Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 1st, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Committee, I understand that Mr. Arnold has a commitment that he has no option but to leave for. I will allow Mr. Arnold the opportunity to quickly say a few words, and we'll then launch right into questions.

I understand you have to leave in about seven to 10 minutes.

[David Arnold, Chief Migration Officer, Immigration and Border Protection, Australian High Commission]

Yes, that's correct. I'd be happy to extend it to 15 minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

In that case, we will commence.

Mr. Arnold, would you like to say a couple of words, because there won't be a full opportunity for questions and answers in your case?

[David Arnold]

It's up to you if you would like me to do that. I did put something together that's a good seven to eight minutes long, but I'm happy to just go to questions if you have them, as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Okay.

We still don't have everyone here, so perhaps just to get it on the record, take a couple of minutes, Mr. Arnold, and then we'll go into questions.

[David Arnold]

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is David Arnold. I am the chief migration officer. I work for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection as part of the Australian government. I'm a posted officer here at our high commission, just down the road on O'Connor Street.

We thank you for the opportunity to present today and talk a little about some of the client service modernizations that my department has been undertaking over the last couple of years, and certainly what we're looking to do into the future.

My department manages millions of entries into and departures from Australia of temporary visitors and permanent migrants, as well as Australian citizens. This includes the monitoring and resolution of their status, and the promotion of values and Australian citizenship.

Our visa system plays a key role in promoting Australia's economic and social prosperity. Australia has a universal visa system—that is, every single individual who wishes to travel to Australia for temporary or permanent purposes is required to have a visa before they board their method of travel.

The department already manages a significant volume of activities through digital channels. One such example is our electronic travel authority, which I know Canadians have introduced recently; as well as our ImmiAccount, an online portal for visa applicants; and SmartGate. Like Canada, we have traditionally had front-line officers doing a passport check and an admissibility check, like a border service officer here. We've moved that to more automation through SmartGate, using e-passports and biometric capture.

ImmiAccount, in particular, has been quite a success for us in moving clients away from higher-cost channels such as face-to-face ones and by telephone. Individuals who make application to travel to Australia are required to establish an ImmiAccount. It's not dissimilar from, say, setting up an Internet banking facility with your financial institution. It acts as our front door. Since its launch in 2013, it has grown significantly. Clients are able to access 41 forms, essentially 41 visa types to travel to Australia. It generates in excess of $1.1 billion a year in revenue through visa application charges.

Last financial year, we received more applications via ImmiAccount than we did paper applications. Applications lodged via ImmiAccount are 100% electronic. We have no paper files for those applications. Approximately 18 months ago, Australia moved away from the issue of foil; we refer to it as a “visa label”. There is no longer any legislative means to issue a foil to a visa applicant or visa holder to Australia. For example, in the very limited processing that some of my staff do here in Ottawa, we don't see passports. That has enabled the department to set up a rather agile and responsive service delivery network, where we can pick up visa applications and caseloads and move them very quickly depending on the issues—for example, post-natural disasters or generally big demand, such as during Chinese New Year.

We are moving our eLodgement to our biggest caseloads in the foreseeable future, which will be Chinese nationals and Indian and Indonesian applicants. We do partner with service delivery agencies, as Canada does. Those organizations at the moment accept applications on our behalf via paper. That will soon move to digital for those particular markets, which will enable us to move our most significant caseloads around our service delivery network.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

We'll move to our first round of questions.

Mr. Tabbara.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here. We apologize that we had to quickly run to the House for votes.

As you know, for all of us MPs, most of our work is dealing with a lot of immigration files, so we're looking at ways to improve the system. With the advanced technology available now, are there better ways to improve client services through more online services or with technology? I'd like to hear from a couple of you.

If anyone wants to speak first they can, but maybe we can go around and ask that question.

[Chantal Desloges, Lawyer, Desloges Law Group, As an Individual]

I have a couple of comments about that.

First of all, in terms of use of technology, I think there are a lot of functions within IRCC that could be automated to allow for a greater client touch without necessarily generating more work for people by having to send handwritten emails.

For example, there are very simple software solutions that allow you to send autogenerated emails to people at various periods of time. One of the biggest complaints from clients is not necessarily about how long they have to wait but that they don't know what's going on; they're not able to find out what's happening with their case. Even just an autogenerated email that we'd send to them every once in a while just to let them know and reassure them that everything is fine, that their file is with us, and that we're working on it and we'll get back to them if we need anything, I think, would be an easy solution.

The other thing is interview scheduling. A lot of time is wasted calling people for interviews that they can't make at a particular time and then they have to be rescheduled through a manual process that is very time-consuming and labour-intensive. There are simple software solutions that allow people to choose their own interview time, which are fully automated and don't require any manpower whatsoever. Those would be two really simple ways.

Finally, there is the immigration e-CAS system, through which you can go online and check your case status. There is rarely any useful information in it. That system already exists and it could be used to much greater effect if officers could simply upload the information more regularly. People could go on and check their status online and not have to bother with phoning the telecentre or emailing Immigration.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you.

That was one of my other questions. A lot of our time is wasted just getting status updates. Clients come in and ask where their application is, at what step, and then we have to fill out a consent form and so on and go through all the steps and then call and finally deliver that message to our constituents.

Thank you for sharing that.

Would anyone else like to share?

Go ahead, Mr. Green.

[Stephen Green, Lawyer, Partner, Green and Spiegel LLP, As an Individual]

I'll be very brief.

I think it's important to understand that immigration is a human endeavour, so while we can push a lot of stuff to technology, please don't forget that there is a human element to this. In the old days we used to have centres that people could walk into. I would submit that if you opened up some of those centres to a restricted audience who could attend there, 50% of your inquiries would drop.

My last comment would be that the call centre is a wonderful thing. It has helped a lot of people, but the problem, unfortunately, is that there's not enough information given out. If I call on behalf of my clients, it takes about four to five minutes for me to go through a process to identify myself. If you call the bank, you give them your client ID and you're in—one, two, three. Immigration actually goes through the application: is your client's address this? Is your client's telephone number this? What is your address? What is your name? And it must do this for each file. So if I have four files, I go through this four times. It's really not efficient.

Last, you can't tell the client on the phone that their application is in process; we know that. They have to be able to give more information. If that was released, and if these call centre people had more authority to give out information, your workload would drop with respect to the basic inquiries.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Luckett, you had your hand up.

[Arleigh Luckett, Representative, Syrian Refugees Gravenhurst]

I was just going to say that I'm from a private sponsorship group, and I know that one of the concerns our groups have had regarding delays in refugees coming here when we have applied for them is that some groups are very self-conscious about asking the MP for help but others are relying heavily on the office, which is very forthcoming in offering it. However, if access to the up-front information on the website—from the minute the group comes together and wants to sponsor and even before a group applies—were better and modernized and thought through from the point of view of a group of volunteers trying to figure out how to navigate this system and what the rules were, they wouldn't be calling their MP's office so often. The information is there, but the path through it is terrible; it's very hard to find the information, and it's not all up to date.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Langford.

[Vance P. E. Langford, Chair, Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Our brief highlights a number of technical issues that the Canadian Bar Association's immigration law section believes could help. We've put those under the larger umbrella of program improvements that could be made. I think that's what the Government of Canada would like to achieve.

Some of our recommendations are around communication. They sound simple and they sound practical. Maybe it's trite, but in terms of updating clients on delayed applications, it's that issue of how “in process” really means nothing. They include perhaps making a more robust system of where processing status is actually at, with accountability for processing times that are published, and also requesting additional information before refusing applications. As we move to a more automated system, it's about not losing the human element and not forgetting that peoples' lives are affected by the system.

The example of that is express entry, with that sort of one-touch approach that was talked about. It wasn't an official policy, but if peoples' job offers didn't have specific language in the job offers according to the ministerial instructions, they were bounced. I had highly educated people come to me after failing three times in express entry. Simply, there could have been a request for the proper documentation before refusing.

Also in our suggestions is increasing transparency on decision making by giving better written reasons. A suggestion made was to attach the GCMS printout to the rationale for the decision. That isn't really hard to do, and that would make it no longer necessary to do an access to information request to get the reasons in order to understand whether this was just not a viable application or whether it should be appealed or redone.

Those are some suggestions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Rempel, I understand you're splitting your time with Mr. Tilson.

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

Yes, thank you.

Mr. Arnold, your country has a very organized immigration system. We know that. You have dedicated visa subclasses for skilled visa, family visa, parent visa, etc. I'm wondering if you could comment or maybe expand upon the effectiveness of implementing these specific subclasses for visas and how that has improved your client service delivery.

[David Arnold]

It would be fair to say that it has made the client journey easier, I think, to identify which particular visa they should be applying for in their particular circumstances. In saying that, though, it is an area of our business that's under continual review. About 18 months ago we undertook a fairly harsh cull of some of the subclasses that we did have. There is also another body of work around visa reform at the moment, which the government has commissioned, and that will seek a further reduction in subclasses.

Yes, it has worked, but at the moment it would probably be fair to say that we have too many.

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

Could you expand upon that a bit? What are some of the experiences you've had? What is the impetus in terms of looking at condensing the number of classes as that relates to client service delivery? Where is the right balance? I would say that also having very vague characteristics makes it difficult to apply, too, so in your experience, where would you see that right mix?

[David Arnold]

From an operational perspective, it's about maintaining knowledge and a centre to undertake processing of that particular visa, especially if it's not automated. If you have a particular subclass where application rates are relatively low because they were always falling into another category, having to maintain that becomes quite high cost. Rationalizing it and shrinking it down into what we term more “streams” of what activity they are undertaking under the banner of the subclass allows that concentration to occur.

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

Have you had to deal with instances where you perhaps have had one applicant apply through different streams writ large, even if it's for citizenship or whatnot? How has your country dealt with that?

[David Arnold]

I'm sorry. What do you mean?

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

For example, let's say that in Canada you're applying for citizenship and you're applying under different classes or different programs. Sometimes that gums up the amount of resources it takes to process these applications.

[David Arnold]

I see.

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

How have you looked at managing that sort of issue from a service delivery perspective?