Madam Speaker, recently I rose in the House following a very critical report from the Auditor General that highlighted some serious shortcomings in Canada's visa system. The Auditor General's report found what he called “disturbing weaknesses” in the way Canada's border and immigration officials issued visas. He noted that CBSA analysts were not properly trained, their work was rarely reviewed and there was no evidence that mandatory checks of their work were completed.
With regard to officials at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, the Auditor General found that many of the resources provided to our public servants were inadequate and out of date. He noted that security manuals had not been updated since 1999 and health screening procedures had been narrowly focused, primarily on tuberculosis and syphilis for the past 50 years. The report went on to say, “The system lacks basic elements to ensure that they”, meaning public servants, ”get the right information to make those decisions”. How can we trust the integrity of the visa system when we are failing our public servants by not providing them with the resources they need?
In general, the visa system is not serving Canada well. Every day in my office, and I think in MPs' offices across Canada, we deal with distraught constituents whose relatives have been denied visas to visit Canada, to participate in a wedding, attend a funeral or be present for the birth of a child. Every day we see cases where these denials are not justified or are the result of a lack of care and attention. There are visa offices, like Chandigarh in India, where the rejection rate for visitor visas is over 50%. This means that over half of the people who seek to visit Canada are told no, that they are not welcome.
These unjustified denials need to be addressed immediately. The situation is damaging Canada's reputation as a welcoming country and creating great distress to Canadians and their families overseas. I have personally seen the pain and sadness felt by these families when they learn that their relatives have been denied a chance to visit. When Canadians hear these stories and become aware of reports like that of the Auditor General, they rightfully ask themselves whether they can trust the integrity of the entire system.
If we cannot trust the decisions of visa officers who have allowed people into the country and we know that they are denying entry to worthy applicants, at least on some occasions, then we can see there is a major problem. It is issues like these, systemic issues, that need immediate attention and on which Canadians become outraged when they hear about how the government wastes their money and resources.
Just last week we heard how the minister's office directed departmental officials to concoct a made-up citizenship ceremony so Sun Media could have a photo op. When we hear about how our officials need better training and resources, why is the minister bending over backward so that a private media company can create news? Why is the department wasting precious resources on fake photo ops when our officials need resources and Canadians need immigrant services?
We heard that departmental officials were directed to make over 300 phone calls to recently-admitted citizens to Canada to try to entice them to come a fake citizenship ceremony. There are quotes by departmental officials who said that this was a lot of work for very little benefit and that this wasted resources.
This is not justified at a time when the Auditor General is pointing out that our officials are in need of resources because there is a lack of resources for them to do their jobs, particularly when there is a backlog of one million applicants worldwide and people are waiting years and years for all sorts of permanent resident applications.
I would ask the government for a further explanation as to why it is directing resources to things like fake photo ops when there is such a pressing need for immigration officials to spend time giving Canadians and their families the services they require and for which their taxes pay.