Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 19th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call the meeting to order.

Today we are here to study the subject matter of part 5, division 23 of Bill C-19, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other matters.

I would like to welcome and thank our witnesses from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration for appearing before the committee today. We are joined by Julie Chassé, director general, financial strategy; Philip Somogyvari, director general, strategic policy and planning; Marcel Poirier, director, fees and activity based costing division; and Jonathan Joshi-Koop, acting director, express entry policy.

Thank you for appearing before the committee. You will have five minutes for your opening remarks, and then we will go to a round of questioning.

You can please begin. You will have five minutes. Thank you.

[Philip Somogyvari, Director General, Strategic Policy and Planning, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you, Chair.

Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss the proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that are included in the budget implementation act.

My name is Philip Somogyvari, and I am director general of strategic policy and planning at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. I am joined today by my colleagues Julie Chassé, director general, financial strategy; Marcel Poirier, director, fees and activity based costing; and Jonathan Joshi-Koop, acting director of express entry.

The proposed amendments cover two areas. One is changes to express entry and the second is an exemption from the Service Fees Act for certain fees established under the authority of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Express entry is the application management system for a number of Canada's economic immigration programs. Candidates express an interest to immigrate to Canada, and if they meet the basic requirements of one of the programs managed by express entry, they are placed in a pool of pre-qualified candidates and ranked against one another based on a transparent scoring grid that favours individuals with high human capital. IRCC then invites the top-ranked candidates in the pool to apply for permanent residence through one of the programs through regularly held invitation rounds.

The proposed amendments being sought through division 23 of the budget implementation act will build upon express entry's existing flexibilities and support Canada's economic recovery and future growth by permitting the department to more easily select candidates who meet a range of economic needs and priorities. More specifically, the amendments authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to invite foreign nationals to apply for permanent residence through express entry on a new basis: the eligibility to be members of a category that would support an economic goal identified by the minister.

Eligibility requirements to be a member of a category would be established by the minister and could be based on factors such as work experience, educational background or language skills. For example, if there was a desire to leverage immigration to support the growth of Canada's tech sector, a category of express entry candidates would be created based on criteria such as their possession of work experience in their sector occupation and/or their possession of a related educational credential. Invitations could then be issued to the top-ranked candidates in that category. The minister would establish the category through ministerial instructions and post details, including the eligibility criteria, on the departmental website.

To support program integrity, the proposed amendments also direct officers to refuse applications from candidates who cannot demonstrate that they were eligible to be a member of the particular category. To support transparency around these authorities, the proposed amendments also require the minister to identify the economic goal they are seeking to support in establishing each category. The amendments also include the requirement for the minister to report on the use of these authorities through the annual report to Parliament on immigration.

Amendments in division 23 also include technical amendments to division 1 of IRPA, notably to eliminate of a minor inconsistency between the English and French versions of division 1 and to clarify the minister's authority to specify to which program an invited applicant may apply in the event they qualify for more than one program.

With respect to amendments regarding fees, the department is seeking an exemption from the Service Fees Act for four fees established under the authority of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. They are the authorization to return to Canada, rehabilitation for criminality and serious criminality, restoration of temporary resident status and temporary resident permits.

The Service Fees Act received assent in June 2017. It requires that service standards be established for all fees and that fees be remitted to clients when these service standards are not met. Services related to these four fees exist to address an inadmissibility for applicants who may have a criminal record or have been flagged to have special circumstances that prevent them from following the regular temporary residence pathways to enter Canada.

As such, these services have highly variable processing times that are dependent on clients' individual circumstances, and therefore an exemption from the Service Fees Act is being proposed, as it's difficult to establish reasonable and meaningful service standards for these fees.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with more information on these proposed amendments, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. We will now proceed to our round of questioning.

We will begin with Mr. Genuis. Mr. Genuis, you will have six minutes. You can please begin.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thanks for being here.

One of the changes that's been brought in is with respect to fees collected. Could you just explain more precisely what the impact of the Service Fees Act changes would be?

[Julie Chassé, Director General, Financial Strategy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Yes, I can answer that, Madam Chair.

In terms of changes to these fees, it will not change the Service Fees Act itself. What it will do is exempt these four fees from having to set service standards that are related to inadmissibility.

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

Right, so what is the specific effect? You're not eliminating the fees in those categories, but you're eliminating the requirement that service standards be associated with those fees.

[Julie Chassé]

Correct. This is exactly it.

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

Why is that change being made?

[Julie Chassé]

Technically it is extremely difficult to establish service standards for these fees because the time can run from two days to 1,200 days. We would be in the position that if we did not meet the service standards, we would have to refund these fees to applicants.

It's extremely difficult to establish predictable and transparent processing times that will apply to a large number of these applications. It's basically more of a case-by-case basis for these types of applications.

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

I'm going to try not to sound like my four-year-old here, but again, why? Why is it hard to establish consistent processing times and service standards for these four particular categories of applications? It does seem like we're struggling to meet service standards across a very broad range of applications. Why is it particularly difficult for these four in a way that you think justifies their exemption?

[Julie Chassé]

I think the question right now is not really meeting the service fees as of now, because it's extremely difficult to establish any. I think it's not really a question of meeting them, but it's a question of establishing something that is predictable and that we can abide by more. As I was saying previously, in certain circumstances an application can take months when we have to go through criminal records to ensure that the person can enter Canada and can be admitted to Canada. It's really dependent on every applicant's individual situation in terms of their criminal record or their situation.

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

The reference to a criminal record, I understand that to be a reference to one of the areas of exemption, which is determination of rehabilitation. Intuitively I would understand why that might be one for which it is more difficult to establish service standards, but another one that's being exempted, for instance, is an application for a temporary resident permit, so as a result of these changes, someone applying for a temporary resident permit would no longer have the benefit of having an established service standard. It doesn't seem like assessing an application for a temporary resident permit should be any more or less difficult compared to many other application categories in establishing what an appropriate service standard should be.

I can accept the inclusion of the one on determination of rehabilitation, but explain to me why it's somehow difficult to establish what a service standard should be for a temporary resident permit.

[Julie Chassé]

In terms of this application specifically as well, a temporary resident permit, although again not specifically related to criminality, is also highly dependent on an individual's situation in terms of being able to become admissible to enter the country.

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

Isn't that true of all categories, though? How is that particularly true of an application for a temporary resident permit any more than it's true of a spousal application, an application for citizenship or an application for refugee status? How is that uniquely difficult or uniquely individualized compared to the other categories?

[Julie Chassé]

Specifically in terms of this, all our other.... For example, regarding visa applications, we can put in predictable service standards and processing times and then calculate how we meet them. In terms of a temporary resident permit, because it's highly dependent on an individual's situation and his or her ability to provide the information that is required—

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

Sorry; I'm running out of time. Again, in the case of a temporary resident permit, it's highly dependent on the individual's situation, but the same is also true for a refugee application. In some ways, it might be even more difficult in that case, because you're talking about information that you need to gather from abroad, compared to....

I'm out of time. I still don't understand the rationale for why these categories would be exempt from the service standards that we expect in other cases. Especially at a time when we're failing to meet service standards in so many different areas, why would the government be seeking exemptions from those standards in these cases?

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 20 seconds.

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

Could you respond to that in the time you have?

[Julie Chassé]

I don't think I have much more to bring in terms of details on this, but I understand your point of view.

The Service Fees Act applies to a number of fees set by the government. Other fees that were set by a department are not subject to the Service Fees Act, and we do have service standards for these fees. Although they are not subject to the Service Fees Act, for example, a temporary resident would—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Sorry for interrupting, but time is up for Mr. Genuis.

Mrs. Lalonde, you have six minutes.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

I'd like to thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee on such short notice. I have a few questions for them.

I'll go straight to my questions.

I understand that Bill C-19 aims to make enhancements to the express entry program for highly skilled individuals who want to immigrate to Canada.

Could you briefly summarize these enhancements, please?

[Philip Somogyvari]

I would be happy to.

The amendments to the express entry provisions in the act essentially provide the ability for the minister to issue instructions that would focus on particular candidate attributes in the express entry pool and allow for invitation rounds to focus on individuals with those particular attributes.

The current formulation of the act specifies that the minister can issue invitations based on the total size of the invitation round and based on the underlying regulatory program for which the candidate qualifies. This change would provide flexibility to, for example, be able to invite candidates from the express entry pool who have particular work experiences or credentials, or who, for instance, are French speakers destined to an official language minority community. These are currently features that are not permitted under the current formulation of the act.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you for those examples. Could you just explain why the government is proposing these changes now?

[Philip Somogyvari]

The pandemic in particular highlighted the value to the government and the immigration program of inviting those who wish to come to Canada to participate in the labour market, whether it be in central services or in areas of the economy where labour is needed.

This, I would add, was something we were striving to do prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic placed a focus on the need for our economic immigration programs to be as flexible and nimble as possible to address what could be labour market shortages sectorally, nationally or regionally. We wanted to meet other economic goals, whether they were defined by the government through speeches from the throne, through the budget or were in fact contained within the objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act itself.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you again. What I'm hearing from you is certainly an aspect of flexibility that I think would be welcome, but I'm always conscious of how this will impact the applicants.

Can you explain how these changes will be communicated to clients and Canadians?