In this case, we're talking about people whose incomes are very low. In extreme cases, they are welfare recipients, who are unable to support themselves?

Don't you think they would be even less in a position to support the individuals they intend to sponsor?

[Amy Casipullai]

I thank you for the question. It gives me a chance to explain--I had run out of time earlier--that there are actually two areas there.

One is the ban in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act on sponsorship by anyone who has ever been on social assistance, even if that person is not currently on welfare. If the person had been on welfare ten years ago but they are now working and are able to sponsor, they are still not allowed to sponsor.

That concerns us--for obvious reasons--and I hope you will agree that it really doesn't make sense.

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

I understand that, currently, under the act, if someone has previously been on welfare, there's no chance. That person may not file a sponsorship application. That is the provision you want to get to.

[Amy Casipullai]

That's right.

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

However, you agree that, at the time the individual files the sponsorship application, that person must be able to show that he or she can support the person sponsored. On the other hand, I understand why you do not agree on the levels currently set.

[Amy Casipullai]

Yes, I completely agree. The guidelines that are followed are the Statistics Canada guidelines on what constitutes low-income, and yes, it is incredibly difficult to be low-income and to be able to support another family member.

The thing is that families are very complex. The arrangements that we see are very different, very unique in each circumstance. When we have a regulation like this, one that applies to all cases no matter what, it's really difficult to understand what the impact will be for families.

The example I use is that of one spouse sponsoring another spouse, and then waiting for many years until their income comes up so that they can sponsor the children. But in fact the family actually is spending a lot of money for the care of their children; they're just not with them currently in the country. They are working. They are producing. At the same time, they are spending to look after family members who are not here. In any case, that cost is being borne by them.

The costs we cannot count are the economic costs and the long-term costs for that family.

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

When a person has to prove sufficient income, that person includes the income he or she earns and spend outside Canada. That income is therefore already included in the calculation of income to show that that person is able to do so.

Is it excluded?

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go]

It's only the sponsor's income. Let's say the sponsor is in Canada and wants to sponsor their spouse overseas. Only the sponsor's income in Canada will be included.

I have seen cases where, for instance, a sponsor actually tried to sponsor his spouse; the child dependant was a Canadian citizen by birth since the sponsor was a citizen; and because the mother was not a citizen, she needed to be sponsored. The father brought the child back to Canada and tried to bring his wife, but because he could not bring his wife, he became a single parent. He had to go on social assistance. He had no choice. He had to look after his six-year-old child. Meanwhile, he was not able to sponsor his wife: he was on social assistance.

I understand that there is a sponsorship requirement. Nobody is asking for the sponsorship requirement piece to be lifted. You can still sign an undertaking to sponsor. You are still responsible for that person during the sponsorship period. What we are saying is that in deciding who can be the sponsor, income often is not the best indicator. You can have someone who makes a lot of money and who is still not meeting the requirement to sponsor the family. But you may have someone low-income who will in fact, having the extra family here, have more than one person making a living and all that kind of stuff.

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

So these people should therefore be able to provide evidence of these outside contributions from a spouse back in the home country, for example. You're seeking more flexibility in determining ability to support.

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go]

Yes.

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

I have a more general question, which might concern everyone. I moreover spoke with departmental representatives about it at a meeting.

I have been the Bloc québécois citizenship and immigration critic for more than two years. Over time, I have become convinced that waiting times are used as an immigration management tool, unlike in other systems, such as the health system, where waiting times—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Your time is almost up, Monsieur St-Cyr. I'm sorry.

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

Then I'll ask you a brief question.

Do you sometimes get the impression the government simply uses waiting times to better control its inventory and the influx of people into the country?

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go]

Yes, and I think if you're using it as a management tool then it's always easier to just deny and reject applications than to approve them, because it would take more time to actually go through the applications and make sure they met the requirements, or whatever. It's so much faster to just reject every single application in order to meet the quota, or whatever it is the government has set up.

So I think it's very important not to look at the issue of delay and tie it to the number of cases being rejected, approved, or processed by an officer. Rather than looking at wait times as a resource issue, try to put in as much resources as possible to make sure that all of the applications are dealt with fairly and comprehensively.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. Go.

Ms. Leslie, welcome to the committee. You have up to seven minutes.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To the folks in Sydney, you probably don't realize this, but some of your strongest allies are actually staffers of MPs, because as soon as the news broke about the lay-offs, I got an earful from my staff about how this was going to be extremely problematic, that it was going to make things much worse, because as it is, our staff are getting an earful when they hear back from constituents who say, “What do you mean, 'eight months'? What do you mean, 'a year'? This is unacceptable”.

I just want to share with you the following example, though it isn't a specific case but a pretty standard and formulaic example. A constituent sends in their information to the Sydney CIC office in, say, November. They get a response in January saying there are two pieces of information missing. They supply that information, and by February there's been no feedback on the application's status. Then they send a letter in March to ask for an update on the status.

That's what it looks like for them, but can you describe for us what the series of delays looks like from the perspective of the workers? What happens once you receive that initial application? What would the delays look like?

[Wilfrid MacKinnon]

As someone who has processed applications as well as worked in the mailroom, when I get your application and am working on it, say, on January 15, that application would have been received in our mailroom in maybe May of the year before.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

That long?

[Wilfrid MacKinnon]

So it's taking that long for it to get from the mailroom to my desk to process. With the cuts to more staff, that wait will just get longer.

I'll just share a couple of anecdotes with you. When you have an application from a young person who is 16 or 17 years old and has the opportunity to represent Canada at an athletic event and needs to get a passport, but first needs to become a Canadian citizen, and you get their application after the event, it's pretty heartbreaking. When you get an application from someone who wants to represent Canada in the Canadian Forces—and I know the war in Afghanistan is not a popular thing—but can't become a member of the Forces because they're not Canadian and are waiting over a year for us to let them know if they have sent us all the information required, that's pretty heartbreaking as well.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

So, Mr. MacKinnon, can you actually bring us through the steps in the delay? In the first example you received the application in May but it didn't get through the mailroom to you until quite a bit later.

Where else are the delay points? What do they look like?