Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 27th, 2018

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

It's project-based funding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Mr. Maguire.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate having the opportunity to ask a few questions here.

First, are there any permanent full-time-equivalent positions being funded through the supplementary estimates (A)? Could I get a response from you on that?

[Daniel Mills]

I have that information and I will give it to you in a few moments. In the meantime, perhaps we could go on to the next question.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Okay.

The IRCC's departmental results report, the performance report, was just tabled, and I think $63.7 million was budgeted for health protection in 2017-18. However, $133 million was spent. I'm wondering how you can end up spending double what was budgeted. What caused the department to be so far off its estimates? Could you help me with that?

[Marta Morgan]

I would want to confirm that for sure because I don't have the departmental report in front of me at this committee hearing. My working assumption is that this is the interim federal health program, which is driven by the number of individuals who are eligible for the program. It does vary year over year. Since we had a large increase in the number of asylum claimants, that is probably what you're talking about, but because I don't have it in front of me, I would want to come back to you, just to be sure, and table that with the committee.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

I wonder if you could do the same thing for the temporary economic residents, as $24.5 million was budgeted and the government spent $46.2 million.

[Marta Morgan]

We would be happy to do that.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

I just wonder how you could be that far out. You believe that it is relevant to the number of people who applied for their particular health situations. Would that be as a result of the increase in refugees that we've had come into Canada?

[Marta Morgan]

Certainly, asylum seekers are eligible for that program.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Has any money been allocated through main estimates, through vote 40, to introduce a permanent path to permanent residency? Part of the minister's mandate letter, I believe, is about trying to provide an opportunity to have as much permanent residency as we can. That has gone on, so I'm assuming that some funds are allocated in that resource.

First of all, I need a yes-or-no answer on that. If it is “yes”, could you just provide me with an estimate of how much was used in that area?

[Paul MacKinnon]

I can't provide you with an exact estimate, but I can say that the work we're doing associated with more permanent pathways for temporary foreign workers is just with the teams and the policy people we have in the department now. It's not an incremental that we're getting to do the policy work on that.

I can say, just for interest, that in 2017, Canada transitioned just over 56,000 temporary residents into permanent economic immigrants, through permanent economic programs. There's a number being transitioned right now, even before this work is finished. A number of those transitions are happening at the provincial level, through the provincial nominee program from coast to coast.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Okay. How are you doing?

[Daniel Mills]

Mr. Chair, I can answer the question on the number of full-time employees in supplementary estimates (A). It is in the line which has the

funding to support the use and protection of classified information in immigration proceeding.

This initiative was renewed on a permanent basis and requires 22 full-time permanent employees.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Okay. Thank you.

In vote 40, the budget implementation vote by departments, there are a couple of lines here. For the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, there's $85.9 million budgeted. The only funds that have been spent are the $17 million on irregular migration, I think for protecting temporary foreign workers. There is nothing for getting into and staying in the workforce and career pathways for visible minority newcomer women in Canada, protecting vulnerable women and girls, supporting Canada's official languages or expanding the diversity of entrepreneurs.

There was $17 million allocated. There has been—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I'm afraid I need to end you there. Sorry.

That seems to be happening a lot today. I advise all members to keep their clocks on and manage that time.

Mr. Ayoub, you have five minutes.

[Ramez Ayoub]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Have any amounts in the credits been allocated to processing asylum requests from persons who entered irregularly by Roxham Road? We are told that there are 69,000 files awaiting processing.

What amounts were specifically allocated to resolve that situation and what are the new “normal” wait times? Were there average wait times that no longer apply, given the situation of the past two years in that part of Quebec?

[Marta Morgan]

Thank you for your question.

Budget 2018 includes an amount of $174 million over two years to manage irregular migration, as well as for management at the border and the processing of asylum requests.

To speed up the processing of claims, $74 million will go directly to the Immigration and Refugee Board. This will allow the IRB to hire 248 new staff, including 64 decision-makers, in order to review an additional 17,000 asylum claims this year. The IRB has also increased its efficiency over the past year and finalized more than 50% of claims over what was foreseen. A dedicated effort is being made in order to address the increasing number of claims.

In terms of the normal time frame, the time frame for decisions at the IRB has varied greatly, depending on what's happening in terms of asylum claims in Canada. If you look over a historical period, you can see that when there are significant increases in claims, the processing time has gone up and then when the claims decrease, the processing time has gone down.

Prior to this significant inflow, I think that the flow coming in and flow going out, on any given year, was roughly in balance. At that point, the IRB had been funded to process between 20,000 to 24,000 claims a year because that was about what was anticipated, on an ongoing basis, until the recent increases that we've seen in the last two years.

[Ramez Ayoub]

I would also like to know how much time you needed to process the 24,000 or 25,000 files that you normally received. Were they processed in 12 or 18 months?

[Marta Morgan]

The first case study was done in one year. Things were balanced: in one year, we received approximately 24,000 files and we processed 24,000 files.

[Ramez Ayoub]

They were then out of the system.

[Marta Morgan]

Exactly.

[Ramez Ayoub]

During that time, you provided accommodation and services to these asylum seekers, while they waited for a final answer on their file.

[Marta Morgan]

Yes. Typically when asylum seekers have required assistance, it has been provided by provincial governments in the past.

[Ramez Ayoub]

Okay, thank you.

My next question is about the figures. What percentage of requests are denied?