Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2021

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

We have brought in many streams now when it comes to permanent immigration. Particularly, my concern is with the students. We can bring in as many students as we want because there is a lot more demand right now.

Is there a way the government can help these students? One of the fellows who came to my office said that it's very hard for the students to afford it. What can the government do in those particular circumstances where a person wants to go for higher education and be a productive citizen in Canada afterwards?

[Prof. Paul Evans]

Perhaps I can try to answer that.

A number of countries—not just Canada—have a special interest in attracting high-quality Hong Kong students to their institutions. We can redouble our efforts on recruitment and maybe offer some scholarships.

I think something else we're going to need to be doing, particularly in Canada for those who want to leave Hong Kong for political reasons, is to help them in our community colleges and other parts of our educational system, where we can give new facilities for English language training.

High-end Hong Kong students can go anywhere in the world admission-wise, but there's a category on the technical side and others where we could make a special effort—maybe we could offer some scholarships—particularly when people are going to need the extra time to study English language. Not everyone who comes from Hong Kong can operate in English. That might be one niche where some government encouragement and university and college initiatives could open a door a little bit wider to a class of Hong Kongers who are not going to be caught up in the normal high-end educational stream.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

I totally understand—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Dhaliwal, your time is up. We will now move on to Madame Normandin.

Madame Normandin, you have two minutes for your questions.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I have only one question, which I will address to Ms. Eatrides.

Ms. Eatrides, you mentioned that some refugee applications submitted from Hong Kong in 2018 were only processed this year. We know that processing times can be lengthy, including at the Refugee Protection Division, or RPD. I've had access to the statistics. It took two and a half months for the first paper files to be processed after the crisis began, and in-person hearings did not resume until the end of July. Figures show that, until about mid-September, the number of in-person cases was still about half of RPD's previous capacity.

Even if we don't expect a massive influx of asylum applications from Hong Kong, are we ready to receive them? Has the RPD reached its cruising speed?

[Roula Eatrides]

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's a very good question.

Hong Kong claims have an average processing time of about 11 months. That was slowed down because of the pandemic, but we are operating now at our annualized capacity of 50,000 claimants. We have received a cash injection from the government and we've built up extra capacity. We've done over 7,000 virtual hearings. We've had over 4,000 paper decisions since April 1, which is the beginning of our fiscal year.

I'm confident that we are operating now at our funded capacity and that we have a process in place with our less complex claims force to be able to case manage efficiently. We also have additional operational measures in case there's a larger influx.

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

Thank you very much.

[Roula Eatrides]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Now we will end our rounds of questioning with Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you have two minutes for your round of questioning. Please go ahead.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

My question is for Mr. Henry Chan.

We actually were advised by Ted Hui on a previous panel that the Hong Kong government is about to bring in legislation that will prevent people from boarding a plane or a boat without any reason at all, so time is of the essence for people to get to safety.

I wonder if you can comment on that, given the projection of the government's announcement right now. Even the immigration measures they've announced for students would actually not kick in until likely toward the end of the year. What are your thoughts on that?

[Henry Chan]

I agree with you that time is of the essence. A lot of people are being persecuted and more people are being arrested every single day. Once you're arrested, your passport or your travel documents are held so you can't leave, so it's very important that we do these things in a timely manner, as I said in the speech earlier.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

With respect to travel restrictions, even if people are able to successfully put in an application, travel restrictions because of COVID right now will not allow them to get into the country. Do you think that the government should lift the travel restrictions for Hong Kongers?

[Henry Chan]

Yes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Related to the issue of travel is the fact that refugee claims are not allowed to be made in Hong Kong. Should we have a special provision that would allow for refugee claims to be made by people from Hong Kong who are abroad?

[Henry Chan]

Yes. I think a lot of those people, as a previous witness mentioned, have a refugee-like status, so we also need more help for those people who are exiled elsewhere.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Should the Canadian embassy be utilized to facilitate this process?

[Henry Chan]

Yes. As I said, a special commissioner to take a look at those—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Chan, but the time is up.

With this, I want to thank all of the witnesses for giving us the time and providing important testimonies for this study.

Thank you, members, for adjusting your calendars on what I know was very short notice, and for coming in to do a one-hour panel this morning.

With that, today's meeting is adjourned.