Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 25th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. The time is up.

We will move to Madame Normandin.

Madame Normandin, you have two minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Tapley, I would like to take the time to thank you for the clarity and precision of your answers. It is much appreciated.

We have heard from a number of people about their problems because of the current closure of visa offices and embassies. International workers and students are not able to obtain their biometric data. That's often the only thing missing from their files.

What is your position on the possibility of having their biometrics collected when they arrive in Canada in some cases?

[Catrina Tapley]

Thank you for the question.

As a rule, it's important that biometrics are done and are used as something to confirm identity. It's important that this happens before people come to the country. We use this as a security feature.

However, we understand well the frustrations, because many of our visa application centres have been closed. I'm happy to say that most of them have reopened. This week has been important. Visa application centres in India reopened this week. This is a big deal. There will be two priorities in India, one for students and the other for family. We will be able to work through the biometrics in India for those two in our visa application centres so that we can complete those applications.

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

Some constituents and foreign workers have told us that they could not be reimbursed for their permit applications. It was for landscaping work and their file was processed too late. Their permit is no longer useful to them now, because there is no lawn to mow in November.

What is the department on the issue of refunding applications that were processed too late to be of use?

[Catrina Tapley]

I am not sure, but I think this is an Employment and Social Development Canada issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

With that, your time is up. Thank you.

We will move on to our last round of questioning.

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

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to go back to the issue of the certificate of PR. The deputy said there's a system in place. Our experience so far is that whenever we phone about a case like this, we get contradictory information. Sometimes we're told to go through this process. Other times we're told to go through a different process.

This comes from the Toronto Star:

According to an immigration department spokesperson, 15,786 applicants who received their visas before March 19 have had their documents expire as of the end of October. About 2,700 principal applicants filled out the webform and more than 120 received authorization.

As you can see, this is indeed very labour-intensive. The person has to contact IRCC and sometimes go through several web forms before anybody responds to them in order to try to get their certificate of PR renewed and to get that authorization letter happening. What about giving yourselves a break and actually moving forward with a process of giving people a letter automatically? If they don't need it, they won't use it. It doesn't harm the system. That way, people can in fact get through quickly with the authorization so that they can come to Canada.

Is that being considered?

[Catrina Tapley]

Madam Chair, as the member has described.... We flipped it on its head. Now we're reaching out to contact people individually to ascertain whether or not they want to come, to issue the letters and to work through the problem that way.

On this point, it may be frustrating that it's taking us a few weeks to do this, but I think in the end it's probably better client service and I think it's probably better for the Canada Border Services Agency as well, just in terms of having that certainty.

Mr. Mills, do you want to comment as well?

[Daniel Mills]

Thank you for the question.

We have contacted people directly. We still have about 7,000 people to contact. We are trying to have a more dynamic and effective strategy to communicate with them, whether by email—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

The whole point is that it's very labour-intensive, so finding a way to do it so it's less labour-intensive and more efficient for scarce resources—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry, but the time is up.

If there are any clarifications, Madame Deputy Minister, that you or your officials would like to provide, you can provide them to us after the meeting.

With that, our second panel comes to an end and we will have to vote on the main and supplementary estimates. I want to thank all our officials for appearing before the committee today. On behalf of all the members, I want to thank you for all the hard work that you have always been doing, but especially during this pandemic. I know you have been working very hard to make sure that you can serve the needs of all Canadians and those who are planning to come to Canada as new immigrants.

Thank you to all the officials.

We will now have to vote on the main estimates for 2020-21.

DEPARTMENT OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........1,053,523,784

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........16,071,270

Vote 10—Grants and contributions..........1,553,909,417

(Votes 1, 5 and 10 agreed to on division)

IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BOARD

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........254,185,563

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Now, we will move on to the voting on the supplementary estimates (B) for 2020-21.

DEPARTMENT OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

Vote 1b—Operating expenditures..........49,470,463

Vote 5b—Capital expenditures..........3,619,117

Vote 10b—Grants and contributions..........270,548,189

(Votes 1b, 5b and 10b agreed to on division)

IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BOARD

Vote 1b—Program expenditures..........1,905,000

(Vote 1b agreed to on division)

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

With that, we come to the end of voting.

We will now move into committee business for a few minutes. I wanted to have members' input on the meetings for next week. The officials can leave. Thank you once again, and we hope to see you sometime soon.

Mr. Clerk, are we okay to move on to committee business?

[The Clerk]

Yes, by all means, but if you could ask if the committee wishes you to report the main and supplementary estimates to the House, that would be helpful for our records, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Would the committee like me to report the votes on the main estimates and the supplementary estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, we will do that.

Now we will go to committee business.

As all the members know, the fiscal update will be on Monday, November 30, at 4 p.m. Our committee also happens at that time, so I wanted to have everyone's input on whether all of you want me to proceed with scheduling the meeting on November 30, or whether the members would like to attend the fiscal update and we should not have the meeting. Rescheduling that meeting would not be possible, because it doesn't seem that we have more spots available to reschedule the meeting at some other time.

Is there any discussion or any input from the members? I will go as the majority of the members wish.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Chair, can you confirm whether we have witnesses on Monday? My understanding was that there were some issues with witnesses on Monday.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We have scheduled the witnesses.... I can ask the clerk to please clarify.

[The Clerk]

The committee has confirmed six witnesses and is in the process of confirming a seventh for November 30.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Chair, I think that if we have six witnesses confirmed and we're not able to reschedule that meeting it would not be polite or respectful to those witnesses. I believe we should have that meeting on Monday, but I'm open for discussion. Those are my two cents.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Dancho, for your input.

It's open for discussion if anyone wants to say anything further on that.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Chair, I think Madame Kwan has had her hand raised for quite a while.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry, Madame Kwan. I didn't see you.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

No worries. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Just to offer my thoughts, I understand that on the one hand it would be good to be able to listen to the economic update, but on the other hand we also have a lot of work before the committee. If there's no way to reschedule the meeting, either by finding another date to replace this committee meeting or by adding hours to lengthen existing meetings to make up for this time, I would be very reluctant to cancel the meeting, just because we have so much work ahead of us.

Then of course, as Ms. Dancho indicated, witnesses have already been lined up, so I think that would be a challenge as well.

If there's no way to reschedule, then I would not want to see us cancel the meeting.