Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 5th, 2023

[Christiane Fox]

I think it's twofold. The first is that it relies on some of the global processing improvements that we made coming out of COVID that we can rely on to try to help us get through that. The second is increasing our capacity in different parts of the world to try to have more impact on the ground. I think a combination of those two things will help us address some of the recommendations from the Auditor General.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Okay.

You alluded to this before. Obviously there were a lot of challenges in your department that were presented by COVID, such as not being able to allow people into the country. That said, did COVID present any opportunities for your department?

[Christiane Fox]

Absolutely. When we were forced to do things and think about things differently, we were able to pivot and go to more digital applications. Citizenship is a good example. We transformed into a fully digital process within 10 months. It probably would have taken longer had it been done outside the COVID period.

I think global processing is another one. It has a real impact on our workload. In the past, if your paper application came in through the Paris office, you were at the mercy of how busy that office was. Now, with global applications and digital applications, we can do triaging a bit more.

We're definitely not done with the modernization piece. There's a lot of work we can do to improve our systems, and we have investments to do that. Things like the tracker to get status updates, the portals launched, global processing and applying for citizenship online, which allows people to become Canadian citizens when they can't attend in person, are all good examples of flexibilities and things we learned from COVID.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

You implemented the automated decision-making process, but there are some concerns about that. Some are saying these tools make decisions without oversight from IRCC officers.

Can you clarify how automated decision-making tools are being used and how you're getting around those concerns if you don't have officers overseeing this now?

[Christiane Fox]

At the end of the day, every single decision is made by an officer. That has to be clear for the committee. That is how the legislation works. The automated tools help us with some of the triaging and make the decision easier for the individual officer.

I'll use an example from the temporary resident visa line. As an officer reviews a number of visitor visas, if there's a pre-population showing that this person has travelled to Canada before, or whatever criteria we set, at least it triages some of that initial information to make the decision easier and more straightforward for the officer.

I'll give you an example of how robotics have helped us. We had a big backlog in web form inquiries. I think there were about 275,000 in the backlog in 2022 from people who had sent in web forms. With the use of robotics, we were able to triage that, make decisions and answer questions. We're now down to about 60,000 of those.

Again, I'm not saying the work is complete. There's a lot of work to be done, but these tools help us.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, you have the floor for two minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I'd like to go back to the issue of francophone African students, which is very important for us in Quebec. When you look at the numbers, you see that it's quite a problem. For the same study permit applications, the refusal rate for francophone students is twice that of anglophone students. So there's a problem. More specifically, 72% of students accepted to Quebec universities are denied study permits. That's three out of four students. They're accepted to Quebec universities but denied study permits.

Earlier you acknowledged that there was a systemic racism problem at the department, as was the case in 2020. What specifically has been done to correct it?

[Christiane Fox]

The refusal rate situation has improved. More specifically, the acceptance rate is higher than it previously was.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Do you have the numbers?

[Marie-Josée Dorion]

The approval rate of francophone African students has risen from 27% in 2019 to 36% today. That's an increase of more than 10%.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Two thirds of francophone students are still being rejected. Two thirds of potential francophone students: that's enormous. It's even more than for anglophone students. How is that the case?

[Christiane Fox]

I'll say three things.

First, dual intent is a contributing factor. The department will have to make a decision and see what can be done to correct that. The refusal rate is due in large part to the dual intent criterion.

We also look at the financial aspect.

Lastly, the final factor that has an impact on the data and that I look at closely is the fraud rate, which is very high. It isn't specific to the continent; fraud occurs in other parts of the world—

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

There are anglophones and francophones in Africa.

[Christiane Fox]

That's correct.

Sometimes officers treat fraud as a refusal. To clarify this, we should separate the categories in order to distinguish clearly between a refusal and a fraud.

I entirely agree that we have to increase the approval rate for francophone African students, which is 36%. Incidentally, I'm discussing this with the people concerned in Quebec. If we remove the dual intent criterion and Quebec confirms a pathway to permanent residence, that lends the process some flexibility. We could work closely with Quebec on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for two and a half minutes. I am working to give you another spot after this, so just keep that in mind. Thank you.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I want to now turn to what has been raised by several of my colleagues, which is the issue of capacity. Mr. McCauley mentioned some of the funding enhancements. It's not lost on me that COVID was, of course, an extraordinary event and that services across the government were often put into a position of deficit. Now most ministries, I believe, have seen improvements to some of this work and have actually found better means of doing that work within their ministries.

When it comes to capacity in particular, we've seen a previous audit of IRCC speak about the lack of support for the sub-Saharan office. You made mention of that capacity change. I welcome that capacity change. I think it's a good change for the office to see that capacity there.

Something the Auditor General pointed out that concerns me, in terms of where this issue may be duplicated or could be duplicated, is understanding what valuable, important or reliable information is actually important in tracking where capacity becomes an issue before it actually happens. That would be the most appropriate means, which I think a deputy minister should be well aware of, to predict when there may be a capacity issue and allocating resources and a plan or a process before it becomes a matter of families not being reunified, which is the issue we're seeing today.

What are some of the verifiable pieces of information—first to Ms. Hogan and then to Deputy Minister Fox—that you cited were lacking in the decision-making process related to capacity funding for offices?

[Karen Hogan]

During our audit, what we found was that the department wasn't aware of the capacity of certain offices. While they knew there might have been chronic underfunding and a lack of resources in some offices, they continued to allocate files there based on the country of residence. That country of residence dictates where the application goes.

We compared two offices, one in Tanzania and one in Rome, and we found that the Tanzanian office had the same number of personnel but was receiving five times the workload. Back in 2016 the department committed to doing what it called “capacity-based allocation”, and we just weren't seeing that happen. They were not realizing that they couldn't keep sending files to Tanzania and that they should reallocate those to other places. That wasn't happening during our audit period, and that's an important element. Not reallocating them means that all of those files that go to that office will wait longer to be processed.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Desjarlais. I will come back to you for another turn.

Mr. McCauley, you have the floor for five minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks, Chair.

Ms. Fox, I want to get back to a question about resources. I'm looking again at GC InfoBase. Every year your department is consistently lapsing $1 out of every $8 that's approved. What is going on that we're lapsing so much money if we have such a spike in demand, as you've stated? Is that lapsing affecting the service?

[Christiane Fox]

First, as the deputy responsible, I would agree with you that we have to pay very close attention to the money we're spending and the money we're lapsing. Some of the monies that we lapsed in previous years would have been due to, at times, arrivals and predicting arrivals of Afghan refugees or Ukrainians.

When you create a program, that could be one of the lapses—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to interrupt you. I get that, but it's consistent year after year. It's not a spike here or there. It's consistent every year that you're lapsing over 12% of your money that has been appropriated.

[Christiane Fox]

I can speak to last year. This is my first year as the deputy here, so I won't speak to previous lapses. The lapses we had can be explained by the pace of arrivals, and in the context—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Would you get back to the committee on what programs over the past five years have been lapsed for the money that had been approved?

[Christiane Fox]

Yes. Absolutely.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Your comment to my previous question about the staffing was that you're looking to “stabilize” the growth. Could you expand what you mean by that?