Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 28th, 2014

[Nicole Girard]

Other than deciding on those residency cases that are referred to them and conducting citizenship ceremonies, of which there are many hundreds across the country over the course of a year, citizenship judges would also fulfill the important role of citizenship promotion, which is part of their duties now. That would continue.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay.

Approximately what percentage of applicants use non-PR time towards their citizenship?

[Nicole Girard]

In actual fact, not very many applicants take advantage of the ability to use non-permanent resident time. Now it's less than 15% of applicants overall.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

I have just one of these residency questions that affects a few people, obviously, but not a huge number of people.

What about the residency requirement for people whose jobs require extensive travel, such as, for instance, those in the airline industry, or those whose work requires constant travel? Will there be any exceptions to the rule that four years of physical presence will be required to meet the requirements for citizenship?

[Nicole Girard]

There wouldn't be an exception to the requirement for four years of physical presence under the bill. That is a requirement under the bill; however, it would be four years of physical presence out of a six-year window. Those who have to travel quite a bit for their work or for family reasons would have the flexibility to use the full two years out of the six-year window however they choose over that six-year period for times that they may need to be away. That would accommodate people in all kinds of lines of work.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

I still don't see how somebody who may be an airline hostess who's travelling three or four days a week and wants to keep their job can actually meet the residency criteria. Is there anything you or anybody else can add to that?

[Nicole Girard]

It will depend on the individual circumstances. As I mentioned, people can be away for a full two years and that period of time can be staggered at any time over the six-year window. The time the individual is in Canada counts towards the physical presence requirement, and the time the person is away doesn't count.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay.

I think those are all the questions I have, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you to our officials.

I have a few questions. I'm going to jump around a little and change topics.

My first question is about the minister's comments when he spoke of the reforms to the Citizenship Act and the decades of neglect by previous governments. Then in answer to a question about the current government, he said that the Conservatives have only been in government for the last eight years.

I'm wondering if you can give us statistics on the wait times for citizenship applications over the last eight years, and also on the wait times on the residency questionnaire. I have many, many, many people contacting me directly about their residency questionnaire wait times and their wait times in general for citizenship. They've been permanent residents for many years and want to be Canadians, and they are stuck in the queue, waiting.

[Robert Orr]

Perhaps I can talk first of all about the residency questionnaire. There was a great increase in the number of residency questionnaires that were sent out 18 months ago or so. We have tried to reduce that significantly. We've gone through a real blitz to try to reduce the number of residency questionnaires and have moved about 71% of those who had residency questionnaires into straight processing and on to testing. That's been very significant indeed—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Do you have the actual statistics on how many and on how long they've been waiting over the last eight years?

[Robert Orr]

On how long they've actually been waiting, no, I don't. There are about—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Maybe you could provide that.

[Robert Orr]

Yes, we can follow up with specifics on that. It becomes a somewhat complicated story, but yes, we can deal with that.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Maybe you could provide that to the clerk for us. Thank you, Mr. Orr.

I'm going to switch gears a little bit, to the official language knowledge requirement.

Madam Girard, when you were answering, I think you were talking about how this is actually a good thing and it shouldn't be too difficult. I'm wondering if for children with learning disabilities there's an exception for the language requirement and the test.

[Nicole Girard]

Thank you for your question.

Whether it's an adult now or a younger person, as proposed under the bill there is the ability now under the bill to apply for a waiver if someone is unable for some reason to meet a requirement like this, whether it's because of a disability or a health condition. That's something that exists now, whereby people can request that consideration, and it would be under the bill as well.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Okay. My question is with respect to children especially for undiagnosed disabilities. I've been trying to find the statistics on the number of undiagnosed disabilities, especially learning disabilities and other non-visible disabilities in children.

I was looking at HRSDC's website, actually, which had Statistics Canada details from the 2006 participation and activity limitation survey. It states that as of 2006, among children ages 5 to 14 years who have disabilities, 72.7% of boys had learning disabilities, and 63.3% of girls have chronic.... These are just the diagnosed children. We know that this is on the rise. We're realizing that there are a lot of children who haven't been diagnosed and are going through the system and having difficulties because of learning disabilities or chronic illness or whatever it might be. There's some sort of disability that hasn't been diagnosed.

What happens to those children who are now 14 years old and can't pass the test because they have a disability that's not diagnosed? Do they just not get to be Canadians with their parents and their family members?

[Nicole Girard]

Whether it would be an adult or a young person, under the bill, with an undiagnosed learning disability, as you rightly point out, not everyone may self-identify up front. We will be looking closely at our implementation preparations to ensure that people in those circumstances will continue to be able to get access to a waiver, whether they self-identify from the get-go or whether they perhaps have sat one test and haven't been successful, when we may then need to identify them as people who may potentially need waivers.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

How is that going to be done? The minister also said earlier today that people won't be given an unlimited number of attempts at these tests. How is that identification going to happen?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry. I'll stop the clock.

We have a point of order, Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

Mr. Shory.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Chair, I want the member opposite to give us a clarification. For the number she mentioned from HRSDC, does she have a clarification on how many of these numbers are immigrants to become citizens?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I think she has the floor. I don't know whether that's a point of order—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

It's not.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

—but it might be an opportunity for you to ask that question.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan.