Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm asking about all of the streams. For each of the streams, how much backlog exists?

[Daniel Mills]

I will be happy to provide that information because I have it here on hand. If the member has specific questions, I can answer them.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Yes, I do.

Could the official also provide to the committee by the end of the month a breakdown of the $85 million announced in the fall economic update that has been allocated to IRCC, with a detailed breakdown of where it is being spent and what stream would be utilized for the purposes of reducing backlogs? Also, what is the projected outcome with that injection of resources in reducing the backlog?

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

Madam Chair, we will certainly look at that question. We'll have discussions with our CFO and do our best to respond to that question in writing.

Thank you.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Yes, please.

Along with that, could officials also provide the number of FTEs that have been assigned in each of the streams during this period in comparison to the pre-COVID period, so that we can have an understanding of where things are at in terms of actual staffing resources?

With respect to the injection of $85 million, could you provide the additional staffing resources that would be put in place? How many additional FTEs would be added to which stream? Can we have that information as well?

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

Madam Chair, we'd be pleased to do our best, but I do want to caution you about a few things with that question.

My colleague may be pleased to speak about it, but we did do a significant number of transformations over the course of COVID, so we might not really be comparing apples to apples.

My colleague, Mr. Mills, would perhaps like to elaborate on that, if that's helpful.

[Daniel Mills]

Yes. Thank you very much.

We will do our best to provide the member with the details. One thing that we have to take into consideration is that we are operating under a global network, so we are moving people around in all of our lines of business.

Especially with COVID‑19, it's been even more common due to the various conditions in countries. To protect their health and safety, we've had to move some employees to other lines of business in our operations. If we compare using a fixed date, that might be like comparing apples to oranges.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

If the committee could receive information on which offices have actually had resources impacted and how many staffing resources have been impacted as a result of COVID, that will also give us a sense of the lay of the land. The reality right now is that we don't really know. No one really knows what's going on. All people are seeing is a humongous backlog and delay in their applications. Shedding some light and providing some transparency to the situation would be very helpful. I will be looking forward to receiving that information.

The minister said that outbound spousal sponsorship applications are meeting the 12-month processing requirement standards, yet I hear from families all the time that they are in the system for two or three years, indiscriminately. There are just so many people whose applications are stuck in the backlog. These are for outbound spousal sponsorship applications.

Could the officials please confirm that indeed the IRCC is processing these applications within the 12-month standard processing period?

[Daniel Mills]

Thank you very much for your question.

I'd like to clarify that, as the minister mentioned, the 12 months applies for people who are submitting an application in February 2022. They will be processed in 12 months. However, we do have to work on the backlog—the inventory—that we have. That's what we are doing.

In January, we processed over 8,000 family class applications.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

That's misleading, actually, to say that you'll be at the 12-month processing time starting February 2022. That means all the applications and all the people who have been stuck in the backlog are not going to see the light of day with their processing.

Frankly, I find that the statement from the minister is misleading. I'm sorry. Getting the data would be very useful to find out exactly how many people are stuck in the backlog and the projected time when the applications will actually be processed.

We learned from committee witnesses the other day that Canada is not meeting its standard for francophone immigration outside Quebec, which is 4.4%. Is there any plan from IRCC to address this growing crisis that's been happening year after year?

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Campbell Jarvis. The time is up for Ms. Kwan, so maybe when we come back to her you can answer that question.

We will now proceed to our second round. We will start that with Mrs. Falk.

Mrs. Falk, you will have five minutes for your round of questioning. Please proceed.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the officials for being here today.

We heard the minister say in his opening remarks that backlogs will be reduced. That is what he said. I'm actually very concerned with what MP Kwan just brought up. I heard you, as the officials, say that applicants as of this month, February 2022, will have the service standard of 12 months.

What is happening to all the backlogs previous to this? What is the time frame to clean these backlogs up?

[Daniel Mills]

Thank you for your question.

I'd like to make a clarification.

As of January, the processing time for family class applications is now 12 months. Earlier, I mentioned February, but that was only an example.

If someone is applying today, they will be processed within 12 months.

The new standard for processing applications within 12 months has been in effect since January.

As far as the processing inventory goes, it depends on the category. For example, in Canada, 35,000 applications are currently being processed in the “family” class. As I mentioned earlier, in January alone, 8,000 applications were processed in the same class, and that includes applications from Canada and abroad.

Public servants and my team are working very hard to significantly reduce inventory.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, but I didn't hear an answer on the backlog. I'm going to make the assumption that when you say January, you're saying January 2022, which was just last month. What about all the backlogs previous to that? What direction has the minister given the department to clean up these backlogs? The excuse I'm hearing for the delayed processing times is COVID. What action or what direction has been given by the minister to the department?

[Daniel Mills]

Thank you for your question.

As I just mentioned, the department is really working towards reducing the inventory. For the people who have been in the inventory for the last year, two years or a bit more than two years, we are processing them as quickly as we can.

As I said, in January alone we made over 8,000 final decisions on the family class line of business. If you compare this with January 2020, it was around 6,000 per month, which was right before the pandemic. We are actually reducing and processing more applications per month than we were before COVID.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

How is that being achieved? What are the metrics that are being used? I'm hearing from the minister that, for example, there are offices that are still closed and people are working virtually. I represent a rural riding. I know that a lot of new Canadians don't necessarily have access to the Internet and that type of thing.

So how is this being achieved? I'm hearing numbers—i.e., this is being processed, this is being achieved—but I'm not hearing how we are meeting that. Is it through new hires? What is this $85 million being used for? How is it increasing efficiencies?

How is it being achieved?

[Daniel Mills]

Thank you for your question.

Several factors explain this.

First, we've digitized various records since the beginning of the pandemic. The paper applications sent to various offices have now been digitized. This allows us to access applications from the global case management system. It also allows us to use our footprint internationally and in various locations across Canada to facilitate processing of those applications electronically. That's one thing we've done.

Second, as the Minister mentioned earlier, we've introduced a system that lets people submit their applications electronically. We're currently conducting a pilot project with 17 lines of business. In December 2022, people will be able to submit their applications electronically. Again, this allows us to process applications from Canada or from our global network—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Mills. Time is up. We have to proceed to the next member.

Ms. Lalonde, you have five minutes for your round of questioning. Please proceed.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here. We're pleased to welcome you.

My question has to do with citizenship, and it comes from people in my riding, Orléans.

We hear a lot about the backlog or the delay in processing the citizenship applications dating from 2020. I'd like to hear from you about what's being done to address this particular situation, please.

[Daniel Mills]

Thank you very much for your question.

I am very pleased to report to the committee that we've done a tremendous amount of work over the past 24 months as a result of the pandemic.

As you know, initially all IRCC operations were done with paper forms, and examinations and citizenship ceremonies were conducted in person. Over the past 24 months, we've introduced virtual citizenship ceremonies. That way, people don't have to go anywhere and we're capitalizing on the technology. We ensure the integrity of the program and we verify identity. It's all done properly.

This year, more than 133,000 individuals became new Canadian citizens at virtual citizenship ceremonies. In addition, knowledge of Canada testing is now being conducted online. Clients are invited to take the test online, which means they get their results faster. We rolled out the system in November 2020, so we've been using it for over a year. We're now inviting over 5,000 people per week to take the test, and that number is higher than it was before COVID‑19. So we've truly improved our performance.

We've made a third change to IRCC operations: We now let applicants 18 years and over submit their application online. We no longer use paper forms, and this allows us to work remotely and process applications directly in our global case management system. In the event of disruption in some cities due to COVID‑19, people can work from home because the records are now electronic.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much for that detailed response.

We know that we've also seen an increase in applications in certain streams.

Can I hear from you about the changes that have been made during this pandemic to achieve better processing times?

[Marian Campbell Jarvis]

Madam Chair, I'll make a few introductory comments and then turn to my colleague, Daniel Mills.

There were a number of adjustments that we made during COVID. We did a number of facilitations that were important on the policy side to enable people to extend their stays and international students to come. That allowed temporary foreign workers and international students to come through the pandemic. It also affected business in some ways, because we were fuelling a huge demand at the same time as managing other pressures in the system. My colleague, Daniel Mills, led his team to really transform the way we were undertaking processing.

One other piece of context that might be important to note is that those facilitation measures that the department undertook also meant we had to touch applications multiple times. That, too, has created an additional workload burden.

Perhaps I'll turn to Mr. Mills to give some of the highlights of the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

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

We will now proceed to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe for two and a half minutes.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Do you know how long it takes right now to obtain permanent residency in Quebec?