Evidence of meeting #26 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 applicants.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to both witnesses for coming to this committee again.
I'm going to focus on security in the temporary resident visa context.
James Bissett testified on Tuesday. He was a member of the Prime Minister's security advisory committee and a senior official in CIC some years ago. He said, and I'll quote, that security checks of people abroad, before they're issued visas, are virtually “non-existent”. He also said, by the way, that virtually none of the temporary foreign workers go through security or health checks before entering Canada.
Leaving the TFWs aside, in terms of the TRVs, do you do extensive security checks on people? Let's focus on Chandigarh. Do you do extensive security checks on those people before a decision is made on their TRV? Let's talk visitor visas.
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Basically, we have profiles that we work with. We look at a file, and based on our experience and knowledge, we determine which files are potentially risks and which ones aren't.
When there are potential risks, we are in contact with our partners, with CBSA and with CSIS, and we do screening of these applications to ensure that these are not individuals for whom we have concerns.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Do you do local criminal record checks on people who are applying for visitor visas?
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Generally we would not do that for every applicant, but again, it's a question of what the risks are. If we feel that there are risks, then we will do it.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Okay. What percentage of people would you do a criminal record check on, as a general average?
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's not something we would normally calculate.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Another witness, Joe Greenholtz, a former immigration officer abroad, testified that he had recently spoken with other immigration officers who process visitor visas. And he said that in those discussions it was revealed that they spend an average of five minutes per application. Would that be approximately what one of your officers spends on a visitor visa application?
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It would depend on the type of application and what, in terms of reviewing the file, the risks involved were.
I'd say, actually, that we do the straightforward ones more quickly. That enables us to concentrate our resources on the ones that are more problematic. The more problematic ones could take much more time. We might have to come back to the file again, wait for results for checks, and so on.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
The reason I ask, of course, is that there are two major visitor visa application centres, decision centres, in India: Chandigarh and New Delhi. Chandigarh has an approval rate of 47%. I'm going by figures from the CIC website. New Delhi has an approval rate of 80%, according to these figures. These figures are not secret.
I'm going to ask some questions on this.
First, do the figures for the temporary resident visas processed abroad include visitor visas, student visas, and work visas?
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It depends. I'm not sure which statistic you're looking at. We can combine them together. We can say temporary residents, meaning visitors, and have separate statistics for students and separate statistics for temporary foreign workers.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
We can't tell from the sheet. I printed this from the CIC website. You can't tell if that includes them or if it's just visitor visas.
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm not sure what sheet you're looking at, but certainly we can check that sheet and let you know.
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NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Could you send that right down to the clerk of the committee, please?
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Sure.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thanks.
I was in Brampton last weekend. I was visiting extensively with members of the South Asian community from Punjab, in particular, and from Vancouver, and I can tell you, and I'm sure you may know this, that it is an absolute common report to hear that their relatives are being turned down for visitor visas, and they don't know why. There can't possibly be any real reason, in many cases, from their point of view.
They're people who own land. They're people who have relatives there. They're people who have bank accounts. Yet they get rejection letters, and they don't understand why.
It's happening, I must tell you, and from my point of view, far too often to be explained as just a one-off kind of situation.
What could explain an approval rate of 80% in New Delhi and an approval rate of 47%—almost half of that—in Chandigarh, in the same country?
Is there no fraud or forgery or people trying to fool the system in New Delhi, but there is in Chandigarh?
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There is definitely fraud and forgery. I would have to say that in the Punjab, based on our experience, there is a greater involvement of unscrupulous consultants who mislead applicants. Sometimes we're puzzled by it too.
I can give you the example of the super visa. It is a special visa that has recently been put forward so that parents can visit their children in Canada.
Our acceptance rate in New Delhi for super visas is higher than it is in the Punjab. The main reason for the refusal of the super visa is that the children in Canada who are inviting their parents in India don't meet the low-income cut-off they would have to meet to sponsor their parents if they were going to sponsor them under the family class sponsorship for parents and grandparents.
What's interesting is that people are submitting their applications, even though it is very clear-cut. We have the notice of assessment—
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
They're getting rejected because they don't meet the income requirements in the Punjab.
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's right.
The difference between what happens in the Punjab in Chandigarh and what happens in New Delhi is that the people who don't meet the low-income cut-off are screening themselves out. They're not applying. We believe that there are consultants in the Punjab who are saying to apply anyway, it doesn't matter, don't worry, they'll get them in.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I understand. I have limited time. I just want to talk about super visas at the moment, actually, unless.... Could you send us the approval rates for super visas from Delhi and the Punjab? The number of applications, and the number of acceptances?
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Sure.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Just quickly, there are no exit controls presently in Canada, so we see a profile of a young Indian, 25 years old, unmarried, doesn't own land, who applies to come to Canada, and who is turned down because he or she doesn't own land and isn't married. I take it that such a person often gets checked off as unlikely to return to India. But Canada doesn't keep any statistics on, when those people come here, whether they leave or not, so how do you know? How do you have any basis of fact or knowledge to know that those people would or would not ever leave, when we don't keep those statistics?
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Program Manager, New Delhi, India, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Actually, we do have statistics for individuals who have made refugee claims, and statistics for individuals who arrive at the port of entry, who arrive at the airports, and are turned around by officers at the airport because the information that they've provided in their application forms doesn't match what they told the officer at the airport. We look at the applications of refugee claimants. We see that applicants have misrepresented themselves. They've misrepresented their intentions. We do have people who go to visit family members of those who make refugee claims.
