Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 3rd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Good morning, everyone.

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number nine of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either floor, English or French audio. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately and we will ensure interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings. The “raise hand” feature at the bottom of the screen can be used at any time if you wish to speak or alert the chair.

Today, we will be considering the supplementary estimates (C) for the year 2021-22.

On behalf of the committee members, I would like to welcome the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, as well as officials from the IRCC.

We are joined today by Madam Catrina Tapley, deputy minister; Madam Marian Campbell Jarvis, senior assistant deputy minister, strategic and program policy; Mr. Daniel Mills, senior assistant deputy minister, operations; Madam Jennifer MacIntyre, assistant deputy minister, Afghanistan; and Mr. Hughes St-Pierre, assistant deputy minister, finance, security and administration.

Thank you, Minister, for joining us today. I hope you are feeling well.

Before we go to hearing from the minister, I have just a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the Chair. Interpretation in this video conference will work very much as it does in a regular committee meeting. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

Witnesses have five minutes for opening remarks. I will be giving you a warning with a one-minute card, a 30-second card, and then a red card showing that the time is up.

With that, I would like to welcome Minister Fraser, who will begin our discussion with five minutes of opening remarks. We will then go into a round of questions.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing before the committee, once again, and I hope you are feeling well. I now turn the floor over to you.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

Thank you, Chair. You're so very kind.

Good morning, everyone.

Before I begin, I just learned, moments ago, that one of our new committee members, Garnett Genuis, has had an additional child, and I want to extend my hearty congratulations. As a parent, I can assure everyone that there's no greater joy in the world. That's fantastic news.

I'm so pleased to be here and to once again—there have been a few times in just a few weeks—have the opportunity to come and join you before the parliamentary standing committee. I really appreciate the invitation to join you.

As I said previously, I aim to work with all committee members, as we endeavour to make Canada's immigration system the best in the world.

Together, we have the ability to ensure that Canada remains a top destination of choice for the world's most talented and skilled people and to welcome newcomers to our country to make our communities more vibrant and dynamic places to live.

As this committee is well aware, Canada aims to continue attracting record numbers of skilled workers, including those who will help our economic recovery from the pandemic. We also continue to prioritize family reunification and helping the world's most vulnerable. In support of these commitments, I'm pleased to present to the committee some of the key allocations in IRCC's supplementary estimates (C), which total $174.3 million.

The most significant allocation, you'll be pleased to know, is $118 million to support IRCC's operating expenditures. This includes funding to process temporary resident visas for workers, students and visitors, for temporary accommodations for unvaccinated and asymptomatic asylum seekers who do not have a suitable quarantine plan, and for proof-of-vaccination credentials.

IRCC is also seeking $46.8 million for the Canada‑Quebec Accord on Immigration.

As the committee is aware, under this accord, the Government of Quebec maintains responsibility for immigrant settlement and integration services in return for an annual grant.

Also included in these estimates is $4 million to extend the racialized newcomer women pilot. The aim of this pilot is to increase the employment supports and services for newcomer women, to help them find jobs and support their career advancement. We've already seen good success with this pilot, and that's why we'll be extending it for at least another year.

We want to ensure all newcomers can successfully integrate and contribute to the economy and their communities, and this includes immigrant women.

We want our immigration system to meet the needs of all newcomers and serve the interests of Canadians.

Madam Chair, the estimates we’re discussing today will help us advance those goals.

Once again, I thank you for this opportunity to address the committee today, and I’d be more than pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Minister, for your remarks. You took only two and a half minutes.

We will now proceed to our round of questioning. We will start with Mr. Hallan.

Mr. Hallan, you will have six minutes. Please proceed.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First and foremost, Minister, we all wish you a speedy recovery. We hope to see you in this room again very soon, joining us in person.

I've been contacted by many Ukrainians, Canadians and Canadians who are of Ukrainian heritage. Many of the opposition MPs have been calling for the same thing. The calls that I am getting are saying that the programs that were announced today did not go far enough. A motion was passed on Tuesday in this committee, and it was with reluctance. The Liberals voted against it. This was a motion that included visa-free travel for Ukrainians. Will you accept the will of this committee with the motion that was passed to offer visa-free travel for Ukrainians?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

First let me thank my critic with Her Majesty’s loyal opposition for his question and for the conversations we've had over the last couple of days. Today's announcement, for those who are not aware, is positioning Canada to welcome an unlimited number of Ukrainians who are fleeing the war. The mechanism that we're using is designed to get people here as fast as possible.

With respect to the issue of visa-free travel, that's one of the first things that I looked into, because my inclination was to say that might be the quickest way to get people here. When I dug in, I realized that certain regulatory changes would need to be made and certain updates to our IT systems internal to our department would need to be made, potentially with Canadian airlines as well. The timeline to implement that would take 12 to 14 weeks, and I didn't think we had 12 to 14 weeks. We'll be able to stand up a new system much faster.

In addition, there are certain security concerns that we want to protect against. In particular, there are fighters and agitators who have been in the Donbass fighting against Ukraine for the past eight years and whom we want to screen out. We've taken the advanced step of positioning biometric kits in Vienna, Warsaw and Bucharest, and we have 30 additional units throughout Europe that will be able to process people for security as quickly as possible. In my discussions for today—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Minister. I have only a limited amount of time, so I'll move on to my next question since it wasn't clear whether it was a yes or no.

On the PR program that was announced for the Ukrainians, a pathway for them, what is the timeline on when this will be executed? On what date do you think this will be implemented?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I can't give you a date because I need to complete consultations with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and I won't prejudge the consultations that we undertake, but it will be advanced as quickly as possible. I will remind you that people who are eligible will be able to come to Canada on a temporary basis and apply from here. There will be no delay for the people fleeing the war to arrive safely in Canada.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Respectfully, we're still seeing some of those delays. People are still calling the hotline and being told that either they're not going to return back to Ukraine.... Some of them are stuck in this loophole whereby they're being told that, if they applied for a visa a year or two ago, they're not considered under the priority program.

Moving on, you announced that about 6,000 applications were approved since January. How many of those people were already in Canada?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

The number of 6,131, as of yesterday, is not applications that are approved. That's people who have arrived in Canada since January 1.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Were none of those already in Canada?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

All of those are people who are in Canada. Jasraj, I'm not sure I understand the question. Could you just clarify for me?

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Was the number you gave—about 6,000, or whatever number you gave—for applications that you said were approved...? Was that for people who were already in Canada, or are these people who were approved outside of Canada and then came here?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Those are our arrivals. If you would like me to provide documents to back up who has come here under what stream, on the back end of today's committee meeting, I think we could supply that.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

It would be appreciated if you could table that for this committee.

Moving on, I've been getting a lot of calls, Minister, about the difference that people are seeing between Ukraine and Afghan interpreters. Respectfully, I've been getting a lot of concerns that Afghans aren't being treated the same way as the Ukrainian community has been treated. Could you please answer those concerns?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you. This is an important question.

Let me start by saying our commitment to Afghans who served alongside Canada or who qualify for our programs is unwavering. It's one of the most substantial commitments globally, and we will not waiver. There are now more than 8,500 Afghan refugees who have been resettled. The difference is really a factor of the situation on the ground, not our decision to treat anyone differently.

With respect to Ukraine, people have the ability to leave west of Ukraine through countries we've secured agreements with to provide safe passage—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Respectfully, Minister, would you agree that even though your department should have been prepared and were briefed in January 2021 that Kabul was going to fall, they didn't take any action? We hear this repeatedly from the Afghanistan committee, that they were not prepared.

We're seeing the same kind of thing now, and we're not seeing any kind of urgency for those Afghans who are supposed to come here.

I'll just give another quick example, of the Sikh, Hindu and Hazara communities, which are still stuck wherever they are with no hope in sight. The WSO, the World Sikh Organization of Canada, and the Manmeet Singh Bhullar Foundation have been working for years to get those people here. Now they see absolutely no hope, because it looks like you've completely abandoned those Afghan refugees.

I sponsored a family in 2015, and it took four years to bring that family here. What do you say to those organizations who see no hope anymore?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Very quickly, I would say that we are working every day to accelerate the arrival of each of the groups you mentioned, including our work with the Manmeet Singh Bhullar Foundation to bring Afghan Sikhs to Canada. This issue has my full attention and we are going to work every day to ensure we can resettle people safely in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Minister. Time is up.

We will now proceed to you, Mr. Dhaliwal, and you will have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please proceed.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the minister.

Minister, I want to commend you for announcing two new immigration streams for Ukrainians instead of waiting for weeks for this visa-free travel. Could you please touch on how your plans for bringing these Ukrainian people to Canada in this difficult time during a humanitarian crisis would not affect negatively the other immigration streams that already exist.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

First of all, thank you very much, Sukh, for the question.

We started preparing for this in mid-January, January 19 to be more specific. I required us to set up essential infrastructure in the area by moving biometric kits to regions, ensuring we had the personnel on hand to deal with the potential influx of people who were seeking to come to Canada.

We then introduced new measures to make it easier for people already in Canada to stay and work.

Today, we announced additional measures for Ukrainians who are seeking to flee the war and who can come to Canada. We tried to make it as simple as possible and used a model based on the existing temporary stream, which has incredible horsepower and is used to process up to two million people a year already.

We targeted a tool that was on the shelf, pared down the administrative burdens that usually lead to refusals, and tried to accelerate the process of getting people here. We've done it in a way that I think will minimize the impact on other streams, but to be clear, any time you ask an immigration system to do more, it's going to result in certain pressures on different streams. We expect, at least in the short term, that it will have some resources dedicated to Ukraine who would be the same people who would ordinarily process certain other cases, but we will be able to fill in resources on the back end, so over the long term we'll be able to play catch up.

It was the right thing to do to respond to the most important humanitarian crisis in the moment, but I think we have to continue to advance the other measures in Afghanistan, continue to settle refugees from other parts of the world, and continue to process our ordinary lines of business for economic and family unification purposes as best we can.

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

Minister, you also touched on this new racialized newcomer women pilot program that was introduced by the Liberal government. Could you please touch on the types of activities that are funded by the pilot project and the success of the program since it was introduced?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thanks very much, and I'm glad you asked this question because I find this issue often flies under the radar.

When we look at resettling people, it's one thing to say we can bring a lot of people here and that's important. Our communities need to continue to grow, but we have to make sure that we set people up for success when they arrive as well. The racialized newcomer women pilot is going to help ensure that people adjust to life in their community and allow them the skills to not just do well, but to gain employment and to advance their careers when they're here.

The response that we're seeing from stakeholders who benefited from this is that it's actually working. The reason I raised it in my remarks today is because there's additional funding, including in the supplementary estimates (C), that allows us to extend this program for at least another year.

One of the things we need to continue to do is assess whether our pilot programs are working and, if they are, look at extending and making them permanent. We did it recently with the Atlantic immigration pilot program, which is now permanent, and now we're extending the racialized women newcomer pilot because we're experiencing success with those who tapped into the benefits of the program.

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

I've been approached by local Sikh gurdwara leaders regarding concerns over visa requirements and immigration policies for religious workers. Could you please touch on some of the measures being considered to help gurdwaras that rely on religious workers from abroad?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

First of all, Sukh, thank you for raising this. Let me just thank the religious workers and members of gurdwaras across Canada for their service to our communities over the course of this pandemic. Their generosity has been astounding, and I am so grateful for their presence in our communities.

There's a particular issue facing religious workers, who've had a hard time coming because of the way travel was impacted during the pandemic. It impacted the usual practice of having a rotational basis whereby these workers come to Canada, leave and are replaced by new religious workers to continue to meet the demands of these important religious institutions in our communities.

What we've ended up doing is working to identify any of the religious workers who were destined to come to work in our gurdwaras across Canada, to ensure that they're processed in an expeditious way. We now have quite a few approvals for folks who have applications in the inventory, and I expect that in the next few weeks we're going to see additional arrivals in time for a very busy season. I think you can appreciate that this is going to be necessary just weeks from now.

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

Minister, your predecessor was able to bring in Sikh and Hindu refugees from Afghanistan who were settled or parked in India. I'm sure you are very passionate and working hard on this project as well.

Could you please elaborate a bit, if you weren't able to finish Mr. Hallan's question?