Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 28th, 2013

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

She could say goodbye, because just as she was wrapping up I took a bite out of my sandwich. Excuse me.

Thank you again, Deputy Minister and the rest of the team, for being here, and congratulations on your new post.

Of course, when we have the minister in front of us, his comments and the ensuing discussion often raise more questions for us than they answer, so we look forward to an opportunity to dig into some of these specific things.

We talk about the VACs, and we see that CIC recently signed a contract with VFS Global worth $51 million to facilitate the VACs. First off, I'd like to know what specific services have been privatized like this by CIC. Are there more planned, and if so, what other kinds of planned privatization should we expect from the department?

[Anita Biguzs]

Thank you for the question.

I'd just say that the process of moving out.... It is a contractual arrangement we have with these visa application centres. This is a model that has been used by a number of other countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, as a mechanism for ensuring better service to clients via front-line delivery in more locations and the ability to make sure applications are complete when they are submitted. So it speeds up client service from the point of view that it reduces the number of refusals that might be provided because of incomplete documentation.

Certainly, as I say, the VACs have been seen as a very positive cost-efficient mechanism. Our own staff, our own people, have also given us feedback on the extent to which it's ensuring that they can do value-added important work rather than doing paper processing.

I think in my remarks I said that we are going out to 130 visa application centres, and it means that overall, in terms of our processing times, we should be in a better position to be able to actually focus on the value-added work of making determinations on visas.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

I just want to follow up on a couple of things. The Minister said that with the new EOI, CIC will be moving to a six-month wait time. At what point would we get to a six-month wait time?

[Anita Biguzs]

The intention of the government is to actually move forward with the expression of interest system in early 2015. I think the government has indicated January 2015, so we are actually putting in place the systems and managing our workload inventory in such a manner that we would hope as soon as the expression of interest system is implemented in 2015, we will actually provide a six-month wait time in terms of processing.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

There’s a moratorium on parents and grandparents that’s going to be lifted after two years and then there’s going to be a cap of 5,000. There's a long backlog, and I understand the minister's perspective that on a go-forward basis this is what we're going to be doing, but for families living in Canada, who are trying to get their grandparents or parents in and have been trying to do so for a long time, what measures will the department take to deal with this? They're real people. They're living in our communities. They're not part of this go-forward 5,000 cap. What are we doing for these people, for these families?

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, the efforts that we've made to date have basically reduced the inventory by almost 50%, so we actually have been making headway with the inventory of parent and grandparent applications. The government has also announced additional funding of $44 million over two years, which will be applied to enhance processing to make sure that we can work through that inventory.

There's also the super visa, which basically provides for a 10-year entry visa for parents and grandparents, which we think will certainly facilitate the ability of families to actually bring over their parents and grandparents for visits. The government has increased admissions, I think as the Minister had indicated, to 50,000 between 2012 and 2013, which is the highest number that we've ever had in our levels plan. The intention is to actually reopen applications as of January 2014. The idea is to actually cap them at 5,000 so that we won't in fact be dealing with a backlog and a large inventory, and we can actually give individuals some sense of certainty and expectation that we're not growing a backlog and people will not have to wait much longer.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Deputy Minister.

Ms. Bateman.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to our all our witnesses.

I've got a number of questions, Madam Deputy Minister, but I found your comments, particularly about the process flow improvements and the client service improvements that you've initiated, so interesting that if you want to take a little bit of my time to recap those important client service improvement pieces, I'd appreciate it.

[Anita Biguzs]

I may ask my colleagues to join in.

As I said, I certainly witnessed first-hand the benefits of the visa application centres. Certainly, we will be in many more locations than we could possibly be in our own missions abroad. From a client service point of view, there's a very rigorous framework under our contracts with these visa application centres in terms of the service, the expectations they have to provide, and also in the quality assurance, oversight, and monitoring.

The other issue is that we have introduced e-applications, online applications, for temporary resident visas, so it will actually be easier for people to apply for a visa coming to Canada. We've actually also moved to e-medicals, so that where you require certainly a medical certificate, we're actually doing that online as well, which certainly has saved time in these kinds of assessments. We've introduced multiple-entry visas, which means that we're reducing the number of applications that have to come in for single-entry visas.

As the Minister mentioned as well, we actually have introduced things like the business express program, and the travel student partnership, which again actually give streamlined, facilitated access to come to Canada, in addition to the super visa. These are many initiatives, and with our global case management system now, which is the basic IT platform, we can work around the world with our caseload and our application intake. We can move workload around the country or really anywhere in the network. So if you have downtime in one, you can move some of the caseload to other parts of the system. In that sense it is helping us to move forward in improving our process times.

These things also actually take time to be able to implement. We're still, as I was saying in my comments, in the early stages of implementation of some of these initiatives. We're looking at going further with online applications, certainly in terms of the permanent resident category as well. Our hope is that we will be going online in that area as well, and ultimately with passports as well, which will be another improvement to service.

As I said, I just wanted to say that we really are embarking on a pretty ambitious agenda of modernization in trying to facilitate movement to Canada in a timely manner.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

All right. I appreciate that.

Now I'm going to ask my questions, whichever of them I am allowed.

In December 2012 our government introduced a new asylum system to accelerate processing of refugee claims, to deter abuse of the system, and to help the people who need the help.

Could you elaborate on what new measures have been put in place to achieve these goals, again with a client-service focus and to help people who need help?

[Les Linklater, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I can respond, Mr. Chair. I think as we come up on the one-year anniversary of the implementation of the new system, we have a good set of numbers behind the results we've seen to date.

Through the major reforms, we introduced timelines to ensure that individuals were being heard at the IRB at the first level within specific time periods. Whether they were claiming at a port of entry or after having been in Canada for a certain amount of time, we found that the timelines were being met in the vast majority of cases. That has resulted in people getting positive protection decisions sooner than they had under the previous regime, which could have taken 21 or 24 months, for example, with people waiting in limbo for that kind of certainty.

The new system has also streamed applicants from certain countries so those who come from what are termed designated countries of origin, which don't normally produce refugees, are given a fast-track system, which basically mirrors the previous system in that there is a hearing at the IRB and recourse to the Federal Court.

Those who come from other countries that are not designated have access to a new refugee appeal division that has been established at the IRB, which adds that second layer of review for those individuals, plus there is the Federal Court as the final recourse after that.

The CBSA has been given funds to launch a pilot project on assisted voluntary returns, which they are administering out of Toronto with the International Organization for Migration. There have been very positive results after the first 16 months. We're seeing a great deal of take-up by people who have had a negative decision or who have decided they want to abandon their claim and return voluntarily to their country of origin. It helps lower removal costs downstream. It actually helps provide in kind assistance to these people who decide voluntarily to leave, and the IOM then is able to help them once—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Linklater.

Mr. Weston is next.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being with us here today.

Ms. Biguzs, you just said that

we're going online ultimately with passports.

That may also be an example of what the modernization program is accomplishing within the department.

Can you tell us more specifically what our desire to modernize what we are doing means for the Canadian passport program?

Could we opt for forms that involve using the Internet? Would that help save on costs to taxpayers?

[Wilma Vreeswijk, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I can perhaps answer that question.

The passport program is currently on the website, but there is a form in PDF format.

So it's a PDF form that you would download.

As the deputy indicated, we are leveraging the global case management system, and we would be moving the passport system by using that kind of a system within for passports, so that you could have, over time, end-to-end automation of the passport application.

In that way someone can renew their passport simply and easily, so that over time the whole thing will be automated.

When you have a system with a PDF type of form you have to download and fill in, you may forget information. If you send it in and there's a problem with your application because you've left some information out, then there's a recommunication with the client. All of those steps take time for the client and they are also costly. So by going to a fully automated end-to-end transaction type of system, we expect that over time the cost per transaction should come down.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Can you tell us when those changes will be in effect?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

The changes to the passport program processes have just been made. This is a transition period for us. We are making plans for the program's transformation. We want to ensure that the system we use is safe. We expect that will be done over the next few years.

So while we're transforming the program, we want to make sure that passports' record of high quality service is continued. So we want to make sure we manage that carefully.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Earlier in the meeting, we compared what we are doing now with what we were doing a few years ago. Can you compare the current costs that visa and citizenship applications processing represents for Canadian taxpayers?

[Les Linklater]

We have done a fair bit of work on that, but I do not believe we have those exact figures to hand. However, we will be pleased to forward them to the clerk as soon as possible.

I can say, however, that Canada is in good shape relative to competitor countries such as the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

So when we look at the fees that we charge, basically we are very competitive among those five countries for the range of services we offer.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

What about the costs to us as Canadians? That's a harder comparison, isn't it? Is it possible to make that comparison—not the cost to the applicants, but the cost—

[Les Linklater]

Whether or not it's full cost recovery?

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Yes.

[Les Linklater]

We have done some work there as well and we would be able to share the results of that with the committee through the clerk.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, all.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We'll have one more speaker for round four and then we'll start all over again.

The final speaker is Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for coming, our return guests, and our new guests.

Congratulations to you, Ms. Biguzs.

The supplementary estimates outlines transfers from CBSA to CIC, or from CIC and Transport to the RCMP for activities related to the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games.

But what we don't actually see are credits to ensure that refugees and immigrants continue to have fair access to health services for family reunification, services that some would argue actually help refugees and immigrants integrate into our Canadian society.

Could you help inform the committee which programs and administrative services are having money taken away from then in order for these transfers to happen?