Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 26th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Leung.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

My question is on citizenship.

We have the new Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, which actually strengthens the value of Canadian citizenship and, I hope, will speed up our processing times. My constituents are telling me they feel that the application process for citizenship for new applicants has decreased year to year.

Can you comment on how we have handled the backlog with respect to implementing at the same time the new Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act?

How does it all come together and still maintain the previous budget?

[Anita Biguzs]

Perhaps, Mr. Chair, I'll just open by saying that increased funding was provided two budgets ago, in particular a higher level of time-limited money for citizenship processing, so we've been able to actually put that into processing, certainly, the backlog and the inventory.

At the same time, legislative changes that were made actually allow us to have a different decision-maker model, which has allowed us to improve our efficiency in terms of processing, so there is that combination of additional resources, plus the efficiencies we're gaining as a result of the new processes we've put in place.

We've tried to make sure we're looking at the end-to-end process. We have, if I can call it this, the leanest process possible so that we don't have any kind of redundancy or overlap. That's enabled us to really optimize processing, which is why last year we were actually able to process a record number of citizenship grants, over 260,000, and we will continue to make those improvements to the system in terms of processing.

Mr. Orr, do you want to add to that?

[Robert Orr]

I think that largely covers it.

We are very much in a period of working through the backlog. There's very active work going on in our offices right across the country. We have increased the number of staff to get through this using the money we've received. Ms. Biguzs referred to the $89 million over two years to increase the processing capacity.

We are absolutely on track to meet our target, so that by March 2016 processing for routine cases will take less than 12 months.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

What numbers are you forecasting for both 2015 and 2016 as compared to for 2014?

[Robert Orr]

In 2014 it was 262,000. I don't have the figure in front of me with regard to what we anticipate, but I suspect it will be something similar this year. We would have to get back to you on that.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Okay, that's no problem.

There appears to be a decrease in funding for the temporary resident program.

What are the current service standards for the TRV and how does CIC expect to meet these standards?

[Anita Biguzs]

Quickly, Mr. Chair, I'll just say that we had received time-limited funding in the 2013 budget to actually help us address processing.

We've had volume increases in terms of the temporary resident visa application process, and I think what you see in the decrease reflects the ramping down of that time-limited money we have received.

At the same time, our processing standard, if I can put it that way, our service standard, is 14 days for temporary resident visas and for visitor visas. It's longer for student visas, which take about 30 days.

However, we have introduced a number of special facilitated programs, like the business express program in certain key markets, which basically makes our service time about five to seven days in terms of processing known business travellers who have travelled to Canada before.

We also have the student express program, our CAN+ program, for people who have previously had a Canadian visa or a U.S. visa. As I say, those service standards are usually less than seven days for key markets, for example, Mexico and China, but overall the visitor visa service standard is 14 days, and in many places we're certainly well below that standard.

Mr. Orr, do you want to add to that?

[Robert Orr]

I think that covers it, frankly.

We've certainly introduced a number of facilitative measures. We have a multiple entry visa, which is now issued on a regular basis as a default for up to 10 years of the validity of the passport. We have visa application centres, 131 of them around the world, to support people who are putting in applications. We mentioned the facilitative programs, where we try to move the low-risk cases through the system as fast as we can. We've introduced electronic applications as well, which have been taken up by 35% or so of our applicants.

We have a variety of different methods to ensure that we stay within the service standards even though we're getting about an 8% to 10% increase in volume year upon year.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Orr.

Mr. Leung, the time has expired.

On behalf of the committee, Ms. Biguzs, I'd like to thank you and your colleagues for spending this last hour with us talking about some of the issues that concern our constituents. You are now excused. Thank you for coming.

[Anita Biguzs]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We will now have some votes on the main estimates.

CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$566,527,428

Vote 5—Grants and contributions..........$993,529,386

(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to)

IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BOARD

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$99,542,732

(Vote 1 agreed to)

Shall I report the votes on the main estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you very much.

[Proceedings continue in camera]