Mr. Chair, it will be very interesting to participate in this new procedure in the House of having an exchange about the estimates of the immigration department.
As you know, Mr. Chair, this exchange takes place in an atmosphere where we have a number of distractions. Therefore, perhaps it is a bit of an unusual situation, but I think it will be helpful to talk about the immigration department and about its estimates, spending and priorities. I look forward to the exchange this evening.
I feel a little hard done by because all the experts are on the other side of the House, but I know they are here to help all of us. We appreciate the officials being here and being ready to provide us with information as required.
We have a situation in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and I do not know if it is unique in any other department. There have been documents which have come to light which essentially show that the department has doubled its revenue over the last number of years, but there has been no corresponding increase in the budget of the department.
In fact, the documents we have say the following. I am quoting from a document dated February 5, 2001, where an official advises, including the deputy minister at the time. It states the department:
Doubled revenue generation & commitment to fiscal framework:…Exceeded revenue commitment to CRF [Consolidated Revenue Fund] of $1.5B by $195M since 1994, but no increase to Operating Budget …Decreased Operating Budget by $54M.
Since no programs were eliminated under the purview of the department and there were no cuts to the grants and contribution transfer portion of the department's operations, the document says that the only option was to cut the total personnel by 20% by eliminating face to face processing of applications, moving the call centres to a central location, closing offices abroad and cutting our CIC officers abroad by 35%. The risk management because of these cutbacks increased because of the number of interviews that were waved. This document goes on and I will not read the whole thing.
The point is that under the government's watch the department doubled its revenue from the fees taken from immigrant applications and at the same time did not receive enough budget to even keep the operation on a stable basis. The department was bringing in money but the resources were being cut back.
What has been the result of this? It has been rather sad actually. I quote from an interview given by a Liberal member from Bramalea—Gore—Malton who said December 14, 2004, “The immigration system is in the worse situation now than it has ever been”. Most members of Parliament would agree with that.
We have so many concerns and complaints from members of Parliament about a system that is not working. Why? Because the Liberal government has not put the resources that are needed to make the system work. In fact, the minister himself in answer to a question before committee said that this Parliament had not put one penny into the immigration department.
Who was controlling the purse during these last years, in fact for more than a decade? It was the Liberal government. Yet the minister admitted that money had not been put back into the department. Therefore, we have a number of real hardships to the clients of the department: immigrants and applicants under the immigration department.
In response to some of this, we also found out something rather shocking. Some of my colleagues who are in the House now will recall that the immigration committee met in Vancouver. We had as a witness an immigration lawyer named Mr. Richard Kurland. He brought before the committee documents which showed that the Liberal government had secretly closed down the parents and grandparents program.
Therefore, we had immigrants, newcomers to Canada and many of them Canadian citizens now, in good faith making applications to bring their parents and their grandparents to Canada. The CIC took in those applications, the application fee, the medical certificates and security checks, but the program had been shut down. The applications for parents and grandparents were not being processed.
After awhile, people who were applying to sponsor their parents and grandparents started asking what was happening. They had been waiting and waiting and it was only supposed to take a year. This was something else the department did. Instead of letting people know what had happened, it pretended that this process was going ahead the way it always had, and in fact, was publishing historic processing times on the CIC website. So people thought because the website said these would be processed within a year or 18 months, that this was happening.
Of course, as the months slipped by and 18 months became two years or more, they started to ask what was going on. When they phoned the department, they could not get an answer or any information about the files. They then started coming to members of Parliament. Members of Parliament could not get information. Then we heard that this program had in fact been shut down and that these files were not being processed. I heard it myself from three separate sources.
I put this to the minister in committee. I asked about these parents and grandparents and why they were not being processed. The minister denied that there was any slowdown or stoppage of processing these files. Then we came out with the documents from Mr. Richard Kurland to the CIC all party committee of this House demonstrating that it had been shut down and that officers in the field were aghast at this. They did not know what to tell people. The processing was half done. They did not know what they were going to say when it had shut down in the middle of the exercise, so to speak. Until it came out through the immigration lawyer, there was no admission to people who were accessing the process in good faith that this had happened. So there are a number of issues with this department that cry out to be explained.
There is the whole issue of international credentials and the recognition of those, so that people who are brought to Canada, because they have the skills and training we say that we need, can actually use those skills and training.
The Liberal government has been promising since its throne speech in 1994 that this was going to be addressed and yet there has been no progress. Again, the all party committee has just finished travelling across Canada. We heard from witnesses over and over crying their hearts out because they came to Canada to use their skills and abilities, but just could not find the way to get their credentials recognized here or a process whereby they could obtain Canadian equivalency.
This is a tremendous hardship. There are backlogs with people waiting to get applications processed in a whole number of areas. People wait two years or more just to get citizenship after they have already qualified. Sometimes, because the date is put off, these people have to get new medical records and new security checks which cost them money. This is no way to run a department.
The department admits it has doubled its revenue and yet the service has been cut back to an alarming degree and caused tremendous hardship and difficulty for honest, hardworking people who in good faith put their applications before the system.
The promises of the minister and of the department are not being kept. A few months ago we had a promise that tsunami victims would be fast-tracked into Canada. We know that there were over 1,000 applications from people in tsunami stricken areas. They were supposed to be fast-tracked and everyone was happy thinking their relatives and friends who had applications in the system would be coming to Canada in a few weeks time.
Here we are over six months later and I think that only 200 actually came to Canada. Yet, in the supplementary estimates the government asked for over $4 million more to process these applications and the operations of the department. The promise of bringing these individuals to Canada on an expedited basis, where they could be safe and have shelter from the disaster and loss that they experienced, has not come to fruition. Broken promises are unacceptable to vulnerable people who are counting on the government to keep its promises.
I know members of Parliament from all parties are going to be mentioning a number of areas in this department, a nation building department, that brings newcomers to Canada and works with us to build a great nation. However, people are treated in a very shabby fashion, are not given proper information, and made promises that are not kept in a timely manner.
I want to make it very clear that there is no blame to be attached to the civil servants who work in this department. They are committed and able. I have been a member of Parliament for over 11 years and have always found them extremely good to work with, but the policy-makers on the government side make it almost impossible for them to do their job in a way that would be a credit to Canada and would give us a reputation of respect and pride in the international community. This must be addressed.
It is sad that a government that has been in office for over a decade now and has this litany of failures, mismanagement and leaving people in the lurch is not going to have any answers. If the Liberal government were to have answers and the skill to manage an important department like this, we would not be where we are today. However, we are here today and I would like to ask the minister specifically about this secret shutdown of the parents and grandparents program.
Many newcomers to Canada promise their parents and grandparents that they will bring them here and care for them in their old age. Caring for elders is something that many cultures respect and expect of each other. A promise was made and people in good faith accessed the system and yet secretly behind the scenes the processing of these applications to sponsor the most vulnerable family members was shut down.
I would like the minister to explain that to these Canadians and newcomers who put their applications forward for their parents and grandparents. I think they are owed an explanation by the minister as to why in secret, without telling them and still taking their money, this program was shut down.