Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 4th, 2013

[Robert Orr]

We've been forced to use those generic letters. I think we would all prefer to be able to give far more precise information, but that would be an extraordinarily time-consuming process. Given the volumes that we have, we've had to go to a generic letter, which tries to give as good an idea as possible of the reasons and the reasoning behind the decision. But I grant you it's not specific enough often for an individual to know exactly what the score is.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, and it would be of no assistance in the reapplication, I would say.

[Robert Orr]

I would just say that for those who do reapply, there's a 48% success rate. In other words, I think often what has been offered is helpful, because many people do know what they have to supply subsequently.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Are you able to tell us how many visitors don't go home?

[Les Linklater]

At this point it's not possible to have accurate statistics because we don't have systematic entry and exit information systems, although under the beyond the border action plan with the United States, there's a pilot project that has already been undertaken at the land border by CBSA to start capturing that information. We will be moving to more systematic capture of entry and exit information on foreign nationals over the course of 2013.

The Border Services Agency is leading that initiative. From CIC's perspective we're interested in seeing that being expanded into the air mode as quickly as possible, so that we can then have more reliable information on who's in the country and for how long. If and when they do choose to leave, we and CBSA will have a better idea as to what the actual overstay population is.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The reason I ask that is because it's a reason as to why you don't grant a visa, because for different reasons—you're young and you don't have a job, all those other things—it gets down to the fear from the visa officer that the applicant won't go home.

[Les Linklater]

Yes. As Bob was saying on the balance of reviewing the various factors in a file, certainly that is part of the consideration. Would this individual choose to go underground once in Canada, or make a claim for asylum? We've certainly seen that in the past.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Leung.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, I want to know, why was the Tehran office closed? Was it as a result of the embassy being closed and so the visa-issuing section for that post was also closed? Are there any other visa posts around the world that were closed in the last year or two?

[Robert Orr]

I have a two-part answer to that question.

Yes, Damascus was also closed, which was a very major office for us. It was basically the hub in the Middle East, so we've had to open Ankara. Ankara has always been there, but it's become a very major office now. We have moved our operations for the Middle East to Turkey. We still have an office in Beirut and Amman, in that part of the Middle East, but Ankara took over the responsibilities of Damascus.

As for Tehran, yes, because the mission closed, we closed the visa office as part of that.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Were there any other offices, say in southeast Asia, that were closed?

[Robert Orr]

In southeast Asia, no, there were no offices closed there. Through the budget review exercise last year, we did close 10 visa offices overseas. Most of them were in the United States, but there were some other offices as well. In Asia, the visa office in Tokyo and the office in Seoul were also closed, and Kuala Lumpur.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

A quick calculation indicates in a normal eight-hour day, 480 minutes or so, you process somewhere between 40 to 60 applications. That means somewhere between eight to twelve minutes per application. That is the application process, but what typically would a visa officer be faced with? What is the stack in the morning before he or she says, “I'm going to do 40 or 80 of them”? Are they looking at 100 or 1,000 applications when they sit down at nine o'clock in the morning?

[Robert Orr]

A visa officer has a variety of functions. First of all, I'd say that a visa officer would not necessarily be doing only visitor visas. These are also officers who would be looking at permanent resident applications. They would be reporting on the situation in a particular country. They would be doing statistical analysis. They would have a variety of different tasks, so the assessment of applications and visitor applications would, perhaps, take a significant part of an individual's day, but it's not the only thing an individual would be doing.

The actual intake varies from office to office. That's one of the things that is very helpful to us in opening up the series of VACs, the visa application centres, around the world. We'll now get applications that are far more complete. Also, a lot of the administrative work will be done so that we'll be able to enter the information into our computer system very rapidly. A lot of the work will be done beforehand by the visa application centres, so it will be a far faster process to enter things into GCMS.

Then the officer will be getting the application. It may be electronic now, or it may be paper, but we'll be going through those applications. Sometimes it's a very quick review, because you know they're very straightforward. Other times it will require a very detailed look at many of the documents that are submitted.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I recently had a person go to a very small country, Armenia, and the visa application online only cost $10, and it was a 40-hour return. Is there any move toward that type of efficiency and that type of cost saving for the Canadian temporary resident visa?

[Robert Orr]

Since December, applicants have had the opportunity to use an e-application to apply electronically. This is still sort of in its initial stages, but it has huge opportunities for us in the longer term. What it allows the applicant to do is to submit everything online, scan any documents, and submit those along with the application, so no paper is submitted. When the application has been studied, they would then submit their passport, so we can actually put in a counterfoil at that point. It means they don't have to be without their passport for as long.

From our point of view, it's very helpful in that we may be able to look at an application that is submitted electronically in various parts of the world, where we have certain capacity to do so. If a particular office is very busy, then we may be able to ask another office, based on risk, to study those particular applications.

There will be opportunities for us, but I think for the applicant as well, as it becomes more efficient.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

You mentioned that—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Your time is up, unless Mr. Dykstra wants to surrender some time.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Go ahead.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

You mentioned that with an e-application or e-visa, you have to make the application first, but then you still have to forward your passport. That's the time when most applicants get a little concerned because if they're putting that in the mail, the possibility of it not returning in time before they travel is much higher. So how do we increase efficiency? In Armenia, where I was, they actually came back and said, “Your visa is approved; we will assign it to you on arrival”.

[Robert Orr]

Yes, we're not in a phase yet.... For those countries where there is a visa requirement, we still have a paper counterfoil that has to go into the passport. The benefit with electronic visas and with our new GCMS system as well, though, is if someone is traveling, for instance someone from Armenia travelling maybe in the United States, they need to get that counterfoil put in. Although the application has been studied and the decision has been made at another office, the actual counterfoil could be put in at a second office in the United States, for instance, where that person may be travelling, so there is a convenience factor there.

[Les Linklater]

With the electronic travel authority, that's essentially what we're aiming to implement—an electronic record that the individual has permission to travel to Canada, that they have been screened, and that CBSA, through the airlines, will be able to issue board or no-board orders before individuals leave their country of origin, or the point of embarkation for the flight, pushing the risks off.

The individual will not have any indication in their passport, but when they present their passport, scanning that will bring up the ETA approval.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I see.

Just to deal with some broad general figures, did you indicate that there were 35 million applications or 35 million entries into Canada every year?

[Robert Orr]

That would be entries into Canada every year.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Out of those 35 million, what percentage would need the temporary work visa—or the TRV?