Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 21st, 2022

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Do you think that putting in even more people will help the department meet any of its targets or actually reduce backlogs?

[Siavash Shekarian]

Not necessarily. It's not about quantity; it's about quality.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

On that quality question, throughout the federal government, throughout the public service right now, lots of people are electing to work from home. There's a 699 code in the public service as well. Do you think that's having an impact with people not having their files available? This happens to me quite often.

I have a case file manager in my office, Suki, who handles these. Oftentimes, she is told on the phone that a particular person can't be in the office and therefore doesn't have access to a paper file. It seems like nobody can go into that person's office to scan the file or take a picture on a phone to send it to another visa officer to continue the processing. How often does that happen to you?

[Siavash Shekarian]

That happens every day. We don't know now, but my colleagues.... You've heard testimony after testimony in this very committee. We said back in COVID-19 that officers should have been essential workers. They just left. I have a super visa application. We submitted it on paper, and then for a year and a half we didn't even have an acknowledgement. This is not respectful to those people whom we want to become the future of Canada. This is actually happening. It happened in the past, and we don't know if it's still happening.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

The backlogs are also causing officers to sometimes not process files of deserving individuals who are fleeing countries with horrible human rights records. I'm thinking of the country of Iran. I think you're very familiar with it. I have lots of Kurdish friends from Rojhelat. I file lots of access to information requests on their behalf for their files. You've said before that Canada has laid the red carpet for embezzlers like Khavari and torturers like the ex-police chief of Talaei. We're also refusing 70% of Iranian students and imposing sanctions on persons and entities with no interest in Canadians. I think I saw this on your LinkedIn, and I liked it so much that I kept it. I entirely agree with you.

What more do you think Canada could do to make sure these types of individuals aren't allowed to come to Canada, and that we do right by Canadians with Iranian heritage, with Kurdish heritage, who see this going on? I get messages almost every week from people telling me so-and-so from Sanandaj or Mahabad or Kermanshah is being allowed into the country, but they have links to the regime. They're intimidating people once they get here, or intimidating the families who are back in their countries of origin. These people don't feel safe in Canada, the country they call home.

[Siavash Shekarian]

I agree. To me, integrity is when you say something, you have to abide by it. I don't see it in the treatment that we have happening in Iran right now. We allow people who don't deserve it, and then here's the double standard we have. Ukraine happens, Afghanistan happens and Iran happens. With Iran, we're saying, “Oh, we added some names to some list, and we're not allowing these people to come into this country.” They never even thought about coming to this country to begin with.

Instead, we could have said, “Hey, we're going to lay out a red carpet for whoever is on the streets and doing protests. We'll let you come here, be in a free country. You have the media. Talk to the media and cause some change to that country.”

Instead we're doing something that I don't think has any benefit.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have one and a half minutes.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Perfect. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Shekarian, you also talked about the backlog for entrepreneurs, people who want to come to this country and invest in our economy and create more jobs. That was the experience of my family when we came here. My family wanted to give back. My mother started a very simple business—commercial cleaning of homes and restaurants.

You talked about the 42-month wait times. My staff often have to go online and check what the wait times are before we take on a case file to see if we can reasonably actually fix the problems people have. How often do you actually refuse people and say, “This wait time is just too long. You're never going to get a response in time for a marriage or a birth. You're not going to be able to reconstitute your family.” How often does that happen to you?

[Siavash Shekarian]

In my practice, we focus on business immigration a lot. That's the biggest part of our business. When you're a businessperson, you accumulate wealth. You have expertise. You want to take it to a new home. We treat you the way we treat you.

It happened in the last year that we had three clients who turned to Australia and took their businesses to Australia, because they have a much easier and much more friendly system for entrepreneurs. Our immigration system is not entrepreneur-friendly, despite the statistics that I gave you. BDC deems us a nation of entrepreneurs, yet look at how we treat them.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. Your time is up.

We will now proceed to Mr. Ali. You have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please begin.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for taking the time to give us the benefit of their knowledge and experience.

Mr. Rai, you talked about work permits and super visa applicants. Could you please expand on your suggestion about work permits and successful super visa applicants?

[Roger Rai]

We do a lot of super visas for families. I believe the issue—I obviously don't have the resources to research this—is that a lot of them are already working. The parents come in, and the young families need help economically. The parents are going and working on farms, which is labour work. It's basically unregulated. If they're already coming in, I think it's very important that we be practical. We can either take an enforcement action against them or we can do the practical thing and say, “Listen, we know you guys are probably working.” They have their own private insurance when they come in. We have the ability to say, “If you want to work, we'll issue you a work permit.”

In that way, first of all, they're contributing back to the economy. They're being tracked. We can see who's doing this, and right now, in terms of the shortage, I don't see any reason that we wouldn't implement that.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Some of the witnesses talked about longer processing times for applicants who apply from certain countries and regions and are processed at certain visa offices. Since you've been in this industry for a long time, in your experience, can you educate us on two things?

First, which immigration streams and which regions are subject to longer waiting times? Second, in your opinion, how could Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada improve processing times in those visa offices?

[Roger Rai]

I'd like to defer to my associate Mr. Madani here. He probably has more expertise in that field.

[Shervin Madani]

I deal with quite a few different offices. I have a lot of clients from Brazil, from Iran and from India. Our office deals with a variety. As I said, it's not limited to a certain country.

To give you an example, in Iran a work permit currently goes typically about a year without any answers. In Brazil, which was very fast at one point in time, even under certain streams for which the government had committed to 15 days for work permits, such as the global talent stream, you're looking at about 16 weeks right now. These are IT shortages. In India, I see usually about.... The fastest we had recently was about six months to eight months. These are overseas.

The overseas offices are obviously dealing with a lot of different cases as well, such as sponsorships. With work permit applications, in a lot of cases there are ways the current technologies we have right now that CIC is implementing can reduce the backlogs from within Canada. A lot of these work permits are decided here in Canada.

I'll give you a very good example: extensions for work permits. It doesn't need to be a very lengthy process if the labour market is there. We have the technology. When the visa applications for Ukraine came out, there were very minimal documentation requirements. They got the visas. Why can't it be done with a work permit extension to have the LMIA renewed when a person's already working for somebody? This can very much be an automated system, which would free up officers' times to look at complex cases. They can be done here within Canada.

As I said, the legislation already allows it. Why does a work permit have to go overseas, when we're already dealing with sponsorships overseas? We have the resources here. If there were places people could go to make an appointment to get work permits when they were already in Canada, it would free up officers' time to look at these applications that are overseas and it would expedite processing. No employer I have is willing to wait a year to get their employees into Canada while they're suffering labour shortages. It's unrealistic, whether they are from Iran, whether they are from India or whether they're from Brazil.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Do you think the regions you have just mentioned face challenges or delays for totally different reasons?

I'm wondering whether you would suggest a one-size-fits-all approach in every region or whether IRCC should be looking at region-specific solutions.

[Shervin Madani]

On work permits, as I said, if you're doing labour market work permits, simple cases in which the government, Service Canada, has proof that this employer is eligible to bring in somebody, then the document requirements are very straightforward. The officers are given straight directions about what documents they should request and how they should not delay other things by requesting additional things. Those processes can be done in Canada. They don't need to be done overseas.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Okay.

My question was a little bit different.

Mr. Khayyam, I will ask you this because I have limited time. Do you have some thoughts on this same question?

[Omer Khayyam]

I think there was a witness who spoke earlier, Ms. Long, to build on Mr. Madani's point about doing it in Canada. The Internet is essentially one big visa office now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Khayyam, but time is up for Mr. Ali.

I will just remind members that all questions should be directed through the chair.

We will now proceed to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe. Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you will have six minutes for your opening remarks. You may begin.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to emphasize that today, in the two hours of the meeting, we have had some strong witnesses. All the testimonies, the opening remarks and the answers we have been given are extremely relevant. You can see that people know their work and are active on the ground. This will help us to write our report.

Mr. Shekarian, you told us that increasing the thresholds will not necessarily solve everything. In that respect, it won't solve the issue of backlogs. Rather, it's how we integrate and accept people here.

People make a direct correlation between the labour shortage and newcomers. But that's a bit dangerous or simplistic, because these people will need housing and public services. They will also consume.

Is raising immigration thresholds in the belief that this will solve the labour shortage really a solution? More to the point, what effect will this have on processing times?

[Siavash Shekarian]

Well, most of the money we give to IRCC goes to settlement programs. You can see on GC InfoBase—that's the website I looked at—how they are spending the money.

At the same time, I'm going to read to you from a university study that went to the NGOs that are delivering these settlement programs on the ground. They are all saying that IRCC, when they consult with them, have answered the questions before going to them. There is no meaningful collaboration between civil society and the government. That is exactly what I'm asking for.

You're spending most of your money on settlement. What is settlement good for? We want whomever we bring to this country to stay in this country. Right now, our retention rate, as of two weeks ago—you heard the testimony—is 50%. People are leaving. We are doing something wrong. We are definitely doing something wrong. We should be spending most of our money on something that will help people stay here, but nobody is consulting us. Civil society is not consulted.

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

In fact, you talked about the fact that you are not consulted.

Earlier in your testimony you also talked about opacity, lack of transparency and poor communication between the department and you.

How does this affect your work and the timelines, which is what we are looking at today?