Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 18th, 2019

[Marta Morgan]

—in order to reopen the agreement—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I feel as though you're obfuscating, Ms. Morgan.

[Marta Morgan]

—in order to modernize the agreement so that we can—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'm a parliamentarian, and I would like some answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Excuse me. I would remind the member that the interpreters need to interpret both parties, so could only one person talk at a time?

Thank you.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Well, interpret this: I feel like you're obfuscating, Ms. Morgan. There's $114 million on the table that you're asking us to approve. What, if anything, is on the table with the Americans right now in terms of closing the loophole in the safe third country agreement?

[Marta Morgan]

Just to be clear, Mr. Chair, the $114 million that is the subject of supplementary estimates (B) is primarily to assist provincial governments with extraordinary costs that they have faced—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'll take that as nothing, Chair.

[Marta Morgan]

—because of asylum increases.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

That's all my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you. That's your time.

Mr. Rankin, welcome to our committee.

[Murray Rankin, Victoria, NDP]

Thank you.

I am very, very sorry to announce that I'm not the regular member of this committee, but I've been well armed by Ms. Kwan with some questions that I'd like to pose, if I may. I'm not sure who will field them. I'll direct them to Ms. Morgan, and she can decide.

The questions Ms. Kwan wrote for me concern asylum seekers. In January, it was announced that the government would be following up on the $50 million that was provided to Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba to compensate for the impact on social services posed by the increase in inland asylum claimants. The amount of $114.7 million would be spent to help pay for temporary housing for asylum seekers. That was immediately criticized as insufficient. Despite hosting the second-highest number of irregular border crossers who make inland asylum claim, British Columbia did not receive a single cent of the original $50 million. There are yet to be any details released regarding how the $114.7 million will be spread across the country.

Can you confirm whether British Columbia will be receiving any of that funding, and, if so, how much? When will the details be released publicly? Will funding be focused solely on temporary housing, or will the IRCC be listening to the experts and looking into ways to invest in solutions more permanent than shelters and hotel rooms?

[Marta Morgan]

The Government of Canada recognizes that the increase in irregular border crossers has placed extraordinary pressures on some provinces and municipalities. The government has provided a total of $26 million to date to the City of Toronto to address immediate temporary housing shortages in Toronto. We are actively engaged in discussions with the Government of British Columbia on the same issue. Certainly, once those discussions have concluded, the government would be in a position to announce any arrangements that have been undertaken as part of those discussions.

[Murray Rankin]

So the answer is zero and you're talking.

[Marta Morgan]

The answer is we're talking.

[Murray Rankin]

The answer is zero and you're talking, and yet you said nothing to the question I asked concerning whether there will be simply a temporary housing focus or whether you'll be looking beyond shelters and hotel rooms.

[Marta Morgan]

We recognize that there is a range of pressures on both provinces and municipalities as a result of the significant increase in the number of asylum seekers. The funding that's provided for supplementary estimates (B) is related to temporary housing funding. The federal government, provincial governments and municipal governments have all typically played different roles in this space and have provided different kinds of support in different ways. This funding in particular is related really to temporary housing.

[Murray Rankin]

So it's hotel rooms and shelters, not what so many experts have been talking about in terms of more lasting solutions to the temporary housing at issue. That's your answer, right?

[Marta Morgan]

I would note that the federal government has quite an extensive housing strategy. It's not within my department's remit, but a considerable amount of funding is being put into building social housing in general, and should—

[Murray Rankin]

Yes, but I'm talking about IRCC.

[Marta Morgan]

Right.

[Murray Rankin]

I'm not talking about government-wide solutions. We're aware of that. We know what comes after the budget.

I want to go to grandparents and parents sponsorship. This year the government attempted a new system for the sponsorship program for parents and grandparents. This saw the “interest to sponsor” form cap hit in less than 10 months, with countless Canadians kicked out of the application midway through or unable to open it all. Has the IRCC undertaken a review of how this process went? Have ineligible and duplicate submissions now been removed? Will there be any need for a second application window, as there was with the lottery system?

[Marta Morgan]

Mr. Chair, I'll turn this question over to Dr. Kochhar.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

To answer your question, we actually did use the electronic system for the PGP. We had done extensive analysis that this would fit into the scheme of making sure we were getting “first in”. We tested the system so that it could get the volumes. From previous historical levels, over 100,000 people applied, so we made sure the system was good, with no duplications as such; with anti-bots, meaning no robotic ways of sending it; and the system would not crash. These were all done.

We are at a stage where we are looking through those applications, at this point, and manually making sure there are no duplicate or incomplete ones. Then we will proceed from there.

[Murray Rankin]

I hear you on the duplication issue. I mean, it was notorious. It certainly made the media in my city of Victoria that this cap was hit in less than 10 minutes and then that was it. I mean, that surely isn't a success story.

What are you doing to address it, if you share my premise that it was a disaster?