Joe Volpe

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, we cannot object to those who want to come to Canada to choose a better life, no matter what their background; however, let me go to the issue of the point system.

From time to time Citizenship and Immigration Canada, in consultation with all of its other related departments, and in complete awareness, hopefully, of the conditions in Canada, will have occasion to change the point system, so that those who are invited into Canada or are in fact recruited into Canada meet the requirements that the economy dictates.

Keeping that in mind, I guess that I can say yes, the department is always looking at ways to fine tune the system, so that it reflects the needs of the moment, but that process does not happen overnight. It takes some consultation, in which we are engaged, and then we make a decision. It goes through a process itself in order to make the point system and Parliament is always engaged at the end about what we do.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I have a particular attachment to Canadian citizenship. I value it perhaps as much as the next person and perhaps more, in part because I had to swear allegiance to Canada and acquire that citizenship.

I am proud to say that my grandfather who lived here at the turn of the 19th century was a Canadian citizen. He had been a British subject prior to that. He conferred that same status on to my mother. I would have had it had I not been born someplace else. However, the circumstances allowed me to apply for citizenship.

In terms of two levels of citizenship, we just need to take a look at some of the members here in the House right now. Six were born outside the country. Two more were second generation. Such is the value of our citizenship that those who were born elsewhere can take a seat in the House. I have been fortunate enough to be called to cabinet. I joked earlier about the shelf life of people in my position, but the fact of the matter is that this is a wonderful place that values citizenship. It allows us all the opportunity to come, to be a part of, to be shareholders this great enterprise and to be able to make some of those decisions.

How do we lose our citizenship? We lose it if we acquire it by fraudulent means. That means that we must have misrepresented the case that qualified us to be here and to become permanent residents or to acquire citizenship. I do not think anybody would suggest that if it was acquired fraudulently, that it should be retained. Does the process require a series of judicial mechanisms? Perhaps. The only way people can lose their citizenship is by misrepresenting their case. Bill C-18, a bill that died on the order paper, did have that judicial process.

When will I present another bill? It will be up to members tomorrow night I guess.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, the member is right. The European Union is in a constant state of evolution and seems to move ever in an expansive fashion, bringing in more and more countries.

We indicated that we would do an analysis of all the criteria related to visas and to passports, the security of documentation. Once we complete that, we would make a decision. That decision would stand for about a year to two years, after which we would then re-evaluate our position. We would do that in consultation with the authorities that the Chair would know quite well, foreign affairs, international trade, CSIS, the RCMP, all those that are concerned with the security of persons and the security of documentation, to ensure that we could allow for the free flow of people, again always keeping in mind the security needs of Canadians.

However, we need to keep in mind that the relationships of the European nations one to the other really have very little bearing on their relationship with us. They have certain obligations to the Schengen agreement, but that does not apply to us. However, we take it into consideration as we do our assessment.

We hope to arrive at a normalization of visa permissions and restrictions in due course, but we will take all the appropriate considerations into balance first.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I suppose if the member who had asked me questions prior to this member would have raised that, he probably would have said that it is not up to me to do that. That is a provincial jurisdiction.

When we do an assessment of qualifications, whether they are earned on the job or in an academic institution, these assessments are done locally and we respect that jurisdiction.

Because we are talking about skill sets that are learned and earned elsewhere, I want to advise the House as well that one of my other initiatives and one of my other priorities was to bring as many students through the international student visa program in the hope that we would get many of these young men and women to become attached to our country, maybe through a particular province, through the study program and through the application of work afterwards.

That is why I indicated I would provide them all with a work visa that would last for two years, provided they came from beyond the three major cities in the country, so they could begin to develop roots on the area and then apply for permanent residency.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, one of the frustrating things sometimes that we deal with is that people ask, “Why don't you get all of those who are unemployed in some place?” I am happy to mention that in passing with some of my colleagues in Newfoundland and Labrador they say that they would like to get back all those who have landed in Fort McMurray. There is a bigger population of those from Atlantic Canada in Alberta than there. They want to bring them back.

We try to engage the province in recruiting in Canada in all those places where we have people. Most of rural Canada is now getting depopulated because people move on their own and they ask us to provide them with the skills to go where those jobs are. We gladly do that.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I think some of the arguments are beginning to be a little circular. The member ought to understand that we are spending a lot of money and developing a come to Canada portal so that we can encourage people from all over the world to see what we need province by province, industry by industry. We would have that kind of advertisement right off the bat.

As for those areas around the country that have 25% unemployment, let me tell the member and the House what we are doing. Together with HRSD, we are putting in place training programs to take advantage of those who are long term unemployable because of the structure of the economy, the changing economy where they are. We have spent $25 million to establish learning centres sponsored by unions with specific skills.

We entered into AHRD agreements and ASEP agreements with the aboriginal community to take advantage of all of those who are available in those two communities in those areas. We also engage in skills development locally and in other places to help people transfer from where they are to where the jobs might be. Those are very specific programs. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year in order to bring skilled labour to a demand economy.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I will repeat it again. What we do is we go out of our way to research out people. In fact, the department is becoming much more of a recruitment agency worldwide for those who want to come to Canada and fit the needs of Canadians everywhere. We engage the provinces and we are asking them to be a greater and much more involved partner in seeking out those who they think meet the needs of their particular province as dictated by the economy of the moment.

However, we cannot, while we are doing that long term, ignore the fact that the economy requires people then and there. The reason we have the temporary workers program is so we can be immediate while we are planning long range.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I can appreciate a little bit of the frustration of the member opposite. If the economy is humming along, as it is currently in Alberta and in other places, we want to take advantage of that, not just in the short term but also to build a society on the basis of that long term. That is why the provincial nominee program is working and working well. The provinces are given an opportunity to select the people they would like or select the people they would like to permanently land.

We can help. They will have an opportunity in November when we set the broad ranges and we might be able to increase them. Those are the very first two steps that need to take place but some of these cannot take place until there is the final labour market assessment in Canada overall.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, the response is multifaceted. The very first thing is that we need to be able to set broader targets on the range of people we would bring into the country. The second thing we need to do is develop a system that would allow for some of the these skill sets to be brought in. In other words, we have to classify our prospective applicants differently.

We then have to engage the provinces, in this case the province of Alberta, through the provincial nominee program in order to draw such people in, because they will do some of that research themselves. They will tell us how many people they want to be landed in their province, specifically because they meet the needs of their particular province. We did that last year. There was huge participation by the provincial authorities in the 236,000 that we landed last year.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, the member must know that this is a duty that is discharged by our colleague departments at HRSD to do the market analysis. We are in the business of following up on that once a position has been validated, meaning that there is not a Canadian who can fill it, whether he or she has the skill sets or not, and then we are asked to provide the appropriate visas to ensure that others can fill that spot so that the economy does not implode.