Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 27th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Ojo, I'm sorry for interrupting. We can't hear you properly. Can turn your video off so we can have better voice quality? Thank you.

[David Ojo]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To go back to what I was saying, it's all about our travel authorization letter. If the Government of Canada, the IRCC, would issue the travel authorization letter.... Because as things stand, we cannot board with the expired travel documents. We need these travel authorization letters—which have been long promised—to be issued to everyone, of course, so that we can travel. It's been eight to nine months of doing nothing.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

This brings us to this question of transparency and accountability as well, Dr. Poon, and that's what you raised. For a long time the NDP has called for an ombudsperson in the immigration system. This is a problem that didn't occur just because of COVID. This has been an ongoing problem with successive governments.

Am I hearing you correctly that what we need now is an ombudsperson who can oversee complaints, who can investigate, for example, systemic issues that exist in the immigration system, so that we can make corrections in these areas and move forward to support people such as you and others who are struggling in the immigration system?

[Dr. David Edward-Ooi Poon]

I thank the ministry for allowing me access to high-level workers. Because of that, we were able to quickly identify that the form was broken. We were able to quickly identify that the Americans had no place to message, and we are able to quickly identify the missing 50 or 200, depending on how many we actually confirm.

Because of this, we need an ombudsperson, not only for IRCC, but for the CBSA as well. Just today, we had a reply back from the IRCC. Whether it's a system error or human error, they say, “Your form was not filled.” I looked at the form myself. It was the October 8 form completely filled. The challenge is that the October 8 form was flawed.

Now, if this person had no ombudsperson, if the Faces of Advocacy did not exist, there would be no way to bring it up to the high-level people, so I'm thankful to the ministry for allowing me that connection. But we need someone official. We need an ombudsperson, and the Faces of Advocacy will fill that role until that position is there. Or we can take it—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm glad that Faces of Advocacy is doing such tremendous work, but there are of course many other people who are not getting that support. The system shouldn't be that way.

[Dr. David Edward-Ooi Poon]

Correct.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

For example, I know individuals where the ministry itself admits it made an error and still the person has to go through the entire process from the beginning, which is really putting their lives into upheaval. That's the reality of where people are at today. We have situations where the ministry staff, the agents, for whatever reason, would give differing information to people, and this goes on and on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Kwan. Your time is up.

We will now move to our second round. Before I give the floor to Mr. Allison, I just want to remind all the members to please direct the questions through the chair.

Mr. Allison, you have five minutes.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Once again, thank you to our guests for being here today.

Dr. Poon, I love your headset. I think I'm going have to get one just like that.

I certainly agree with all of your statements as well. I think we could spend more time exploring this stuff.

Chantal, I would like to direct some of my questions to you.

I agree with the statement you made about the posting of bonds. It has always made me curious over my years as an MP: If immigration officials are worried about people leaving, why not have them post a bond or something? It just makes perfect sense. I think there are probably more tools we could use to make some of these things happen. As was said in all of the testimony today, there are lots of disconnects, right, in terms of what's good for one and what's not good for the other, and there are just the inconsistencies.

Would you like to expand on that again, Chantal? Because there were some good thoughts you had there as you were moving through it.

[Chantal Desloges]

On the issue of the bonds?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Yes.

[Chantal Desloges]

If I'm not mistaken—I'd have to go back to double-check this—I believe there is a legal mechanism that allows it, but I've never seen it actually used. It is interesting to me that people in Canada who have already violated Canada's immigration laws and are in detention can post a bond to get released from detention, and yet people who are incoming to Canada, who have not violated anything, and just want to show a measure of good faith, cannot do the same thing. That doesn't make any sense to me.

You mentioned the disconnect. I really liked what Mr. Poon said earlier about this concept of transparency. The system is extremely opaque the way it is now. Even for professionals like me who have devoted more than 20 years to navigating this system day in and day out, it's still very opaque. I do agree with Mr. Poon as well that part of the problem is the very antiquated IT structure. Through the course of my career, of course, you chit-chat with officers from time to time when you're dealing with people on a daily basis. One thing that I keep hearing from people over and over again is that the people who work in the government, as well-intentioned as they are in wanting to do their jobs properly, are really hampered by this very ancient IT system. Why did it take so long for us to be able to hold a citizenship hearing on Zoom, as they're doing now? The private sector has been doing this for 10 years. Why is it impossible for an embassy abroad to interview a person for a spousal application by video? Why do we need to do everything in person? It doesn't make sense.

I guess I would just close out that comment by saying that there are a number of really great initiatives that have come out of this too, because necessity is the mother of invention, including for example, holding hearings on Microsoft Teams, and landing people by email instead of making them do this ridiculous flag-pulling, leave Canada and come back in again, and making a headache for CBSA. There have been a lot of really great things. I really hope the ministry takes this opportunity to make some of these initiatives permanent.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Thank you.

I guess my follow-up to that would be this. Bonds are a potential option. What about private sponsorships for bringing people in? I just want to know your thoughts on that and whether it's some way that we could personally guarantee these people, or look at whatever those mechanisms are, as happens with refugees.

[Chantal Desloges]

That's interesting. When someone applies for a visa to visit Canada in the first place, most individuals have an invitation letter from a person in Canada who's inviting them for the visit, whether it's for business purposes or personal. Those invitation letters are not enforceable. A person can say, of course, that they want to invite their brother to come to visit them for six months, and they guarantee you that he's going to go back home; but at the end of the day, you're dealing with another adult person. There's no way that a Canadian or permanent resident could really guarantee what someone else is going to do, so I'm not sure that any kind of enforceable undertaking would really work in that scenario. I just don't think it's possible logistically to have some enforceable mechanism whereby you're responsible for the conduct of another grown adult. I don't see how that would work.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

I have one last question in the 20 seconds I have left here.

Both panels discussed students. They come here and spend their life savings doing so, and yet we only allow them to work 20 hours. Do you have any thoughts about increasing that to help them deal with some of the international students' bills? I've seen students living in hotel rooms, a whole bunch of stuff. Are there any thoughts as to whether they should be allowed to work more hours, personally?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

A 10-second answer, please.

[Chantal Desloges]

I don't think they're allowed to work more hours during the academic session because they are supposed to be studying full time. However, they really should be allowed to work more hours during non-academic breaks, for example, during COVID.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. Your time is up.

We will now move to Ms. Martinez Ferrada for five minutes.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have much to say. First, thank you all for being here today.

Mr. Poon, from Faces of Advocacy, I'd like to pass on my regards to members of your organization with whom I've spoken regularly over the past few weeks. Your organization helped make exemptions possible.

It's worth noting that the pandemic has created an unprecedented situation. I have no doubt that some of the things we've done have led the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to make changes for the better, as Ms. Desloges mentioned.

We are in the second wave of the pandemic. How do we balance the safety of Canadians and the desire to reunite families, which is a priority? As you know, Canada was one of the first countries to adopt a family reunification program.

Kindly keep your answer brief, as I have other questions on the subject.

[Dr. David Edward-Ooi Poon]

Madam Chair, I would answer in French, but I don't speak it very well.

An unnecessary dichotomy has been presented to the Canadian people: be with your family and everyone dies, or stay apart forever and everyone lives.

The sheer fact that we can have NHL players, film people, truck drivers and essential workers come to Canada safely means that there is a safe third path. I tell all Canadians watching this right now: the Faces of Advocacy don't want our mothers, our sisters or our loved ones sick. We certainly don't want your families sick. We will uphold every public safety guideline.

If the question is why you want to be with your family when the world is in trouble, I ask in response: If the world is in trouble, who do you want beside you?

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Poon.

Ms. Desloges, I'd like to follow up on what you said about the initiatives the government has taken. Which of them should be adopted permanently?

[Chantal Desloges]

Yes, I have a couple of ideas in regard to that.

I think citizenship oath-takings by Zoom are a wonderful initiative. It means you don't have to congregate people in one room. You can do it person by person. For women who cover themselves for religious or cultural reasons, this is a much more palatable option for them as well.

The other thing is the landings by email. If a person is already in Canada and has met all the qualifications for landing, there's really no reason to call them in for a personal interview or send them to the Canadian border to go into the U.S. and come back in and create more work for CBSA officials.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you.

Sorry to cut you off. I want to make sure I put in a question here.

Mr. Ojo, thank you for joining our committee from so far. It's a pleasure to have you here.

We know that the pandemic has made processing a COPR difficult because of the patchwork visa applications. The office has been open. We are developing a new process for extending COPRs electronically. I know these were approved before March 18.

I want to know how you think this would help people like you to have this process extended electronically.

[David Ojo]

Thank you, Madame Ferrada.

I think that was one of the suggestions we gave the IRCC at some point, to say the only path that is left in this immigration process is for us to become permanent residents.

Our applications have been approved. It took six months. Some of us did the process for a year or two.

It would be a very good idea for IRCC to introduce an electronic landing procedure. That's the only thing we need now. We need to be confirmed as a permanent resident. The only thing we have is our confirmation of permanent residency, and it has expired. Because it has expired, as I mentioned earlier, no airline, no immigration department will be willing to board any of these expired COPRs.

It is simple and very clear. Thank you.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you very much.

Quickly, Mr. Poon—