Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Okay.

With regard to the increasing backlog of asylum claims, the divergence since about April last year shows that processing is dropping rather significantly and sharply, while the number of asylum claimants is actually increasing at a steady pace. It would seem that the only way to reduce this huge backlog—over 80,000 in the fall of 2019—would be to increase processing and processing times. Is that something that the department is attempting to correct?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, as I mentioned earlier, the processing of those asylum claimants rests with the Immigration and Refugee Board. We don't, as such, do the processing.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

The responsibility is entirely beyond the department?

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

Madam Chair, the department works with the IRB and CBSA from a policy perspective and for guidance on the programs, but the actual processing is done by the IRB.

I would note that there are many efforts to control volumes before asylum claimants enter the country. Some of those measures were set out in last year's budget, as well as some funding. There is always a very tricky balance between when volumes go up and processing, but a number of measures were taken by the IRB to improve their processing efficiency.

I can speak to one that was set out in the last budget. It was actually a pilot undertaken by CBSA and IRCC called the integrated claims assessment centre. The IRCC and CBSA are working together to put together case-ready files when the claims are made and to do some streamlining, so when the cases are provided to the IRB, they are ready to go. That's an example of efficiency that the department, with CBSA, has undertaken, funded by last year's budget.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Do you want to answer?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

You brought up the CBSA, and the fact is that order paper questions have revealed that the actual rate of removal of unworthy claimants or refused claimants is a tiny fraction of the number of removals ordered. These claimants seem either to have overworked the appeal system or have disappeared into society.

I'm just wondering if the department tracks those refugee claimants so that they know, when a removal order is issued, where those people are, which would support CBSA, because CBSA is apparently challenged in trying to execute those removal orders.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up, Mr. Kent.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Perhaps the minister and deputy minister could arrive with those answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will go on to Mr. Maloney for five minutes.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'm not a member of this committee, so this has been very informative to me.

People who are involved in the immigration process have a big challenge on their hands navigating the system, and they come to us, and we have a challenge as well trying to help them navigate the process, so learning some of this information is quite valuable.

I have a few questions.

I just texted my office while we were sitting here and asked what the burning questions are. The answer I got wasn't surprising; it was processing times and communication. People typically contact my office when they're well into the process and are close to the time when they've been told they should be receiving a response or are just past it. I think I heard you say that you are about satisfying the processing times in about 80% of cases.

How do you get to 100%, and who sets these time frames anyway? If you submit an application for permanent residency or anything else, you're told that the expected time will be a certain number of months or whatnot. Who sets those times, and how do we bring those down?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, it is a Treasury Board guideline in which there's a consultation that happens, and the department sets those specific standards in consultation with the provinces, territories and other partners. That is published on our website.

We strive to achieve those service standards in our processing world. As I mentioned earlier, there are certain dependencies and reliance on certain things, but I fully take the point on board that we need to understand more of a client's behaviour by communicating with them at appropriate times so that they do not get anxious during the processing time, because at times we will get right up to the very end of the expected time frame of processing—and we will get there, but in-between that, the anxiety rises.

We are working toward making sure that we understand client behaviour and that we communicate accordingly with them.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

A big part of what we do is to try to calm people down, because they apply, and online it says it will take 18 months. They get to 17 and a half or 18 and a half months, and they call my office and say, “I'm not getting a response; they won't tell me what's going on”. Communication would probably make things a little bit easier.

For my next question, I want to go back to this visa letter application process. A number of times I've had people contact me and tell me that their cousin, sister or aunt got turned down, and they send over the form letter, and the box “not enough evidence you are going to return home” is ticked, or whatever the case may be. The problem happens when they reapply. I've had cases where they reapply two, three or four times, and they try to address the issue that's been raised in that letter, and then they get the same letter back with the same box ticked, which is no help at all. It doesn't help them perfect the application or improve it to satisfy whatever it is that's been deemed to be deficient.

Is there any way—I don't know if you have to change the system or if you have to empower the people who are signing those letters and ticking those boxes—to particularize the deemed inadequacies of the application so that, when people reapply a second, third fourth time.... I had one case where it was seven times. I had cases where I've made a call and tried to get some information on what the perceived deficiency was. I go back and try to help the applicant with it, and then a number of weeks later they get the same letter back. It's really frustrating.

There has to be some... Again, maybe it comes down to communication.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, with visa processing we are trying to be a little more granular on the specifics of what the situations are that pertain to a specific case, instead of the regular five or six conditions, and get it be a little bit more descriptive about. We are working towards that.

In essence, we do believe that if there is a change in somebody's situation—whether they were unable to provide us with documents or their situation has changed—that prompts them to reapply, we'll certainly look at it, but not the same visa officer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up. Sorry for interrupting, but we have a tight schedule.

We will go to Ms. Normandin for two and a half minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

I'm going to give Ms. Jarvis the opportunity to answer my last question, which I'll rephrase.

Among the criteria for obtaining citizenship is knowledge of spoken French, both in terms of expression and comprehension. The problem is that, with the new requirements, it often happens that a person whose mother tongue is French but who is illiterate does not pass the tests, whereas a person who can read and write but has a level 4 knowledge of French passes.

What measures do you think can be put in place to alleviate this problem?

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

I apologize, Madam Chair. I don't actually have the answer to that question.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I'm sorry.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

My next question is about the telephone line for MPs who want information on citizens' committees. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for a team to talk to file processing officers. People are usually redirected to information officers, and people get different answers depending on whom they speak to. Are you aware of this situation?

Would it be possible to ensure that the dedicated lines for MPs direct us to file processing officers rather than to clerks when we need specific information?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, as to our ability to provide MPs and senators with more of a concierge service, we do have a client support centre with a dedicated phone line that caters to specific questions by MPs. We have put in resources to cater exclusively to those specific comments. We are trying very hard to make sure that if there are any specific questions, we actually get the information from the case analysts to you, through that same channel. It allows us to maintain the integrity of the system by making sure there is a comprehensive analysis done of the case, and then providing you with the information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up.

We will go now to Ms. Kwan for the last round of questioning. You have two and a half minutes, Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

Can I just get a quick confirmation from officials in response to my last question that they will provide information to the clerk?

Yes? Thank you.

On a separate topic, with respect to privately sponsored refugee applications, under all of the different streams could the officials endeavour to get the information on how many are in the backlog under each stream and the average processing time for each stream?

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

Just to confirm, are those CSs and G5s, Madam Chair?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Correct, I mean all of the different privately sponsored refugee streams.

Okay, that's a yes. That's information we can obtain.

On visitor visa rejections, could we get the information on the rejections by country of origin? Could it be broken down to the categories of the boxes that were ticked, such as lack of travel history, financial reasons, or whatever the boxes are in those typical letters that get sent? Could we get that information for the last 10 years for a comparison, so that we can see what's going on? I think this is of interest to every MP.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

I can assure you that we can get the visa application and refusal statistics. We don't, as such, do any data mining on what caused the condition. That is a huge database. We don't really get that information on that basis.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

But you can break it down by country of origin.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Yes, we can do that.