Evidence of meeting #20 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 residence.
A video is available from Parliament.
Manager, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
Yes, it is fast. Our residence processes are a lot quicker than Canada's in general, but the other thing about the domestic violence residence applications is that they have top priority for processing, so they have the same priority as a skilled residence application, or a refugee residence application, once an asylum claimant has been determined to be a refugee.
Those are the only three with top priority, and then the bulk has second priority in appearance of—
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Sorry to interrupt, but I'm going to run out of time. Approximately how much time in a typical case would it take for this woman to go from the point of being abused and leaving the husband to receiving landed immigrant status?
Manager, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
It should be less than a year.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
It's less than a year. Would it cost a lot of money? How much money would she have to pay?
Manager, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
No. Excluded from having to pay the migrant levy, which is what people pay once they've been approved, the fee is about $800 or $900. It can be waived if they are destitute, but the fee is around $900.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Last question, I'm not a lawyer, but I seem to think the accusation of violence can be a long-drawn-out difficult legal process. If they can get through in less than a year, you must have pretty low standards from a legal point of view of proof and so on, which I applaud. I'm not saying that's bad, but how do you manage to get decisions about family violence adjudicated so cheaply and quickly?
NDP
Manager, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
It's not done in the court system. It's done by Immigration New Zealand.
NDP
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Thank you to the witnesses from New Zealand. I do business quite frequently between Canada and Asia, and I know what it's like to wake up at these early hours to be communicating.
My question has to do with the provision of information to foreign spouses. Very often, we hear testimony from others that it would be great if the prospective spouse received information prior to arrival and post-arrival regarding their rights in Canada or in New Zealand, which is probably very different from some of the countries they're coming from.
How do you perform that? The reason I ask is that these rights for the spouse are to allow them an understanding that they're somewhat protected, at least by the law, when they come into this country. My concern is that when you have a person who is not conversant with one of our official languages, or in English in your case. How do you deliver that information to them? How many resources do you put behind that?
Manager, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
It's not a huge amount of resources, I would say. Some of the immigration branches provide debt information to prospective applicants.
I know that in our Indian branches, for example, when people have been applying for visas to come to New Zealand, essentially either for cultural marriage or sponsored by someone who may have gone to India to marry them and is coming back, they try to provide written information with the visa going back. The difficulty, of course, is that information can be intercepted, so it's like the case with the fraudulent agent. You can't be certain the person who needs to get the information will actually receive it.
There is some information provided on the Internet, and that is translated into about the 12 major languages, I think. So if people can get onto the Internet and are literate, then they can read it there.
As I said, all of our quota refugees are told about New Zealand's laws, including laws around marriage and around violence and assault—that's both women and men—during the six weeks they spend after they arrive in New Zealand at the Mangere Refugee Reception Centre before they go out to where they're going to live, elsewhere in the country.
But I think there has always been, with regard to—
Manager, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
I'm sorry?
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
So there is actually an immigration officer who conducts this work at the post-arrival station?
Manager, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
Yes, there is, for refugees only.
Conservative
Manager, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
No. For other sponsored spouses, the information that is provided is in the nature of being on the Internet, basically. There will be things in the community as well, if they join with community associations and so forth.
Someone who is very vulnerable, though, may have information withheld from them by their sponsoring New Zealand partner. The other issue, which is a big one, is that people may come from countries where they do not trust the government and do not trust the police. So even if they know that these provisions exist, they may not think they should complain to the police because they worry that this might get them into trouble.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Yes. All right.
My next question has to do with how you determine whether the New Zealand resident is qualified to be a sponsor. I'm specifically asking whether you check his background for mental stability, for means tests as to whether he has the income to handle it, or as to whether there is any history of previous convictions. What sort of process do you go through to make sure that the sponsor—?
Senior Advisor, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
They're not—
Senior Advisor, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
They're not means-tested, so the income isn't tested. But they are checked as to whether they have any previous convictions of a sexual or domestic violence nature in the past seven years.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
So there are no means tests on the basis of income. Okay.
Senior Advisor, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
No, there's no means test.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Then my third question has to do with what the age of consent is. It wasn't quite clear to me.
You mentioned that below age 18 they need parental consent, but after 18 they're free to marry as they wish. Is that correct?
Senior Advisor, Immigration Policy, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of New Zealand
Yes, that's right. They can't get married under the age of 16. Between 16 and 18, they need parental consent.
