Evidence of meeting #25 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 cases.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No. The calculation that you see, the 155,000, is new permits, as you know.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There are also extensions and transitions to other statuses, work permits, etc. We factor in all of those considerations.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
You said the context has changed. There's a pretty big youth jobs crisis. You've just testified to committee that you guys don't have the resources to look at more than 2,000 cases of fraud, even though the Auditor General found potentially 150,000 cases of fraud.
We have millions of people on expired work permits and a youth jobs crisis, yet you're still issuing 155,000 new foreign student permits this year. Why?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Just to clarify, my testimony wasn't that we could only do the 2,000. I know that was the question. My—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
That's what the minister said. Are you contradicting her?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
My point was that we will use our resources to the greatest effect.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
If we can improve our tools, we will be able to work with our partners to address even more cases.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Are you contradicting what your minister said? She said that you guys only have—
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I think the minister was speaking about the current level of resources and how they've been allocated. What I'm talking about is the capacity for us to evolve our investigations.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
How many cases could you do at warp speed—at warp nine?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That would depend on the tools we can embrace. Obviously, I don't want to talk about the tools themselves here for—
Conservative
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I wouldn't want to approximate that at this point.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
I think you should. This is a major news story right now. How many cases is it?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I'm not going to speculate.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
I'm going to take that—as a legislator who's here to allocate money to your department—as you don't know. Would that be correct?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Well, I would say in any enforcement space, you are obligated to prioritize the use of your resources to the most concerning cases.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Do you think spending $40 million on a hotel for failed asylum claimants is a priority use over, say, allocating resources to look at international student permit fraud?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I think those are competing policy priorities.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That would be up to parliamentarians to—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
No, your department keeps adding more money than the mains to the supplementaries.
