Evidence of meeting #3 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was applications.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Michel Dupuis  A/Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Maia Welbourne  A/Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Thank you very much.

You mentioned you'd be sending letters to individuals who have not yet come into the process, as well as organizations. Do you know how many letters you'll be sending out?

11:55 a.m.

A/Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Maia Welbourne

I don't have that number, but presumably...the number of individuals that we suspect are still in the country, which is about 1,000, give or take.

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Is that 1,000 applications or 1,000 individuals by way of including family members?

11:55 a.m.

A/Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Maia Welbourne

It's 1,000 individuals who may be able to benefit from the special measures.

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

I'd be curious to get the information—and if you don't have it at this moment, the committee can receive it at a later time—on the number of applications that are still outstanding, that need to apply, because I think there's a difference between that number and the 1,000 people that have not yet made contact.

Following that, once the letter has gone out to those individuals, presumably, if they're no longer at their current address, the letter would be returned to you, and you would then be tracking how many people you have lost contact with.

Are you able to provide that information to the committee then, to let us know how many letters were returned—that is to say how many people you were not able to make contact with?

11:55 a.m.

A/Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Michel Dupuis

We could follow up with the committee.

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Thank you.

Let's say in the event that right on the deadline of July 31, right at the cusp of the deadline for the application, someone contacts the department or an agency that has been assisting them to advise that they're in the process of getting an application in, but because for some reason they only just realized they could make this application and may not have sufficient time to submit their full application, will there be provisions for them to still make that application and for you to accept it?

11:55 a.m.

A/Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Michel Dupuis

The special measure will end on August 5. At the moment I'm not aware of any further discussion on this issue and, again, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on what could happen in the future.

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

The point I was trying to get to is this. In the event that someone simply writes in their name and they're not able to fill in everything else and only get that in, would that application be deemed in process?

11:55 a.m.

A/Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Michel Dupuis

We'd have to look at what is considered an application: submitting the application form, the proper fees, and so on.

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

What is the fee?

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj

Thank you, Mr. Dupuis.

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

Mr. Ehsassi, you have three and a half minutes.

February 25th, 2016 / 11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON

Thank you, Mr. Dupuis and Madam Welbourne, for appearing before this committee.

I also want to applaud you and your department for all the effort that has gone into reaching out to all these affected individuals.

I'll keep my questions very brief. I wanted to follow up. You did state that you intend to send out letters to the extent that you have addresses available. Do you have a time frame in place for that?

Noon

A/Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Maia Welbourne

Again to build on previous answers, in the coming weeks, as soon as possible, we're trying to get the word out to allow the maximum time for people to prepare and submit their applications well before the August deadline.

Noon

Liberal

Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON

Thank you kindly.

Was there any reason why this approach was not tried in 2015?

Noon

A/Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Michel Dupuis

It would be hard for me to answer the question. I was not on the program at that time, but normally when we have special measures we use publicity, websites, and stakeholders.

I think it's important to remember that when we work with programs like that we work very closely with the stakeholders. Some of them have been mentioned. The department has a long history of relations with the stakeholders. We would be working with them. It has been used in the past.

Noon

Liberal

Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON

I see. Thank you.

Mr. Dupuis, you suggested that it appeared to you that some of these individuals were afraid to come forward. Could you attribute that to any government policy that has been adopted over the past several years?

Noon

A/Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Michel Dupuis

As we said before, when we deal with people who are in a difficult situation, we find from time to time that people don't necessarily trust government officials, especially if they're out of status, and this we can understand.

It's really a communications issue, to make sure people realize that the best way to maintain their life in Canada and to have permanent residence status is to reach out to IRCC, either themselves or through stakeholders. We believe that communication will be key to making sure people don't have this fear that contacting government would put you in more danger of being removed than if you don't.

Noon

Liberal

Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON

Perhaps it wasn't the ballooning wait times that developed over the past 10 years or the reality that there were cuts to refugee health programs that could have sent out the signal that we weren't as welcoming.

Noon

A/Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Michel Dupuis

When we look at the numbers we would say that the previous program was quite successful, when we go from 3,500 people to now approximately 1,000. We really want to continue the same thing, to make sure that we would allow as many people as possible to become permanent residents under this program.

Noon

Liberal

Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON

Thank you.

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj

Thank you, Mr. Ehsassi.

I have a couple of questions. I noted that you had mentioned earlier in raw numbers that amongst the 3,200 Haitians, 900 had not applied, and among the Zimbabweans, 125. As a percentage, that means about 28% of Haitians have not applied and 42% of the Zimbabweans. There seems to be a significant difference between those groups. Is that because of different risk factors? There are two very different political situations in Zimbabwe and Haiti. Is it because of additional risk factors in Zimbabwe? I'd be curious to know what the parameters were, the risk factors that perhaps the department looked at, and how they differ between the two countries.

The second part to that question is this. Was it a factor of outreach into the communities? The Haitian community is much better established and has a better multicultural media. I was wondering if it would be possible, along with some of the data that Ms. Kwan has requested be sent to the committee, if we could have samples of the multicultural outreach you said was done in the ethnic media. Perhaps you could provide this committee with actual examples of the multicultural outreach that was done into both the Haitian and the Zimbabwean communities?

12:05 p.m.

A/Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Michel Dupuis

With all due respect, I think you hit exactly what the issue is in terms of what could explain the difference. It's true, as you mentioned, that the Haitian community, for example, is probably a bit more localized in one area in Montreal and even Montréal-Nord. The fact that the community in itself is a bit different does not necessarily mean that the country conditions were the prime factor in this situation.

For example, we find the Zimbabwean community in Ontario, in Alberta. We find that the community from Haiti is 70% in Quebec, and mostly Montreal. There could be factors to explain how the information can circulate within the community. We would certainly return to the committee with more details on the outreach activities as it was mentioned before.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj

I'd like to thank the department officials for appearing before the committee this morning. I'd like to thank you for all of the work that you've done on these files. It's of tremendous importance for those particular communities. They've been largely accepted into our Canadian multicultural mosaic, and especially in Montreal, they're an integral part of our broader communities.

Thank you for this work, and we look forward to perhaps hearing from you in the future again. Thank you.

The committee will now suspend for a couple of minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]