Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 24th, 2017

[Dr. Arshad Saeed]

Ultimately, the visa officers have the discretion of making that decision. They do consider the medical officer's opinion seriously and look at that. They will often discuss it with us before making a decision if they are going to go against our recommendation.

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

Are there any cases that are overturned by the visa officer against the medical officer?

[Dr. Arshad Saeed]

Yes, they have the discretion to overturn that decision. As was said earlier, they can grant on a humanitarian and compassionate basis.

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

Somebody came to my office four weeks ago. I didn't even know about this thing we are discussing today. There was a medical issue, but they were not....

I don't want to tell you what country this guy is from, but his son has a number of issues. He understands the taxpayer costs and all those things. He was okay with that. I was surprised that this person was okay with this policy.

In any one of your personal opinions, does today's system work overall for the people? In your opinion, or in any of your opinions, is today's system working fine, or does the system need to be upgraded?

Any of you can respond.

[Dawn Edlund]

Well, we work with the legislative provisions we have and we apply the legislative provisions that we have. If the government chooses to go in a different direction and we have different legislative or regulatory provisions, we'll apply those. A matter of personal opinion isn't relevant.

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

It doesn't count. Okay, got it.

My next question is for Mr. Saeed.

When an individual applies to the system to come to the country, when is the time that somebody gets flagged and they say this person is not admissible? Who is the first person to flag that person and send it to your panel, or any of the panels?

[Dr. Arshad Saeed]

The medical is done, as we said earlier, by the panel physicians, which are designated by IRCC, but they're not IRCC positions. Once the medical is done, it is sent to one of the four regional medical offices that we have in Ottawa, New Delhi, Manila, and London. It's reviewed by the medical officers at that regional medical office, or RMO.

With most of the medicals, if they don't have a serious or significant problem, they are passed. Only the complicated cases are then sent to the specialized unit in Ottawa, which is called the centralized medical admissibility unit. We look at the file again and then make our recommendation to the visa officer. That is step one.

Then the applicant is given an opportunity to provide that mitigation plan through procedural fairness. Once that information is received by the visa officer, they send it back to us. We provide the second opinion, and the final decision is made by the visa officer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Kwan, for seven minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Oh, wow. Okay, great. Cool.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

It's not even your birthday. You should see what you get when it's your birthday here.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm liking it more and more.

I would like to ask the officials to please confirm if the government uses Sykes Enterprises, a company based in Tampa, Florida, to determine the $356 on social spending in determining excessive demand.

Is that correct?

[Dawn Edlund]

There was some media coverage that talked about that company recently, and there was a bit of confusion. We have a subscription to a magazine, or whatever it is they produce, and we look at that from time to time because they give us information about home care costs. To my knowledge, that information has never been part of our baselining of the social services costs, that $356 that I referred to earlier.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I asked earlier how the $356 was determined so we can get a full set of information on that.

I'm going to ask another question then, which is equally important. How do we calculate the amount that the average Canadian spends in terms of social spending for people with disabilities?

Recently there was information provided to Global News by the Conference Board of Canada based on provincial public accounts. It suggests that the government does not take into account nearly $27 billion in annual social spending by the provinces when assessing the limits for excessive demand. That number could be as high as $40 billion if Canada's social transfer is included, or roughly $1,105 a year per Canadian. That would mean that the $6,655 limit for excessive demand set by the government could be at least $7,404 if all social service spending in Canada is accurately accounted for.

I'd like to get the information from the government on how the government calculates the average Canadian's cost for those with disabilities, so we can then have assurances that the government's calculation of the average Canadian's cost is a complete set of accurate numbers.

[Michael MacKinnon]

Thank you for that question, because it gives a good opportunity to clarify this misrepresentation that's out there, which was reported by Global News.

As I said earlier, in our determination of excessive demand, we consider only a narrow basket of social services, and so things like social assistance, social housing, and the majority of provincial expenditures on social services, because they're not directly related to a medical diagnosis, are not calculated into the threshold, because they're not grounds for medical inadmissibility. It's solely—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Sorry, but I'm going to interrupt there for a minute.

I wonder if you can provide the committee the information on how you calculate the average cost for a Canadian with a disability and where you get that information. If you can break that down for us, province by province, territory by territory, and how you calculate that, it would be appreciated.

[Michael MacKinnon]

What we can provide is the baselining for the basket of social services that we do assess. That is not a cost based on disability but is the total expenditure on those social services that are assessed as part of excessive demand, which is then divided by the Canadian population.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

In that information, do you take into account, for example, provinces with special departments that provide for additional costs for people with disabilities?

[Michael MacKinnon]

We calculated the total costs as a baseline a number of years ago, in 2004, and we have been adjusting for inflation since that time.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

These figures have been used since 2004, and then you adjusted for inflation. If we can get the information, the full details on how you calculate both sets of numbers and where you get those numbers from, that would be appreciated.

Also, could you provide the committee with a complete list of medical diagnoses used to deny applicants? We're looking for the number of applicants denied in the last 10 years so that we can get a sense of what that looks like for each of the categories.

When I say each of the categories, I mean live-in caregivers, the economic class, and so on. Then for those numbers, can we get the reasons they were denied? I'm not asking for information for particular cases, but for a group, so that there's no breach of confidentiality.

[Dawn Edlund]

Mr. Chair, a written question was provided to the department, I think on October 17, that covers very much the same territory, and we're working away at producing those numbers and that analysis as requested in the written question.

I think what you've said, Ms. Kwan, mirrors what was in your written question. We will be providing that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'm just wondering if the officials can give us a timeline on when we can expect to receive this information we're seeking, for the purposes of the work of this committee.

[Dawn Edlund]

There's a long list of things we've said we will provide to the committee, so we're going to have a lot of people working really hard on that in the coming weeks. I hesitate to say to you, “Oh, that will be two weeks”, because I'm just not sure how much analytical work it's going to take to produce some of the numbers that have been asked for, but we will provide them as swiftly as we can.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Dr. Saeed, to your knowledge, has anybody's application been denied based on excessive demand associated with a disability of deafness or blindness?

[Dr. Arshad Saeed]

Yes. If deafness or blindness will lead to a requirement for special services, social services for the child or for the individual, then they can potentially be denied.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I would be very interested in looking at the information being provided on the reasons people have been denied.

For those who were denied, do you also collect this data on the basis of how much they exceeded the figure the government uses for excessive demand? Do you have that information, and if so, can you provide that to us?