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
Over the course of a long time, that number could accumulate.
Conservative
Fred Davies Conservative Niagara South, ON
That's what we're looking at now—the gap of people who are in Canada wanting to practise medicine, wanting to come to Niagara and wanting to help me save the two hospitals that are closing, but we can't get them through the system. This is highly critical.
Do you have any thoughts on how we can fix this and make it faster so that these doctors can actually get to work in Canada?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There are some best practices emerging in some of the provinces in Canada. For example, in one case I was familiar with about three years ago, an asylum claimant who was a medical doctor came to Canada and went to Alberta. Alberta had a program at the time—I don't know if it's still in place—where they could intern under the supervision of another person and get fast-tracked in order to serve the northern communities. We would advocate for anything that can be done to streamline that.
On the 5,000, we are making it a priority for in-Canada doctors to be converted to permanent residents. The 5,000 aren't just new people coming into the country. They're also people already here who haven't secured permanent residency but can become permanent residents in Canada.
Conservative
Fred Davies Conservative Niagara South, ON
Is that in addition to the many thousands who are still waiting to get through that residency process?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It depends on what your number is based on.
Conservative
Fred Davies Conservative Niagara South, ON
About 1,000 Canadian international medical students were turned away last year for residencies. Is part of the problem that hospital capacity is not there to give jobs to these doctors?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I can't speak to that.
Conservative
Fred Davies Conservative Niagara South, ON
This is pretty low-hanging fruit. You have internationally trained doctors and graduates, some of whom are Canadian, who can't get residencies here. As they go through the application process, are these issues not identified? Why would they be turned away?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Again, I can't speak to that. These programs are regulated by the provinces and territories.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Thank you, Mr. Harris, and thank you, Mr. Davies. These are very important questions.
Ms. Sodhi, you have five minutes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
I know you guys want to battle it out, but we'll go over to you, Ms. Sodhi.
Liberal
Amandeep Sodhi Liberal Brampton Centre, ON
I want to talk a little more about the immigration system in general.
Are you able to walk us through how stakeholders and Canadians were consulted during the preparation of the 2026-28 levels plan and how their input shaped this year's plan?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We have established a fairly rigorous consultation process, and we talked to over 800 organizations and stakeholders directly. We also received submissions from tens of thousands of Canadians who made representations on their views in terms of how the plan is shaped.
Liberal
Amandeep Sodhi Liberal Brampton Centre, ON
That's perfect.
The department and minister have spoken quite a bit about restoring stability to the immigration system. Are you able to explain what that stability looks like in practice and how Canadians will notice it in their day-to-day lives?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
For us, the measures of stability have been well defined. They're about ensuring that by 2027, permanent residents are no more than 1% of the population in total and temporary residents represent no more than 5% of the Canadian population. Those are the primary indicators of sustainability. That is what the programs are designed to achieve, and that's what we're working towards.
Liberal
Amandeep Sodhi Liberal Brampton Centre, ON
One of the main goals of the department is to reduce Canada's non-permanent resident population to under 5% by 2027. Are you able to update the committee on progress so far and how this year's plan helps to achieve that target?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would turn to the Stats Canada report that came out last week. It shows that we're at 6.5% from a high of 7.6%. That's well within the track that we anticipate will achieve that 5%.
Liberal
Amandeep Sodhi Liberal Brampton Centre, ON
The new levels plan that was introduced adjusts allocations for foreign labour programs. How is IRCC balancing national sustainability with regional labour needs, particularly in rural and remote areas?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
As has been spoken about, we have tailored our recruitment strategies or our programming to address different needs.
Obviously, the labour market is very different in certain sectors. We've spoken about how health care is one area where it's particularly strained, but we also know that trades and other spaces are strained, and we know those strains can be amplified, particularly in more rural and remote areas.
We are looking at designing our programs or refining our programs to ensure that where we are offering access to employment immigration or economic immigration, it speaks not just to the overall number for Canada, but also to the regional and sectoral needs we have. For example, we are looking with ESDC at ways we can adjust programs, with the consent of provinces and territories, to address how they apply the temporary foreign worker program for rural areas, which would be different from areas that are not rural.
In addition, you may be aware that they introduced the change that if you live in an area where there's more than a 6% unemployment rate, you don't have access to some temporary foreign workers you might have access to in areas that have a much greater strain for labour.
It's about trying to ensure that we build differentiating programs that allow us to target needs in various parts of the country and, as I said, across various sectors.