Evidence of meeting #37 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 families.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
4:50 p.m.
Electrical and Control Systems Engineer, As an Individual
Regarding the spouses, the waiting period is about 18 months. I disagree with that because my spouse is healthy and she is an engineer. We are just waiting to be united. Right now, there is no way for us to see each other. As I said, I can't take any more vacation. She cannot visit me.
In terms of taxes, I'm a citizen here and I pay taxes. I've been paying taxes for the past 12 years. Since I arrived here, I've been in the workforce.
To me, uniting spouses should be a priority. If immigration cannot bring down the processing time, at least issue super visas to spouses. When it comes to grandparents, my parents are completely healthy. It's just that as I am aging, they are aging too. For me, I've been waiting seven years now. They visit me on a super visa, but again, I'd just like to be together as a complete family here.
That's all I have to say. Focus on the spouses first. The super visa program is excellent for parents, but for spouses, there needs to be something to tackle that processing time.
Thank you.
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Multicultural Association of Fredericton Inc.
The point made by the previous speaker about the denial of temporary visas when people are in process for sponsorship is a further hardship upon the relationship and upon the family. We've seen cases where relationships haven't survived when later sponsorship did happen. It's very challenging. We've seen cases where people have decided that maybe they can't stay in Canada and they need to go back.
I think also the point that was made earlier in terms of health care, yes, denials are made if there are any flags on the health exam and people have to go through it perhaps repeatedly.
Also in terms of processing times, I know in our own family's sponsorship, it ended up being three different levels of sponsorship because of the lag and the time delay in the processing. During that time, we were forced to pay for our son, my stepson, to go to high school here—
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Multicultural Association of Fredericton Inc.
That's just an example, but I think we need to look at those timelines. If we can do express entry for economic immigrants, we can do express entry for family class.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Bissett, I'm always pleased to see you and hear you. You always give good counsel to the committee. I'd like to ask you some questions with respect to backlogs and wait times, which is one of the principal issues that the committee is concerned with.
The committee has heard considerable testimony on wait times and backlogs, particularly for family members. We're hearing some now. These testimonies vary depending on the source country and the type of family member, of course. In addition, we heard testimony on Tuesday which suggested that you cannot increase the numbers until you clear the backlogs, and that you can only clear the backlogs with the following: one, increase the funding to the different processes; two, increase the number of staff, which I suppose is the same thing as increasing the funding; and three, limit the intake. There was the suggestion of technological improvements. You might have some concepts about what technological improvements could be made to the system to expedite processing.
Mr. Bissett, given your experience as the former head of the immigration service, can you tell me what your take is on this? Can you advise us how the government should tackle backlogs and wait times, while being responsible stewards of the taxpayers' dollars?
4:55 p.m.
Former Ambassador, Former Executive Director, Canadian Immigration Service, As an Individual
Whoever gave you their advice about how to clear up the backlog I think was close to the mark.
If you want to clear up the backlog...let me go way back. In the 1950s, if you were an immigrant here, you could bring your brother, your sister, your aunt, your uncle, your nephew, your niece, your parents, and also your spouse, if you desired to do it. Immediately, in parts of Europe, particularly in Italy, there was a massive backlog of thousands of uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters.
In order to get rid of the backlog, the minister at the time had to make a tough decision and decided that she would cut out the ability to sponsor uncles, aunts, nieces, and even brothers and sisters. They could no longer be sponsored. Then we sent extra officers to Rome to try to process and get rid of the backlog, which we eventually did. The minister paid the price for this in the next election. She was defeated in a constituency that had a large Italian population.
But that's the problem. If you wanted to clear up the backlog, you would not allow new applicants; you'd cut it off. Then you would send a task force around to the various offices to process the relatives and get them in quickly.
That would cost money, and it would cost a minimum amount of money compared with what it would cost once they got here, because then they would become eligible for free health care. They would become eligible after a certain period of time for the age supplement and the old age security and other benefits, which they wouldn't have paid for, nor would the sponsors have paid for those. You would run the risk of doing that.
In addition to that, if you were going to concentrate on the family class, it would mean that the highly skilled, educated, and experienced people whom we're looking for in the economic class would have to be cut back.
It could be done and it could be done fairly quickly, but it would be very risky to do it politically, I'd say.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Have you any thoughts on technological improvements, in other words changing the whole process by which we do things?
4:55 p.m.
Former Ambassador, Former Executive Director, Canadian Immigration Service, As an Individual
I don't have any ideas. I'm very suspicious of the digital age.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Former Ambassador, Former Executive Director, Canadian Immigration Service, As an Individual
Part of the problem is that too much of it is being done electronically and not enough with common sense.
I went on a flight to Moscow last year, and I got to the airport and they found I wasn't on the flight. Why? It was because the Russians had switched my name from Bissett to James, and the surname was James. I got that straightened around and said, “Fine, then I can get on the flight.” They said, “No, you can't get on the flight. Your name is now James in the digital circuit electronically, and you can't get on the flight.”
I'm not much help technologically, but I don't think technology is the problem. I think the problem is simply too many immigrants, not enough staff, not enough resources, and the consequence on the family class is extremely high costs. Any finance minister, when he finds out what the costs are for bringing in more parents and grandparents, shudders.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I don't know whether you've had an opportunity to review the 2017 levels plan that the minister announced on Monday, which indicates that there's really no overall increase from the 2016 levels. There are some changes, but it's basically the same. There's a sizable decrease in refugees, given the end of the Syrian refugee initiative. This is somewhat offset by an increase in economic migrants and a small increase in the spousal and children category.
Do you have any thoughts on the 2017 levels plan?
5 p.m.
Former Ambassador, Former Executive Director, Canadian Immigration Service, As an Individual
I think they're too high in the first place. Second, the so-called emphasis on the economic class is somewhat misleading, because in the economic class you also have the spouses and dependants who the selected skilled immigrants bring with them. They're never counted into the family class, and they should be.
5 p.m.
A voice
Oh, oh!
5 p.m.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to all the witnesses for their presentations.
My first question is for Ms. Bamford De Gante.
You concluded your presentation with a recommendation. You said that current income requirements for family sponsorship should reflect regional differences.
Do you have any other recommendations?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Multicultural Association of Fredericton Inc.
May I expand on that one, just a bit?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Multicultural Association of Fredericton Inc.
I've seen cases where people were eligible to do a family sponsorship, and when the income level changed, they were no longer eligible, so although they had been in the queue, they were then out of the queue.
At the same time, in one particular sponsorship case, the people they were sponsoring had a pension from Germany that was going to be coming with them, and there was no way to document that in the income process. In this case, they were parents whose only two children were here with their families. Their only two daughters were living in our city. It was really a great hardship for the two daughters, who were both working here and raising their families, to have their two parents alone back in Germany.
I would raise that, as well—to be able to look at transferable income. People being sponsored are not always dependants.
5 p.m.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Okay.
Based on your experience with families filing sponsorship applications, do you feel the financial burden associated with those applications is too high? I am thinking in particular of the fees for an application.
