Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 1st, 2011

[David Manicom]

I don't think it would be good for me to speculate about improvements, other than to say that the processes, which the minister has put in place through ministerial instructions to enable us to manage our inventories and backlogs, have started us down a road where we can see that in coming years—the trends are now clear—we will be able to rid ourselves of very large, unproductive, non-client-friendly, expensive-to-maintain, not policy-agile inventories.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Manicom.

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I form the impression that the provincial nominee program is a bit of a program of contrast. When run well, it has been very successful in a number of provinces and has really met, and I think exceeded in many cases, the objectives of the program that, as you pointed out well in your report, is to spread the regional benefits of immigration and allow provinces some say in targeting immigration settlement to their particular demographic and economic needs.

There have been some problems as well. We're familiar with some of the problems that occurred, particularly in some maritime provinces—difficulties over meeting the objectives of the program. In your report you touched on the fact that in 2009 the federal Auditor General pointed out that although provinces and territories are required to conduct due diligence to ensure that applicants have the ability to economically establish, it says, “...CIC is unable to assess the extent to which provinces and territories have carried this out.”

The 2010-11 departmental performance report notes that the first federal evaluation of the provincial nominee program began in 2010. We're almost at 2012, so I'm wondering if you could update us on any preliminary evaluation findings that might touch on this subject.

[David Manicom]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

You'll understand that I can't talk about the details of the evaluation report prior to its publication, which is coming very soon, early next year. The department has been consulting closely with the provinces through the process of doing that evaluation in an iterative way, and the evaluation report is almost complete. Certainly, the evaluation report will show a variety of outcomes in different provinces, as you've indicated. I think we'll see that the overall outcome is really quite positive. I'm not able to go into further detail about that, other than to say again that it will be published very shortly.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Leaving aside the report, which I won't ask you to comment on, is CIC able today to assess the extent to which provinces and territories have carried out their requirements under the PNP?

[David Manicom]

We're certainly working toward that with them. I don't think that either us or the provinces would say that we are where we need to be. Certainly, the issue of fraud and program integrity across all immigration categories require strong collaboration between the levels of government. We have ongoing discussions with the provinces on how to improve the program integrity design of their program.

We work closely with them both on the policy side and on the operational side—I don't know if my colleague might wish to comment—with individual provinces when individual problems appear with certain caseloads. We're working closely with them on how to improve selection standards and management of the provincial nominee programs.

I certainly think the publication of the report will take us a big step forward. There will be a number of recommendations in that report, and the federal government will be working closely with the provinces to implement those recommendations.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

We also know that once these people come to the province, the idea is that they will settle in the province and contribute to a dispersal of immigration across the country and better regional development. We also know that there's no way to ensure that people who come to the province, particularly after they complete the requirements, will remain in the province.

Can you give us some indication of what the degree of interprovincial mobility is in this program? I take it there must be some leakage of people to other provinces after the requirements are met.

[David Manicom]

Of course, there is no one measure of mobility. You can look at where the provincial nominee candidates are a year after they arrive, or three years after they arrive, or further down the road. In a mobile economy, I don't think we would particularly.... We would be less interested in the very long-term mobility. We're interested in whether or not they've arrived in the province, made best efforts to remain there and so forth.

The report will show varying degrees of mobility depending on the differing provincial nominee programs, but generally speaking they've been surprisingly successful, I think, compared with the very early days in improving retention. A number of provinces have developed retention strategies that are working quite well. By having links to communities or to employers, or in nominating individuals who have already been working in the province, they are making great strides and improving retention outcomes.

There will be some hard data in the report when it comes out. I don't have that data before me, but it will be available, as I say, early in 2012.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay.

We know that the federal government recently announced a new stream in the federal skilled worker program for PhD students, yet we also know that many provinces have student streams in their provincial nominee programs.

On what basis do you decide which opportunities for immigration will be federal and which provincial? How do those dovetail?

[David Manicom]

That's one of the key questions going forward as the provincial nominee programs grow in size. Only four to five years ago they were really quite small, and issues of overlap or redundancy or gaps were less important than they're starting to appear now.

We are engaged in a multi-year process with the provinces to do a full survey and canvass of all of the different programs. We're working together to try to identify areas of overlap, areas you can think of; for example, in the Canadian experience class you have individuals who are either working or studying in a Canadian province, and there may be opportunities for provinces to use their spaces elsewhere in the provincial nominee programs by not nominating people who could qualify in the Canadian experience class.

I have just a couple of quick comments with regard to the PhD stream. It's only an entry doorway into the federal skilled worker program. Under ministerial instructions, those individuals still have to meet the standard points test, including skilled work experience of the federal skilled worker program. The distinction between it and other student programs is that it enables people who have not yet completed a Canadian diploma, but who have done at least two years of good standing in a PhD program.... It's unique in that regard. It captures individuals who are in the process of completing a doctorate. In a way, we want to get them while they're good, and hopefully after they complete the doctorate they will remain in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

The time has expired.

Mr. Manicom, can you send copies of the report you mentioned to Mr. Davies to the committee?

[David Manicom]

We will check with the department as to when it will be available—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well, whenever it becomes available, I think if you could send enough copies for all of the members of the committee and the analysts....

[David Manicom]

Yes, we could certainly do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Do you have any idea when it'll be ready?

[David Manicom]

I think it's in translation. I think we're looking at February, something like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay. Thank you.

[David Manicom]

My notes say early 2012.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay.

Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a few quite pointed questions I'd like to get across.

The federal government designates between 42,000 to 45,000 provincial nominees. Now that doesn't mean certificates. How many certificates do you anticipate Canada will be handing out through the different programs this year?

[David Manicom]

Do you mean the number of certificates the provinces will be issuing?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

That's correct.

[David Manicom]

It would be very similar in scale. I don't have nomination data in front of me, but it's very similar in scale. The approval rate is about 97% once the person applies. There is a small spoilage rate, a small number of certificates that—

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

That's not the question.

We might have 42,000 people coming under the provincial nominee category, and out of those 42,000 there would be a set number that were given certificates. So it might be that you're sponsoring, but I'm bringing my wife and my three kids—

[David Manicom]

I see.