Evidence of meeting #33 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 province.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No study that I'm aware of.
The provinces would have to design and look at what mitigation measures they might want to put in place if they were to move to this kind of regime where they limited benefits to certain populations.
5:05 p.m.
Davenport, NDP
In this scenario though, just to be clear, if a province chose to take up this invitation, they would have no social assistance.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Devinder Shory
Thank you, Mr. Cash. Your time is up. Actually it's been more than seven minutes.
Mr. Chan, you have five minutes.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you.
I want to follow up on some of the earlier questions from Mr. Cash talking about the issue of statistics, and I want to direct the comments back to Mr. de Vlieger.
You indicated that, internally, the federal government did not collect any statistics about any unfounded claims. Did any of the provinces share with you any statistics about potential unfounded claims?
5:05 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm not aware of a study that the province did related to unfounded claims.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
What I'm really trying to drive at is, who was really asking for this facilitative amendment? Was it the provinces asking for it? You seemed to imply in your opening comments that this was coming from the provinces, and yet there are no studies coming from the provinces other than these casual conversations that appear to be occurring between officials. Who is really driving this process?
5:10 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm happy to clarify that no provinces asked for this particular measure. We've certainly seen in the media reports that some provinces have indicated quite clearly that they're not interested in taking up—
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's a federal act.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
I want to follow on the second point that both Mr. Cash and Ms. Sitsabaiesan were driving at, which was dealing with the percentage of successful refugee claimants. I think the point that was being driven at was that if this particular policy was ultimately adopted by any of the provinces, we would potentially have a body of individuals who would ultimately become defined as protected persons and who would be disentitled to a period of social assistance until such determination was given.
You mentioned earlier that since the 2012 amendments, the number of successful claimants, in fact, is rising because the number of actual applications is dropping.
Isn't it a sort of perverse outcome that if this policy, this so-called facilitative amendment, is actually adopted and carried out by the provinces, that we're ultimately disentitling an increasing number of individuals who ultimately should have qualified for social assistance because they would ultimately be determined to be protected persons? Would you agree with that statement?
5:10 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No, I wouldn't agree with that statement. I would agree with part of the statement. The operation is that provinces would design—and I can't speculate on how they would design—their social benefit regime, who it would apply to, and what the period of residence would be. The fact is that the number of claims from our data has come down significantly since the 2012 reforms, so there wouldn't be an increasing number—
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
I'm not talking absolute number but just the percentage of individuals who would qualify. It should be increasing given that the number of successful claimants appears to be on the rise. Would that be fair?
I'm talking in terms of percentages not absolute numbers.
5:10 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's hard to speculate, but I will try. If a province were to impose a residency requirement and that province had a large number of asylum claimants and most of those were found by the IRB to have a positive determination—that they were to become protected persons—then yes, if that province had a residency requirement and wasn't giving any financial assistance or any in-kind assistance, there would be an impact on those individuals.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
I want to get back to Mr. Cash's earlier discussion about the whole point of the minimum residency requirement that was first adopted in 1951.
As I recall, Mr. MacDonald, I think this came from you. You talked about the whole point of the exercise really being to ensure a relative level of standard and to allow mobility of persons within Canada, while, hopefully, accessing the same social services across the country.
Isn't removing this particular requirement ultimately serving to create a patchwork of available social services across the country?
5:10 p.m.
Chief, Canada Health Transfer (CHT)/Canada Social Transfer (CST) and Northern Policy , Department of Finance
I think my earlier comment was that the minimum residency prohibition ensures that there is access to social assistance across the country, but there was no requirement through the Canada social transfer regarding how that is done or regarding any other aspect of social assistance. If it came across that I was saying there was a standard to be achieved in social assistance, I'm sorry for misrepresenting myself. That's not what I was trying to say.
I was trying to say that there is a requirement for there to be social assistance, but beyond that, as Mr. de Vlieger has been saying, it's within the purview of the provinces to find how that social assistance will be delivered.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Devinder Shory
Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.
Thank you, Mr. Chan. Your time is up.
Mr. Leung, you have up to seven minutes.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I wish to indicate that I will split my time with my colleague, Mr. Dreeshen.
I'll have to formulate my question quickly due to time constraints.
In order to prevent abuse of the social assistance that Canada so generously provides, could you indicate what criteria we impose on people who come into this country as temporary residents when they apply, whether they are temporary foreign workers, international students, or visitors? Prevention generally is a pretty effective tool in preventing abuse.
Also, perhaps you could share with the committee whether or not there have been incidents in which foreign nationals on visitor visas have taken advantage of social assistance. We can only know this by the time we catch them, but perhaps you can give us your best estimate of what the abuses are.
5:15 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
On the first part, I'll refer to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, where in section 39 it talks about what we call an inadmissibility criteria. Someone is inadmissible for financial reasons if they are unable or unwilling to support themselves or any other person who is dependent on them and have not satisfied a visa officer that adequate arrangements for care and support, other than those that involve social assistance, have been named. That's the condition in the legislation as it currently stands with respect to the kinds of support and undertakings that a foreign national—a temporary foreign worker, an international student, or a visitor—has to have to be admissible to Canada.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
5:15 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, through the visa officer's process, the application that they're making—
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Then the second question was on the group of people who have perhaps taken advantage of our social assistance. What is your best estimate on that?
5:15 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I don't have any information on individuals who are supposed to be—
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
5:15 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Even anecdotally, I think the place to ask would be a provincial regime that is looking at social benefits. We do have some information-sharing arrangements with some provinces that are looking to have information from us about when we have a removal order, so that they can make sure they stop the benefits they're providing when someone's leaving the country. But I don't have evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, about individuals being on social assistance.