Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 7th, 2022

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I don't have that much time, so I'd like to turn my questions to processing delays. One of the issues that were raised was that IRCC officials return an application when it is missing something. In fact, I actually have a constituent who applied in July for a post-grad work permit. In November, he got a response rejecting his application because it was missing his certificate of confirmation. He immediately reapplied and has not heard back. It's been six months since then. Now, because of the delays, he's lost a job that he was being offered.

This is an issue that's come up over and over at IRCC. Should the government stop refusing applications? Should they actually just pick up the phone or email the people who are missing the document, missing a signature or whatever else, contact them and get that information before they issue a rejection?

That is for both witnesses.

[Kyle Hyndman]

Thanks, Ms. Kwan.

Certainly it's our position that IRCC should be providing applicants with an opportunity to correct minor deficiencies or perceived deficiencies. As I said, sometimes they're not even deficiencies. There may be a legal or practical reason why a particular document hasn't been included, or it may have been a minor oversight that could be corrected in minutes. Giving applicants an opportunity to correct those deficiencies, as you noted, by picking up the phone or sending an email with even a short deadline to correct it or to explain why it's not there would save resources in the long run by preventing the cascade of additional steps that would need to be taken to fix it.

[Ravi Jain]

I agree with everything Kyle just said, and, yes, you're absolutely right. The point made is a beautiful one. We live in an age of instant communication. We have all kinds of access to email, phone, etc., so why don't they use this? Absolutely.

The reason it's taking as long as it's taking now is that up to 80% of people, officers, were not at work for extended periods of time. The government indicates on Public Safety Canada's website that Canada's national strategy classifies critical infrastructure in Canada under 10 sectors. One is government—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Jain, the time is up for Ms. Kwan.

We will now proceed to Mr. Redekopp.

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

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Let's pick up with Mr. Jain.

If you want to finish what you were just saying, I would appreciate that.

[Ravi Jain]

Thank you.

What I was saying was that, if you look at Public Safety Canada's website, it declares what's essential. For the pandemic, we were looking at what areas are critical infrastructure for Canada. One of them is government. Within that government heading are listed “Workers supporting...permanent residency...visas”.

The Canadian visa officers and immigration officers throughout Canada should have been declared essential. They should have been made to go back to work, with proper protocols, masking, etc., so that this backlog was not allowed to be created. It affects our ability to respond to humanitarian crises. It affects our ability to reunite families. It affects Canada's competitiveness in terms of our economy.

It's a huge impact across the whole country, and this should never have been allowed to develop.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

I want to touch on the issue of the scope of the problem in terms of the backlog. In the departmental plan, Minister Fraser mentioned that the plan is for between 360,000 and 445,000 new permanent residents for 2022. However, if you look at the same departmental plan, on page 22, it shows that every year we have failed to achieve our targets by 100,000-plus people. They did kick in a bit of extra money for that, but that was to deal with the backlogs that are going to be created, not the existing one.

I asked the minister about this, and of course he didn't deny these because they're facts, but he said it's normal to have hundreds of thousands of people.... His quote was, “I hesitate to describe as a backlog, because it's normal to have an inventory of cases.”

Mr. Hyndman, from your perspective, working on the ground with people, do we have a normal inventory of cases, at two million? Is the government looking at these as cases and not people? Are we trying to do too much? What's going on here?

[Ravi Jain]

Kyle can't get off mute. Would you like me to jump in?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

You can go ahead if you like.

[Ravi Jain]

I was in Kyle's role just a couple of years ago as chair of the CBA immigration section, and I can tell you that it is absolutely abnormal to have this number of people in.... I call it a backlog. The government may call it inventory, but it's a backlog of over two million people.

This is unprecedented. I think there are major reasons, real reasons, for why this was allowed to happen. As I said, there were people not working. I also think it relates to the government not trusting our representatives, and I think it's because we're lumped in with immigration consultants. That's a whole other issue, and it's a problem. There needs to be greater communication and transparency—all those things.

This is something that is really affecting the country in every way I described. It's very problematic.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Jain.

The time is up, Mr. Redekopp.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kayabaga for three minutes.

Ms. Kayabaga, you can please begin.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I also want to start by thanking our witnesses for taking the time to be here to answer our questions. My first question will go to both Mr. Hyndman and Mr. Jain.

I'll start with Mr. Jain, actually.

You talked about transparency and accountability. We note that our government has increased the funding for IRCC. We've increased staff. When you talk about accountability and transparency, what does that look like for you?

[Ravi Jain]

We need to know how the money is going to be spent. I do applaud the government for that. There was significant spending for modernizing the GCMS, global case management system, in particular, so that files can move around. Delhi is overwhelmed. They can move it to other visa posts. I think that's great, but it's going to take a long time for that money to translate into a new platform for the government to really modernize in a way that allows greater efficiencies.

For accountability particularly, I want to understand how many officers were working, before, during the pandemic, right after and now that things are more stabilized. Why weren't they declared essential? As I said, Public Safety's website said they were essential, so why weren't they declared essential? Why weren't they told they had to go into the office and process paper applications?

While they were modernizing it and digitizing.... I know there was a digitization process so that things could be pushed abroad, but I can tell you that the private bar had to pivot like that. We had people with their kids running around—

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

I'm sorry. I apologize for cutting you off. It's just because I have very limited time and I want to ask another question.

That's a very interesting response on what transparency and accountability look like for you.

I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on what other tools we can use to address the long processing times. We have hired more staff and the system has gone back to its full service since earlier this year, and there are still longer processing times because there are more applications and because we had a pandemic. What other tools would you suggest we use?

I want to add to that. You did talk about IT. Some people have said that IT is not a tool that we should be using. What are your comments on that? Do you believe that we should be using IT systems or actually continuing to increase the staff?

[Ravi Jain]

It's both. You're right. Part of the issue is that there actually are more applications. I see that in Delhi, for instance. Year after year, there are more and more applications—

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

What are your thoughts on the problems we have heard about that are discriminatory through the IT process?

[Ravi Jain]

I think you're talking about AI. I think that's absolutely right. AI can be a useful tool, but you have to make sure there's not discrimination happening and that there are not these criteria that are being implemented in a way that leads to unfairness. I think there needs to be careful attention paid to that, but I think it could be a way to help get through the mounds of applications that are being processed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up, Ms. Kayabaga.

We will now proceed to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe for one and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

A minute and a half is very little time. So I will use it to thank the witnesses who are using the Zoom platform.

I would like to thank Mr. Shajjan, to whom I will give carte blanche.

Mr. Shajjan, you have the remainder of my time to say what you have not had a chance to point out to the committee.

[Saeeq Shajjan]

Thank you so much. I'm really grateful.

On what I would like to ask for, IRCC needs to pay urgent attention to the files of my colleagues and to issue them case numbers as soon as it is possible. Then we will see how, we ourselves, with the support that I have gathered in Canada, can find ways to support the Canadian government to bring them to safety from Afghanistan. I think that's the very first thing that I would be asking for.

Second, I think the number of visas is limited to some 18,000. I think that is unfair. The way the expectation was given to those people was that they had an enduring relationship with the Government of Canada. That number needs to be increased as much as possible. We thought that of the initial 40,000, at least 35,000 visas or something like that would be given to those who had enduring relationships with the Government of Canada, and then the remaining visas could be provided on humanitarian grounds, but right now we are seeing that only 18,000 are provided to people who have this relationship with the Government of Canada.

We are seeing that people are brought in from different cases, but they're counted under this 40,000. Again, I think that is unfair. That needs to stop, and we need to take immediate action to make sure that we really bring to safety those people who are in danger in Afghanistan just because of their relationship and services to the Government of Canada.

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

We will now proceed with Ms. Kwan for one and a half minutes and then end the panel.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to ask whether or not, through your experiences, the situation with the caregiver stream.... To my understanding from caregivers, their applications basically have not really moved forward and been processed since 2019. The backlog is inordinate and significant. I wonder whether or not the Canadian Bar Association has experienced that or what you can share with this committee in terms of the backlog and the delays for caregivers.

[Kyle Hyndman]

Certainly, and thank you, Ms. Kwan.

There have been very serious delays in the caregiver program. In terms of allocating resources to that program, we've certainly advocated that the first step of getting to the work permit be done more quickly. Again, it's about allocating resources where it makes the biggest difference to applicants. It's not just about pouring more resources into overall processing. Getting people to that work permit stage in 90 days rather than in a year would make a huge difference to their ability to work, as well as locking in qualifying and other aspects.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Yes, or maybe just processing the application within the standard, which, I would say, is no more than 12 months.

The other question I'd like to ask is this one. A lot of folks actually had their status expire because of COVID and other implications, so they're here and actually in Canada. In the meantime, the government is issuing more permits to bring in temporary foreign workers. Shouldn't they actually be offering permanent resident status to the people who are already here to fill those labour and skill shortages? Could I just get a quick answer from—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 10 seconds.