Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 11th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I've stopped the clock. We're having a great time going back and forth between George Brown and other things, but he's dead.

My only request of both of you is that one of you speak and the other not speak. Don't both speak at the same time.

Mr. McCallum, you have the floor. You have about a minute left.

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

I thought I had finished.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have a minute. Maybe you can ask about how Mr. Brown is.

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

I would ask if I could have an answer to my question about the officials providing our clerk with—

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I'm your witness at the moment, Mr. McCallum. The main estimates were tabled in the House and voted on yesterday. We won't be providing these binders.

Australia has a provision where citizens who are citizens of another country and become members of the armed force of a country while at war with Australia can be deprived of their citizenship. In the United States citizens can be deprived of their citizenship for being in an armed force at war with the U.S. following a conviction for high treason. The United Kingdom may deprive an individual of their citizenship if it is conducive to the public good, which is much wider than our provisions. These are NATO allies.

It is absolutely misleading to say that only totalitarian states do this. Democracies do it. It is incompatible with allegiance to Canada to fight the Canadian Armed Forces or duly betray the secrets of our country.

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

Excuse me, but I only have 20 seconds and the chair told us not to talk at once. I'd like to ask you one other question. It is my understanding that on June 3 CIC erased the blacklist for employers abusing the temporary foreign workers program from their website. There were no employers on that and it was removed from the website. Can you tell us why?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. McCallum, there was one list put together in 2011. There was another list, with more teeth, put together in 2012. It exists. It has five companies on it. It binds both departments.

When a company is on that list—and you have seen the list. You mentioned it in the House of Commons today.

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

I have it.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

You have it. Bravo.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay—

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I, as Minister of Immigration, and my colleagues are not able to issue a work permit to anyone who wants to come to Canada to work in any of those places. We are bound by that blacklist, and it's longer—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'd love for this to go on, but Mr. McCallum is way over, and I know you have another meeting, Mr. Minister.

We'll finish the first round with Mr. Shory.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will now be talking about your allocations because the opposition isn't doing the job on this issue.

Through the chair, Minister, I want to talk about the $45.5 million in funding that you said the department will be using to address increased application volumes for citizenship, etc. I strongly and honestly believe that citizenship is a privilege, not an entitlement. That's my belief. Of course it comes with rights and responsibilities.

I also believe that citizenship should be earned. When we talk about the time requirement, the opposition thinks it is fair that those who have no connection to Canada or have spent very little time in Canada should have the right to be Canadian citizens. The impression I also got from the opposition during the debate was that they have shown that they believe it is also right to obtain citizenship by fraudulent means.

So my question to you is this. In order for someone to become a Canadian citizen, is it too much to ask them to spend a significant amount of time in Canada? How do you compare this with other peer countries?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you.

The U.K. and the United States have five-year requirements. Other countries in Europe have even longer requirements. Australia has a four-year requirement, which will be the same as ours if and when Bill C-24 becomes law. So we are absolutely in the right ballpark.

In my contact with Canadians, the strongest proponents of this four-year residency requirement are newcomers themselves. They see some of the abuse, and they saw it in recent decades. They want to have that sense of knowledge, that direct experience, and be well oriented in Canada as a society. That does take time. Four years is a reasonable amount of time. In fact 45% of those applying for citizenship already spent four years or more here before they applied.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Absolutely, Minister. Being an immigrant, I can tell you that when the day to qualify for citizenship was coming close, my family and I were so excited about that day. When I go to citizenship ceremonies, I can see the blush on new Canadians' faces. I can see their smiles and their pride when they carry the Canadian flag in their hands and swear allegiance to Her Majesty.

I actually want to talk about the $4.2 million you mentioned with regard to meeting the commitments in terms of the road map for Canada's official languages. Perhaps you could elaborate on that.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you.

It's absolutely important to us as a country. It's a special federal responsibility.

We want the francophone communities in northern and eastern Ontario, in Manitoba, in Yukon, in New Brunswick, in Moncton and everywhere in the country to benefit from increased francophone immigration.

We're going to make that happen through express entry. I'm very proud that the OECD, in its report on Canada today, has spoken in glowing terms about express entry and the prospects for it to meet the needs of our labour market better than ever before. They expect it to increase “the responsiveness of the immigration system to labour-market demand (notably by implementing the Express Entry system)”.

This is a reform that hasn't even been fully implemented but is already being celebrated because it's been well planned.

We are going to use Express Entry to favour francophone immigration in all parts of this country because we acknowledge and support French language and culture everywhere in Canada.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you.

Express entry has also been discussed before as well by my colleagues.

You mentioned that express entry will be a faster, more effective, more efficient, and more proactive process, which will select immigrants based on the skills and attributes that Canada needs.

More importantly for me was when you made the comment that new Canadians will have a better chance of economic success. You might want to elaborate on that a bit.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

All of the studies we have done of our immigration and the different generations of immigrants that we have in this country, have shown that those who arrive with higher levels of education—educational attainment—do better. They have better economic outcomes and family outcomes. Those who come earlier in their careers are better able to adapt and flourish over the length of their careers in Canada. As well, language counts for a lot. Those with a good or excellent level of English or French tend to do better than those who don't, and they do a lot better.

That is why all of our economic immigration programs have been reformed to ensure that those criteria have more weight. It doesn't mean in the federal skilled trades program that we aren't open to taking those with relatively little French or English. We do want those skills. However, we are getting more and more immigrants who are younger, adapting quicker to the labour market, and who have their whole careers in front of them, which is ensuring that settlement, adaptation, and integration into Canadian society happens faster. We expect those trends to only continue under express entry, and that's why we have had a positive review from the OECD today.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have less than a minute.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Quickly, Minister, I want to thank you once again for having my portion of Bill C-425 adopted into Bill C-24.

There was a question today on why we did not introduce this kind of bill before, and I want to remind everyone that it was the opposition who stalled the portion of this bill that I introduced last year. It's the government or individual members who have been trying to fix the broken system.

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan, you have the floor.

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

It's Mr. Donnelly.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Donnelly, sir.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thanks.

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have five minutes.