Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 17th, 2014

[Daniel MacDonald]

Yes. The department uses Statistics Canada population counts to determine the per capita allocation, and that does include them.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

So if one province implements this and another province doesn't, chances are that some refugees would move from one province to the other. Would that be correct?

[Matt de Vlieger]

It's possible. There's nothing in the operation of this that would prevent that.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

It is possible. So in fact you will see some cuts to some programs, money cuts, via per capita because a number of people have moved from one province to the other. Would that be correct?

[Daniel MacDonald]

Sorry, what would the...? I'd just want some clarification on the motivation.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

If one province has this program in place, my assumption would be that if somebody wants to get social assistance—money to get some food on their table, to survive, to pay rent—human nature would dictate that those refugees would move out of that province to a province where these cuts aren't in place. Is that a fair assumption?

[Matt de Vlieger]

So you're referring to the calculation of the social transfer on a per capita basis—

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Right.

[Matt de Vlieger]

—and that if a large number of asylum claimants who, for example, would likely have come to one province but decided to go to that other province and then got factored into Statistics Canada on that other province's register, would that province now get higher social transfer benefits versus the province that they might have come to otherwise?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Correct.

[Matt de Vlieger]

There are a few hypotheticals in there, but....

Maybe I'll leave it for my colleague.

[Daniel MacDonald]

I guess my response to that question would be that the Canada social transfer is a contribution towards the provincial and territorial costs of providing programs and services in three broad areas. It's a contribution towards it, so in terms—

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

I understand—

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Devinder Shory]

Thank you, Mr. MacDonald. Maybe you can come back to this on some other question.

Mr. Menegakis, back to you.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to touch base on something that was previously touched on by my colleague Mr. Leung. I want to clarify one thing. Government-assisted refugees and privately sponsored refugees in effect are permanent residents, so they are exempt from the wait period in this program, correct?

[Matt de Vlieger]

Yes.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Then it's fair to say that those who are deemed by the UN as the most vulnerable people in the world are not only given protection but support through the resettlement assistance program or brought to Canada under the premise that their private sponsor will provide them with support for the first year. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

[Matt de Vlieger]

That's also correct. Resettled refugees, one of the categories of protected persons, when they come to Canada as government-assisted refugees are eligible for the resettlement assistance program. That's some financing for the first year, so they wouldn't draw on social benefits for that time. Then there are the privately sponsored refugees who are privately sponsored and supported financially for that period of time as well.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay.

I have a question for you, Ms. Imrie, if I may. I understand that it's a titling change with respect to the passport element, and it's a technical change in the bill, but can you remind us of the change that occurred and some of the rationale for it?

[Caitlin Imrie]

The change that occurred was that in July of 2013 accountability for the passport program moved from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, however, is supported by the Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada who is now responsible for the delivery in Canada of the passport program through the Service Canada network, and overseas by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development. So Foreign Affairs will continue to play a role in assisting Canadians overseas.

The change was prompted by quite a bit of analysis of the alignment of the previous passport agency to see whether it was properly set up to meet the challenges of the future. Obviously we have an increasingly complex global world with IT challenges that are coming at us and it's very important that we're able to meet all of those challenges. There was analysis that looked at the program and where it best fit. That analysis demonstrated that there was a high degree of alignment between the passport program and Citizenship and Immigration's core business, as in, for instance, citizenship. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is responsible for determining who is a Canadian citizen. The passport is the best proof of citizenship that we have out there, so there's obviously a high degree of alignment between those programs. But in addition, the IT system that the passport program was running on previously was what we call a legacy system and it was not up to the challenge of the future. Citizenship and Immigration has a global case management system that has been in use for 10 years that allows us to move work around and to offer e-applications, and it has allowed us to modernize our programs and services.

This change also allows the passport program to benefit from our IT infrastructure.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

How has that been going since the change? The change took place...was it last summer?

[Caitlin Imrie]

It did. It took place in July of 2013. The transition occurred without any interruption of services. The passport program exceeds its service standards consistently and it was able to maintain that high degree of adherence to service standards. The transition activities are now considered to be complete between the departments. We have co-management arrangements in place between Citizenship and Immigration and Employment and Social Development Canada to administer the program, as well as with the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development, and we are currently planning essentially the activities that will allow us to modernize the program.

So in my opinion it is going very well.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Devinder Shory]

Your time is almost gone, Mr. Menegakis.

Now back to Mr. Leung.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I would just follow on with that question. In our modern society, because immigration is the determination for a passport, could you tell us how many Canadians actually use the passport program right now? We have a nation of about 35 million. What is the number of passports that we have issued?