Evidence of meeting #38 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 cases.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Area Director, North Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We deliver the levels that we're prescribed each year.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Can you give us the levels that you've been prescribed each year? That is to say, for each of the offices in each of the regions, what is the levels number that you've been given, and then to process that? Then coming out of that, how many are still outstanding?
Area Director, North Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Mr. Chair, we'll come back to the committee with that breakdown, as requested.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you.
In terms of marriage fraud, let me get into this for one minute. I do not want to get into a specific case, but just a sampling of situations. I've had applicants, constituents, who have come into my office. In fact, both divorced spouses in China were making an application to come to Canada. They were red-flagged in that application and were refused in the first round, so they're making a second round of applications. In that process, they were refused because they are suspected of marriage fraud. The husband, who divorced from the woman, actually passed away, and the result was that they still suspect marriage fraud. They suspected that because both divorced spouses were making an application to come to Canada. Even though one passed away, there was still the issue of marriage fraud.
I'm simply curious as to how you determine marriage fraud. What is the thing that gives you a red flag about marriage fraud?
Area Director, North Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Mr. Chair, I'm not in a position to speak to the specifics of certain cases, but in general, when we're looking at applications, we look to assess what we understand to be the histories of the individuals involved with Canada previously. We take a look at the situation related to the marriage, the cultural norms, and our understanding of habits and the way couples would normally meet and develop relationships, and we would then look to interview in order to have a better understanding of the nature of the relationship. When officers are making these decisions and assessing cases, they don't do this lightly. They are being very diligent in making sure they understand the complexities.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
In terms of the delays with respect to interviews, you mentioned earlier that sometimes delays are as a result of language barriers and you have to have the interviews at a location, and you have to have a critical mass in order to maximize efficiency to get the interviews completed.
How much of the delay is attributed to the requirement for interviews and the waiting for that critical mass to come together? Do you have a sense of what that looks like in terms of the delays for all the different regions?
Area Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
If I could jump in, Mr. Chair, I believe that was from my opening remarks for Nairobi and for Sub-Saharan Africa.
It wouldn't be a large proportion of our caseloads. Many of our applicants, for example from Nairobi, are based out of Ethiopia. At the moment, Ethiopia is not particularly accessible because there is state of emergency, but normally we go to Ethiopia regularly. We do occasionally have outlier cases that maybe are based in Djibouti or Eritrea or South Sudan, where accessibility is very difficult.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
I want to thank all three of you. I know you work with an extremely hard workload and in different jurisdictions and different cultural norms. I commend you for working in such different climates and trying to make the applications process smooth and fast, and hear us complaining all the time. You probably get a ton of our letters regarding concerns.
I want to also thank Ms. Fraser for the good measures that you're looking at for triaging cases. If these are implemented, I think they would help free up a lot of space. I was hoping that with these measures, the cases that are easy could actually be fast-tracked and moved out, so you might have two streams of process times: those that are simplified and easy get out a lot quicker, and those that require interviews, or others, would understandably take a little longer.
My question is in terms of fraudulent marriages. We've talked a bit about it and I understand that 86% of marriages in Chandigarh or Delhi are considered valid and fine, but there's about 14% that are fraudulent. How well are the officers trained in cultural sensitivity? I noted in your discussion paper you were well versed in understanding that there are a lot of modern marriages that are similar to western marriage and there's also a big chunk of traditional marriages. A lot of the spouses, specifically the females, will have a tough time talking about intimate details. We get a lot of cases that are rejected based on, perhaps, an officer feeling that the reluctance to tell information is a cause of concern. But in a culture that is, perhaps, more traditional, talking about your intimate first details of when you met or your first time together, is something that a woman is not going reveal that easily. Have your officers been well versed in that or trained in understanding those issues?
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Again, we're very proud of the training that we give our officers who come to India. We have a Delhi “academy”, which is something that I think is quite unique, and a network where new officers will get a week-long training course. Again, we do use very much our local staff, who are certainly familiar—born and raised in the culture—with their traditions. We've dealt with this clientele for many years. We're certainly aware of sensitivities, whether it's questions.... Certainly, we don't want the officers delving too much into private details, but there is a certain level of knowledge that one would expect about a new spouse, such as what they do, where they spend time together. We are able to get that information through various questions without having to get into any sort of details that people might not feel comfortable with.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Another area of concern—and I had never realized this before until getting into this position—is people with disabilities, whether physical disabilities, cognitive disabilities, hearing impairment. If they get married to somebody, even with similar disabilities or no disabilities, they automatically seem to be red-flagged. I believe there's less attention to sensitivity for them. I've seen cases with notes stating, “I believe you're just coming to be a caregiver for the person, because you would never want to marry them otherwise” to “Why would you want to marry a person like this?” I find those very offensive. Has there been any issue of sensitivity of that nature that you have addressed? If not, would you be able to consider looking at that, since I've seen recently in my own office at least four to five cases of that?
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's something that we've never come across, or I've not heard before, so I thank you for raising that. I would undertake that we would look into that. Again, we have to look at the traditions and the cultural norms in the country, the society from which both parties are coming. Again, we certainly want to respect all of our clients, all of the sponsors, and we would undertake training if it, in fact, is required.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
I know your department officials are always hesitant about giving any recommendations. I'm going to try to see if you'll undertake to give us any recommendations. Is there any possibility of an internal review process? Say, you have 14% of marriages that are rejected. It comes to an MP, and an MP sees that actually this marriage is warranted. Rather than having them either appeal it or reapply, is there a possibility that your office or department would consider an internal review? A senior officer can review the file and say that this was perhaps overlooked or that they could review this rather than having the spouse or the applicant go through the whole process again, wait another 18 months to two years. They would just have somebody look at it.
A lot of times we know the applicant very well. We've seen the person. We know about the marriage. We know the family members who flew in for the wedding. When we see it rejected, it's very frustrating for us. Rather than having the person go through it all again, it would be very beneficial if there's a senior visa officer or a reviewing officer who could reconsider that decision.
Is that something you would consider recommending to your department?
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm not in a position to make any recommendations or to say we'll consider any recommendations. But thank you very much for raising that.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
How many of the 14% that are rejected in terms of marriage cases would you say are based on fraudulent marriages versus just those that are based on criminality, income, or other issues? How many of the 14% that are rejected in New Delhi would you consider are primarily the result of fraud?
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would only be speculating. I certainly don't want to give a number. That is an issue for officers, marriage of convenience or fraud or some sort of documentation versus other refusal reasons.
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would only be speculating, sir.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj
Just before we conclude this session, Ms. Snow, you had committed to providing us with some levels, numbers. Perhaps I could extend that request to all of the participants, if they could provide the levels for all the consular sections that their centres deal with.
Finally, a quick question to Ms. Fraser. You're an area director. You just said that it's not your role to provide recommendations. You're out in the field. You see the conditions in the field. Do you provide any sorts of recommendations or are you strictly a functionary who does what they're instructed? Is there no flow of information, perhaps recommendations from the field, from area directors, back to the centre?
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, I am an area director so that means oversight of the offices under my territory, looking at productivity, looking at the operations. Certainly there are opportunities where we'll provide input, recommendations...also coming in the other direction to my headquarters.
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Within our department, yes. There may be some processing issues or something that I think we could take some steps to correct or to make some improvements upon or to share best practices among the different offices.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj
Thank you.
That will conclude this session.
We will now suspend for a couple of minutes and move in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]