Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have one minute.

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

I was in fact interested in knowing if what we are doing here, in Canada, is attracting potential applicants. Has this been observed?

[Les Linklater]

I would say no, given that we have not yet reached the ceiling of 10,000 applications set out in the third set of ministerial instructions, or MI-3. In the case of certain occupations, we have indeed reached the ceiling, but we have not globally attained the 10,000 potential applications.

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

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Weston.

Ms. Groguhé.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Linklater, I have a question for you. If I am not mistaken, there are two processing levels that are provided for, one for new applications and one for applications contained in the backlog. I would like to know which CIC offices have the most backlogs at the present time and which of them have the greatest number of recent applications.

[Les Linklater]

I would say that, worldwide, it is New Delhi that has the most backlogs, especially in the economic class. We are also at work in other posts, in particular that of London, where we have consolidated the processing for applications from Northern Europe as well as from Pakistan.

I believe Ms. Deschênes could provide more details in this regard, but, globally speaking, I would say that it would be New Delhi and London.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

What you are telling me relates to the backlogs, correct?

[Les Linklater]

Yes.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

In what offices are you registering the new applications?

[Les Linklater]

The centralization for skilled workers has made this much more manageable, because we have a limit of 10,000 new applications per year.

With regard to the family class, for example, we are seeing the highest numbers of sponsorship applications in India, the Philippines and China.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Would it be possible for us to have those tables?

[Les Linklater]

Yes, we have statistics that we could provide to the clerk.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Perfect.

I have another question, this one pertaining to the visa offices where the delays are the longest. What concrete explanation have you for this situation?

[Claudette Deschênes]

The delays, in those missions registering the largest number of them, are due to the backlog. These posts receive many more applications and these applications remain in the basket until they become files to be processed.

It is true that it can take much more time because we are waiting longer. In the end, what we see is that when a file is being processed, for example in New Delhi, it is probably dealt with as quickly if not more quickly than in the majority of our posts.

The problem is the time is takes before a file begins to get looked at.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

That is what I would like to understand. When you are dealing with new applications and are looking at the backlog, how do you go about concretely organizing the work so as to some extent achieve viable timelines?

Concretely, how do you go about shortening timelines that can extend for as long as 10, 15 or 20 years?

[Claudette Deschênes]

To date, we have tried to ensure that, for those files having moved into the active stock, we would not have to redo medical examinations or repeat requests for documents, which is not a very efficient way of doing things. Up until now, that has been one of the approaches used to move forward. We concentrated on the second and third sets of ministerial instructions in order to have these files move forward.

We are looking at how we could make headway with these files, in order to ensure that they move forward at a pace that will allow us to process files as quickly as possible. This is why the Global Case Management System is very important to us. It will allow us to hopefully review and process files within a global inventory, rather than post by post.

With the funding received, for example for the Action Plan for Faster Immigration, we have tested a few innovations in order to move files forward. For example, we transferred the New Delhi files to Warsaw, because the people in Warsaw no longer required visitor visas. We are constantly seeking ways of accomplishing this.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much for being here with us today and for your insightful feedback.

I have a number of questions that I put together, and I want to try to get them all into my five minutes.

Under the legislation created by the Liberal government in 2002, is it true that Canada has a legal obligation to process every single application, no matter how many applications are received in a given year?

[Les Linklater]

Under IRPA, yes, we have the obligation to process every application we receive, with the exception of those who applied after 2008 in the economic class, to which the ministerial instructions have been applied.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

It would seem to me that anyone with a basic sense of arithmetic would see that this legislation the Liberal government introduced in 2002 has resulted in the backlogs we're dealing with today. Would you care to comment on that?

[Les Linklater]

I think at the time we did not see the influx of applications that we've seen more recently. There have been a number of recent studies.... One that came out earlier this year indicated that hundreds of millions of people, if given the opportunity, would choose to come to Canada. So I think as we see the forces of globalization continue and people understand better what Canada has to offer, we are an attractive destination.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Sure.

We're looking at a backlog today of about one million. What was the backlog at the end of 2005, beginning of 2006? Would you have that number?

[Les Linklater]

Across all categories? I think we would have to provide a more specific breakdown, but I think it's likely in the area of about 800,000. We can provide that information to the clerk.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

It was 800,000 at the beginning of 2006 and it's one million today. So it's fair to say that we inherited a huge problem back in 2006.