Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 1st, 2017

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you. We've already heard a reference to the reasons. I've seen many of the forms that a person will receive if they're turned down for a visitor visa in Canada, and it's just a series of statements with some boxes checked off. There's immense frustration among people because the form essentially tells them nothing. That person then comes to our office. We then have to contact the member of Parliament line and can often get someone on the line to read us the reasons in the file, and we transmit those reasons to the applicant.

I'm just wondering, how does it work in Australia? Were someone to be rejected, are they told the reasons and, if so, in what kind of detail?

[David Arnold]

They are, in significant detail. The decision record for refusal for a visitor application is probably on average about five to six pages. My case officers are required to put in detail the basis for their decision and how they couldn't be satisfied that the individual was a genuine temporary visitor to Australia, or whether or not we're satisfied of their character or health requirement. It is detailed, absolutely.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thanks.

I joke with people that I don't have a constituency office, but an immigration law practice in Vancouver.

Another source of frustration for my constituents is that there's never anybody whom the applicant or the sponsor can talk to. It's very anonymous. You just get a case number. If someone has a pending application in Australia, is there anybody whom an applicant or a sponsor can actually talk to within your immigration structure to find out about the status of the case, or to discuss where it's at?

[David Arnold]

Absolutely. As I said in my introduction, we're looking to push those types of inquiries to our online ImmiAccount, where clients can get an update of where their application is at. But again, if we use the region that I belong to, which is the Americas from Chile up, we offer a five-day call centre based here in Ottawa. We provide service in four languages between the hours of 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Those immigration officers can access exactly the same system as the decision-maker. So an applicant who has a spouse in our pipeline can ring that number for the cost of a Canadian call, and we'll give them as much information as we can.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Excellent.

Does Australia do interviews for “permanent resident” applications to Australia—I don't know if you use that terminology—and if so, what percentage of the applicants would have to go through an interview?

[David Arnold]

I don't know the exact percentage, but again, with the situation locally here, it's very, very low. The decision-maker can decide to interview an applicant if they're not satisfied, if they're missing a piece of information, or if a bit of information just doesn't make sense. They'll invite the applicant or the sponsor for an interview, but it would be a single digit figure for my office, definitely.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

One of the most troubling areas that we deal with in my Vancouver office is Chandigarh, India. Our experience is that there's over 50% refusal rate for people applying for visitor visas, and it's a source of incredible frustration to the community of Vancouver.

Is there a place like that for Australia, a place that you focus on particularly? Is there a country or a place with a particularly high rejection rate? I'm always told by the government that Chandigarh is difficult because there's a fear of a high rate of forgery or fraud. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what we're told. Does Australia have a similar experience with a particular place?

[David Arnold]

There's not one specifically that I can talk to, but depending on particular risk factors with the country of origin of the applicant, then that could very well result in a higher refusal rate. Again, it depends. Instances of fraud.... From the intelligence that we have available, whether it be previous refusals or just general factors within the applicant's country, with the applicant applying, say, for a student visa to undertake English, but who may not necessarily be a genuine temporary entrant because they're just trying to get out of their own country, could result in a higher refusal rate.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Finally, if there is a single innovation that Australia has brought in to make its immigration system more user-friendly or efficient, what would it be? What advice would you give us?

[David Arnold]

Go to full eLodgement. In my experience, getting my diplomatic visa here, it was a matter of completing a fillable PDF, with a bar code on the back. That still required printing. Move to a fully agile solution, as we have, noting that you need to do that carefully for big markets like India and China, which we're yet to do.

Also move away from a foil, the label.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you very much for assisting.

[David Arnold]

It's a pleasure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Perhaps I could beg your patience also, just because I'm so excited that you're here, Mr. Arnold, as well as all of our guests. I just want to say a huge thanks to all of you for spending an extra hour waiting for us.

I'm going to ask a few questions, Mr. Arnold. If you don't have time to respond to them, I'd be very grateful if you just give us written responses.

One question I have is this. We have the issue of a huge backlog in a number of different categories, in terms of spousal applications, in terms of parents and grandparents, in terms of visas, in terms of different places in the world. Does a similar backlog exist for different classes of applications in Australia? I'll start with that question.

[David Arnold]

Yes, absolutely. Our minister will set an immigration planning level. For example, for our partner program, I may be allocated—these are just figures for the purposes of an example—50 places. I may get 1,500 applications.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

How's that dealt with? Do you just fill the 50 you have that might have existed from years before? How is that worked through?

[David Arnold]

The minister sets our immigration program yearly. Once the year is reached, which for us is 30 June, those positions will need to be filled.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Okay.

As you know, we're a multicultural nation. I believe we only offer services in English and French. Does Australia offer immigration services in any other language for anything? If so, could you explain that?

[David Arnold]

Yes, we do. It's often demand driven. For example, my catchment includes Mexico and some Central American countries, so those forms are available in Spanish. Our eLodgement system was first designed in English, but simplified Chinese will be part of our build for the introduction of eLodgement into China.

The department also offers what's called the “translating and interpreting service”. It's a 24/7 service available to any individual. We service our 911 equivalent, as an example. It takes close to one million calls a year. It's an interpreting service offered over the phone. I have four languages here that I provide service in. For an individual, say, who might speak Farsi—we don't have any Farsi speakers—they'll use an interpreter on shore at no cost to them.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

That's helpful.

You talked quite a bit about your ImmiAccount. Could you provide a bit more detail in writing, not now, on what that is? That would be helpful. You said it was set up like a bank account.

[David Arnold]

Yes, I'd be happy to.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

The thing I'd love to get a little more information about is what happens when someone is checking their ImmiAccount for the status of their application, whatever it is. What type of information would you give back? Often, what we say here is that it is just “in process”, which is a source of great frustration for us. If you could maybe provide something back to us on that, I think it would be of great interest to the committee.

That's my last question for you, as I have a couple of other questions for the rest of the panellists.

[David Arnold]

Do you mean in response to the ImmiAccount status?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Yes.

[David Arnold]

Clients of my department may share some frustrations that clients of the Canadian department have. That's largely to do with our IT system requiring some changes that just say “processing”. In saying that, though, government has allowed for investment to improve that. We will have more status updates introduced this year in March, including that “you require a health assessment”. But it would be fair to say that we still need to mature on what status updates we do offer.

We have noticed a significant drop in client inquiries, though, since the introduction of ImmiAccount. Clients are able to upload information, as well, in response. A case officer might say, “I need an RCMP check.” They'll send that request to ImmiAccount. It tells the client there's something there. Once they upload it, that wakes the application up for the decision-maker to say that it's there. The application actually moves quicker, and therefore the need for status updates becomes less.