Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome, Minister McCallum and the department officials. Over the last few years, we've watched the horrors of the Syrian civil war unfold and the consequent waves of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Perhaps the image that's most seared in Canadian minds is that of the body of baby Alan Kurdi washing ashore after his family's unsuccessful attempt to find peace and security outside of Syria.

Minister, your mandate letter states that “Canadians are open, accepting, and generous”, and over the last few months we have seen Canadians open up their hearts and open up their homes to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. I know that this has been a challenging time for you and of course for the department officials. In fact you have met those challenges in, some would say, a miraculous way.

The mandate letter also says that you are to report regularly on your progress towards fulfilling our government's commitment and to have meaningful engagement with parliamentary committees. We're very appreciative of the fact that you so expeditiously responded to the committee's request that you appear before us.

Pursuant to the motion adopted by the committee on February 16, 2016, that the minister appear before the committee on citizenship and immigration at his earliest convenience, the minister is here today, this February 23, 2016, to discuss the ministerial mandate letter.

I would now invite the minister to proceed with any opening comments he may have.

Minister.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am very happy to be here with you today. It is the first time a Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has appeared before this committee. The word “Refugees” has been added to the title of the department by the Prime Minister.

I think it's significant that the Prime Minister added “Refugees” to my title, because it signals strong support and respect for refugees and the role they play in our country, as I think can be seen by the actions we have taken today.

I am pleased as well to introduce two of our assistant deputy ministers, Dawn Edlund and Catrina Tapley.

I would like to make a fairly brief presentation and then be open to questions.

As the chair indicated, perhaps the first thing to talk about are the Syrian refugees. I'm an economist, and have typically been involved in dollars-and-cents issues, one might say. This is more a matter of the heart, a matter to define who we as Canadians are. I think that message has gone out. I think Canadians have responded very warmly. As I have said many times, I see this as a national project, not a federal government project. We have seen the response of Canadians from all walks of life across the country.

I think our message has also gone out around the world. The photograph of the Prime Minister meeting the first plane really did go around the world, to the point where, when I was in Jordan visiting a UNICEF centre, the little children there who knew nothing about Canada, and were not applying to come here, told me they had heard that our Prime Minister had met Syrians in Toronto a few days ago. If little refugee children in Jordan knew about it, I think many people around the world did.

I can also say that we are making good progress. As of the 21st of February, 23,098 Syrian refugees have landed, so I think it's safe to say that we're well on track to hit our 25,000 commitment by the end of this month.

After that, or indeed all the time, I would say, the major challenge has been not so much to transport the people from there to here, as it is to settle them well in Canada. That is and has been our major challenge. Nothing of this nature goes perfectly smooth. There are always hiccups along the way, but I think it is going well in terms of helping the refugees find housing, learn English or French, get jobs, and settle down as regular Canadians, just as has been the case with previous waves of refugees in our history.

As the chair said, I have been open during this process. I shared good and bad news with the media, when there were problems related to exit visas or other issues. I mentioned them.

My idea has been to go together on this trip with Canadians. If it's a national project, I think Canadians should know the ups and the downs along the way. I hope I've been open with Canadians on that, as I think I'm being open with you today.

The idea was for me to talk about what's in my mandate letter. I won't talk about everything in the mandate letter. I'm very happy to answer any questions you may have, but I'd like to just describe a few points. Some of the things in the mandate letter are pretty simple to do. It's like black or white, on or off. You turn off a switch or you turn on a switch; for example, refugee health care. We have re-established that to the point where it's the same now as it was in 2012. We've also added additional benefits in terms of payment for medical exams overseas and inoculations, which are good for the refugees and good for Canada's public health. That's done.

The Citizenship Act we will do in coming days. As we have said many times, we believe there should be one tier, not two tiers of Canadian citizenship. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. Certainly that central aspect of this bill will become evident very soon.

There's one element in my mandate letter that is much more complicated, much more difficult to achieve, and more time consuming. It's not just turning something on or turning something off. That has to do with improving the processing times for family class immigrants. If I had to say what my number one priority is, that would have to be it. Over the last 10 years, the processing times for virtually every class of newcomer, with the exception of economic immigrants, has mushroomed, has escalated to the point where I think it is unacceptable for Canada to ask spouses to wait typically 24 months before they are reunited, versus waiting periods like six to eight months in other countries to which we compare ourselves, like the U.K., the U.S., and Australia.

Not just for spouses but for family class in general, my top priority is to bring down these processing times quickly. We will have targets for this that we will post and we will work extremely hard to achieve those targets. We had an ambitious target of 25,000 for Syrian refugees, and we will have an equally ambitious target to reduce the processing times over coming years for family class immigrants.

The committee is master of its own work. Ministers certainly don't tell you what to do, but I would suggest that you might want to look at this whole process of high levels of processing times and how we will achieve reductions, because I'm working on this on what one might say are three fronts.

First I'm talking to you, and you may or may not decide to do a study to be a part of this effort.

Second, I will be having a retreat with senior members of the officials of my department plus political staff to brainstorm on this to work towards setting goals; to work towards doing our processes radically differently, faster, and more efficiently in order to achieve objectives; and before too long, to set objectives for bringing down those processing times.

The third front is that I will be announcing relatively soon an external advisory group of experts who will also help to achieve this radical reduction in processing times for family class immigrants.

With my department working closely with me and with my staff to achieve this, plus this external group, plus if it is your desire, your own work in this area, we can work on these three fronts, and I think we can achieve meaningful progress in the not too distant future.

Mr. Chair, I think my preliminary remarks have been long enough.

I would now be pleased to answer the questions of members of the committee.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Minister.

Pursuant to a routine motion adopted by the committee on February 16, 2016, we'll now proceed to rounds of questions beginning with the Liberal Party.

Mr. Sarai, you have seven minutes.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Welcome, Minister, and thank you for taking the time to appear today before our committee.

As you know, Surrey Centre welcomes up to 40% of all refugees who come into the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. We have learned, through the media, that the previous Conservatives were slow to roll out their response to the crisis in Syria.

Incredibly, we learned that there were some reports that the government hand-picked refugees before allowing them entry into Canada. My constituents and others across the country are alarmed to hear that in 2015 refugees were chosen, not based on vulnerability or need but rather which faith group or ethnic group they came from.

Are you able to speak to this and confirm if this was true?

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

You mentioned the Lower Mainland. I would congratulate you and the Surrey community for all the work you have done, and the Sikh community in particular. I was out there early on and they are one of the communities that came forward in a really strong way to support this initiative.

We're kind of into sunny ways, so I'm not dwelling on the acts of our predecessors. I talk about the mushrooming processing times over the last decade, without saying which government was in power over the last decade, so I'm not dwelling too much on whose fault it is why we are where we are. I will say, however, that it's not the fault of the public servants in the department who were faced with declining budgets and the reallocation of resources away from family class.

In terms of hand-picking refugees, that may or may not have been the case. I'm not focusing on that myself. I'll tell you what our policy is. We take refugees from the United Nations list who are defined as vulnerable according to the United Nations, and we invite people from that list. That is totally irrespective of religion and other characteristics, so we are religion-neutral, shall we say, in terms of our selection of refugees.

The previous government had a different view, but I have not looked into that in any detail. I'm more focused on moving forward.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Following up on that, it looks as though we're on track to hit our government's goal. As you had said, 24,000 have already arrived and we're almost at the target of 25,000. Communities across Canada have responded overwhelmingly to help these new Canadians. These new immigrants are eager to start their lives and want to contribute to Canadian society, but are somewhat challenged when it comes to language and job training. However, there is some concern on how we can ensure that they are integrated into communities such as Surrey Centre.

Are you able to elaborate on the government's efforts to facilitate integration and language training for these new Canadians?

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

Yes. As I said, although the media attention was often—at least for a time—on how many we would get here in what period of time, the main challenge has always been not that issue but how well we will receive them, welcome them, and integrate them, so that they, like other refugees from other countries in the past, will as quickly as possible become fully functioning Canadians or permanent residents with a job, a family, and everything else.

The government-assisted refugees, as I've said, are particularly vulnerable. The typical government-assisted refugee from Syria speaks not a word of English or French, often has not much education, and frequently has not been on an airplane until they came here. For them, they're in a brand new, totally different environment. Unlike the privately sponsored refugees, they typically don't know a soul in Canada, so they're on their own in that sense. We have to make sure that they're not on their own—we in Canada and not just the federal government, because as I said, it's not a federal project—and that at the settlement level it's at least as much provincial government settlement agencies and others that are there to help them get the housing, get the language training, and get the jobs.

I have been doing many things to try to promote that process on each of those three fronts. In particular, on the language training, I think we have some additional funding that we can provide, because that's a sine qua non. I know that in some parts of the country—notably, I believe, British Columbia—there is a shortage. There are some bottlenecks. I hope to be able to address those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Sarai, you can have a brief question with a brief answer. Thank you.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I'll be quick.

On top of the priorities given to you by the Prime Minister is one to develop a plan to address the ballooning processing times for citizenship. As you know, hundreds and perhaps thousands in my riding have been waiting years in queues for their applications to be processed.

We have just learned from the Treasury Board and the parliamentary budget officer that previous Conservative governments made cuts to many of the departmental programs that dealt with applications. Are you able to tell this committee what the effects of those cuts by stealth have been on applications of spouses, parents, and live-in caregivers?

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

As I say, I'm trying to look forward more than backwards, but it is certainly a fact that the budgets of the department, particularly in family class, were cut, and that this is one of the reasons that the processing times have gone as high as they have.

But I think my job is to look more forwards and less backwards. We start from where we are. For whatever reason, we have the hand that we were dealt, and we have to play that hand to the best of our ability. That is why I'm hoping to have this two- or three-part process through the external committee, through my department, and possibly through this committee, to work as hard as we can to bring those processing times down as quickly as possible.

Partly, it will involve more money. We have committed more money in our platform, but in large measure it should be up to us as a department to improve the efficiency of our processes to achieve those ends.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Minister.

I will now proceed to the Conservative Party.

Ms. Rempel, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My comments relate to the minister's mandate letter under the section of leading “government-wide efforts to resettle 25,000 refugees from Syria in the coming months.”

Earlier this year the government made a decision to waive the immigration loan program or payment requirement for Syrian refugees. The minister's parliamentary secretary is on the record saying that the government is treating Syrian refugees differently from other cohorts. Questions have been raised as to what criteria are being used to define when the government treats one class of refugees differently from another. This raises an interesting question. Under subsection 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it says that:

Every individual...before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection...of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or...physical disability.

Subsection 15(2) says:

Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object....

It goes on and so forth. The case law in this is very interesting. What I find interesting about subsection 15(2) is, how would you apply the test of the charter to two different cohorts or multiple different cohorts of refugees from around the world who are seeking refuge in Canada? Arguably they all are disadvantaged per the reading of subsection15(2). Like the minister, I also have a background in economics. I'm not a lawyer, but I think this is a very interesting question not only for the fairness.... I know my colleague from Surrey just asked questions. We've had questions from Surrey council with regard to this program, but we also have the budget coming up. I think this is an important question in terms of overall costing of the government's program.

Given that I think this is a very interesting area of study, Mr. Chair, I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee study the government’s recent decision to waive the Immigration Loans Program repayment requirement for Syrian refugees; that the Committee examine whether waiving this requirement for Syrian refugees and not for other refugee cohorts constitutes a violation of Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; that this study be comprised of no less than four meetings to be held prior to May 1, 2016; and that the Committee report its findings to the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Rempel, would it be possible to request that we defer this debate around this motion to committee business?

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

I realize that portion of the meeting is in camera. I think this is a very important question to raise in public today, and that's why I've moved it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Would you entertain that a portion of our in camera meeting be in public in the afternoon? The minister is here for a limited time, one hour, and I know that many of the committee members would like the opportunity to have the minister answer questions of tremendous significance—as is yours. Perhaps we could consider debating your motion in public during the second hour when the minister is no longer here so that we don't cut into this opportunity for all committee members to ask questions of the minister.

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

Perhaps we could just extend the minister's time here by 15 minutes to accommodate this discussion right now since I've moved the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Minister, are you able to remain for an additional 15 minutes today, along with your department officials?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

The motion is in order.

Yes, Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

If you need a seconder for the motion, I'll second it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

No, we do not.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

If you don't need one, I'll speak to the motion. I would gladly speak in support of the motion. I do think it's a relevant and important motion.

I was also interested in asking the minister a question about whether he or his government have reached a conclusion regarding the waiving of the transportation and medical costs for all refugees. The government made the decision for Syrian refugees who arrived before November 4, 2015, to have that cost waived, but any refugees from Syria arriving after November 4, 2015, would not have their costs waived. That has caused incredible hardships for some families.

I met with families who have come forward. They have been here for eight months. They're on income assistance at a rate of $1,400 a month, of which $950 goes to their rent and they have $450 left. They're getting a bill each month for over $600 for their transportation and medical costs. There is so much stress for the families. It's unbelievable.

We're creating a two-tier system. I would argue that it's not just for Syrian refugees, but for all refugees.

I hope the government moves on this. The minister said on November 19, 2015, that the government was considering it. Perhaps there's an update. The motion might not be as relevant if the government and the minister can confirm today that they have arrived at a decision with regard to that.

Without that decision I think this is an important and relevant motion. I would be very happy to support it and the work that needs to be done around it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Minister, there was a question from Ms. Kwan. Would you like to respond to it, or should we proceed with further discussion?

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

If you wish, I could respond—

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

There's a point of order.