Evidence of meeting #13 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was programs.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Natasha Parriag  Acting Director, Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
David Manicom  Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Sharon Chomyn  Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

Thank you.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again for being here. As everyone is saying, it's been very informative for us.

You were mentioning earlier that the provinces can negotiate and switch the number of certificates they will actually give out. How does this actually work? How does this negotiation process work among the provinces?

My example would be Ontario. It has an extremely low percentage of usage of the certificates, so if Ontario gives away its certificates or its spots to Alberta, let's say, because it is in need of that niche market of labour right now, then what does Ontario get in return? How does it work?

So there are two questions in one: how does the negotiation process work, and then what do the giving away provinces get in return? What's used to barter, basically is my question.

12:20 p.m.

Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Manicom

Yes, this allocation process is relatively new, so it's still evolving. The basic allocation formulas were set based on the size of the current programs. Then when individual provinces do not wish to use all of their allocation, they are able—in discussions among the provinces—to move the allocation to another province. That is how I understand the process works. And they advise us.

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

I'm Ontario and I give away my spots to him; he's Alberta. What do I get in return for giving away my provincial nominee certificates that I could have given...?

12:20 p.m.

Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Manicom

Goodwill.

12:20 p.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

12:20 p.m.

Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Manicom

But that's true, in the sense that the allocations are for a calendar year. If you can't use them, you still have your allocation for the next year. They would otherwise not have been used.

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

As Mr. Lamoureux was asking, if we could get the targets and then the actual certificates issued and the number of people who are coming in on these programs, that would be very useful. Since the program is relatively young, if we can get the numbers since the inception of the program, I think it would be useful to see the movement or what has actually been happening in the program.

I think you said you do have it prepared already, the 2012 targets by province, because then we can see where the movement or the plan is for the future. You can give it to the clerk.

Right, Mr. Chair?

12:20 p.m.

Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Manicom

We have the 2012 allocations with us and we can provide a copy right away.

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Perfect. Thank you very much.

12:20 p.m.

Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Manicom

And we can easily provide the statistical report that you requested.

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Fabulous. Thank you very much.

My other question will be about processing.

We just did a study on the federal backlog, and faster processing times have generally been cited as an advantage of the PNP program over the federal skilled worker program. But we're starting to learn that there's a backlog forming in the PNP program as well. Could you please comment on that?

12:20 p.m.

Sharon Chomyn Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Thank you for that question.

I represent the part of the department that's responsible for turning applications into visas, or at least we're responsible for the processing that's involved.

We receive our target allocations, which we then communicate to the missions for their specific allocations. They don't receive the targets that are broken down by province. They will receive a target that identifies the provincial nominee program as a line of business among all the other lines of business that are there.

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

So is there a backlog that's developing in the PNP program as well?

12:20 p.m.

Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Sharon Chomyn

There's not a backlog overall. For example, next year—

12:20 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

When you say “overall”, is that at the federal level within CIC?

12:20 p.m.

Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Sharon Chomyn

No. What I mean is there can be faster and slower processing times at different missions, so there may be an inventory that's building up in a particular visa office, but nowhere near to the magnitude that exists in some of the other lines of business.

Right now we're looking at issuing approximately 45,000 visas in this category next year. We have approximately 45,000 people in the queue right now. So it's matched quite closely.

12:25 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Okay.

For the federal skilled worker program, under the new ministerial instructions they're saying the processing time or the end-to-end processing is getting shorter and shorter. How do you think that will affect the PNP applications?

12:25 p.m.

Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Sharon Chomyn

I think the PNP applications will benefit from the same changes we are making to the larger processing machinery. As I mentioned last time I appeared before the committee, we have a modernization agenda we are rolling out quite enthusiastically, which will allow us to move work to where capacity exists.

12:25 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Right. The question is—

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

Time has expired. I'm sorry.

Mr. Lamoureux, I have good news. We are back to the seven-minute round.

Mr. Menegakis and Mr. Weston go first.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Costas Menegakis Conservative Richmond Hill, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be splitting my time with Mr. Weston.

While the provincial nominee program is very popular, I'm sure it's not perfect.

What are some of the problems you've seen? How is the department addressing those concerns?

12:25 p.m.

Director General, International Region, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Sharon Chomyn

I can talk about some of the issues that have come up in the overseas context, but as David mentioned in the course of his contribution, the approval rate of these types of applications is 97%. It's really a very successful program from the perspective of being a streamlined movement, if I can say that.

Some of the issues that do come up, though, have to do with things related to identity. For example, sometimes applicants choose to add an individual to their application and portray them as a family member when in fact they are not one. There are sometimes issues related to education documentation or employment history documentation that proves to be fraudulent. Sometimes we may find out that an individual has a nomination certificate from a particular province, and then on closer examination we find out that their intention is to live in another province. That might occur because they happen to have already purchased property in another province or because their family is already installed there. There are issues like that.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Costas Menegakis Conservative Richmond Hill, ON

Thank you.

I'm curious. What percentage of the people who come in every year through the provincial nominee program are principal applicants versus spouses or dependants? Do you have those figures?

12:25 p.m.

Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Manicom

We can provide exact figures afterwards. The order of scale is two to one, where the certificate issuance target is 20,600 and the landings target is 42,000 to 45,000. That's a rough order of magnitude. Because quite a large number of temporary workers are nominated under the program, there seems to be a somewhat lower incidence of dependants than there is in the federal programs. I'm not sure why.