Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 9th, 2026

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I'm going to start with Ms. Sreenivasan.

You've talked a lot about refugees, and I know that your expert work within the Canadian Council for Refugees is very important. You've spoken repeatedly about fairness and dignity for asylum seekers.

I'm just curious if you have any suggestions around settlement services or procedural reforms. How can we ensure that they are proper and robust to help those who are migrating here to land well within Canada and be successful?

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

Thank you very much for the question.

I've also been engaged a little bit by some of the recent exchanges. I don't know if I'll have an opportunity to offer alternative perspectives.

Your question is really important. In order to ensure that people who are provided protection through the asylum system in Canada are set up for success and not only receive safety but also have what they need to contribute and thrive as full members of our society, our democracy and our economy, there is a lot more that we could do to reflect on building a system for asylum with dignity, as we say.

There have been some critical, helpful first steps made by the Canadian government. We propose that there are at least four other key areas that require reform.

First, we need to establish reception centres to provide orientation, triage and referral services. One has been set up in the Peel region, which is a very promising sign, but it needs to be replicated. There doesn't seem to be a clear follow-up plan. When claimants first arrive, they need information about where services are available and what the requirements are for them.

Second, it's really important to think about a way to create cost-effective models for transitional housing for claimants. We already have the know-how and the solutions in this country. From the non-profit sector, there is a network of at least 35 organizations across the country that already offer short-term and transitional housing for refugee claimants. These programs operate at a fraction of the cost of hotels and homeless shelters. They help claimants find a lawyer, find a job and move on to longer-term housing. Critically, establishing this kind of interim housing for claimants eases pressures on cities' emergency shelters. With predictable, long-term funding, those models could be successfully scaled up, so we could literally save money and save lives.

The key is to invest in housing and build solutions that will make everyone most secure instead of spending billions to just block people from reaching safety at all and expanding powers for mass deportations.

I will take a moment to say that I think it's really important to reflect that the shortcomings and lack of action to invest in housing in this country—social housing, affordable housing and housing for all Canadians, which are an absolutely critical human right and need—can't be linked to the question of recent immigration fluctuations. There is actually no correlation between the lack, over decades, of investment in housing and changes in immigration levels in moments in time. When immigration levels fell at the time of COVID, we did not see increases in available housing or in investments in housing. Housing responds to policy decisions from government and incentives in the market. It's a kind of scapegoating scenario to link them.

A third critical issue is the one you've named in terms of making claimants eligible for support services that are already offered to all newcomers. We have in Canada a highly developed network of organizations across the country that offer specialized services to new arrivals, but their hands are tied because they're not allowed to serve refugee claimants until they reach protected person status, which was 85% of claimants last year. We're losing the two years when we could be supporting people with the very infrastructure that would help ensure a bright future.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I want to ask you to also speak, in the last minute and a half, about how this helps with our economic capacity and GDP, and also with the employment or full employability of those individuals who are given permission to work two years later. Could you speak a bit about that, too?

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

Yes, absolutely.

I'll just say that the last element is legal aid coverage. Access to legal aid coverage is critical for them.

The track record of refugee claimants, when they're provided with support on how to get a work permit and what the options are for where housing is they find housing, get a job and are well on their way to contributing to Canadian society.

When we introduce a gap in the system that prevents their ability, for example, to renew work permits or there is a lack of the support service at the beginning that would have enabled them access to the information about where they find language training or their application for the work permit, that prevents them from becoming full participants in both the economy and society.

When we enable people with the information to get on their way and live full lives, they absolutely perform. That's what we see in the economic data for both immigrants and refugee claimants.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Ms. Sreenivasan.

Thank you, Mr. Zuberi.

I'll now give the floor to Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for joining us today.

We have different perspectives, and this makes for a healthy democracy.

Mr. Barutciski, I liked it when you said at the start that this issue was highly polarizing. I agree. As my party's immigration critic since 2021, I've seen that labels are easy to throw around. The idea is to have a healthy discussion, while never forgetting that we're talking about real people who come here, but also about the society that takes them in.

I would just like to address something said recently. Should a country's policy on refugees, refugee status and people in need of protection focus solely on the protection of people, or should it become a government's economic policy?

[Michael Barutciski]

I believe that you're talking about refugees, asylum seekers.

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

Yes.

[Michael Barutciski]

If we want to strike this balance in terms of treatment, respect for the rights of asylum seekers and government interests, I think that we need to look at human rights when it comes to asylum.

The economic aspect is important, of course. However, I think that we need to focus on values and rights. Clearly, we want to treat immigrants with dignity. We need to consider the appropriate balance to avoid destabilizing the country, and how we might go about striking that balance.

I think that it isn't mainly an economic issue.

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

I heard you talking about distribution. Of course, we're quite interested in this topic in our area. However, we've been told that it isn't possible. Yet you somewhat showed that it was.

What clear legal limits mustn't be crossed to ensure that these transfers comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, if we want to distribute people around?

[Michael Barutciski]

If possible, of course, it would be good to have people's consent. We would then like to see some logic to the process. Maybe the francophones will go to Quebec and the anglophones will go to the other provinces.

However, when it comes to obligations, we must recognize that temporary residents don't have the right to freedom of movement under the charter. They can be directed to certain provinces in order to share the burden or responsibilities. Our European partners—and I'm talking here mainly about Germany—will use this system to ensure a balance. Otherwise, we end up with situations—for example, in Quebec, in certain parts of Ontario or in other parts of Canada—where an imbalance occurs and it creates political tension.

Personally, I don't think that there are many constraints involved in distribution.

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

So this is being done in other places. As you just said, it's being done in Europe, in Germany. Is it being done in other areas? Or only in Germany?

[Michael Barutciski]

I'm currently studying the German example, so I can talk a bit about that example. However, I know that it's happening in other places too. Asylum seekers don't have the right to decide where they'll stay. I would say that they don't even have the right to apply for asylum in the country of their choice. This isn't part of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

We must protect them, but—

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

With Quebec calling for the protection of its culture, language and social model, these considerations would be legally relevant when it comes to ensuring the equitable geographic distribution of people.

[Michael Barutciski]

It seems clear that cultural, linguistic, economic and also political interests are at stake. That much is clear.

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

There has been a succession of immigration ministers over the past 10 years. There have been many. I've been here since 2021. I've had dealings with five of them, I believe.

We often think that, by changing the captain of a sinking ship, the ship will stop sinking. However, ministers have come and gone. Since 2015, the solution each time seems to have been to inject more funds into the system.

However, we can see that the processing times are increasing in all programs, both for temporary immigration—students, asylum seekers and foreign workers—and for permanent immigration. Injecting additional money clearly isn't the solution.

[Michael Barutciski]

Indeed, if we look at what has happened since 2015 at the immigration department and the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, we can see that the budget has doubled for both and that the number of employees has also doubled. Yet we're left with a big backlog.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

One minute to go.

[Michael Barutciski]

Okay.

I think that, clearly, we've provided a great deal of money. There are many resources, many people working on this. Yet we have many cases that we can't manage.

In my opinion, the fact that we have so many people is part of the problem. The bureaucracy can't even process all these claims. I think that this further shows that we've gone with excessively high numbers in several categories. There are other issues as well. Clearly, we have money and employees, but we can't manage them.

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

So, if it isn't a lack of funding, what do you think is causing the current issues?

[Michael Barutciski]

It depends on which category is involved. I think that political choices have been made, but that they may not have been the best choices. We can't control certain aspects, such as asylum seekers, although we do control them as well, indirectly. If we grant visas to countries where many people want to come from, we'll have many claimants.

The idea is to come clean all over the world. We all use visas to control the flow of potential asylum seekers, which has a major impact on asylum claims. I'm not saying that this is a good thing. However, it's the somewhat unspoken side of our international system. This is an example of the impact on the categories. If we decided, a few years ago, to let people from Syria come here without a visa—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Professor Barutciski.

Thank you, Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe.

Next we go to our second round, which is five minutes.

To begin our round, we have Mr. Davies.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Professor Barutciski, in a recent article, you said:

To the extent that public support depends on sensible control of borders and intake levels, it is difficult to treat migrants in a dignified and humane manner if the local population is not fully onboard with the country's overall immigration policy. To regain public confidence in Canada's immigration system, the first step is to encourage an honest and open public debate. This cannot happen if the government withholds basic information, obfuscates in its public dissemination, or simply does not have essential data.

That's a very interesting statement, but I'm interested specifically in where you think the legislation fell short in fixing the problems you've identified.

[Michael Barutciski]

With respect to the problem you're referring to, in that report I give recommendations and suggest that the House of Commons should be taking action and forcing the minister, in the annual report, to give more detailed data. If we knew there were certain categories that were starting to increase quite a bit, we could plan much better, and we'd actually be forced to have a discussion on it.

What happened over the last few years, the period of 2022, 2023 and 2024, is there were lots of changes to the system. It wasn't the permanent residents, so we weren't actually...it wasn't tabled in the annual report. I would suggest—those are my recommendations in that report you're citing—that we modernize the annual reports so there's a lot of data. I would like to see much more so you can have fuller discussions.

We'd be forced to talk about temporary residents. If there's a huge increase, we would know that. We would have known that back in 2023. I wouldn't have had to decipher the various statistics. That's what I had to do, sort of, and I started publishing in The Globe and Mail about this strange...all of a sudden we're talking about a million-some people. The minister never mentioned this.

In forcing the minister, and I think this is good for all parties, we would just have more of an open debate so we don't end up two years later with the media catching up, and then we start having the real debate we should have had two years earlier.

It's unfortunate, I would say, that the minister at the time did not talk openly about this. The following minister was more up front, but still we have to come and have good discussions and figure it out. I would say the debates are not the same as they were two or three years ago.

If we talk about a change in public opinion, if we're worried about xenophobia, we have to recognize that something did happen in the last three or four years in Canada, and I don't say “the last year”. Of course, our neighbours to the south have destabilized lots of things around the world, but on this question—

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I have pretty limited time, and I'd like to ask a couple of questions. I'd like to follow up on that.

The Conservatives proposed some key amendments to Bill C-3 that were later withdrawn when it went to report stage in the House, specifically related to transparency, sort of the stuff you're talking about here. That was removed. In the fall budget, the Liberals named 35,000 one-time slots they can allocate for any purpose, including giving permanent residency status to people who have crossed illegally into Canada.

Isn't this a counterproductive measure?