Debates of May 18th, 2005

Supply

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Chair, as I mentioned earlier, I came to Canada in 1968 with my mom and my brother. My father had come previously.

Increasingly, people are coming to Canada and are separated from their families. Perhaps the minister could tell us what we are doing in terms of uniting families or decreasing the length of time it takes for families to reunite. We were separated from my father for four years. Now that I am in Ottawa for five days each week, my wife and I see each other on the weekends. It is intolerable to be separated these days. Yet my parents were separated for five years and I was separated from my father.

Things have changed. Is it a trend that people are intolerant of being separated from their families? What is it that is going on?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I want to reassure my hon. colleague that we have a very high intolerance level for division when it comes to families. That is why spouses and children get first priority. In fact we process nearly 60% of all the cases within six months of application. That is quite quick. We are trying to make that 100% but we have not yet achieved that.

We are trying to be as innovative as we can. We have the multiple entry visa system in order to bring parents and grandparents into the country immediately. We have increased the number of parents and grandparents that we would land immediately. I indicated earlier on the measures that we took with out of status spouses.

We did something similar as well with the Vietnamese who are finding themselves stateless in the Philippines. We thought that those families who had been separated for so many years needed to have an opportunity to get back in. One of the very first things we did after I entered the department as minister is we took steps to ensure that Canada would stretch out our welcoming arms to those as well, so that we could end that sorry tale of human tragedy.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like to ask the minister another question in terms of applications for visitors to Canada.

We do not accept about 130,000 to 150,000 applications for visitors to Canada, but I understand we have over 96 million visitors in Canada as well. Has this number increased in the last four to five years due to security issues since 9/11? Was that one of the factors for refusing a larger number of applicants, or is that not a factor in the decision to refuse applicants who come to Canada as visitors?

We could definitely use the revenues that they bring to Canada. If we just halved the number, we could fly 75,000 more people into Canada. Probably all 75,000 of them would go to the CN Tower and Niagara Falls and so on. It would be good for the Canadian economy. Perhaps the minister could shed some light on that.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think we are all beginning to get an appreciation of how broad is the breadth of the application of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Yes, we are very much engaged with Industry Canada and the tourism commission in order to ensure that we are part and parcel of any plans they might have.

As an example, the member will know that for the Prime Minister's recent visit to China, which resulted in China indicating Canada as a destination of choice, by some estimates it will probably result in between 70,000 and 150,000 additional tourists from China alone coming to Canada on an annual basis. This means that we have had to put greater resources into dealing with many of the applications, not only from China but from elsewhere.

To answer the member's question as well with respect to security, certainly 9/11 did change people's perceptions about what happens in some parts of the world especially. What we needed to do was put in place the kind of official who would be sensitive to some of those concerns so that we could provide Canadians with a sense of comfort that those who come to visit here do come here as genuine tourists and do not come here because they want to do some malfeasance.

I am not sure that this is accounted for greatly in the backlog, but we are looking at some of the structural or framed developments in each of these refusals so that we can identify them. For example, among one particular community we are taking a look at those who come here for religious reasons to see what kinds of parameters we can put in place that go beyond the experience we currently have. We are trying to reassess the parameters under which our officials make decisions locally in the executing of these visas.

For example, the refusal rate also is dependent on another measure, which I indicated a moment ago. When we accord to parents and grandparents the opportunity to come here on multiple entry visas, we will eliminate a sizable number of refusals of visits to come here on the occasions of weddings and funerals and other celebrations.

For all of these together over the course of the last several months, the department has put together a plan that gives us an opportunity to individualize some of these issues, but I hearken and I hasten to add that we had some 850,000 accepted applications for tourist visas last year. That is an impressive number: 850,000 people who came through our missions just so they could come and visit and say, “What a lovely place, even in Vancouver”.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Chair, this short question is my last one. I know that when the minister was first elected he represented many of the people from the Italian community in his riding. Many of them went to him for assistance for visitor visas and immigration issues.

Being the first Macedonian born member of Parliament, I have many people from all over the GTA coming to me. I would like to find out if there is any regionalization of refusal or are there any certain areas of the world from which we would refuse more people? There is some discussion in some communities that there is some sort of a dislike for this country or that one, or for this part of the world or that.

I know it is not true for the Macedonian community, but maybe the minister could tell us if there is any profiling such as that of any specific geographical area in the world.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, we have some very highly trained local officials. Their first order of business, as I have said, is to make sure that everything fits within the Canadian interest context. They deal with every application on a case by case basis, so in terms of profiling, as the member puts it, no, it does not happen. In terms of any one mission being more negative or more positive than another, no, it is case by case according to the needs of the Canadian domestic environment.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Vegreville--Wainwright.

I thank the minister for being here this evening.

As a member of the House who has been fortunate enough to come to this country as a refugee, I learned about the process at that time, when my family came to Canada in the early 1970s.

It is obvious that the immigration system, in keeping up with some of the challenges, has gone through some difficult times. My family, like many others, came here as proud refugees. Very few countries, as we know, would allow a family like mine to have their son serve in the federal Parliament. I think that says a remarkable thing about our country and our values. That said, we are obviously facing huge challenges today. I know that in the work he is doing the minister is trying to address much of this.

I have served as an MP for almost eight years now. My office has had continuous problems when it comes to visas, especially in trying to get visitor visas. We have had continuous problems with people being rejected when trying to get these particular visas. Different solutions have been brought forward.

It is all very painful for people who are trying to reunify their families, even for a short time, to try to expedite the process of getting a visa for their family to come for an event, whatever it might be, and then return home to their countries. I am continuously finding myself in very difficult situations because of how many constituents continuously get their families rejected in the process. I would like the minister to briefly comment on that.

As I travel around the country, I find that many Canadians come to me about these issues, especially as I am a member of an ethnic community, because if they are from a South Asian community or a Muslim community or whatever it might be, they at times feel a little more comfortable talking to someone they can relate to in talking about their problems. I find this happening quite often as I travel across the country.

One of the key issues that comes up, and I know the minister is well aware of it, is the issue of foreign credentials. I continuously hear from many people that after all the time we have been discussing this issue, and after some initiatives have been put in place to try to deal with this issue, there still seems to be no identified process or national consistency for the recognition of international credentials and experience by most professional and trade bodies in Canada.

As well, those processes that are in place often lack clarity and are costly. There is often a gap between information provided to skilled immigrant applicants before and during the immigration process and their actual opportunity to use their skills and training equivalency here in the Canadian workforce.

In the last federal budget, I believe $20 million was allocated toward this issue and other amounts were allocated in previous budgets. Here is what I would like to know from the minister, if possible. How, where and by whom was this money spent? What has been the value for this money? It is a significant amount. What more will be done to alleviate this problem? From what I hear from people across the country, it still seems to be a constant problem.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Actually, Mr. Chair, there is a process in place. We must consider that the whole issue of internationally trained workers is a multiple jurisdictional issue. There are provinces, unions, regulatory bodies and universities and colleges involved. I think what we have come up with as a federal government is the taking on of a leadership role even though not all of these are our jurisdictions.

We have just announced an internationally trained worker initiative. It is made up of a series of policies that are interwoven and integrated in order to work specifically with credential recognition bodies across the country. They are all looking now at a pan-Canadian assessment model, whether they are engineers, nurses or doctors. The doctors have already put theirs in place. The nurses are ready to go with theirs. The engineers have just been funded to do theirs. This is going on.

We work with sector councils that are going to help us look at the non-regulated workers in other areas such as the restaurant industry, et cetera. Industry Canada is working on some of those initiatives with them.

We are working with the unions to look at some of the issues of either the unskilled workers or the skilled union workers. The unions are now prepared to work with us to help to train them.

We know that there are a couple of things that form barriers. One of them is recognition of credentials. That is why we are working on this. The other one, in some instances, is language training and that is why Citizenship and Immigration Canada, as one of the departments participating, has put up $20 million a year for that kind of technical and enhanced language training.

We also know that bridge to work, that is, not having Canadian experience, is a huge beast. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada has been looking at putting money forward in bridge to work initiatives.

Health Canada has been doing it for the human health resources sector. We recently announced money to allow for foreign trained physicians to be able to move into the system, be assessed on line and get residency programs to get them to move forward. We are doing the same with nurses. Currently we are working with pharmacists.

Now we are working with the business sector, where the private sector needs to be able to get that bridge to work. The private sector people are working with Industry Canada. They are working with Health Canada on pharmacists. They are working with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. They are working with ACOA.

There are about 15 departments that are currently working with us and we are working with the provinces and municipalities and all of those bodies. In fact, it is working quite well, surprisingly, because everyone seems to be on side and wanting to make it happen.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Chair, I would like to address the issue of the credibility of estimates, because I think it is no surprise that the department has been under a cloud of suspicion since the last minister left. There were a lot of problems leading up to her resignation.

Currently we have a minister who in my opinion has deliberately taken steps to hurt the ethnic communities and individuals of those communities since becoming the immigration minister. I will give some examples.

On March 13, he warned members of the Sikh community in Toronto not to criticize the Liberal government. He said, “Keep it inside the family”. He attacked the Jewish publisher of the Western Standard magazine for publishing a satirical poster comparing the Liberal Party to criminals. He then went on to accuse the Conservative Party of being Ku Klux Klan related. He made deliberate comments about an MP from Newton—North Delta who happens to be a Conservative MP and Sikh. Then, last Friday, there was information leaked from his department that directly is an abuse of his own role in violation of the Privacy Act.

With these numerous instances, all of which should have led to his resignation or the Prime Minister firing him, how are Canadians supposed to trust him on these estimates?

[The Chair]

Does the minister want to answer that? It has to do with the estimates only in the last word. It is really pushing the envelope.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, there is a certain amount of civility in this place and I do not want to descend to those same depths that I just saw happen.

If we want to talk about estimates, the estimates are there for everybody to discuss. I have been here to answer all of the questions related to the estimates. If people want to deviate from that, there is an opportunity to do it in another environment.

I appreciate the opportunity to say that the estimates and the examination thereof are a valuable democratic exercise. It is too bad that not everybody takes up the opportunity to look at them.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Chair, the lack of civility in this place has been caused by that minister and the comments he made that were referred to by my colleague were completely out of line. He should have resigned and he should still resign.

I will talk about what I have seen in my 12 years as a member of Parliament. I was first elected in 1993. At that time, we had an immigration system that was functioning quite well in many areas, but had its problems. Twelve years later our system is much worse in every area than it was back then. Yet we have had minister after minister stand up and make statements like the minister has made all night, statements that sound grand and great and that everything will get better. Hon. members can understand my frustration with 12 years of hearing ministers make those same kinds of statements. That is frustrating.

The best demonstration that the system has got worse, and members of Parliament on all sides knows this, is that in every one of our offices, even in a rural constituency like mine, more and more of the time of my staff is spent dealing with problems that should be dealt with by the minister's department.

I do not blame the employees of the immigration department. The minister and the government are to blame because they have not provided the resources and they have not provided law and rules that allow the system to work better.

I have a centre in Vegreville—Wainwright in the town of Vegreville. Those employees make that system work and the place work in spite of the difficult situation they are put in by the government. That simply is not acceptable.

The MPs offices are not supposed to be doing work that should rightfully and correctly be done by the minister's department. That simply has to change. We do this work because every one of us as members of Parliament wants to make the immigration system work.

I do not think there is a member of Parliament in the House who does not understand the importance of immigration to our country, to our communities. Out of desperation to make a broken system work, a system which has deteriorated more and more over the 12 years I have been here, we do what we have to do. We have our staff do what we have to do to just make it work in some fashion.

I want to get to a situation in my constituency. I often get people coming to our office who have had difficulty getting their parents and grandparents into the country. We were having a particularly large number of problems in this area, so back in November, my staff phoned one of the major offices in the country. There are some very good people inside the department who help our staff. We had several of these cases in a row. There was one situation where a family desperately tried to get their parents into the country, but nothing seemed to be happening. They were at the point where they were to be charged the fee again because of the department's delay in processing their application.

Department delays go beyond the time limit for medical checks, security checks and that kind of thing, so the fee is charged again,due to the breakdown in the work of the department. This family was coming up to one of these deadlines. My staff phoned the department and finally an employee, and I will not name him nor say from which office he is, said very candidly that sponsoring parents and grandparents was a zero priority with the government. That was the exact term he used.

I asked a question about this in the House back in November. I got no answer at all from the minister at that time. That is the kind of thing we are facing. Bringing parents and grandparents into our country is a zero priority. In other words, do not even both trying.

The Liberals claims they have fixed it. Forgive me for doubting that when I have seen for 12 years these same kinds of promises being made. Forgive me for doubting that they will fix it now, because they will not . The only thing that will fix the system is a change of government. It has come to that.

We can stand here tonight and listen again. We have had immigration ministers in these kinds of committees before. We can stand here all night, ask these questions and get no answers from the minister of any substance. He keeps saying things are great. They are not great. They are not going to be fixed by the government.

The minister should have resigned because of the comments he made. That is a demonstration of the lack of goodwill on the part of the government. We have to replace the government. That is the bottom line.

I really would like to ask some questions. I know my time is limited. I do not know if there is any point actually. I came here tonight intending to ask short questions so I would get short answers, but it is not going to happen. Therefore, in the two minutes I have, I will make some more comments.

One of the most common problems we have in our office is citizens, constituents, who marry outside the country and then want to bring their spouses, their husbands or wives, into our country. I heard the minister say awhile ago that 60% were processed within six months or something. I do not believe him because it does not happen. From all of my colleagues who I have talked to about this, it just does not fit. Six months is some number the Liberals have made up. They have it fudged somehow because that simply is not the case.

How cruel and uncaring on the part of the government, when a husband and wife are separated such as people in my constituency and in some cases for years because the government cannot do its job. It is not because they are a security risk or they have health problems. It is nothing like that. The government will not put the rules in place and will not give the resources to the good people we have working in our immigration departments. That is why it is not working.

Again, there is no use asking questions. We have to replace the government and we will do that as soon as we can.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Chair, this summer will mark the 25th anniversary of the arrival in Canada of the first group of refugees fleeing the Communist regime that had just taken control of Vietnam.

The sight of tens of thousands of refugees on makeshift wooden boats is something that many of us will never forget. Their suffering changed lives and forced us to act. Today, this same spirit of compassion and concern for others burns as brightly in the hearts of all Canadians.

We were all deeply moved by the suffering of these families from Vietnam or the Philippines, by the many stories of absent loved ones, and by the hope of reuniting those family members here in this great country.

Family reunification is extremely important, both to me and—I am certain—all of government. When we consider the situation of these families in their native land compared their family members here, it is very important for us to try to reunite these families and give them every opportunity to live together and in harmony.

When we look at an example as ordinary as a birth in the family which, as members are aware, happened to me in recent weeks, we see even more the importance of reuniting family members and ensuring that people can work, be together and love those near to them.

Naturally, for many new arrivals the government brings to Canada, families are an anchor and a source of energy for the future. Families also represent more solid bases for the health and future of communities and nations, whatever they may be.

Another example is that of my riding. We very recently set up a program, the Programme de carrefour d'immigration rurale, to be sure we integrate people from other countries, those who have recently arrived.

We set up a system to be sure to use new approaches, to show Canadians here how we can welcome new arrivals and reunite families at the same time.

We must therefore ensure that the family classremains a vital element, an integral part of Canada's immigration program.

I am extremely proud that the Government of Canada accepted many of the 2,000 Vietnamese still living in the Philippines, who may find close relatives here. It is good news for everyone.

That said, I believe we can all accept that the job will not be easy. Some applicants may lack sufficient and appropriate proof of identity. I know the minister has worked hard with the appropriate intervenors, such as SOS Viet Phi.

My question this evening is as follows. Are the measures intended to help the people in question come to Canada progressing and when may we expect the first families to arrive?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, my colleague just asked a very good question. However, before I answer him I want to say a few words in English to respond to the statements made by the Conservative member.

Today is May 18. The member indicated he had asked the question in November regarding family reunification and did not receive answer. I guess he must have missed the announcements I made with respect to inland out of status spousal applications to reunite families. That applied to approximately 3,000 inland families resident in Canada.

We made an announcement with respect to parents and grandparents. He does not think it involved any numbers, but it actually increased the numbers from 6,000 to 18,000 this year and from 6,000 to 18,000 next year. In addition to that, we put at the disposal of all people who did not fit into the group of 18,000 for this year and next year the possibility to join their families in Canada with the use of a multiple entry visa.

That might not seem like an act to the member opposite, but it is an implemented policy, not a promise or an indication of what might happen. It has already taken place.

Now, to get back to my colleague's very good question on those who were victims of a terrible tragedy during the last century. I am referring to Vietnamese nationals, some 2,000 Vietnamese who are still living in the Philippines out-of-status. In other words, the UN has not registered them as refugees.

We have set up a program to welcome them here in Canada, if they have a relative willing to sponsor them. We made sure to broaden the definition of family member in order to accommodate as many of these people as possible. We are working in cooperation with three other countries to help the 2,000 Vietnamese who are still out-of-status.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Chair, I have been told that the Canadian government, that Canada, could have and should have acted sooner to solve this problem. According to some members, the Government of Canada ought to do more still by expanding the family category permanently.

I have listened with interest to the two points of view that have been expressed on this. To my knowledge, neither the international community nor the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has deemed the Vietnamese population in the Philippines to be in need of protection by resettlement.

Normally it is up to the UNHCR and the appropriate host country to determine whether or not the people in question are refugees. They did so in this instance, and determined that the 2,000 Vietnamese in question were not.

Nevertheless, the Government of Canada agreed to help by allowing those who had close relatives in Canada to be sponsored immigrants. Could, or should, Canada have done more to help this group of people? How many will be able to qualify under the Canadian criteria that are set out in the new policy?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, we were asked to accommodate a certain number of individuals. A potential 150 cases were identified, which might involve 297 people, but we are not certain that all those in this category would want to come here, because the U.S., Australia and Norway are also involved in this program.

As a result, we have indicated that we are prepared to take in more people if it is possible. Judging from the initial indications, however, obtained from members of the community, it would seem that some 200 people will be coming to Canada under this program. Should there be others, we will be able to take the necessary steps to process them, but at present there are no indications that this will be the case.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Chair, I have one last question. I gathered from the minister that there is enormous collaboration among various countries in order to meet needs when certain situations arise affecting individuals.

Could the minister indicate if the Government of Canada will continue this collaboration and these partnerships? We know that partnership is a key to successfully negotiating the process here in Canada and also throughout the world. Can the minister indicate whether we will maintain such partnerships, should such situations occur, to ensure that the needs of these people are met?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, we always try to build on our successes. These partnerships are one indication of the success we can achieve. We always want to ensure that any success is shared by all.

[Paul Forseth, Conservative, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with our immigration critic.

Change begins with the recognition that a problem exists and what I have heard often tonight is that the minister is often a system defender rather than being the helpful change agent that I would really like to hear him be.

We have consumers, applicants or whatever we want to call them who pay a lot of money and yet they still have to adjust to the administrative system. Therefore people serve the system or the bureaucracy, instead of the other way around, where we are trying to serve people. We have that data in my constituency office and in every constituency office across the country.

I remember talking to the former minister of citizenship and immigration when she first was going to be appointed. She was very optimistic about what she could do as a minister because she had a constituency office in an urban riding with a high percentage of immigrants. She said that the work in the constituency office was something like 90% immigration. So she was very sensitized to that.

What happened to her and my conversations with her as the time changed and the senior administrators got hold of her and began to say that she could not do this and could not do that? Her optimism and her commitment to change seemed to disappear.

Eighty per cent of the work in my constituency office is immigration related. I certainly do not troll for it or ask for it but it is an expectation. People are knocking on the door and I see myself as the ombudsman of last resort. We try to get people to communicate with the department but in so many cases the department just cannot communicate with its own clients. It is a bureaucracy, as I said in my opening comments, which people who have to be served by this system cannot interact with.

We know it is certainly an overly complex system. We put in a new regime of legislation just a few years ago and we are still working the bugs out. I think the experience we are having with that new legislation needs to be adjusted because it really is not serving people the way I would like to see it.

Was it not the present minister who said publicly that if only he could become the immigration minister he would make the changes? I recall hearing those words from him. The talk around here was that he wanted to become the immigration minister and it was reported in the press. I am hoping that with that energy the immigration minister will begin delivering on this kind of system change and be the system change agent.

I am wondering if he will abandon the quota system. What quotas? We have all kinds of quotas and they are quotas by resources. It is often very discriminatory.

I have watched a succession of ministers and it just does not seem that the system improves, even though there is always a new program, a new review and now I hear about a six point plan.

If, in some circumstances, the department is shutting the door, it should do it honestly. Quit selling tickets on the airplane when the airplane is already full, is the example in that case. We are still advertising and saying that we are an open society and we want immigrants to come here but we do not have the resources or the capacity to deliver what we are saying to the international community. We take the people's money but we do no process the file.

I do not want to malign the department. I think the people are doing the best they can but we have observed a lack of administrative leadership and there are real problems.

What I have heard from the minister tonight so far is that everything is fine, that perhaps we can do a little better if we work just a little harder, we have a six point plan and all the rest of it. We have heard that all before.

My other colleague became a little excited and emotional in his comments but that represents a real concern that we want the minister and the department to succeed because if they do then Canada succeeds. Ministers and governments come and go but the department will there. Canada will still have an open face to the world and we need to do better than what we have been doing.

I will try and ask him a couple of specific questions. In view of the independent applicants, for instance, the lineup at Beijing, what is the current waiting list number? How long does it take for an applicant in Beijing to get the first interview? By when will the department resource that location, so that applicants will receive an interview within one year of the application?

I know that we are way off that standard at this point, but I am specifically asking about Beijing and the time limits. What is the backlog and how long will it take to get it down to the one year limit as it relates to getting an interview in Beijing?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I want to repeat what I said earlier, we have put some resources in budget 2005. Some $100 million for service delivery. That would result in better client service and apply, as well, to some of the resources in the call centres that we have, so that they are more client centred. It includes the portal that we would make available that would make people much more aware of both the department and what it does.

With respect to what we have been doing, I repeat again what I said on my occasions this evening, we have a levels plan that is tabled in the House every November and every member has an opportunity to have input.

However, the facts of life are that we have been very fortunate to have the demand exceed the supply or the levels. That speaks to the success of Canada. It does not necessarily mean that the system is wrong. We have had tremendous success and we constantly try to improve.

I have been characterized as a critic of the department in the past. I do not think anybody is ever going to point out that I wanted this job. I used to have a fairly senior portfolio when I was asked to take this one. I was quite happy where I was. I am happy now because I am not a defender of the department; I am actually someone who is working with departmental officials in the realization of all those goals and objectives that Canadians have identified through their parliamentary plan. Are we making some headway? I would like the member to acknowledge that over the course of these last four months we have put forward some initiatives that everybody would have applauded. I am not asking for plaudits but I, on behalf of the department, accept them.

With respect to the other questions regarding Beijing, I would like to answer each one of those specifically, and I will accept them in writing and return them in writing.

[Paul Forseth, Conservative, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Chair, my comment about the quota relates to resourcing because we know that an FTE, a staff member, a professional, can only handle approximately so many files in a year, and the department knows that. It makes that planning based on that.

However, when year after year our source points are tested by applicants, one would think that at some point there would be some kind of service demand relation that the department would respond to the kind of demand that it was getting out there in the field. If it does not do that, then it is artificially, by budget, setting a quota. This is what I have been seeing going on year after year at Beijing.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, the fact of the matter is that we are resourced to meet the levels that are outlined by Parliament. That has been the case ever since I have been here for 17 years. The levels are set by Parliament and then Parliament sets out the resources to ensure that the department can meet those resources. As I said, we have had demand exceed the positions available and so we will have to deal with those issues.

However, I want to give some good news, if it has not come out yet. About 80% of all spousal applications, for example, are done within 12 months. It is not fast enough, but it is pretty darned good. About 72% of temporary resident visas are issued within two days and 72% of student applications are finalized within 28 days. These are measures of a department that is actually meeting performance criteria set independently of its own mission.

So, not everything is bad. We acknowledge that we are making progress toward another level. That is already a reflection that we are our own critics, as we move forward. However, it is important to understand that we are moving forward.

[The Chair]

The hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill has one minute if she wants to wrap up this discussion.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, I am sure everyone is desolate that I only have one minute, but I would like to say not to the minister but to the whole House that this is a disappointing process. We spent four hours here and I did not notice even one specific answer.

We have a lot of wisdom in the House. There are many people who have a great deal of experience and a lot of heart for the immigration system. Yet tonight there were a lot of platitudes and very little specifics. I think it is a shame. Specific questions were asked and specific issues were raised, but other than some adept violin playing, there was very little in the way of a real exchange of specific, positive and helpful ideas.

We need to re-examine the whole system of committee of the whole, Mr. Chair. We have to make this work for Canadians better than it did tonight.

[The Chair]

It being 11:30 p.m. all votes are deemed to have been reported pursuant to Standing Order 81(4). The committee will rise and I will now leave the chair.

(All Citizenship and Immigration votes reported)