Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 28th, 2014

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

He will have a chance to ask his question.

With respect to the intent to reside—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have about two seconds, so make it quick.

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

Okay.

The Library of Parliament analysts have identified that this change is actually going to the pre-1977 era of citizenship legislation in this country. Why is this change happening?

[Nicole Girard]

For the intent to reside, as others on this panel have commented, it's the purpose of communicating that citizenship is for those who intend to make Canada their home.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Shory.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me start with my point of order. I would like the officials to confirm or not confirm the numbers from the HRSDC website that my colleague mentioned. Do you think or do you know that these numbers are 100% immigrants who are to become citizens?

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. We're not familiar with the numbers the member mentioned, so we would have no way of knowing at this point how many of those children were immigrants.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Would you please look into this and get back to the committee to confirm or advise the committee of whether these numbers are 100% immigrants?

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Chair, we'd be happy to get back to the committee.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

If you don't have it, maybe you could tell us you don't have it, but that's an undertaking.... We would appreciate getting that. Thank you.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you.

Now let me ask something about consultants. Why do citizenship consultants need to be regulated? Why do you think they should be regulated?

[Nicole Girard]

Well, unfortunately, as the media has reported, there are several thousand individuals across the country who are under RCMP investigation for citizenship fraud. It's in the range of 3,000 citizens and 5,000 permanent residents who are under investigation for fraud, related in most cases to residence. Unfortunately, as the media has also reported, in some of these instances there are consultants who have been involved and who have allegedly counselled applicants to falsely represent whether they were indeed meeting the requirements for the purposes of citizenship.

Under immigration legislation, there is a framework for the designation of a body to regulate citizenship consultants...sorry, to designate immigration consultants, to hold them to professional and ethical standards of conduct, and that authority is missing in citizenship legislation. The bill proposes to remedy that gap to provide similar authority to hold citizenship consultants to ethical and professional standards of conduct as well.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

I believe residency fraud was discussed before. I'll ask you to inform us again if it was answered before.

How many cases involve residency fraud? Could you give us some examples of ways people commit residency fraud?

[Robert Orr]

The number, I believe, is 85 where there's been revocation as a result of residency fraud.

Residency fraud can take a variety of different fashions, but essentially it is people who are claiming to be in the country when in fact they are abroad. At the moment, without exit controls, we have no objective way of identifying this. We're often required to go through passports to look at stamps and so on. Starting late next year we will start to have more effective information about people's entry into and exit out of the country.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Can you also talk about some examples of those who try to hide their absences from Canada? Some people try to hide their absence from Canada. How do they hide their absence from Canada? If they are gone somewhere, I understand that right now we don't have that entry-exit stamp.

[Nicole Girard]

Some of what has been reported as part of these large-scale investigations into residence fraud has to do with a fairly sophisticated pattern of fraud that unfortunately the department is seeing, whereby third parties are involved to help establish a fraudulent pattern of residence, with real bank accounts, and real phone records that are being used by someone else who is being paid to make withdrawals or phone calls to establish a pattern of documentation to support a person's fraudulent claim that they're here.

We also have other circumstances where people have declared on their application that they're meeting...and that they are physically present in Canada or so they say, and we discover evidence after the fact, whether it's through passport stamps, whether it's through entry-exit data from other countries, employment records from other countries, school records from other countries, that shows the opposite.

This is the nature of the fraud that the department is seeing.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry, Mr. Shory, but unless Mr. Leung lets you go on, it's his turn.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Go ahead.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you.

Now I'll talk about one of my favourite topics. Bill C-24 also provides the ability to strip citizenship from convicted terrorists who hold dual citizenship, or deems an application for citizenship to be renounced. Have you done any comparative studies with other western countries that have similar legislation? My understanding is that all western democratic nations have this power, and for some of them, the requirements for revoking citizenship are far less stringent than what is being proposed in Bill C-24. Could you please comment on that?

[Nicole Girard]

Yes, that's absolutely correct. Canada is one of the few countries, as part of our study, that we identified that don't have this ability to revoke that's proposed in Bill C-24. For example, like-minded countries like Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, all have such authority, as do most European countries that we looked at.

Many of these countries have broader, less defined powers than what is proposed in Bill C-24.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I wish to move back to the question of language requirements. If the applicant has a speech impairment, are there exceptions in certain cases where individuals are allowed to do this by written exam, or is there a special dispensation for exemption on language?

[Nicole Girard]

We certainly have now and would have under Bill C-24 accommodations for persons who may experience different difficulties, whether it's a learning disability, whether it's a speech impairment, whether the individual may be deaf. Those people can self-identify now at the start of the process, and they do.

We will continue to take on board the comments of the committee and stakeholders in terms of best practices on any other measures that we may need to look at in this area.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Let's say for seniors, is there an age at which there is an exemption, say at 54 or 55? Where would that age threshold be?

[Nicole Girard]

Under the bill, the requirements for language and knowledge would apply to those up to the age of 64. From 65 and up they wouldn't apply.