Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 24th, 2023

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

I just did the calculations, and I have 30 seconds left.

As for your department going into an “emergency mode” during international crises, you're telling us that officials are working on it. I made this proposal in June 2022 as an offering to the then minister. I was told that it was a good idea and that they would work on it. That was a year and a half ago. Where do we stand on it now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Minister, the time is up. The officials can respond when it comes to the next round, so I'll give you the time.

Now we'll go to Madam Kwan for two and a half minutes, please.

Go ahead.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm glad to hear the minister say that he doesn't like caps. I hope the government realizes that the housing crisis is not a result of newcomers. The housing crisis is a result of successive Liberal and Conservative governments failing to have a proper housing plan to address the needs of housing for Canadians and newcomers alike. That's where we need to be. We need to actually put forward a proper housing plan and not scapegoat immigrants like me and say that it is our fault.

I'd like to turn to the issue of the backlogs. The backlogs continue to exist. Families remain separated. Privately sponsored refugees are waiting for more than three years to get their applications processed. It's disturbing to learn that the government is ignoring its own Treasury Board directive to put in place service standards for refugees.

For caregivers with more than two years of experience, under the home child care provider pilot program, the average wait time for processing is 29 months. For those with less than two years of work experience, it's 35 months. The average processing time should be 12 months, but that's not the reality. This is going to carry on.

The quickest way to move this forward would be a regularization program. My question for the minister is this: Will he actually implement a regularization program for caregivers?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Minister Miller.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

MP Kwan, I agree with a large part of your working premise that we should not be scapegoating people who are helping to build this country and, at times, coming here for economic reasons, to reunite with their families or as a result of desperate situations.

What I do disagree with is the use of thresholds and caps. In a position like mine, where we are in the business of planning, preparing and establishing financial amounts associated with the need to properly welcome people and to integrate them....

The people to my left need a sense of planning. Often an unlimited cap creates the opportunity and the ability not to have a sense of where the country is going and to indicate to Canadians what we expect to bring in.

We are coming under heavy criticism for some numbers that I think are actually very reasonable and are important to create a population that isn't aging out of the essential services that we need to provide to those who are aging into an area where they need more services.

What we fail to appreciate as individuals and as a country are both the supply and the demand sides of immigration, which colours a lot of the conversations and makes them very frustrating ones.

On regularization—I realize that I didn't answer your question—this is still my plan, and I want to do something within the next year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

The time is up. I'm sorry, but I have to stop right now because the time is very tight. I have to make sure I'm fair with other members as well.

I will go to Mr. Redekopp for five minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Two years ago I asked your predecessor Sean Fraser at this committee about including Bangladeshi students in the student direct stream. At that time, I was told it was a priority and, after my asking multiple questions, I was told that it would eventually be done by the fall of 2022. Well, obviously, it's the fall of 2023. This hasn't been done yet.

My message to the Bangladeshi community at this point is that your government doesn't care about you because you have no intentions of implementing this.

Will SDS be in place by December 31 of this year, or will you be honest and stop stringing Bangladeshi students along?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. Miller.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

First of all, I welcome your initiative.

I don't know why Bangladeshi students would be treated any differently from similarly situated students.

I think the issue we're facing as a department is what we do with the student direct stream currently in the context of the large volumes we are seeing with international students and the work I have to do to maintain the integrity of the system, including addressing fraud.

This is something that is up for review, but I agree with your working premise that we should be treating people in an equitable fashion in this context.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Are you saying that the entire SDS program is at risk of being shut down?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Again, it has not been decided yet, but I am reviewing it with a critical lens.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

My understanding is that you'll not be getting a new mandate letter and that you're going to continue with the previous one that was issued to your predecessor, which basically means that you're completely interchangeable with Sean Fraser.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

He's a little taller.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

A month after your appointment this summer, Sean Fraser spoke to reporters about putting a cap on international students, which you just said you don't necessarily agree with. Last month, Housing Minister Fraser also suggested that he might want to decrease the overall immigration target.

With Minister Sean Fraser still speaking for immigration, I'm trying to understand how this works. Is he still the senior minister of immigration and you're the junior minister? How does this whole structure work? I'm just trying to understand it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Minister Miller, you have the floor.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

They always told me I had big shoes to fill, but I think it was just a literal statement rather than a figurative one. Sean is free to say whatever he wants on immigration. He's free to say whatever he wants on the economy, as am I on other matters, so I wouldn't put it as a competition.

What I would say is that we are prepared to announce some more robust measures to make sure that we preserve the integrity of the system when it comes to international students. I don't think putting a cap on is necessarily the wisest thing in the context. I have to figure out, notably, what I'm trying to solve for, and it is a bit of a rudimentary instrument, as I mentioned to your colleague in the Bloc, for solving a problem that would and could inevitably punish the good actors as opposed to the bad actors.

What I will say, Brad, is that I will retain it as an option if what we put forward in the next couple of weeks doesn't work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Go ahead, Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Minister Fraser also said that he thinks that the ambitious immigration targets need to be revisited. Do you agree with him on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Minister Miller, you have the floor.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

We're currently in reflection as a cabinet as to what we indicate to Canadians about our immigration targets. I think these need to be maintained. I think that the focus needs to be on how, as your colleague MP Kmiec alluded to, we bring in really skilled workers and talk to Canadians about how important these workers are to the net increase in the gross domestic product as well as net entrants into the workforce.

When we talk about reduction of immigration, no one ever asks, by that same token, “Are you ready to reduce the gross domestic product of this country?” They don't associate the two, and I think we need to start associating them, because there are consequences from actions. I don't think we will grow as we expect and need to grow as a country currently with the population demographics, which I need to solve, not for the next election, but for the next generation, by reducing numbers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. Redekopp, you have the floor.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Minister Fraser also said that the government needs to better align its immigration policies with the absorptive capacity of communities. Do you agree with him on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Minister Miller, you have the floor.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I don't like treating people like sponges. The word is a bit odd when we use it. I think what we're hearing from Canadians, Brad, is that we need to be a little more coordinated in how we deal with newcomers to this country. It is, I think, the seamless thread that I've heard in the last three months of being the minister, that we need to be more coordinated with provinces and municipalities. I just spoke to the big city mayors today, and they all agree that we tend to not match supply and demand. We match demand with hope, and often that hope gets dashed.

A lot of these global express streams that I was getting questions on in a rapid fashion from MP Kmiec are really good solutions to dealing directly with the express demand that exists within industry and that, in fact, people are crying for.

In that context, I don't know how we reduce in any significant measure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. Redekopp and Minister.

Now we will go to my dear friend Mr. El-Khoury for five minutes.