Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 25th, 2011

[Thomas Tam]

Thank you.

I think it's always our position that parents and grandparents have a very significant economic role to play to support the family. That's what I mentioned in my presentation. Of course, you know, admitting parents and grandparents, not just focusing on economic variables.... In Canada we value family, and we are very proud of our Canadian heritage that families are an important component of the whole social system.

On top of this family agenda, we also look at the economic contributions from parents or grandparents of the principal applicants to take care of the young kids and the household affairs. As you know, the child care service in Canada is getting worse and worse. A lot of working parents are immensely distressed about how to take care of the kids while working outside during the daytime. That's why I brought to the committee the phenomenon of “satellite babies”. It's not only for one particular country. It's getting more and more common for Chinese, Mexicans, and people from South Africa to send the baby back to the home country to be raised by their parents or grandparents.

Again, that's no good to our economy. That's no good to our future generations.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

My last question is something that people maybe all agree that it might be a positive proposal, which is that many parents and grandparents in the queue—there are about 150,000 waiting in queue right now—perhaps aren't necessarily interested in coming to Canada to become citizens, but simply want to spend a portion of the year here, stay with their families, and help with child care. The idea has been to consider Canada creating a ten-year multiple entry visa that would allow them to come in and out of the country.

Provided that those people established health insurance, as many Canadians do when they go to the United States—they don't pay $75,000 up front, they just arrange health insurance when they travel—provided that we have some measure like that, would you think that might be one small way we could facilitate families being together, clear some of the backlog, and actually cure some of the problems with our visa system at the same time?

[Thomas Tam]

I would like to see that tried out, at least to solve the immediate backlogs and also to help a lot of families who are in need of a caretaker at home.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Tam.

Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

To all three presenters, I appreciate your presence here today.

I want to get right into the issue before us. The Minister of Immigration comes here and talks about the numbers game. Time and again we hear from the Conservatives that we had the most immigrants come in the last year and how wonderful they are for doing that type of thing. At the end of the day, often when you're travelling abroad, you don't talk about it in terms of hard numbers but in terms of a percentage of your population base.

We often talk about the 1% as being that mark, that generally speaking 1% is at least an acceptable target. We came close to doing that in the early 1990s, in the 1980s we exceeded it, and that's pointed out. But the most important issue in dealing with how many immigrants Canada can have or sustain has a lot more to do with the mixture of immigrants you're allowing to come in. Would you agree? When I say the mixture I'm talking about all the different classes. We know, for example, that if we had 250,000 grandparents come into the country, that wouldn't be acceptable. On the other hand, we could develop a mixture. Would you agree with me in the sense that it's more important to get the mixture right than the actual number of immigrants?

[Thomas Tam]

That's what I had in my first presentation. I appreciate the existing government's consultation process. It has been a very good exercise for a community to participate in, not only the level of immigration but also the composition, different classes among newcomers.

I totally agree that the level of immigration depends on the capacity, as I think some of the members mentioned. So 1%, or whatever percentage, is one of the references to represent the capacity of our country to accommodate newcomers, strangers. Of course we have to look at the distribution among different classes. I totally agree that it has to match the economic development, the labour shortage demand, as well as our traditional values.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

The second thing I want to pick up on and get a response from the other two presenters is whether it's the Liberals or the New Democrats, we talk about having multiple-year visiting visas. We see seniors as a positive thing. Many of these parents and grandparents, in terms of the foundation they can set, go far beyond economics, even though they would continue to contribute in an economic way if they were afforded that opportunity. A short-term measure that's been suggested for quite a while now has been multiple-year visiting visas. What would your thoughts be in terms of allowing those multiple-year visiting visas so parents can be reunited with families and still be able to contribute to things such as child care as being that foundation? Do you see that as a short-term solution?

[Amy Casipullai]

Absolutely. It's a really good idea. I believe the proposal was also multiple-entry visitor visas that would extend for a period of at least ten years. I believe previous discussions have touched on the fact that it could be a way for parents and grandparents to be here while their applications for sponsorship are being processed. It's also true that not every parent or grandparent wants to come here to stay.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

That's right.

[Amy Casipullai]

It's also true that they would want to come here just to visit for a short period or a longer period. But for many the only way they can enter Canada is through the sponsorship process. So the multiple-entry visitor visa will open up opportunities for many more people and that will definitely cut down on the backlog.

[Tom Pang]

I certainly agree in principle with what you have already mentioned, as long as they will not become a burden to this country.

I do not want to see change in this thing with Vancouver. But nowadays if you walk into a subsidized seniors home, say in Scarborough, over 30% of the people living there are recent immigrants who have never worked a day in Canada. Most of them don't even speak the language. That's what I'm referring to. I worked all my life in Canada and got a pension. If you look at income, I really don't make that much more than some of those people living in subsidized housing.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Pang.

Ms. James, you're next.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you as well to each of our guests. It's a pleasure to have you here today and to listen to your speeches.

My colleagues across the floor have touched base on the ten-year multi-entry visa. I'm going to ask a few more questions on it as well.

Our government made that announcement back in July of this year, raising the period of time from five years to ten years. We have touched base on it very briefly. But I'm curious. We realize that many parents or elders or grandparents and older parents want to come to Canada but don't necessarily want to make it a permanent residence. They want to come to visit family for taking care of the household and the children and so on.

I'm going to direct this question first to Mr. Tam. I wonder whether you have an idea offhand of approximately what the number of parents or grandparents is who want to come here to visit, to use this multi-entry ten-year visa.

[Thomas Tam]

Of course we don't have any empirical data; we haven't done any research on it. But from our observations, many of the principal applicants want to sponsor their parents mostly just so that they can come to visit them, stay with them for a while, and take care of the children.

My gut feeling is that at least one third or half of the parents do not have very strong intentions to stay permanently.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

So in your opinion, it's up to one half.

[Thomas Tam]

Yes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

And Mr. Pang, I can get your ideas on that as well?

[Tom Pang]

I really can't say. I have a feeling that at least the ones who are already here, as I mentioned already, who are trying to get some kind of supplementary income from the government, will try their best to move into subsidized housing—plus all these language courses, and blah-blah-blah. I don't know how many of them would actually come if they didn't come as immigrants.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'm just going to ask Amy as well. You touched base on this. You just mentioned that you feel there is a proportion of the people who want to come for a visit but do not necessarily want to stay here as permanent residents. Do you have any idea what the number would be for the grandparents and parent class?

[Amy Casipullai]

I'm sorry; I cannot speculate on the number. I know that the number of people who apply for sponsorship simply because there's a visa requirement because of the country they're from is quite significant, from what front line workers say. It's really hard to say what that number would be.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to direct this question to Mr. Tam and Mr. Pang concerning your communities, the Chinese communities. Now I know what success means, so that's good to know. Thank you.

Do you have any personal experiences, or have you talked to people within your community about their thoughts, concerning this ten-year multi-entry visa and whether they deem it to be a good initiative? Obviously it doubles the number it was before, from five years to ten. That obviously makes for more efficiency and fewer applications being processed. Do you have any stories to tell?

[Thomas Tam]

I can share with you my personal experience. My mother came 15 years ago; I sponsored her to come. Then after a couple of years she returned, back to Hong Kong. She stayed there in Hong Kong and doesn't want to come back. Both of my parents-in-law came, again under sponsorship, 12 or 13 years ago just to visit and know what was happening here and what the lifestyle was, and they returned. Of course they came to visit the grandchildren as well; that's the most important reason they came.

This is my own personal experience. I have three parents altogether, and 100% of them went back.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

So you would agree that the multi-year entry visa going to ten years is a good thing?

[Thomas Tam]

Yes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.