Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 27th, 2022

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

Thank you, Mr. Thorne.

I have a final question for Mr. Khurana. I am pleased to have been able to put questions to all three witnesses.

A lot of businesses are complaining about processing times for temporary foreign workers. It is obviously a problem. In fact, you mentioned it earlier today.

I am not for or against the proposal that is on the table; I would simply like to know what your opinion is. Some people are saying that if we collected biometric data when the persons arrive in Canada, we could save a significant amount of time and reduce processing times.

Do you believe that this is a viable and intelligent solution that we should implement?

[Vikram Khurana]

The biometrics are already in place. Today, when a person applies either for a work permit or for permanent residence, there are biometrics that need to be taken. That has become a bit of a problem in itself, because now the applicant has to go to a third party to get the biometrics taken.

Having said that, the other tangible methods that I talked about earlier, such as expediting the work permit, provide that temporary relief that IRCC could offer the system in order to get people creating employment, moving to the country and getting set up in their businesses in Canada.

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

I have a short final question for Mr. Allos.

Mr. Allos, given your experience in this area, do you think the processing times indicated on IRCC's site reflect reality?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry. Your time is up. Maybe you'll get an opportunity in the second round.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

You have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for their presentations.

I would like to follow up on the question around special immigration measures and the crises that are going on. I support having a dedicated team to deal with special situations so that they don't impact other immigration streams. That being said, it's a staffing resource question. The other component to that, which is absolutely critical, is the immigration levels numbers. Without these, every time the government adds a new stream, if it doesn't put in increased immigration levels numbers to go with that stream, it does nothing. It creates chaos in the system.

Mr. Thorne, to that point, would you also support the call for the government to increase immigration levels numbers as a companion piece to special measures?

[Oliver Thorne]

Again, I would focus my response to that specifically around those for the special immigration measures program. I think we've seen recently in the news the announcement that the cap has been reached on the special immigration measures program.

We know from veterans and from Afghan interpreters who we're speaking with that there are still interpreters and locally employed civilians who have not received an invitation to apply. They've expressed interest. Some have not yet received an invitation. Perhaps some have received an invitation and they've applied, but they have not received a confirmation. From our perspective as an organization supporting veterans and supporting these folks, it is unthinkable that we would not create a space for every Afghan who worked alongside a Canadian Forces member in Afghanistan. Their work and their knowledge helped our mission and saved Canadian lives, at a great risk to themselves and their families, and without it our mission would have been impossible.

If the answer to that question is raising the immigration numbers, then yes, I would support that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much. You answered that beautifully, and I absolutely agree with you.

I'd like to ask you the same question, Mr. Allos, because you also mentioned the issue around levels numbers.

Whatever immigration measure it is—it could even be in the economic stream, for that matter—if the government brings in these measures, for it to actually work, we need to ensure that the immigration levels number is available to accommodate it. Would you say that is an essential component to address the processing of applications and to address the critical issue of backlogs?

[Rabea Allos]

Absolutely, and for the case of the Afghani interpreters, I believe the government should have negotiated with friendly countries like the UAE or Kuwait, moved the interpreters to a safe country and processed their applications before bringing them over here. Keeping them in Afghanistan was a big mistake.

For each situation, there are solutions the government can look at, and the government should be flexible on it.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

We've seen with the government that from time to time the minister will make an announcement to say that they're addressing the backlog, they're putting resources here and starting on a certain day they're going to get back to processing standards.

Of course when they do that, they're forgetting about the backlog that existed before and all of those people who did not apply at the date when they say they are now going to abide by processing standards. It's to the point where, for some applicants, when they inquire about the status of their situation, the officers and the agents from IRCC actually advise them to abandon their application and make a new one, because with a new deadline they'll be able to be processed within the timeline. Isn't this absurd? I mean, Jesus, talk about actually walking around in a circle and abandoning people.

Should the government, if they're going to truly address the backlog, make sure that those who are in the backlog also are processed expeditiously then, as well as the new ones who are coming on stream? Otherwise, the new ones will just become new backlogs, or, alternatively, they're abandoning the old ones in order to make sure the new ones are met with a standard processing timeline.

Mr. Allos, could you comment?

[Rabea Allos]

Yes, I absolutely agree. We were accepting 500,000 refugees every year. How many applications are coming in? If we're getting 600,000 or 700,000, of course we're going to have backlogs. We need to control that.

Back in 2011 or 2010, we used to have backlogs of eight years in Africa at the Nairobi visa office. There were 30,000 applications or 30,000 applicants who were waiting, most of them for eight years. The government back then introduced the caps on the SAHs and reduced the backlog to about a year and a half, and in some cases, one year, for the refugees. Yes, the government has to deal with it.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

To that point as well, shouldn't the government be completely transparent with what's going on? You can't just say that we're—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up, Ms. Kwan.

We will now proceed to our second round. We will start with Mr. Hallan.

Mr. Hallan, you will have four minutes for your round of questions.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses. Thank you for all the work that you are doing to help people come here, especially the persecuted ones.

My first question is for both Mr. Allos and Mr. Thorne.

I'll continue with the line of some of the questions.

We've seen with the SIM, the special immigration measures, a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of red tape involved in some of these programs. We know the longer the delay it could cost lives, and it's a matter of life and death. In both of your experiences with your organizations, can you give us some of the bureaucratic hurdles you guys are facing and some solutions to those so that while the government is trying to address this horrific backlog in the meantime these things can be done to help speed up some of these special immigration measures and some of these programs on sponsorships?

[Rabea Allos]

The current guideline to fill the application for a refugee is 80 pages. This is the guideline to fill the application, so certainly we need to make the process simpler. The application should be simpler. Of course, the more complicated the application is, it's going to take more time to process it. I do believe the whole system needs to be looked at again and changed for the better, simplified basically.

[Oliver Thorne]

I'll speak from our experience. We have seen a great deal of variability in terms of how quickly applicants in the special immigration measures program are processed. That is somewhat of a black box. We are unsure as to what is holding those applications up in many cases. That information is not passed to us; it's passed directly back and forth to the applicants, so we don't always know. Often I would say we do not know.

I can tell you certainly that one of the challenges that is hampering the evacuation effort to get people out of Afghanistan is the fact that they are required to go to a third location to perform a biometric verification before they can come to Canada. This means they need to go to Pakistan, to the UAE, to any neighbouring country that is accessible, and that introduces the requirements for passports and visas in order to get into that country.

We're talking about a family that may be applying, which may be 20 individuals. The going rate for a passport now in Afghanistan, according to what people are telling us, is anywhere between $1,000 and $2,000 U.S., and $500 U.S. for a Pakistan visa, for a family of 20 people. That is both an enormous administrative and financial burden that is placed upon applicants and makes that process very difficult to get them out of Afghanistan for the final step of processing.

In July and August we saw an agreement that the Pakistan government put forth to allow a fixed period of border facilitation where individuals could cross without passports and without visas. IRCC approached us to help move people through that facilitation agreement. We were hoping to move many people. In the end there were 77 names that we received to move, who did get across the border, but—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Thorne, thank you. I'm sorry to cut you off. I want to ask you one more thing, and we only have about 30 seconds.

I want to get your thoughts on this. You were at the special committee on Afghanistan. Many recommendations were passed there. Could you please give this committee, out of those recommendations, the ones that should be priorities that could help the people in Afghanistan or any other sponsorships? What can they do to speed them up?

[Oliver Thorne]

First and foremost, ensure that anybody who served with the Canadian Forces is offered a place and offered an application to come to Canada.

Second, anything the Canadian government can continue to do to facilitate movement to third country locations, like Pakistan and the UAE, will help tremendously, and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. The time is up for Mr. Hallan.

We will now proceed to Mr. El-Khoury.

Mr. El-Khoury, you will have four minutes. Please begin.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to welcome our witnesses.

My first question is addressed to Mr. Allos.

Mr. Allos, with all due respect, I totally disagree with what you said in your presentation about Syrians having better treatment than others, while those others are left hanging. I believe you lack some understanding of what happened in every country in each situation. I will explain it to you.

For Syrians there was no problem, no obstacle leaving Syria for either Lebanon or Jordan, and no problem getting a travel document. They are registered in the United Nations.

The opposite is true in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, with the presence of the Taliban, it was completely dangerous to the lives of all those who wanted to cross if they were co-operating with the Canadian army. If they crossed into Pakistan.... In order to leave Pakistan, if they didn't have travel documents, passports or others documents, they were not allowed to leave. I believe that if you take those things into consideration, you must change your opinion.

As for Ukraine, I believe we did a great job. For your information, we have another two planes full of Ukrainians coming this coming week. We will welcome them nicely here in Canada.

I would like to hear from you, after hearing this from me. Also, what ideas are you going to propose for the future amelioration in this particular case?

[Rabea Allos]

Thank you, sir.

I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't complaining about Syrians coming over here getting special treatment. What I said was, when we had to bring in the 25,000 refugees from Syria, the resources of visa offices across the world were moved over to the Middle East to process those applications. Some of those visa offices were closed completely, so other refugees, or even applications, were not getting processed.

I am not saying in any way that Syrian refugees should not be sponsored.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I didn't say that. That's no problem.

My second question is addressed to Mr. Khurana.

Mr. Khurana, what do you think of the current manpower shortage, given the problems with processing times?

Do you have a solution that would help to rectify the situation?

[Vikram Khurana]

Could the member clarify the question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Go ahead, Mr. El-Khoury.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

How do you evaluate the present workforce shortage here, in light of the delay in treatment? Do you have an idea or solution to propose in order to make the situation better? What are your suggestions for better treatment or a better solution?

[Vikram Khurana]

I will answer based on my knowledge of IRCC and labour shortages.

The solution is to create a pilot project or a set number of spots—let's say 5,000. A past example lies with the Canadian Labour Congress. There were a fixed number of spots allocated to tradespeople, to the skilled trades, to come to Canada. Similarly, this can be done for health care, given the current shortages of nurses and doctors. Those kinds of categories can then be used to expedite what is in the national interest of Canada.