Evidence of meeting #9 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 application.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you for the work you're doing, but maybe it's not up to community organizations to shoulder the burden caused by a slow-moving IRCC.
Do you feel the IRCC is transparent and supportive enough when you need to get answers for the people you represent?
Director, Services for Immigrants, Accueil Liaison pour Arrivants
It's complicated. I'm not here to point the finger at anyone. However, we're in a tough situation. Since the borders have been closed since last March, the people we're assisting aren't newcomers. We're providing follow-up in their cases. They've been coming to see us for years. Caseworkers are overwhelmed just by the task of answering questions alone. Unfortunately, we generally didn't have any answers to give for the first four or five months, and when we did get them, they were few and far between.
The situation has been resolved since the fall, but our network, our system and our communications department have worked hard to provide information as quickly as possible. I'd say things have been complicated, and they've probably been complicated for everyone. As I was saying, we aren't here to point the finger at anyone. This fall, we can see that information is flowing much more freely and that things are returning to normal. However, there's still a long way to go.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you.
With regard to delays, you mentioned that the pandemic didn't make matters easy. You already had problems before the pandemic, and they were exacerbated by the crisis. You could've done better if effective measures had already been put in place, particularly regarding digital technology and an overall reduction in delays.
Director, Services for Immigrants, Accueil Liaison pour Arrivants
I said at the start of my presentation that the pandemic revealed pre-existing structural problems. You can see that everywhere, particularly in the health system. It's easy to say after the fact that there were structural problems, but those pre-existing problems were identified years before that. The pandemic just revealed and exacerbated them.
Now it's up to us to do what we have to do and try to head in the right direction to overcome these challenges and solve these structural problems. I think we're all aware of that.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
I'd like to talk about the processing delays involved in renewing work permits, for example. Some people can't renew their work permits because they've renewed them too often. I'm thinking, for example, of certain working holiday permits, the WHPs.
What do you think about the idea of priority processing for the cases of people who are already in Quebec? That's a request that Quebec has made to the federal government. We should help people who are here and who might be in trouble if their permanent residence applications aren't processed quickly.
Director, Services for Immigrants, Accueil Liaison pour Arrivants
Absolutely. We support that recommendation because it's very important. These people are already here. Most of them are already learning French, although some already speak French. They are workers. They are scattered across the province, in slaughterhouses, in the health system and elsewhere. We think it's very important to regularize their situation as soon as possible. They're renewing the labour force. It's not just for economic development purposes.
As I said earlier, it's also a mental health issue, a very significant one that is increasingly being documented. Although the pandemic has revealed certain structural problems, we shouldn't have to deal with its mental health consequences after the fact. We can see what's coming. Alarm bells are being rung in all the studies being published on the topic.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
I'm going to ask a quick question because I have 30 seconds left.
I know that changes have been made regarding francization. A study permit and a Quebec acceptance certificate, a CAQ, are now required to continue francization training.
Should we facilitate access to francization?
Director, Services for Immigrants, Accueil Liaison pour Arrivants
To ask the question is, in a way, to answer it.
I'm not here to play ideological games with the French fact, but, from a demographic, pragmatic and objective perspective, the fact remains that the French language is sensitive. If the French language in Quebec…
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Boucher, but your time is up.
We will now go to Ms. Kwan for six minutes.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses.
My first question is for Ms. Go.
In your presentation you mentioned the situation for people in Hong Kong. You're absolutely correct to say that the government's announcements primarily focused on an economic stream and there is basically no agency stream. To that end, the biggest issue, of course, is how people will actually get out of Hong Kong to even make the economic application. As it stands now, if they're not in Canada already, they will not be able to make such an application.
Do you have any specific recommendations for the government to address this agency component?
Clinic Director, Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic
We are speaking with the minister's office. We're hoping that the government can think of other ways of helping the Hong Kong pro-democracy activists come here. If these measures were in place, for various reasons, we would not want to publicize them. At the same time, we're not getting too many details as to what these measures may look like.
We also discussed the possibility of government sponsorship or private sponsorship, but this cannot be done with people in Hong Kong. They have to be in another country. We have shared with the government the experience we had after June 4, 1989. At that time, there were other measures in place to help some of the activists leave China. The government is not giving me a lot of concrete information as to what measures, if any, it will have in place to assist those who are in Hong Kong right now.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much.
As far as we know, there aren't any programs in place to assist people to exit Hong Kong. That's a huge problem because if they can't exit, they can't get into a system for application.
Related to that, I want to raise the issue of family reunification. The family reunification stream for people is primarily spousal sponsorship and dependent sponsorships. There's no extended family sponsorship, for siblings as an example, or cousins, and so on.
Would you recommend that the government adopt an extended family reunification stream for the people of Hong Kong?
Clinic Director, Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic
Certainly, I would. In fact, we used to have those kinds of programs in the 1960s and 1970s. The immigration family class was much broader at that time. We had an assisted relative program. It was much easier to come here under those kinds of programs. All that changed over the last 20 years. Even for parents and grandparents, we're making it much harder for them to come.
I would strongly recommend, as Canada is thinking of evacuating the 300,000 Canadians living in Hong Kong, that they should evacuate their extended families at the same time, at the very least their spouses, dependent children, adult children, parents, grandparents and siblings.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much.
I was a beneficiary of the 1970s program, actually.
I'll move on to a different area, on landed status on arrival, giving people PR now. The fact of the matter is that we're not going to meet our immigration level numbers this year because of COVID. The numbers are down pretty well on every single stream, so we have a lot of room to move. The government only announced that it would provide PR to people in the health care sector through the guardian angels program, even though it still doesn't have an application process in place.
Would you recommend that the government extend that PR status for all the other streams, for other migrant workers and people without status at the moment?
Clinic Director, Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic
Yes, I would, certainly. We're proposing a regularization process for everyone who is in Canada right now with precarious immigration status. That would include migrant workers as well as people who work in all kinds of essential work. Even with some of the pilot projects that have been announced, they have certain language-speaking requirements that many of these workers may or may not meet. Even if they work in essential work, they may still not be able to take advantage of these programs.
Certainly we have a lot of temporary foreign workers, some of whom may also want to stay in Canada permanently. I would strongly recommend having a regularization program that would allow anyone with precarious status to apply in Canada right now.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Speaking now of caregivers, many caregivers have been impacted significantly by COVID. Their two-year work requirement has been interrupted and they're not going to meet that. Some of them have children who are going to age out.
Would you recommend that the government count the interrupted period of time towards their 24-month work requirement, as well as to freeze the age of the children so that they don't age out?
Clinic Director, Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic
Yes. The COVID period, the entire lockdown period, should not be counted to reduce the 24 month—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Go, but the time is up.
Yes, Ms. Kwan?
Clinic Director, Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic
My recommendation around the dependent children is that you count the age as of the beginning of the lockdown, so it doesn't matter when the lockdown is lifted.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Ms. Go.
We will now proceed to our second round of questioning.
We will start with Mr. Hallan.
You have five minutes for your round of questioning.
November 30th, 2020 / 4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Jasraj Singh Hallan Conservative Calgary Forest Lawn, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to all the witnesses for joining us today.
Dr. Christian, I'd like to get a bit more information on how hard a process it was to get your mother here. I know that it was a very difficult time for you, and I appreciate your comments today. If you could, give us a bit more background information on what you went through. Just go through the process and where things are.
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Thank you very much.
Getting my mom here was a very big and difficult challenge. I'm a lawyer by profession, so one would assume that with my being a lawyer who is very competent with immigration law, it would be a smooth ride. Unfortunately, it wasn't.
First of all, I participated in the lottery system. I did that for about five years before, fortunately, in 2018 I was randomly selected to sponsor my mom. This was very exciting. I have two children. I work full time. My wife works full time, too, so we needed someone to help.
We commenced the application process and completed the application. My mom was originally from Nigeria, but she was a U.S. permanent resident in Texas.
Immediately we sent in the application. Normally the application is supposed to be processed at the visa office very close to where the applicant is permanently resident. Rather than having my mom's application processed in the U.S. or Canada, IRCC sent her application to Accra, Ghana, for processing. That was about 12,000 kilometres away from where she was living.
Immediately when I was notified of that, I contacted the office to let them know that the application should be processed in the U.S. or in Canada, but I did not get any response, which is very typical. I had to apply for an access to information request. I used that access to information request to track down the officer who actually handled the application before it was sent to Accra. I began communicating with her to try to get the application back, but nothing happened.
I had to write a letter to the then minister, Mr. Hussen. Still nothing happened. Even when the new minister took over, I still had to forward it to them. It was not until I had to go public that an action was actually expedited to have the application processed.
The problem we experienced wasn't just a problem of being selected through the random process. Even issues with regard to processing of the application were a big deal.
Conservative
Jasraj Singh Hallan Conservative Calgary Forest Lawn, AB
Thank you so much for that.
You mentioned the process. We had the minister here last week, but we still didn't get any solid or proper answers about the current program that we have for grandparents and parents. The program was paused at the beginning. I'm not sure why, because when they reopened it, it was with the same lottery system that we've seen before.
Right now we're struggling. I'm hearing from constituents from all over that there's just no transparency in what's happening in the current program that they opened up. It's been closed now for weeks, and still nothing—no timelines. The minister couldn't answer any questions about it, either. It seems that he didn't know.
Have you had any people whom you know, or have you yourself been dealing with the current process? Do you have any comments on the transparency side or on timelines?