Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 5th, 2023

[Christiane Fox]

What I mean by that is that in the context of working through the backlog, we hired a number of people to get through that backlog. I think it was the right thing to do. I think it has led to some examples of results. However, the government has also invested in modernizing our platform, and we have investment that we're working through. What I'm hoping is that through the benefits of some of our modernization investments, we can stabilize the organization so that we can leverage those technologies rather than hire more people.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Were you talking about stabilizing the growth of the number of full-time equivalents or stabilizing the growth of the spending within your department? What specifically were you referring to?

[Christiane Fox]

I think it's about stabilizing the growth of FTEs. I think it's about looking at the organization and looking at how modernization can help us deal with the surge in volumes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

There was quite a surge in FTEs. Are they focused on the wrong areas? Was a certain amount of the growth focused on permanent residents?

[Christiane Fox]

Definitely our processing group, our service delivery organization, did grow. I would say that's where the majority of the growth came from. Then internally we have made some changes to our structures to allow putting resources toward things that I think are quite key to the organization's success.

One example of that is the creation of the international crisis response sector within our department. We created an Afghan sector to deal with the Afghan crisis. I think we need to prepare ourselves for being better positioned to predict and to analyze or to have better line of sight on different crises. That's another area that I have invested in.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm looking at your management action plan. One of the criticisms I always have when these plans come forward—not just yours, but for every department—is that we will look at stuff years down the road. Then our Auditor General comes in and says, five years later or eight years later, that nothing was done.

There seems to be a real lack of concrete action here. I want to read out one specifically: “Cross-training of resources and subsequent workload distribution to help maintain relevant processing knowledge, skills and expertise will continue to take place, ensuring optimally flexibility in the workforce. Global network provides virtual region....”

There's a lot of word salad, but there's not a lot of concrete “we will fix this by this date”. There's a lot of “we will look at options to address a program of recommendations at this date”. Why is there a lack of concrete “we will achieve this recommendation by this date and fix it by this date”?

[Christiane Fox]

I think the action plan does speak to specific dates. Even within the overall objective—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

There are dates, but not achievements.

[Christiane Fox]

—the work plan does speak to the breakdown of when we can achieve what.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It speaks to a lot more of “we will present a plan by this date”, but not actual achievements. If I read through it, I don't see a lot of these that will achieve the recommendations the AG has provided.

[Marie-Josée Dorion]

Maybe I can jump in here. Since the beginning of this year—we started years before, but this year has been more active—to give capacity in some offices, we are taking more of the TR, the temporary resident program, applications and we are moving them into Canada. Since the beginning of the year, we have—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm going to give you an example.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

A year from now, seek approval for a plan—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley. The time has elapsed.

Mr. Blois, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Hogan, thank you to you and your team. Ms. Fox, thank you as well; I don't think there has been enough.

Obviously this is a committee of scrutiny, but you came into this role in July of 2022, and I think there was a reason. I think there had to be some changes. We were up against it. You're an experienced deputy minister, and I think under your leadership things have improved. I'm sure you will tell me that there's more to be done, and I think this committee will agree with that, but I want you to know that I do think there has been a marked difference in the department over the last year or so.

Since we're thanking public servants, I want to thank Tanya in my own office. She handles the casework. She was with Mr. Brison previously and does really good work.

I have some feedback that I want to give you quickly.

The status updates are making a difference. We are getting fewer calls to our MP offices because people can watch their applications as they go through. Expanding that out through programs would be warranted. There are now scheduled times for MP offices to engage with officers, which helps plan our office days. Those are two really good suggestions there.

This is a little bit off the scope of the report, but I think it's relevant. I want to ask about the recognized employer pilot. A lot of temporary foreign workers come to Kings—Hants in the Annapolis Valley. I would describe the initiative this way: We've gone half the step. We have been able to work on not having to file LMIAs when there's a clear and demonstrable need for the labour, but what can IRCC do to make things easier for the workers who are coming from host countries who have been coming for years, in some cases decades? What can be done to basically to eliminate some of that administrative burden?

Please answer as quickly as you can.

[Christiane Fox]

Just quickly, I think the recognized employer pilot is very helpful in working with employers and also in supporting those who come on a temporary basis.

I think the best way to answer your question is by looking at how we can provide, when a client is interested, pathways to move from temporary foreign worker to more permanent residency in Canada. Working very closely with some businesses in New Brunswick, for instance, we were able to develop a critical worker program that has that pathway for temporary foreign workers. I like that example because the six employers that are part of this also contributed to language training. They contributed to some of the social supports. I think that builds community.

I think that's the example that we should try to strive for.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I would agree with you. I know from talking to workers that they can create better living conditions for their own family by coming, and there are some who want to come to Canada on a permanent basis. Others don't. Sometimes there's the stereotype of assuming that everyone wants to come to Canada. Whatever IRCC can do to match what has been done at ESDC to expedite those approvals in terms of the actual entry into the country would be good.

I want to mention Ukraine. Ms. Hogan, it wasn't mentioned in your report at all, but Ms. Fox, I assume the government's decision to allow the three-year permit would have had some impact on processing times. Is that fair to say?

Answer quickly.

[Christiane Fox]

Absolutely. There was a decision around prioritizing the arrival of Ukrainians. That included providing work permits, study permits and income support. Definitely, that had an impact.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

When I went through the report, there was a process chart that talked about five different levels of processing delay. It talked about application return when there could be a mistake or some type of information not being there.

Again, I don't handle the work directly. My constituency assistant Tanya does, but that's like going into a black hole sometimes. It can be a very minor mistake. The processing time to get that application back and get the information can really drive these delays.

What would you tell this committee we can do better? Where do those folks go in the queue? If there is just a very minor mistake in the application, my question is not only on how we deal with the time it takes to get it back into the appropriate stage, but where those people sit in the queue. How can we work on that?

I think that's part of where some of the major delays come from.

[Christiane Fox]

What I would say first is that we have to have programs and application forms that are easily navigable before clients come to us. Second is that some countries pause the clock when somebody is awaiting information. Third is they are treated when the information comes in, based on that first-in, first-out principle, noting that we've been waiting during their delay.

Marie-Josée, did you want to add anything?

[Marie-Josée Dorion]

Yes. I think it's important to make the difference between an application that's rejected at the beginning because because it's not complete. The applicant is asked to do everything again, and then when we receive it, the clock starts again. There's no waiting for them.

If we've started to process the application and we ask for a document, the applicant doesn't lose their place in the queue. We put it back where it was. It doesn't go back to the beginning.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm afraid that is the time.

We can get another complete round in of six individuals with various amounts of time.

We're going back to Mr. Redekopp. You have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to talk about the recommendation about refugees in paragraph 67.

Ms. Fox, you talked about the UNHCR process and how that was online in 2022, I believe. The non-UNHCR refugees can apply online starting later this month, if all goes well.

At the immigration committee, we've heard a lot of witnesses express their desire to decouple Canada's sponsorship a bit from UNHCR. There are many reasons for this. We've seen some racism and biases at the UN toward certain minorities. The committee even adopted a motion of mine condemning the UNHCR for this with regard to minority Christians and calling on the Government of Canada to fix this.

Ms. Hogan, when you were doing this audit, did your auditors come across different treatment for refugees who go through the UNHCR process versus those who do not?

[Karen Hogan]

I couldn't answer that, but I'm watching Ms. McCalla shake her head “no”, so I'm going to say no, we did not see different outcomes in those two programs. We really looked along the lines of country of citizenship, country of residency and race.