Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 3rd, 2022

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

My questions are going to be centred around the francophone part, so I don't know how much they can answer if they have to get back to the committee with that.

Maybe they can comment on the knowledge of some of the barriers that women are facing in this pilot program and how much information they have to be able to have an informed response through this program.

[Catrina Tapley]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

The program looks at a number of things, and Ms. Campbell Jarvis has highlighted this. One I'll speak about was a conversation I had with a woman in Vancouver who runs a part of this. It was with respect to entrepreneurs, so looking at being able to use this pilot on racialized women who are coming in and doing better training around entrepreneurialism and starting their own small business. It looks at some of the barriers that are specific to the women who are there and their ability to overcome these barriers.

A lot of it related to network; a lot of it related to links in the community and being able to get people in contact with the right people who were there. She was particularly happy about the results they had had.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Madam Chair, I have a comment on this.

My question really centres around the idea I want to bring to the committee that there are a number of refugee women who are of francophone background and we have targets to increase our francophone immigration. I think it would be important for us to know what the numbers are on that target and how much we're allocating the space to include francophone women. There are so many avenues that we could work on to increase francophone immigration across the country of Canada.

I also want to advocate for the francophone women to be included in such projects as this, to help them get into the workforce and start businesses as they settle here in Canada. That's where my question was.

I'll just ask one last question, if they could comment. With the youth employment and skills strategy that we've committed to young people, what kinds of barriers are they facing? I'm sure we'll get some answers around how many of those young people, as well, are of francophone background.

[Catrina Tapley]

First, Madam Chair, just let me say we agree, completely, on the need to make sure that these programs are available to francophone women, to francophone refugees, to francophone youth. We know that's happening; I just don't have the number that's happening right now and that we'll have to come back on.

I think that was a red card for me to stop.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. Yes, if you can submit the information to the committee, it would be really great.

We will now proceed to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

You will have six minutes and you can please proceed.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Once again, I would like to welcome all the witnesses. I'm delighted that they are with us today to provide us with information and answer our questions.

We learned yesterday that 25,000 skilled workers in Quebec were waiting for an answer from your department. Some have been waiting since 2018. We even learned that immigration lawyers were going to be suing your department. It seems to me that the time has come to resolve this issue.

Do you think it's normal that people have been waiting for an answer since 2018?

The question is open to everyone.

[Catrina Tapley]

I'd like to thank the honourable member for the question.

Is the immigration system meeting its objectives? The answer is no, our service standards aren't being met. That said, two important aspects need to be considered in order to solve the problem.

One of the problems we have is the number of places available in the immigration levels plan, and that's an issue with the Province of Quebec.

The other problem is our ability to process applications. I'll ask Mr. Mills to elaborate on that.

[Daniel Mills]

Thank you very much for the question.

The honourable member is right that there are a lot of applications pending for skilled workers in Quebec. We are working hard to reduce the backlog as much as possible.

I am really proud to say that in the first two months of the year, we finalized more than 7,500 applications for skilled workers in Quebec. We are working very hard to reduce that backlog.

It is true that we were behind last year because of the pandemic. A lot of these applications were in paper format, so we put processes in place to move those forms to an electronic format. So we've been scanning the applications and then transferring them to our staff across Canada, so they could process more files and help us resolve the situation.

As the deputy minister mentioned, the number of applications we can process each year is also limited by the number of places that are provided in Quebec's reference levels.

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

However, in 2020, there weren't a lot of applications to process, and you could have cleared the entire backlog. Be that as it may, we won't repeat history. I am very pleased to hear you say that things are progressing well. I hope you won't be in court for too long with our friends the immigration lawyers.

Would anyone be able to tell me what the total cost was to receive refugee protection claimants at Roxham Road in 2022? Do we have any figures on that?

Maybe that's too specific a question. If you could provide the committee with that information, I'd appreciate it.

Can someone tell me if that will be done?

[Catrina Tapley]

I think we have those figures.

Dr. Giles, do you have those figures?

[Dr. Nicole Giles, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I don't have them at the moment, but our chief financial officer might have them. If not, we can provide them to you later.

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

It would be nice if we had those numbers, yes. Thank you for your work.

The Prime Minister's webpage states that IRCC is increasing its service capacity in the region for Ukrainian nationals. I am thinking of the neighbouring countries in Europe, especially Poland.

Does this mean that more staff are being hired?

[Catrina Tapley]

We have indeed increased the number of staff in the region, but we have also increased the capacity of the system in that region, particularly with regard to biometric data kits. So we have increased the capacity to apply in the region.

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

Congratulations on that, by the way. It's a good decision.

Now, why not do the same thing by sending more staff to Pakistan to help our Afghan refugee friends? If we are able to do it in Ukraine, what is stopping us from doing it in Pakistan?

[Catrina Tapley]

Thank you again for the question.

In fact, we have sent more people to Pakistan to help refugees.

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

Okay. We'll check the numbers and see if it's on the same scale as in Ukraine and if the situation is taken as seriously as in Ukraine.

I don't have much time left, but I'd like to ask one last question.

In 2021, the approval rate for international students at McGill University was 90%, whereas it was 21% at the Université du Québec à Trois‑Rivières. It's your department that is responsible for these refusals and approvals.

Do you think it's normal to have such rates?

[Catrina Tapley]

Could you answer that question, Mr. Mills?

[Daniel Mills]

Thank you for the question.

I don't have the exact figures in front of me, but I can say—

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

I'll give them to you: the approval rate for international students in 2021 was 90% for McGill University and 21% for the Université du Québec à Trois‑Rivières.

[Daniel Mills]

Basically, we have to look at where the applications come from—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting.

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

So it's normal.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Time is up. We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you will have six minutes. Please proceed.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much to the officials.

To what extent has IRCC processed the emails that Afghans were directed to send to the government? In other words, how many of those emails have received a response from IRCC, and how many are being processed? By response, I don't mean the automatic response they get.

[Catrina Tapley]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I'm going to try to work my way through. A significant number of emails came into the department during the time. There were about 300,000. We've worked our way through that number.