Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 1st, 2017

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

[David Arnold]

You're welcome.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I have a couple of questions for CBA as well as TD, if I can get to them.

Thanks very much for your prepared report.

One of the ideas from our family reunification study was to have something similar to a CRA number, system having one number for an applicant for whatever processes they go through. One of the points you make is that IRCC shares client delivery service for the temporary foreign worker program with Employment and Social Development Canada. Do you have some thoughts to share on that and whether you think that would be useful.

I'm going to ask my two or three questions and if you're able to get to the answers, that's great. If not, if you can give me a written response, that would be also very much appreciated.

The second thing I want to ask you about is the removal of red flags and the procedure for that. You were talking about ports of entry. I'm curious about that. I'm also interested in this because there are red flags on a number of the people I deal with. I've no clue. Some of them, I think, were fairly applied and some, and some not. So I wouldn't mind your talking a little about the issue and maybe making a recommendation on the process to remove that, and what you think is fair.

You also mentioned ports of entry. It is common knowledge among Canadian immigration lawyers the need to avoid certain points of entry, based on a history of lengthy delays, unwarranted scrutiny, and bad decisions. Could you highlight which ports of entry those might be? It would be helpful to us in trying to figure out how to help.

My last question for you concerns program and technical issues. You suggested that if we're evolving our client service delivery system, we might want to bring in the CBA at the design stage to test it with lawyers. In that regard, do you know what percentage of applicants to our system use immigration lawyers? This may be an unfair question. It's just a question that came up, and I'm curious to hear your response.

Then to TD, if we don't have enough time, I'd love a written response on this as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

We only have a couple of seconds.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

The reason we've brought you here is that we're trying to use the best practices in service delivery that you would recommend. What are the one or two recommendations for our immigration system...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

We'll wait for your written responses to that series of questions.

Mr. Saroya, you have five minutes.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Arnold, you talked about India, Chandigarh specifically. In my riding, that is the biggest issue for 80% of the immigrants. I have two full-time staff. They answer the confused questions. I'm not sure if it's a matter of confusion with the clients or on this side. What sort of rejection rates are there in Chandigarh? Would you know?

[David Arnold]

I don't know much about that catchment at all. I'm sorry.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I thought you said your rejection was in the single digits. Is this on the North American side?

[David Arnold]

It's for my caseload here in Ottawa.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

This question is for everybody. What can we do? For example, I got two emails this morning from dissatisfied customers. They are confused. What can be done to improve the system, the understanding between the applicants and headquarters?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Langford.

[Vance P. E. Langford]

One of the suggestions in our brief is that you give immigration program managers at visa offices greater resources both to handle client service and to be accountable for client service. If you have someone in that jurisdiction who doesn't understand the status of an application, they should be able to get an answer either through a 24/7 call centre or an immigration program manager, who would simply receive an email and action it through his or her office, rather than taking months to respond and then having that client or their representative have to refer to the case management branch and escalate it and do other things to preserve the person's status when it could have just been a routine inquiry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Mr. Green.

[Stephen Green]

I think you have to ask why it was refused. In many of the cases that I see, the applicants haven't been given the proper forms or they have been misinformed. I think it would be tremendously helpful if the consulate in Chandigarh reached out to the community, and the community here as well, and ask what they need to demonstrate for a visitor visa application. A lot of them are refused just because they don't understand the process, and not because the visa officer is making a wrong decision. The visa officer just doesn't have the documents because the applicant doesn't know what's needed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Malik.

[Saima Malik, Assistant Vice President, Sales Capabilities, Digital Channels, TD Bank Financial Group]

At TD, we've introduced a couple of things. One of them is for our staff to access internal resources—so not just the call centre, but through internal chat. That allows them to share documents, browse documents in real time, and pull up applications and view them at the same time as the resource who is actually interacting with the customer.

In regard to being more transparent with customers, we introduced social media capabilities. Customers are allowed to ask questions of experts, and that information is then made publicly available. It goes through someone in audit or legal to make sure we can share that information publicly, but it is then posted so that information is then available to all customers who potentially have a similar question.

What's different about it from a typical FAQ or search answer is that they are questions that are very specific and unique to the customer. Other customers who are in those types of situations can then search for that information and get that response and use it at least as their first gate of information.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I've noticed many times that well-educated people make mistakes on applications, simple mistakes, and cases are rejected.

Is there any suggestion from any of you for the application to be made much simpler than what we have out there?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Desloges.

[Chantal Desloges]

Applications are sent back for very, very minor deficiencies, something like you missed a box or your photograph was the wrong size, things that could easily be rectified.

My recommendation would be to send an email or call the applicant and tell them to replace it, instead of sending the whole thing back. Not only does that result in delay and extra expense to the client having to do it all over again, but it also sometimes leads to a loss of substantive rights. That means that somebody may fall out and lose status while that application is been sent back, and now they're here illegally. Or, you could lose the right to sponsor somebody, for example, your child ages out in terms of the date for sponsorship.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Zahid, five minutes, please.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to all of you. I'm sorry for all the time confusion today.

My first question is for Mr. Arnold.

In Canada, a frustration that many of my colleagues and I share is that due to cutbacks in service levels and staff by our immigration department, members of Parliament have to do a lot of immigration work. In representing a riding with a heavy immigrant population, a lot of our resources are dedicated to checking the status of the applications. The applicants are not able to do so and don't get the response or answer they need. These inquiries constitute as much, or more than, 80% of what we do: just checking the status of the applications.

Could you discuss the role of Australian parliamentarians in your immigration system? Are they faced with the same challenges, or have you been able to overcome those?

[David Arnold]

I think it would be fair to say that they do encounter the same challenges.

Our department introduced and has had parliamentary liaison officers for a while, who are located in our states—the equivalent of your provinces. Our electoral offices have contact details for that individual, and they act as the conduit to get particular updates.

Certainly, I get them here. Often they are inquiries from individuals who are frustrated because their applications are taking too long. We do a very quick assessment by that particular officer to see if it is within the service standard. If it already is within the service standard and there's no compelling or compassionate reasons as to why the application needs to be expedited, the parliamentary liaison officer will deal with that very quickly. If it requires consultation from the post or the processing officer, it will be referred to me. Individuals also write to parliamentarians as well, and that gets referred to me to respond, normally on their behalf.

A lot of it is status updates, in particular for some of our programs where the wait is long, such as for a spouse.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

You indicated some of your processing times, and mentioned, for example, a three-week processing time for the TRVs. Are the processing times globally for different categories—TRVs, spousal applications, sponsorship of other dependent family members—about the same, or do certain regions have a higher processing time as compared to other regions?

[David Arnold]

We publish our service standards on our website, and it's a global service standard. I will update my material to reflect a peak period to indicate that applications may be taking longer; for example, they might extend to six weeks. I'm just coming off a peak period from the Christmas period.

I'll use websites and social media to do that, but we have a global service standard.