Evidence of meeting #5 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 minutes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
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The Clerk
Yes, I will look into that right now.
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Director, External Relations and Research, Universities Canada
Should I turn to the French channel?
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Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
On the interpretation, if you are speaking in French, please check the French version. If you are speaking in English, please check the English version. I think you have to change. That might be the issue, because there's a lot of echo.
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Director, External Relations and Research, Universities Canada
I switched channels.
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Director, External Relations and Research, Universities Canada
I was saying that every international student's goal is to come to Canada.
As for the immigration of international students, their coming to Canada is one of our goals as a country. As Mr. Davidson said, online learning is hugely important, precisely because international students were able to begin their studies. Without that virtual option, we could have lost a whole crop of students.
It will be important, however, to help all of the students who moved online transition to in-person learning, so they can get more out of their learning experience, and we as well.
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Bloc
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Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Ms. Amyot, you talked about making sure Canada was competitive in the international marketplace.
Is it a good idea to offer exchange programs with the benefit of streamlined processing?
4:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Colleges and Institutes Canada
Yes. That is actually one of our recommendations to Minister Mendicino. Providing direct and immediate access to the information is essential, eliminating the need for intermediaries, who just push the files along from office to office. We don't have time for that. This is 2020, and we have shown—
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President and Chief Executive Officer, Colleges and Institutes Canada
—that we are able to operate in an online environment.
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Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
We will now have to move on to Ms. Kwan.
Ms. Kwan, you have six minutes.
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NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses.
I'm going to turn to Ms. Douglas for my first question.
Ms. Douglas, you opened with the notion that children who age out because of the pandemic and impact...and came up with an excellent suggestion about freezing the time in terms of the age. I'm also wondering.... Many of the workers, such as caregivers, are required to fulfill the two-year work requirement, and through no fault of their own the pandemic has interrupted that work. Do you think the government should count this interrupted time towards their two-year work requirement so that they're not penalized through no fault of their own?
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Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
Absolutely, it is a concern we are hearing from care workers and others who are here on a pathway to permanent residence. They are very much concerned that two years down the road their children would have aged out. I think that given the 12 to 18 months of the pause we're seeing because of COVID—it's already eight months, and we don't see the second stage ending until hopefully by summer—that absolutely should be counted towards the time that caregivers are here.
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NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you.
Turning to the parents and grandparents suggestions, I also appreciated your comments about the minimum wage requirements, the qualification and the impact, as well as the lottery system. As you know, the government has only just announced the parents and grandparents program. Ten months have passed since it was supposed to start in January. If Canada is to value the contributions of parents and grandparents.... I believe you made a comment that the government should lift the cap and allow for the applications to come in and be processed. I wonder if you can just elaborate on the value of that, the lifting of the cap and perhaps setting standards in terms of processing time and increasing resources in timely, expeditious processing.
November 16th, 2020 / 4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
Absolutely. With all of our recommendations, one thing that we have been trying to impress upon government is that parents and grandparents contribute to the social and economic assessment and integration of families. Grandparents, in particular, are not only cultural bridges but they also support the families in terms of unpaid child care. More than that, they become a support to the family. This is especially important for women, who are then better able to participate in the labour market. It becomes a win-win for everyone: for the children; for the sponsors, who are the children of those being sponsored; and, of course, for the parents and grandparents, who are then reunified with their families.
Removing the minimum necessary income will allow a larger group of people to be able to sponsor, and lifting the cap on parents and grandparents, and increasing the resources needed to process that, can only lead to a better program. We've heard from families time and time again who have been waiting sometimes for over 10 years and they have not been able.... Whether it's the lottery system or, as you know, with the cap by January 1 end of day, before the 10-month pause that we had, all of the numbers would have been taken up. Time and time again folks were unable to get their application in, and with the lottery system it is the luck of the draw.
What we are saying is to lift the cap and have people who want to sponsor put in an application. Let's invest the resources to be able to process those applications in a timely manner, because, after all, parents and grandparents do contribute economically and socially.
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NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you.
The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change has made a host of recommendations to support migrant workers. As we know, some of them have actually died in support of Canadians and putting food on our table. The government is only coming with a half measure, I would say, that applies to health care workers so they can have access to landed status on arrival.
Would you agree that the government should change their immigration policy to allow for migrant workers to have landed status on arrival? Given the fact that we're not going to meet our immigration level numbers this year at all—we're not going to even come close to it—should we be extending landed status to migrant workers who are already here and to other undocumented workers?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
Yes. We've had a number of discussions with Minister Mendicino on this, especially since this is the time we believe Canadians will be very supportive of putting in place a regularization program. We have a number of folks here who are undocumented or with precarious immigration status, especially migrant workers, not only those working in the health care field.
Even with the announcement of that program, what we have impressed on the minister and IRCC is that we're not only speaking about nurses and doctors. We also need to look at the orderlies and the cleaners who are keeping our hospitals and our long-term care homes going, who absolutely should have access to permanent residency; and also the people who are feeding us, the farm workers and other agricultural workers, the meat cutters and all of those—
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Liberal
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Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
So yes to landed arrivals for migrant workers—
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Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
Thank you.
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Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
With that, the first round comes to an end.
We will now move on to the second round. We have a little time constraint. We will end this panel at 5:10, so I would give Mr. Aboultaif and Mr. Regan four minutes each. We will have Ms. Kwan and Ms. Normandin with two minutes each. We will readjust the timing so that we can end the first panel at 5:10.
We will move on to Mr. Aboultaif.
Mr. Aboultaif, you have four minutes for your round of questioning.
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Conservative
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome, Ms. Amyot, Ms. Douglas, Ms. Therrien and Mr. Davidson. I would appreciate input from all of you on my first question.
We know that there is Chinese intimidation on campuses of students. It's something that I believe will be increasing and won't be getting better. Is there a government plan to prevent that? If you are aware of one, we would appreciate your advising us on it.
I guess I'll start with you, Mr. Davidson.