Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 29th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

The chair has been challenged on this ruling. All in favour of the challenge....

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm sorry, what is the question?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You, sir, are challenging the ruling of the chair, so we have a vote on that.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I just haven't heard the question put properly. Is it, shall the challenge to the chair be sustained, or is it that the decision of the chair be sustained?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Julie Lalande Prud'homme]

It's that the decision of the chair be sustained.

All in favour...?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Davies is actually correct. I was vague on putting the question.

Is the ruling of the chair sustained? All those in favour please signify.

[Ruling of the chair sustained]

The Chair: The chair's ruling stands.

Where were we?

Ms. Sims. Thank you.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I have here a sheet printed out from your website yesterday. It is processing times for federal skilled worker applications. One thing here really puzzled me. It illuminates why some of my constituents are confused. It says that if, for example, the application, based on a complete application package, was received before February 27, 2008, the wait periods are almost four or five times as long; however, if the application period was received after that date, then the periods are reasonable—13 to 17 months. Yet on the other side, it goes from 87 down to 41 months.

Maybe you could help to illuminate that.

[Les Linklater]

Certainly.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

That's not a political question, right?

[Les Linklater]

The reason you see the differentiation is as a result of the legislative changes that were implemented in Budget 2008--Bill C-50, as we refer to it.

As I said in my opening remarks, essentially that legislation provided the department with the tools to actually manage intake for the first time in a substantive way for this category. The ministerial instruction authority is quite broad. It can apply to almost all categories, with the exception of refugees either in Canada or overseas, or requests for agency in Canada.

Effectively what that allowed us to do was to give the minister the authority to prioritize certain applications covered by an instruction.

For the first set of instructions that came into effect in November of 2008 retroactive to February, certain applications were prioritized and put into process and others were returned. With regard to those from before February, we will process them as we move through the current intake, under ministerial instruction.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I want to echo what my colleagues have said. I believe this is an outstanding presentation. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. I think it gives us an overall clear picture of the magnitude of the work involved here.

I'll start with the graph on the first page. It's amazing how much volume there has been in the last number of years. There's no wonder there's a backlog in the system as a result. We've often said that Canada is the most welcoming country in the world, and I think it's the outstanding work of your department, your work, that really helps a lot of people. There were 280,000 people who came in last year.

I have four questions, and I'll try to get them in during my five minutes, if I can.

With regard to students, there are 100,000 per year. I wonder if you have any statistics, from the 100,000 students who study here annually, of how many of them end up applying to become Canadian residents, citizens.

[Les Linklater]

As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Chair, we would be able to provide, through the clerk, the status of--

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay, so that's part of that report. Thank you.

On the issue of family reunification, like all of my colleagues here I have a lot of requests from families coming in; my riding is one of the more diverse ridings in the country. And I understand that people get very creative, so we have to filter through that to see whether the majority of the applications are legitimate.

On the question of temporary visas, when somebody wants to come for a wedding or a baptism, or in some cases the imminent death of a family member, how important is it that they have to prove financial stability where they live? If a grandmother from a village in a country--and I'm going to say Greece, as I don't want to insult anybody--who doesn't have very much, doesn't want to leave her village that's been her whole world, since she's lived there for 80 years, and she wants to come here for the wedding of her grandson, why is it important that she have a bank account in the village she lives?

[Dawn Edlund]

I think what we'd be looking at in those circumstances is the level of support financially available for the grandmother when she comes here. We want to be sure that folks aren't going to end up in the welfare system. She may not have a lot of money herself, but the family in Canada can demonstrate that they can support her for the period of time she's visiting.

One of the instructions we have issued to our officers overseas in relation to parents and grandparents is to be alert to the possibility of multiple entry visas, so that people can visit temporarily while that FC4 application is in process. We've had fairly good uptake on that. We also have quite a high rate of acceptance of those multiple entry visas being granted to people, and often extended once people are physically in Canada.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you for your answer.

I'm not going to mention specific cases, but I've had cases of very well-to-do families who have been rejected on the basis that the person coming in doesn't have money in the bank in their country, so I'm sure no system is foolproof.

In looking at your presentation, I was really surprised at one statistic. I don't know if my colleagues picked it up, but I'd like to point it out. You have 43,885,254 hits on the website annually. That's 120,233 hits per day.

[Dawn Edlund]

Yes.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

That is outstanding--astounding, I want to say. Of those, 56% are international. So the interest, Mr. Chair, I suggest, worldwide of people who want to come to Canada is ever growing, and ever growing on a daily basis.

I don't know that you can hire enough people. Eventually, the more people we allow into Canada on an annual basis, I'm sure the more will want to come here. It is amazing work that you do and that the department does and that the officers do. It's an overwhelming amount of work, and I want to say that just strictly as a comment.

Another question has to do with how you look at the accreditation or the credentials that somebody has. How important is that in assessing somebody's application?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The Conservatives have another five minutes here.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Am I out of my five minutes?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

No, he's letting you go on. You go ahead, sir.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

My question was this. Because we get a lot of these cases of people who are applying to come in and have some kind of accreditation, I wonder how important that is in your assessment.

[Les Linklater]

What we have with regard to credential assessment is a significant issue, and there is very little qualitative assessment that goes into credential assessment under the system currently when applications are brought forward. Given the universal nature of the point system, a degree is a degree is a degree, and we do not have the tools at this point to be able to determine definitively the quality of the degree vis-à-vis the Canadian equivalence.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I understand.

[Les Linklater]

That said, there are groups in Canada that have begun to develop this capacity, such as World Education Services, for example, which is a private sector service provider that is building and has built a significant database around that qualitative assessment. That's something to consider, I think, as we move forward with HRSDC and with provinces and territories on the whole issue of credential recognition, ensuring that those educational qualifications get assessed comparably by our officers in the field and by the regulatory bodies in Canada, who quite often guard their turf in terms of assessment fairly judiciously.

So I think as we move forward beyond the pan-Canadian framework for credential recognition, where we've had success in the last year with the first round of eight occupations, where it has been agreed across the country that within a year individuals in those eight occupations will get advice as to whether or not they meet the Canadian equivalent for writing exams for licence, or if there's a gap, or if there are alternative occupations.... As we look at the next six occupations for 2012, how we can go even further with our provincial colleagues to try to get at that qualitative assessment is something we'd be keen to look at.