Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 7th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Good afternoon, everyone.

I call meeting number 11 of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to order.

Before we proceed, I have the following health and safety reminder for everyone. I remind all attendees in the room to physically distance yourselves from others by at least two metres and to wear a mask unless you are seated and more than two metres from anyone else.

This is a hybrid meeting. Some members are appearing in person in the parliamentary precinct, and the others are appearing remotely.

Please speak at slow enough pace for interpretation to keep up. The clerk will be tracking raised hands and keeping a list for the chair. All questions shall be decided by a recorded vote, except for those decided unanimously or on division, based on the order adopted by the House of Commons on September 23. The meeting is being webcast and is available on ParlVu.

We now have our first panel of witnesses today on the impact of COVID-19 on the immigration system. In the second panel, we will have the IRCC officials.

In our first panel, we have Usman Mahmood, barrister and solicitor, appearing as an individual; the Saint Mary's University Students' Association, represented by the president, Bryn de Chastelain; and the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia, represented by the chief executive officer, Jennifer Watts.

On behalf of all members, I welcome the witnesses to today's important meeting as we end our hearings on our study of the impact of COVID-19 on the immigration system.

All of the witnesses will have five minutes for their opening remarks, and then we will go into the round of questioning. We will start with Mr. Usman Mahmood.

Mr. Mahmood, you can please start. You will have five minutes for your opening remarks. Thank you.

[Usman Mahmood, Barrister and Solicitor, As an Individual]

Good afternoon. My name is Usman Mahmood. I'm a practising lawyer with CKM Law in Calgary, Alberta. I would like to begin by thanking you for having me this afternoon, as it is an honour to be speaking to you all today.

The focus of my practice is mainly immigration litigation, including but not limited to refugee claims by victims of religious and political persecution, most importantly, the Ahmadis, Shias and Christians in Pakistan, for which the Canadian government must hold such countries accountable.

I am speaking regarding the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, October 20. The first point was about the application backlogs. In my opinion, the application backlogs have increased significantly with the COVID closures. The case processing centres in Canada and the visa offices abroad remained closed for more than three months.

With spousal sponsorship applications, applicants are expected to provide original police clearance certificates, for example, and other original documents. However, this expectation is unrealistic at this time due to the closures and how access has been affected globally.

Processing times for temporary resident visas are presently showing a wait of about 230 days. This is exceptionally long. I am personally affected by this in that I had recently invited my mother, a resident of the U.K. with a Pakistani passport, who is her sixties, to visit me, as I am not able to leave my work to visit my aging parents. This isolation has been impacting their mental well-being.

Obviously the solution for such problems would be maybe be creating a triage system for visitors visas where the applications could be accepted on a per stage basis, case by case. If it's not something they can process, it should be rejected straight off the bat. Reopen the visa application centres globally, but obviously with health and safety in mind. Implement by-appointment-only visitors. Any interviews regarding spousal applications can be held by virtual means—by MS Teams or Zoom—and all of these different facilities can be taken into account. Implement online submission of document packages for spousal sponsorship by e-post, for example. We have to move away from paper-based applications. It's taking too long, and I'm sure it costs the government a lot of money as well.

The second part was about the lottery system and its introduction for parents' and grandparents' visas. In this lottery system, you must wait months, literally—at the moment, six months—to see if you have been picked to sponsor your parents. This is without having submitted any financial information, but only acknowledging that you are a citizen or a resident of Canada and what country your parents are residing in. There is no clarification as to what the criteria are for selection, so we are unclear about this. The minimum necessary income was reduced to match the low-income cut-off. However, if the situation remains the same around the world, this should continue for the next year, and possibly the year after that, in light of the number of job losses due to the pandemic.

A possible reply to this program is to maybe go back to the initial application process and have everyone submit their packages as they once did in 2014 and 2015. I suggest that IRCC implement more efficient and effective ways to process them. A solution may be to eliminate the lottery system and revert back to the old system. A second could be to give unsuccessful candidates not selected in the year's cut-off a queue for the next year's submissions. If someone is unsuccessful, then just refuse them straight off the bat, as opposed to making them wait for years and years. Keep the low-income cut-off income amounts in place for at least two more years, as I suggested earlier, to recover from the current economic situation.

The last point is about the temporary resident visa processing delays. The temporary resident visa, TRV, processing application centres must reopen fully, and biometric collection must resume for temporary resident visa applications, including for students and foreign workers.

The most common issue currently faced by students is the fact their acceptance letters can only be issued a certain amount of time before their entry into Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Mahmood, I am sorry for interrupting, but your time is up.

We will now move to our second witness, Mr. Bryn de Chastelain, the president of Saint Mary's University Student Association.

Mr. de Chastelain, the floor is yours. You have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Bryn de Chastelain, President, Saint Mary's University Student Association]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, esteemed committee members and fellow witnesses. I would like to begin my statement today by acknowledging that I speak to you from Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq people.

My name is Bryn de Chastelain. I'm the president of the Saint Mary's University Student Association and a fourth-year student pursuing a bachelor of arts degree with a double major in political science and economics.

This year I'm also the chair of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that represents over 275,000 students at colleges, polytechnics and universities from coast to coast to coast. Through a formal partnership with the Union étudiante du Québec, CASA is a truly national student voice.

I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak today on this particularly important issue, the impact of COVID-19 on international students studying in Canada. As a representative of 1,700 international students at Saint Mary's University and more than 700,000 international students studying across Canada, it is clear to me that they have been overlooked during this unprecedented crisis. International students are a critical part of the post-secondary community in Canada, as well as significant contributors to their regional economies. The international student community in Canada has grown considerably over the past 20 years, outstripping domestic enrolment and bringing much-needed diversity to post-secondary campuses across the country.

As of 2018, there were 721,000 international students studying in Canada, supporting nearly 170,000 jobs and contributing $21.6 billion to the national GDP. This is in part due to the fantastic quality of education offered by Canadian post-secondary institutions—like my school, Saint Mary's—but also due to Canada's reputation as a safe and tolerant country with accessible pathways to permanent residency.

According to a 2018 survey conducted by the Canadian Bureau for International Education, 60% of international students said they plan to remain and work in Canada once they graduate. Seeing this, international students have been heavily recruited and governments across the country are increasingly keen on prioritizing international student retention as a key pillar of future economic growth. That being said, while governments across the country recognize the importance of international students, they have been reluctant to provide support to those stranded in Canada as well as to those struggling to cope abroad. Despite their higher tuition fees and study permit work restrictions, international students were shut out of pandemic aid programs for students, such as the Canada emergency student benefit, and the expanded Canada summer jobs program.

Furthermore, international students with valid or approved study permits abroad were left without proper support and communication from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Many were forced to continue attending virtual classes in the middle of the night to ensure that they remained eligible for a post-graduate work permit in Canada. International students needed and still need support, but governments across the country have let them down while hoping that they stay and work after graduation. These problems were exacerbated in Atlantic Canada by the demographic realities underscoring the need for skilled immigration, as well as the over-reliance of many local post-secondary institutions on international student tuition fees.

For example, international students make up over 30% of full-time post-secondary students in Nova Scotia, but almost 11% chose not to return this year due to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those who remained enrolled were consumed by anxiety and uncertainty as they waited months for clarity on things like post-graduate work permits, non-discretionary travel restrictions and institutional COVID-19 readiness plans.

More recently, students returning to Canada under a designated learning institution's COVID-19 readiness plan have been misinformed and relegated to substandard housing where they are forced to quarantine for 14 days. I'm thinking specifically about what has been happening around Cape Breton University in Sydney, Nova Scotia. International students attending CBU have been slowly returning to the community and are being faced with an inadequate housing supply at a time when they are also being forced to stay inside and quarantine. Similarly, students returning to institutions in Halifax are having to pay up to $2,000 out of pocket to quarantine in university-overseen accommodations, in addition to their rent for housing that they are unable to use.

These situations are tragic and have led many international students to believe their well-being is not a priority for the government. Given this lack of support, it's possible that some international students may choose to return home or attend post-secondary in another country rather than commit to Canada as their new home.

Moving forward, it's important for the federal government to support international students. From opening up the Canada summer jobs program to allowing international students to participate in an internship or co-op under their existing study permit, there are countless opportunities for the federal government to show international students they truly care.

With that, I would like to thank the committee once again for the invitation to speak and represent the voices of students at Saint Mary's University and across Canada.

I look forward to answering any questions you might have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to Madam Jennifer Watts, chief executive officer of Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia.

Madam Watts, you have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Jennifer Watts, Chief Executive Officer, Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia]

Thank you for the invitation to speak to the committee today.

I'm also speaking from Mi'kma'ki and would like to recognize that I am on the unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq people.

I am the CEO of the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia. We're a full-service delivery agency that offers settlement services, language training, employment services, business development, employer support and many wonderful community integration programs. We have served newcomers in our province for over four decades. Last year we served 10,000 clients and delivered both pre- and post-arrival programs.

I'd like to offer you the perspective of the impact of COVID on a settlement agency.

The first thing I'd like to speak about is the critical role of technology in rapidly disseminating information and continuing the delivery of service to our clients. We were able to pivot and offer practically all of our programs virtually and we have identified many interesting, new, emerging and promising practices. However, there are vulnerable populations that will be left behind because of the lack of digital literacy skills, access to tech equipment and lack of access to Internet either due to cost or simply because it does not exist in rural or small centres.

Access to high-speed Internet needs to be identified as a fundamental necessity and right to keep one's family and community safe, to further education and to find a job. Suggestions within the settlement sector are to develop a multi-dimensional national plan to support at-risk newcomer populations with low digital literacy and no access to technology.

There's also a call to create a national technology capital replacement budget for the settlement sector to ensure that current service providers have the capacity to continue and to expand a hybrid approach to service delivery.

The second thing I would like to highlight is that we've seen an increase in racism and racist attacks particularly focused on Asian and Black populations. It's increased their vulnerability. Engagement of all levels of government is needed. The double impact of racism and COVID is becoming clearer and is very concerning. In the settlement sector, we recognize the need to increase our capacity and further develop skills to respond to increasing racism. It points to the need for us to really develop a national capacity-building approach that includes training and tools to increase settlement staff's ability to appropriately support newcomers experiencing racism.

The third point is the increase in gender-based violence and domestic violence. We're seeing it happening in our country. This is happening across all segments of Canadian society. IRCC has seen the importance of this issue and is supportive in developing specific programs. We would like to highlight and make clear how important this area of work is for furthering our capacity and resources, particularly in the communities we're engaged with.

The fourth area is the importance of family reunification through the family class process. It strengthens the family unit and the family's integration success in Canada and more spaces are welcome. Family class reunification supports families who arrive under all immigration pathways. It not only supports the family, but it also supports Canada's economy and the integration of many people into the labour market. We see, particularly during a crisis such as the pandemic, how important family connections are.

The fifth area is the impact of COVID on privately sponsored refugees and their sponsors. ISANS is a sponsorship agreement holder, and we receive about 100 spots a year. We support that through family reunification with people who are here in our province.

We have heard from co-sponsors of the many painful impacts that have resulted from the closures of visa posts overseas, from the difficulties of people in refugee camps receiving documentation who sometimes have to travel long distances and are unable to get back to camps to people here who are co-sponsors and have been holding apartments for months on end, anticipating that people will arrive, but they have not been able to travel.

There is a whole series of things impacting the privately sponsored refugee network. We would encourage the government to continue to support this very important area of humanitarian response and to continue to work with the co-sponsors and with the sponsorship agreement holder network to resolve these problems.

We'd also like to raise the principle of additionality. Although we certainly support privately sponsored refugees, the very important and continued support for government-assisted refugees is an area that really responds to Canada's humanitarian responsibilities and obligations. Certainly we want to see those numbers continue to be supported, particularly during this time of COVID. We have been receiving GARs since July. It's been a very important commitment on our part and, we think, the federal Government of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Madam Watts, but your time is up. You will get an opportunity to talk further when we go into the round of questioning.

With this, now we will start our first round of questioning, beginning start with Mr. Hallan.

Mr. Hallan, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for joining us today.

Mr. Mahmood, you touched on a few points that I think are very important. You talked about your own experience with delays getting your mother here, who is obviously elderly, and about the effects of it on mental health.

We've heard from many witnesses heartbreaking, gut-wrenching experiences that have caused mental health issues such as depression and suicidal thoughts. They're all due to the delays in the process.

In your experience, how do you think Canadians are being affected by these delays, the processing times in relation to family reunification, both permanent immigration and temporary residents, and what kinds of solutions do you think are available?

[Usman Mahmood]

Thank you, Mr. Hallan.

I think I've already touched on the problems that we're currently facing as a country overall.

Canada is an immigration-friendly country. When I say that, it means we pride ourselves on being one of the best countries attracting immigrants from all across the world. However, this pandemic has shown that we are not ready for it, unfortunately. Family members are not being united with each other. There was the complete seizure and close-down of offices around the world. Visa centres closed down. The Immigration and Refugee Board, for the time being, was on a halt. Our system was completely shut down.

These problems may come again in our lifetime and we should be ready for them. We have no excuse not to be ready for them. I think what this committee and the government can do is to implement planning that can, in the future, avoid such types of issues. For example, I had spoken about the triage system. We can fast-track some applications and we can put some applications through the normal process. Obviously, we should reopen all visa centres across the globe and make sure that health and safety is a priority there.

Also, spousal application interviews can be held by webcam, the same way as we are currently conducting those meetings. We can certainly have online submissions of packages. We're still sending paper-based applications. This is so twentieth century. I think we can move with the times, and online submissions can take place for spousal applications as well.

I could certainly go on and on about it, but I'm mindful of the time of this committee.

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

Thank you for that.

Continuing with you, Mr. Mahmood, we saw delays with grandparents and parents sponsorship before the pandemic. The program was put on pause. We saw it being reintroduced as basically the exact-same thing. There was really no difference in it. Right now I have many constituents and people from Canada asking me about this program because they're experiencing so much anxiety. No one knows what stage we are at and when they are going to start being contacted.

In your experience, what is your opinion on this impact with the current lottery system in regard to the grandparents and parents sponsorship applications?

[Usman Mahmood]

To begin with, that's a very bad name—“lottery system”. Certainly people are very fortunate to be in Canada, but what are we trying to impose on people? Is it that there's a lottery system in Canada, and are you all ready to try your luck at it?

I would suggest, obviously, that we should revise the name and start calling it something else. That certainly would put some respect into people's lives—people who are bringing in their parents and grandparents.

It's very unfortunate, Mr. Hallan, that you've spoken about that because I know of circumstances or incidents where applicants passed away whilst they were waiting for their applications to be processed. That is very sad, and we must take this upon ourselves as a country. We could have done better than processing parents and grandparents visa applications in years. In some cases people were waiting for their applications for a decade.

So, maybe eliminate the lottery system and take it back to the old way, where everyone submits an application. Unfortunately, we're going to have to triage this process. We're going to have to find innovative ways of eliminating the extra time it takes and get these parents and grandparents to come and see their children and grandchildren in Canada.

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

Thank you.

Do you know what? It's unfortunate that we couldn't get any real answers on timelines from the ministers or the officials.

Moving on, you touched base and talked about a few different countries. Are there cases that you have come across from certain countries where the government can assist in different ways?

[Usman Mahmood]

As I said earlier, a major part of my practice is dealing with immigration litigation, which is refugee hearings and refugee appeals. The affected minorities that come to mind immediately are, obviously, the Ahmadis of Pakistan, Christians of Pakistan, and Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan.

For example, Afghanistan Sikhs are targeted for their faith. Their places of worship are destroyed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Mahmood, I'm sorry for interrupting, but your time is up. We will now have to move on to the next member.

Mr. Regan, you have six minutes for your round of questioning. The floor is yours.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm delighted that we have two witnesses from Mi'kma'ki, where I am as well.

Ms. Watts, I'd like to ask you a few questions. First of all, in your work at ISANS, you mentioned that during the COVID pandemic you've been able to pivot. Can you tell us about the changes and accommodations that were brought about in your organization, those that were most beneficial to newcomers, and are there any of them that you think you will keep afterwards?

Also, what ways do you think ISANS has adapted most helpfully in the case of the pandemic?

[Jennifer Watts]

Thank you.

Because we had experience with delivering programs virtually, we were able to pivot fairly quickly, and it was amazing that many of our programs were able to move in that direction.

We developed specific programs for people who had low digital literacy skills and low literacy skills generally, with specific training for them to be able to understand how to use computers.

Someone referred to earlier the incredible negative impact that the pandemic has had on people's mental health. We also developed groups and delivered programs, particularly around mental health, to offer online wellness sessions and opportunities for people to gather in programming.

Staff were able to up their digital skills to be able to deliver the programs that they thought they might not have been able to, but also, we were working very much with our clients to really assist them to be able to access the technology and learn how to use the technology. It was hard enough once they got it to be able to actually deliver the programming.

We did go back to delivering in-person service and we brought back the people who were most vulnerable first—people with the lowest literacy skills were able to come back. However, in the past couple of weeks, because we had the spike again, we've had to go back to virtual delivery as well.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

When you speak of help from government on digital literacy for newcomers, what do you envisage? Can you lay that out a bit?

[Jennifer Watts]

Help would come in a couple of ways. Number one, we really appreciated having critical health information that's accessible, using infographics in plain language and in translation.

At the Public Health Agency, that was not available at the beginning, but both the provincial and federal government became much better about that. I think that is the key thing. Being able to deliver their message directly to clients would be very helpful, rather than us having to figure that out and double check with them.

We were able to get IRCC to access PPE, particularly when we were receiving government-assisted refugees. That was scary for us at the beginning. We did not have access to PPE, so it was a very large and important intervention on the part of IRCC staff to assist us with that.

I would say the biggest challenge right now, and I would really like to underline it, for us and probably across Canada for settlement agencies, is access to affordable housing. When people are coming in, it is critical to find that. I know that the federal government is working on that, but it cannot be underscored how difficult it is for us to effectively settle people in our country when there isn't affordable housing or there's housing inaffordability.

That goes across the huge spectrum of people coming in as refugees, but also coming in as provincial nominees or under any economic stream. The housing situation is critical.

Dealing with that issue around housing affordability would be a huge assistance to us in terms of support for settling people.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

As you know, the government is looking for innovative approaches that might assist newcomers in looking at how to better support the integration process.

As you deal with issues such as you mentioned with regard to capacity, the need for capacity-building to support people dealing with COVID and racism, how do you see the government dealing with that to assist you?

Also, in your view, is increasing employment support and leveraging new technology the right path forward for IRCC and the government?

What are your thoughts on that?

[Jennifer Watts]

I just got off a phone call in which there was a discussion on anti-racism with the National Settlement Council. It was an amazing conversation. It was historic for us as a settlement community that was assisted by the settlement agencies and IRCC, so I'm very excited to see the potential resources from that. The funding for that is very important.

There is also a very interesting program.... Certainly for us, the Atlantic immigration pilot has been very important, but so is move to the economic mobility program where you're seeing refugees being able to come into the country through existing economic streams. That's not through the refugee stream, but through these regular economic programs, because they have the skills and experience and there is some assistance and administrative support to access these programs. That is a really critical and very interesting area in which we see the federal government offering some support.

I would also say that any support around technology is huge, as I said, in helping us to develop, increase and maintain our capacity. But just generally, really supporting access to broadband Internet across the country is key. It's fundamental that people have that ability to access those resources, especially when we see things like the libraries and public places where people might go to in non-COVID times not being available. When these are not available, people's access to information from their government and from the resource groups in the community is effectively shut down.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Just very quickly, to what degree does putting a citizenship test and ceremonies online assist?

[Jennifer Watts]

That would be fabulous, absolutely. Thank you.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you.

That is my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Okay, thank you.

We will now move on to Madame Normandin.

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

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question is for Mr. de Chastelain.

You said that, according to a survey, 60% of students want to remain in Canada after graduation. I gather that these students must be matched with the labour market, which also wants to tap into this skilled and well-integrated workforce. However, several witnesses have told our committee that francophones, particularly from Africa, have been refused student visas on the grounds that, given their financial resources in their country of origin, they wouldn't return to that country after graduation. This is a little ironic.

I want to know whether you've heard of any similar cases. If so, do you think that we should change the criteria for granting student visas, since we want these students to remain here after their temporary visas have expired?