Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 8th, 2016

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Does it elaborate? When you say “call centre services”, what is the issue with that complaint?

[Michelle Lattimore]

I don't have information from analysis of the web forum. We can certainly look into that in more detail. Our understanding, from speaking with clients at the call centre, is certainly that they experience frustration sometimes in trying to get hold of an agent. Also, often, as I mentioned, about 50% of our clients were trying to access case status online and weren't able to get the information they wanted about their case from the agent.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Chair, I think it would be very useful and helpful for the information they have with respect to complaints to be passed on to the committee. Then we can actually go through the details of it, as opposed to going through it bit by bit at committee within my seven minutes. It would be helpful if we could get a confirmation that we could receive that information.

With respect to complaints, I have one issue that my office often gets. People phone the call centre and cannot get informative information. It's an ongoing cycle of not getting information, and the level of frustration is beyond measure. I've tried it myself. You phone the hotline, and the information you get is so generalized that it is hopeless and, frankly, useless.

I then phone the minister's office. I've experienced this myself. I get the information from the minister's office and it's contradictory to what the government had announced within the time frame that the application would be processed, for example. I'm sort of left standing there and thinking, who do I believe? I don't know what is the real information anymore, and I hardly know what to tell my constituents. No wonder they're so frustrated.

How can we improve on this? How is it that people phone the hotline and get such general information that it's basically rendered useless?

[Michelle Lattimore]

Perhaps what would help is that I'll take this opportunity to tell you about a project that we worked on this year with the Privy Council Office's innovation hub and the Treasury Board Secretariat, as well as OCAD University in Toronto. It was to work on what we called the family class design challenge. For us, the family class design challenge was an opportunity to document the service experience for the first time from a client perspective and to then identify new and innovative approaches to changing the way we address client concerns.

One of the things that was really significant for us that came out of that study was that clients were really unhappy with our call centre. They found that the language we used wasn't helpful and, for those 50% of clients who were contacting us to get case status information, we weren't giving it to them. We were redirecting them to our website.

Based on this insight that we received from clients during the design challenge process, we've actually changed things very significantly at the call centre since the middle of August of this year. In August 2016, we started piloting new work at the call centre, where, for family class clients only—because we really wanted to track results and see if this meant something to clients—we changed a few things. We changed the language we used. We started using more welcoming language. We started actually going into client files for those clients who were looking for case status information in order to deliver to them the assurance they were looking for.

This, of course, has had an impact on business. It's taking us a little longer to deal with those calls, about 16% longer, but one of the other pieces we've actually seen is a significant 30% decrease in same day repeat calls at our call centre. That, to us, indicates that things are working well. We've also received positive feedback from clients who are telling us that they feel more assured, and that they don't feel the need to call back multiple times. We've never seen results like that before.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I think that's good, but I can tell you about my direct experience of phoning the call centre from my office and not being able to get information. We sort of get the runaround of: “We'll get back to you in a couple of weeks”. They tell us to do different things. Some cases are quite urgent, so we phone the ministerial line to get that information. As I said, the information that's received from the minister's office contradicts what the government has announced, which is concerning to me. I just want to flag that as something for you to look into. I hope that can be rectified.

I also want to ask this question. Oftentimes people get rejections, for example, for their travel visa, and they get these boxes ticked off. The information is so generalized that it leaves the person who's made the application wondering how they can perhaps improve the application next time. Financial security is one piece that's often the box ticked off. There's no indication, though, as to what parameters within financial security they need to be in, in order to get the approval, or what goal they could work toward, for example. In other situations, it seems there is little consideration with regard to people's travel history. Some people may not have a lot of resources, so they don't have a whole lot of travel history. It's not within their norm. Yet that's an automatic box. If you haven't actually travelled, then automatically you are out of luck.

Again, this is a very important thing for a lot of people. How can we improve on this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 20 seconds.

[Robert Orr]

Mr. Chair, certainly it's an issue that we continually try to address, to give the best information we can and to give clarity about our decision-making. There's nothing automatic about it. We look at a variety of different factors in an application to decide what will be there or not.

In terms of the ticked box, one of the issues—just because we have no time—is the resource requirement. Because of the resources that would be required to give detailed responses to each and every person, it just makes it impossible, given the volumes we have. We're trying to get a balance between what's appropriate. We may not have the balance quite right, and we continue to look at that, but we have to consider a variety of different factors in that.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

The time is up.

We'll move on to Ms. Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thanks so much for coming back today and for your great presentation.

In my area, one of the things I find is that 52% of the people in my riding of Davenport weren't born there, so there are a lot of people whose first language isn't English. I couldn't understand why so many of them were using immigration consultants. I wondered why they were using these people. Then I started realizing that because the process is so complex and their first language isn't necessarily English, they're using immigration consultants because, for them, in many cases, it facilitates their getting through a process that they find very, very onerous.

You talked about your design challenge. I'm assuming that's the same thing you're talking about on page 6, where you mention that you talked “to clients, NGOs, immigration consultants, academics”. Did you actually sit down with groups of people who didn't speak English and ask them to go through the process so that you could actually understand how people whose first language isn't English or French might actually understand the system?

[Michelle Lattimore]

That wasn't a specific study that we made as part of the design challenge. You're correct that our web content is only available in both official languages. We do have challenges providing detailed information to clients in more than those official languages. Translation costs, keeping things up to date, is certainly a challenge for the department.

We are developing a business case to look at the value of doing that again. We understand that it's a client irritant, not only within Canada but overseas. We do have a network of visa application centres overseas that helps those clients, but certainly we understand that those within Canada do tend to go to immigration consultants for that kind of assistance.

[Robert Orr]

I might just add that when we did do the family class design challenge, in looking at that, we did look at the language that's available for the spousal application. That's one of the reasons we completely redid all of the spousal application, the guides and so on, which will be available on our website next week. We found it was at about a grade 11 status, which was too high. We have tried to ensure that the new forms and guides are at a more appropriate level.

We'll have to do this across various lines of business, but we're starting off and very much trying to make that effort, and likewise on the website, to try to see that the language is appropriate.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I can't stress enough how important I think it is for us to bring in groups of people whose English may be good enough to work here in Canada—and their families are here—and to maybe have them go through the process. I think that would give us some insight. I'll be digging deeper around the language as we move forward on the study.

I've also heard about a number of different embassies or offices around the world doing some upfront sessions for those who want to come to Canada, to immigrate here. I've heard that those who attend one of those sessions actually go through the process very successfully and quickly.

Are those offered everywhere? Is it up to each office to decide whether or not it offers them? Can you talk a little bit about that?

[Robert Orr]

You're absolutely right. Some of the work that has been done abroad is very valuable. We have contracted out some of this work. There are cultural orientation sessions, particularly for refugees, but also for others who are coming. They're not available everywhere, but they are available in an increasing number of places around the world.

These are part of our settlement program. Providing this information in advance helps people to prepare themselves for the move so that when they arrive, they are in a better position to start seeking employment and get settled very rapidly.

There's real value in these sessions. We are investing more in them, but they certainly have real payoff.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I'm assuming the reason they're not offered everywhere is just a resource issue at this point as opposed to anything else.

[Robert Orr]

It's a resource issue, and I think they're something we're growing gradually as well.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

This gets me to third party review. I have a grandmother in Portugal who has been trying to get to Canada for a while. Apparently her application has been stuck at the security level for a year and a half. I've raised this as a red flag so many times.

To what extent is there a third party review? As part of the whole immigration system, we have to use third parties to do certain things. To what extent do we review their service levels and whether they are fulfilling them, and maybe find ways so that if there are actually issues that are brought to your attention, they are addressed with these third parties?

[Robert Orr]

If there are matters of security and those sorts of issues, they will involve dealing with our partner at CBSA. It is a matter of working with them, and generally they certainly respond very well within service standards.

There are certain cases that are outliers, which is certainly unfortunate for those individuals, but overwhelmingly they do meet service standards.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

The last thing I want to mention is that if I had to envision a system, I would love to see one that is like the system for ordering pizza. It tells you exactly when the order has been accepted, when they are baking it, how long it's going to take, and when it's ready, and so it tells you where it is all along the way. Ideally, I would love to see a system like that so that people who are applying for whatever can see where they are in the system. Then if there's a problem, a red light goes on, and there is a phone number and email they can contact.

Have you talked to companies like FedEx and so on that could maybe help us a little bit with our systems and our process?

[Robert Orr]

Certainly we're looking very carefully at anything we can learn from outside partners or outside sources. We've looked at something like that with regard to tracing it. The immigration process is not quite as straightforward, of course. A number of different factors are involved, which makes it a little more complicated than just mapping out where a parcel is. We're dealing with people, not things, and so what goes on is rather more complicated. Nevertheless, we are trying to work on that area.

I think what's really important is the information people can get if they can log on to MyCIC and get that electronic link. They can now monitor much more rapidly and easily the status of their application, what has been done, and what remains to be done.

We continue to try to improve that facility, so we're giving more and more information and clearer information to applicants. I think we've made major strides forward in that area already.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Madam Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

You have five seconds.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I want to begin with a couple of questions on the eTA process. We've been hearing that some travellers have experienced problems with the new eTA requirement that makes it necessary for visa exempt travellers to obtain an eTA to fly to or transit through the country. While this helps us to understand who is coming into the country, there have been some problems with its implementation. We heard from a spokesperson for Air Canada that it has been encouraging the government to do more to publicize its eTA requirement.

Could you give us a sense within the context of your client service delivery model why this hasn't been better publicized for those travelling to Canada, and what practices could be put in place to ensure this doesn't happen in the future?

[Robert Orr]

The electronic travel authorization program has been a huge initiative for the department and for our partner, CBSA. It's a joint piece with CBSA. We're responsible for the eTA application process, and there are over 2.5 million people around the world who have obtained an eTA since it went live. The IAPI process, which is the actual interface with the airlines, is managed by CBSA. It went fully live on November 10. Since that time, overwhelmingly, I think it has gone very well.

In terms of publicity, we did a vast amount of publicity prior to its going live, and I think, to wit, we have seen 2.5 million people who have indeed obtained an eTA. The vast majority of people who are showing up for flights now do have them.

What we're trying to do at the moment is diagnose exactly where the pockets are where perhaps the message has not gotten across. We're trying to target those areas the best we can, whether it's certain countries or certain groups within countries, and so on, so that we can really target our efforts in that respect. There's been a huge amount of publicity already, but we continue to try to respond to where we see there are gaps.