Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 17th, 2020

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Given the pandemic, the immigration levels would be impacted, so I look forward to that update.

The international community is very concerned about the Chinese government's national security law for the people of Hong Kong in that it would mean the end of the one country, two systems Sino-British agreement that was signed. Close to 900 international parliamentarians have signed a statement condemning this action, and the U.K. government has launched a plan for 2.9 million British national overseas passport holders to move from Hong Kong to the U.K. with a work visa.

Working with the international community, would the minister consider bringing forward a special immigration measure for the people of Hong Kong, including possibly working with the U.K. government to accept asylum seekers from Hong Kong?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Certainly, as I've said, we are profoundly concerned with the situation in Hong Kong and anything that would detract from the one country, two systems principle, which Canada supports.

As far as initiatives are concerned, as I've said, for Canadians there is a right of return subject to health screenings, and for other foreign nationals there are many pathways.

I am aware of this example that you raise today in the United Kingdom. I'm not aware of what the details are, but all I will say is that there are various pathways that do exist for those who wish to relocate to Canada, either on a temporary or a permanent basis, which they can avail themselves of.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Is there any consideration for special measures, new measures, either in the immigration stream or in the asylum stream for the people of Hong Kong?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Just a quick yes or no.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

If you would like to give a brief—

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Ms. Kwan, we're monitoring the situation very closely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Minister. Thank you to all the committee members.

With this, the first hour of the meeting comes to an end.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing before the committee. I'm sorry for those technological issues, but it was good to have you here in person. Of course, members must have liked this option of your coming in, so I really thank you on behalf of all the members for appearing before the committee today.

With that, I will suspend the committee meeting for a few minutes to allow the minister to leave and allow MP Barrett to take his seat. It will take a few minutes while we sanitize the desk and start.

The officials will be here for the second hour. Once we have allowed the minister to leave and the MPs to come back, we will get to the second hour of the meeting.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I will call the meeting back to order for the second hour.

We have four officials: Catrina Tapley, deputy minister from IRCC; Marian Campbell Jarvis, assistant deputy minister; and Daniel Mills, assistant deputy minister. It appears that Mr. Mills is having some issues, so we will see when he joins us. The last witness is Hughes St-Pierre, also assistant deputy minister.

I welcome all of you. Thank you for coming before the committee.

Ms. Martinez Ferrada, you have a question.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

I just want to make a brief comment.

I want us to include in the record of our meeting an official thank you to Mr. Barrett for generously giving his seat to the minister earlier.

I want this included in the minutes of the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Martinez Ferrada.

Yes, I indicated that when we started the meeting with the minister. We thank Mr. Barrett for voluntarily agreeing to allow the minister to take his seat. We now have MP Michael Barrett back with us.

Mr. Kent, you have a question.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Yes, I'll be leading this round, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

With this, we will go into the round of questioning, beginning with Mr. Kent for six minutes.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Deputy Minister and the officials who are with you this afternoon.

Deputy, now that the COVID-19 crisis and the lockdown are easing, more in some parts of the country than in others, I wonder if you can tell us what percentage of IRCC employees are now back at work, or effectively working from home.

[Catrina Tapley, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Currently about 71% or 72% of our employees are working either from home or in the workplace. The number working in the workplace is quite small, only about 2% or 3% of our employees.

We are now beginning the process of bringing people back into the work site and, as you can imagine, there are some challenges with that. It will be a while before we are all back at the work site, but we have identified priorities and we're bringing people back into those sites safely.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Certainly, you appreciate and I'm sure you're hearing, as are most members of Parliament, from constituents, those in Canada and those beyond, that there is great interest in when, for example, the family reunification and spousal process will pick up, as we discussed in the last hour. As well, there are questions about when Passport Canada will be fully functional.

[Catrina Tapley]

Both of those are excellent questions.

I will go first to the question on family reunification. We are working to identify a good path.

We're continuing to process applications in the meantime. The only applications that we put a pause on are temporary resident visas, and the rest of the applications we continue to process. Those that are paper based have been more difficult to get to than those that are electronic. As the minister has indicated, if we ever needed additional oomph behind our need to move more fully to digitization, this has certainly been it.

To answer your second question about passports, we're working closely with our colleagues at Service Canada to try to get this back up and running as quickly as we can.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you.

This has been a time of massive government spending, some of which is essential and much of which we, in the official opposition, have supported while encouraging expansion in some areas along with adjustment in others. At the same time, some spending, until we return to fully responsible government and accountability with standing committees and the normal debates of Parliament....

All of this notwithstanding, last week we learned of a potentially massive new set of expenses for the department in a request for proposals to be tendered, which was in an annex in the procurement section of Public Works Canada entitled “Digital Services—Urgent for COVID-19”. This document references a new normal, with the department anticipating a surge in applications and tremendous demand after the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. That suggests the department might feel that it will be overwhelmed when this COVID crisis is past, and it calls for proposals to completely overhaul and digitally update the way the department processes all of these applications and does all of its work in Canada and abroad.

Can you give any sort of ballpark estimate of what sort of spending is going to be involved in this proposal, in these projects?

[Catrina Tapley]

Madam Chair, I think people may have been a little carried away with their words as part of that proposal.

We anticipate an increase in applications once the crisis has abated and once we return to whatever the next normal might look like. Applications have been down during this period, and as I indicated, some were not processing, like temporary resident visas. That our IT system needs work is no secret. The global case management system has served us well, but it is reaching the end of its useful life. Investing in the system and in the means to make applications more efficient and provide better client service has been ongoing for quite a while. We have some resources we were able to dedicate to this already. We always hope for more when it comes to revamping our IT system, but we are using resources that have already been identified.

Mr. St-Pierre, do you want to add anything to that?

[Hughes St-Pierre]

No, that's a pretty complete answer, Deputy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 30 seconds.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

The department had been planning to welcome 341,000 new permanent residents in 2020. What are your estimates today of the number of new permanent residents who will be accepted?

[Catrina Tapley]

As the minister indicated, we'll have a better update in the fall. I think it's safe to say it's doubtful we are going to meet 341,000. It's difficult to say what an estimate might be, given so many uncertainties on travel plans, so many uncertainties in other countries that affect people's ability to complete their application.

I want to be clear that we have continued to process applications, and we are continuing to land individuals during this period.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. The time is up.

We will move to Ms. Lalonde for six minutes.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First, on behalf of all of us, thank you for all the work that has been done in the past few weeks. I represent the wonderful community of Orléans, so to all our public servants who are doing extraordinary work and whom we are celebrating this week, I say thank you.

Thank you. It's really a pleasure working with you every day. You certainly have many challenges to overcome.

I was able to ask the minister about the Canada-U.S. border, but I couldn't ask my follow-up. As we have moved forward in the extension of the border restrictions, we've also brought in exemptions and changes that have been made to accommodate our government's adherence for family reunification. Certainly in Orléans it has been very well received. Maybe you could talk to us a little about this perspective.

Thank you.