Evidence of meeting #23 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was number.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Ms. Xavier.
The time is up for Mr. El-Khoury.
We will now proceed with Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, for two and a half minutes. We will end this panel with Ms. Kwan. After that, we will end this meeting.
Please proceed, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
This is the last time I will be speaking officially to the minister at this meeting, and I want to thank him for coming to see us. I thank him for answering our questions honestly. I am very happy about that.
The minister told us that he did not have the exact figures on the number of people who have arrived in Canada under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel.
Can officials tell us if they have those numbers?
12:45 p.m.
Acting Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thank you for the question.
As the minister said, over 23,000 people have arrived since January 1 of this year. However, it is difficult to determine whether they have arrived specifically under the new program that the minister announced on March 17. It is this information that we do not have.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I can provide clarification. The exact figure exists, and I think the Canada Border Services Agency has that information.
CBSA, the Canada Border Services Agency, track how people enter and how they come in, so it may just be that we don't have that particular figure. I'm sure we can find that number and deliver it to the committee.
12:50 p.m.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Okay.
Many of the people who arrived in January already had a travel authorization. Over 25,000 Ukrainians are believed to have arrived in the country, but we don't know how many of them arrived under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel program. So it would be nice if the committee could have those numbers.
Whenever we do studies in committee, whether it's on foreign students, racism, or processing times, we hear from many witnesses that IRCC's operations are very opaque, that there's a lack of transparency.
Minister, you have been honest with us throughout the meeting. Do you think that these witnesses are mistaken in telling us this?
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
No. I think we can always improve and be more transparent.
You have a department of 11,000 people who serve more clients than most of the rest of the government put together, and we've been growing at a pace that is extraordinary in the last few years.
With regard to the kinds of things we're trying to do, I mentioned earlier that we're broadcasting actual expected times for processing, rather than just service standard times. The ability for people to access information about their cases is something we've now made possible with trackers, for permanent residency, family reunification and citizenship. We'll keep doing more with that sort of thing.
This numbers issue with CBSA is just a function that we don't have that number here today, but we can get that and we're happy to broadcast it.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting. The time is up for Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.
We will proceed to Ms. Kwan.
Ms. Kwan, you have two and a half minutes. You can, please, begin.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you.
I wonder if the minister can provide to the committee this information: a gender analysis of the Afghans who have arrived, so a breakdown of women versus men who have arrived to date. Also, could I get the minister to table for the committee the projected timelines of when the backlog of applications for each of the streams will be processed, and to also identify for how many and where the processing is essentially complete and waiting for the immigration levels numbers to finalize those applications?
Further to that, I'm interested in getting the particular breakdowns for the caregivers component. My understanding is that for the caring for children program, the home child care provider pilot, the home support worker program, the interim pathway, the live-in caregiver program and the high medical needs program, in total, there are 47,087 applications in the backlog. Can the minister advise and table to the committee the information on how long he projects IRCC will take to process all of these applications and how many of those applications are waiting for levels numbers for the application to be finalized?
Finally, on the last piece, because I only have two and a half minutes, so I have to get this in. On the extended family members of former Afghan interpreters, literally at 12:12 today, I got the undertaking that I asked for from officials back on March 3. It indicates that 980 applications are in active processing under this stream, zero have been approved, zero are pending approval and zero have arrived in Canada.
Could the minister advise when the extended family members of the former Afghan interpreters will arrive in Canada and for the applications to be processed? There are 300 former Afghans who have submitted their applications, and 65% of them have not even received a G number. The other ones with a G number have not had their applications processed. This is of great urgency.
The last question for the minister is on the Ukraine extended family application process. When can people get the details of that, and when will it actually come into play and be active in terms of processing?
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Okay.
I'll need to review the transcript after the meeting is over, because you had some pretty clear asks.
Just as a word on extended families, this is a group that we made a special pathway for because we want to help. I am starting to see movement on a lot of these files. There have been hundreds of people who have now been approved for eligibility and hundreds more who have been through both eligibility and security. Internally, it looks like there is a lot of movement.
I don't have a specific date, and until I have one, I've told the interpreters who want to bring their extended families here that, when I have a date, I'm going to let them know, and I'll let this committee know when we expect to have those dates when it's nailed down. I don't want to create expectations on a particular date until I know with certainty. Out of fairness to them I'd like to do that.
On Ukraine, I don't expect the details will take us that long, but the overarching point for me—and my priority right now—is to make sure we provide safe haven to people who need it now. People who come under the temporary program will be able to apply for the new family sponsorship when it's set up. Again—
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting. The time is up for Ms. Kwan.
We will have a quick two and a half minutes for Mr. Benzen and then end with Mr. Ali for two and a half minutes. Then the minister can leave.
Mr. Benzen, please go ahead for two and a half minutes.
May 12th, 2022 / 12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Benzen Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Minister.
Thank you to all the witnesses who are here today.
I have two quick things, Minister.
You said in the first hour that we're still basically a paper-based department. If we're going to get these backlogs reduced and increase our processing times, we really need to get into a more highly digital, highly virtual environment. You said that you had a plan. My first question is, simply, can you give us that plan? Can you provide it to us in writing—what your timeline is, what your costs are and the benchmarks and how it will work—so that we can see how this will improve in the future?
The second part is a quick question. I have some constituents who are applying for their TRVs and waiting for what I think is an excessive amount of time for their security checks. They're waiting seven, eight, nine and 10 months to get their security checks back. I understand that we're outsourcing those, and that may be part of the problem. Can we do these ourselves or be part of that process?
Even if we're outsourcing them, can we reduce that and have a timeline that says we need to get these things back in 90 days or in something that is much shorter than almost a year?
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you.
I have a really limited amount of time to answer, so I'll try to cut to the chase. I'm happy to look at the summary of the digitization space. There have been a couple of milestones that have already been implemented, and this is something I'm really excited about. This is an $827-million investment and progress is chugging along. It will transform immigration in Canada and make an enormous difference, and I'm just thrilled to have the opportunity to be the person implementing this system.
On the security checks, the reason that typically happens is that we can't do it on our own, and we rely on information that's being provided by another country, for example. That is a real big challenge, because we're sometimes at the mercy of the ability of another country to provide information to us. It can vary enormously on a case-by-case basis, and I just hesitate to say, without knowing about the specific cases you're referring to, whether that's something we could improve upon or whether it's actually a third party that we're relying on.
We don't have time to get into it today. I would love to speak more about the digitization should we have the opportunity.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Yes. I can provide a summary of our plan to the committee with as much detail as I have.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Mr. Benzen.
We will now have Mr. Ali for two and a half minutes, and then we will end the panel.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Shafqat Ali Liberal Brampton Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Through you to our honourable minister, thank you again for your patience and hard work. I have two questions and then you can answer. I'm going to throw those questions together.
The first one is in regard to citizenship ceremonies. Your department has been very successful in adapting these citizenship processes to the challenges of the pandemic. Applications for citizenship can be done online. An average of 5,000 people a week are invited to take the citizenship test online. As of February 15, 133,000 people have become Canadian citizens through virtual ceremonies. Can you update us on the plans for continuing this progress? This is question one.
Second, could you please update the committee on the current TRV application processing times for the applicants from Pakistan?
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Sure. You want to build upon Mr. Benzen's question.
If you want to see the power of digital processes, let's look at the experience with citizenship. It really was pounded in the early days of the pandemic when we couldn't have people gather in large spaces and have hundreds of people swear their oath at one particular time. Through the combination of a digital application process and virtual ceremonies, we're able to process an extraordinary number of people.
Mr. Mills, correct me if I'm wrong. I believe that in the month of March we had 41,000 new Canadian citizens take their oath of citizenship. This is an extraordinary increase in volume and capacity of the system, made possible with the adoption of technology.
On the TRV issue with respect to Pakistan, I don't have the number in front of me. I could dig it out of this big binder, but I think our team can do it faster than I can.
Dan, do you have that particular number specific to Pakistan?
1 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thank you very much for the question.
The average processing rate for temporary resident visas from Pakistan is about 90 days. That includes all processing periods from September 7 onwards.