Evidence of meeting #27 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 system.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Yes, that's absolutely essential, and part of the Beyond the Border agreement with the United States includes an expanded information-sharing agreement for immigration security screening purposes. Allies such as the United States, quite frankly, have much more robust data on who constitutes a serious security risk than we have, I would say. We will benefit enormously in terms of our own national security from being able to bounce fingerprints off larger databases like that.
Obviously, with limited use and limited time.... There would be parameters in our legal agreements with the United States, all of it respecting Canadian privacy law, but this would massively improve our immigration security screening.
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the minister and his colleagues for joining us.
One of the department's duties is to guarantee the security and integrity of our immigration system, and that is indeed important. In that context, how can the family reunification process be enhanced and accelerated, especially when it comes to children who don't have to go through security screening? Do you have any solutions for those types of cases?
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Yes. That's along the lines of Mr. Davies' questions regarding spousal and child reunification. That's a priority. We try use our system to process family reunification applications involving children abroad as quickly as possible. That usually takes a few months.
Do you have anything to add?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The minister and our colleagues who work on policies are currently reviewing the system. I think that will enable us to focus more on children and spouses. We have some problems abroad—especially in terms of temporary resident visas and immigration—including managing backlog and inventories, a time-consuming exercise, and providing answers to members.
One of the objectives of those changes is to focus on such cases. I think that our risk management has already helped us shift the focus somewhat, in the sense that not all cases are processed in the same way. However, we clearly need to do even more.
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you.
Minister, during a committee meeting, I raised an issue regarding the detention conditions at the Laval detention centre for refugee claimants, more specifically regarding longer detention periods. In addition, studies on refugee claimants indicate that there is a significant number of people suffering from psychological trauma stemming from those detention conditions.
Do you plan to take that problem into consideration? If so, does your government already have guidelines in place for immigration officers dealing with refugee claimants with mental health problems.
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Mr. Chair, I am not aware of those specific problems. Detention is a key tool in all immigration systems around the world. Canada uses that tool much less often than other democratic countries. For instance, Australia uses detention in almost 100% of refugee claimant cases, the United Kingdom uses it for all claimants from designated countries, and the United States uses it in most cases. The same goes for France and other countries. In Canada, we use detention for immigrants in few cases, compared with other democratic and liberal countries.
That being said, the management of immigration detention centres is the responsibility of the Canada Border Services Agency, which is not part of my department. That comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Public Safety. I would be happy to communicate to him your concerns with regard to that issue.
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Only one minute? Okay.
Female refugees are more likely than male ones to come from countries generally considered to be safe. How will the new provisions of Bill C-31 make it possible to take that gender-based data into consideration?
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Female refugees are more likely than male ones to come from countries generally considered to be safe. How will the new provisions of Bill C-31 take into consideration that gender-based data?
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
I would say that, for the vast majority of refugee claimants, Bill C-31 will lead to further verifications of their case, since we are suggesting that a refugee appeal section be created for claimants whose application is denied by the Refugee Protection Division. That way, the vast majority of women who are denied by the IRB at the first hearing will have access to a thorough appeal process.
I think that’s a positive change for female refugee claimants, especially the ones who come from countries that are well known for the persecution of and violence against women.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to the hearing, Minister and staff.
My question relates to the discussion around the super visa. It has been three months since it was implemented in December. So December, January, February...it's now three months. Perhaps you can give us a sense of how it is working with respect to the issues that we're trying to address.
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Well, we actually issued a report on this on March 5, and we announced the super visa as a key part of our action plan for faster family reunification last year. We started issuing the super visas, I believe, in December. We issued an initial report last week indicating that 77% of the applications have been approved and that almost 99% of super visa applicants who meet the requirements, such as the income requirement, were approved.
The main reason why people are not being accepted is because they don't have the minimum necessary family income, which is the same level required for them to successfully sponsor their parents or grandparents for permanent residency. That's the same benchmark, and, frankly, it's a sensible one. It basically says that we don't want families to overburden themselves with the costs of bringing in parents or grandparents. So at 77%, I think it's very effective.
Mr. Lamoureux said something about $4,000 in insurance. The reason I said that I reject the premise of the question is because I know there are much less expensive insurance packages available for individuals. There is a dynamic marketplace now offering health insurance packages, and I anticipate that over time prices will come down because of that new market and that new competition, which.... And by the way, if people don't want to apply for the super visa, they are still welcome to have their parents come on the regular visitor visa, for which there is no health care requirement or minimum income requirement.
The super visa is there for particular purposes. It's for people who want their parents or grandparents to come on extended stays or to obtain a 10-year multiple entry visa that permits stays of up to two years at a time.
Now, there are a lot of people who don't necessarily want permanent residency for their parents. The parents want to maintain a home back in their home country, but the parents do want to come around family moments like childbirth. This is an ideal tool for those longer stays. If they want to come for a brief visit, we advise them to apply for a regular visitor visa, which will allow them to come in for six months. That does not require health insurance.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Is there a limit to how many times they can apply for the super visa?
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Well, there's no limit to how many times they can apply, but as I say, the super visa is issued for a 10-year multiple-entry period. Presumably, elderly people aren't going to be using that multiple times, but maybe a couple of times.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
A quick question I have is with regard to biometrics and their effective use. In our immigration system and our visa system, there are a lot of timelines that we must address: for example, three years and five years of residency in Canada, or a 30-day visa, or if you come in without a visa, you need 60 days. Does this mean that we need to have some sort of entry-exit control in order to control this?
Conservative
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
It's fair to say that virtually anyone who has looked at the integrity of our immigration system has identified the absence of exit information as perhaps the single biggest gap we have, as the Auditor General has noted in previous reports. I think she estimated a few years ago that there were in the range of 40,000 foreign nationals on removal orders whose whereabouts are unknown to the Government of Canada.
Some of them may have gone back to their countries. Some of them, frankly, may have crossed the land border illicitly. Many of them are likely living underground without status in Canada. If we were to adopt some kind of exit information system so that we would know when people have left the country, then we would know who is in the country, making it much easier for us to identify and remove foreign nationals who are inadmissible or who are here illegally.
This is also a central commitment to the Beyond the Border continental security action plan.
