Terrific. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I can answer some of those questions.
There's a 294,000 citizenship application backlog. I think there must be, in that 294,000 group of people, some people who would benefit from the minister being able to look at their files personally and being able to, on compassionate grounds, waive the requirement.
I would then hope that they do the citizenship ceremony in person. I think they should be doing all of them in person, and virtual ceremonies should only be done in cases where a person's health is failing. Who knows, maybe in those situations, again, the minister could go and provide a waiver.
As a general rule, I don't like giving the executive even more discretionary powers. However, on this side, as my colleague said, most of our constituency offices are inundated with individual case files. It's about 80% to 90% of the work that our constituency offices are now doing. I've heard that individual members of Parliament are now having more than one case file manager. That was not the case eight years ago, before this government took charge of the immigration system. One case file manager for EI, CPP and immigration case files was usually enough. That person usually handled 80% to 90% of them.
However, I know there are 294,000 citizenship applications in the system right now. Overall, like my colleague said, there are two million applications. The department claims that 1.1 million are within their standard processing time. However, since the department sets its own processing time, it can be whatever it wants to be for any one of them. Of these, 800,000 of them are over the 80%...which the department then claims are considered backlogged applications.
I think this could apply to anything beyond just simple citizenship applications. I think in the way it's written, it could apply to other particular situations where a waiver on compassionate grounds could apply. That's directly what's proposed in the amendment. It's also time-limited. It specifically says, “over five years”. We're not talking about people who are just a day over a standard processing time. However, if the department were ever to set a standard processing time of five years for an application, I think most of us would find that ridiculous.
I've recounted this story now multiple times, but I have a constituent who has a TRV application for a family member to come to Canada. It has been 1,113 days in the system when they last checked a few weeks ago. That's an incredibly long time to wait. It's not quite five years. In that particular situation, that wouldn't apply.
Because it's so limited, I think providing an executive ability to waive is actually reasonable. It's a very small group of people. If you just use citizenship ceremonies.... Out of 294,000 citizenship applications in the system right now, how many of them are over five years? It could be a very small pool, and how many of them...? There are compassionate grounds.
We saw just a few months ago that, and I'm going to get the acronym wrong, but the GMCS or GCMS system—there are lots of acronyms in government—was up to 60,000 files that had a code assigned to them. Sometimes these were with employees who were no longer working.
The oldest file that was still open was 2006. That person, whoever they are, has been waiting a very long time to have their application processed. That is an inordinate amount of patience that someone out there has with the IRCC department. I know that in 2006, it was a different government in charge. It's not as if it's related.... This is a bipartisan issue, I would hope, as my colleague said. This would provide a very narrow scope for a minister to use a very broad range of factors.
Regarding compassionate grounds, I don't know whether there actually is a definition that is being used in the legislation. What are compassionate grounds? I think it's broad enough that a minister could determine whether a particular situation applies. It has to be over five years that the person has waited for a response from the department.
We hear this constantly. That's the reason people come to members of Parliament. They have emailed, they have called and there's nobody responding to them in any way.
I think that this provides an out. Like the debate in the House, when the report was considered on expanding the scope of potential amendments to this legislation—this is basically a statutory review of the Citizenship Act—we could insert this in here. The moment that this receives royal assent, if this passes through the House, passes through the Senate, the minister would then have the ability to use this particular power. We could even set out what types of rules would need to be considered.
I sent the minister a public letter back in April 13 about Iranian spousal sponsorships. I think this could apply in cases at the Ankara visa processing office, where Iranian nationals, whether they are Azerbaijani, Persian, Kurdish or Baluchi, are waiting multiple years, some for over five years, and there are compassionate grounds for them to receive a waiver of some sort.
My interpretation, potentially, will be on Citizenship Act applications. If someone wants to make a subamendment to limit it only to citizenship applications, perhaps that could be done here, in order to stay within the title of the act. I don't think it's necessary.
I know a lot of Turkish exiles. I've met some who have waited multiple years in third countries. Some of them are not in safe countries right now, and they're waiting to hear back from the IRCC department so they can also come to Canada. They're fleeing the Erdoğan regime, and I note Erdoğan was re-elected once again. I have a lot of Kurdish friends who have no time for his authoritarian politics.
I'll note, also, that I have.... He's not a constituent of mine. He's actually the constituent of another Calgary MP who wouldn't help him on his group of five sponsorship. He is from the Skyview area. This is a Kurdish man who was trying to do a group of five sponsorship for his family members. He waited three years just to get a no. That could have come a lot faster for him, because he had bonded.... He had cash set aside to demonstrate to the department that he'd take care of them. He was at the third-year mark and he wouldn't even be covered by this provision. He told me there's $24,000 for each family member. He had demonstrated to IRCC that he was willing to set that aside. He had the funds necessary. He's been incredibly successful. It's one of those great success stories in Canada, but he wouldn't be able to have his family members apply to get an answer or, in this case, a waiver.
There is another method for a person to get an answer from the IRCC department, and that's to go to court. I don't have the legalese text or the Latin word for when you go to court to get them to force the department to give an answer. I'll note those cases are way up. There are over 1,000 right now. This gives us another avenue to avoid court. That's why I think this is so reasonable. It's limited in scope. It provides the minister with a very limited discretionary power, which Parliament is governed by. I don't believe there's a definition in the act.
I'm going to turn to the department.
Is there a definition of “compassionate grounds” in the Citizenship Act that could refer to this?