Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 15th, 2016

[Mark Giralt]

In terms of permanent increases in the offices I'm responsible for, we haven't seen any permanent increases because of the particularities of the caseload. I'm talking about Port-au-Prince, Kingston, and Port of Spain. What we have seen is a significant increase in the number of temporary duty officers who have come to provide support to the local offices, and that help is invaluable. It helps us to deal with fluctuations in demand in the summer when we're dealing with temporary visas.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I see. The temporary duty officers are brought in to deal with temporary visas. So that will—

[Mark Giralt]

No, it depends on the nature of the caseload, but in some cases they will come in and do family class interviews. We've had a couple of officers who went into Kingston, and they completed about 200 interviews covering about 300-and-some people over the course of the summer.

At other times, they'll come in and they'll backfill.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I see.

[Mark Giralt]

They'll take over, for example, temporary resident visas, and allow the local officers—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

How many permanent staff do you have at the moment then?

[Mark Giralt]

In all the offices, collectively, or...?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Under your—

[Mark Giralt]

Okay, in Kingston we have three Canada based and three locally engaged officers. In Port-au-Prince we have two Canada based decision-makers, and in Port of Spain we have three Canada based and we have three locally engaged officers as well.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Jacques, have you had increases in resources in your offices?

[Olivier Jacques]

We have not had any permanent increase to our offices in Latin America. What we have is what Mr. Giralt mentioned. We have temporary duty officers who were sent to various missions in Latin America in order to speed up the family class category.

I know that a number of temporary duty officers were sent to Bogotá and to Havana in order to speed up the processing.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Can I get from each of the offices how many applications you are processing at the moment? For 2016 I think it was mentioned that right now all of them are in process, so how many applications do you have before you right now?

We'll go through the full round again.

[Sharon Chomyn]

If I may respond, Mr. Chair, it might be more efficient if we were able to provide this information in a consolidated fashion separately.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Sure, I would appreciate it if I could get a breakdown then from each of the offices. How many applications do you have that are in process, and what year did they come in? I'm asking for all the ones that have not been approved so far that are still outstanding.

Then, of those categories, I'd like to get a breakdown as well of how many of them you would consider to be easy-to-process applications or something that is not particularly unusual or has issues.

Then there are the ones that you have issues with. I understand the issue about confidentiality, so we don't want to breach that, but rather have them in categories. Let's say 10% and 60 of them—or whatever the number might be—are issues related to criminality, another 35 are to do with issues of potential marriage fraud, and others have custody issues or whatever the case may be. If I could get that breakdown, that would be very useful and helpful.

I would also like the breakdown of the staffing resources and how that has evolved. Ms. Chomyn, you mentioned that in 2014 your staff went up to 17. I'm not sure if all of those are permanent or if those are temporary officers, as the other offices have been, and what have they been doing? Are they for temporary visa applications, parents, grandparents, or whatever?

I would like to get that breakdown just so that we get a fuller sense of how the operation is resourced to do its work because I think delays have to do with resources, and if you had more resources, you'd be able to process these applications more rapidly.

In terms of understanding your operation as well, I'll ask about interviews. How often are interviews arranged? Is it 10% of the cases or maybe 20% of the cases that are an issue? Are all of those 20% then interviewed, and how many officers do you have doing interviews? How often do they take place in terms of the interviews as well? That would be useful and helpful for us to have later if you're not able to provide that information to us at this moment.

[Olivier Jacques]

It varies quite a bit from one office to the other about the percentage of cases that are interviewed. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, in the Dominican Republic, in Cuba, and in El Salvador, close to 40% of all our clients are interviewed.

We organized and have a pool of about six or seven officers who go on area trips to visit these countries to perform these interviews, and we go on a regular basis. Four or five times a year we go to the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, and we have an office in Cuba that deals with these interviews.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Jacques.

Perhaps the additional information can be sent to the clerk.

Mr. Ehsassi, go ahead for seven minutes, please.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Chomyn, I'd like to ask you a few questions. To go back to Pakistan, you're saying that security concerns and civil unrest were challenges that did arise, and as a result of those it has moved to London. Has there been any attempt, on the department's part, to use technology such as video conferencing to ease some of the challenges that do arise?

[Sharon Chomyn]

We haven't used that technique in the case of our Islamabad office. We find that, although technology works well in some locations in the world, it doesn't work well equally. We've just found it more effective to conduct interviews in person.

As I mentioned, we send officers four to five times a year, depending on the number of cases that we feel we wish to call to interview. There's no quota. There's no magic number. It's all based on a case-by-case assessment and the complexities that we find in the caseload.

Sometimes, too, there are sensitive things that need to be discussed, and for the client's benefit, we appreciate that they'd prefer to have these conversations in person rather than remotely.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Just out of curiosity, for the Pakistan office, for example, what is the percentage of people who are interviewed?

[Sharon Chomyn]

Roughly, it's about 15%.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Okay.

[Sharon Chomyn]

That's in our family class priority categories. In the case of parents and grandparents, for example, we rarely, if ever, interview.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thanks.

I was reading something else in your testimony where you were talking about how, in many instances, we are actually co-operating with host countries on gathering intelligence. What happens if the host country does not assist us? For example, just to explain to you what my problem is, I have a lot of Iranians in my riding. We have no diplomatic representation there. The host country, obviously, is not co-operating with us on intelligence matters, to verify documentation that's been provided. What happens in those instances?

[Sharon Chomyn]

Mr. Chair, you'll appreciate that I can't comment on a situation that is occurring with a caseload that I'm not involved in. I can tell you that in the case of Pakistan, we know there are some challenges in working with host country officials. We do our best to do verifications as we can. We liaise with colleagues from friendly missions to inquire about their experiences. At the end of the day, we have to make our best decision based on the information in front of us. Then, if the client feels that the decision has been incorrect, there are appeal mechanisms that are open to them.