Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

Regarding temporary foreign workers and compliance and worker protection, a few measures have been put in place to respond to some of these abusive situations that have been brought to the government's attention. There's the temporary foreign worker program and the international mobility program. The temporary foreign worker program is led by Minister Qualtrough at Employment and Social Development Canada. We collaborate on that program. The international mobility program is one that IRCC leads. Employers who do not comply with the program requirements are subject to financial penalties or banned from hiring foreign nationals. In budget 2018, $194 million was provided to support the enforcement of and compliance with this regime.

Secondly, since June 2019 foreign workers who found themselves in an abusive situation could apply for an open work permit. They would no longer be tied to that employer. This allowed workers to find a new employment situation fairly quickly and leave that abusive situation. IRCC offers priority processing for that situation and does not charge any service fees. That has really enabled people to leave any situation like that.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

My next question is regarding visitor visas. A significant amount of my constituents complain that when they ask for a visitor visa for one of their relatives to come for a wedding or a birthday or a funeral, these visas sometimes seem to be randomly refused. The refusal letters are pro forma. There are no details in them. They just say, “We think you're not going to go back”, or “We don't think you have the financial means”. There's a lot of frustration regarding this issue. I think it's very important to address, maybe in these letters, the details of why requests are being refused. They fulfilled all the criteria. All the documents are there. But some other people do receive the visas. It looks very random.

Could you delve into that a little bit? What are the criteria for visitor visas? Why are these letters pro forma and not detailed? I think people have a right to know why they're refused.

Thank you.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

I'll very briefly describe the temporary resident and visitor visa process. When a person applies, they are supposed to submit all of the supporting documents. These include their ability to demonstrate that they are capable financially, that they have a valid reason to travel, and that they have solid roots to assure us that this will be a temporary visit and that this is their intent. We do take into consideration family events and other things. A visa officer determines both their eligibility, in terms of their having a valid reason to go, and their admissibility, in terms their having no serious criminality or any other piece there. Finally, an assessment is based on all of the information available and the risk parameters that have been developed. We determine whether the person will be able to get a visa or not.

When we are unable to give a visa, or when we are refusing to grant a visa, we try to be very explicit about the specific reasons. I would say, with great confidence, they include those parameters that do not go into extreme detail. For example, a visa refusal might indicate that the person's financial ability to support themself during the time they want to be in Canada is not clear to us. If documents are lacking, the visa officer cannot assess financial stability. At other times, we say there is no previous history of travel that gives us the confidence that.... For example, if the requested visa is tourism-related and the person wants to visit Canada for that reason, we ask if they have ever attempted to visit a country nearer their own.

So we take into consideration a multitude of things. Our visa officers take a lot of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up.

Ms. Normandin, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

My first question concerns the situation in Cuba. I'd like an update. For example, in my riding there have been situations where requests for interviews and medical examinations have had to be done outside the country. This requires, in some cases, that the person applying for sponsorship, among other things, must travel twice. It appears that paper visa applications are still not being processed in Cuba. Could we get an update on the situation there?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, let me start by saying that recently we have seen a situation developing in Cuba that prompted us and our partners at Global Affairs Canada not to have a footprint in Havana. There where some health-related issues that we had to react to for the safety and security of Canadians abroad. We moved our work to a location outside of Cuba, which is Mexico.

Let me mention this, Madam Chair. When dealing with situations where they have to leave their country for biometric testing, in case they are applying for permanent residency or anything else, we have tried to mitigate the risk of their having to travel twice, by converging the medical and the biometric trips into one, so that they don't have to go twice. That provides them with an opportunity so that they only travel once.

Obviously, we have another Cuba-specific issues that we are trying to address. We do not have a panel physician who can provide the immigration medical exam in Cuba. We are in the advanced stages of finalization of that panel physician. Once that is done, the people from Cuba will not need to travel abroad and will be able to get the services in Cuba.

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

With regard to my second question, I would like an update on the moratorium on deportations to Haiti. My understanding is that there has been a temporary moratorium since February 2019.

Are there discussions to make this a permanent moratorium? What is the status of the moratorium on deportations to Haiti?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

I'm sorry. I could not really hear that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Could you please repeat it?

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

My question was about the moratorium on deportations to Haiti. There is currently a temporary moratorium, and the decision on this was taken in February 2019. Where are IRCC and the Canada Border Services Agency, the CBSA, on this file? I believe they were working together on this. What are the things we can expect? What are the discussions concerning the moratorium on deportations to Haiti?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, this specific aspect is very much related to the role that CBSA plays, in terms of the moratorium, and our department has no specific information that we can share at this point.

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

I have a long preamble to this question.

It is common in sponsorship and other applications that the file is sent out and then returned because a signature is missing, without the officer checking for other missing documents. The file is returned and then it comes back again. Then it has to be started again, because, given the two or three months that have elapsed, new forms have to be used, as the old ones are no longer up to date.

Is there an internal willingness to address this issue at the source by, for example, instructing officers to check the entire file before returning it? Would it be possible to provide advance notice when new forms are being prepared, so that counsel can prepare and, in some cases, perhaps act more quickly to prevent the file from being returned due to a lack of up-to-date forms? I know that there is usually a period of about a month when a new form is sent out, but with all the delay factors, including mail processing, it is not uncommon for the file to take four to five months before it is finally complete for initial analysis.

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, in that context I must say that our department has started to look into more client-centric approaches. We have started to look at situations where there is some information missing. Instead of sending the file back for completion, we can get that information either by contacting the applicant by phone or by other means and then fulfilling those requirements in-house. That part of it is beginning as we ramp up in getting that information to our clients. Those are the things we are putting in place so we can assist the client.

In terms of any change in forms or any change in direction, we first put it on our website, so if the clients are able to check the website frequently, there's nothing that is not in sync with when we changed the forms. These are also available on the website. That help them to prepare their forms accordingly.

We generally have a very good way of reaching out to clients in case there is any missing information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up.

We will go to Ms. Kwan for six minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the officials.

I would like to follow up on that. In fact, I have two constituency cases right now where people sent in their applications for their work permits to be renewed two months well in advance of the expiry of their work permits. Then they even followed up with IRCC to make sure the latter received these and that everything was in order. They got the following response:

...all the required documents and information have been received by the responsible office for the moment. Rest assured that you will be informed as soon as a decision is reached or if additional information is needed.

The next thing they knew, their applications were sent back to them. One was told their application was missing a signature. Another was told that a wrong certificate had been sent in. By the time they received their application back, their work permit had expired and, therefore, they don't have implied status anymore.

This is an issue that was raised at this committee. We studied it in the last Parliament. Part of the request asked if IRCC could just phone people and tell them they're missing a signature on this form or they're missing or have the wrong form or certificate. That didn't happen.

In this instance, first, it needs to be rectified. Second, I have written to IRCC asking them to reconsider their processing with implied status because otherwise these people will lose their work, right? I don't think this is how we want to proceed.

I want to table this for the officials to look into this situation. I know you can't talk about specific cases, but I will follow up with you separately with the various consents required in the specific cases. I do want to flag for you that what you say is working is actually not working.

On a second question, I have a series of questions, if I may.

On the interim pathway for caregivers program, which started in October 2019, and two new pilots for caregivers, could you advise how many applications you have received under those three different streams, how many have been accepted, how many have been rejected, and for what reason? If you don't have those figures with you, I understand. They are detailed questions. If you can give those figures to the committee, that would be great.

Can I get a yes, you could give the information to the committee?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, we will get that information back to the committee.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

I would also like to ask a question about the groups of five refugee status requirements.

The group of five sponsorship category requires that refugee status be determined by the UNHCR. The UNHCR seeker certificate, otherwise known as UNHCR registration, is not good enough, but this is not a requirement for the SAH or BVOR cases. In fact, in 2017, when the group of five applications for sponsorship were initiated, this was also not a requirement from the government, but this has since changed.

For refugees in areas where the UNHCR presence is not available, it makes it impossible for people to sponsor groups of five in those communities. Why was there a change? That is my question. Can we go back to what it used to be in 2017 when that was not required?

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

Madam Chair, regarding the question of refugee status and the partnership arrangements with the UNHCR, some of that would probably be a good discussion to have with the minister when he attends, but some of the background on that requirement was that it is really to help inform processing that the refugee is recognized and validated as a refugee by the UNHCR. It's a tool to help inform the processing.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I understand that, but I do want to point out that this is not a requirement for other sponsorship programs, the SAH or the BVOR, and is a requirement only for a group of five. In 2017, with the Syrian refugee initiative, the government did not require this either, so I don't know why all of a sudden there is a change in this program. Frankly, it doesn't make any sense. The presentation began by talking about how generous Canadians are, and they are, and they continue to do the great work they started back in 2017, but this is hampering their work. So, yes, I will certainly raise this with the minister.

Do I still have time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have one minute.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I want to get back to the question about caregivers.

Is proof of funds required for people applying for permanent residence under the new pilots? If yes, what type of proof of funds is required?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Madam Chair, I'll start by saying that if you are applying at the very beginning for permanent residency, there are certain specific requirements, but they're not specific to the funding—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Sorry, I know I'm out of time on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up.

We will go to our second round of questioning and to Mr. Seeback for five minutes.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I'm going to pass that along.

Go ahead.