Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[Les Linklater]

That's correct.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Is that number of 539,000 as of the end of last year maybe an error, or have we reduced from 540,000 to 450,000 in the last six months? Or am I missing something?

[Les Linklater]

The number you have in front of you would reflect the number of Quebec applications that we also process. So the 32,000 you referred to would be at the end of December the number of applications we have from the province of Quebec, which we would then process after it has issued a certificat de sélection du Québec. But at the same time, I think it's important to unpack the numbers. I can appreciate that it is confusing. We have the backlog of applicants who applied before February 28, 2008. That number is about 314,000.

As I mentioned, with the first set of ministerial instructions, or MI-1, we used an occupational filter that we thought would be the best way to manage intake towards the 38 occupations that were identified—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Linklater, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I've limited time.

I understand how the MIs were, but it's the raw numbers that I wanted.

[Les Linklater]

Okay, so within MI-1 our intake exceeded our expectations, and we still have about 140,000 people who applied under MI-1 who we still need to process.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay.

What is the most current number you have for skilled worker applications in the backlog today?

[Les Linklater]

All in? I think Madame Deschênes is looking for that number. It would be lower than the number you have here.

[Claudette Deschênes]

The number I have for June 30, 2011, would be 482,117.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay.

I'm going to put these questions to the minister when he comes on Thursday. Minister Kenney gave an interview just last week, September 28, in Embassy. In answer to the backlogs he said:

When we came to office, we had a total backlog of all immigration categories of about 850,000 with average wait times of seven years. That's because, on average, the previous government was accepting over 400,000 applications per year, with a legal responsibility to process them. But [they] were only admitting, on average, 220,000 over the course of 13 years. So that meant, every year there was a huge surplus of applications, over admissions, that led to this 800,000- to 900,000-person backlog.

And finally he said:

...on the federal skilled worker program, where we have seen the total backlog go from 640,000 three years ago down to about 430,000 now.

So bear with me on the math here, because I'm trying to understand this. Mr. Kenney said the backlog was created under the Liberals because they were admitting an average of 220,000 per year. Over the last five years, we have admitted an average of 253,000 per year. Is that correct?

[Les Linklater]

Yes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

So we've increased the number of people we're admitting per year.

He said the reason the backlog was created was because the Liberal government was accepting 400,000 applications per year. If we started in 2006 with a backlog of 850,000 and we've reduced the backlog in the skilled worker category by 210,000, as Minister Kenney said and as your numbers confirm, then the fact that we have a current backlog of over one million means that we've seen an increase of over 350,000 in the other categories. Can you explain why that is the case?

[Les Linklater]

think when we look at all of the backlogs across the program, for those who applied as skilled workers prior to February 2008 we had 640,000 in that category alone prior to ministerial instructions. As of the end of June of this year, that number of people had been reduced to about 314,000. But we did get more under ministerial instructions, MI-1, than we had anticipated. So progress there overall, in skilled workers, isn't as great as we had hoped.

The other increases across the program represent significant and ongoing applications under the parents and grandparents class, for example. We've also seen growth in other areas, like the provincial nominee program. That's been accommodated within the levels plan that's resulted in fewer skilled workers or parents and grandparents being processed.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Now, CIC figures on your website reveal that for the first five years of the Conservative government, 2006-2010, family class visas have been cut 14.6%, 70,000 to 60,000, and spousal visas have been cut 10%, 45,300 to 40,700. Both of those have been reduced every single year, and parental visas have been cut 23.4% over the same period. Could it be that one of the reasons there's a growing backlog in the family class is not only because we're receiving more applications but because we're also issuing fewer visas?

[Les Linklater]

If we unpack the trends that we've been seeing, particularly on the family class related to spouses, partners, and dependent children, I think the number of new applications has actually declined year over year for the past number of years. We've actually seen the number of visas reduced because the demand has not been there. Canadians, permanent residents, have not been sponsoring their immediate family in the same numbers as has been previously the case.

I think if we look at the parents and grandparents admission numbers along with the levels plans for the last couple of years, you'll see that consistently parents and grandparent admissions have been in the range of about 15,000 to 20,000 over the course of that period.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If I were to make a statement that limiting the intake and deciding the right mixture of immigrants is probably the most important thing a committee of this nature could do in terms of trying to address the backlog, and that in fact staffing levels are not necessarily the issue in terms of processing the targets in a timely fashion, would those comments be fair to make this afternoon?

[Les Linklater]

Well, ultimately it's the responsibility of the minister to table the report in Parliament every year by November 1, and he does seek the views of a number of stakeholders in developing that plan. I understand that most recently a letter was written to him from the official opposition outlining views on the levels planned, so he does take that information into consideration.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

The actual staffing levels around the world where the immigrants are being processed are not really the issue. Is that a fair assessment in terms of meeting the targets?

[Claudette Deschênes]

I think that's correct. I do think that CIC is working very hard to modernize how we deliver to ensure we have more flexibility in the system. There are a lot of things that we've been doing to give us more flexibility and become a little more efficient with what we have.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

The issue is not staffing when we deal with grandparents and parents. It's strictly a numbers game: if we have too many parents applying that exceed the target, that creates the backlog. It's not the staff.

[Claudette Deschênes]

That is correct, although I think there are things we want to do in terms of how we process parents and grandparents, because anecdotally we're getting a lot of information from the field that parents and grandparents don't always do what we ask them to do quickly. So from an efficiency perspective, that is one of the problems we've had in terms of meeting our levels, because if people take longer to do their medical--

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I have limited time. I understand that, okay?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Okay. Sorry.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

If you have 10,000 parents and grandparents in total making application, and there is no backlog, we wouldn't have a problem in terms of processing those within nine months--at least 80%--and that's correct.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Assuming there was not a medical problem or whatever, absolutely.