Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 26th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Eglinski.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you to the panel for being here today.

I said earlier that I took pride when I travel with my passport, and I know most Canadians do. I heard the minister say there has been a drastic increase in Canadians in the past year who have applied for passports. Could you elaborate on this, please?

The second part of my question relates to the adjustments to the passport business plan that the estimates discuss. Would you give me an answer on that too, please?

[Anita Biguzs]

I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Orr, my colleague, but I'll just say that the passport program operates on a self-sustaining revolving fund, so the revenues, the fees that people pay, go into the revolving fund.

There is a business plan that operates over a 10-year period that takes into account the volumes. We try to forecast the volumes. It means that there are fluctuations in terms of the revenues that come in. The business plan also includes a strategy for investments to make sure that we're modernizing the passport system.

For example, we are migrating the passport program onto our global case management system. That requires certain investments, but it allows us to ultimately even go further in terms of online applications for passports. As I say, it also enhances the integrity by being able to actually put passports onto our global case management system and the synergies with, certainly, immigration as well in terms of citizenship.

I think that gives you an overview of the revolving fund. I'll turn it over to Mr. Orr for the specifics in terms of growth.

[Robert Orr]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In general terms, we're issuing about five million passports a year at the moment. As the minister indicated, we have about 22.9 million valid passports in circulation at the moment. Because we're going from a five-year passport to a 10-year passport, we anticipate there will be a drop in the number of applications very shortly. That is part of the calculation.

The passport fund, as the deputy minister indicated, works on a 10-year cycle, and we're very much on course with our predictions of where we will be in terms of volumes.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

In regard to electronic travel authorization, which will protect the safety and security of Canadians—and I don't believe it will harm the tourism industry at all—could you please inform the committee on how the eTA will work and what the projected timeline is for implementation?

[Anita Biguzs]

In terms of the timeline, perhaps I can indicate, Mr. Chair, that the intention is there will be what we call a voluntary enrolment period that will begin this August. The mandatory requirements for eTA will actually come into play only in mid-March 2016. This sort of voluntary period gives time for individuals, and also for the airline sector, to adjust and to adapt, to make sure we can stand up the systems we need to be able to implement the electronic travel authorization.

We are well under way in terms of the implementation, working very closely with our colleagues in the Canada Border Services Agency, which will be responsible for the actual mandatory enforcement of eTA. The investments that we're making are actually to ensure that we have appropriate program integrity measures as well, but also to allow us to communicate more broadly to allow individuals to know that this will be a requirement to come to Canada. We've modelled this very much on the U.S. system, the ESTA. Australia also has a comparable system.

There will be a low fee of $7. It will certainly provide for a level of integrity that we have not had before the eTA. There will be a light touch, a light screening approach when someone actually books a ticket online to come to Canada. There will also be a prompt that will require them to fill out a very short form with their basic information. This will be submitted to our department where we will basically verify it and have the ability to verify if there are any concerns. That will be the basis for providing the airline industry, through CBSA, with a board or no-board decision before someone actually boards the plane.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I see there is approximately a $1 million net transfer to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development for our missions overseas. The staff of these various missions overseas are clearly important assets to Citizenship and Immigration. They are front-line officers, and they are often the first Canadians to face potential immigrants who are planning to come to Canada.

Could you please explain to the committee what staff CIC employs at the missions and what their roles are?

[Robert Orr]

Currently we have a little over 50 CIC offices abroad, and they do a variety of different things. Overwhelmingly they are involved in the processing of the full range of applications and making decisions on those applications. We believe, and we've seen this repeatedly, that the local knowledge by having people on the ground is critical to high-quality decision-making in these applications from both temporary and permanent residents. Indeed, as we do more though, moving applications around the network and doing some in a centralized way in Canada or elsewhere, they do more and more in quality assurance, risk tiering, and giving that sort of intelligence we need so we maintain integrity and high-quality decision-making.

It's not just processing. They're also going to be doing work on recruitment for express entry, for instance. They would be doing work on settlement as the deputy minister spoke about already. They are the migration experts in those countries. They're going to be liaising with local officials and they will also be reporting back on migration issues more broadly.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

These people that you're talking about, are most of them Canadians or are they foreign people who are possibly trained in our missions there or are they all ours?

[Robert Orr]

All offices have Canadian-based officers, but we do rely on locally engaged staff to support us in these roles.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Sandhu.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you for being here this morning.

I want to get back to the family reunification issue, especially the parents coming here. I'll start with my own family again. I immigrated to this country in 1980 and it took about 18 months. In 2003, 2004, 2005 it used to take about four or five years to get your parents here. Nowadays my constituents are still...many come into my office wanting to know how long it's going to take their parents to get here. Some of the applications have been there for six, seven or eight years and they're struggling trying to get reunited with their parents.

I'll again share another story. My cousin died waiting to immigrate to this country. The application was taking seven or eight years. I'm not talking about any of my other constituents. I'm talking about my own family. This has happened in my family, where parents are dying before they're able to immigrate because the wait time is eight or nine years. We've had a situation where the Conservatives have basically shut down family reunification, where only 5,000 parents and grandparents can apply under that class.

Last year, I had a constituent who made an application on January 1, which was a Thursday. He mailed the application on Friday, January 2. January 3 and 4 were a Saturday and Sunday. The application reached the applications centre on the Monday. I believe his application was number 6,000-and-something. Would that be correct that the quota for the applications for a visa or application for family class reunification gets filled up on the first day?

[Anita Biguzs]

Perhaps I can open, Mr. Chair, by saying certainly we appreciate the concerns of the member, but we have welcomed more than 70,000 parents and grandparents just in the last three years. I think that's reflected in the level space that has been allocated for parents and grandparents. We also have an additional 20,000 as part of our 2015 immigration levels plan. Our inventory—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

There's a point of order.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to go back to a decision you took earlier in the course of our work, concerning the rights and privileges of the members who sit on this committee.

You asked the members to give the witnesses time to answer their questions. Do the members have the right to ask witnesses to answer their questions in a direct manner? My colleague's question, even if it was preceded by a few examples, aimed to find out specifically whether the quota is frequently reached in the first few days. The witness could have answered that question in a mere few seconds.

We are trying to respect your request that we give the witnesses a chance to answer our questions. However, may we ask witnesses to answer more directly so that we have an effective exchange and obtain replies to our questions in the five-minute period?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Keep the clock stopped.

Ms. Biguzs, and to your point of order, Ms. Blanchette-Lamothe, the chair has no control over how questions are answered, but her point is well taken.

I think the question was, how is it possible that for the reunification class, if the date is January 1, January 2, and January 3, it's gone? How is that possible? I think that was his question.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

To repeat my question, my question is that if the 5,000 applications are taken.... I had a constituent in my riding whose application was rejected on the very first day in January, basically, and my question is, is the quota filled on the very first day?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

On this point of order, I repeat that I have no control over how a witness answers a question. You may not like the answer. I have no say on that. It may be an answer to something else, but I have no control over that. If you still have time, you as the questioner can pursue that.

But I think the point is well taken.

Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chair, to your point, certainly I heard Mr. Sandhu's question. He made reference to the 5,000 number, which is an additional number of new applicants who can apply on an annual basis. Ms. Biguzs was simply putting things in context by highlighting the number of parents and grandparents who have come here.

Now, Mr. Sandhu may not like the fact that this is a record number of 70,000 that have come over the last couple of years. It's a major improvement in dealing with a backlog. I think it's important to put things in context.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Sandhu, the clock is still stopped. Ask your question again, and we'll see what happens.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

My question is very simple: did the 5,000 quota get filled up on the very first day?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. Biguzs.

[Anita Biguzs]

My apologies, Mr. Chair. I'll be very brief. Of course the cap was at 5,000 and it filled within the first few days in terms of the number of applications received.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

So how does the process work? The applications centre gets a whole bunch of applications through the mail; they go into a big box or bin; you pick the applications out of there, and after 5,000 are filled...? Which ones get first and which ones get second? My constituent actually wanted me to ask you this question.