Mr. Speaker, on March 4, I asked the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration why the Conservative government had cut staffing levels by one-third in the immigration section at the Kyiv Embassy in Ukraine in 2006. The minister, in typical fashion, did not answer the question. However, the following morning he put out a press release under the title, “MP Misleads Ukrainian Canadians About Immigration From Ukraine”.
Further down, he writes the facts. I will quote the minister's press release. He says:
since mid-2006, there have been no reductions in staffing in the visa section of the Canadian Embassy in Ukraine.
Unfortunately for the minister, a search of the Internet shows that the cuts did in fact occur under the Conservative government's watch in 2006. They were confirmed by Canadian embassy program officer, Inna Tsarkova, who stated in an October 26, 2006 interview in the Kyiv Post:
In the immigration section of the Canadian Embassy in Kyiv, this review and adjustment resulted in the elimination of one immigration officer position and two clerical/support positions -- a registry supervisor and a cashier. This was a one-third reduction of staff in the immigration section.
Under the title, “The Facts”, in his press release, he goes on to state, “Under our Conservative government there has been an increase in emigration from Ukraine”.
Once again, in a search on the Internet, on the minister's very own departmental website under “Statistics and Facts” is a table with the heading, “Permanent Residents From Ukraine By Year”. It starts in 1998 and goes through to 2007. For the Liberal years, from 1998 to 2005, the average was 2,933. In 2006 and 2007, under the Conservatives and after the one-third cut that the minister denied in a press release having taken place, it was 2,025. That is a 44.8% decrease.
How could the minister have claimed that there were no cuts in staff and that there was an increase in immigration when the facts clearly demonstrate that the reverse is true?
Even worse, as one goes through the Citizenship and Immigration website, one finds the following. In Kyiv, what is the waiting time for 80% of cases to be finalized for skilled workers to immigrate to Canada? The worst in the world. The waiting time has gone up from 34 months under the Liberals to 77 months, six and a half years. The processing time for spouses is the worst in Europe. This has gone from 10 months to 14 months under the Conservatives. Let us do another reality check. The waiting time for dependent children went from eight months to thirteen months and parental reunification went from 17 months to 22 months.
The minister's response in the House to my question and the subsequent press release should not only be taken with a great deal of skepticism, it was inaccurate in its wording. What the minister claims as fact was clearly false. The minister should spend less time attacking his parliamentary colleagues and expend his time and resources fixing the situation in the embassy in Kyiv.