Evidence of meeting #16 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Chris Alexander Conservative Ajax—Pickering, ON
The funding stays the same. This is simply a transfer between departments to reflect their new responsibilities.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Minister and officials.
I'd like to focus on the citizenship program, beginning with your chart, which shows a mushrooming of processing times from 15 months to 31 months over the last seven years accompanied by a statement in your document that “as resources for processing these applications have not kept pace, backlogs have developed” over those seven years. Then there's a commitment to more funds, which is the main reason why, you alleged, the processing times will come down.
In budget 2013 the government committed $44 million over two years to this program, and since the program was only $46 million to begin with, that's a doubling of the program over two years, so that may have an impact. The commitment was for $20 million extra in 2013-14 and $23 million in 2014-15.
So imagine my surprise when I looked at the estimates and I found that instead of $20 million extra in 2013-14 there were zero extra dollars in 2013-14, nothing at all. So rather than reducing times, there was nothing at all spent where $20 million was committed. Then if you look at the estimates for next year, you find that the full amount, $44 million or so, instead of being spread over 2013-14, was included in the single year 2014-15. So instead of having $20 million and $23 million over two years, nothing was done in year one and all of it was put into year two.
There are problems with that, Mr. Chair. First of all, why was nothing put into the program when the budget promised it would be in 2013-14? Second, how can you possibly want us to believe that you can double the program in a single year? Finally, is it not a little bit suspicious that we will not know until after the next election whether this $44 million extra in 2014-15 is actually spent? There's no pre-election accountability as to whether or not you actually spend this money, which is absolutely essential to keeping your promises to reduce processing times.
Conservative
Chris Alexander Conservative Ajax—Pickering, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Just because there aren't changes in the estimates or the supplementary estimates that doesn't mean that additional resources aren't being spent. We have been able to fund increased resources for the citizenship program internally this year, and we will use the full amount of increased resources made available to us next year to continue that ramp-up in our processing capacity.
There is a backlog that we wish was not there and a waiting time that we wish was not there partly because of unprecedented demand for citizenship, partly because of the need to review in a serious way residency questions relating to thousands of people. As you know, there are thousands of such investigations under way.
Conservative
Conservative
Chris Alexander Conservative Ajax—Pickering, ON
Unlike the Liberal Party, we don't believe that money solves all problems. We need a more efficient model. We need—
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Chris Alexander Conservative Ajax—Pickering, ON
—we're backing Bill C-24 to strengthen the Canadian Citizenship Act.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Before we get to the point of order, I have a problem with both of you talking at the same time. The translators will never get it.
Point of order, Mr. Menegakis.
Conservative
Costas Menegakis Conservative Richmond Hill, ON
Mr. Chair, if a member asks a question, he should allow the time for the minister to respond to the question. It's just courtesy.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
It's a reasonable point of order, although I guess Mr. McCallum was concerned that he hasn't much time.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
We'll let Mr. Alexander try to be brief. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Minister.
Conservative
Chris Alexander Conservative Ajax—Pickering, ON
The much more important impact on this backlog will come with the passage of the legislation. And as a demonstration of the fact that we are ramping up and moving through more applications even before the new spending comes on stream, citizenship was awarded to 40,000 new Canadians in the months of January and February. That is an absolutely unprecedented rate for all time and it shows that we're ramping up.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
It does not however, because whereas the budget committed to a 50% increase in the budget, according to the estimates, it's zero. And so I don't understand why if the estimates give you the room, you don't take that room. I do not understand why the bulk of the increase is occurring in the next year when Canadians will not know whether that money has actually been spent until after the election. And you give all sorts of reasons for why this processing time has gone up, but in your own document you say the reason is, “As resources for processing these applications have not kept pace, backlogs have developed.” Your own department says it's a resource issue. You have not put the resources in over the last seven years. Now having promised you would put them in 2013-14, the estimates say zero instead of $20 million—