Evidence of meeting #79 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 question.
A video is available from Parliament.
Director, Asylum Policy and Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
—but they will continue....
NDP
Conservative
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I didn't hear the end of his answer to the question about where they will have appeal to.
Director, Asylum Policy and Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
They will have access through the Federal Court for a judicial review of the refugee protection division decision.
NDP
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
They have no right to appeal, but a judicial review. I understand that. Thank you.
My next question is around citizenship. You have thrown quite a few numbers out about the cost you have put on processing citizenship fees.
When I look at the current costs of paying $100 towards processing and $100 towards getting citizenship.... I've been to some of those citizenship ceremonies, by the way. A room is rented; there's a judge there; there's red serge there, right? The ones I've been to have been beyond that. That's about it. People walk in, get their certificates, and they leave.
When you're taking into consideration the costing, are you taking into consideration the rental of those rooms and everything?
Director, Cost Management, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes. The average cost I mentioned is the total cost of the process, so it includes the ceremonies, the processing of the application, the security screening, and the costs of all the processes we need to follow for the citizenship grant.
NDP
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
And it includes the very complicated form-filling and everything else you put into place like the new language requirements and all of those things. I presume all of that is taken into consideration.
What I'm finding hard is that right now it's going to cost a family of four $600, and that's not the only cost. They still have to get themselves to the ceremony. They usually have to take a day off work, and do all of that. I do not see how we can justify doubling that process in one go. We're sort of putting up barriers to citizenship, and I question our wisdom. That's more a comment.
Thank you.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Paré, when you mentioned a $550 average cost for citizenship and yet we're charging $200, I could imagine Ms. James in particular, but we'll no doubt hit the cabinet table, which is going to be thinking that this is another area where we could possibly get some tax hikes.
I would like to caution the government that at the end of the day we need to have a better understanding of exactly what is happening at Citizenship.
For example, how many individuals would have been given citizenship in the year in which you came out with the average costing of $550 per person?
Alexandra Hiles Project Lead, Citizenship Modernization, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thank you for the question. I can give you an answer regarding the volumes.
In 2010 there were 143,595 people who became Canadian citizens. In 2011 there were 181,288 people who became Canadian citizens.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
All right. So the costs really fluctuate depending on the number of individuals who are becoming citizens. Is that not a fair assessment? In one year if you give out 250,000 citizenships, for example, compared to a year in which you might give out 150,000 citizenships, that $550 variable might change by $20 or $30. Is that a fair assessment on my part?
Director, Cost Management, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thank you for the question.
As I mentioned earlier, the budget for CIC is appropriation based, which is pretty fixed in terms of capacity. Usually the budget we have to process citizenship applications allows the department to process 170,000 applications per year. That was in 2010-11. It's been a bit less in the last few years.
We are able to process a bit more—and my colleague mentioned 181,000 for one year—when we have an injection of temporary funding.
The cost is a unit cost, so it's the cost of processing the application. It's not related to the volume we process, because it's a unit cost.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
When we talk about the huge increase in processing time—and we have been strongly advocating the need to reduce the amount of time it takes to process a citizenship application—is it because of not having enough money, or is it because of what we're asking individuals to go through in order to get their citizenship?
What is the root cause of the increase in time to process a citizenship application?
Director General, Operational Management and Coordination, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
If I may just say here that over the last decade or so, we've had the highest sustained rate of immigration to Canada in our history. In that timeframe many more new immigrants have come to Canada. Canada continues to have a high interest in making new immigrants Canadian citizens, and many of those new immigrants want to become Canadian citizens. About 85% apply. So the volume is what has—
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
I'm going to stop you there for just a moment. With all due respect, we have also seen a larger percentage of immigrants landing who are not applying for citizenship. So I don't think it's a fair comparison.
What is causing the delay in processing times? Is it strictly money?
Director General, Operational Management and Coordination, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's volume, the number of people in the process. We are funded to a particular base level. We have increased our capacity to process more cases by injecting fee-based money, which is money from within the department which we internally reallocate to help maintain and not increase the processing times.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Can you provide the committee with a graph that clearly shows the number of individuals applying for citizenship for the last 10 years?
Director General, Operational Management and Coordination, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm sure we could provide that.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Chair, I think that would be a valuable piece of information. I know in the past we've asked for information to be provided to the committee. I'm very much interested in receiving that. A copy could be sent to the committee, either electronically or a paper document, but I would personally like to have a copy sent to me.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you. Your time has expired, Mr. Lamoureux.
That document will come to the clerk and then the clerk will distribute it to members of the committee.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Chair, given the nature of the request, once the clerk receives this information, how long does it usually take for committee members to get a copy?
Conservative
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Over the last couple of years, I've put in requests for information, and I don't know to what degree I'm receiving information. Is it because we're not necessarily receiving it? I would really and truly like to see this information. Perhaps they could advise where I could see it.