Evidence of meeting #6 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 backlog.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
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NDP
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NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
I'd like to welcome all the witnesses. In particular, I'd like to thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to share your expertise with us here today.
Of course, we're here to study the backlog. Minister Kenney--and I think I'll be fair to what he said--has said on numerous public occasions that when the Liberal government came into power in 1993, they inherited an immigration system in which decisions were rendered in a few months' time and the backlog in applications was manageable.
Mr. Kenney says that when the Liberals left office in 2006, they left--thanks to their mismanagement, he said--a backlog of some 640,000 applications for the federal skilled worker program, and some 850,000 applications generally. I think that corrects it. But now, since he's been in office for five years, the backlog total has grown to over a million. I don't think Mr. Kenney would agree with me that it's his mismanagement, but the backlog has certainly grown.
What Mr. Kenney and I think the government are proposing is that we impose caps on applications as a means of dealing with the backlog. They point to the experience in the skilled worker class as an example of success.
Ms. Parker and Mr. Mokhtari, do you consider the ministerial instructions, what the government has done in the skilled worker category, to have been a success?
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CanPars Immigration Services Inc., As an Individual
I don't think so.
What I think is that Mr. Kenney closed down all the federal programs by doing this. Actually, he left the backlog and put on a cap of 1,000, and then 500. He processed some of them from the first ministerial instructions, and then again, in the second and the third, it is just a show, I'm sorry to say. I have 15 speeches from Mr. Kenney in different immigrant communities. He's walking around and talking about reducing the backlog and reducing the processing time. But it is not the case. It is not what we see on the ground.
We have a backlog of 24,000 in the federal investor program. This is what he officially says. The new program required an investment of only $800,000. They announced it in November 2010. They started receiving the applications in January or late December, because of the forms. I filed some of them in January and February, and they were never processed. They had 3,000 visas a year and they said 2,000 were allocated to the previous program. This was with a $400,000 investment, with 1,000 for the new program. My files were never processed until now, which is at the end of the year. How could they use that 1,000? That means it's closed down—it is finished.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Let me go into that so we can understand this. There was a backlog of 640,000 skilled worker applications. In 2008, they brought in an instruction saying that they were going to do what...?
Ms. Parker, what did that first ministerial instruction say?
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Lawyer, As an Individual
It said that they were bringing in 38 professions.
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NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
They also said that applications received after February 1, 2008 would be processed first.
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NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
That was over and above the 640,000 that were already there, correct?
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Lawyer, As an Individual
Absolutely. That answers your question about the caps. Those caps, in the end, are not in any way fixing the backlog prior to 2008.
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NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
A doctor who was waiting in the queue before 2008 saw their application thrown aside while an application by a new doctor made after 2008 was processed first?
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I also understand that people got letters after 2008 saying that their applications would be processed within 12 months. I have tabbed here Mr. Kenney's speeches as well, where he said 12 months, six to 12 months, and seven to eight months, and then that the majority of them would be within six months. How long are those applications filed after 2008 taking to process? Do we know?
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Lawyer, As an Individual
Mr. Mokhtari has his own list. I believe that the last AOR and the last one processed was in February 2009.
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NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
So what does that mean? How long would those take to process? Would they have been processed in 12 months?
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NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Okay. So then in 2009, Mr. Kenney issued a second set saying, I would argue, that the first one didn't work and that we're now going to cut those occupations from 30--
