Evidence of meeting #34 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was witnesses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Thanks.
Deacon Ovcjak, I want to quote something I found in an article on your website. It says, “The protection of persecuted Christians...is not at the summit of the Canadian government's priorities. This was glaringly obvious to me as I attended the Summit on International Religious Freedom.... Sadly, Canada was missing in action. No high-level government representative was in sight.”
I have a serious question about that. I'm concerned that even though there are many persecuted Christians around the world—Syria, for example, has many—relatively few Christians are immigrating to Canada. Do you have any thoughts as to why this may be?
Director, Office for Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto
There are not a whole lot of data points out there. I think that's purposefully done.
One article that I often refer to.... Granted, it's a bit dated, but again, it's a very limited dataset. In 2016, The Wall Street Journal published an article that looked at the 12,800 Syrian refugees who were resettled to the United States under President Obama. They found that less than half of a per cent of those who were resettled were Christians, despite the fact that Christians represented 10% of Syria's pre-war population and despite the fact that genocide had been committed against them. That is a significant under-representation taking place. The reporter did kind of look at the root causes. They did indicate that there were a number of causes for this, but the key cause was placed at the feet of UNHCR—
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Redekopp. It is six minutes. I'm sorry about that.
Please go ahead.
Director, Office for Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto
The U.S., like Canada, relies upon the UNHCR to refer refugees to them. My reading into this is that there is a problem with their referral program. What I would argue, and what I would urge this committee to take back to Parliament, is that a study analysis should be done. Transparency is required at the UNHCR to ensure that they are fairly and adequately representing all the persecuted religious minorities—Christian, Yazidi and Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan—in the GAR programs.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Mr. Redekopp. Again, I'm sorry about that. It was the last round that was five minutes.
Mr. Ali, you have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.
Liberal
Shafqat Ali Liberal Brampton Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for taking the time to give us the benefit of their knowledge and experience.
My question is for Ms. Marfatia and Mr. Jade. It's about online applications. You have both been working in this field for several years. Could you tell us a little bit about your experience with the processing of permanent residence applications? Do you think having the permanent residence portal has improved the processing of permanent residence applications? What are the benefits of having this online portal?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
I'll defer to Avni on this.
Avni Marfatia Chair of the Board, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
Thank you, Dory.
Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members.
I've been in practice for 20-plus years. With the APR portal coming into practice in 2015, it surely decreased the processing times of PR applications pre-COVID. The time that was given was within six months. It was duly processed within six months or less, unless there was some issue with the application.
During COVID times and after COVID pandemic times, we have seen an extreme delay in the process. Some applications are processed in 15 months, 18 months, two years, and they're just waiting for background checks. The rest of the information is completed, but they're just waiting for the background checks.
That's my experience.
Liberal
Shafqat Ali Liberal Brampton Centre, ON
Thank you, Ms. Marfatia.
Mr. Jade, you talked about study permit extensions. As you know, the Minister of Immigration just today announced a temporary lifting of the restriction on international students' working hours. We're also piloting a program for automatic study permit extensions. What do you think of that?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
First, it's a decision in the right direction, as I mentioned in my opening remarks. However, we recommend going even further. If a student comes to Canada, you will probably know that the student is authorized to have, or can have, the right to apply for a work permit one year or three years after their graduation.
If you go back several years, we have been advocating for Canada to have a visa of five years or 10 years—similar to the U.S., for example, with fewer security issues. It took 15 years for the government to make this decision. They used to give visas for one month, 15 days, multiple entry, one entry and things like that. It is now much better in terms of processing, and the security level is the same.
Here we're saying the same. When someone wants to come to study in Canada, the person is highly likely to work in Canada for one or three years after graduation. Why do we want to add a burden on the system and ask the individual to submit another work permit application? The individual or the student has already submitted an application. He became a student, and now he can continue working afterwards with the same permit, extended another three years.
The same has happened with the study permit. Before those days, if you recall—probably many of you were here 10 years ago—you used to submit for a study permit. After the student comes here to study, then he submits for a work permit if he wants to work off campus. Those need to be removed. It should be removed faster than it has been.
Liberal
Shafqat Ali Liberal Brampton Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Jade.
You also suggested a temporary expansion of the list of visa-exempt countries as a method to deal with the backlog and processing times for TRVs. How would you see that working? How would we close that list again after it has temporarily been expanded?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
You probably are also aware that anyone coming to Canada without a visa is still required to complete an eTA application or form. Approvals are very fast. Within 72 hours, I think, over 98% get approved.
If for a short period of time we get through the backlog.... As we mentioned, the backlog is over 70% temporary residents, so what would happen is that many individuals wanting to come to Canada would go through the eTA if the country is exempt.
You could have something like an enhanced eTA. For example, in a country where you should have an eTA, you add to it two pieces of information—one for security, such as a police certificate that is recent within, let's say, the last five or 10 days, and another document about financial capacity—to come for a short period of time to visit Canada. This is how we see it implemented on the ground.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Mr. Ali.
We will now proceed to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.
Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you will have six minutes. Please begin.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thanks to all the witnesses for contributing to this extremely important study.
You caught my attention, Mr. Jade. You mentioned a single visa for students who already have the right to work. The problem we have stems from the fact that most students who are denied a study permit are told that it's because of the risk that they would remain in Canada after they've graduated.
Isn't there a contradiction there?
On the one hand, the act allows students who have been accepted to submit a work permit or permanent residency application, but under the same act, we deny them study permits out of concern that they will stay here afterwards.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
I'd just like to clarify that. It's what is called dual intent.
That's not exactly how it works. There is likely a misunderstanding of some of the details. The concept is outdated, obsolete, and the act should probably be updated in this respect.
In fact, dual intent for someone means remaining longer than the period authorized on their permit without having applied to do so. It's a matter of something implied, or understood.
Under the act, an immigration officer has the right, after studying the application, to refuse a study permit if that officer believes that the person is likely to remain in the country beyond the period authorized by the permit.
We have reported this problem to IRCC before. We find that the act is becoming increasingly outdated and that it needs to be reviewed.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
So your solution would address the problem of application processing delays at the IRCC because there would be only one application rather than two.
Is that right?
