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.
9 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj
Thank you. I appreciate that and I tremendously appreciate you providing testimony before the committee today.
We'll now suspend for a couple of minutes for the second panel to be assembled.
9:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj
I'd like to call the committee to order.
Our second panel today is made up of Ms. Elizabeth Snow, the area director for North Asia, by video conference from Colombo, Sri Lanka. As well, Ms. Shannon Fraser, also an area director, but for South Asia. Ms. Fraser is also here by video conference from Colombo, Sri Lanka. We also have Ms. Alexandra Hiles, who is the area director for Sub-Saharan Africa. She is here by video conference from Nairobi. Welcome.
We will begin with Ms. Snow, for seven minutes, please.
9:10 a.m.
Elizabeth Snow Area Director, North Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
My name is Elizabeth Snow and I am the immigration program manager in Hong Kong and the acting area director for North Asia.
I would like to introduce to you my colleagues Shannon Fraser, area director for South and East Asia, and Alexandra Hiles, area director for Sub-Saharan Africa.
The North Asia region includes the offices located in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Manila, Sydney, Tokyo, and Seoul, as well as a liaison officer located in Canberra.
In this region there continues to be great interest in both temporary and permanent residence in Canada. In particular, for China there has been significant growth year over year in temporary resident programs with, on average, 20% growth each year. We expect to finalize close to a half million Chinese temporary resident applications this year. The continued increase in temporary resident applications creates significant pressure on the management of our human and physical resources and means we constantly work to balance and reallocate resources to deliver programs.
For the purpose of the discussion today, I will speak about the work done by our region's largest full service offices, Hong Kong and Manila. I will also speak briefly to the legal framework and how the provisions in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and regulations support the integrity of our immigration programs and allow the department to focus its resources on production while continuing to manage application complexities and fraud. Hong Kong and Manila both deliver large permanent resident programs.
The responsibility for the vast majority of permanent resident processing for persons resident in China was transferred to Hong Kong in 2014. Beijing continues to process Chinese adoption cases.
In 2016, Hong Kong will finalize nearly 17,500 permanent resident applications, including 6,300 in the family class. There is also a significant economic class movement in Hong Kong, including over 5,000 provincial nominees and 3,700 applicants destined for the province of Quebec. Manila will finalize 12,500 cases, including just under 6,000 family class applications and just over 4,000 provincial nominees.
For Hong Kong, 81% of our family class priority applications are finalized within 13 months of the date of receipt of the sponsorship. For Manila, 78% were finalized in 12 months or less.
There are volumes of applications that are able to move forward with ease. However, there continues to be a considerable number of applications that are complex. They have complicated immigration histories with Canada or with other countries, complex relationships, or complex background issues, such as serious criminality. These require an additional investment of time and effort in order to finalize, and have an impact on processing times in both offices.
Historically, marriages of conveniences have been found throughout applications from China. In some of these fraudulent relationships, both parties may be aware the relationship is for immigration purposes. In others, the sponsor may believe the relationship to be genuine, while the sponsored foreign national intends to dissolve the relationship after being granted permanent residence.
To ensure the integrity of Canada's immigration program, we use a multi-faceted risk assessment and quality assurance approach. In Hong Kong we benefit from our experienced case analysis unit, which is skilled in document verification and localized research. Their efforts help us through lower-risk files to allow them to move more quickly through our processes.
We also work closely with risk assessment colleagues in Hong Kong and China. We have good working relationships with authorities, and these strong connections help facilitate the verification and the validation of the authenticity of supporting documents, allowing us to move forward more quickly with individual files.
We also profit from beneficial relationships with like-minded countries and this helps us stay current on trends or issues, which helps to better inform our work. Site visits are conducted as appropriate, however the vast majority of complex cases are resolved through in-person interviews with our officers.
In Hong Kong, we're happy to report that we've seen the volume of cases requiring interview drop from a previous high of 50% to 60% of our family class cases to 25% of these cases. This positive change gives our officers more time to assess other cases and reduces the need and associated hardship on applicants who must travel for interviews, something of which we are keenly aware.
This drop in cases requiring interview is attributable to the strengthening of our legislation. In particular, we attribute this change to the introduction of regulation 130(3), which put into place a five-year limitation on filing sequential sponsorships. By reducing what was a growing number of “marriage of convenience” cases, we've been better able to manage our inventory. As the risks decrease, we're better able to focus our resources on reducing processing time.
As I know it's of concern to the committee and to many of the witnesses who have appeared to date, I also wanted to briefly speak about subsection 117(9)(d) of the IRPA regulations. This provision, which was put into place in 2002, prevents a sponsor from sponsoring family members who were not previously declared by their sponsor or examined by the department. In our experience in Hong Kong, rarely has the omission of a family member been one of happenstance or poor advice. Rather, the omission appears to have been purposeful and undertaken with intent. Looking at the application process, there are approximately seven different opportunities in which to disclose dependants to the department, including prior to visa issuance and prior to landing in Canada. It's challenging to objectively see such omissions as inadvertent.
I believe the committee is aware, however, that 117(9)(d) can also be overcome where merited. To give a few examples, the sponsor may have been legitimately unaware of the whereabouts or existence of a family member at the time of application, or the existence of a child was not disclosed because the child was born out of wedlock. We also see instances where, in the case of marital breakdown, the sponsor was prevented, by the child's other parent, from having the child examined.
For all applications where a foreign national has been excluded as a member of the family class, the sponsor can request humanitarian and compassionate consideration under section 25 of the act. Officers have the authority, under section 25, to consider the reasons for non-disclosure and determine whether an exemption from the provision is merited. In reaching their decisions, officers consider the complex relationships and circumstances of the sponsor and the applicant, and they take into account the best interests of any children affected by such a decision. In this way, the integrity of the program is safeguarded, and exceptions can be made where merited.
Our staff work diligently to ensure that they make a balanced assessment of the applicant's relationships and to ensure that the applicant has entered into the marriage in good faith. Our teams strive to balance the complexities of law, jurisprudence, and the intricacies that people's circumstances bring. We have worked extremely hard over the past few years to modernize our processes and to increase our processing capacity and speed. We're committed to continuing our efforts into the future.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today.
I will now turn to my colleague, Shannon Fraser, who is here with me in Colombo, to deliver her remarks.
9:15 a.m.
Shannon Fraser Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Shannon Fraser, and I'm the area director for south and east Asia. I cover a very large and diverse territory that includes our offices in Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Colombo, New Delhi, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, and Singapore.
The countries in my area of responsibility include many of the top source countries for our family class applicants.
I am here to provide an overview of what we do and to answer any questions you may have.
The ability of our offices to deal with quantity is a key factor in delivering our program. New Delhi has the largest family class caseload in the network. We expect to make 12,000 decisions this year in that category, representing 17% of the total family class applications for spouses, dependent children, parents, and grandparents that are processed overseas. We also have the second-largest temporary resident program in the network, at close to 250,000 applications per year, with substantial application increases year over year, particularly with students.
We also process an increasing proportion of factually complex cases, which may involve surrogacy, adoptions, refugees, and public policy cases. While the numbers may be small, they require extensive analysis, expertise, sensitivity, and focus.
In India, arranged marriages and joint families are a cultural norm with various traditions and social practices. Modern relationships, similar to the ones in North America, are becoming increasingly common, although still a small minority of our caseload. India has an incredibly diverse changing society that we must understand and assess in order to make decisions.
Marriage fraud is a very real problem and falls into three main categories: victimization, collusion, and agents. The top three countries for marriage fraud are generally understood to be India, China, and Vietnam.
Victimization, or human trafficking, includes exploitation and forced marriages.
Immigration to countries like Canada can allow people to realize their aspirations, resulting in collusion fraud. Families may make mutually beneficial arrangements of sponsorship or may include children who are not theirs in their applications. While this type of fraud may appear to be of a lesser risk, fraud like this chips away at the integrity of our program. We know that when a fraud path works, it will be repeated.
Last, hidden and dishonest agents or smugglers thrive. Canada is a destination of choice, and facilitating entry to Canada is big business. These agents counsel applicants and engage in various forms of fraud, including false documents. While many individuals wishing to immigrate to Canada engage third parties to facilitate their entry to Canada, these shadowy practices can leave the most vulnerable open to extortion and abuse.
Visa officers recognize that most of the family class applications we process are genuine. In fact, in India our acceptance rate in the spousal category is high, around 86% historically. For Vietnam, however, where human smuggling and marriage fraud concerns are higher, the approval rate for applicants is lower, at 65%. The existence of victimization and marriage fraud in our family class caseload means that we must be vigilant and carefully review applications. How do we do this?
One way is to interview applicants. Our interview rate in New Delhi has been quite stable over the last five years at around 25%. In Singapore, which is responsible for Vietnam, the rate is higher.
While our overall acceptance rate may suggest that the caseload is not complex, we often still need to undertake interviews or document verification to resolve ambiguities in order to approve an application, while refusing an application requires an even more time-consuming and comprehensive assessment. We also know that fraud schemes move and change as they are uncovered. We remain vigilant and are aware that something that was not a concern yesterday may be one today or tomorrow.
We continually test our assumptions while pushing hard to triage cases effectively and allow for more applications to be processed in less time.
We aim to find the ideal balance between facilitation and enforcement, a very challenging task. Some concrete measures that we have undertaken include the introduction of a more thorough method of triaging applications in order to ensure that cases are referred to officers with a particular expertise. As a result, we have increased processing efficiencies resulting in a decrease in processing times for most cases. We are identifying files based on the application date and, for example, based on medical results, to minimize the number of applicants who will need to repeat their medical examinations or obtain new passports. We have conducted several quality assurance exercises in the last year to identify areas to improve processing, and have adapted our training of officers and support staff to ensure we are making constant improvements in processing efficiency while maintaining the integrity of Canada's immigration programs.
Officers have the responsibility to ensure that all applicants have demonstrated that they are eligible in the category in which they have applied. Officers are trained to make informed, timely, and fair decisions, and have a strong dedication to client service and program integrity. The local knowledge of our officers and that of our locally engaged staff prove to be invaluable, as knowing the cultural norms of a particular society helps our officers to facilitate the processing of legitimate cases quickly and efficiently. To cope with the complexity of caseload and risks, we have a strong cadre of locally engaged case analysts with extensive local knowledge to support decision-makers and to help Canadian officers in their understanding of cultural traditions throughout our region.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today.
I will now turn to my colleague, Alexandra Hiles, to deliver her remarks.
Thank you.
9:25 a.m.
Alexandra Hiles Area Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Good morning. My name is Alexandra Hiles. I'm the immigration program manager in Nairobi, and I'm also the area director responsible for sub-Saharan African, so I'm responsible for offices in Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Lagos, Nairobi, and Pretoria.
The territory covered by the offices in the region includes applications from the residents of almost 50 countries. It's a complex environment to operate in as a result of the size of the territory, the limited infrastructure, the security and health concerns for officers, and the diversity of the caseload in countries covered.
We face multiple challenges based on geography, infrastructure, and security, which I will briefly mention. We constantly seek to find mechanisms to overcome these obstacles, either by shifting files between offices, seeking solutions through technology, or by liaising with organizations such as the United Nations refugees agency and the International Organization for Migration to help us resolve the logistical challenges.
A significant issue in our region is the reliability of documentation required as evidence of relationship or identity. Such documentation is often of very poor quality and difficult to obtain, given the long history of conflict and unrest. Civil documents are not always reliable, and verification with issuing authorities can be lengthy or inconclusive. To ensure program integrity, officers are often required to request secondary documentation or to use other program integrity tools such as in-person interviews or DNA.
As I believe all of my colleagues have mentioned, we also see issues with the genuineness of relationships, given the incentive for many people of a better life in Canada. In spousal sponsorship applications, officers have encountered cases where the sponsors themselves gained permanent residence through sponsorship by another spouse, which may, according to the circumstances, raise questions about the bona fides of either the previous or the current relationship. We also process cases where sponsorship eligibility is not met due to non-declaration of family members during the sponsor's landing process to Canada.
For example, we do see cases where the sponsor, subsequent to landing, applies to sponsor his or her spouse with a marriage date that is prior to the date of the sponsor's landing. The omission may have enabled the sponsor to be found eligible and landed in Canada as a dependant, but the failure to declare the relationship triggers the application of R 117(9)(d), which was previously raised by Ms. Snow.
In many of these cases, officers are asked to consider allowing the applicant an exemption to R 117(9)(d), which requires a comprehensive assessment of the humanitarian and compassionate factors presented by the applicant, including the best interests of any affected children, with all factors being considered within the cultural context of the applicants and their families.
Adoption cases can also be very complex, as many of them are inter-family. In many instances, officers need to establish both the ties to the adoptive parent as well as the severance of ties between the child and the biological parents. Officers are also required to assess these relationships in the context of accompanying children in all family reunification cases, as the principal applicant often wishes to bring adopted children, often nieces or nephews, to Canada. When processing adoption applications, officers also need to ensure that they are meeting Canada's commitment to apply the standards and safeguards of the Hague Convention on inter-country adoption, which means ensuring that each inter-country adoption has been made in the best interests of the child and with respect for his or her fundamental rights. Officers are committed to preventing the abduction of, sale of, or traffic in children, and all adoption applications are processed with extreme care.
In some processing missions such as Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Pretoria, many of our family class applicants are also refugees in their country of refuge. This creates additional layers of logistical challenges in communication with and access to applicants, as well as challenges for the applicants even after we've issued their visas, such as the obtaining exit permits or logistics of eventual travel to Canada. On the issue of exit permits, we work closely with UNHCR and IOM, that are sometimes able to assist us successfully in advocating with the local government on behalf of our applicants.
Applicants often do not have timely or reliable access to phone services, Internet, or email. Additionally, when requesting additional documents or other information, communication is often via the sponsor, which adds to our processing times. Many applicants cannot communicate in either English or French but only in their local dialect or native language. As our territories are vast and local language requirements numerous, we do not always have the language skills amongst our staff to communicate with the applicant. To respond to these challenges, we are using contracted interpreters to assist in communicating with applicants for quick information gathering. We are as flexible as we can be in ensuring our applicants have adequate and meaningful time to respond to our requests for necessary documents, as we are very aware of the logistical and bureaucratic challenges facing them in their countries of origin or refuge.
In cases where an interview is required, applicants are often not able to travel to our processing office for logistical or legal reasons. Officers therefore carry out interview trips to meet with our applicants. We may need to wait for a core number of interviews within a region prior to organizing a trip so as to have a critical number of scheduled interviews to ensure efficiency and maximize our resources.
Travel in this region can be complex, time-consuming, and unreliable. These are all factors that contribute to longer processing times for family class applications. At the same time, our interview trips have a facilitative aspect to them, as we know that some of our applicants may be in a vulnerable situation. They also may not have the capacity or support necessary for them to properly complete the forms. As a result, while we are assessing the genuineness of the relationship, we are also gathering the necessary information from the applicant directly, allowing us to assess their vulnerability, in case facilitative measures need to be taken, while at the same time ensuring all necessary—
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj
Thank you, Ms. Hiles.
We do have your notes, and I will make sure everyone has a copy of those.
Mrs. Zahid, you have seven minutes, please.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Thanks to all the witnesses.
My first question is for Ms. Fraser. One of the biggest frustrations I hear about from the constituents in my riding of Scarborough Centre—and it was also borne out during this study—is inconsistent standards for acceptance between different offices and different regions.
For example, I know of some cases where an identical application, after being rejected in Chandigarh, was accepted in Delhi. In fact, Chandigarh has a reputation for an abnormally high refusal rate, to the point where some people have started avoiding it.
Why does there seem to be an uneven application of what should be consistent standards? Are there any measures you are taking to address this situation?
9:30 a.m.
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
In terms of the Chandigarh visa office, in fact, Minister McCallum just paid a visit to that office and to New Delhi last week. He was in India. There is a very high incidence of fraudulent applications submitted by agents to that office, which does impact the approval and refusal rates.
We have also initiated workload-sharing within the India network. We have the ability to shift the work around and send officers back and forth between the offices. It's a matter of sharing the information and increasing awareness of the local documentation and what is required. We also get temporary duty resources to that office and across the India network, and we make every effort to make sure people are aware of what documentation is required and to raise awareness. You will see some additional steps in terms of the work we will continue to do across the India network.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
How can we ensure we have consistent standards of evaluation in different offices?
9:30 a.m.
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm sure you can appreciate that every application, just like every person, is different. Their family circumstances, their work situation, and the assets and savings they have would be according to the individuals. Certainly, we are constantly working with all the officers, as we do with any new officers, in terms of providing information.
Recently, with the occurrence of the demonetization of the rupee in India, we are certainly taking that into account as to what possible impacts there could be on our clientele, for example, or on the documentation—again, just keeping that evergreen and providing that training and information to our staff.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
I've heard a lot from my constituents, and it was also raised by several witnesses during this study of family reunification, that a lack of cultural sensitivity and knowledge is making the process of marriage validation very stressful. In many cases, when the interviews are held, assumptions of false marriages are being made.
We have heard that different cultures may have an understanding of a normal relationship between a husband and a wife that is quite different from the usual western standards.
Could you discuss what training your staff receive on the cultural norms in the region or the area in which they are working and how culture could be better taken into account, particularly when the interviews are held?
9:35 a.m.
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
As I mentioned in my remarks, 86% of our applications are approved under the family class priority category, which would illustrate a very high level of acceptance. We have officers who are from that region, born and raised in India, who speak the local language, as well as all of our local staff. For officers, we have various training methodologies and an India “academy” that we provide to them as soon as they arrive, as well as ongoing training, making sure we are letting them know the customs, the culture, and the norms across India, because, again, it's a very diverse country. There are many different cultures, societies, and traditions of which they need to be aware.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
In regard to the languages, do you provide interpreters, or do you have staff speaking different languages in India?
9:35 a.m.
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
A lot of our local staff speak the local language. However, what we do now for the interviews is ask the applicant to go through an interpretation agency to bring someone with them who will speak their local language and dialect. There have been rare occasions that if we have someone on the staff then we would interpret for that person.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
My next question is for Ms. Snow in regards to the family processing applications going through Manila. I represent a riding with a large Filipino population. Many of them come under the caregiver category, so the family reunification application under that category is taking a longer than many other family reunification categories. Is there anything specific to that you would like to add?
9:35 a.m.
Area Director, North Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Regarding our office in Manila, they work very diligently with our colleagues in a centralized network in order to coordinate the processing of live-in caregiver and their dependant applications. I would like to highlight that Manila consistently meets their levels, as determined by the department, so they are processing very diligently and working very hard to coordinate. As you're likely aware, the head of family has to land first and then the dependants are issued and that requires a degree of coordination.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
What is the average time it is taking now for the processing of the family reunification of the dependants for the people coming in under the caregiver program?
9:35 a.m.
Area Director, North Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would suggest that we would come back to the committee with precise information on the length of time for live-in caregiver and their dependant processing applications.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj
Thank you. That has been noted.
Mr. Saroya, you have seven minutes please.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you to the witnesses.
My first question is to Ms. Fraser.
I represent a mixed riding with many different cultures. The biggest headache we get is from Chandigarh. It's all about Chandigarh. What can we do to improve that office? All the questions people ask are all about Chandigarh. What are the department standards for the Chandigarh office? Does it take 12 months, 24 months, 36 months? How long on average does it take to process an application in Chandigarh?
9:35 a.m.
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I should just clarify that the office in Chandigarh does not at this time process any applications for permanent residence. It only deals with applications for temporary resident visas, for study permit applications, and for work permit applications. Most recently, the processing times for temporary resident visas in that office are approximately 18 days and would be even shorter for study permits.
November 15th, 2016 / 9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Okay. I would like to talk about the cases when we use DNA. There was a case in Brampton, just to give you one example. This is the sort of situation we receive. We always take the department's side and we try to reason about why the case was handled this way. Somebody sponsored his wife and his son; the father was here for the longest time. At the end of it, the DNA came back negative for the father. They were married for 18 or 20 years and the kid was born under the same roof to the same parents. At least the son is the mother's son. Why do we reject those cases?
9:40 a.m.
Area Director, South Asia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Mr. Chair, it's not possible for myself or my colleagues to answer questions on specific cases without knowing any of the details and also for privacy reasons. I would just clarify that the use of DNA testing is for cases where there really are no other options. Perhaps the documentation is not reliable or is non-existent. Perhaps there were some other concerns with the application but, again, we are not able to get into any specifics of any of the applications.