Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 29th, 2011

[Les Linklater]

Yes.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay.

Do you have the statistics on how many have access to the Canadian experience class out of that? Is that in your presentation?

[Les Linklater]

It's not in the presentation, but, Mr. Chair, we would be able to provide the statistics to the clerk for distribution to committee members.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

That would be very useful.

I am going to shift to eastern Europe quickly. I have a lot of constituents from those areas and I'm being told that they feel eastern Europe—Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, all those Baltic states--is not being processed, or there are low levels of processing.

Can you comment on that?

[Dawn Edlund]

Certainly, my initial comment to that is that we don't have low levels of processing. We continue to have missions in those areas and we process the applications as they come in.

Undoubtedly there are backlogs in those offices, as there are across the network for different types of applications, but we haven't dropped considerably--an office of five people down to two--in eastern Europe. There have been some adjustments over time, as we've seen various flows, but I'm a bit surprised to hear the comment that we don't have processing there any more.

[Les Linklater]

What I would suggest, Mr. Chair, is that we look at the processing time statistics for those particular missions and provide them to the clerk as well.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Any statistics you may have on that would be very helpful.

I just lost my place on my other question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

While we're waiting, can you give us the top five backlog places on the planet?

[Les Linklater]

New Delhi--

[Dawn Edlund]

New Delhi—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We had an idea of a couple of them. Could you think about that and give it to us?

[Les Linklater]

What might be helpful so that we don't misspeak is to come back through the clerk with the list.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes.

[Les Linklater]

Then we could break down what's in the slide presentation.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You could send that to the clerk, because we're going to be studying this eventually anyway.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Do I still have time?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Some of your time is left.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay, good stuff.

What does an employer have to do in Canada to get somebody here as a temporary foreign worker? Can you describe that process?

[Les Linklater]

Sure.

There are two ways to go about it. The first issue that employers need to work through is whether or not they need a labour market opinion from human resources and skills development. We've set up a series of offices across the country attached to our regional offices where employers can seek that first opinion. They'll say they need somebody to do job X, and ask if they need to go to HRSDC, and within five business days we would tell them yes or no. If they're able to move forward to hire a temporary foreign worker without a labour market opinion, they can advise the worker overseas, issue him or her the letter of offer, and the worker would approach our office overseas and apply for the work permit and move forward with a medical, if required, and maybe not. Most of the work would be done quickly overseas.

If a labour market opinion is required by HRSDC for reasons of labour market protection, or if there are concerns about Canadians being available to do the job, the employers would have to demonstrate to HRSDC that they have advertised for three weeks, I think, and have not been able to find a Canadian or permanent resident to do the job. They would have to demonstrate that the job was legitimate and that they have the wherewithal to fulfill the obligations of the contract.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Ms. Sims.

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

Thank you very much for the presentation you made to us.

As a newly elected MP, I can tell you that the area of immigration and citizenship takes up, I would say, well over 85% of the staff time in my riding, which is Newton--North Delta. So I'm very interested in some of these processing times you have written down.

For parents and grandparents, when you say 32 months, is that after the file has left Mississauga?

[Dawn Edlund]

Yes. There's a processing time associated with creating the file and looking at the sponsorship application, which is the CPC Mississauga timeframe. Once the file is transferred overseas and you get a time for how long it takes in Islamabad, for example, or in Nairobi, then that processing time is for that particular mission.

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

How long a time does it take in Mississauga?

[Dawn Edlund]

I don't want to misspeak, so what I will do is get back to you in relation to this. Is this specifically for parents and grandparents or for everything that Mississauga processes?

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

I would say for everything, because I'm getting questions when it comes to issues of people who applied for permanent residence of their spouses and children, as well as for parents and grandparents. Maybe it's just the nature of the cases that walk into my office. I haven't met any people who have been able to get their spouse over within two years so far.

I am really dealing with some very hefty files right now, people who have been waiting for three and a half years. As a matter of fact, one woman has had two babies in Islamabad during this time and now her husband has just left again. That's not unique. That's what I really want to say. It looks good on here, the timelines and all of it, but what I'm seeing back in my offices are completely different timelines.

I noticed earlier that you said, regarding the backlog for the parents and grandparents, the bottleneck now is about 170,000, right?