Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Good morning, everyone.

I call the meeting to order. This is meeting number six of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

As the bells are ringing, is there unanimous consent to start the meeting? I am proposing that we have the minister's opening remarks, then suspend for a few minutes so that everyone can vote through the app, and then resume the meeting.

Is everyone okay with this plan?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We have unanimous consent to proceed. We will have the opening remarks by the minister, and then we will suspend the meeting for a few minutes.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately, and we will ensure interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings. The “raise hand” feature at the bottom of the screen can be used at any time if you wish to speak or alert the chair.

Today we are here to receive a briefing on current and projected processing timelines and acceptance rates at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

I would like to welcome the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Welcome, Minister, and thanks for appearing before the committee.

He is joined by IRCC officials Marian Campbell Jarvis, senior assistant deputy minister, strategic and program policy; and Daniel Mills, senior assistant deputy minister, operations.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of all the witnesses.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair. Interpretation in this video conference will work very much like in a regular meeting. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

Witnesses will have five minutes for opening remarks. During the rounds of questioning, I will raise coloured time cards to the screen to indicate when one minute is left. We'll be using a one-minute card, a 30-second card, and a stop sign. I hope everyone takes due consideration of this.

With that, I would like to welcome Minister Fraser, who will begin our discussions with five minutes of opening remarks.

Minister, the floor is yours. You can begin, please.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you, colleagues.

It's a pleasure to be here. As someone who has spent the first six years as a member of Parliament sitting on parliamentary committees, let me communicate the respect that I have for the work we do at committees. I look forward to seeing what recommendations you may have to offer.

Thank you for inviting me to appear today before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Folks, I have a 10-minute speech, and five minutes to give it. Let me begin.

As the Committee is aware, the pandemic has caused application processing delays and backlogs. In the Prime Minister’s mandate letter to me, he indicated that one of my priorities is to reduce these processing times and delays brought on by COVID‑19.

I apologize, but I hope you will agree with me making my remarks in English.

It's just to save some time.

Folks, it's not lost on me that there are challenges when it comes to processing in the immigration system, and I look forward to implementing some of the measures we are planning on, because I think we can make a significant difference.

Before we understand how those measures are going to make a positive difference, it's essential that we understand how the challenges we're facing came to be.

When I look at the circumstances around the pandemic, it's very clear to me that IRCC's operations have been impacted as much as any department in the Government of Canada.

For those who might not be aware of the challenges we are facing, they arise primarily from the fact that during the pandemic the Government of Canada made a decision to pivot its operations to welcome more newcomers as permanent residents who were already in Canada, in order to protect the public from the spread of COVID-19 when our borders were closed. In addition, the pandemic around the world has impacted some of our operations in Canada and in our global locations, causing certain offices to be closed for a period of time.

At the same time we were welcoming people who were located in Canada already, we continued to see a significant number of applications that were coming in from people who were overseas. This built up a significant number of cases for people who would like to come to Canada who were not already here. I do believe it was the right thing to do at the time so we could achieve our goal of welcoming the most new permanent residents in any year in Canada's history last year, but we knew it would come with certain consequences that we now need to deal with.

To the folks who have made applications and who are overseas, I want to say this: I understand the frustration you've been experiencing with some of the application processes, but we are working very hard to alleviate some of the challenges you're facing. I'm very excited about it.

Perhaps the place to start is the immigration levels plan that I tabled yesterday. You'll note that a target of 432,000 permanent residents next year is the highest number of permanent residents that Canada will have ever welcomed, by a significant margin, more than the 405,000 that we achieved this past year.

That is going to help reduce the number of people who are waiting to come to Canada, because we'll be able to welcome more of those who already have an application in the system. However, there are other measures we're putting in place that are going to make a dramatic difference to actually improve the quality of the experience while people are going through the application process.

I note in particular the $85-million investment included in the economic and fiscal update this past fall, which includes finances for work permit processing, for study permit processing, for proof of citizenship cards, to reduce the inventory of permanent resident cards and to expedite the processing of temporary residency visas.

In addition to these measures that we're going to see improvements on, we are going to have some major functionalities of the new digital platform we are working on that are going to boost the productivity of our department over time and improve the quality of the user experience.

In particular I note that the citizenship process has moved to a digital application process, and at the end of the citizenship process, we have moved to virtual ceremonies. We're looking now at additional options that will allow for an electronic oath for people who would like to expedite the finalization of their citizenship process, when the last thing they need to do is swear the oath in order to become Canadian citizens and they might choose to celebrate their citizenship at a later time.

There are other functionalities that have come online recently, such as digital intake for different lines of business. By this summer, there will be up to 17 different lines of business within IRCC's operations that will allow for a digital intake process for those who are applying to come to Canada.

We also have a PR application process near the final stages that will allow you to take part in it electronically. Over the course of this pandemic, we've seen more than 200,000 people avail themselves of this opportunity. One of the benefits really driven home for me with this one is that during a time when a lot of in-person services have been compromised as a result of COVID-19, we....

I'm at the end of my time. I didn't see the one-minute warning. I'll finish very quickly by saying that, between the digital intake, the application processes for PR and the new permanent residence case tracker for family unification purposes, we're seeing people being able to get real-time information about their files. These digital functions are going to continue to come online, which will result in an improved experience with Canada's immigration process.

I'm thrilled to be here today to discuss some of these measures, and I look forward to answering whatever questions you might have.

Thank you, everyone.

I'm pleased to appear before the committee today.

I appreciate your time very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Minister.

The voting app will be opening soon. We will suspend the meeting for a few minutes so that everyone can vote.

We will go into our round of questioning as soon as everyone has voted on the app. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call the meeting to order.

All the members have voted. Madame Lalonde might have to go and verify, so she will do that.

We will now start our first round of questioning with Mr. Hallan.

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

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Minister, thank you for showing up, and in person. It's great to see you.

Last night at our Special Committee on Afghanistan, we had two retired major-generals. They testified that they sent a letter to IRCC back in July 2021, asking for a pipeline to get those refugees who were interpreters here. Obviously, they had no response. You had 23 of your own Liberal colleagues write a letter in December 2020, and, again, it fell on deaf ears. The UNHCR testified, at that same committee, that they had a plan to evacuate vulnerable Afghans back in early 2021, and again there was no response.

I've written many letters to your office—to you directly—without getting a response.

Thousands of Afghan interpreters and Afghan nationals are stranded in Afghanistan. What everyone wants to know is, what tangible steps are you or your department taking to bring those refugees here? No one has seen a proper plan yet.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Chair, thanks very much, through you to the member, for this important question.

The situation in Afghanistan is what justified us making what I would suggest is one of the most substantial commitments—to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees—of any country in the world, and certainly on a per capita basis. The circumstance the member has described is precisely why we have established not just an ordinary stream for humanitarian refugee resettlement out of Afghanistan, but—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Respectfully—

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Chair, I believe I have the same amount of time as the member.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Hallan, please let the member give the answer.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

That's specifically why we established the special immigration measures, to target those folks who made a significant and enduring contribution to Canada. The steps we are taking to welcome them here include working with referral partners in DND and Global Affairs Canada to make sure we know who worked with the Government of Canada so we can bring them here.

There are challenges on the ground that we are sorting out with partners—state partners, partners in the region and international organizations—to help facilitate the safe passage of those folks who have not yet left Afghanistan. I would share, Madam Chair, that with now more than 7,500 Afghan refugees in Canada, we're seeing a regular pace of arrivals, and it's very encouraging to me in this position.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Minister, what are the metrics, then? What kind of monthly metrics are we looking at? How many people do you think you're going to bring in a month?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

The effort is not to measure a particular number of people every single month. If you were to do the math, you would see that the commitment of 40,000 by next year is what the publicly stated target has been. That would put you in the ballpark of somewhere around 1,250 to 1,500, depending on the month. That doesn't mean that the same number is there every month. Some months it will more; some months it will be less.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Minister, can you please table with the committee what numbers you think are going to be coming in?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

If you're asking for a written response to rough timelines of folks, it won't specify, every single month, the exact number that's scheduled, because there are circumstances that require flexibility month to month.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

One of the issues in bringing people over here is biometrics. We know other countries are able to do that for those Afghan refugees. Again, this ties in with the backlog issue. What is being done for this biometrics issue?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Just as a point of clarity, if the honourable member is aware of countries that have access to biometrics inside Afghanistan, I would like to know which countries he's referring to, because I would call them immediately.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

For example, Pakistan—as one of the witnesses said—can do that, but the issue is also getting people into Pakistan safely. That's what people want to know. Instead of us, you should be sorting this out. It's been quite a while now.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

With great respect, Madam Chair—and I know the question is filled only with good intentions—we have had conversations with Pakistan, the UAE, Qatar, the United States, the UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration, and private sector partners, all of whom have the ability to offer biometrics outside of the country. If people can get outside of the country, Canada can perform the biometrics outside of the country.

The challenge is not for the humanitarian cases or for special immigration measures applicants who are already outside of Afghanistan. When it comes to biometrics, the challenge is for people who are inside Afghanistan. As you can appreciate, the Taliban—a listed terror organization in Canadian law—has seized control of Afghanistan, and they are not interested in facilitating Canadian processing staff to do their job inside Afghanistan—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Respectfully, Minister, I think that also ties back into the fact that Canada was not prepared, and, on top of that, an unnecessary election was called, and that totally threw everything off.

One of the generals yesterday made a very interesting statement: “Stop sending emails. Be transparent with the Afghan applicants and start talking to them person to person. Great Britain, the United States, France and Ukraine sent people into Kabul to grab people out of the country. Canada sent an email.”

It's true, because I hear this in my office all the time. When will these auto replies and no responses stop? When can we show some real transparency to these refugees who are so desperate to get out?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

You raised two issues with that question, one with respect to the timing of the evacuation, and the second on communication with applicants.

Madam Chair, I can't see what flag you're holding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 30 seconds.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Okay.

Very quickly, at the time Kabul fell, Canada had not had a military mission with the logistics capacity of moving people since 2014—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Was an election necessary, then?

I would just like to say that—