Joe Volpe

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

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”.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

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.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, all countries are showing interest in our system. We are one of four countries in the world that actually has an open system. My good colleague and friend from Thunder Bay is asking me to answer the question. The answer is yes.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I am delighted to answer that question. We have about 170,000 brand new requests for citizenship every year. We have a very large number of applications for proofs of citizenship.

I indicated that in order to do this job properly, we need to have modern equipment and modern processes in place in order to respond expeditiously. All of that takes money. We have put in $69 million over the next two years in order to reduce the processing time. That $69 million does not go just for machinery. It does not go just toward putting people in place to process the files. It goes toward ensuring that justice, CSIS and the RCMP have the appropriate personnel in place to conduct the requisite checks and make the appropriate decisions that go with processing applications.

All of those funds do not go simply to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. They go to all of those other agencies that are important players in ensuring that when we accord citizenship it goes to the applicant who is one we would want as a shareholder in this great nation.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, the Government of Canada values all of those men and women and those organizations which, through their altruism, are manifestations of those values that are typically Canadian as they sponsor many of these refugees.

There has been a problem, and I acknowledge that. In part it is because many of those who have made application for landing as refugees have not always met the criteria. There are many who have been identified as ineligible. I hate to give examples but I do it for illustrative purposes and I do not mean to tarnish anyone by it, but it is quite understandable that some of the current refugees are hoping that through private sponsorship they can get some of their relatives in, their next of kin. While that may be a legitimate objective on their part, it really does not fit the criteria of the private sponsorship of refugees.

What we have already planned for this year is a tripartite conference, including the Government of Canada, NGOs, private sponsors and the UNHCR in an effort to try to build the kinds of criteria and acceptance of criteria by all partners so that we can have a better outcome.

The other thing we have to keep in mind is that in many places where we would have some of the very legitimate applicants for refugees, we do have logistical problems that have nothing to do with us but are all indigenous to the territory, such as, the post office, other methods of collecting data and getting people from point A to point B. We are working on that and that is why we need to have the UNHCR involved.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, we agree that the greater the happiness of the applicants who make Canada their home, the more productive and competitive they become and make a contribution to the entire common wheel. When we talk about the 60-40 split, and Parliament in its wisdom considers how that will be determined, we are conscious of course of the fact that the mix must invariably change.

In an earlier question one of my colleagues asked what would happen to the parent and grandparent category and whether it would go up or down? As long as we maintain the kinds of mixes that the member has identified of 60-40, one cannot help but think that the backlog in the family class will constantly go up. One only has to figure out the numbers. It is going to happen. It has nothing to do with bad service. It has nothing to do with bad administration. It has nothing to do with disinterested employees. It has everything to do with the way the numbers operate.

Parliament will have to consider in the mix whether it should be 60-40, whether the 60 should drop or rise or whether the 40 should drop or rise. In that context, we also have to take a look at the mix within the 40 and 60 and whether we are going to increase the range from the 220,000 or 240,000 and, perhaps as the member indicated earlier, bring it closer to the 1% mark, which is about 300,000. We will be looking at ranges and percentages within ranges as well.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, the member is right and I accept those figures. The challenge for us is not all immigration. I gave an indication earlier that this department is becoming much more a recruiter. It is becoming much more proactive and less of an administrative department even though it still needs to address the administrative requirements.

The reason it is not all citizenship and immigration is because those figures are also alarm bells for all government departments. They must understand the policy implications that would flow from those figures.

For example, provincial education departments around the country must be thinking about how they can meet these particular targets. If 70% of all new jobs created in the next five years are going to require post-secondary education and/or training, then why is it that we tolerate an early high school dropout rate that hovers around the 30% mark? If only 6% of all new jobs within five years are going to require less than a high school diploma, how can we tolerate the built-in structural unemployment that must be created when we have 6% of the jobs being sought after by 30% of the population? Of the 70% only 41% actually have post-secondary education.

Those challenges go across government departments and do not apply just to us. As I indicated earlier, one of my six priority items is to bring as many young men and women into our system through international student visas, so that we have the advantage of their desire and ambition to grow academically, materially and economically here in Canada.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I had an occasion on Friday night to meet with a group of individuals who are experts in international migration. One of them is one of our own professors at Queen's who actually devised that 1% figure.

I asked where that number of 1% came from? Does it represent the net immigrants and the net number of migration? Does it represent the net number of people we bring in minus the birth rate, death rate, et cetera? He said that it seemed like a really good number. It has become part of the mythology around which much immigration policy is developed.

I do not think I have personally ever used the 1% number, but the 1% figure, as demographers would say, is what we require in order to keep our population current and to replace ourselves. We are in the process of establishing a range target, as I indicated in an earlier answer, for Parliament to consider, but we do it on the basis of a variety of figures, including a legal market assessment in terms of the capacity to process that many people.

So far, Parliament, in its wisdom, has said the range shall be 220,000 to 240,000 or 245,000. Until we get Parliament to change that view, the 1% figure will have to wait a little longer.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, let me thank the hon. member for acknowledging that we are keeping the promises that we make. He did acknowledge the fact that we have done some things. In the four short months that I have been here, I have already delivered on some of the promises or priorities that I set.

One of them, by the way, is that I asked, in my capacity as minister, for the member and other members of the committee to do some of their consultations across the country on a new Citizenship Act and to send to me the recommendations that they would like to see considered in the crafting of a Citizenship Act that would come before the committee and the House.

I would like to have a forward looking picture of that possibility, but that will depend on several members in the House tomorrow night and whether or not we will be able to do it.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, the investment category or the business class category for immigration is not designed to give people fast track to citizenship. It is really an opportunity for people to come here and make an investment, and thereby qualify for permanent residency. Once the residency is established, the clock starts ticking as a qualification and a qualifier for citizenship.

We must always do our due diligence with respect to any of those who make an investment in the country or who bring particular skills into the country. That due diligence, with respect to those who come to make a cash investment, has do with the accounting system we use, and we need to see that it is bona fide.

The idea of the investor category was to have people come here, make an investment and create jobs. We need to see real and legitimate money. In terms of the other skilled workers, they have to bring their talents to bear on the economy as well. We bring all of those things together. There is not a process that allows anybody to circumvent the rules that apply to everybody else.