Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2020

[Catrina Tapley]

Part of the difficulty of COVID-19 with respect to the immigration business is that it's not just its impact on IRCC; it's also its impact on the immigration ecosystem. As you indicated, one of the biggest impacts has been on our visa application centres. These are centres that we contract with through a third party to help us and to assist us with visa processing.

At the worst of it, I think we were down to about 25% of them remaining open. It would depend on local conditions. I'm happy to say that I believe more than 75% of them are open now, some for only limited business. The biggest were the ones last week that reopened in India. Those are putting priority exclusively on students and families and to work through that caseload first.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Can I ask you to talk about the purpose of the principle of dual intent in our immigration system and how that factors into processing spousal visas?

I only have 45 seconds, so I'll let you use that up.

[Catrina Tapley]

Dual intent, which is in the immigration act, is that there would be a reasonable expectation of somebody who is coming here on a temporary basis to leave at the end of their stay. Although many permanent residents are in the country already, they have been temporary residents first. There is an expectation that if they're not successful to become a permanent resident, then they would leave at the end of their stay as a temporary worker. One of the issues with the spousal program, of course, is that if you come as a temporary resident, is there a reasonable expectation that you would leave at the end?

With apologies to the lawyers amongst us, that would be my quick highlight of section 179 of the act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Regan, your time is up.

Madame Normandin, you have six minutes for your round of questioning.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the senior officials for their responses to my other colleagues. They answered questions that I had as well. That's very much appreciated.

I want to follow up on the acknowledgements of receipt for permanent residence applications.

What's preventing them from being issued? Is it a matter of staffing or logistics? Is the system not designed for this?

I just want to know where the process is stalled.

[Catrina Tapley]

Thank you for the question.

There are a number of reasons for this. I'll ask Mr. Mills to join me in responding.

First, this is a new business line for us.

We haven't really had to deal with expired confirmation of permanent residence before, or certainly not to this level. Trying to figure out a good way to do that and a good way to communicate with clients has been challenging at times as we try to get better footing on this.

With respect particularly to Quebec skilled worker cases, I wonder if Mr. Mills might like to comment.

[Daniel Mills]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Normandin referred to the acknowledgements of receipt for the Quebec skilled workers class. This business line is located in Sydney, Nova Scotia. It's completely paper-based, which means that all documents are submitted in paper format. Because of the pandemic, our offices were closed. We were unable to have people on site to issue the acknowledgements of receipt.

However, I'm really pleased to say that, since the implementation of our workplace reintegration plan, we've staffed this business line with people who are actively working on the issue. In the past few weeks, we've processed over 7,500 applications for Quebec. Acknowledgements of receipt were sent to clients up until the end of November. We still have more to go. However, by mid-December, we hope to clear the backlog of acknowledgements of receipt for Quebec skilled workers.

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

Thank you. Your clarifications are greatly appreciated.

I have a general question. The minister said that applications for permanent residence in the sponsorship class are now being processed at a higher volume. There are 5,400 applications being processed every month. Hopefully, there will be 50,000 processed by the end of the year.

First, just so I know whether the goal is realistic, can you tell me how many applications have been processed so far?

I also want to know whether it was necessary to reassign staff from other business lines to family reunification or whether new staff were hired to help increase the pace.

[Daniel Mills]

Yes, this is indeed the case. Regarding family reunification, this year we approved just over 41,000 applications. As the minister said, our target is 49,000 applications. We're working hard on this. We had a significant increase in approvals in the fall, in September, October and November. We're confident that we'll achieve this goal in December.

I forgot the other question.

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

Who is processing the applications: new staff or people from other business lines?

[Daniel Mills]

We've reassigned staff from other business lines that had a slightly lower volume of work. We've also hired new staff. It's a mix of both.

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

My question is more for the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, but I'll make it a general question. In the rest of Canada, while people are waiting for permanent residence, they can obtain a bridging open work permit. However, they can't do so in Quebec. This would probably have been useful during the crisis. If people had had an open permit, they could have worked in other places. Could the bridging open work permit also be implemented in Quebec, even if it were to be defined by region or job category?

[Catrina Tapley]

Thank you for the question.

Depending on the circumstances, these permits may be open or closed,

what we have looked at and what we have done is that we have enabled people to change jobs and still hold on to that work permit where they have another job to go to, without coming back, without having to redo some of the paperwork.

There have been some accommodations made to that already and, depending on the category, the work permit will differ, particularly in the Quebec case around some who are here on TFWs.

Mr. Mills, do you want to add to that one as well?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry, Deputy Minister. The time is up. We will have to move to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you have six minutes for your round of questioning. You can please start.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

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

I just want to follow up quickly on the acknowledgement of receipt. Could the officials table for the committee the average time it takes to issue an acknowledgement of receipt after it reaches the processing centre, both pre- and post COVID?

[Catrina Tapley]

Thanks for the question.

It will depend on the type of business that we have. Where we have electronic applications, which we do on many of our temporary lines of business, acknowledgement of receipt can be issued very quickly. We're able to do that. Where our business is paper-based—and here's where we're really struggling—we find, not to put too fine a point on it, that the mail is actually stacking up.

When we had difficulty between the end of March and July, before we got people back into our offices in significant numbers.... What we have is a backlog of envelopes that needed to be opened. Until we can actually get the mail open and get those applications scanned, it's difficult to make that acknowledgement. I will acknowledge that this is not client service, and it's an area in the department where we really need to do better.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Perhaps we can get a response back from the officials to let committee members know what is being done to do better, because right now it is hugely problematic.

I'd like to move on to another area, then. The government's website on the Hong Kong special measures could easily be misinterpreted. Can the officials confirm that the government's definition of “extended family members” only applies to visitor visa applications and not to the family sponsorship stream for permanent residents?

[Catrina Tapley]

I just want to double-check that I'm right on this one. I believe your interpretation is correct. We will take hard look at that, and I'm also happy to get back to the committee on that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

If I can get confirmation, that would be really good, because I think it's misleading, and that is a disservice to the people who are hoping to access this stream, even though I know the government wants to make it sound like there's more being done. Either way, I would like to get confirmation. If you could submit that to the committee, that would be appreciated.

On the postgrad work permit issue, last week you indicated that those with expired post-graduate work permits would not be deported or lose status. In the case I mentioned to the minister just now, today, this expired postgrad work permit holder is a university teacher. As of yesterday, he is without status while he waits for his PR application, which is only waiting for an extension for his medicals. Is it illegal for him to work or will his employer have to let him go? When our office inquired about it with the IRCC agent, the agent actually told us that we should be telling this individual to leave the country.

[Catrina Tapley]

Madam Chair, the member has indicated that she has written to the minister on that. We would like to go and find her correspondence on that and check into this case.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay. I'll follow up as well with this situation, because it's hugely disturbing in this instance. The individual received instructions from IRCC, which were followed, and now his status is expired. He's absolutely in a state about this. Then, when we followed up with IRCC, they advised for us to tell the individual that he should leave the country.

With respect to the Quebec skilled workers, I have another situation of individuals whose applications have been listed at 100% completion since March 11. Last week, Mr. Mills indicated that applications in this stream that were in the final steps were mostly resolved in May and June. Is there still a backlog with these applications? I do have individuals who are still waiting.

[Catrina Tapley]

I know there are a number of applications under the Quebec skilled workers program that are waiting to be processed, but those whose applications were completed prior to March 18—I'll repeat what I've said before—should be eligible to travel to Canada, where that final determination has been made. If there are particular cases, Madam Chair, we are happy to look into them.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

All right. We'll follow up with that as well.

I guess my trouble with individual cases is that, more often than not, they are not just individual cases. I have one, two, three or whatever. You can bet that there will be more in the system, so there is something wrong with the system that's creating this problem. That's what I want to point out as well, but I will definitely follow up in this instance.

With respect to spousal sponsorship, does IRCC consider the beginning of the 12th month standard processing time to be when the application was submitted in March, or is it when it was entered into the system in September?

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Mills, do you want to take that one?

[Daniel Mills]

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

In terms of the processing time, we're talking about the time when the department receives the application, in other words, the date of receipt—