Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 26th, 2014

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

You are well positioned to answer this question. If you were to make one or two proposals to improve protection for women and help the newly arrived women get settled, what would they be?

[Robert Orr]

That's a very broad question, but thank you.

This is a very complex, difficult issue. We're all trying to grapple with what the best way is to go at this. Over the past few years there has been an enormous effort to address it in a number of different ways, such as legislation, outreach, training, work with the settlement agencies, and so on. As I tried to explain, I think that together these make a very robust package.

We're starting to see the results. We have to measure them. We have to try to get a better handle on the impact of these various measures. Of course, we will continue to refine them and see what else can be done to move forward.

We're not alone in this. As we talk to other countries, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, particularly, we find that they grapple with the same sorts of issues. We all come to the same sorts of means of dealing with this issue. We will continue to try to learn from each other's best practices.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

In terms of the financial data on settlement services, there has been a short debate on whether cuts have been made and, if so, when. Would it be possible to provide the committee with data on the funding earmarked for settlement services over the past 10 years? Has all the money been spent? How many newcomers have been eligible for those services over the past 10 years? Those numbers would enable us to have a good grasp of the funding for settlement services. Would it be possible to forward the information to the clerk?

[Ryhan Mansour]

Yes, we can forward it to you.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

You talked about Bill C-10, which was passed and deals with human trafficking in particular. That is another topic I would like to hear your opinion on.

Does this piece of legislation make it possible to protect victims? Organizations and associations are saying that they are increasingly able to have the tools to combat human trafficking. However, once victims are taken out of those networks, do they go back to their countries? If not, do they receive protection enabling them to stay here? Could you elaborate on the level of protection provided to victims?

[Robert Orr]

I'll answer very quickly and then turn the question over to my colleague.

Yes, there are protections for those individuals. That's the whole point of a lot of this legislation: to try to protect them and to give them opportunities often to remain in Canada.

[David Manicom]

Yes, there are specific measures in place to make sure that victims of trafficking are protected. There are specific regulatory provisions to issue them a temporary resident permit to remain in Canada under the provision that they are a victim of trafficking. These are used fairly regularly. Last year there were 26 temporary resident permits issued to victims of trafficking.

The whole framework is set in place to make sure that victims of trafficking are protected rather than be re-victimized by being removed. Not all victims of trafficking wish to remain in Canada, of course; it depends on individual circumstances. But we have that measure in place.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

You talked about a temporary permit, but can victims of trafficking receive a temporary permit if they don't want to go back to their countries? Is that common?

[David Manicom]

I don't have that data in front of me but there is a class for temporary resident permit holders. If they are a temporary resident permit holder for a period of—is it five years?

[A voice]

Three, I think it is.

[David Manicom]

Well, we can confirm that—then they are eligible for permanent resident status if they meet other eligibility requirements such as not having criminal records and so forth. So, yes, they do have access to permanent resident status in some situations.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Okay.

So, most of the time, women who have a five-year permit can obtain a permanent permit if they do not have a criminal record. Would women who are drawn into prostitution or trafficking rings be considered to have a criminal record?

[Robert Orr]

I think the whole point is that we are trying to protect the victims, and we're not going to victimize them again because of the situation they were put into involuntarily.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I understand the objective, but I would like to know how the victims are protected.

[David Manicom]

We can give them permanent resident status.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Is that common?

[David Manicom]

I don't have the numbers of trafficking victims who became permanent residents subsequently through that TRP but I believe that information could probably be provided to the committee.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, I would appreciate it.

Those are all my questions, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. McCallum, you're in luck. You have some time.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

Like many, I have many spousal applicants in my riding office and sometimes I'm not quite sure if they're honest. Many times I know they are, and often when they are honest, they still get denied. We also know the processing times have gone up over time.

Obviously, we want to prevent marriages of convenience coming in, but the fact that there are some bad apples, the people who want to come in fraudulently, and because we take measures to stop that, does that increase wait times for all the good people? We know wait times have gone up, but to what extent might the rise in wait times be related to efforts to stem marriages of convenience?

[Robert Orr]

With respect to the processing times overall, we try to do spousal applications within the service standard of 12 months, and unfortunately we're above that in 80% of the cases we're dealing with. Our global average at the moment is about 17 months. We continue to try to work our way through that.

The processing times are longer for a whole variety of reasons. The issue of marriages of convenience is a factor, but it's one among many factors that would be influencing this. I think it would be very difficult to isolate that as a key piece of this.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay, thank you.

You say that “Welcome to Canada” states that female genital mutilation, honour-based crimes and forced marriages will not be tolerated in this country.” I certainly agree with that, but many other things are not tolerated in this country. Murder, rape, robbery, hitting people on the head are not tolerated in this country. That's a very selective list of three out of dozens of things that are not tolerated in this country. One could argue it's a somewhat religion-specific list.

Of all the things that are not tolerated in this country, why do you focus on those particular three?

[Robert Orr]

I can start and my colleague can continue, but I think that a number of the other issues you mentioned are common across all countries. These are particularly heinous ones that Canada does not want to tolerate and wants to make that very clear right up front. It is an effort to try to ensure that people are not put in vulnerable situations. We try to avoid that and ensure that it's clear that we will not tolerate that.

[Ryhan Mansour]

I think what was mentioned earlier—

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

We don't tolerate all those other things either.