Debates of May 24th, 2018

Department of Citizenship and Immigration—Main Estimates, 2018-19

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, can the minister please tell the House which objective criteria he is referring to, and which candidate he feels best suits those objective criteria?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, as I said, the International Organization for Migration is a valued partner of Canada. We take our partnership with the IOM as well as the UNHCR very seriously. We have worked with them for many years in both the selection of refugee cases and in their referral to us, as well as in transporting refugees to Canada and interviewing them. No decision has been taken with respect to Canada's support of the future head of the International Organization for Migration.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, what are the objective criteria that the minister just mentioned, and which candidate does the minister best feel suits those criteria, given that June is about a week away?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, the fact of the matter is that the decision will be made based on objective criteria. No decision has been made yet on whom we will support as a country.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, it is May 24, and we are sitting in the House of Commons. I am just wondering if the minister could tell the House what the objective criteria are that he is going to be using to make a decision for this country in a very short period of time.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, they are objective criteria, not subjective criteria, and the decision will be based on that. No decision has been made on whom to support as the future head of the IOM.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, I suggest that there should be a list. What is the list of objective criteria that the minister is using to evaluate this very significant decision that could have significant implications with one of our major trading partners as we are entering into an agreement regarding NAFTA?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, with respect to the decision-making process of Canada, I am paid by Canadian tax dollars and therefore I make decisions in the best interests of Canadians and Canada. We do not make our decisions on this side of the House based on criteria from other countries. Based on objective criteria, we will support the candidate who serves the best interest of Canadians and of Canada.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, what are the objective criteria?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would be very pleased to table the objective criteria.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, June is next month. There are potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, and we are looking at the main estimates. I am wondering if the minister has any idea whatsoever, given that he is making this decision, what the objective criteria are. One would think that the minister of the crown responsible for this decision, after he has expounded the virtues of the objective criteria, should be able to tell the House what the objective criteria are.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, the member opposite can understand that we would of course support the right candidate based on objective criteria. If the member opposite is interested in knowing what those criteria are, we would be happy to table the objective criteria as soon as we are able to do so. The election has not happened. The decision has not been made. The election, once again, is in June. We are in May 2018. We will be making a decision on whom to support very soon.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, it is May 24. This is a significant decision. The minister has chided me for saying that he is making a decision based on objective criteria, so what are they?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, I am again fascinated that the official opposition is using its valued time to question a minister to ask about the intricate details of an election that has not occurred yet and on a decision that we have not made yet. That decision will be based on objective criteria that serve the best interests of Canada and of Canadians.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, the International Organization for Migration has asked for additional funds from the government. It has not responded to an audit that was done in the last couple of years with regard to service delivery that it has provided to Canada, and that audit found there were deficiencies. The current Director General sat in front of a parliamentary committee and has still not provided a response to our parliamentary committee on the deficiencies that were found therein.

The minister does not know what the objective criteria are—that is very clear—so I will ask him another question. Were there representatives from Canada sent to the party that Ambassador Nikki Haley just had at the United Nations in support of Mr. Ken Isaacs?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, it is quite interesting that just in my previous response I made it very clear that we would be very pleased to table the criteria. Obviously, that is something that we are happy to commit to, and to indicate that I am not aware of the criteria for Canada's support for the next candidate to head the IOM is blatantly false. No decision has been made yet. Despite the insinuations of the member opposite, any decision that we make with respect to supporting the future head of the IOM will be based on Canadian interests and Canadian considerations, not on contributions of Fox News or The Rebel Media.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, the minister just said that he knew what the objective criteria were. What are the objective criteria?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, the Minister of Foreign Affairs provides the final approval on Canada's IOM vote. The IOM is an important partner for Canada. The UNHCR is an important partner for Canada. We believe in multilateralism. That is why Canada is re-engaging with the world. We are signing more trade agreements than ever before. We are running for the Security Council.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, we should be providing input into this objective criteria process, given that the IOM is asking for hundreds of millions of dollars from Canada. Therefore, one would think that the minister would want to have some input into that criteria. What advice has the minister given with respect to which candidate he wants to see selected and why?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, it is very simple. No decision has been made. The election is not occurring this month; it is occurring in June 2018. Any decision that will be made in supporting a particular candidate will be based on objective criteria that is based on our national interests, not on the considerations of some far-right media outlet.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, June is next week and the minister ostensibly should have been providing feedback to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. What are the objective criteria that the minister is using? Are they things like the amount of investment that is being asked for? Is it new programming? Is it the ability to respond to some of the audit criteria?

I am just asking what advice the minister is providing, as the minister of the crown for immigration, with regard to which candidate he wants to select. What criteria or what advice has he provided to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, given the election is happening in about a week?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, the election is on June 29. No decision has been made with respect to Canada's decision. Again, our decision to support the future head of the IOM will be based on the objective criteria, which I have indicated I am pleased to table to the House.

The member opposite has criticized the UN on a number of occasions. She has criticized other international partners time and again. Therefore, I am pleased that the party opposite has now woken up, finally, to Canada's role internationally, and the importance of multilateral organizations like the IOM and its value to our immigration system.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, the forum of international organizations is a healthy thing. That is why the minister should be telling the House what criteria he is using to select a candidate who is going to be in charge of an international organization that is providing refugee and humanitarian support and is in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars. This is not a laughing matter. Why can he not tell the House what the objective criteria are? This is a huge issue in the international community right now. This is beyond bananas.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chair, what is not a laughing matter is cutting refugee health care. Where was the passion of that member when she was in office when her government demonized refugees, when it cut refugee health services to the most vulnerable people in the world, pregnant women, victims of torture? Where was she when live-in caregiver families had to wait five to seven years to reunite with their families? Where was she when Jason Kenney used to call refugees “bogus”? Where was she when her party set up snitch lines and un-Canadian values of isolating women from citizenship ceremonies? Where was her passion then?

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to begin by highlighting how our government is working to help families through immigration, especially by reducing backlogs and shortening processing times for newcomers to Canada.

I will deliver 10-minute remarks, using data provided by the great public servants of our country and not from Google or Wikipedia, and then I will ask a few questions.

As many of you know, moving to a new country can be difficult. That is why we allow people to immigrate with their spouses and children. My riding of Surrey Centre is home to thousands of new immigrants, in fact almost 1,000 a month. Last year, we implemented our promise to raise the age of eligible dependants who accompany their parents from under 19 to under 22. This allows more families to bring their older children with them. We also allow for subsequent sponsorship of other relatives, including parents, grandparents, and spouses.

However, many of my hon. colleagues have met newcomers who have faced the hardship of family separation. We all know how difficult it can be to hear the stories of people who have waited for a long period of time to bring their immigration process to fruition. That is why reuniting families has been and will continue to be one of the top immigration priorities of our country. It is clear to us that keeping families together helps to improve their integration into Canadian society, helps to improve their economic outcomes, and helps them to go on to contribute to their new homes in Canada.

However, saying this is one thing and making it happen is another. In December 2016, we announced improvements to Canada's spousal sponsorship application process to make it more efficient and easier to navigate. These changes included new and improved spousal sponsorship application packages, which were made simpler for sponsors and applicants to understand and use.

Then, as part of our commitment to enhancing client services, we also responded to feedback from applicants and made additional improvements to the application package in June 2017. All along, the plan has been to improve the spousal sponsorship process and make it faster and easier for Canadians and permanent residents to unite with their loved ones. These initiatives have yielded results.

For example, in December 2016, there were almost 75,000 people in the backlog of global spouses and partners. As of the end of 2017, more than 80% of those people had received final decisions on their applications. This means that thanks to these changes, spouses and partners are being reunited here more quickly. In fact, we have cut wait times for spouses from 26 months down to 12 months.

These are important changes. Canadians with a partner or a spouse who is abroad should not have to wait for years to have that person immigrate, nor should those already here in Canada be left uncertain of whether they will be allowed to stay. We want all newcomers to integrate well into their communities and succeed. Speeding up family reunification helps them to do that, and we all benefit from it.

We continue to listen to our clients, and we continue to work to improve the process. The government overhauled the spousal application package to make it more straightforward, simpler to navigate, and easier to understand. We have also made some changes to avoid unnecessary delays due to the submission of documents. Now spousal applicants submit their schedule A, the background declaration forms, as well as police certificates, as part of their initial paper application process. This helps to process applications even more quickly. I should note that the government will continue to listen to those who are in the application process and, based on their feedback, will act to continually improve service.

Allow me to add a few words on our actions to reunite Canadian citizens and permanent residents with their parents and grandparents. We continue to improve Canada's sponsorship program for parents and grandparents because it, too, helps to strengthen both Canadian society and our economy. We realize that helping people reunite with their parents and grandparents is an important issue for many families in this country. As a result, we've made the parent and grandparent program more fair and transparent, and we are working with potential sponsors to ensure that they are informed and aware of what they need to do in this process.

We doubled the maximum number of parent and grandparent sponsorship applications for processing, from 5,000 to 10,000. We also significantly reduced the inventory of applications by over 80%, from 168,000 applications in 2011 to approximately 29,600 in December 2017. As well, it is worth noting that families can also consider the parent and grandparent super visa, which allows holders to stay in Canada for up to two years on the initial visit compared to six months for a regular visa.

Finally, I will outline the actions we have taken to improve the processing of applications under the previous live-in caregiver program, which was closed in 2014 with a significant inventory of outstanding applications. In fact, in my office alone, I had over 40 such live-in caregivers who had been waiting for more than seven years to get their applications processed.

Our government places great value on the services that caregivers provide to families and communities in Canada. We recognize the role they have played in supporting Canadian children and aging parents, in contributing to communities, and in helping to grow Canada's economy. Because of this, our government will continue to ensure that caregivers and their families are reunited in Canada faster.

To respond to this, the government is committed to eliminating at least 80% of the backlog of live-in caregiver program cases by the end of this year. In fact, we have already reduced the wait time for caregivers from seven years to less than 12 months. This is an achievement that we can all be proud of, as it allows working caregivers to reunite with their families much more quickly.

Under the current caregiver programs, processing times are even shorter, at six months or less. As the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has stated, we will continue to ensure that caregivers have a pathway to permanent residency. In fact, we are currently reviewing the programs we provide with a view to improving them.

I keep hearing my Conservative colleagues state that irregular migrants are taking spots or are causing delays in the immigration of regular migrants, but in my riding of Surrey Centre, nothing could be further from the truth. Wait times for every category—live-in caregiver, family, and spousal—have decreased. Wait times in the economic categories of express entry or government-sponsored refugees have also decreased.

In closing, I note that our government is determined to support the families of people who immigrate to Canada. We will do so whether by reuniting spouses and partners, improving programs for parents and grandparents, or by reducing the backlog of caregiver applications. The improvements we have made to our programs will continue to help newcomers integrate, build stronger ties, and to contribute to the future of Canada.