Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

That's right, and 80%-plus would be processed within nine months. I think that's an important point.

I want to pick up on the provincial nominee program. It's a program that in my opinion is one of the most successful that was brought in--a Liberal program, I must say to my NDP colleague. Having said that, Manitoba has done exceptionally well as a province compared to any other province in Canada with that particular program. If the uptake on that program is picked up from other provinces, what impact would that have on Manitoba's ability to issue as many certificates? Can you provide a brief comment on that?

[Les Linklater]

Yes, sure. As I mentioned, we work very closely with the provinces as we develop our levels plan, including the targets for the provincial nominee program within the overall economic component. Recognizing the trade-offs and the competing pressures we have between federal and provincial programming, and economic, family, and refugee, we do set a limit every year through the levels plan on the number of provincial nominees who are allowed forward every year.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Okay.

[Les Linklater]

Within that pool, the provinces have their traditional allocation. As we move forward with them on a longer-term planning horizon, we would like to see the provinces work with us to find an equitable distribution for those allocations.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

You have ongoing discussions with the different provinces. Does the department have a breakdown of which provinces are issuing what numbers of certificates and how many immigrants that works out to per certificate?

[Les Linklater]

Yes.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Can the committee be provided a copy of that, along with any sort of anticipation...? For example, is the Province of Ontario looking into the program and is it growing the demand in Ontario for that program? What about out on the east coast? I know that Manitoba would love to have more.

[Les Linklater]

All provinces would love to have more.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

All would. So if we can get an assessment as to where each province is at and of where we can anticipate the growth is going to be coming from in those provinces, because I think that will have an impact on it....

[Les Linklater]

We can provide that information to the clerk.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

In breaking down the grandparents versus the parents, you mentioned that the grandparents were roughly 2%. I think hard numbers would be beneficial. I don't need that number right now.

What really interests me is the number of parents in that process who would be under 55. Do we have any ability to draw out that sort of a statistical number?

[Les Linklater]

I believe we can provide information based on the inventory by age.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I would--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Weston.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to our guests.

As was the case the last time you visited with us, we are very impressed by your knowledge of statistics. I believe that, thanks to the knowledge of the challenge you are facing, which is considerable, you have been able to make the progress that we are seeing today.

My first question concerns the use of technology. During your last appearance, you mentioned that you had started using a very efficient system. Could you tell us a little bit more about your use of this electronic system?

[Les Linklater]

Ms. Deschênes will answer your question.

[Claudette Deschênes]

I will begin by telling you that I do not know the name of the system in French. The Global Case Management System, or GCMS, is the system that is presently in place abroad and that we are trying to put in place in Canada. The system will allow us to examine cases differently. At the present time, we examine them from beginning to end in one and the same place. For example, if a case is being dealt within a given post, then it is that post that will deal with it from beginning to end.

This new system will allow us to decide what must be done in-house by the post and what could be done in a centralized location. It will also allow us to have at our disposal, at the very outset, much more information about the applicant. For example, in the case of an individual who enters as a student and later becomes an immigrant and then a citizen, we will be able to shorten the processing time and reduce the work to be done by an officer.

Secondly, we are working on electronic application systems. At present, we have 2D bar code applications thanks to which public servants do not have to fill in all of the data fields. It is the applicant who does this and the data is then automatically entered into our system. We are moving towards e-applications and e-storage, which will allow us to have in our system the information contained in the documents provided by the applicant. We will then be in a position to follow up.

For example, if I am here in Ottawa, I would be able to see the file of an applicant just as easily as someone in Beijing might be able to do so. As things now stand, visitor requests from China are created in Ottawa in order to facilitate the work. However, this worldwide system will soon allow us to work virtually 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in order to accelerate processing and provide better service to clients. But we are not quite there yet. There remain several things to be done, but we already have the platform that will allow us to do this.

Let me give you a very concrete example. Let us say that there is an individual wishing to apply for a visitor visa. But because of this individual’s occupation, he or she must travel to another country. In the first country, let us say Iran, we can process the application and approve it. That person can then go to our consulate in Washington to retrieve the visa.

This technology will therefore allow us to do much more than what we are able to do now.

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

That is wonderful. Are there other countries that use the same system?

[Claudette Deschênes]

We know that the United States and Australia have examined the system that we developed in order to determine if they could use it.

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

In your opinion, will this system intervene to directly reduce the backlog, or is there no such link between the two?

[Claudette Deschênes]

The system will not necessarily reduce the immigration application backlog, which is tied to the levels. However, it will allow the department to use its resources differently.

For example, the Citizenship Program does not set levels as to the determination of the number of applicants to whom citizenship can be granted, and no plan in this regard is required to be presented to Parliament. However, we wish to have resources in order to facilitate the work.

In the end, there are backlogs in all of our business lines. The system will therefore provide us with much greater flexibility. However, the backlog will not necessarily be resolved on the immigration side, given that it is tied to the annual immigration levels plan.

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

Ms. Deschênes, I read that in 2009 you spoke to this committee of your optimism with regard to the centralization of files. Is this centralization linked to the system that you have just described, or are we talking here of two different things?

[Claudette Deschênes]

They are different. The idea was to have a system that would, among other things, allow us to have a single worldwide workload, which was important based upon the ministerial instructions. The only way to achieve this was to centralize. We have since come to the realization that a lot of things could be centralized, and we are continuing to make incredible strides in this direction, I would say.

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

Have you witnessed an increase in the applications in the other countries following the announcements made with regard to the introduction of new programs? Have people—

[Les Linklater]

I believe we are not following the trends of other countries closely enough. We know that in Australia, they are constantly increasing the criteria for skilled workers and seeking to improve the application system in order to yearly select qualified individuals from within a pool, rather than having to take care of each and every individual making an application. These are things that we want to study in order to determine if there are some elements that we might be able to use within the Canadian context.