Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 15th, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brad Redekopp]

Welcome, everybody, to the meeting of the immigration committee.

The chair is not here. As the vice-chair, I will begin the meeting. I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to our witnesses.

I see that a couple of hands are raised.

Go ahead, Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Before we start, I would like to move my motion, which reads:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee invite the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and departmental officials to update the committee on the 2022 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration, including Canada's immigration levels plan 2023-2025.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Go ahead, Ms. Rempel Garner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I am very pleased that my colleague moved this motion. I think it's very important that we have the immigration minister here to testify on this issue, particularly given the tremendous amount of testimony we've heard on how the backlog in the immigration system has impacted Canada's ability to meet its immigration targets.

I have heard over the last few weeks from stakeholders across the country their deep concerns about how this backlog has not been addressed in the immigration levels report, and concerns about how there's this huge delta between the number of people and the targets the government has set and the actual structural ability of the government to deliver on that.

I'm very pleased that my colleague from the NDP has put forward this motion. I'm sure the rest of my colleagues here would like to articulate the same in support of this motion. I look forward to Minister Fraser's attendance swiftly at this committee so that we can hold the government to account.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Next is Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

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

Madam Chair, I just want to make sure that the sound tests have been done for the witnesses who are appearing by video conference.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Yes, they have been done.

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

Thank you, that's nice of you.

That said, I support my colleagues from the NDP and the Conservative Party when it comes to the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Mr. Kmiec is next.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Chair, I was just going to add my voice in saying that I think it's important that the minister come in based on the report that was tabled to Parliament before November 1, the annual report on immigration. If you go through the report, it's a very rosy picture of what's going on, but we're all getting inundated in our offices and our constituencies with people who are facing enormous backlogs for just the simplest of applications.

I was made aware just a few days ago of a case where a family is trying to bring in a newborn from Brazil, and they were told by IRCC that they're facing a 500-day wait time to have that processed. By the time the newborn's application gets through, they're not a newborn anymore; they're a toddler. Also, obviously a cuteness factor is directly related. The longer it is from being a newborn, the less cute it is, and the grandparents may not be as enthusiastic, but I'm sure they want to see this newborn immediately.

Also, there's an Order Paper question response that was tabled just yesterday, I believe, for one of our colleagues, Ziad Aboultaif, the member of Parliament for Edmonton Manning, which shows that the department is able to meet its service standards for only something like 46% of the time. It's abysmal, especially for employers. When we're facing critical shortages and a million jobs are going unfilled—I'm sure we all get this in our constituency offices—employers are desperate to get people in to fill critical jobs.

This report is much more.... It paints such a rosy picture, but then we're getting this data back contradicting the department's ability to meet any of these targets into the future. If we're going to meet the labour shortages, if we're going to reunify families and if Canada is going to do its part to make sure we can keep protecting people who are being persecuted overseas, we have to have the minister in to explain himself on how he's going to meet these targets.

I just don't see it, based on the data we're receiving back through Order Paper questions, question period and in other ways. I would like very much for the minister to come in. I'm very much in support of my colleague from the New Democratic Party on this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We have a speaking list.

Mr. Dhaliwal is next.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would also like to add my voice to Ms. Kwan's motion. I would love to support it.

When it comes to meeting the targets, Madam Chair, we all know that our government has either met or exceeded the targets over the past many years. I remember that the first time I got elected in 2006, the Conservative government was there, and in fact it was the Conservatives who put in cuts to the family class.

Now we're talking about parents and grandparents. In fact, if we look at our government, our government took 20,000 applications every year. That is a great achievement over what the previous government was doing. In fact, the targets we set up are for 435,000 immigrants to come in next year, 465,000 the year after and half a million in 2025. I have had discussions with the minister.

Look at the past record of the Liberal government. We will meet those targets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Next we have Mr. Maguire.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to add my congratulations to my NDP colleague for bringing this motion forward. Any time we can get the minister before the committee to understand the significance and the importance of the numbers that need to be dealt with through the processes we're dealing with for refugees and immigration is very important.

My colleague across the way was just talking about what the government has done, but that was seven years ago. We're dealing with a completely different situation in Canada today, where so much labour force is needed, and it is needed more immediately.

While we look at the different mechanisms for bringing people into Canada to do work here, we need to look at whether it's skilled labour that's required and make some changes with regard to how those people can get into the country and get to work as quickly as possible.

I want to back my colleagues here, and the Liberal colleagues who are supportive of this motion, and say that I think it is imperative to have the minister appear before us on this. I appreciate the fact that he will. We'll have to work with the committee to find the time with the minister's office when he can attend this. I know he's going to be away for some of the early part of next week, so I would like to see if we can do this and get him to this committee as quickly as we possibly can.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Maguire.

I have four more people on the speaking list before we can go into today's agenda. I have Mr. Redekopp, and then Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, Mr. El-Khoury and Ms. Rempel Garner.

Go ahead, Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

One of the things I wanted to mention was that there was some talk about the multiple times we have the minister coming to this committee. I think it's important. What we're talking about here is a different issue, because of the numbers issue.

The other things that we're going to be bringing him in for are all specific. For example, there's the Roxham Road study. That's a very specific thing we want to talk to him about.

I think it is important that, on this issue of the report, we bring him to talk about these numbers, because this is a very critical issue. There's more to this than simply the numbers that are there. There's a lot more information in that report about some of the other streams of people who come in. Many of the groups are not treated fairly. I have some questions for him in that regard about who ranks over whom and how that all fits together.

That's all part of what I see in that report and in the numbers. I think it's really important that he comes to speak to just that, as long as he comes for the other reports.

We're going to have supplementary estimates (B). I assume we're going to get him for that at some point as well. That's a whole other discussion that we'll have. There are the Afghanistan reports as well.

There are many different topics we need to talk about. I think it's very important that we have him here specifically on this report, because it's a very significant report and it affects very many people. As my colleague said, each of us, as an MP, deals with this every single day in our offices back home. There are lots of questions that we have about that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We've just wasted 10 minutes discussing a motion that everyone agrees with. We have an important study to do, for which witnesses have travelled here and others are appearing by video conference. Everyone has said their piece on the motion, so I think we can move on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

I have a speaking list.

Next is Mr. El-Khoury.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to welcome our witnesses here.

I welcome positively the motion of Ms. Kwan.

I would like to assure everyone here that the priority of this government and the Minister of Immigration is to fill the gap of the workforce shortage. That's why, if you know that the money is allocated.... We have more than half a million dollars allocated in order to bring other resources to be able to treat and process the demand.

We have given a chance to the students who have graduated to apply to work here in order to grow our economy. I believe our target, Madam Chair, is to have half a million well-qualified persons here in Canada by 2025 to integrate into our society.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. El-Khoury.

Now we will go to Ms. Rempel Garner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Briefly, Madam Chair, I would note for my colleague Mr. Dhaliwal, who talked about the government meeting immigration targets, that it's all well and good to set targets, but it's another thing to be able to process those targets. The government could say they want to bring the entire population of the globe to Canada and create an endless list, which many people—2.8 million—are languishing on right now.

It's very important for the government to both set targets and establish processes that can, in a just and timely fashion, process these applications, which is to me what the subject matter at hand is.

I wanted to note that for the record, Madam Chair, before we proceeded to a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Seeing no further hands raised, we can take a vote.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Okay, it's adopted.

Mr. Maguire, go ahead.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I, too, have a motion that's been tabled, and I want to put it forward today. That's the one I gave a notice of on October 21.

It reads as follows:

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada table in both English and French with the committee, until further notice, the previous month's number of people entering Canada, through non-official points of entry who claim asylum, not later than the 5th of the month succeeding the data.