Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 9th, 2016

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

Could you perhaps provide the committee with a brief update around the status and current processing levels of resettlement of Iraqi refugees who have been impacted by the crisis in the Middle East? You've now said that going to Erbil in the fall is a priority in terms of looking at Yazidis. That's what I'll take away from that conversation. My understanding is that resettlement of Iraqi refugees has dramatically slowed in the last few months. Would that characterization be correct?

[David Manicom]

Yes, the Government of Canada met its commitment to resettle over 22,000, I believe. Ms. Edlund?

[Dawn Edlund]

It was 23,800.

[David Manicom]

It was 23,000 Iraqi refugees. It was the largest resettlement program of any single nationality that Canada had done in a long time. We continue to process some Iraqi refugees, but at smaller volumes.

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

Could you provide to the committee where you understand the majority of Yazidis are located? Would it be correct to characterize that would be in northern Iraq?

[David Manicom]

The Yazidi population is primarily in northern Iraq. Also, some are in parts of Syria, along the no longer barely existing Iraq-Syria border. We understand there are some Yazidi refugees in camps in Turkey as well.

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

By this admission, would you say that by meeting the commitment on Iraqi refugees and not increasing that or focusing on that area, given that Yazidis are typically located in that area right now, perhaps we're missing an opportunity to bring Yazidis to Canada?

[David Manicom]

No, I would not agree with that characterization.

There are large numbers of extremely desperate populations all over the Middle East. At this time we are processing some Yazidi cases. Most of the Yazidi population, tragically, are not accessible to our officials or officials of any resettlement country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Unfortunately, the Conservative round is up, Mr. Saroya.

We'll go to Mr. Sarai. I understand you'll be splitting your time with Mr. Chen.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Five minutes, please.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Minister, we constantly hear from cities and provinces from the Maritimes to Saskatchewan, even Vancouver Island, from our economic forums, that we need new immigrants, more immigrants. Everyone is hungry for them. Do you think the current numbers, even though they are the largest since World War I, would be enough to satisfy the demand, or will we still be short of the need for more immigrants?

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

That's a very good question, and it summarizes a big part of my job for this summer.

Currently, as I said, we are admitting 300,000 in 2016, and by November of this year we have to announce a plan for levels in 2017, 2018, and 2019. That will address precisely your question. I don't want to prejudge what that number will be before I do the consultations, but personally, I will be going, and the parliamentary secretary will as well, across the country and talking to, listening to, various groups in every province and territory, I believe, and getting their input.

I think, in general, without getting into specific numbers, given our aging population, given our increasing dependence on immigrants, that we definitely need immigrants. Whether we need significantly more or not much more or a lot more will be an outcome of these consultations that will soon take place.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

On March 14, federal, provincial, and territorial ministers of immigration, your counterparts, met in Ottawa to talk about the future of immigration in Canada. Can you share with us what that meeting looked like and what their requests were?

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

My department, the provinces, and I co-operated fantastically well on everything to do with the Syrian refugees. I do remember when I initially asked the provincial ministers how many they could each bring in, the total came to more than 25,000, which was our target. The provinces were keen and positive in working with us on this refugee project. That's where we first met. I think, in general, we have a strong relationship. I am planning a trip to India later this year, and I've invited my provincial counterparts to come. They all won't come, but some may.

I think we do work well together. Where we sometimes disagree is that they always want more provincial nominees, and I cannot always give them as many as they want. That is sometimes a bit of a bone of contention, but I would say overall the atmosphere is good.

There's one other point on that I would mention. There was a proposal from the Quebec minister to have a federal-provincial meeting on the credentials issue and to learn from best practices on the credentials issue. To me that's an important topic, but it's something that is about 90% in provincial jurisdiction and very little in federal. The fact that Quebec, in particular, but all of the provinces were positive, wanted to meet with us and with each other to compare best practices was a good idea that we will definitely follow up on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Chen, for one minute please.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to follow up on the earlier questions of my colleague across the way around consultation with school boards. I believe it's alway important to look at history and to learn from the mistakes of the past. I know in my former role at the school board, five or six years ago, we settled hundreds of Roma refugee children. We provided classrooms for them, hired new teachers, and the peers were taught about who the refugees were. Under the previous government's so-called crackdown on bogus refugees, these children disappeared. According to one peer-reviewed Osgoode Hall Law Journal study, hundreds succeeded with their refugee claims, but most did not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Five seconds.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Instead they encountered racist rhetoric that drew on stereotypes about Roma being fraudsters, beggars, and criminals. This affected the school board adversely. I know Ms. Tapley mentioned earlier about school boards not being consulted. Perhaps in the future this would be a consideration of the department.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

A quick answer.

[Catrina Tapley]

As the minister has indicated, we'll have a robust consultation scheduled for 2017, and there will be an opportunity for all to make submissions as part of that process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

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

Perhaps I could add one point on that. We are a government that tends to respect federal, provincial, and municipal jurisdictions. There is nothing less federal and more provincial than schools and school boards. We can consider that idea, but some might think that would be intruding into territory that is not ours if a federal government directly approached the school boards which are so clearly in the provincial domain.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

That will conclude our rounds of questioning.

Perhaps, Mr. Manicom, the previous request I made I'll try to get at in a slightly different way. Past governments have provided target levels by mission. Would it be possible for you to provide target levels by missions to the committee?

[David Manicom]

I'd defer to my operational colleagues. Generally speaking, we do processing more and more at different stages and at different centralized offices around the world and in Canada. The mission-by-mission permanent resident targets are becoming somewhat less meaningful, but we could examine what information we could make available.