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.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
[Inaudible—Editor] two or three, it depends...
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
We'll take note of your proposal. Our analysts will be happy to put that into the committee's report.
Meeting after meeting, and study after study, all the witnesses we've heard at the committee have mentioned IRCC's lack of transparency. They talk about the department's opacity. At some point, solutions to this problem have to be found.
We don't want to blame the public servants. I believe the problem is structural. It might require a redesign of the institution's system.
What's your opinion on this?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
I'm going to give you a very clear answer.
The system hasn't really changed. It's just that since the beginning of the COVID‑19 pandemic, it has become even more impenetrable.
In the past, the same thing would happen every time. On the other hand, the access to information system was not used as often, which meant that access to the information was faster, within 30 days.
Now, even though the Access to Information Act requires institutions to respond within 30 days, it can take two years before we get a reply concerning the information requested concerning an application.
We have on several occasions suggested integrating the Global Case Management System, the GCMS, which amounts to checking a box that would correspond to a message like, “Send reply to applicant and mention reason for decision”. That would require every officer who rejects an application—we are not talking about applications processed by artificial intelligence software—to provide the reason for the refusal in writing, even if it amounts to just a single sentence.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
So you'd like people to have access to this answer, which would be completely logical.
Is that right?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
Absolutely.
It would enable the individual to know the reason for the decision. Often, there's simply a document missing. For example, if evidence of financial means is missing, a notification might be sent to people saying that their application is being refused because they do not intend to return to their country.
Bloc
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
That's right.
With the right information in hand, people could submit another application because they would know what's missing right away.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Shouldn't people who have gone to the trouble of completing an application be provided with this information, simply out of transparency?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
Definitely.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
I'd like to briefly discuss the possibility of establishing an ombudsman position at IRCC, an idea that quite a few people have mentioned.
Not everyone agrees on the idea, but most people who have come here to testify have been in favour of it.
I personally haven't made up my mind yet, but I'd like to hear your comments on this matter.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
It's a proposal that should be given serious consideration. The problem with it is that the act currently assigns considerable authority to the immigration officer. So it might be a good idea to ensure the impartiality of the process.
The act also says that if applicants are not satisfied with the decision, they can submit another application or request a judicial review.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
However, that means that the applicant begins to become tangled up in the justice system.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
The level of access to justice comes into play, which can become much more complex and expensive. Lawyers are required, and generally speaking, their fees are high.
I don't know whether establishing an ombudsman's position would be a solution to the lack of openness and transparency about why applications are rejected, or why a particular decision was made, while allowing the opportunity to submit another application.
I don't know whether it might have a leveraging effect, because adding to the bureaucracy is not always a good idea.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Okay, but at the moment, my understanding is that litigation concerning the federal government…
Bloc
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants
If that were the case, then an ombudsman might be a solution.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
That's too bad. We were enjoying ourselves.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Jade.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting. Now we will proceed to Ms. Kwan.
Ms. Kwan, you will have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.
My question really centres around this. What happens a lot is that the government takes the approach of robbing Peter to pay Paul. That is to say, they will introduce new immigration measures without actually providing additional immigration levels or resources to accommodate those new immigration measures. As a result, you have a huge backlog that would be impacted. This means that existing applications would be further delayed. The reality is that, with the privately sponsored refugee stream, there were significant delays even prior to the Afghanistan crisis.
My question is for Deacon Rudy.
When the government introduces new immigration measures, should they introduce them without ensuring that there are new resources and immigration level numbers to accommodate them, or should they do those special immigration measures with additional resources intact, both level numbers and staffing for processing?
Director, Office for Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto
Certainly, in my opinion, it would be prudent.... In any of these extraordinary situations like the Afghani or the Ukrainian crisis, where a response is needed and thought important enough for Parliament to act on, additional resources ought to be provided, absolutely.
The problem we've always had is that resources are redeployed from processing existing refugee populations to now process the applications of this newly created target. That's patently unfair to the refugee populations who have been already waiting in the queue for many years and living in very intolerable situations.
I think the levels plan should be adjusted accordingly and resources should be deployed.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much.
Yes, there's a way to address that, which is to do exactly as you are recommending.
Now, in terms of additional resources put in place, oftentimes the government will, with great fanfare and an announcement, say that they now have additional resources and that, going forward, immigration standards will be met and people will be processed in this period of time. Yet they do not address the fact that there are people in the backlog, thousands of people, and they're at the back of the queue because their standard has already been missed, but there's no measure to really tackle that backlog.
What do you think the government should do to ensure that the backlog and those who have already applied are not being left further behind?
Director, Office for Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto
I think it's important to have almost a “first in, first out”, a first-come, first-served basis. We have applications that were submitted in 2017-18 and still haven't been processed, so I think first-come, first-served.... As they come in, they ought to be processed, as opposed to the current situation. Now with the Afghani crisis, they are put in the front of the queue, so everybody else is pushed back until we hit that 40,000 target, and there will be little movement in the other refugee populations. I think that's what is going to take place.
It's early in the process right now, but our October number of arrivals has already decreased 50% from the year prior, so that's an indication that existing refugee populations already in the queue have been slowed.