Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 18th, 2022

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for taking the time to present to us and also for indulging us in the disruption for our votes. We really appreciate your staying on.

My first question is for Vilma, who's been a long-time advocate for caregivers.

In the situation with caregivers at the moment, my understanding is that the processing delay for caregivers is three-plus years. In fact, the government has not moved on with processing their applications.

On that specific situation, what would your recommendation be for the government to address this backlog that has stagnated for three years?

[Vilma Pagaduan]

I think the IRCC should issue an open work permit right away, right now, for those who have been waiting for years. I have clients who have been under the LCP since 2015 and are still waiting for the approval of PR. Some of those who applied in 2017 and 2018 applied under humanitarian and compassionate grounds because they could not find any way to achieve PR.

I think IRCC should issue an open work permit right now for all those who have been waiting for so many years. I still have clients who applied in 2018 and 2019 during the introduction of the interim or new program. They still don't have an AOR at this time. Give them the open work permit. It will give them an opportunity to renew their work permit, be able to work legally and renew their health insurance and SIN. Most of these women are losing their status, especially during COVID.

Most of the women who have applied for PR have lost the chance to get their PR approved, because they are already out of that 36 months to comply with the 24-month requirement within a 36-month period.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much. The processing delay is causing people financial hardship and has cost them the opportunity to get their permanent resident status, with a multitude of escalating consequences.

Ms. Desloges, your suggestion is that the government should be undertaking to “regularize” some of these people and just move them through the system quickly. I think this is what you were basically saying. From that perspective, take the situation with caregivers who have been stuck in the system for years. They lost their job because of COVID. They can't get a new work permit because of COVID. This now has an escalating impact for them. They've also lost their opportunity to make their PR application.

Would you suggest, or would you agree, that the government should in fact look into regularizing these individuals? Clearly, they are needed here. We keep bringing in temporary foreign workers as caregivers, yet we have a whole bunch of them who are already here and who are now out of status.

[Chantal Desloges]

Yes. This is not without precedent, by the way. Years ago, back when I was very junior, there was something called the “deferred removal orders class”. That was a situation where the government recognized that there were a lot of failed refugees in Canada who had been sitting around in limbo for quite a long time. The government decided to make this program to just ram them all through. As long as they were admissible and there were no criminal or medical issues, they would just be accepted en masse under this program. It was a way of clearing out that backlog of people who were just hanging around for a long time without having been removed.

So it's not like we've never done anything like this before. I would suggest that if there are caregivers who are sitting in the system for a long time, then one thing the government should at least consider is whether to just push them through. Maybe relax the eligibility a little bit. Maybe relax the checking a little bit. Make sure they're admissible and just push them through.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

For some of the individuals, too, in their PR application they run into problems with one specific item, and that is the higher level of language requirement that the government has put on for caregivers. It's only for caregivers and not for others.

I think this is what you're talking about, then, Ms. Desloges, that we relax some of these issues, regularize these individuals and give them PR status.

[Chantal Desloges]

It would be pretty easy. All they would have to do is use section 25 of the act, the H and C provision, to make a policy and just say we're going to waive certain things for a specific period of time; we're going to give them a bit of a pass on certain requirements.

It's not hard to do. They don't even have to change the law. They just have to make the policy.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Lovely. Thank you.

There's one thing that certainly bothers me a lot, and I wonder if you see it on the ground. Whenever the government makes a new announcement, or even when they say they're addressing the backlog, they'll say that, starting from this date, these new applications will meet the processing standards. It's as though all of the ones that have been piling up for years are just going to gather some more dust. There's no measure to talk about how they're going to get through the backlog.

From that perspective—again, I guess maybe I'm just beating this one over and over again—what should the government do to ensure that those backlogs are processed, aside from your suggestion? The immigration levels number is the other piece. Should the government accommodate those people who are already here and regularize them through the immigration levels number?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Ms. Kwan, your time is up.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

When we come back, maybe I can get an answer on that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Yes.

We will now proceed to our second round.

This round will be shorter: three minutes for the Conservatives and the Liberals, and then one and a half minutes for Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe and Ms. Kwan.

Mr. Redekopp, you will have three minutes. Please begin.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

Ms. Desloges, you've been at this committee before. I was reading back on some of your other testimony. You talked about UNHCR and the selection of refugees back in 2016, I think. I have a quote here that came from you. You said it's important to “develop your own priority selection criteria rather than relying so heavily on UNHCR selection of Canada's refugees.”

Could you expand a little bit on that and how that works?

[Chantal Desloges]

Yes, I think Canada over-relies...almost fetters its own discretion with respect to refugee selection. I don't think it's a good idea to completely abdicate our responsibility for choosing the refugees we want in Canada to an external organization with a different agenda and possibly different motives and expectations.

I have never been a fan of the requirement that in order to be privately sponsored through a non-sponsorship agreement holder, you have to first be approved by the UNHCR. I've also never been a fan of only being fed refugees who are being selected by UNHCR for diversion to Canada. I think we should have a lot more autonomy. We are a sovereign nation. I think the people we want to select should be our choice.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Do you think that certain minority groups sometimes get passed over because of that? I'm thinking of minority Christians in certain countries who sometimes don't get selected. Do you think that sort of thing happens?

[Chantal Desloges]

It's often the flavour of the day. I remember in past governments as well, there were accusations of cherry-picking this group or that group. Depending on your predilections, I think that's probably always going to happen to a certain extent. The thing with the UNHCR is that they're largely selecting from camps. It's the people in refugee camps who are going to get the best option to be selected by UNHCR.

What about the millions of refugees in really bad circumstances who don't live in the camps? Those people lose their chance.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

You've spoken before about privately sponsored refugees versus government-sponsored. We've had other witnesses talk about that and how there are potentially lots of benefits in privately sponsored refugees.

Do you think whether they're privately or government-sponsored is a factor in the amount of backlog and the time it takes to process their cases?

[Chantal Desloges]

I haven't noticed a lot of difference, to be honest. I've handled government-assisted cases. I've handled privately sponsored cases. I don't think it makes a particular amount of difference. There is a bit less paperwork on the government-assisted side, because you don't have a sponsor who has to go through the headache of dealing.... Well, the other witness can tell you what a headache it is to deal with the office in Ottawa that processes them. Once you get past that point, I think they're treated pretty equivalently.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Are there other advantages, then, to privately sponsored over government-sponsored cases?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Redekopp, your time is up. Thank you.

We will now proceed with Mrs. Lalonde.

Mrs. Lalonde, you will have three minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.

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

Thank you very much.

I want to thank the witnesses for their patience.

I will go straight to questions, because of my time.

Ms. Desloges, what would you propose as a system for Canada to choose refugees, if I may ask?

[Chantal Desloges]

I think, particularly when they're privately sponsored, it's the sponsors who bring forward the candidates. This is the way it always was years ago, by the way. I'm not proposing something new. I'm proposing going back to the way it was before this UNHCR requirement was imposed. If you want to sponsor a refugee, if that's in your heart as something that you want to do and you're willing to put the money on the table, why should the taxpayer pay for it?

You bring forward the candidate, instead of waiting for an outside, external organization to feed us the candidates they think are the best ones to come to Canada. The officer assesses to make sure they are in fact genuine refugees. If they are, then they clear.

Take the blinders off; take the reins off the private sponsors. If they want to sponsor a million refugees, then let them. They're paying for it. I don't see the downside.

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

Thank you very much, Ms. Desloges.

Mr. Ballard, I would like you to elaborate a little bit on your experience in managing applications of privately sponsored refugees through a community-oriented approach as you describe and maybe tell us about your experience.

Could you attest to the overall effectiveness of a community approach in gathering financial support to sponsor a family? I'd like to get your feedback on this, if I may.

[Mark Ballard]

We have quite a number of PSR applications that go through. We also like to provide the opportunity to BVOR people as well, because although we support family reunification, we certainly don't want to just stay with a single group or a single family for all the PSRs that come through the organization.

As far as funding is concerned, yes, it's a real challenge. We have large families that want a brother or sister to come, but they are stuck in minimum-wage jobs, etc. We rely on donations to ramp up the basic funding to provide the RAP payments and settlement funds.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Ballard, when it comes to processing time for privately sponsored refugees, we've talked about how long it can take. What other initiatives, because we're solution-driven, can IRCC explore to reduce the delay in the processing of privately sponsored refugees?

[Mark Ballard]

That's a good question, but I think—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. Time is up for Mrs. Lalonde.

The witnesses can always send in written submissions to the clerk of the committee and we will take that into consideration.

Now we will proceed to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, for 90 seconds.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, please begin.