Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you to the panel for coming in today.

I have a question in regard to spousal sponsorships. Previously there was a program in place where there was a two-year probation period for sponsored spouses and partners. That program was repealed by the current government. I just want to know from you guys why that probation period was put in place.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, the probation at times was a way of getting a sign of confidence—I wouldn't want to use the term “guarantee”—in the sponsor's ability to support the newcomer in the Canadian fold. That was originally the intent, but the spousal program has undergone many changes, and there is an upfront requirement that allows us to assess the applications differently now.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you.

The reason I'm asking is that I've had a really large number of constituents approach my office on these types alleged marriage frauds, I guess you could call them, that coincide with the probation period. Do we have any type of information or investigation numbers since the probation period was repealed? Have they gone up or is there any impact at all in regard to alleged marriage frauds?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, we pay a lot of attention to marriages of convenience. That is the term we use in our lingo for marriage fraud. Let me just mention this. Concerning the risk factors or any specific risk parameters that will point towards a possible marriage fraud or marriage of convenience, our local officers abroad as well as over here use that particular risk lens to have an in-person interview to assess that, and they also assess further documentary proof. This allows them to make a robust decision.

We generally see a certain percentage of marriages of convenience that we obviously refuse. I don't have the data handy as such, but I have not seen in previous iterations with my colleagues and visa officers an increase in marriages of convenience as such.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

I'd love to get the data on that, please, if that's possible.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Okay.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

My second question is regarding people with disability. I've had some cases come into my office where a person with a disability gets married abroad. When they want to sponsor their spouse, it seems like this is automatically put into an appeal process, and in some of the lines of questioning, it seems that a level of dignity isn't kept for those people with disabilities.

I want to see if we can get some numbers on the cases that are applied for and how many go straight into appeal or get denied immediately. Can you comment on that, please?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

The department doesn't keep records, as such, for the category of those with disabilities who have applied to sponsor someone. I can assure the member that proper attention is paid to all of the other parameters. This is not something we are looking at, in any way, shape or form, to penalize anyone or to have any of those conversations based on how or whether their disability would be a disadvantage for any of the processes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 20 seconds.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will go to Mr. Regan for five minutes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for being here this morning. My constituency office does quite a bit of immigration work. It doesn't compare, perhaps, with a downtown Toronto or downtown Vancouver riding, but I think it does as much as or perhaps more than any other constituency office in Atlantic Canada just because of the diversity of the riding of Halifax West. One thing that my assistant who does most of this work for me says is that she's seen a slowing in the number of applications under the Atlantic immigration pilot and the express entry program over the past year or so. The process seems to have slowed down. It seems to her, at least, that the six-month targets are often not being met, and sometimes they're as much as 18 months.

Can you tell me about what's happening there? What would cause that kind of fluctuation?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

I'll start first with the Atlantic immigration pilot. The Atlantic immigration pilot is certainly a successful pilot, which is managing the timelines grosso modo between the six-month time frame. We also see a lot of things that come through in terms of express entry, international experience and federal skilled worker. Most of our targets with regard to the service centre—80% in six months, for example—we are pretty close to meeting, but to be truthful, we are missing a couple of points. For example, we would do around 78% last year instead of 80%. There is a multitude of factors here. It includes the ability for the department to make those assessments when the documentary proof is lacking or there is more information needed.

We strive to stay within the time periods promised. We have made efforts to actually reduce that gap. We want higher than 80%, closer to 90%, of the applications processed in six months' time. That's what we are striving for.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I don't know, Madam Chair, if we'll ever have an opportunity as a committee to visit one of the processing centres. I haven't done that before. Having dealt with immigration cases for many years, I've often envisaged a processing officer sitting at their desk with a pile of files up to the ceiling. But I don't think it works like that.

I'm curious to know how many applications for immigration and for citizenship you receive in a year. How many officers do you have assessing them? What are the numbers like?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

I'll give you the quantum, as such. This year there were 341,000 landings for permanent residence. We had to process almost 412,000 applications. Obviously, landing means the number of people who actually landed in Canada and are physically in Canada. To do that, we produced the visas. So 412,000 applications were assessed. My workforce includes in the magnitude of roughly 1,200 to 1,300 people abroad. In Canada we have around 2,900 folks who are doing various aspects of processing.

I do want to bring attention back to how this is a complex process where we also depend a lot on our partners, such as the RCMP, CSIS and CBSA, for providing those admissibility decisions. There are certain aspects that are beyond our control, and those do sometimes have an impact on our processing times.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

The other area in which we notice a slowdown is in relation to applications for citizenship in cases where a residency questionnaire has been sent out. The department has some questions about the resident—i.e., whether they have been in Canada for the required time on a continuous basis or to the degree required. That seems to have slowed down since last year, let's say, for applications that began in 2018. Are you aware of that? Is that something you are seeing? One riding office isn't telling us about the whole country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 30 seconds.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Okay.

The answer to that is twofold. One is that with Bill C-6, we have a double cohort of citizenship applications. Secondly, in terms of residency requirements, we have prepared a little card that allows people to self-assess and do that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry to interrupt. Time is up. Maybe you'll get another opportunity.

Mr. Chiu, you have five minutes.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for coming and explaining to us how our immigration system works. I have a list of questions that I need to ask you guys.

You gave a 30-minute overview of how our immigration system works. In an ideal situation in terms of current operations, I would say great job and everything seems to be running very smoothly—if we knew that were the case. We know there are problems. We have a problem with irregular—or illegal, I would say—border crossers. The provinces and municipalities are shouldering an unfair portion of the expenses in enforcing the law. We have unrealistic backlog and processing times for family reunification and visitor visas. Employers are requiring more labourers and skilled labourers, and they can't get enough. We have a failed family reunification system, with a backlog. There are also cases of visitors breaking their visa conditions. Related to visitors, particularly in my riding of Steveston—Richmond East in Richmond, B.C., we have an epidemic of birth tourism. Visitors are coming and giving birth with the explicit intention of seeking Canadian citizenship for their newborns.

These are the problems that we can see on the ground. What problems are you dealing with in terms of priorities? I'd like to know if you have any solutions for these problems that we see and perhaps others.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

I'll try to answer in a couple of ways. In terms of our backlogs and our processing times, I do want to assure you that we've been constantly reducing the backlogs based on controlled intake and our processing ability to do that.

On family reunification, we have stood by the words that we will try to be in the frame of a 12-month processing time. We are very close to that 12 months, at 80% of that. Actually, the departmental results framework will tell you that we are at almost 78% as of 2019.

We do have a constant kind of assessment done on our irregular migration, for which, obviously, we are not shifting any of our resources. That is with the Immigration and Refugee Board, which is where the assessment is done. That does not take away our capacity to process the regular visitors or the permanent residents.

I am also very cognizant of the fact that given the need for bringing highly skilled people into Canada, we have flagship programs like global skills strategy and others in which we can bring innovative folks. They are actually working well.

On the birth tourism aspect you raised, I'll pass that on to my colleague.

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

Thank you.

You set out very well a number of the challenges and opportunities facing the immigration system. There are labour market shortages. In some categories, more people want to come to Canada than we have space or settlement capacity for. You noted the challenges that provinces and municipalities face.

I think when the minister comes before the committee and shares with you his mandate priorities and his mandate commitments, that will set up the committee for a really good discussion on some of those trends and challenges that we see.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

As a follow-up question, I wonder if the department has sufficient resources to do its job and to do it properly. This is a question that I've been asked by my constituents frequently. Just so that I can give you my questions and response all in one, I have—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 10 seconds.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

My request is... Thank you for the service you have provided to MPs like me to help our constituents, but we need you to consider urgent humanitarian requests. Sometimes dying parents want to see their children, and in the last minute, we need to have humanitarian urgent visas granted. Sometimes it's very difficult.