Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 8th, 2016

[Robert Orr]

Yes, certainly. The managers in any given office are going to be monitoring the work of individual officers all the time. It may not be on specific cases, because there may be very good reasons why a specific case is taking a long time, but overall, yes, we're going to be monitoring productivity, and we're going to be monitoring how long they're taking to do cases and so on.

Mr. Armstrong may be able to speak to that, because he certainly has very rigorous systems in place.

[Paul Armstrong, Director General, Centralized Network, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Vice-Chair, yes, we have very strict performance management criteria to which all employees have to adhere. We also regularly conduct quality assurance exercises to make sure that the decision-making is of high quality.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Okay.

We understand that you're on top of various employees. How does it work? Is there a huge variation among various offices around the world?

[Robert Orr]

No—

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

How do you deal with it when you identify that some are more difficult than others?

[Robert Orr]

Well, I think what we're looking at when we look at various offices is the service standards. For instance, on the temporary resident side, the service standard is 14 days. On a regular basis we do look at what offices are meeting that and which offices are not. There may be very good reasons why a office is not able to meet that standard, and sometimes it's surprising why it's difficult to do so.

We monitor it closely: does it make sense, and what's being done to address it so that we are providing the best service we possibly can? As well, one of the things we can do is that if an office is overwhelmed with applications, we are now able, with the global case management system, to move cases around the system. We have greater surge capacity to respond to unexpected increases.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

A last question would be with respect to service standards for those who are going through the security check—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

You have five seconds.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

What are the timelines that you have in mind for that category?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

I'm sorry, but the time is up.

We're going to move to Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses.

Over the past 10 years, my office has provided a great deal of assistance on various files. Very often, incomplete requests or forms are sent to the department. This, of course, eventually causes delays in the process.

It seems that people have trouble doing the basic work and obtaining the necessary information. We often find that a document is missing or has not been signed, or that a supporting document is missing. This really bogs down the system and delays processing times.

People come to see us and we have to start the whole process over again with them. We take the time to sit down and look at the form. We go back to the beginning of their application and review the entire process as far as they have reached to see what is missing. Departmental employees do nonetheless provide valuable assistance. They remind us of things.

Is there a lack of information initially? Are there enough agents to provide assistance from the outset? If an hour or more were invested with each person, people would be able to fill out their forms properly in the first place, and that might eliminate days, weeks or months of delays.

[Robert Orr]

Madam Vice-Chair, I understand that the issue can be very difficult, and sometimes it would be useful to have assistance at the outset. I think one of the things we are trying to do to deal with that issue is to reduce the volume of information which is out there and to provide more clear, concise information. The family class and the spousal application process, which was just announced yesterday, is an excellent example of moving forward in that area.

We've gone from 180 pages, which was the guide for a spousal application, and we've reduced it now to a simplified guide of 12 pages, and then there's a longer guide, which is, I think, 60 or so pages. I think that one of the big things we can do is be clearer on what we require, and make sure it's absolutely concise, simple, and straightforward to follow. What we are trying to make the big effort to do is to provide better information to our clients up front, and then we can expect greater adherence to what we're looking for so that it's better for all of us.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Do you know how many files have gone through the entire process without a hitch?

In my constituency office, I have to assign at least one employee full-time to deal with immigration files and make sure a second person is trained if the first person is on maternity leave or is absent for other reasons. This requires a tremendous amount of energy from an MP's office. Yet I am in a region where the immigration rate is not particularly high. It seems like all the files end up at my office sooner or later. For example, the files of all four members of a single family have ended up at my office. It seems that the success rate is low.

Do you have statistics on that?

[Robert Orr]

Madam Vice-Chair, I don't think I have any numbers on exactly how many go through without any issues at all. The overall acceptance rate is very high, so I think it's fair to say that the majority of applications do indeed go through that way. When we define complex versus non-complex cases, the vast majority of cases are non-complex and go through in that way. That being said, we're very conscious that there is an incomplete rate. Something that we're trying to do is give better information so that there's less reason for an incomplete rate. The incomplete rate in certain lines of business can be as high as 30%, and so we are trying to do what we can to clarify instructions and to simplify the process.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Ms. Sidhu for five minutes.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you to all the witnesses.

Like many of my colleagues in their ridings, I have a high rate of casework in Brampton South. Over the last years I have seen a steady improvement, but there's definitely more we need to do. Yesterday in Brampton the minister announced that the processing time for family class applications will be cut from 24 months to 12 months.

Is there any work that you're doing on processing parent and grandparent sponsorship applications for reunification? Is there any timeline?

[Paul Armstrong]

Madam Vice-Chair, yes, there is work that the department has undertaken to improve parent and grandparent processing. An example of that is, in addition to centralized intake which we have for parent and grandparent cases, we've also implemented risk triage so that we see from the beginning stages if cases are complex or if they're not complex. If they're not complex, then we process them in Canada.

In the case of parents and grandparents, I can inform you that about 56% of cases are actually now being processed in Canada. That shouldn't surprise you because it's likely a result of things like the super visa, wherein parents and grandparents are able to come and visit Canada, and then if they apply for permanent residence, we conduct a risk triage. That's certainly a way that we're looking at speeding up processing of cases and improving client service.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

I just heard about uploading documents and paying the fee online. What is the implementation timeline for this initiative to modernize the system?

[Michelle Lattimore]

We're working right now on initiatives to improve the quality and clarity of information that is on the website by the end of the fiscal year. We are making changes to have additional plain language on the website. In terms of the usability of applications and tools, we're working very much towards improving those pieces as well. It's an active file, I would say, and we expect significant improvements by the end of the fiscal year.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

I hear a lot from applicants themselves and particularly from one visa office in Chandigarh, as do many members here. Can you speak to the experience of applicants in more challenging contexts? What can we do to bring more equal service standards across the board?

[Robert Orr]

We're very conscious of some of the issues in Chandigarh, and I've had the opportunity to visit Chandigarh twice in the last six months. I think there are a number of issues there. One of the big things we are trying to do is, again, this idea of work sharing across the network, so that when there is a particular surge in an office like Chandigarh, we're able to spread the work to places, perhaps larger offices, that are able to respond to that increase in applications.

In the India network this year, the volume was up dramatically on the temporary resident side, and for students it was up by over 70%. That is inevitably going to have an impact on how well and how quickly we're able to get through all the applications. We're back now to being well within service standards for both temporary residents and students, and in fact we were by the end of September, despite the vast increase, and we're determined to do our best to maintain service standards in the Chandigarh and India network.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

Thank you very much.

Now with the rotation it comes to the NDP, which is me, for three minutes.

The department used to have an office that constituents or people could visit to get assistance on how to fill out forms, how to deal with their applications, and so on and so forth. That's now been done away with, and I think as a result of that, a lot of the work has been shifted to MPs. I think it's fair to say that across the board for MPs from all the different parties, the volume of casework has increased exponentially because of that.

I'm wondering whether or not there's been any consideration to reinstating a service provision in different parts of the regions where people can actually get that kind of support for their applications from the departmental officials.

[Robert Orr]

I'm actually not aware of that level of service having been provided previously, but at the moment we are really trying to focus on a couple of things. One is the visa application centres abroad, which do offer some of that sort of work, and which have proven to be a very successful network, because we are able to provide applicants with support in their own language. That's been a very valuable resource, which has been put in place over the last few years.

At the moment, we are trying to focus on making our requirements clearer and simpler. I think we are making progress in that area, but it's very much a work in progress right now.