Evidence of meeting #3 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was visa.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
We don't have unanimous consent on that. There is already a member saying no. They don't want time out of the second panel.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Madam Chair, on the point of order, I'm willing to take the speaking time I would have to question the second panel and use it for this panel.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
We have to end the panel here. If we go for extra time, we will have to take that time out of the next panel, and I don't have unanimous consent for that.
With this, we will end the first panel here. We need to suspend the meeting for two minutes so that we can get the three witnesses set up. The Clerk will do a quick sound check for the witnesses on the second panel.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I call the meeting to order. For this round we have three witnesses appearing before us.
We have Chantal Desloges, senior partner from Desloges Law Group. She's no stranger to the CIMM committee.
Our second witness an individual, is David Ojo. Welcome, David.
The third person is representing Faces of Advocacy, Dr. David Poon, its founder.
I welcome you all. Thank you for appearing before the committee.
We will start with Chantal Desloges. You have five minutes for your opening remarks.
Chantal Desloges Senior Partner, Desloges Law Group, As an Individual
Thank you very much.
Thank you to the committee for inviting me today. I am an immigration and refugee lawyer with over 20 years of experience. I'm also the co-author of an immigration and refugee law textbook. I run a law firm in downtown Toronto with 12 staff, and we do immigration only on a full-time basis.
I base my comments today not only on my own experience and that of my staff. I've also taken the liberty of canvassing my colleagues from coast to coast to get some opinions from other lawyers as well.
The state of file processing from approximately March 2020 to July 2020 made evident a very alarming state of unreadiness for a large-scale disaster and an inability to adapt quickly in an unexpected emergency. From March to July, most immigration lawyers would tell you, there was virtually no movement on any immigration file and most of our time was spent trying to explain to clients that we didn't know what was going on and we had no way of finding out what was going on, and we didn't know how long anything was going to take.
If we turn first of all to the family reunification impacts, for sponsorship of spouses even up until now, just to get an acknowledgement of receipt is taking four months or even longer. That means four months or more just to find out whether your file is even complete and has been entered into processing. Even worse, if a client has submitted a file that's incomplete, they've wasted four months before they find out that their file is not in the queue and they have to start all over again.
In my view, the processing times posted by IRCC on the website are no longer accurate. The processing times for overseas and inland spousal sponsorship still say 12 months from start to finish, but there's no way that that could possibly be accurate if an acknowledgement of receipt is taking at least four months. Most spousal sponsorship interviews at visa posts have been cancelled, and I haven't heard of any of those interviews being rescheduled as of yet, and I have not heard of any provision being made for video interviews. I had one such case that was postponed in March and to date, there is still no news as to when it will be rescheduled. Given the prevalence of video technology, it's hard to understand why these interviews cannot be done remotely.
Another complication to consider is that many couples right now are physically unable to get married to even start their sponsorships. In 2015, the immigration and refugee protection regulations were amended to eliminate the recognition of proxy marriages, meaning marriages for which both spouses were not physically present in the same place at the same time during the ceremony. That eliminates now the possibility of people doing online weddings by video technology. Just the other day, I spoke to a couple, with the woman in Canada and the man in China. They want to get married, but she cannot go to China because of travel bans and he cannot come to Canada due to a lack of a visa, so for who knows how long, they cannot get married. It's very heartbreaking.
Even if the couple resides together in Canada and is not separated by distance, these delays have serious impacts, because the applicant, usually does not have health care coverage while they're waiting, and if they have children, they are not covered either. Some of these children are going to school in Canada and taking risks with respect to COVID and they don't have any health care coverage.
One of my colleagues mentioned that they have a lot of family reunification cases pending dealing with the consulate in India. No decisions are being issued despite numerous follow-ups and requests. Additionally, applications submitted after March are being held up because biometrics can't be done for many people because visa application centres are closed.
Unlike the case with sponsored parents, sponsored spouses have a very difficult time getting visas to visit their spouses in Canada. Visa refusals of this kind are very common. One of my colleagues described it as the kiss of death if you're a spouse trying to get a visitor visa for Canada, because officers simply don't believe that you're going to go home after your visit once you get a chance to reunite with your spouse in Canada.
With respect to international students, they are in an extremely difficult situation. Many have had to defer their admission several times. Many have lost money. Many do not know if or when they will be able to come to Canada to study at all. They've dropped courses. For many, graduation is now going to be delayed because of the pandemic.
One final comment with respect to the parents and grandparent sponsorship lottery is that the lottery system is much better than the systems that have been in place previously, but it needs to be weighted so that people who have tried more than once to sponsor their parents will have a better chance in the lottery than those starting for the first time.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Ms. Desloges.
We will now move to our next witness, Mr. Ojo.
You have five minutes for your opening remarks.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Mr. Ojo, can you please stop? I think the interpretation isn't right.
We will go to our next speaker and, meanwhile, we can figure that out.
Mr. Ojo, we'll come back to you after the next witness. We will try to figure out if there is a problem that can be corrected.
Can I please request Mr. David Poon to give his opening remarks?
Mr. Poon, you have five minutes.
Dr. David Edward-Ooi Poon Founder, Faces of Advocacy
Thank you very much to the committee for having me.
My name is Dr. David Edward-Ooi Poon, founder of the Faces of Advocacy. We are a grassroots Canadian organization of over 8,700 people on a campaign to safely reunite families in Canada during the COVID-19 travel pandemic. From my understanding, we were directly responsible for the October 8 extended family and compassionate travel exemptions. We are thankful to the workers in the ministry who pulled off that task.
COVID-19 exposed a number of systemic inequalities in Canada. Immigration was not immune to that. I have maintained that I do not believe the government set out to intentionally keep families apart. I believe we just fell through the cracks. But there are some things that must not fall through the cracks. Family is one of them.
I am here to loudly and clearly make the case for collaborative, transparent immigration reform in Canada. The IRCC is using an antiquated, outdated and grossly ineffective IT structure that disproportionately affects Canadian families in a completely inconsistent manner. It is so opaque and so unwieldy that even the ministry workers who want desperately to help cannot help those they want to. This is a problem.
I am not here to berate any hard-working ministry employee. I am not convinced that these are the faults of only one minister or decision-maker. But there are significant, systemic flaws in the immigration process today. For us to fix it together, we must know how it failed—and it has failed. I want to work collaboratively with the government to address these concerns to help this government and any future governments ensure that the mistakes of the past seven months are not repeated ever again.
There are eight recommendations in our report. I will highlight five.
Number one is consistency for all. When the COVID-19 travel restrictions came in, what Canadians heard from the IRCC, CBSA, Canadian embassies, their MPs and the airlines was not consistent. My own partner was given a travel authorization by the Canadian embassy and was denied when she landed in Toronto. In times of crisis, there must be an established, structured chain of communication from the Canadian government that is uniform, widespread and publicly accessible. No one should be told one thing by one official and a completely other thing by another.
Point two is compassionate exemption. The travel restrictions began in March 2020. Compassionate exemptions were given in October 2020. There were seven months of miscarriages left unsupported, seven months of births held in solitary, seven months of cancers fought alone, and seven months of deaths without a final embrace. Donna McCall was a Canadian ICU nurse and a mother who died saying goodbye to her adult children on FaceTime. Committed partners, siblings, grandparents—I actually do understand how long that took to figure out. That was a systemic change that required a lot of different groups and different stakeholders. I understand that there were delays to get that to happen. That's why I'm so thankful to the government that it happened, albeit much later than I wanted. But in no scenario on earth is it acceptable that the NHL was allowed to play in Canada before Donna's children were allowed into the country. I state this again very clearly: NHL players were able to navigate the system of stakeholders, immigration and public safety to play in Canada—all of them foreign nationals—before the children of a dying Canadian mother were allowed into the country. This is what happened. There must be a principle that states that above any broad travel restrictions, compassionate exemptions must be publicly available and accessible to Canadians. I strongly suggest calling it “Donna's rule”.
Point three is upgraded IT infrastructure. We need a cohesive, transparent and trackable system for IRCC. The extended family exemptions opened on October 8, 2020. According to our internal tracking, about 200 of those exemptions were not approved by the promised 14-day turnaround time. The 14-day mark comes in about 24 hours. Interestingly, though, applicants after October 15 have been approved expediently, and we're thankful for that—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry, Mr. Poon, but I will have to stop you there. Your time is up. Maybe you can talk in the round of questioning.
Now we will go back to Mr. Ojo.
Mr. Ojo, you have five minutes for remarks. Before you start, the clerk would like to talk to you for a quick second.
Over to the clerk.
Mr. Clerk.
The Clerk
Mr. Ojo, we're going to try to improve your audio quality. Could you please turn off your video? Thank you so much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Mr. Ojo, you have five minutes for your opening remarks. Please start. The floor is yours.
As an Individual
Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to take a moment to thank all members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for allowing me to appear virtually today to speak on the impact of COVID-19 on the immigration system, with specific reference to the renewal of expired confirmations of permanent residence.
As contained in my written submission to the clerk of the committee, there are four main sections I have written about: one, instructions from the IRCC; two, responses from affected IRCC clients; three, the realities; and four, recommendations and conclusions.
I am delighted to introduce myself and to highlight a few pain points and present our plea.
My name is David Ojo. I am a Nigerian and an approved permanent resident with an expired confirmation of permanent residency due to my inability to travel to Canada during the COVID-19-induced global lockdown. I began the immigration process in 2018, received the invitation to apply in April 2019, and eventually submitted my application on May 25, 2019. My application was finally approved on December 2019.
I had planned to travel to Canada on March 25, 2020. I even left my job in February the same year. However, due to the travel restrictions in my own country, I was unable to travel, and now my permanent resident visa and COPR have expired. I am a chartered accountant, a seasoned ex-banker, and an active member of a group of approved PRs with expired COPRs in Nigeria, as well as other multinational social networking groups where information sharing is done.
I represent the affected COPR holders who are exempt from the current travel restrictions in Canada, both with expired CPRs and PRVs.
We have all since left our jobs, sold our properties and liquidated our investments, terminated lease agreements in our respective home countries, withdrawn our children from school in a bid to settle permanently in Canada, but have long been waiting on the IRCC to issue a travel authorization letter.
We have complied with the IRCC's instructions to raise a ready-to-travel web form, many of which were raised since the last four to five months.
We have been seriously impacted by the long and inexplicable delay from the IRCC, with no end in sight. In August 2020 I started an online petition addressed to the Government of Canada and the IRCC to fast-track issuance of the travel authorization letter for the expired COPR holders, which has so far gained over 3,000 supporters.
I have been interviewed by Max Hartshorn of Global News Canada and Shelby Thevenot of CIC News Canada to share my story and those of others waiting on the IRCC to extend their COPRs and issue travel authorization letters. Sadly, I am still waiting on the IRCC to settle in Canada.
Honourable MPs, please permit me to request the following.
One, the IRCC should be prevailed upon to close all expired COPR cases in 2020 and not carry them forward to 2021, as all expired COPR holders are still hopeful to arrive in Canada this year. Our lives have since been at a standstill. We are highly skilled economic migrants, and we bring skills that will be valuable in driving economic growth through the pandemic and beyond.
Two, an issuance of authorization letter should be automatic and not conditional. This will increase the processing timelines, and also reduce the already stretched IRCC workforce and help channel resources towards the processing of pending applications.
Three, I request the waiver of re-medical requests and other expired documents, as determined by visa officers. This becomes necessary as these are already approved files, in addition to the cost implications and inconveniences of carrying out medical examinations.
Lastly, as an alternative to authorization letters, an instruction could be sent to the immigration departments of the home countries of all the affected IRCC clients to allow boarding with expired COPRs or PRVs.
Once again, I extend my sincere appreciation to this committee for allowing me to appear as a witness for the study on the impact of COVID-19 on the immigration system. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Mr. Ojo.
Thank you to all the witnesses for their opening remarks. We will now start our first round of questioning. We will start with Ms. Dancho.
Ms. Dancho, you have six minutes.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to say thank you to the witnesses for joining us today. Your testimony was excellent and very powerful. It's just great to have so many expert witnesses on today's panel.
I have a number of questions. My first will be for Dr. Poon.
Dr. Poon, I first want to say a sincere thank you for bearing this burden over the last seven months as you got together Faces of Advocacy and brought this issue to national attention. It's really been heartbreaking to hear the stories you've brought forward, but I'm very grateful that you have. This committee may not have come together as quickly without the work that you've been doing, so thank you for that.
Dr. Poon, you know that on October 8, as you mentioned in your testimony, the minister announced a special reunification process for adult children and committed couples separated because of the border closures. My understanding is that the deadline that the minister promised is in fact tomorrow. I'd like you to share with the committee your experience talking to those who've applied.
Do you have confidence that the minister's deadline of tomorrow will be met and that families will be able to be successfully reunified as was promised by the minister on October 8?
Founder, Faces of Advocacy
Thank you, MP Dancho. I will make sure that the world knows that my team has been fantastic in bringing Faces of Advocacy together.
In regard to tomorrow's deadline, we were promised 14 business days to hit that time. I have been in contact with IRCC. I've given a list of the people whom we are calling “the missing 50”, even though the numbers are closer to 100 to 200 people who have not been processed. We were promised that it would be 14 business days. I believed them. I do not think we will hit the 14th business day. This is very concerning.
People who applied on October 8 and 9, just after it started, have been approved very fast, and we're grateful for that. However, the majority of people who applied on the 8th and 9th apparently appear to be American. Those people have not been processed expeditiously, with the commitment that we were promised.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Thank you, Dr. Poon, for that. I appreciate it very much.
My next question is for Mr. Ojo.
Mr. Ojo, thank you for joining us all the way from Nigeria. I greatly appreciate your testimony today.
Just for folks who are watching from home, you were approved to come to Canada and move your life here. You are highly skilled and are going to bring a lot of economic growth to our country. You and many others across the globe were approved to come but have been unable to come since then because of the border closures. Your application has since expired, and we know that there are thousands of people across the globe who have expired PR applications. I can't imagine the financial and emotional implications this has had on you and the thousands of others across the world. My understanding is that you haven't really heard anything from Canada as to when you'll be allowed to come. You listed a lot of really great policy options that I think are worthy of discussion.
Since we have limited time, Mr. Ojo, I would love it if you told the committee this: If you could speak to the Minister of Immigration and explain to him what's a stake for you and the thousands of others, what would you say?
As an Individual
Thank you, MP Dancho.
If I had and opportunity to speak with the Minister of Immigration, it would be about the issuance of the travel authorization letter. We were promised this travel authorization letter in June or July, four to five months ago. We all waited for about three months before IRCC said that we had to submit our ready-to-travel web form and include our settlement plans. We did all of that.
It's been a waiting game. All we do is send in mail. We send in mail with our work forms. We try to call and we are told to wait. We are told to wait indefinitely. It is difficult considering the fact that we all left our jobs. Our lives are at a standstill. It is difficult for us to continue.
In a nutshell, if I had the opportunity to meet the Minister of Immigration, it would be very simple and clear: You promised an authorization letter. It has always been that immigration matters. If immigration matters, you need to prove it to us. It's not about sending it on the website to say you have to submit your web form. We have submitted it, and you need to live up to your word.
Let me be very clear: it's the authorization letter.
Thank you.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Thank you, Mr. Ojo. From really all the testimony today, but particularly from that of the two Davids, I'll say that it is clear that the issue at stake is that there's no clarity, and really no dignity, given to those who are waiting. There's really just very little, if any, communication at all given to the folks whose lives have been overturned, and I really appreciate your honesty today.
I do hope the minister hears your comments.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
I'll go back to Dr. Poon.
In 30 seconds, can you tell me a little bit more about the email campaign that you recently started?
Founder, Faces of Advocacy
We want to ensure that people are processed in a timely fashion. If the two-week turnaround time is kept, we are very happy.
We want to make sure that the temporary residents who are contributing to society in Canada are also included under the same exemptions. We also want to make sure that things are happening in order to allow consistent and fair processing.
If there were a method by which to have a better computer system and IT infrastructure for the IRCC, that would allow trackable, transparent methods for us to check in and see how we're doing and abate the anxiety that we're having about our applications, that would also help the other David, as long as there were a transparent system of communication.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you. We will end here.
Now we'll move on to Mr. Reagan.
Mr. Reagan, you have six minutes.