Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 1st, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Good afternoon.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on February 25, the committee will resume its study on family reunification.

I understand that we're still trying to do some of the technical hookups, so I will introduce the individuals that are before us. We will reverse the order slightly from what we had set as our agenda originally.

As individuals, by videoconference from Toronto, we have Rupaleem Bhuyan, professor, faculty of social work at the University of Toronto; Ma Lean Andrea Gerente, as an individual, and she's appearing here as the daughter of a Filipino nanny who passed away in Canada. Also, as an individual, we have Mr. Amit Harohalli.

It appears we don't have the video hookup as yet. We'll begin with Mr. Harohalli. Mr. Harohalli, you have seven minutes.

[Amit Harohalli, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to speak before this committee. I am here to speak about the importance of family reunification, especially with sponsoring parents and grandparents.

My family and I immigrated to Canada about seven years ago, and we have been residing in Ontario since then. My wife and I have been working full-time jobs, looking after our kids, and doing our duties as citizens, as well as paying our taxes on time.

Being a Canadian does not change the fact that I am an Indian by origin, and I pass our traditions and culture to our kids. My parents have been visiting me every year for the last five years. They have been a great help to our family by helping us with our household chores and taking care of our children, and at the same time it's a relief for us that they are closer to us. We do not have to worry about them and their health and well-being, as we would if they were far away.

Being Indian, we have a tradition to take care of our parents when they are in their old age. We want to continue and pass on this tradition to the new generation with my kids.

At the moment, the obstacle we are facing to keep our parents here on a long-term basis is the current process of immigration. Our family, like many other families in Canada, cannot meet the minimum annual income requirements set by immigration. Our parents being here with us in Canada helps us to bind together and care for each other. My kids get the love, care, and attention of grandparents.

If there was some leniency or flexibility in the low-income cut-off for sponsorship, then this would definitely be beneficial. The low-income cut-off differs every year, I guess due to inflation, but the government or immigration should also understand that not all employers, especially in the private sector, consider the same rate of inflation when reviewing for appraisals. The current process requires applications to be submitted as soon as the application period opens up, but it closes within a couple of hours of opening when the cap is completed.

Would there be a possibility to have separate application periods for individual applicants, as well as organization applicants through an immigration lawyer? Not all individuals, such as myself, are able to afford the services of immigration lawyers or agents.

Moreover, the processing time for family sponsorship should be shortened for families to reunite sooner.

The option currently provided by immigration to keep parents or grandparents on a long-term basis in Canada is a super visa, which definitely is a plus, but the requirements of getting medical insurance locally is not affordable. If the super visa process allowed people to get the medical insurance from respective home countries, with certain minimum requirements, this could definitely boost the number of super visa applicants.

With parents being here with the family, we are able to give the best possible child care any parent would want for their children, with the advantages of children being able to learn about our culture, religion, and language, and avoiding the huge amounts that we are paying to day care institutions.

My wife and I are here today because of the peace of mind we have knowing that our parents are looking after our kids back home.

Furthermore, with parents being here as permanent residents, they will be able to contribute to the community by volunteering, as well. They will be able to impart their employment experience to the new entrepreneurs and help them succeed.

In our case, our parents are in very good health and excellent condition, with no instances in the last five years where we used the medical system, since they always come in with insurance when they travel.

I would request that, if possible, changes be made to the policy with lenient income requirements for many families like ours to sponsor their parents or grandparents, who can can then contribute to the family, as well as to the community and the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

We'll now proceed to Ms. Rupaleem Bhuyan for seven minutes, please.

[Dr. Rupaleem Bhuyan, Professor, Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Hello, good afternoon, and thank you.

My name is Rupaleem Bhuyan. I'm a researcher and professor in social work at the University of Toronto. I'm here today as the lead researcher on the Migrant Mothers Project, but also as a social work educator and a recent immigrant to Canada.

Since 2011, the Migrant Mothers Project has conducted research on access to social and health services for immigrants who have a temporary or precarious status. We work with a network of service providers, legal advocates, immigrants who are directly impacted by our research, as well as policy-makers.

Today I want to focus my remarks on research that we have been conducting with sponsored spouses and their partners, as well as people working in Canada's caregiver program.

The right to be with family is foundational to Canadian ideals and equality. Although family reunification has been a central component of Canadian immigration for decades, the right to be reunited with family has been significantly eroded for recent immigrants, especially the hundreds of thousands who enter Canada as migrant workers.

Canada currently extends differential rights to people based on their purported skill level and the kind of work they do, in ways that are antithetical to Canada's commitment to equality and fairness. I ask you as members of Parliament to consider—and you probably have been doing so throughout this study—the long-term impacts on a society that deems some people worthy to live with and raise their children, while a growing number of people do not deserve to do so.

A key concern we would like to raise today stems from the long processing times and bureaucratic hurdles that people are faced with when sponsoring their relatives or applying for permanent residence as migrant workers in Canada.

I'm appearing here today with Ma Lean Garente, who will be sharing, from her own experience, her family's struggle with the caregiver program due to long processing times after her mother was eligible for applying for permanent residence as a caregiver.

In a letter dated May 2 this year, advocates working with Ma Lean from Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office submitted a brief to Minister McCallum that estimated that 38,000 caregivers and their families are currently waiting to be reunited in Canada. The IRCC website reported recently an average of 51 months of processing time for permanent resident applications for caregivers. Imagine waiting for a month or two months or more than four years for an application to be processed while you are separated from your children and your spouse.

It is my understanding that the minister has committed to prioritizing live-in caregiver applications that were submitted in 2010 and 2011. While we believe this is an important first step, it's also crucial that the applications received before 2010 be addressed in a timely manner. We recently learned in our research that some caregivers who applied in 2015 have already received permanent residence, whereas those who applied earlier, in 2009 and 2010, are having to wait up to five to six years. This disparity, we believe, needs to be addressed, certainly with more resources provided for application processing.

We also join many advocates who urge the committee to reconsider some of the basic terms of the caregiver program. Many advocates in this program call for permanent residence upon arrival and urge that they be able to bring their family with them when they move to Canada. We also believe that many caregivers working in Canada should have their applications expedited to reduce the wait times, so that they may be reunited with their family members.

I also have remarks that we'd like to present today regarding conditional permanent residence, which is a different area of our research. Just last Friday the IRCC posted their draft regulations to repeal conditional permanent residence, which was a period imposed on sponsored spouses and their partners, newly sponsored spouses having to reside in a conjugal relationship with their sponsor for two years before the condition would be removed.

Since 2014, our project has been collaborating with partners in Alberta and Ontario to examine the impacts of conditional permanent residence. We understand that on average 25% to 35% of newly sponsored spouses have been receiving this condition. We also have been identifying concerns related to domestic violence in cases in which sponsored spouses are afraid to or worry about leaving their spouse or seeking safety because of its potentially jeopardizing their immigration status.

We applaud this proposal to repeal conditional PR. We also encourage the committee to consider some of the unprecedented support this new policy measure has introduced. At the time of creating conditional permanent residence, immigration also created an exception for victims of abuse and neglect. Although the process for applying for this exception had some bumps in the road, we've learned through our research that it has improved. IRCC reported that 436 requests were received from applicants who were requesting an exception to their condition on their status due to abuse or neglect, and more than 75% were approved and were submitted by women.

For us, this was an important role that the Canadian immigration policy is playing to support sponsored immigrants who may be abused by their sponsor. Though conditional PR will be repealed, we hope, we believe this is an opportunity for the committee to consider how other immigrants who are being abused by their sponsor could be supported by the Canadian government. We believe it's possible to extend an exception program for those who were sponsored as parents, grandparents, children or sponsored spouses waiting in Canada for their application to be processed, a time that takes up to two years. Immigrants who are in these relationships may be experiencing abuse from their sponsor in ways that jeopardize their safety, and we encourage the committee to consider using—

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Bhuyan, you have 20 seconds, please.

[Dr. Rupaleem Bhuyan]

Yes.

We encourage the committee to consider expanding the infrastructure within IRCC to provide very needed support to these immigrants who are vulnerable to abuse.

Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Gerente, the floor is yours if you'd like a few minutes.

[Ma Lean Andrea Gerente, As an Individual]

Hello, and good afternoon.

First, I would like to thank the committee and Migrant Mothers Project for giving me this opportunity to talk to you.

My name is Ma Lean Gerente, a client of Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office and Neighbourhood Legal Services, in Toronto. I am the eldest child of the late Maricon Gerente, a former live-in caregiver who arrived in Canada back in 2008 and got terminally ill in 2013 while waiting for her PR application approval.

My mother had long dreamed of having my sister and me join her here in Canada. It wasn't until my mother had fallen ill that her application for permanent residency was approved. I was only a year old when my mother first left the Philippines to work overseas, so growing up in the Philippines without my mother was not that easy. It was hard for me to understand that my mother was taking care of other children instead of my sister and me. She moved to Canada, but she had to leave us behind with our relatives.

I remember every time my mother visited the Philippines, once a year, I would beg her not to leave again. She would always say that leaving us was the hardest decision she ever made in her entire life. She promised us a better future here in Canada, and that once she got her permanent residency, she would be able to bring us; we could join her, and we'd finally be able to live happily together.

After many months and years of waiting, my mother was granted permanent residency on her deathbed. While we were in Canada at that time, we were only given a temporary resident permit. We applied on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and we were initially refused, but then we made an appeal to the Federal Court. We are grateful to the individuals and groups who have been supporting us from then up until now.

Fighting for our right to stay in Canada was not easy. Our mother worked hard to complete the requirements of the live-in caregiver program. We should have not suffered this much. While we were waiting for the appeal, our education was not interrupted. That's a very good thing. We are aware that some children whose immigration status is in limbo might face interruptions in their education, and this should not be the case. The affected children should continue to go to school. This can have an impact on how quickly they can become self-sufficient and achieve their full potential here in Canada and be productive citizens of Canada some day.

Nothing is more painful than a separated family. It's worse than a divorced family. The long years of waiting have serious psychological and physical impacts on families, especially on us, the children. I remember having nightmares regularly while waiting anxiously to hear the good news from my mother about her PR approval. The torture of waiting caused my sister and me great emotional suffering. We are now permanent residents of Canada. My mother is gone, but we're still here.

I'm aware that the current government has attempted to speed up the family reunification program, and we are pleased by your commitment to reducing waiting times for family class immigration. I learned that family reunification for live-in caregivers and refugees is separate from the family class, and we are now concerned that these groups will be forgotten.

I have been meeting many caregivers within the Filipino community who arrived in Canada between 2007 and 2010 and are still waiting to be reunited with their families. I know the pain they feel. I can't help but think about their children back home who are waiting for their parents to tell them that they're finally going to be together, and actually start living together as a family unit.

I believe that the long delays of family reunification are unacceptable for the children, for caregivers, and for refugees whose children are in dangerous situations. I believe that Canada should exercise its obligations to protect caregivers and their children by respecting their right to be with their families. Caregiving is as important and valuable as other work. It must be dignified and celebrated, too.

On behalf of all the children of caregivers and refugees waiting to be reunited with their families, I urge the Canadian government specifically to allocate resources to address PR applications of caregivers submitted from the years 2007 to 2011; to commit to the same reduced times for family reunification of caregivers and refugees as for the family class; to dedicate more resources to the PR processing to decrease waiting times; to increase efficiencies, and address PR refusals caused by administrative errors; to address repeated medical procedures that seem to be arbitrary and unnecessary; to respond to the “death of the sponsor” resolution of the Canadian Council of Refugees, or CCR; to review section 38 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for discriminatory content against persons with disabilities; and to provide landed status on arrival to allow caregivers to enter Canada with their families.

Thank you for this opportunity to talk to you. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

The committee thanks you, Ms. Gerente.

We will begin with Mr. Tabbara, for seven minutes, please.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing here today. We really want to thank you as we continue this important study on family reunification. Your testimony is very important to us, and we're looking forward to discussing more with you.

My first question is for Mr. Harohalli.

There have been many witnesses who have testified here, and we've been talking about families. What some witnesses have suggested is that we need to include other family members in the nuclear family. Some of their suggestions were that parents and grandparents should also play an active role in the nuclear family.

One of the questions that has been brought to us is, should there be a redefinition of what a nuclear family should be?

[Amit Harohalli]

What I feel is that especially when you have your elders, your seniors, staying along with you, they are able to impart all their knowledge and experience that they have gained over the years, as well as the culture and the traditions. Being in a joined family helps the new generation to learn about the traditions and culture, as we are separated from our traditions and culture. As for being Canadian, yes, we are proud of that, but at the same time our roots are something that we do care about and want to pass on to our kids, so we feel that is something that is....

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I'm sorry, I might have been a little unclear.

When people are sponsoring some of their family, they're sponsoring their spouse and their children, which is the nucleus of the family. Should the definition be broadened to include parents and grandparents? I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear.

[Amit Harohalli]

My apologies. Yes, if that is taken into consideration, then it will definitely help families, as well, if they were to include the parents and grandparents into making up the nuclear family. As an individual, yes, I would say many other individuals and families would definitely be excited if that was something that was taken into consideration.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

In your family situation, if your parents and grandparents...I'm not sure if they're here right now under a visitor visa, but if they are here, can you give an indication to the committee or some information of how they would be beneficial? Would it alleviate things if you have young children that you have to care for and your grandparents could take that role? Could you elaborate on that?

[Amit Harohalli]

My parents are currently here. My mom and my dad are currently here on visitor visas. I have a three-year-old son and a 10-year-old son, and at this moment, when my parents are here, it feels very homey for them rather than being with somebody else like a nanny or being at the day care. My wife and I definitely feel at ease and have no tension at all when our kids are properly looked after at home. When they are at a day care, or whether they are getting into some kind of scrape, then they're not being looked after properly. We don't have that in the back of our minds.

With our parents being there, we know that we don't have to worry about them. If they are far away in our home country, always there is a question of what has happened. We have to call them and always be in touch with them, but their being here, they are right in front of us and if anything is needed, we can take care of them.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

So a lot of your concentration is focused here at home, and then more concentration can go toward your careers and elsewhere.

[Amit Harohalli]

Yes, career....

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

My second question is for Ms. Bhuyan.

Many witnesses have acknowledged that the aging-out issue of dependants and children is a real problem with applications. We've heard of incidents where a teenager who is 16 or 17 years old has applied, and the application has taken a long time, so there is a phasing-out issue and they are not able to apply and immigrate to Canada. Can you elaborate on that and tell us if you've had any experiences with that?

[Dr. Rupaleem Bhuyan]

Certainly. I can give examples specific to the caregiver program, although this likely would apply to people applying for reunifying from other programs as well. Given the long processing times, five or six years, at the time of applying there is definitely a risk for older children who are in their teens of reaching an age where they are no longer eligible. I think this is an opportunity to expedite those applications or perhaps impose a stricter time limit so that people do not have to wait multiple years for an application to be processed, especially when they are deemed eligible for permanent residence.

I understand there are a lot of paper requirements. Some of the application processing offices overseas have had wait times of up to 48 months. This is true for sponsored spouses and partners. Forty-eight months is a long time to wait for our paperwork to be processed. In addition to adding more resources to reduce the processing times, the government can impose a regulation that allows people to be admitted if they were eligible at the time they submitted their original application.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Mr. Tilson, you have seven minutes, please.

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

All three witnesses have given us excellent food for thought. I have some questions for Professor Bhuyan and Ms. Gerente on caregivers.

Several years ago, this committee had a hearing as to the conditions of caregivers, and it was alleged that many of them weren't being treated properly by the people who had engaged their services. My question is particularly for Ms. Gerente. Do you have any knowledge of what the feeling is, generally, as to how caregivers are treated today?

[Ma Lean Andrea Gerente]

Certainly, I do. I've talked to a lot of caregivers. Sometimes their employers won't allow them to go out on their day off, which is normally during the weekend, Saturday or Sunday. Every day, during their mealtime, some of their employers won't allow them to eat the food they want to. They will starve them. They won't give them the day off that they deserve. The most unfortunate thing is that sometimes they don't even pay them for a month. They delay it for two months and then just give them one month's pay. That's mostly what I hear from other caregivers.

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

Professor Bhuyan, do you have any recommendations as to what this committee could recommend to the government for the improvement of the conditions that caregivers have?

[Dr. Rupaleem Bhuyan]

The caregiver program is specifically unique because much of the work is happening in the home. The vulnerabilities for abuse and trafficking are there for many temporary foreign workers, who are dependent on their employer, especially if they have a closed permit.

My primary recommendation is to consider removing the closed permit. Those workers who have the freedom to seek employers who treat them respectfully, because we are working with caregivers who do have good employers, find they're able to finish the program and are able to apply for permanent residence. Those who are working on a closed permit are often in a bind. They're afraid to speak out against their employer because the employer can let them go. Under the current system, there is often up to a four-month wait period while they seek a new employer. The new employer submits an LMIA, and then they have to submit a renewal on their work permit. During that four months, there's incredible economic hardship, and people are very vulnerable for trafficking. There's also the risk of speaking out against abuse because they worry about losing their status in Canada, especially as workers are accruing hours so that they can apply for permanent residence. Their aim is to reunify with their family members. Even though they may have been working in Canada for even a year and a half, that almost puts more pressure on them to keep quiet in cases of abuse, or even when people are just not getting along.

I spoke with a caregiver just two weeks ago, and the primary insult she experienced was around food. The employer did not want the caregiver to eat any of the food in the home. Sometimes this worked out. The caregiver could bring food from home. Other times she had to go the whole day without eating because she was not permitted to eat the food, even though she was providing food for the children she was taking care of. This might seem like a minor offence on the range of abusive acts, all the way to physical and sexual assault on the other end; however, it gives the nature of the kind of constraints people feel, and how they stay with an employer who may not be treating them with dignity. They're worried about losing their work permit and not accruing hours, so my primary recommendation—

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

Thank you.

I have another question for you, Professor, if I have time.

Yesterday, Minister McCallum tabled the 2017 immigration levels plan. It held the line at 300,000 total immigrants per year, which was the same as 2016. Of interest, however, was the fact that caregivers dropped by 4,000, while spouses, partners, and children went up by 4,000. We've heard testimony that caregivers are tied to the family class in a number of ways. My concern is that, with the reduction in caregivers, a two-income couple might be forced to have one partner leave the workforce in order to become a primary caregiver for either their children or their parents. This could have an adverse impact, particularly on women with successful careers.

My question for you is whether you have any opinion or comments on what the minister did yesterday.