Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 26th, 2015

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you.

I was very pleased to hear from the minister about how successful express entry is. Is there more to do with developing express entry, and how will the department continue to work with employers to ensure that express entry is helping to meet labour market needs?

[Anita Biguzs]

Perhaps I could begin, Mr. Chair, by saying that we just stood up express entry on January 1 of this year, as the minister indicated. The launch has been very successful and we've certainly been very encouraged by the take-up.

Through this phase, we're continuing to make sure that we're working out any glitches in the system. The glitches have been minor. We have fully engaged employers across Canada. In fact, before we launched express entry, we held many rounds of consultations, in many cases jointly with our provincial and territorial colleagues. We've worked with a number of business and industry associations as well, to ensure that employers are fully aware of the opportunities and the benefits that express entry provides.

In the meantime, we have also established what we call our employer liaison network, which will have CIC departmental staff across the country serve as an employer contact to promote awareness of the express entry system, to ensure that employers are fully aware of how to access the system, and to make sure that they see the benefits. Part of that is making sure they are aware of the opportunities of the new, enhanced job bank that has been set up by Employment and Social Development Canada, which has improved functionality. There are already well over 7,000 employers who have registered on the job bank site, so it means they will be able to do job matching with individuals who are in the express entry pool.

We will continue to work on refining the express entry system. Right now, we want to make sure that we've fully stood it up and that it is functioning at its optimal level. Then we will look at what more we can do with regard to expanding the functionality and the opportunities that express entry provides.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you very much.

The entry/exit initiative is important for a number of reasons. This will allow CIC officers with objective travel history information to support an application or an investigation in its immigration, citizenship, and travel document programs. Is there an estimated timeline for this initiative?

[Anita Biguzs]

On entry/exit, Mr. Chair, the initiative was launched and announced in budget 2012, as members may know. In fact, the work consisted of four implementation phases. We have already successfully completed phases one and two of entry/exit, and that includes the exchange of biographical data for certain travellers at a small number of automated common land borders, ports of entry—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay, we're over time.

Madame Blanchette-Lamothe.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for staying one hour longer with us. We are very grateful for that.

I have another question about the processing times for citizenship applications.

I am not sure I understood everything the minister said, nor do I think we have all of the statistics. On the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website, can we find the processing times for routine files, and for more complex ones? Can you tell me whether these routine files are regular applications with no particular complications? Can you confirm to me that the cases on the website are what are known as routine files?

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, perhaps I'll open and then turn the floor over to my colleague, Mr. Orr.

Routine files are those in which we have a complete application, all documents have been submitted and there are no further verifications required. It's all very straightforward. What we call non-routine may be where there are documents missing and we have to go back and forth with an applicant. Also we may have to verify the status, particularly on issues of trying to establish residence. Sometimes that takes a longer period of time. Also, in some cases, some of the documents themselves may raise integrity concerns. We have to make sure that the integrity of the system is always maintained, so we may have to follow up to make sure that the document integrity is, in fact, there.

I will turn to my colleague, Mr. Orr. I think he can explain it a bit more fully.

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

That answers my question. I do not need further details. That is what I thought.

Perhaps Mr. Orr can tell me whether, according to what I saw on the CIC website today, the routine files are processed on the average in 23 months. Is that correct and do I understand the situation clearly? How can the minister talk to us about 12-month processing times if the department's website cites 23 months? Could you please enlighten me?

[Robert Orr, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Chair, essentially the discrepancy in that is because we are dealing with a huge backlog. When you deal with a major backlog of applicants and are working through it, the processing times tend to go up before they come down. What we are in right now is that phase of when they're going up as we work through the backlog. We're going through it at a very fast pace right now, far faster than we anticipated, in fact. So very soon processing times will come down, both for complex and non-complex cases. We're committed by the end of March 2016 to be well under 12 months. In fact, if you were applying today for citizenship, your application would be processed in well under 12 months. That's already happening.

I think what you will see in the processing times reflected on the website, which are always a bit behind anyway, is the reflection of this going through the backlog, and then the processing times coming down quite dramatically after that.

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

Thank you.

I know that you do very rigorous work and that we will probably see a decrease in application processing times soon. However, according to what we see on the website, the current processing time is still officially 23 months for routine files.

[Robert Orr]

Yes, but as we're seeing at the moment, we increased the number of people who became citizens last year. As we said, it was a record number in Canadian history. We're also going to see very large numbers this year as we work through that backlog.

The reality is that if you're applying now, it's going to be well under 12 months.

[Anita Biguzs]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I'd quickly add that we have actually put very effective efficiencies into the system as a result of the changes to the legislation in terms of what we call the decision-maker model. That is actually providing us with a lot of opportunities to optimize our processing, and it's what's helping to contribute to our ability to really decrease the processing times.

As I say, certainly, with cases that are coming in now, our commitment is to be able to process those within less than 12 months by the end of this year.

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

Thank you. I wish you success in that regard.

I will tell the people I represent that it is normal for their files to be processed in 23 or 36 months. There are several people whose files are still being processed. I wish you success in this endeavour. I hope we will be able to quickly allow people to benefit from better results.

I also have questions about family reunification delays, more specifically for children and spouses.

Can you tell me in what offices and in which countries it takes the longest to process applications? I think that the Islamabad office is one of the offices that has the longest waits for the processing of family reunification files. If you cannot tell me now, could you send the information to the committee? Where are the processing times the longest for family reunification files?

[Robert Orr]

Mr. Chair, I think it would be better to get back to you with the specifics on that. But yes, indeed, there are some discrepancies between certain offices that take longer than others. It's often a reflection of the situation in that country. Local circumstances change from country to country. We need to ensure there's full integrity to the program and we're satisfied that when we're issuing visas, it is a genuine relationship, and we're fully respecting that. Sometimes that takes longer in certain environments than in others.

Mr. Chair, we will get back to you with the specifics about the different posts and processing times for family reunification.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Orr. Send it to the clerk.

You have one minute left, Madame Blanchette-Lamothe.

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

Thank you very much.

I have a brief question about the foreign investor program applications.

Thousands of files were returned to the applicants. I was wondering if anyone had sued the government because of such practices. If so, how much has this type of measure cost, approximately? There were some people who were very unhappy that their applications were returned to them.

[Anita Biguzs]

Perhaps I'll start with opening comments, Mr. Chair, and then turn to my colleagues on that.

Under the federal skilled worker program—and our estimates reflect this—the original estimate was that we would be returning about 98,000 applications, with an amount of $130 million to be refunded. We have actually refunded 75% of those as of March 2015. For the immigrant investor category, the original estimate was about 19,000 applications to be returned, at an amount of $34.5 million. We have 9,000 refunds remaining, and the estimates reflect an amount of $16.5 million this year for those refunds.

I think there are a few instances where there has been a challenge in terms of the immigrant investor program, but I'm not in a position to be able to comment on what the status of that challenge is.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. McCallum, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the officials for being here.

The minister expressed a desire to have more money for processing family class applicants, but there doesn't seem to be more money in the appropriations. I'm wondering where such money would come from.

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, if I may say, there's been no reduction in the level of funding we have allocated in our budget for processing of the family class or spouses. In fact, on a regular basis as part of managing our department, we do make sure we can look at how we can manage resources across the various business lines and business streams to meet the volumes. The challenge, as the minister mentioned in his comments, is that we've had more spousal applications than space in terms of our levels plan. We have a managed migration system and that is a success in terms of how we manage migration.

The question is how do we accommodate and how can we accommodate the number of applications that we receive within that levels plan. We have tried to address some of the pressure by offering an open work permit. In Canada we've had almost 6,000 spouses who have taken advantage of that open work permit to permit them to work while they are here waiting for their application to be processed. In the meantime, we're making every effort to see how we can expedite, and make sure that we process, as many spouses as we can, because we certainly appreciate and understand the challenges that represents for people in this situation.

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

Thank you.

On the question of data, we used open data from data.gc.ca, as well as the current website. I'm not clear why this should overstate wait processing times, since I understand only the 20% slowest cases are excluded anyway. It's only the 80% that are fastest. To give you just one example, for the last 12 months ending September 30, the average processing time for skilled workers under MI1, MI2, MI3—I think that's ministerial instructions—were respectively 35 months, 55 months, and 25 months according to the website yesterday. Those were the figures on which I was basing my questions. Are those figures, in some sense, misleading?

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, I'll turn to my colleague, Mr. Orr, but first I'll say that the inventory of federal skilled worker program has been reduced by over 93% since 2008. What we have now is a working inventory that we're working through and it's the transition.... As we've introduced the new express entry system, which we launched in January, we've actually had an intake to make sure that.... We couldn't predict how successful express entry would be, so we wanted to make sure we had a working inventory in the federal skilled worker category. As we ramp up on express entry, certainly our working inventory we will work down through this year and, I think, a very small number into 2016.

Mr. Orr, perhaps you could add to that.

[Robert Orr]

Thank you.

I think as the deputy minister has indicated, we're in a period of transition right now where we have these cases that came through the ministerial instructions in the old processing system. As we get into express entry we will see faster and faster processing time to reflect it because under express entry we are doing it within six months for 80% of the cases. The numbers processed through that system are so small right now that it's not having a real impact on the processing times. For the older cases, yes, the processing times are probably reflective of what you quoted here, but as we get into express entry we're going to see dramatically reduced processing times.

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

My question also is that I don't quite understand how you can be in a transition period for nine years, because if you look at the numbers, they're steadily up each and every year for nine years. I don't understand why that can be such a terribly long transition period. It seems to me it has to do also with the cutting of resources in 2011 when you had the expenditure restraint, and that must have had an impact as well.

[Robert Orr]

The main issue is the inventory of cases that were there and why we were able to do it. We have to couple that with the levels plan we have every year, the number of cases, and the number of visas that we are allowed to issue every year. As you know, we have met our levels plan consistently year after year and that is, in part, the reason an inventory grows. As we bring that down now, and as we get into express entry, we will not have the issue of an inventory, and we will get into the six months processing. It's early days for express entry.