Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 9th, 2016

[Richard Wex]

I'll just add very quickly to the minister's point.

This business line is increasingly under control, Mr. Chair. There's been a decrease in the inventory to the tune of about 34%, from 58,000 to 38,000 over the past year, and as the minister said, as a result of that, although wait times in the past were high, in the order of 48 months, within the next year or so, that will be coming down to 12 months, I guess within the next two years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Wex.

Ms. Rempel, you have seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd just like to pick up on a question that my colleague Ms. Kwan asked. How many LGBTQ have been admitted as refugees since November 4, 2015?

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

My understanding is that we don't record that, but I'll turn to David.

[David Manicom]

Yes, we have certain standards, statistical data fields in our systems. We record people's nationality, age, gender, and so forth. We do not count people's sexual orientation. We do not have statistics on that. Simply, we would have to ask it of every individual to have reliable statistics on that.

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

Thank you.

In developing the immigration levels report, were any school boards consulted on the budgetary impact of providing services to a 400% year-over-year increase in refugee arrivals?

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Chair, we have a robust consultation process with the provinces, and in the case of 2016, we also consulted heavily with certain municipalities, but we didn't consult specifically with school boards. We used intergovernmental consultations between the provinces and municipalities in terms of building our levels plan.

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

Are there any plans to provide funding to local school boards that are struggling to provide services to Syrian refugees?

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Chair, we have a program we call settlement workers in schools. This is a program that rolls out nationally, outside Quebec, where we target settlement workers in the school system to help bridge that gap between immigrant parents and their children, and what's expected of their children in homework and extracurricular activities, and help to address some of those issues.

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

Are there no plans for direct funding to school boards outside of that program, given the 400% increase year over year in refugee arrivals?

[Catrina Tapley]

No, we have no plans to fund individual school boards to deliver K-to-12 education.

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

Thank you.

What was the total expenditure across government departments including transportation, lighting, photography services, etc., for the photo opportunity held at Pearson airport in late 2015 when the first Syrian refugee arrived?

[Richard Wex]

We don't have that information available here. I'd be happy to identify the cost associated with that event and report it to the clerk.

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

Thank you.

Given that the three amigos conference will be coming up, and certainly the immigration levels would have an impact on this, I'm wondering if the officials can give the committee an update on the status of a formal review for the Mexican visa requirement being lifted.

[David Manicom]

In its platform the government committed to lifting the Mexican visa; an announcement has not yet been made on that. The review is ongoing.

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

Thank you.

The Liberal government has committed to increasing the number of applications it will accept every year under the parents and grandparents class, but it's also said that it will keep constant the number of landings in this category. If you're increasing the numbers of applications that you're going to take by keeping the landing constant, would I be correct in assuming that this would create a significant backlog?

[David Manicom]

No, the number of landings this year will require the processing of more applications than will be received, even under the increased cap, so the inventory will decrease. It won't have decreased as much as it would have.

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

Would this policy change that the Liberals made cause processing times under the PGP, parent and grandparent, category to increase?

[David Manicom]

No.

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

Thank you.

Going back to the downstream impact of increasing refugees by 400% year over year, has there been any specific consultations with health boards or ministers of health specifically on the cost impact of providing mental health services to Syrian refugees?

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

I have had multiple consultations with my provincial counterparts, ministers of immigration. They may have spoken to their health counterparts. I have not spoken to provincial health ministers.

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

Would I be correct in characterizing that there haven't been specific consultations with regard to the increase, or any particular estimates of the increase in costs, or service provision levels related to health care for a 400% increase in refugees year over year?

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

It's not a 400% increase. It's less than that. I just gave my answer. Others may have spoken to health ministers; I have not.

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

In your notes that you provided to the committee, you say that it's quadruple the range for 2015. So is it a 400% increase or not?

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

I'm looking at these numbers 13,800 and 44,800. It's over three times; it's not quite four.