Evidence of meeting #21 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Fred Davies Conservative Niagara South, ON
I'm interested in your perspective on areas of the STEM sector that we need to attract people to in order to be competitive in the years ahead. It seems to me that we are effectively shooting ourselves in the foot by not having a system that attracts the most talented people who can actually contribute to our economic growth.
Give me some of the areas that you think are lacking or have been excluded.
Chief Executive Officer, Immitracker Inc.
Canada has one of the best education systems in the world. We have the University of Waterloo here. The joke in the U.S. is that San Francisco is a University of Waterloo wrapper, because that's how many Waterloo grads go and start start-ups there.
The types of people we need to be attracting are the types of people who are actually leaving because they don't want to rely on this immigration system and they cannot rely on this funding landscape in order to build something successfully. We're talking about engineers. We're talking about AI scientists. We're talking about researchers in the tech space. They are people who actually want to build tech in Canada to make us competitive and make us a new technology hub.
We were that before. Toronto used to be one of the best cities in the world for start-ups and for technology development, but we've started going a little bit downhill recently.
Conservative
Fred Davies Conservative Niagara South, ON
I don't have much time, but I have one follow-up question.
How does investment capital relate to this problem? You said that there's an outflux of people going to California. In addition to not being able to get this qualification, is it a capital-based issue as well?
Chief Executive Officer, Immitracker Inc.
It absolutely is. I'd probably need another half-hour to dive into that, but I'm happy to talk to you after.
Capital is a very big problem. We can get into access to capital and removing bureaucratic barriers in more detail, but one thing that Canada did well before was it at least promised these people an immigration pathway. That's also no longer available.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Mr. Davies.
Thank you, Ms. Melikidze. It's a great last name. It's almost as great as my last name.
We are having some technical issues with Ms. Elcano.
Ms. Elcano, I want to make sure that we try our best to include you as part of this conversation. Can I get you to say hello for just a couple of words? Tell me what the weather's like where you're at and we'll see if we can bring you on board. If not, unfortunately, you'll have to add whatever additional testimony you have in written format.
Founder, Caregivers' Action Samaritan Movement
Thank you, Madam Chair. I hope you can hear me now and it comes in clearly.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Ms. Elcano, even though you have the proper headset and you've done everything right, I'm hearing that for some reason we're not able to get responses from you. That's an issue we have to deal with. I'm not quite sure how we will be able to deal with this without our full testimony from all of our witnesses.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
If you hear anything that you want to contribute, please send your comments in written format after this meeting.
I apologize that we're not able to bring you on, Ms. Elcano, but I appreciate your understanding, and I thank everybody for their understanding as well.
Ms. Zahid, you are up for six minutes, please.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON
Thank you, Chair. Thanks to all the witnesses.
I had some questions for Ms. Elcano, but we'll start with Ms. Elfil. If there's a problem with the sound or interpretation, please let me know.
Thank you for coming today and thank you for all the work you are doing for the Sudanese community.
Recognizing that Canada is working within a reality of lower immigration levels, within Canada's current family reunification framework, what specific changes, definitions, eligibility criteria or processing flexibilities would have the greatest immediate impact for the Sudanese families?
Member of the Board of Directors, Sudanese Canadian Community Association
At the beginning there was a commitment to bring in those families by the end of 2024, beginning of 2025. I don't think we expected that the wait would extend to 2026, when the new levels plan has been introduced.
The issue with the new levels plan is this program has been placed in an “others” category, and that others category is very restrictive with only 5,800 spots in 2026 and then 4,000 spots in 2027 and 2028. We are placed with other impacted communities that are already in Canada while our families are outside Canada in an active war zone or displacement.
Having a special initiative that really upholds the commitment of the fast response—humanitarian equals fast and prompt response—that brings all those family members as soon as possible to Canada, would be the best way forward, as was committed to in the past.
The new levels plan came in 2026. It was not there in 2025. Still, those numbers were not processed fairly in 2025.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON
Thank you.
In addition to the special measures program, are there any other applications such as spousal applications or dependent applications in the pipeline that are not happening, or is it just the special measures program you are more concerned about?
Member of the Board of Directors, Sudanese Canadian Community Association
One of the temporary measures that IRCC implemented at the beginning of the war was the acceleration of the processing of Sudanese applicants across multiple pathways.
We have not seen that materialize in terms of how people are coming across different pathways. We still see delays across the different pathways, so family reunification, the normal path, this path, group of five, not the one that was done specifically for the Sudanese community after the war with the 350 applicants, which is also delayed. We see delays across multiple pathways.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON
Where are you seeing bottlenecks in the system? Is it the processing or the biometrics communications or coordination? What steps should we recommend to the government to address these issues?
Member of the Board of Directors, Sudanese Canadian Community Association
There are no barriers to bringing in people at this point. There was in the past an issue with no biometrics centre in Sudan. That was resolved in May last year.
Since then, we've seen IRCC able, in some cases, especially in Sudan, to bring people in very quickly, to process them quickly. It's really a matter of will at this point. If IRCC chooses to process quickly and the program gets removed from this very restrictive, prohibitive category in the levels plan, those families will be able to unite very quickly. There are no processing barriers or system barriers. It's just because of numbers and the levels plan that those families are impacted at this point.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON
The other issue I've been hearing about from my constituents is that a lot of the residents here from the Sudanese community have already put in the money—which was the requirement—and they can't even use that money.
Is that a concern that you have?
Member of the Board of Directors, Sudanese Canadian Community Association
Yes, that's a huge concern for the community at this point, because the program had substantial financial requirements, unlike any other humanitarian program implemented by IRCC, where Sudanese families had to either show substantial income or put money in funds in banks.
This money has been held for almost two years now. As families, they cannot access that fund because their families are trapped in Sudan or in displacement where they can't work. Most of the families here are actively supporting their families in displacement and that puts a huge financial and mental burden on the families here, and those are working Canadians, committed Canadian citizens who really feel this is unjust and unfair processing to bring their families.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON
I have a last question for this round.
You are monitoring the status online. Is it that the eligibility criteria for most of them have not been finalized, or is it that the majority of the files are within the security process?
Member of the Board of Directors, Sudanese Canadian Community Association
A lot of them passed security and are pending medical, but medical was not sent.
There are multiple stages. I would say that the majority of those files have passed eligibility, because when you pass eligibility, your file gets passed from Ottawa to Rome, and most of those files are currently being processed in Rome. A lot of those files have passed security, but others are stuck in security for reasons that are not very clear. However, even if you pass security, medical is not shipped.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you very much, Ms. Elfil. I appreciate it.
Thank you, Ms. Zahid.
Mr. Deschênes, you have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning, everyone.
Thank you for welcoming me here to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
Thank you to the witnesses who are also here.
Ms. Melikidze, as I understand it, you work from Toronto.
Do you assist temporary foreign workers who need to renew work permits, for example?
Chief Executive Officer, Immitracker Inc.
That's less so. Our company deals more frequently with express entry applicants as well as spousal sponsorship and citizenship. We have some work permits and study permits as well, but it's usually first-time applicants.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Okay.
Do you operate only in the Toronto area? Do you also operate in more rural areas in Ontario?
Chief Executive Officer, Immitracker Inc.
Our company is actually province-agnostic. We are covering programs across all of Canada. The only ones we probably don't have a lot of trackers for are the Quebec skilled immigration programs. We do have coverage for the rest of the Canadian programs.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
I'm going to present you with a problem. While you were speaking, I received an email from my riding in Gaspésie. People are criticizing the fact that work permits for temporary workers are not being renewed.
As far as we understand, the rules for thresholds were tightened, but I was trying to make sense of that. I also wanted to get your take on things. When it comes to tightening the rules for temporary foreign workers in budget 2025, the Liberal government says that it will take into account the specific needs of rural and remote communities.
Where we are, in Quebec and in the regions of Quebec, that's not what we're seeing.
Do you see anything else?