Evidence of meeting #41 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 data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
There is a difference between the east coast and other parts of the country. For example, the rent and grocery costs in many cases are much cheaper. Would the department be looking into that sort of thing?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The methodology does vary somewhat in terms of whether someone is in a large urban area, which tends to be more expensive than in a smaller community. These sorts of things are taken into consideration in the work done by Statistics Canada. It really is the methodology of Statistics Canada that we follow.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Are there any advantages or disadvantages that would be applied for this sort of thing for the future? What I'm getting at is somebody was here from New Brunswick and was very insistent and protested that it should be applied differently there compared to Toronto.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Mr. Chair, our view at this time is that the current framework very much is presented in a clear and transparent manner. It is very objective in the way it is applied, and there is no consideration at this time of moving from that.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
We have heard from senior IRCC officials posted abroad that there are various cultural training opportunities for immigration officers. However, witnesses have stated that more cultural sensitivity is required, especially in relation to assessing the genuineness of relationships.
What is the IRCC cultural training policy? Is there any special or standard policies we are applying to that?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No. There are a couple of things here. Certainly for the Canadian officers who go abroad to a particular office, it is their obligation to become very familiar with the local circumstances. In some places the training is very structured. The most obvious example of that is in Delhi where they have the so-called Delhi academy. The officers go through quite an extensive training period, which is regularly refreshed to keep people up to date.
Another important aspect of this is the fact that we have so many locally engaged officers and staff at missions abroad who are absolutely immersed in the local culture. One of the reasons we have them is they are able to interpret the local culture for us, so we are very conscious of the local culture and are guided by that.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Mr. Orr, at every single event all of us go to, we get stopped by this sort of thing. I don't want to talk about special cases, but I will give an example for this question. There was a family from Gujarat, and I'm assuming the application is in New Delhi. It's the same story. It's an arranged marriage. They are stressed. It's a genuine marriage. They are waiting for them. They bought a house for them. The groom and bride live separately.
Is there any way there could be some special training for the officers to see if a marriage is genuine or not? Is there any special training program available for that?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
As I said, particularly in India the training is very sophisticated in terms of local culture, and we do have a large number of locally engaged officers who are Indian helping us to assess these applications. Certainly, there is a great deal of cultural sensitivity and awareness of what the local cultural practices are.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Some of the categories for immigration.... We still keep taking applications, for example, for live-in caregivers, parents and grandparents. How does that work when it comes to the backlog? Is it first-come, first-served? Do they go to the back? How does that work?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Generally it is first-come, first-served within the various categories, but we deal with each category in a slightly different way. Mostly it is dictated by the levels space that is available in any given year for that particular category.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
During his appearance before this committee, lawyer Richard Kurland suggested that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada should copy the Canada Revenue Agency by having clients create a single online profile with all of the required information which could be used as a base for any type of subsequent application for the department.
What is your opinion of this recommendation, please?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I think that in many ways it's an appropriate idea. In fact, we are moving in that direction to try to get a single identifier that can follow people right through the entire continuum.
It's a slow process, or slower than we would like sometimes, to get everything online, but we're certainly moving strongly in that direction. We now have e-applications for all temporary resident lines, and express entry is entirely by electronic submission, so we're very much moving in that direction.
Liberal
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you to the officials.
First of all, I have a quick question for clarification. In your presentation you stated that you are expecting the grandparents and parents inventory to be reduced to 46,000 by the end of 2016. Is that completed or in process?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That would be completed.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's correct.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
What is the average processing time when you receive an application?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It varies, and sometimes it varies because of what we are requiring. Sometimes, for instance, if we're asking for police certificates, in certain countries it's a very slow process to get a police certificate, which can slow things down for the applicant. Sometimes it's very quick, and they can get it in rapidly.
Perhaps I could—
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Perhaps I could turn to Mr. Armstrong.
Paul Armstrong Director General, Centralized Network, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Mr. Chairman, the average time which a case takes to be processed depends on a number of factors. One, it depends on the levels space. The government sets the levels space in a particular category every year, and then the department processes cases in accordance with that. It would also depend on client compliance.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Sorry, I'm just going to pause here.
On the question around levels space, given that the number of applications has increased from 5,000 to 10,000, and that would theoretically correspond with the levels space, as well, can you break down for me the number of applications from the country of origin for the levels space that's allotted based on those 10,000 applications?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's not done in that manner. We would get a levels space for the entire category regardless of from where those applications are. We would start processing those on a first-come, first-served basis regardless—
