Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 24th, 2022

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, welcome. It seems that you are becoming a regular member of this committee.

I will turn the channel towards the students and the temporary foreign workers who are in Canada with the Canadian experience class. One of your mandates is to clear the pathway to permanent residency for international students and temporary foreign workers. IRCC hasn't held an express entry draw for federal skilled workers program candidates since before the pandemic, and the Canadian experience class draws have been paused since September 2021.

I have been asked repeatedly about when these draws will resume, because many workers are concerned about losing their status in Canada. Could you please touch on the plans that IRCC may have to resume the draws, which would help meet immigration level targets for this year?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dhaliwal.

I appreciate the question. This is important. I know that there is an enormous community of interest in watching this issue. It is my intention to do what I can to allow people to stay by extending postgraduate work permits or some proxy that will have the same result and that may be as effective.

One of the challenges we're dealing with is a result of the pivot towards resettling people who were here temporarily during the pandemic as permanent residents. It hampered our ability to use the federal skilled workers program, to a certain degree. I am very focused on the need to do whatever we can to address the labour shortage. There are significant numbers of people who are here now. I want to create an opportunity for them to stay and to continue to work, and it's extremely important that we do this.

I don't have a specific date for you. We're working as quickly as we can. We have to finalize a bit of policy work before we can roll out the kinds of changes I'm talking about, but our goal is to allow those who are here working to stay and to continue working until they have an opportunity to complete the PR process, whether it's through a federal skilled worker or a CEC draw.

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

Recent IRCC inventory showed in the past two months that IRCC was able to process over 4,700 Canadian experience class applications, and there were about 10,000 CEC persons left to be processed at this stage. It looks like IRCC will catch up on this backlog during the summer.

There is also a big backlog when it comes to reuniting family members, whether it's spousal cases or the parents of Canadians.

My question is this: What are your plans to catch up with that backlog?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

The processing challenges aren't unique to one line of business or another, though some are impacted to a different degree.

There are three different categories of measures, if I can describe it that way, that we're dealing with to improve the situation. The first is resources; the second is technology, and the third is spaces.

On resources, I shared with you previously that we've hired more than 500 staff, who are now fully trained and working and producing. In addition, the money in the economic and fiscal update, mostly on the temporary side of business, is going to make a meaningful difference.

You would have seen from late January the announcement we made about certain technological features that are coming online, and I believe that was a subject of testimony before this committee previously, so I won't rehash all the details. Suffice it to say that the PR case tracker for family reunification is now online, and people can get real-time updates on their own files. There are a number of other measures I can go into if you wish.

Finally, on spaces, increasing the number of overall spaces will help us play catch-up to a certain degree, but I will say that since January we've now processed more than 143,000 PR applications. By the end of February, in the first two months, we saw more than 100,000 approvals. We are actually processing at a much faster pace than before the end of last year, and it's encouraging to see some of these investments take hold to make a very significant difference in terms of the rate at which we have been able to process in the first few months of this year.

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

In the parents class, is there going to be a draw soon? We haven't heard anything on that particular category.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'll apologize in advance, because I don't have an announcement to make at committee today on the date of the next draw.

Sukh, you have been a huge advocate, I have to say, for the parents and grandparents stream in particular. One of the things you and I have discussed before is to make sure that we're doing this in a way that is fair. It's a real challenge, because we have almost 10 times as many applications as we historically have spaces.

I will point out in the two seconds before I run out of time here that we plan, over the next few years, on increasing the spaces from 23,500 to 32,000. We're going to continue to work to try to bring more people through the stream, including one of our former colleagues, the current mayor of Edmonton, who arrived on the parents and grandparents stream when he was only 18, as he followed his family to Canada.

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

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Minister.

We will now proceed to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you will have two and a half minutes. Please begin.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, like my colleague Ms. Kayabaga, I would like to highlight the fact that you have been in office for a short time and there are many problems that existed before you came. However, your political party has been in government since 2015, and in the last seven years, I have not seen many positive changes in IRCC.

I believe you are sincere in your desire to change things. In fact, on several occasions, including last Tuesday at this committee, we were told that the establishment of an immigration ombudsman could ensure that people are better protected from unfair decisions in the processing of their immigration applications.

I have asked you this question twice before, but you seemed ambivalent about it. Today I'm going to ask you more directly, since you say you want to change things.

Do you support the creation of an immigration ombudsman?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Look, honestly, I need to do some more thinking on this particular proposal. I would love to come out and say, yes, I have made up my mind—it's this or it's that. It's an area on which I want to see the benefit of the testimony and the recommendations that come from this committee. I expect, given your question, I know where you may land on this particular issue.

I also want to see an opportunity to determine whether some of the measures we're introducing to address some of these systemic problems can actually make a meaningful difference without necessarily having to go down the path of appointing an ombudsperson.

Until I'm fully seized with the facts and the potential consequences of one path or another, I'll reserve judgment, but I look forward to hearing more of what the committee has to say on this particular point.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Perfect.

I'm still going to keep asking you questions the next time you come in. Trust me, Minister.

You said that there are various mechanisms that can ensure procedural fairness for every applicant.

Where should a student turn if his or her application is rejected for some inexplicable reason, for example?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

It's really important.... I personally am not making decisions on individual cases, and it's essential that the minister not fetter the discretion of those who are making the—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Please excuse me for interrupting you, Minister. Perhaps you didn't quite understand my question.

I am not asking if you make the decisions yourself. You talked about mechanisms that students can use when their application is rejected for an inexplicable reason.

What are these mechanisms? To whom should these students turn?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Largely speaking, the applications can be reconsidered, so there could be a reapplication. You could apply for reconsideration, or you could challenge in Federal Court.

As somebody who practised law before I got into politics, that's not an option for many people. The reality of the situation is that the decision-making process on independent case files has to remain independent from me, but the process to reapply remains available, in most circumstances, to people who are seeking to come to Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Minister—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

So it would be a good thing to have an ombudsman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up. Thank you.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you will have two and a half minutes. You can please proceed.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

To put it on the public record for the minister's information, the NDP has called for an ombudsperson for immigration in our platform for years now. We certainly support that, and I think it absolutely is required. I hope the minister will take that seriously and implement something like that.

With respect to differential treatment, it doesn't start in one place but actually is throughout the system. The committee has been advised that racialized women's organizations are being treated differently. They've been asked for a detailed breakdown of admin budget costs, when other sectors are not required to do so.

Settlement officers have to provide additional information to substantiate and justify their decisions, and this extends to clients as well. In India, there's hyper-scrutiny for marriage fraud. Muslim female clients are being asked questions of a sexual nature with regard to their relationship with their male spouses, as proof of marriage. For China, DNA testing is often required for child sponsorship applications. For Africa, genuine parent and child relationships are often questioned.

Will the minister ensure that there is an independent review into these concerns as part of a larger independent review of systemic racism within IRCC and report his findings publicly?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'm open to digging into this. One thing I hesitate to do, before we have an opportunity to address some of these challenges, is to immediately react to say that the right thing to do is to ship it out to an independent body. To the extent that there are problems we can address, I think it's incumbent upon me, as the minister, to address them before we start delaying by giving it to a third party.

For example, questions about sexual activity for somebody who's trying to prove the legitimacy of their marriage are heartbreaking for that person to go through. To the extent that we can deal with these sorts of things by investing in training for officers, I don't think we need to wait for an independent report to tell us that might be an appropriate thing to do.

To your question, I'm open to building this into a broader part of the anti-racism work going on within the department. Before I would commit to saying that we have to ship it out to a third party for an independent review, I'd have to satisfy myself that we're not able to do it on our own, even though I know we should.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Is the minister admitting that these concerns exist and that they are tied to systemic racism within the department?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I want to be careful. I know there's a temptation for anyone watching these scenarios to latch on to the specific words I use. I don't believe that the entire organization is a racist organization. I don't believe that the entire organization is perfect. I think it's a large organization—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Minister. Your time is up.

We will now proceed to Mr. Redekopp.

You will have four minutes, and then we will end our round of questioning with Mr. El-Khoury for another four minutes.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to address what, to me, seems to be a bit of an elephant in the room. We had the conflict in Afghanistan in the last year, and it continues. In August, the government stated that it wanted to bring in 40,000 Afghans. So far, there have been about 8,500.That's eight months and a little over 1,000 a month. This, of course, is a racialized community in Afghanistan.

We've now had the conflict in Ukraine. You stated that we've brought in 10,000 white Ukrainians in the last three months. That's triple the rate of Afghanistan. Certainly Ukrainians deserve to come here—they need help—but so do the others.

Under your watch, it seems like you've set up a racialized system, a two-tiered system, where white Europeans come in faster than people from Afghanistan. How do you explain that?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

It's really important for people to understand that this is not the motivation in any way, shape or form.

With respect to the numbers, there are now approximately 9,400 Afghan refugees who have landed in Canada. I had an opportunity to meet with a number of our new neighbours who live in Alberta during a recent visit.

The situation in Ukraine allows and demands a different response. With respect to Afghanistan, these are people, to use your language, whom we are bringing here. These are people who are benefiting from the full suite of settlement supports. We are doing it through a traditional refugee resettlement process.

With respect to Ukraine, we've made it easier for people to come. We're looking at what appropriate supports may look like. We're looking at how we can facilitate people's entry into Canada. The 10,000 who've come have come from the beginning of the year and have largely come here under their own devices. It has more to do with their ability to leave Ukraine, as compared with those who don't have that ability to leave Afghanistan, than it does a decision by the federal government to be more kind to one group of people than another.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

That's in effect what's happening, though. I mean, both are people who are dealing with conflict and who are in terrible situations. The system you've set up makes it much, much easier; to your point, you've made it very easy for Ukrainian people to come in as visitors, but you haven't extended that same ease of entry to Afghans.

How do you explain that? It doesn't seem right.