Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 30th, 2020

[Misha Pelletier]

Exactly. Most of them work from home, but still, there needs to be a quick, efficient way in order to serve people.

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

Did you have any remaining thoughts—we have about 20 seconds left—on how this process can be improved for folks like you and others?

[Misha Pelletier]

At this point, we need to speed up the process by giving electronic visas as well. That would be great. Abolishing the paragraph 179(b) for visitor visas would be great as well.

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

Thank you, Madam Pelletier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe that's all my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Dancho.

Now we will move to Mr. Dhaliwal.

You have six minutes for your round of questioning.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Thank you to all the witnesses who have come today.

My first question will go to president and vice-chancellor Robert Haché. Since August, our government has introduced temporary measures for students to study online from abroad until April 30, 2021, with no time deducted from the length of a future post-graduation work permit, provided 50% of the program of study is completed in Canada.

Do you find this an appropriate balance to maintain public health safety and avoid penalizing international students? What improvement would you suggest to the current framework for international students?

[Robert Haché]

I would say in the first instance that it has indeed been very helpful. We're quite thankful to the government for allowing students to study online. We're also, I will add, thankful that the government has now approved students to come back to the country. It has worked very well in most cases. I'll give a quick example. I meet regularly with small groups of students. I do it virtually now, and last week I was meeting with a student who was sitting in Côte d'Ivoire as he was having a conversation with the president.

There are some challenges with respect to the 24-hour clock and activities for students. Many of them are looking very much to come back to Canada, and we are amongst the universities that have arranged to allow for their safe and secure return and integration back as we do more face-to-face activities, hopefully starting in the new year.

With respect to additional measures, I really think for us at Laurentian, what we see, particularly with our francophone student population, is processing of visas and things that we can do to get them ready to come and to initiate their studies.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Thank you.

This question will go to Spousal Sponsorship Advocates.

Family and spousal reunification is one of the top priorities of our government. Our recent announcement of spousal sponsorship increased the level of IRCC staff by 66% to make sure that we continue to address the backlog, which we inherited from the Conservatives, and as a result of the pandemic. We made sure that this increase would lead to 49,000 decisions by the end of this year. We're looking to pilot remote interviews as well.

How do you see these developments as helping to reduce the backlog but also aid in modernizing the system by decreasing system inefficiencies?

[Misha Pelletier]

Mr. Dhaliwal, thank you so much for that question.

In our group, we have 8,000 members who we take care of, who we oversee. From what I've seen, these numbers are not adding up at this point. We have seen advancement. We've seen people receive their pre-arrivals or requests for a medical, so there's news coming in. I'd be very surprised if these files were actually finalized by the end of December, considering that there's a lot of backlog. As for actually speeding up the process in general, I wonder whether it's actually creating delays in other streams, such as the TRVs, the visitor visas.

Again, on the interviews, it sounds as though it's a pilot project and not an actual project that's happening for good. We haven't seen anyone receive an interview yet. I'm looking forward to hearing about that.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

On the other hand, our government has also made some changes to the IRCC spousal application system. One of them is to make sure that, first, we digitize those paper-based applications, convert them from paper to digital form. This is a piece that we hope will bring spousal applications into the technological age so they can be processed from anywhere in the world.

How do you see that as an improvement on the previous system?

[Misha Pelletier]

That is great news, but my question to that is actually, if you're digitizing these files, do you need uploads? Do you need us to send it by mail first, and then after that you digitize it, or can we just upload the actual documents without having to send them by mail?

To me, it's as though we're duplicating the work. We're actually sending out our file by mail and then you're digitizing it. It feels as though it's a duplication of work anyway, because you need to receive those documents by mail first. Why not just upload the file and then it's over with?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Certainly. There are files that are sitting there. There are people who have already applied and the decisions have not been made. For even those applications, when we digitize them and those decisions are made, it will reduce that backlog in terms of time.

Particularly if we look at some other countries, and I'll give you a perfect example, in Pakistan, the applications are processed in London—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Dhaliwal, I'm sorry for interrupting, but your time is up.

We will now move to Madam Normandin.

You have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

My first question is for Ms. Mara and Ms. Hatem.

I'd like to know more specifically which recommendations you're seeking as regards obtaining citizenship and calculating days. If my understanding is correct, you're asking that the number of days spent on Canadian soil during your permanent residence be used in the calculation for obtaining Canadian citizenship. You want the process to be quicker and, with respect to processing of permanent residence, you want to be less disadvantaged than persons in the other provinces.

[Roxane Hatem]

To obtain Canadian citizenship, you must absolutely hold permanent resident status for two years. Consider my own case as an example. According to the IRCC site, I should have received permanent residence in October 2020. The period between October 2020 and the moment I received my confirmation is "lost" time for the calculation associated with my citizenship. And yet it's not my fault that the delays are extremely long.

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

I'd like you to tell us about the fact that employers don't agree to pay for permit renewals. Have members missed opportunities, good and well-paid jobs?

[Roxane Hatem]

Armelle is a living example of that.

[Armelle Mara]

Thanks for handing over to me.

Yes, we have a lot of examples. In my case, I filed my application in 2018. At the time, waiting times were 17 months. Now they're up to 26 months, and I still don't have permanent residence. I've been waiting for 24 months. In addition, I haven't worked since December 2018. Why? Because, when I submitted my permanent residence application, my post-graduation work permit had expired. I had to switch to a closed work permit.

However, it's hard to find an employer who wants to recruit you in those conditions. He has to go to the IRCC portal and complete an application for you, an application that he'll have to pay for. In return, you also have to file an application that you'll have to pay for and wait for. Some people have to wait for up to six months to get it. I didn't find any employers who were prepared to go through those steps for me. They were reluctant. They preferred to hire someone who was already a resident. So I've been waiting for two years, and I don't have a work permit.

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

Thank you.

I have a question for Ms. Pelletier now.

Ms. Pelletier, did the announcement of October 30 on dual intent give you hope that more visas would finally be accepted as result of that?

[Misha Pelletier]

Thank you for that question, Ms. Normandin.

Of course the announcement gave us hope, but it's up to the discretion of the officers. In other words, they have the power to decide whether to give us a visitor visa. In addition, waiting times for visas have exploded; they've gone from 10 days to 250 days. So I wonder if that's not because you're asking the same officers to process digital files. That might explain why there are delays elsewhere.

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

I see.

You represent a group that has a lot of people in it. Since the announcement, have you had the impression that more visas have been accepted or that you have had more negative responses based on paragraph 179(b)?

[Misha Pelletier]

Yes. Today I asked the group whether there had been any refusals. I got at least five emails including documents citing paragraph 179(b) as the ground for denial.

It depends on the country concerned. It seems as though they're granting more visitor visas for Mexico, but the fewer for other countries. I think that communication is a major problem within IRCC and that visa offices don't have the same information everywhere.

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

I have an application that concerns both groups, that of Ms. Mara and that of Ms. Pelletier, who may answer one after the other, starting with Ms. Mara.

You have organized groups in which you can speak with each other and exchange information. Do you think you had to create this kind of group precisely because IRCC wasn't giving you enough information or didn't send you enough when you requested it?

[Armelle Mara]

That's correct.

Thank you for that question.

That's even the main reason why we created these groups. Initially, we all thought we were isolated cases, but, once the groups were formed, we realized that a lot of us were in the same situation. The groups even became a source of comfort and gave us the strength to move forward. Our situation is very stressful and causes a lot of psychological problems.

Yes, we had to create the groups, and we needed them. We're increasingly trying to make ourselves understood. The media are talking about this, and that helps us.

Thank you.

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

Would you like to add to that, Ms. Pelletier?