Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the committee for inviting me to speak on behalf of the Sponsor our Parents group. My name is Felix Zhang, and I'm the representative of Sponsor our Parents, which has more than 1,500 members across Canada.
We are Canadian citizens and permanent residents sponsoring our parents to Canada. We'd like to draw to the attention of the committee the long-standing issues of imbalance in processing times and the huge backlog in the parents and grandparents sponsorship class.
First, processing times for our parents in sponsorship's step two vary drastically--from six months to five years--around the world. Ottawa imposes particular quotas by country. Why do some sponsors have to wait much longer than others just because their parents live in a different country? We believe this is discrimination against origin and this must be corrected immediately.
We urge CIC to centrally manage the two-step immigration process through a single queue rather than assign quotas by country. This will enable all applications to be processed on a first come, first served basis, which will ensure fairness to all sponsors.
In addition, CIC should allocate more resources to the longest-waiting visa offices to clean up the backlogs and balance processing times among all overseas visa offices.
Secondly, the backlog in the parents and grandparents sponsorship class has increased dramatically in the past few years. As of the end of June 2011, more than 168,000 applicants were waiting for immigration visas or sponsorship approval.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadian families are anxiously waiting to reunite with their parents or grandparents. However, despite the fast-growing backlog and wait time, CIC did a deep cut of the visa quota by 30% this year. Even the minister repeatedly promised to keep the same level as previous years. In the last five years, the admission quota for parents and grandparents counted between 7% to 8% of all immigration visas. We urge CIC to reverse the recent cut and maintain the same ratio for parents and grandparents in the coming years.
Thirdly, based on the annual admission quota for this year, the current backlog will require more than 15 years to be processed. That is simply not practical for aging parents. If a reform is necessary in order to reduce the wait time, we urge CIC to ensure the fairness, consistency, and transparency of any change.
Today I would like to take this opportunity to present a few very practical and feasible solutions suggested by our members. The most popular one is that parents should have a higher priority because they are closer family members than grandparents, brothers, and sisters. This is very reasonable and widely supported by group members.
The second one is that aging parents without a child living in the same country should have a higher priority because they're much more vulnerable than others who are younger or who have children living in the same country to take care of them. Their applications should be fast-tracked.
The third one is that only Canadian citizens or permanent residents living in Canada for a minimum of three years are eligible sponsors. This will ensure sponsors have a long-term plan to stay here and contribute to the Canadian economy.
There are other suggestions, such as to collect an up-front health premium from the sponsor and then give a tax refund over the ten-year sponsorship period. This would allow the government to enforce the sponsor's minimum financial requirements and ensure the tax revenue from the sponsor.
The reunification with parents and grandparents is very important to new Canadians. The extremely long wait time will not only make other immigration programs less attractive but will also leave new immigrants with no choice but to move back home to take care of their parents. This will definitely have a negative impact on the efficiency and the effectiveness of Canadian immigration practice and policy.
Just recently, a group member from Brampton said he applied for the sponsorship four years ago but his father has passed away since then. He couldn't wait any longer and decided to sell all his assets in Canada and move back home to take care of his mother. He said his parents would have brought substantial money to Canada and they would have contributed to the Canadian economy.
This could have been a win-win situation had his application been processed fast enough. Unfortunately, both he and the Canadian government failed.
In short, we are very frustrated with the current practice called the family sponsorship immigration, and urge CIC to provide fair, responsible, and practical solutions to ensure all applications are processed within an equitable and reasonable timeframe around the world.
Thank you.