Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll split my time with Ms. Kayabaga, for two minutes each.

Minister, first of all, thank you for coming here. Thank you for the $85 million and the steps you're taking.

I'm at the busiest office in Canada. Your department can tell you that. These numbers are not going to help people like those Mr. Ali mentioned, the temporary foreign workers most of these small businesses need.

I'll give you a particular example of the Maharaja Restaurant in my constituency. It took two ministers. I even took your predecessor for a tour of the restaurant. They spent millions of dollars, and they couldn't even open up the restaurant during the last ministership, or even today. It's because they applied for temporary permits for cooks, and those have not yet been processed.

How do you think your plan with help businesses like those, which are going through a tremendous amount of stress, with millions and millions of dollars in investments at stake?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thanks very much.

There are different issues that are at play for this kind of circumstance. Let me just clarify the difference.

For general work permit processing, the $85 million that I referred to is actually going to make a significant difference and should allow us to get back to the service standard.

There's a unique issue impacting people who are coming from India in particular, because of the impact of COVID-19 on our operations. I mentioned in my previous response that there are certain areas where we have not been able to allow people to work from home. The New Delhi office is one of those particular areas.

All of that said, I'm very optimistic. I'm working with Minister Qualtrough, who's responsible for employment and workforce development, to see how we can leverage the programs that we have shared custody over to facilitate and expedite the welcoming of temporary workers and potentially future permanent residents to Canada, and deal with the very acute labour shortage we're wrestling with right across the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will now proceed to Ms. Kayabaga.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for coming to our committee and responding to a lot of the questions that we have. I think a lot of my questions have already been answered through the other questions that people have asked.

One of the recurring issues in my riding is family reunification and refugee sponsorship processing times. Minister, I've had many conversations with members of my community who are concerned about the length of time that their family reunifications are taking.

Can you speak on how long families can expect to wait if they're applying to sponsor their spouses today?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Yes, thank you.

This came up in a previous question as well.

This was one line of business that, like every other, was impacted significantly by the pressures of COVID-19. Thankfully, family reunification is one of the areas where I think there's been the greatest amount of progress. Someone who applies today should expect a 12-month return, which is back to the service standard.

In addition, the new PR case tracker is available today for family reunification cases. This is one of the things that are going to make a big difference for the user experience. Someone who's not just worried about how long it's going to take to get here, but doesn't know where their application is in the process, now has the ability to log in to get specific information on their file and not just see generic information about what the standard processing time would be in a non-pandemic situation. This is going to make a major difference and relieve a lot of anxieties for people who are worried about not knowing where their case is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 15 seconds.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you.

I don't know if I have time to ask any other questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is almost up now. Thank you.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'm back on Thursday, too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you have two minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

More than once, the committee has been told that setting up an Immigration Ombudsperson could help to better protect people from delays that they are sometimes subjected to during the processing of their applications. I even think that some are currently prosecuting your department because of the unreasonable wait times they've been subjected to.

I'd like to know what you think about the possibility of setting up an Immigration Ombudsperson.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

As I said before, I'm not someone to take any different ideas off the table. The idea of an ombudsperson is not something I've been mandated to implement in my mandate letter from the Prime Minister. One thing that I think is important, though, is that there are different facets that ensure procedural fairness for individual applicants through the immigration system today. Of course, people who are applying to come on a temporary basis—

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

I'll have to interrupt you, Minister. I just wanted to know if you agreed with the idea of creating an Ombudsperson position or not. You seem ambivalent about it, but that's fine.

As I'm sure you know, the Special Committee on Afghanistan has been looking for solutions to the crisis in that country for a few weeks. We were focused on the humanitarian aspect yesterday, but this affects your department because, as you know, your government promised to bring in 40 000 Afghan refugees.

Yesterday, I offered retired Major-General David Fraser the opportunity to ask a question through me. Mr. Fraser's question was this: Minister, what is the plan to evacuate these people?

Why aren't you doing what the United Kingdom, the United States or France are doing? They're talking to people directly instead of sending emails.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

There are some people who are making their way outside of Afghanistan for onward settlement to Canada now. Some of them are here already.

We're continuing to work with organizations that have a presence in the region or on the ground to ensure that, to the extent we can secure safe passage for Afghan refugees outside of the country and onward travel to Canada, we're doing everything we can.

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

Minister, the major-general just wanted to know why you aren't talking to them directly, like the United States, Great Britain and France, instead of using email.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

We do plan to reach out to everybody who is going to be eligible for our program to ensure that they're able to be resettled into Canada. I think it's essential that we do everything we can to give them real-time—

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

If our allies are doing it, why aren't we able to do it? That's what I don't understand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Monsieur Brunelle-Duceppe; the time is up.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you will have two minutes for your round of questioning.

You can proceed.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Volleyball Canada CEO and representatives of FIVB, IOC and Pro Bono Canada would like to meet with the minister to discuss the plan to assist the Afghan women's volleyball team to come to Canada safely. Would the minister be willing to meet with them?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I'm willing to meet with many groups. As you can appreciate, there are hundreds—probably thousands—of meeting requests that we're trying to wade through to make sure we're giving attention to those who may qualify for our programs.

I'll work with my team to look at where my time is best spent to make sure that we're able to work with groups that have the best chance of getting Afghans who qualify for our programs to resettle in Canada.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I didn't hear a “yes” to that question.

The minister has just said they'll look at it. Perhaps he can assign staff to work with me with respect to this meeting request.

The backlog for outbound family reunification applications is significant. Is the minister saying that the 12-month processing time would apply to outbound family reunification applications as well?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Member—I may need to extend by a minute—could you clarify the difference between which streams you're talking about?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm talking about outbound family reunification spousal sponsorship applications.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Do you mean people outside of Canada now who are applying to come into Canada?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

That's correct. The spouses are outside of Canada.