Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 27th, 2016

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Sweetman.

Mr. Karas.

[Sergio Karas]

Yes, it's all about jobs. When there are jobs available, people integrate. The jobs also allow them to be financially self-sufficient, and they also act as an anchor.

For the question that was raised concerning people returning, that's very true, but people return home for a variety of reasons. I have seen, over my 30 years of experience, clients who come in, land, obtain their permanent resident card, and they immediately return home for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they have a job that they have to finish, and sometimes they have a family situation, or sometimes, quite frankly, they just go home to get married, and that's the truth.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Yes. I'm interested in your comments about the anticipated immigration levels plan. To me, the minister is implying that it may not be what a lot of people want because of the cost. I'm looking for your comments on that.

[Sergio Karas]

My comments are that it is true. I agree with Professor Sweetman concerning the costs that are higher in times like now when we have an economic downturn and we don't have full employment. I believe that the number of immigrants that we have now, approximately 300,000, is about right, but we need to look at the mix. I think we need to look at the economic category as the primary driver and at the costs that are higher in the other categories. Obviously, refugees draw more resources than economic immigrants, and so do family class members, who are not ready to work in Canada.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Kohli and Ms. Filici, what are your thoughts?

[Deepak Kohli]

I can't speak to the particular article that you quoted, but I would not be surprised—and probably you understood the same—if we see higher numbers this year and higher targets for the next year. Last week I read somewhere that this year, up to June 2016, they had admissions of around 350,000, which was one of the highest numbers in recent times. We've heard the minister suggest at various forums that he would like to see a higher number, and that's what he's hearing from Canadians. My sense is that if we see higher targets, I would not be surprised.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Kholi, I just want some clarification from your brief.

You suggest that the parent and grandparent category should have its cap raised by 2,500 every year. I'm not too sure what that means, and maybe you could clarify that. Would that mean 2,500 more this year, 5,000 more next year, 7,500 more the year after?

Is that what you're suggesting? If it is, would there ever be an end?

[Deepak Kohli]

Thank you for picking that up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

A very brief and succinct answer, please.

[Deepak Kohli]

Yes. This is more for the entire family, the unification unit as a whole. Previously we have said let's look at including the siblings as well. This is in the context of the entire family, the reunification of the family unit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Kwan, you have seven minutes, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you to all the witnesses for their presentations.

I'd like to ask Mr. Kohli a question around the family unit and the definition of the family unit. We've heard from other witnesses on different panels who suggest it shouldn't just be limited to children, in that context, but rather should be extended to include siblings. There was a time, actually, when Canada had that category in place. I wonder if you could elaborate on that, on the family unit classification. Should that be extended?

[Deepak Kohli]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

As you've discussed, we believe that Canada is not looking at the family reunification or family unit lens to its full potential. Many of the immigrants coming in have siblings who are young. Broadly, the demographics that Canada targets are the young, the educated. All the siblings may not be as qualified all the time, but what they have going with a sibling in Canada as a permanent resident or a Canadian citizen is the support that could help him or her settle in Canada easily.

This, by the way, has also been the model used in the U.S. for a long time. We were trying to refrain from using examples, but there seems to be a huge advantage in looking at siblings as a support group.

[Vilma Filici]

I just wanted to add that I like the idea the professor had because, in fact, assisted relative class used to be a category under the previous immigration act, whereby having a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident sibling automatically gave the skilled worker 15 points, I think, and that made a huge difference in the qualification of that person. Perhaps that could be a way to facilitate helping a sibling come to Canada.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

In the end, expanding the family unit in the family reunification classification would be something that we would support to include siblings as well. As we know, for many different cultures, the definition of family is very different from that of the Canadian culture, in many ways.

I'm going to ask a different question. We've heard from witnesses that sponsorship is onerous. The 20 years is onerous and some have suggested reducing it to 10 years. In addition to that, others have also said that the financial requirement is very onerous. If you were a family of three and you were sponsoring two parents, then your calculation is based on a family of five, and then for three years prior to their arrival...before the application can be submitted. Then you can make an application.

I wonder if you can comment on both of those aspects. I believe in your brief you suggested reducing the 20 years down to 10. Also, on the financial aspect, what are your thoughts?

[Vilma Filici]

We think the financial requirements are extremely high. The previous government changed the law, and the idea was when parents and grandparents arrive in Canada they become very expensive for the health system. I think that was the rationale, but unfortunately what happens, as we heard from Mr. Wong, is that the families who need the support of parents and grandparents, specifically parents the most, are people who are not going to ever meet the financial requirements to be able to sponsor them if we keep the requirements as they are. Because there are the low-income cut-off figures, plus 30%, and it is for three years. It used to be LICO was for one year only.

It is very difficult for a newly arrived family to make that kind of money, particularly if they have children and only one of the spouses is working. We would like to see the financial requirements go back to what they were, the LICO just the same as for everybody else, and we would like to see it going back to a 12-month requirement rather than the three years.

I don't know if Mr. Kohli wants to address the 20-year—

[Deepak Kohli]

That's okay.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

On the cut-off age for dependants, again, there were arguments made around the issue on age. In addition to that, there were witnesses who made the point that a lot of the young people are in school, in fact, and have not completed their schooling, so therefore they are dependants. I wonder if you have some comments about them and what your thoughts are with respect to addressing that aspect.

[Vilma Filici]

I think Chantal Desloges spoke about this earlier. I agree that it was an administrative nightmare for Immigration to decide which child was in reality a student or was just in school so that they could be included in an application as a dependant. I also agree that the cut-off age of 19 is too low for families, because kids are in school at that age and most of the children need the support of the parents to continue to be in school.

Perhaps—and this is something that I'm just thinking about right now—rather than raising it to 22, maybe we can raise it to 24. You could suggest raising it to 24, so that automatically would include the dependants who are in school.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 20 seconds.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

On the difficulty about determining whether or not a person is in or out of school, wouldn't some criteria.... For example, if you are enrolled full-time, that would be deemed to be in school.

[Vilma Filici]

Well, there are. There is actually case law that gave very specific points on what to look for in order to decide if a person is in school or not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Dzerowicz, for seven minutes.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thanks to everyone for your presentations.

I'm going to start with the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants.

Within your profession you deal with a lot of immigration cases and see a lot of these applications. Spousal and child applications take a long time, and for parents and grandparents they take even longer. If you were to make recommendations specifically around the application process, what would be your key recommendations to simplify it?

What are the problems? I don't want you to go into a long précis on it, but if you can make specific issues.... You say that these are the things you see all the time. If you can just address that, I'd be grateful if you could give me a couple of recommendations on it.

[Vilma Filici]

To be fair, we have seen a reduction in the processing times for spousal applications, and also for parents and grandparents—