Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 5th, 2023

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. Could you provide us with when it was restarted and how many we've processed, and whether there's just a hard no on the ones that applied during the suspension and you're not going to refund those at all?

[Christiane Fox]

If the remission order was suspended at the time of the delay, then no, there would not be reimbursement.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

I'm looking at the GC InfoBase about your staffing levels.

I understand that there was a surge and there were delays, but there was a 79% increase in your budget from 2018 to 2022 and a 39% increase in staffing from 2017 to 2021. How do we have these massive backlogs with a 79% increase in funding and an almost 40% increase in staffing?

[Christiane Fox]

Well, I think my answer to that would be demand. Demand has grown exponentially, and so we have more staff and more funding to deliver on a broader program and a greater program.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

When you say “demand”, can you break out the demand for us?

[Christiane Fox]

Yes—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Is it demand from the PR level? Is demand from other levels up 40%?

[Christiane Fox]

Yes, I think I can—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Is there a straight line between increase in demand and any increase needed in staffing?

[Christiane Fox]

I can definitely give you a picture of the increases.

As you see in the permanent residency program, the increases in the levels plans are quite.... You have the levels increases from over the last 10 years. I can tell you that even in the call centre last year, we saw 10.6 million email and phone inquiries, and that's compared to 4.6 million in 2018. You see a doubling of inquiries into the call centre.

In every line of business—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you foresee a need for a continual increase in staffing?

[Christiane Fox]

What I would say is that we make our case every year through the budget cycle for what we need in order to deliver on the government's objectives. We articulated that for this year's levels plan for the PR program.

We have grown as an organization, and I think we need to stabilize that growth and execute on the priorities of the department.

I'm not going to say that we're never going to increase; if there was a new demand for a new activity, then I wouldn't want to limit ourselves from making that request, but I think we've—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Are you recording productivity levels and comparing in-office productivity versus productivity at home? Can you share those with the committee, please?

[Christiane Fox]

We definitely have productivity levels, both in terms of domestic staff, staff abroad, complex cases—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm thinking more about staff here in Canada working from home.

[Christiane Fox]

We can definitely provide that. It's important to note that not all processing staff are working from home. Some are in the office, and we can definitely provide that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

If you look at the report—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Be very brief, Mr. McCauley, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

What's the low-hanging fruit from the report that we can get to right away?

[Christiane Fox]

I'd say that one of the portals, which is being launched December 20, is definitely one that we can get out right away.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

We'll go now to Ms. Bradford. You have the floor for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In your report, it's indicated that there are some instances in which the factors that lead to processing delays are outside of the control of IRCC. For example, when refugee applicants reside outside of their countries of citizenship, the conditions in those countries where they reside affect the processing of their applications. Can you expand on that and what measures you're taking to mitigate the factors that are outside of your control?

[Christiane Fox]

That's probably one of the most challenging things to manage. When you look at country of origin....

I'll use an example as part of my answer. If we have a refugee from Somalia and that refugee is in a camp in Kenya versus a camp in Uganda, the processing time will change because the exit permits may be 30 days in one country and five days in another country. They may be 60 days in a different country. The treatment of the Somali refugee, the experience of that person within our system, would be very different depending on where they were.

There are very important things that the department needs to do in interviewing refugee applicants—ensuring biometrics, ensuring medical exams—and sometimes access to panel physicians in certain parts of a country can be challenging.

How do we try to mitigate that? We work very closely with the UNHCR and with the International Organization for Migration. We're trying to expand our partnerships to get to people who are sometimes harder to get to. Rainbow Railroad is a great example of an organization that has helped us tremendously in Afghanistan. We now have an agreement with them as a referral partner, which allows us to do some work that we weren't able to do before.

It is really important as we look at refugee processing to realize that the country or the location of the individual sometimes has a more material impact than the country of origin.

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

Thank you for clarifying that.

Building on that, the report recommends that IRCC improve consistency of application processing times across its offices. The report states that certain regional offices have higher workloads than other offices.

What is the plan to address the regional backlogs and disparities in these regional processing times for all applications, but especially with respect to refugee applications?