Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to speak again on an immigration matter, namely the motion by the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina, with whom I have had the pleasure to sit on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I would also like to congratulate my colleague from Scarborough—Agincourt for his speech just now on the specific issue of family reunification. I have also listened to the questions from the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas. I was on the committee with him for several years too. So I am very pleased to speak on this matter.
Let us remind the hon. members that we are dealing this morning with a motion that the government allow any applicant (unless they have serious criminality) who has filed their first in-Canada spousal or common law sponsorship application, accompanied by a permanent residency application, to be entitled to a temporary work permit and an automatic stay of removal until a decision is rendered on their application. This motion is a response to a real situation. It reflects the situation of citizens and permanent residents who come to our offices. At this time I also have applications being processed that relate to people who fall precisely into this category, for whom we have nothing more than discretionary recourse. The minister is the one with discretionary power to grant a permit.
I listened to what our colleagues from the NDP have said about the fact that, in many situations, the right hand does not know what the left one is doing. In committee, numerous witnesses and organizations working with immigrants, including the bar association, came to speak in favour of measures similar to those contained in the motion presented in the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
We have also heard from members of the government, including the parliamentary secretary, who have shown insensitivity toward the reality of immigrant families. Given the speeches we have heard this morning, I also believe that the government is insensitive toward the shortage of workers in this country. The people who fall into this category are often skilled workers. They also include people with unstable jobs and young families. Earlier, my colleague talked about children born to people who are in Canada temporarily. We have to remember whom we are talking about. There is also the whole tendency to support economic immigration. While it is no less important, the issue of family reunification is part of immigration policy and is the very cornerstone of that policy. We need to keep this in mind, because family reunification is a question of values, a question of our society and how we want to live together.
As I mentioned earlier, we need to consider the situation of young families and the impact of unjustified separation. This is not the first time this issue has been debated in Parliament. The Bloc Québécois supports the motion before us that the report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on family reunification be concurred in.
The Bloc Québécois believes that it is important to put a high value on the family. On February 12, we voted in favour of the committee's motion. I would also like to remind this House that the government members opposed the motion.
We know that the immigration process is long. It can take several months from the time an application for permanent residence is filed until a final decision is rendered. It makes sense to us to try to keep the couple and the family together during this process.
When things are not done this way and when the policy as currently written is maintained and upheld, thousands of families end up vulnerable and distressed.
The government has the moral duty to ensure that such families are treated with the greatest possible compassion. I think that all opposition members have stressed that now.
The motion strikes me as wholly reasonable. On the one hand, it does not apply to anyone who has committed a serious crime, that is, those who are inadmissible because of their involvement in organized crime.
On the other hand, there is a time limit. The spouse can have a temporary work permit and an automatic stay of removal. However, if the person's application were to be rejected, these advantages would be nullified and these privileges lost.
In the absence of regulations, I feel we need to ask the Canada Border Services Agency to revise its policy with respect to these cases in order to ensure that it properly respects the rules of equity and natural justice and allows these people to benefit from the immigration policy as it stands.
As I have just said, we also need to keep in mind the arbitrariness of an immigration policy that contradicts the objective of family reunification. Despite what the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and his departmental officials said in committee when the Immigration Act was being reviewed, there is no efficient process at this time for examining all of the circumstances of a file before someone is removed from the country. Nor is there any hearing process which would allow people to defend themselves and raise questions of law.
Permanent residents, Canadian citizens, are therefore deprived of the possibility of claiming their rights and drawing attention to one important element in the legislation, which is family reunification and the importance of the family to our values.
I would also encourage hon. members to keep in mind the shortage of Immigration and Refugee Board members. The shortage of IRB members has a serious negative impact on case processing times.
When the Conservatives came to power, there were five IRB vacancies. Their management of IRB appointments has been nothing short of disastrous. The government has deliberately slowed the process for appointing and reappointing board members. As a result, immigration claims processing was plagued with undue delays. During most of the Conservatives' mandate, the average vacancy rate for commissioners has been 36%.
In 2008, things were so bad that the IRB chair warned the Conservative government about its inaction and lack of initiative in appointing new board members. He emphasized the impact of the crisis. He told us all about the IRB's current crisis situation.
The situation is disastrous, and the chair of the IRB had to publicly chastise the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism for failing to carry out his duty to appoint commissioners.
As the official IRB report states, “The growing deficit of decision-makers has a direct impact on the IRB's ability to render fast and fair decisions”.
A number of organizations working with immigrants and refugees have testified about the impact on the immigration system of the lack of IRB members to hold hearings and render decisions. Since the ongoing shortage began, it has been impossible to find out when immigration claims involving family reunification cases were scheduled for hearing.
This motion addresses issues related to family reunification and, as such, we must remind the minister and those in charge at Citizenship and Immigration Canada of the pressing need to review our immigration policy and honour the role and importance of family values.
As I mentioned earlier, this is the cornerstone of the Canadian policy.
What we find unfortunate today is that the primary purpose of the immigration policy has changed. Canada's current immigration policy has led to a decrease in the family component of the immigrant pool over the past decade. Immigration by family members used to account in general for 60% of the annual flow. Now it is less than 20%. The policy favours economic immigrants more.
The changes made to the regulations before the Immigration Act was implemented eliminated the assisted relative class. I believe that some members mentioned this earlier. In addition, the Immigration Act changed family class applications, restricting discretionary authority during the selection process and bringing in unfair exclusion policies.
I would remind the House that under the law, families' right to immigrate and remain in Canada is subject to many exceptions and restrictions. Immigrating is therefore not as easy as all that, and it takes a long time to process immigration applications.
As a general rule, permanent residents and citizens can sponsor spouses, common-law and conjugal partners and their children. There are rare exceptions, as I mentioned earlier, where spouses are inadmissible. But I find the current situation completely unacceptable, and it is condemned in the motion.
We would be in favour of amending the immigration policy so that spouses who are already here can be given a work permit and allowed to stay in Canada with their family while their application is being processed.
I would also like to talk about issues such as the disparity in application processing times among visa offices. Citizenship and Immigration Canada has made a public commitment to adopt a service standard of six months for processing sponsorship applications for spouses, common law and conjugal partners and dependent children. Several announcements have been made.
My colleague said earlier that 80% of cases were finalized in three months in New Delhi. My figures may be somewhat out of date, but the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website gives time frames for processing family reunification applications.
I would also like to add that it is obvious from this website that there is a longer waiting period in certain countries. There is therefore a disparity in the way applications are processed and it seems not to bear any relation to the program's integrity.
I would therefore invite the minister to debate this and the committee to examine more specifically the disparities between one office and another in processing times. This will likely turn up cases that are purely political and that have influenced decision makers.
I also believe that sponsorship applications should be finalized, and at the very least there should be a commitment once the person is here that his or her application will be finalized within a reasonable length of time. That could be one year, since medical exams are usually valid for a year. That would spare sponsored persons the expense of a second medical.
I am also of the opinion that Citizenship and Immigration Canada is not coming clean about the processing times for sponsorship applications. Their website gives the impression that they are handled within a predictable length of time, regardless of where they come from, and that is not the case.
In the meantime, Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to pay substantial application fees with the false hope that their files will be processed within a predictable period of time.
The sponsorship situation is linked to policy decisions. It is a matter of values. The government can decide that, by virtue of Canadian values, admission to Canada is not justified under current policies. Such a decision has major consequences.
We feel that the opposition members have taken a stand on what is important for them and have centred their actions on the values of family reunification. We cannot say the same for the government members.
One assumes this is a political decision. Family is a fundamental issue and as such deserves public debate. That is why we are debating this matter today.
If the government intends to assign a low priority to family reunification, it ought to come out and say so openly, so that future immigrants can make informed decisions about coming to Canada. The lengthy processing times outside Canada should be included in the factors for assessing sponsorship applications within Canada.
I will make that my conclusion. I have raised several important points and I have contributed certain points that are connected to our experiences as members of Parliament with respect to this important issue which touches our hearts and engenders compassion. Immigrants are important and we must enact open policies.
