Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 31st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Sorry, your time is up. Thank you.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan. You will have six minutes for your round of questioning. You can please begin.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for their presentations.

I'd like to ask all of the witnesses this question. The system we have at the moment does not allow for an appeal process. That is to say, under certain extenuating circumstances a person might all of a sudden be disqualified.

As a case in point, I actually had someone tell me that in their final year of meeting the income requirement, their baby came early. As a result of that they had to go on maternity leave, literally in the last month of that requirement. As a result, their income dipped when they went on that leave and that disqualified them, after having waited the entire time, getting the draw and all of that. There's no appeal mechanism for an extenuating circumstance to understand the situation and allow for the application to proceed. Right after the maternity leave, for one month the individual went right back to work, and their income went right back to where it was before.

I'd like to ask the witnesses to comment on whether or not we should a provision in Mr. Seeback's bill that would allow for the minister to consider a mechanism for appeal in this regard.

Maybe I can start with Mr. Kurland, and then we can go through to the other witnesses.

[Richard Kurland]

There is an appeal to the appeal division of the Immigration and Refugee Board when the minimum income threshold fails as a test. There's that, but it takes a long time.

It may be an idea to have a second set of eyes, another decision-maker, to look at cases where temporary status applications have been declined. That's been posited for some time by policy analysts.

I'll allow my good colleague Vance to take this one.

[Vance P. E. Langford]

Thank you, Mr. Kurland.

Thank you, Ms. Kwan, for the question.

I think the situation you outlined happens to a lot of people. There should be some appeal process. For a visa application, I believe an application could be made to the Federal Court for leave and for a judicial review of the decision. That would be determined based on whether the officer who reviewed the visa application fettered his or her discretion. That's an impractical, long and expensive process and it would be, ultimately, based on whether the person met the income requirement. That may not be worth pursuing.

Another idea I had—and others can comment on it—is that the minister could issue a temporary resident permit for someone who didn't meet the requirement. That's one idea.

The third thought is that these visas are issued and the program criteria are developed through ministerial instructions. One of the questions that was considered in the past meeting of this committee on this bill, on May 17, was whether IRPA should be amended, the regulations should be amended or it should be dealt with in another way. Our submission would be that it should continue to be dealt with by ministerial instruction, so that there could be more flexibility. I would suggest that if the research shows it's warranted, the flexibility be built into reducing or eliminating the low-income cut-off or allowing for credit, for example, for the assets and resources that the parents and grandparents have. You can't necessarily post a bond. We might not like to go there, but if there's another way to guarantee that those resources can be accessed, that would be a good idea as well.

There are a range of options, and I think this could be dealt with within the program itself.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I want to highlight the current process. You have to go to the Federal Court, and it is an onerous process, as you indicated. A lot of people would give up at that level. However, I think if you allow for an appeal process that's doesn't require it to go to the Federal Court and where the government or the officials can make that determination—or even the minister can make that determination—that would be much more efficient.

Ms. Salman, I don't think you had a chance to respond, so I'm going to give you a quick chance to respond before I follow up.

[Rasha Salman]

Actually, if you don't mind, Ms. Amad had her hand raised for this question, so I'm going to go to her.

[Dima Amad]

Thank you.

Ms. Kwan, first of all, we agree with you 100%. For a lot of the immigrants who we serve and the communities that we come from, they are overrepresented in precarious employment, and to produce approval of three years of income, even a minimum threshold income, is too much to request. If you're going to purchase a home, the bank doesn't ask for three years at the same level of income in order for you to be able to get the mortgage.

For us, I'd like to stress that although we welcome the improvements in the bill, because we believe the families have the right to bring in their parents and grandparents, we see it only as an alternative to them sponsoring, or while waiting for the sponsorship to kick in, so that they can be reunited.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Ms. Amad. The time is up for Ms. Kwan.

We will now proceed to our second round, and we will have Mr. Benzen. You will have four minutes for your round of questioning.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today.

Regarding the minimum necessary income, some critics have suggested that we should look at it on a regional basis. The costs are different in different parts of Canada, and it's unfair for somebody living in the Prairies to have to have the same income as somebody living in Toronto or Vancouver.

Can all of the witnesses give their comments on whether that should be a consideration when that is looked into?

[Vance P. E. Langford]

I can go first this time, if that's okay.

There are complexities that will be introduced if you have regional income cut-off requirements that will change over time and that have to be kept up to date. One suggestion might be for rural versus urban income requirements, depending on the location of the family. That's obviously going to be a difference. It's something to manage if you start to do that, so I think you would have have to weigh that in balance with whether you reduce it overall.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

In regard to that, other critics have said that it should be totally removed altogether and that there shouldn't be any minimum requirement.

What are your thoughts on that, and what would the negative impact of that be?

[Richard Kurland]

Money—it boils down to money. It's not an exciting immigration selection category in the first place. You're either related to the parent and grandparent or you're not.

Still, if we were to allow zero income as a threshold, I don't know how many applications we could expect to pour into the system, but we can make the problem go away by giving a credit of $5,000 to each young person in that family by reducing the threshold based on family size. Under those circumstances, I think the regional issue will dissipate.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

I found it interesting that you and Mr. Langford both suggested that the five-year period was probably not going to be a good idea and that we don't really need that either. I was wondering if it's just a case of our not explaining to the applicants and the visa holders how.... Is it a question of just educating them better on how the current system works, that you could be here up to nine years right now? That was what Mr. Langford said earlier. It already works, so do we just need to educate people about it better?

[Vance P. E. Langford]

I don't know if others have comments, but I would agree with that. That information needs to be very clear. In the program instructions it is clear, so there could be more information, better information, for parents and grandparents and their children who are in Canada. That's how it works, and if you have a good immigration lawyer, it will be explained to you for sure.

[Dima Amad]

Can I comment on this, please? Is that okay?

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Yes.

[Dima Amad]

They have to leave after two years, and this is also costly. If they needed to stay, for example, for three years, and then after two years, reapply again, leave and come back, that's why we kind of welcome the fact that, if they want to stay for longer periods of time, especially those who are waiting for the sponsorship applications to kick in, then it saves them money.

Thank you.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

The time is up for Mr. Benzen. Thank you.

I'd just like to remind all the members and the witnesses to please address all of your comments through the chair.

We will now proceed to Ms. Lalonde.

Ms. Lalonde, you have four minutes. You can please begin.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Certainly I want to say thank you to all of our witnesses today.

I would like to come back to Mr. Langford's comments regarding keeping the super visa in ministerial instructions.

Can he expand a little bit on what the limitations or challenges would be if it were moved under the authority of IRPA?

[Vance P. E. Langford]

The answer would be, Madam Chair, flexibility.

Amending IRPA to provide a different duration, amending IRPA to do other things that are proposed in the bill, allowing for an insurance provider or reducing the minimum income, are all sort of programmatic requirements. The only one I would see as worthwhile to consider putting into the act or the regulations would be the duration of the visa, but I think the Canadian immigration system would benefit from the use of ministerial instructions to adjust or change something like the duration of a visa without having to amend the act. I think there are more fundamental things that would be done in the legislation.

I would also agree with caution about the use of ministerial instructions for many things and that, when ministerial instructions are used, the government has an obligation to report to Parliament at least annually on the use of ministerial instructions.

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

Thank you very much.

Through you, Madam Chair, to your knowledge, are there any other temporary visa programs built into the IRPA, Mr. Langford?

[Vance P. E. Langford]

I think, Madam Chair, in IRPA there are the outlines for programs, visa programs, but the specifics are in the operational bulletins and the guidance that's used by the department to administer them. I can't say definitively that there are no specific programmatic visa requirements in the act or regulations, but generally the criteria used to evaluate the structure of a visa program and its requirements are in the program itself.

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

Thank you again.

My colleague, Mr. Fayçal El-Khoury, tried to get and answer from Madame Amad and Madame Salman regarding—and I'm just going by memory a little bit— the economic, social and cultural values of families being reunited.

I'm wondering if we could finish on that, Madam.

[Rasha Salman]

Should I take this?