Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 27th, 2022

[Adrienne Foster, Vice-President, Policy and Public Affairs, Hotel Association of Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for inviting me here today.

My name is Adrienne Foster and I'm the vice-president of policy and public affairs with the Hotel Association of Canada.

Hotels are critical to the Canadian economy. More than just keystones of the tourism sector, hotel event spaces are the heart of many communities.

Many people assume hotels are owned by the major international brands we are all familiar with. In fact, these hotels are mostly owned and operated by Canadian small and medium-sized businesses, many of which are family run.

Hotels employ people in all regions of the country during all seasons. We hire a greater proportion of women, new Canadians and indigenous people than other industries. People are the lifeblood of this industry.

As you can imagine, COVID–19 has had a devastating impact on Canada's travel and hospitality sector. When COVID hit, the tourism sector lost one million employees. We welcomed back many this summer, but frequent lockdowns and instability forced some to leave permanently for other sectors. As of today, the tourism sector is still short about 200,000 employees. That's more than other industries, like retail at 110,000, or construction and manufacturing at 90,000 each.

I'd like to be clear. Our members want to hire Canadians. Hotels have adapted to the changing work environment by offering more flexible hours, higher wages, signing bonuses and workplace programs, but the reality is that with record-low births and unemployment rates, and with boomers retiring en masse, there are simply not enough people in Canada to fill these vacancies. An August survey of our members found that 69% were forced to limit room availability to maintain service standards and 75% had to deploy staff to jobs they were not hired for. The situation on the ground for hotels is not sustainable.

As demand for travel continues to surge, immigration will be key to our industry's recovery. The hotel sector is an excellent employer for new Canadians. We have opportunities for those with limited language skills. We offer training, support and positions at all levels. Our core message is that Canada's immigration system must be reformed to reflect actual labour challenges.

We will provide the clerk with a detailed submission, so today I'll focus just on two key recommendations.

First, we need to open Canada's permanent immigration stream to those who can fill in-demand occupations in our industry. We recommend the government include tourism workers in their express entry criteria for permanent residency, just as it is planning to do for agricultural workers. The criteria could be based on measures like previous work experience in Canada—either as a TFW or international student—or an offer of employment for a tourism job.

The government can also raise immigration levels and target key regions and sectors by working with provinces to expand the in-demand occupation streams in their provincial nominee programs.

Second, while we don't want to rely on temporary solutions, we know that changes to the immigration system will take time. In the meantime, we are recommending reforms to the temporary foreign worker program. We thank the government for improvements, such as extending LMIAs and increasing caps for TFWs, but red tape and slow response times continue to discourage many from even applying.

Perhaps more concerning is the low rate of success for our applications. From our members survey, 44% of those who applied for TFWs haven't had a single application approved since January. We recommend that tourism jobs are prioritized within the TFW program. This can be done by expediting tourism sector NOCs, removing the LMIA requirement and application fee, and waiving the 30-day job posting requirement.

Madam Chair, travel has resumed with a vengeance and this is the perfect opportunity for our sector to get back on its feet and thrive. We just need the people to help us get there.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Foster. You're exactly on time.

We will now proceed to Ms. Launay. She is here in person.

Ms. Launay, you will have five minutes for your opening remarks. Please begin.

[Claire Launay, President, Le Québec c’est nous aussi]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

On a point of order, Madam Chair, I'm sorry, but there's no translation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Would you please read to us, Ms. Launay, and we'll check.

You can begin, please.

[Claire Launay]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank all the committee members for allowing me to speak before you today. I am especially happy to be here in person.

My name is Claire Launay and I am the president of an organization called Le Québec c'est nous aussi. We are a non-profit organization involved in promoting the rights and living conditions of immigrants in Quebec. We work in a non-partisan fashion by expressing the voices within our community and by making known the advantages of immigration to Quebec society.

I would firstly like to talk about what we think are the causes of the increased processing times and backlogs. Obviously, the pandemic has had a major effect on IRCC operations. However, we believe that the problem goes deeper than this and is linked to the way the department is managed.

During the Afghanistan and Ukraine crises, of which we have just spoken, IRCC became a crisis management department whose resources were systematically redeployed from one file to the next in order to handle the crises. This lengthened processing times for permanent residency, working permit and study visa applications and basically gummed up IRCC's normal operations, really.

We were obviously pleased to hear that the Government of Canada intends to take in a large number of refugees in the wake of humanitarian crises. That should not, however, be done at the expense of everyday IRCC operations. We believe that the fact that these emergency situations slow down IRCC operations means that there is obviously a need to change the way the department is managed, because the processing delays are having a tremendous impact on over two million people who are waiting for their files to be dealt with. I will give you some examples of those impacts.

Thousands of students have had to push back the start of their studies by a semester and sometimes by a year, depending on the program, because they are waiting for a student visa. Thousands of people are currently in Canada and are not able to work, despite the lack of manpower that we all know about, because they're still waiting for their work permit. At the same time, employers are forced to temporarily shut down their operations or turn down contracts because they are unable to find workers.

Refugee claimants are telling us that they are having to wait much longer for their Refugee Protection Claimant Document, their “Brown Paper,” that would allow them to file a request for a work permit, have access to health insurance and even find housing. All those persons are currently waiting for months for their Brown Paper, which stops them from making progress in any aspect of their lives in Canada.

We have all heard of issues surrounding family reunification, whereby families are separated and women give birth to their child without their husbands at their side. It is heart-wrenching.

Permanent residency applications are a problem that is slowing down the entire system. Many people are waiting for their permanent residency card and have to file requests for work visas, which is bogging down the system.

In a broader sense, this is hurting Canada's reputation internationally. Over the past few months, Canada's reputation abroad has been tarnished at some international conferences and events when participants were not able to attend as they couldn't get a visa.

In conclusion, I would like to give you some of our recommendations. I would invite you to read the document that we will send you in the next few days that sets out our complete list of recommendations. I will just mention a few of them now.

Firstly, we believe that the Government of Canada and especially IRCC should invest in a program that would better prepare the department for humanitarian crises, so that resources could be systematically used in these situations, which would avoid having to redeploy resources in crisis mode which are essential to normal operations within IRCC.

On a more general note, we have many ideas that would improve transparency and accountability at IRCC. A lack of transparency is the one thing that keeps coming back in testimony. We need an ombudsman for immigration who would make sure that IRCC reaches its targets and does so in a way that is fair and just. Moreover, on the subject of processing times, we need a regulatory framework to establish what Canada's responsibilities are if the department exceeds normal processing times.

We have lots of other ideas and we would relish the chance to talk about them with committee members. I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Launay, for your opening remarks.

We will now proceed to Madam Bigland-Pritchard, coordinator, migration office, Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon.

You will have five minutes for your opening remarks. The floor is yours.

[Dr. Janet M. Bigland-Pritchard, Coordinator, Migration Office, Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I speak as a lay employee of the Roman Catholic Diocese. I'm competent to talk about our past and present practices in refugee resettlement, but my opinions are mine alone and do not represent the policies of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon.

I have been involved with refugee resettlement in some way or another as a volunteer since the 1990s and professionally since 2017.

IRCC is to be commended for the progress it has made in improving the PSR application process. Bear in mind that the refugee caseload for them has quadrupled since 2014. We saw good changes prior to COVID. We saw email submission of applications with immediate auto-confirmation of receipt, the development of the refugee sponsorship training program, the creation of the e-CAS system that allows sponsors to check online about a case's progress, and processing times were coming down nicely. Then came COVID, and everything, as you know, changed.

I was pleasantly surprised that IRCC kept the doors open for new refugee applications all the way through 2020 and 2021. Arrivals began to happen, and then came Afghanistan, and then came Ukraine.

As a result of all three crises, the improvements in processing times that had been made were, of course, damaged and reversed. Sponsorship agreement holders were not allowed to submit any new PSR applications this year before May. That puts pressure on our whole system and increases wait times for the refugees in our queues.

Once again, it is taking months, not weeks, for ROC-O to do their initial processing on new applications. There's lots of uncertainty there.

We really miss the mission-specific reports that gave current information about conditions and average processing times for each visa office. It continues to be hard to get timely decisions on less straightforward applications such as those involving de facto dependents and one-year windows.

There are some bright spots, though. Some overseas visa offices seem to be working very hard to clear their backlog of older, stuck cases. The record for us is somebody who started out in 2013, and she will be with us by October 7.

Communication with ROC-O is now often coming with an officer identifier. That sounds small, but it's big because it means that we can be sure that our communications are getting to the right person rather than a faceless inbox. IRCC staff have become more responsive to the SAH community, and senior staff seem more willing to intervene when we hit a brick wall.

How can the system and processing times be improved? Everybody hates the backlog. My first point is that we need to scrap the judicial review system. This is causing endless problems. The judicial review process doesn't work well; it only responds to procedure. It ties up applications for years, and it's very expensive. All you get if you win is another trip back to the same visa office.

I would like to see it replaced with a proper appeal system, streamlined and effective, to get over the heartache that is caused to so many families by being bogged down in judicial review forever.

My other suggestions are that the increased staffing levels, which are already functioning at ROC-O, need to be continued, maybe for some years to come, in order to cope with all the people who want to be processed. There needs to be an increase in both the numbers and staffing of overseas visa offices, particularly in Africa, where the highest demand is and where the most crises happen.

Finally, we need to roll out the promised digital application system, which would greatly improve the cybersecurity of our application process.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to our round of questioning. We will begin our first round with Mr. Redekopp.

Mr. Redekopp, you will have six minutes for your round of questioning.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dr. Bigland-Pritchard, thanks for all the good work that you're doing in Saskatoon with the Roman Catholic Diocese. We've worked on some cases together, and I know that you've developed a great working relationship with my staff, Daniel, Lisa, Jared and Carol, so that's a great thing.

You spoke to my staff about an Iranian Christian woman and her child who were stuck in refugee limbo in Turkey, as she keeps getting rejected by the IRCC. This is after nine years of indentured slavery by her father to the Iranian revolutionary guard, and finally being raped before she could escape to Turkey.

More generally, we know that minority Christians throughout certain parts of the world are persecuted and live under threat every day. Unfortunately, the Liberals under Trudeau have made their disdain for Christians pretty clear and have basically put up the “do not enter” sign if you are one.

For private refugee sponsorship, which is what you specialize in, can you tell the committee what barriers you see are in place preventing minority Christians from getting fair hearings and getting refugee status in Canada?

[Dr. Janet M. Bigland-Pritchard]

I think that religious minorities often face barriers right at the beginning. They're not maybe even allowed to register with UNHCR, because of pressures within the countries of asylum that they've gone to. I think of the Hazaras in Afghanistan. I think of the Pakistani Ahmadis, and Ismailis as well as the many Christians in Pakistan and other places who face barriers.

Barriers come in all kinds of ways. They're at the start of the process. Occasionally, we hear rumours of interpreters who are maybe not accurately representing what their clients are saying to the visa officers. Certainly, at the Singapore visa office, it appears we have a substantially higher rejection rate for Pakistani Christians than we do for other immigration refugee streams. However, it's very hard to pin down. That's as much as I think I can say at the moment.

A couple of my Christian cases are actually bogged down over what I consider to be pretty minor inadmissibility issues, because of small connections with groups considered to be terrorists. This is something that needs addressing. I think sometimes Canada uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Of course, we do want Canada to do its due diligence, and security is very important, but sometimes it seems to me it's the small fish that get caught in our net and the big fish swim free.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Chair, based on that, I would like to make a notice of motion as follows:

That the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration report the following to the House: that the committee condemns the persecution of minority Christians in all countries; and urges the Canadian government to provide assistance wherever possible to facilitate immigration of such individuals and families into Canada.

We'll distribute the French version of that as well.

You mentioned some systemic problems with immigration and backlogs. When the minister was here a while ago, we asked him about backlogs, and he didn't talk about that. He talked about inventory, business as usual.

In your opinion, what other systemic changes need to be made at the department to clear the ever-growing backlog?

[Dr. Janet M. Bigland-Pritchard]

We have to remember that the work they are doing is incredibly complicated. There are so many moving pieces. Lots of the problems that impact backlogs are not of Canada's making. They're always responding to a new situation. It's like people rolling logs on the river.

I already said what I think would help, but I don't have any grand solutions. Increase staffing levels, yes. I love the idea of having an ombudsperson who could deal with very difficult cases. I'd mentioned that the reform of the judicial review process and the digital application process should help.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you. That's good.

I'd like to switch over to Madam Foster with the Hotel Association of Canada.

I know that temporary foreign workers are key to your sector. When you're looking at hoteliers, clerks, housekeepers, etc., these are the back-end jobs at the hotel. Last November, the IRCC told me that the average wait times for all categories of TFWs stretched many months. This can be a whole tourist season in your industry.

Can you tell me if the situation for temporary foreign workers has improved, or has it become worse in the last 12 months?

[Adrienne Foster]

You raise an important point.

For us, temporary foreign workers really are that short-term solution for this major labour crunch we're facing. Indeed, the wait times are definitely months. I referenced a survey that we recently did with our members. We knew that the backlog was long, so we asked them how many applications they had approved since January, and 45% of them had zero applications approved. That gives you a sense of the timelines we're facing. The point about seasonality is an important one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Foster, but the time is up for Mr. Redekopp.

We will now to proceed to Ms. Lalonde.

Ms. Lalonde, you will have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here with us today.

My first question is for Ms. Launay, from Le Québec c'est nous aussi.

Ms. Launay, I believe that you are aware of this, but we have learned that immigration levels are often an important factor in processing times, given that the federal government has to abide by the caps set by Quebec when processing requests for permanent residency.

What do you think should be the ideal immigration levels that would allow for an improvement in processing times for the various immigration categories in Quebec?

[Claire Launay]

Thank you for the question.

Quebec is holding an election right now. Immigration is a very sensitive subject. Because we are talking about an area of provincial responsibility, I will not answer your question. We have, however, noticed over the last two years that IRCC did not process all the files under the immigration levels set by Quebec. For starters, IRCC would have to process the number of applications set by Quebec. Then we can start talking about efficiency.

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

Thank you very much.

It is a shame that we are not in camera. We could have talked about this issue. I encourage you to forward your ideas after the provincial election.

In your opinion, in which ways could we improve the system so that applications for temporary or permanent residency could be processed more efficiently?

Do you see an overlap between the processes set up by the provinces and the federal government? If so, what can be done to improve things?

[Claire Launay]

We believe that you could start by giving a substantial boost to IRCC's budget. The annual budget for IRCC is not at all in keeping with the important role the department plays in the Canadian economy. We have seen some efforts and we have noticed that the department will get over 1,000 more employees. That is excellent news. We are not sure, however, that will be enough, given the size of the backlog.

We also need to better manage file processing. We see a lack of efficiency in many aspects. For example, if just one document is incorrect, the entire file is returned to the applicant. Sometimes, the applicants have to start the process all over again. In the meantime, the documents have expired. There has to be a better way of doing things.

The problem is so big now that we are all seeing it. It is an opportunity for IRCC to review its processes.

As for the issue of overlapping, it is relatively well known. It does indeed prolong the process, but mostly on the IRCC side, that is to say once the file has been sent to IRCC. For now, this is not an issue that we would raise.

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

Thank you very much.

I would like to now go to Ms. Foster from the Hotel Association of Canada.

Thank you for everything you're doing. I know how challenging it has been for your sector. I was wondering if you've heard about the proposal being put forward for some regions and industries. It is what we call the trusted employers designation or program wherein certain business owners would have fewer requirements to bring in foreign workers. How would such a program possibly help you and impact your industry?

[Adrienne Foster]

Thank you for the question.

I have heard about the trusted employer proposal and it is one that our industry would support wholeheartedly.

The hotel sector is an excellent employer. We are incredibly proud of how we treat our employees and every single one of our members would be very willing participants in a program like that. It's definitely something that we're interested in.

Again, on the temporary foreign workers, a lot of our hotels apply year after year, so having anything that expedites that process would definitely be helpful. On the temporary foreign worker program, we also need to have some special attention paid to the tourism NOC codes so that as the applications come in they get expedited. That's another important piece of the puzzle.

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

Thank you very much.

Just to let you know, as you were reflecting on the hotel and the ownership, in my community of Orléans I do have a small family-owned hotel. Certainly in Orléans we were challenged for many years not having a hotel in our region, so I certainly appreciate the efforts of that industry. You're absolutely right.

I think what I'm hearing from you, we're looking at temporary foreign workers as a short-term measure.

You did reflect that your survey found that 44% were not successful. Do you think that working in collaboration with your industry and helping the trusted employer designation would help possibilities for your sector?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Please, be quick. You have 10 seconds.

[Adrienne Foster]

It would absolutely be helpful. The complexity of the applications is another issue that our members are facing. Again, the expedited—