Thank you to the committee for inviting me. It's an honour and a pleasure to present with Starus and Alliance Canada Hong Kong.
The topic of today actually goes along with Mr. Shory, about the idea of timeliness and flexibility when it comes to the processing of applications for refugee claimants, immigrants and others. While we do come here as a group that's focused on Hong Kongers, the recommendations we make would be very similar, and would broadly impact the larger immigrant and refugee community.
Historically, our [Technical difficulty—Editor] has not been very flexible. Since 2000, we've had three periods where large numbers of claims were made in Canada, and each time it has taken several years for the Immigration and Refugee Board to catch up and process those claims. This is, by the way, the same with the most recent rise in refugee numbers since about 2016, and still our system continues to try to catch up.
With the advent of COVID-19, the faults in the processing pipeline, as it were, continue to have real human impacts. I was looking at some data today, and it was quite apparent that since March 2020, about 44% of all refugee claims have been referred to the IRB for a hearing date. That's in comparison to [Technical difficulty—Editor] per cent in the same period last year. While we can certainly understand why the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic would exacerbate the ability to process and refer refugee claims, we have to understand there are human lives in the mix here. They are unable to access work permits, attain status in Canada and access social services. They are all impacted by those wait times.
Likewise, it prevents [Technical difficulty—Editor] especially the provinces, which, rightfully so, have to [Technical difficulty—Editor] lives of refugee claimants while their claims are being processed.
In addition to this, international students have found it very difficult to make the transition from graduation into the Canadian economic immigration system. Graduates of an education program will find that [Technical difficulty—Editor] study in Canada to excel academically and to find work afterwards, through no fault of their own but only because of the economic circumstances that surround them, they will be unable to gain the points necessary to qualify for the economic immigration system.
With that, we would like to make several recommendations.
The first would be that Canada develop a five-year post-graduate work permit, similar to the Australian model that was adopted for Hong Kongers. This would allow international students in Canada, who have graduated from our system, more time to gain work experience in Canada.
The second, for those who are fleeing or who are here from countries with oppressive regimes, as in the situation in Hong Kong right now, is to provide them more safety in Canada, and if need be, access to the refugee claim system.
Finally, it would be the transition to an interim visa program. Right now, refugee claimants, students or workers who are transitioning out of one permit to another whose permit expires in the meantime...on an implied status that is [Technical difficulty—Editor] many employers [Technical difficulty—Editor] students and workers themselves. The new [Technical difficulty—Editor] offers an interim visa program that, immediately upon applying for an extension or a change of status in the visa, issues them an interim visa that would last until the government gets back to them with their new work, study or visitor permit.
In addition, [Technical difficulty—Editor] into our immigration and refugee system would pay dividends both in humanitarian [Technical difficulty—Editor] as well as to the management of our immigration and refugee system.
The [Technical difficulty—Editor] aspect will be presented by my associate, Starus. The delays in the processing of work permits, study permits, and refugee claim referrals have a real impact, causing stress, financial difficulties, and inability to access social services.
I'll pass the time over to Starus.