Evidence of meeting #6 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was c-6.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
I understand the process, but I'm wondering about the time frame. If a person fails the test and they go to the second one, how long do they have to wait? Is it one month, two months, a year, to ultimately get to the court judge?
12:50 p.m.
Director, Citizenship Program Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's within a reasonable period of time. I think that between two and four weeks they're rescheduled for another test.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
12:50 p.m.
Director, Citizenship Program Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm not sure exactly with regard to between the second test and the hearing.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
If we could get that information for verification at a later time, that would be great.
How long is the processing time for applicants who receive a residence questionnaire?
12:50 p.m.
Director, Citizenship Program Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The service standard in place for applications received on or after April 1, 2015 is that about 80% of those are processed within 12 months.
If someone receives a residence questionnaire, it becomes a non-routine application that is not then subject to that service standard. It's impossible to say exactly how long that will take. Obviously we do our best to process those as quickly as possible.
Sometimes as a result of the residence questionnaire information, an officer is able to determine that they do meet the residence requirement and the case will proceed. However, there's still a belief that if the applicant doesn't meet the residence requirement after reviewing all of the information provided with the residence questionnaire, then the individual would need to go for a hearing with the citizenship judge.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
The waiting time used to be somewhere between 36 and 48 months, which is actually quite significant, so I'm curious to know if we can get an average time. Even if you don't have the information with you at the moment, it would be good to know what the general average wait time is for someone who receives a residence questionnaire and for that process to unfold.
12:55 p.m.
Director, Citizenship Program Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I can say that 80% of the cases will be processed within a year. There are some older cases that have residence questionnaires attached to them that we're dealing with as quickly as possible. For any new cases we try to be more targeted in the information we request. Sometimes we ask for information about a specific period of time, a specific employment, rather than issue a residence questionnaire. But sometimes it is necessary to do that and that does add some time onto the processing.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
I wanted to ask about the LINC program. As the officials know, the LINC program is a language support program for immigrants and refugees across all the sectors, both the NGO sector as well as colleges. One particular community college, which is actually the longest-serving community college in providing this kind of service in the country with about 40 years of experience and is also the largest college that provides the service, just prior to the budget, received documentation to confirm that their funding for the LINC program would be reduced by 8.5%. They already have close to 1,000 people on the waiting list trying to get into the language program.
As the minister has identified that language is essential for Canadians to succeed, and that language is essential for Canadians to actually become citizens, here we are with a huge wait list, with a large influx of refugees coming in, with immigrants already waiting to try to get into the LINC program, yet the funding is being cut. I wonder whether or not the officials can actually look into this to see how we can address this issue effectively, so that people can get the funding to provide the services that are so needed in our communities.
12:55 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Base funding for settlement services is about $588 million outside Quebec, and that hasn't changed. It's allocated based on a formula of where immigrants settle. For this fiscal year, for 2016-17, we're fortunate in that we have additional funds to apply to settlement and those are being distributed. There is an additional approximately $38 million related to Syria, which will help go a long way to alleviating some of what the member has spoken about. In addition to that, there were funds announced in budget 2016 for settlement with respect to increased levels overall and that too may be helpful in this situation.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj
Thank you, Ms. Tapley.
I'd like to thank the department officials for appearing before the committee today.
The committee will now be dealing with committee business and we'll be moving in camera. We'll allow a few minutes for everyone to depart.
[Proceedings continue in camera]