Evidence of meeting #5 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 student.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Mel Cappe
In the article, I never spoke about immigration. I was actually speaking in general terms.
As far as visas are concerned, I could mention the role that evidence plays in implementing policies or programs. Has the program been a success? We could do an evaluation and determine if it was a success or not, and improve the system based on the suggestions of that evaluation. In this case, I have the evidence that this process helped improve the program.
NDP
Ève Péclet NDP La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
Okay, thank you very much.
In a brief tabled with the committee, Martin Collacott, from the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, suggests allocating more resources to effective border control in order to avoid the arrival en masse of illegal immigrants in our country.
In your opinion, would this type of investment allow the awarding of temporary resident visas to be improved?
Mel Cappe
Honestly I don't think that it would be useful. I disagree with Mr. Collacott. He spoke about a process of decision review, of checking exits and of an entire system that would make Canada a hostile country for immigrants. I don't agree with that at all.
NDP
Ève Péclet NDP La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
My question will be for both Professor Cappe and Mr. Goldstein.
The committee has been told that Canadian residents have often faced barriers to seeing family from their country of origin, such as clients unable to return to their country of origin due to their refugee status, or clients ineligible—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
You can ask your questions in French, if you like.
NDP
Ève Péclet NDP La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
Anyway, it lets me practice my English. I don't have any objection to speaking French or English.
To sponsor their family members to come to Canada, as they do not meet the stringent sponsorship requirements.... In your opinion, and in your experience, of course, what are the most frequent problems encountered by Canadian residents in this regard?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
I will just tell a story. Anecdotes are dangerous, but I will tell a story of a very prominent Canadian business person who is a member of my board of directors, whose mother lived in India. She had a 10-year, multi-entry visa to get into the United States, but had a very difficult time getting even a single-entry visa into Canada. When he approached immigration officials at CIC, he said that when his mother wanted to see her American grandchildren she could go to see them in the United States, but when she wanted to see her Canadian grandchildren, they had to see her in the United States.
So this puts a great deal of pressure on the system.
I would say that the system is getting better, but as I said earlier to your colleague, just understanding the rejection criteria sometimes will help facilitate the process.
November 26th, 2013 / 12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
Mr. Hamdullahpur, first of all, for my understanding, let's say there's a foreign student who applies to your university. Can you tell me what the process is? Does he or she apply to the university and then look for a visa, or does he or she look for a visa and then apply?
President and Vice-Chancellor, Vice-Chair, U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, University of Waterloo
We put the student's application through our regular admission process, and if the student is qualified and meets all the entry requirements, an official letter is sent to the student that he or she has been admitted to the university, after which the student will then apply for a visa.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
How long does it take for you to accept a student?
President and Vice-Chancellor, Vice-Chair, U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, University of Waterloo
It depends on the unit they're applying to, but it could vary from one month to two or three months, given the volume of applications. We have application deadlines and they have to meet those deadlines.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
I don't know if this is accurate, but it seems to me that I read recently that some of the universities are actually lowering their tuition for foreign students because they're having a hard time filling their vacancies.
President and Vice-Chancellor, Vice-Chair, U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, University of Waterloo
That is not true in our case at all, and I don't know of any other universities that are doing that.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Okay, and as I said, I don't have that for a fact.
One of the things you said in your opening comments, or maybe in answering a question, is that we need to attract the top students. Of course, we want the brightest and the best in the country. How do you suggest we do that?
President and Vice-Chancellor, Vice-Chair, U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, University of Waterloo
Our job, of course, is to make sure that we are introducing our universities to the whole world as an excellence centre. It's excellence in whatever we are offering, both in education and research, and in other areas where they can be entrepreneurial, so that they can further think of their Canadian experience as something they can take and continue after their studies.
That is one role; however, there is another piece that is quite important, which is how either provincial or federal governments should present a really attractive picture of Canada to the entire world.
Furthermore, when a student or talent is hired—and last year, 35% of our faculty members came from other countries internationally. When they physically go to a Canadian consulate or visa office, they need to be met with, “We're really delighted that you're considering coming to Canada”, as opposed to, “Let's see what reasons we can find not to let you into Canada.”
I'm not being sarcastic because these are true stories that we hear from our students.
These are the kinds of initiatives that we need to put in place to ensure that we really are attracting the best and the brightest, because when we do that, the dividends are immeasurable.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Yes, and you're in competition, of course, to get the best and the brightest at universities in the States, etc.
Prof. Mel Cappe
Monsieur Lauzon, if I could just add, the president of the University of Toronto today is in China trying to drum up business.
Your point about the best, I think, is really important, and I am entirely in agreement with Professor Hamdullahpur.
In my experience as deputy minister of the environment, when I was in Korea we were trying to press them to buy Canadian product. Their minister of energy had done a post-doctorate at Chalk River on nuclear energy, and we were trying to sell them CANDU reactors. That was enormously valuable.
Another time I was at the UN, and when I was trying to convince Guyana's minister of the environment to support a Canadian proposition, she said, “I studied microbiology at Western University. I understand this.”
This is fundamentally important.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
There's no question.
You're in competition with universities in the United States. The student who is overseas and is making the decision, what does he make the decision on? Is it whoever expedites his student visa first?
President and Vice-Chancellor, Vice-Chair, U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, University of Waterloo
That is important, yes.
If a student has two offers, one from the University of Waterloo and one from Stanford University, and they are of equal value to this student, if he or she gets a visa from the U.S. first, before Canada, I can tell you with 99% certainty that they will choose to go to the United States.
Conservative
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our guests for being here today.
Professor Cappe, I do agree 100% with what you said. Based on our offices, you can't determine whether a program is working or not.
My very first call as a member of Parliament was a woman with an accent, which I now understand as South African, but I wasn't sure at the time; I thought it was English. Her question was, “You people are evil. You won't let my mother come and visit us. She couldn't get a visitor visa.”
Naively I said, “So when did you come to Canada? You came as a landed immigrant?” The individual told me, “No, I came on a visitor visa and stayed.” I politely said, “Your mother likely isn't coming then.”
I think your point is well taken. Your point on the piece of what the criteria are I think was important. I'll be frank. My position is that the criteria are likely to make sure people who are legitimately coming here will be leaving at the end of their visitor's time.
Based on your experience as a chief bureaucrat here on the Hill.... My guess is that the individuals who are working for us in other countries don't get a lot of credit for allowing people to come here legitimately. They will get a lot of crap if they let people in here who end up staying, and so on. There might be a propensity for them to be very tough on allowing people here and following the criteria that's set out. And we do get a copy of what boxes are checked.
Do you have a suggestion from a bureaucratic point of view on how to improve that system, to allow that decision-making to be better?
Prof. Mel Cappe
I think you're right, Mr. Wallace, that there's an asymmetry, that their false positives are not dealt with in the same way as their false negatives. If they keep more people out, the problems are never evident in Canada, whereas if they let the bad guys in, then they feel responsible.
One of the ways of dealing with this is I think to take the risk management approach and build it into the system, and for MPs to be supportive of that, recognizing that every now and then there will be an error. Not asking who to blame for the error but trying to fix the problem instead is therefore a way of improving the system.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Professor, I have a question for you.
I have two daughters. One daughter is actually a foreign student in the United States. She's at Ball State in Indiana.
My question is this. The department, under the previous minister, put out a listing, let's put it that way, of countries where you could not claim refugee status from. You could not do that.
How do you feel about having a list of countries where an expedited student visa is allowed and others where we have to do more due diligence to make sure those are legitimate student visas. Do you have any concerns with having a list of active countries and ones that need more work?
President and Vice-Chancellor, Vice-Chair, U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, University of Waterloo
First of all, I hope your daughters will come and do their graduate programs at the University of Waterloo.
