Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 3rd, 2022

[Caroline Xavier]

I can assure you, Madam Chair, that the college does exist.

The fact is I'm less familiar with how the college works, because it hasn't been around very long. Nevertheless, I imagine that one of the purposes of the college is precisely to license consultants. I want to be sure I provide you with the right information, so I will get back to you on this.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I appreciate your integrity, madam.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. We will now proceed to Mr. Dhaliwal.

Mr. Dhaliwal, you will have five minutes for your round of questioning. You can please begin.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, in the past this committee has heard about difficulties with family class applications. The immigration and refugee act requires spouses going through a sponsorship process to prove, number one, that their marriage is genuine, and number two, that when they entered into the marriage, their intentions were to be husband and wife and not to be in a marriage of convenience.

I see many decisions in which it is very difficult to grasp the reasons that their failure are based on. I would like to ask a question, through you, to the department. What are some of the factors used to assess the legitimacy of a spousal relationship, and how often do you see that the spousal sponsorship applications are refused due to a concern with the genuineness of the relationship?

[Caroline Xavier]

We see so much value in family reunification because we recognize how important it is to bring families together, and it is an important part of the programs we deliver.

When we're assessing the relationship between spouses or common-law partners, officers must be satisfied that the relationship that exists is genuine. The application kit requires that applicants submit certain documents as proof of their relationship. In the case of applicants in the spousal or common-law partnership in Canada class, officers must be satisfied that the applicant is living with the sponsor in Canada. If the documents submitted do not provide adequate proof of a genuine conjugal relationship—and that could include things like pictures demonstrating that the relationship has been ongoing for some time or that it is legitimate—and if the officers have doubt that the applicant is living with the sponsor, the officer may request additional information or schedule an interview to get clarification on the application.

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

Madam Chair, I am not satisfied with this answer. Particularly I look at India and Pakistan. Many marriages these days are still arranged marriages, and it's not necessarily the case that they fell in love before they were married. Most of those applications fail because of the age difference. In the relationship, it is just a number, and why is it applications like those? Then there is the economic status. The economic status can be anything once you fall in love.

Those are the issues, and I want to see how the department will work in the future to mitigate these as reasons that these spousal applications are being failed and the applicants are being harassed for so long.

[Caroline Xavier]

Madame Chair, I believe Madam Lang will be able to provide some additional information because, as stated, it is important that we ensure that the relationship is genuine but that we're not doing so in a manner that is seen as harassing an applicant.

[Tara Lang]

In general, family class applications have a very high approval rate, so I am sorry to hear that you have a number of instances of what you believe are disingenuous refusals.

We do request a lot of documents, and if we are not satisfied, if the officers making the decision in the department are not satisfied, applicants can be convoked to an interview to try to establish genuineness of relationship.

However, rest assured that as part of our anti-racism efforts, if there are things we are not seeing from a cultural bias perspective, we hope to uncover those in our evaluation of programs and policies, and we absolutely would like to do better if there is a way to do so.

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

Madam Chair, on the TRV applications, it's been almost a year, a year and a half or two years that people have been waiting and decisions have not been made, particularly from the Delhi office.

I would like to know what the department is doing to improve the situation, particularly in that office.

[Caroline Xavier]

I will say that during the pandemic, we did make decisions to address the priority applications of people who could travel to Canada, but at one particular point, as you know, border restrictions did not permit us to be able to allow all applicants to head toward Canada.

Having said that, Madam Lang has some additional information with regard to your question.

[Tara Lang]

As part of the fall economic statement, the department was given several million dollars in order to work on processing times and backlogs, and a significant portion of this money is being dedicated to reducing the TRV backlog, particularly as it pertains to files coming out of India, which, as we know, is our number one source country at this time for temporary resident visas.

We do have hundreds of thousands of applications, and we are dedicated to processing—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Lang. Time is up for Mr. Dhaliwal.

This ends our panel.

Go ahead, Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'll be very quick.

Mr. Redekopp raised the issue around the law clerk's report being brought back to us. I would like to ask for some information to be included in that report, namely for the law clerk to do a legal analysis on the issue around client-solicitor privilege so that the committee will have that information pertaining to the undertaking to be released, because it deals with that issue.

The other thing I would also like to receive incorporated in that report is how the question of client-solicitor privilege has been dealt with by the committee previously. I don't recall it becoming an issue at the committee during the time I have been here, so I would like to know the historical background of how often this matter has become an issue for the committee and how it was dealt with. Getting some information with respect to that would be useful and helpful for our committee's work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

We have a hard stop. We have to adjourn the meeting. We don't have services available after this point.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Just quickly, I agree and I want to clarify that we're looking specifically for the law clerk to provide advice as to whether solicitor-client privilege is a legitimate reason for excluding documents or whether the right of parliamentarians to access documents, in the view of the law clerk, is not subject to that limitation. In particular we're looking for that clarification from the law clerk, as well as some of the historical background and context that Ms. Kwan has suggested. I am supportive of the recommendation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will have to adjourn this meeting because we don't have services available. I will discuss it with the clerk and get back to the members on this issue in our next meeting.

Before we adjourn the meeting, this is a reminder for all the members that we have an extra meeting tomorrow from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., so I hope everyone will be able to join in.

The meeting is adjourned.