Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 29th, 2011

[Les Linklater]

Yes, absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

--and then the clerk can distribute it. I'm sure the other committee members would like to see that information as well.

[Les Linklater]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We can start the clock again. You have one and a half minutes left.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You mentioned that there are a lot of immigration offices here in Canada.

Could you explain the difference between what the Canadian offices do and what the overseas offices do?

[Dawn Edlund]

Here in Canada, we have 46 offices nationwide. Those offices process internal applications. They are also responsible for all aspects of settlement, providing people with support as soon as they arrive in Canada. Everything that has to do with citizenship is done here in Canada: decisions about whether to grant citizenship are made here in Canada. We also process asylum claims for refugee claimants. Here in Canada, it does not work the same as overseas.

Did I forget anything?

[Les Linklater]

[Inaudible—Editor].

[Dawn Edlund]

Permanent residence applications involving humanitarian and compassionate grounds are processed in Canada. Pre-removal risk assessments are also done by our officers here in Canada.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

You are truly Canada's ambassadors, meaning, you are the first point of contact with Canada that many people experience.

When an application is being denied, how do you tell the claimant that they will not be receiving a visa?

[Dawn Edlund]

When a claimant's visa application or permanent residence application on compassionate grounds is turned down here, in Canada, the file always contains a hard or soft copy of the officer's reasons. The claimant receives a letter telling them why their application was denied.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Weston.

Mr. Davies, you have up to seven minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much for appearing before us and giving us this wonderful briefing and material.

We talk about the worldwide queue. We know there are hundreds of thousands of applications in the system worldwide. Can you tell me how many worldwide applications are currently on the waiting list?

[Les Linklater]

As of December of 2010, globally, both domestically and overseas, there were just over one million people waiting to have a decision on a file.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Do you have that broken down by class?

[Les Linklater]

The numbers are there on slide 12 of the presentation.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I want to talk about the annual numbers. You've made reference to the upcoming plan for 2011. I think we realize on all sides of the House that getting our immigration policy right is not only important to us socially and culturally, but it's also a pivotal part of our economic development.

Your department put out a news release in 2010 that said with the quickly aging population and low birth rates, 100% of our new labour growth will come from new immigrants within the next five years. And that's consistent with what a lot of groups are saying.

I've read statistics that say currently there are eight workers for every one Canadian retiree. That number is slated to go down to as few as four workers per one retiree. So we all recognize that immigration is important to our labour force. Yet I note that the proposed plan, the immigration levels plan, is relatively flat compared to numbers over the last five years and represents a significant reduction from the numbers that were admitted last year.

I'm just wondering, what's the department thinking about how we're going to meet our labour market needs over the next five years when we're going to require all that labour to come from newcomers to Canada, if we're keeping the same levels of access to our country?

[Les Linklater]

That's a very good question.

In response, Mr. Chair, I would say that immigration is one source of new labour for the Canadian labour market. School leavers now and in the future will continue to form the vast majority of new entrants into the labour market. So while people look to immigration as the solution, it is part of the solution for labour markets and population growth.

With regard to the overall levels plan, we look at a number of factors as we develop options for the minister to bring to his colleagues. In essence, it is about balance and looking for the right balance among economic, social, and humanitarian classes, and, within the economic class, provincial programming versus federal programming, backlog reduction, etc.

But we also have to look at the continuum of immigration, not only in terms of those we select, but how we're going to settle folks once they arrive in Canada. So while settlement funding has increased quite considerably in the last five to six years, we still know that on outcomes for immigrants, particularly those not selected for their skills, folks continue to need more support. We do know that while most people who do come to Canada are not selected for their skills, the overwhelming majority do end up in the labour market, whether it's in transitional jobs or finding a foothold while they upgrade their official language skills or have their credentials recognized.

We're looking at the continuum and at how we can best manage within the resources we have, as well as at the capacity of some of our communities to accept and integrate newcomers.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

But what I'm asking, I think, is that I don't see in this plan an increase in the number of people that we're going to be accepting into our country. Again, the quote was that 100% of our new labour growth will come from new immigrants--not from our school system, but from new immigrants at 100%. I'm just wondering how are we going to fill that need if we don't start increasing the number of people coming to our country.

[Les Linklater]

Yes, and I think, looking at the economic situation, with unemployment rates where they are and the regional variations, that's clearly something that's top of mind. Again, in the west, Manitoba I think is at 5% as opposed to 12% in some parts of Atlantic Canada. One of--

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

If I can shift....

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Les Linklater]

I was just going to say that one of the key issues the minister has been working on, and that I think came out through his consultations over the summer, is that we really need to work better with employers to understand what their key needs are and to work with provinces and territories as well to understand what the specific needs are so that we're focusing more on those, so that we're bringing in the key structural shortages we're seeing in the labour market.

With ministerial instructions that we brought in as of 2008, we have moved back to that occupational filter where, working with HRSDC, provinces, territories, and employers, we've developed lists of critical occupations that have shortages and we are inviting those individuals to apply. So we're limiting intake but focusing on key labour market needs.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I want to shift to wait times. I printed the wait times off your website yesterday. On wait times for parents and grandparents, once step 1 has been completed, we have 55 months from Ghana, 51 months from Nairobi, 40 months from Beijing, 43 from Islamabad, and 34 months from Manila.

These are the kinds of numbers that I think all MPs see in our offices all the time. People come in and say that it's taking eight, nine, 10, and 13 years to sponsor parents--and of course they're dying. What plans does the department have to expedite the processing times for parents, if there are any?

[Les Linklater]

I think you've pointed to one of the key issues the department faces in terms of managing the number of applications we get in any given year versus the amount of space in the immigration levels plan. So we do see the backlogs grow as more parents and grandparents have been applying than have been processed under the immigration levels plan.

I think a number of possible options could be brought forward, but clearly, without intake control at the front end we will continue to have these types of challenges where processing times grow. I think that's one of the key lessons that ministerial instructions have shown us in the skilled worker category, in that by restricting intake, we've been able to actually work through the backlog that much more quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Linklater.

Mr. Lamoureux, you have up to five minutes.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Just to very quickly go over that particular point, in 2010 your target range was 15,000 to 18,000. The actual number you hit was 15,324. My understanding is that in 2011 you're in fact reducing the targets.

Can you just very briefly comment on that? If the demand is so high, why are we falling so short of the target? We had a target of 18,000. Why would we only have 15,324?