Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 21st, 2022

[Siavash Shekarian]

Yes. In terms of my capacity as a lawyer, I'm like a mechanic. You give me the law, and I want to apply it. I want information, so when a client comes to me with a refusal, the first thing I will do is file an ATIP. Then I have to wait months. Then they'll come knocking on my door to do a follow-up with IRCC. I'll have no luck. You heard this testimony from my colleague last week, Chantal Desloges, who said exactly the same thing.

Transparency itself has a lot of value, but transparency on its own is not something we're after. Transparency is the very first thing we need. When a system is transparent, I can look at it; I can analyze it and I can make recommendations based on what I'm seeing. We are still at the transparency level. In testimony after testimony, just do a “control F” on whatever you have on paper and you will see how many times this issue has come up. Where are we right now?

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

We were talking about transparency. Some witnesses suggested that we record interviews between agents and applicants.

In your opinion, is this a good idea?

[Siavash Shekarian]

Of course, it's better than not taping them. Taping interviews is definitely better than not taping them. My colleague has much more experience than I have—I think she started practising immigration law before I was even born—and that's what she said. There is no reason to not tape them. I'm referring to Ms. Desloges' testimony.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Rai, you mentioned that you were a border services officer before you got into the immigration business. You have some pretty fascinating expertise.

If I remember correctly—I don't have the article in front of me, but I have a good memory—the border services officers' union came out publicly, in June or May, saying that its members were ready to help when there is an international crisis like the one in Ukraine. The union said that the border services officers had some training in immigration, but the government did not use them. That could have helped us reduce delays. At that time, many IRCC officers were sent to deal with the Ukrainian crisis. Meanwhile, at the Canada Border Services Agency, there were trained people who could have helped. This would have helped reduce delays in all programs. There would not have been any repercussions.

What do you think?

[Roger Rai]

I would like to say that there are some officers who have the knowledge to be able to help in that situation. It's not the majority of them. You would have to see who would be willing to go to do that job.

There has been a very big disconnect at the border since 2004 about what their role is. They've been given the role of immigration officers as well as enforcement officers. Immigration is service-related, for the most part.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 30 seconds left.

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

In this case, wouldn't additional training, with financial compensation for these agents, be welcome to help the IRCC people? Border services officers would be asked to do this work and trained properly.

At the moment, in Quebec, 98% of asylum seekers entering Roxham Road are processed by the RCMP and only 2% go through customs. This makes no sense.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, but the time is up for Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you will have six minutes for your round of questioning. You can begin, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for their presentations.

I'd like to first ask a question of Mr. Rai and his colleague, who have CBSA experience. A lot of my constituents are faced with delays in processing because of the criminality checks. It's stuck in the system. We have no way of trying to find out where it is, and sometimes it's just stuck there. There is no information.

Can you provide any insight into that process within the CBSA and how that can be more transparent? It's not to try to influence the decision; it's just to get information on where things are.

[Shervin Madani]

That's a very good question.

Unfortunately, the government is very tight-lipped about this. I can tell you that previously when we, as CBSA officers, were using the system to do security checks, it was very.... Back in the day, they had this system called FOSS. It's a similar system to CAIPS, the global entry system where they prepare the files.

For the CBSA, when we have refugee claimants or typically for work permit applications that show up at the border, this process is actually not done, the security checks. A lot of times you can ask the applicant to show up with a police certificate to satisfy yourself that they don't have any criminality, but on the security check itself, the government is very tight-lipped.

Even at the officer level.... There were two boxes that we had to click to ask for security checks. One was to CSIS and one was to the RCMP—sorry; there was a third one to go to the CBSA. We, even as officers, didn't know exactly how this process worked. Eventually we would get an automated message on these ones, saying “security passed”.

I couldn't shed any further light on those, especially for the PR process and what the background checks look like. However, at the border when somebody comes to do their work permit application, this is not actually part of the regular process. The extent to which you can go is a police certificate, and that should satisfy you about criminality, if not security clearances. There could be somebody, let's say, from a terrorist organization who shows up. Unless for some odd reason they show up in some sort of a system that the CBSA would have access to, you wouldn't actually know.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I see. Thank you very much for that information. It is interesting to note.

In terms of the processing backlog, one issue raised is that often the government will make an announcement and say that going forward, these new applications will be processed within processing standards. In the meantime, the people in the backlog are stuck in the system and often just left languishing there.

Mr. Rai, do you have any suggestions as to how the government should deal with the existing backlog? Take, for example, the suggestion of some witnesses that the government should have two separate bodies to process the new and the existing applications in order to clear the backlog.

[Roger Rai]

Yes, I think I touched upon this a bit in my opening, definitely.

I wouldn't say we need to have two separate bodies, but perhaps two teams within the same organization. There's no point in trying to reduce a backlog if you're going to keep having more applications come in. They're going to keep piling up.

Let this one team come out with new criteria for assessing files, then have them deal with the new stuff. When it comes to the existing backlog, have a second team of more experienced officers, because usually some of those backlogs are due to complicated cases, so the files get stuck in limbo. Have the more experienced officers, as a special task force, work on those specific cases to clear the backlog.

Shervin has a good example. He used to work for CRA, and they had a similar problem. Do you want to elaborate on that a bit?

[Shervin Madani]

I know that this process, as far as it goes, is not actually service-standard-friendly, because people say, “This person's file got processed faster than mine.” However, at some stage, there have to be some sacrifices made in order to catch up.

If we have a queue and stuff is being added onto the back of it constantly, we're never going to be able to catch up. We have to take some of these, put them in a bundle and say, “Hey, we are very sorry, and we are going to get to you, but we're going to put this as a priority and dedicate officers to this backlog to make sure it gets cleared.”

Right now, with what we are seeing, the time frames keep changing. TR to PR was supposed to be finishing by 2022. It moved to 2023. Now, all of a sudden, it's 2024. There is no consistency. This is what leads to frustration for people. The policies coming up are sometimes so poorly designed that they shoot immigration in the foot.

I'll give you a perfect example. This 40-hour work for students—

I'm sorry. I just want to give you a quick example.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm sorry. I'm quickly running out of time, so perhaps you can send the examples in to the clerk for distribution.

[Shervin Madani]

Yes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

What I heard from Mr. Rai is that there should be two separate streams in terms of staffing to process these applications. With regard to the processing of the applications, it really doesn't help unless the immigration level number is also adjusted to accommodate it, so—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Kwan. Your time is up.

We will now proceed to our second round. We will have Mr. Redekopp. Mr. Redekopp, you have four minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Khayyam, some witnesses have suggested that the department mass-approve whole categories of low-risk applications. We talked about that today. The suggestion is that this would reduce our backlog with very minimal risk to Canada.

In your opening remarks, you talked briefly about this, and I heard you say the words “unintended consequences”. I'm just curious about what your thoughts are on that.

[Omer Khayyam]

That's right. If we think about it, if we were going to mass-approve a number of applications, we'd have to consider what would happen. I think something like that would only cause more uncertainty and unpredictability in the system and lead to unanticipated consequences. Let's say 2.7 million applications have been approved overnight. Then the second question is how to issue all those PR cards, the citizenship certificates and those permits. How are you going to print them off so quickly?

Then let's say those permanent residents want to travel home to visit their families. Then you're going to have a jam at the airport and then you're going to have another traffic jam at the airport for PR landings.

Those unintended consequences have to be considered. That's why I think predictability and certainty and consistency are important values in the rule of law. I think what we should do is work backwards. What is the top speed at which we can approve applications? How many work permits can be approved how fast or how many PR cards or citizenship certificates can be issued per year, per month, per week, per day and per hour? Working backwards from there and setting a target would make sense. What's the Donovan Bailey of the immigration system? How fast can we go?

Then we figure out how we can be Terry Fox at the same time and find a middle ground, maybe 60% of our top speed. Once we know those types of things, I think it's a little bit easier to understand what unanticipated consequences there will be.

Ramming people through—

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thanks. That's good.

Mr. Shekarian, I'm just wondering if you have any additional or different thoughts on that.

[Siavash Shekarian]

I think it would send a wrong message.

Let's just create a lottery and be proud of it. The U.S. had lotteries and they were straightforward about it. Imagine you're applying to Canada today and then you realize that if you'd done it six months ago you would have gotten in with no trouble.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

I want to switch gears a little bit and speak about the judicial review process.

Other witnesses have spoken about this, and people say there needs to be something done. You guys are lawyers. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Some have suggested scrapping it altogether in favour of Immigration Canada working more co-operatively, while others say that IRCC seems incapable of being co-operative and maybe we need a judge to get through this. I'd like to see a report on this recommendation about the judicial review process.

Mr. Khayyam, do you agree with those who say to scrap the process? Should we keep it? Do you believe there's room for improvement?

[Omer Khayyam]

We should not scrap it at all. I think it's crucial to the rule of law. When my clients don't know what else to do is when we start talking about the Federal Court. Yes, sometimes the costs can be prohibitive, but the cost comes in a number of ways. I think there needs to be some redress that foreign nationals can seek and I think that's the purpose of having a judge, so I don't think we should scrap it. If we did scrap it, where else are they going to turn? Who else are they going to go to?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Shekarian, do you have thoughts on that?

[Siavash Shekarian]

I agree with Mr. Khayyam on that point.