Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, absolutely. The amendments contain provisions, for instance, to ensure transparency in the application of the proposed new authority. These include ensuring that the economic goal upon which the minister seeks to conduct an attribute-based round be contained in the ministerial instruction itself, which is posted publicly on the departmental website.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, it can. If I may explain, to date the express entry system has in fact been amended to increase the number of points provided to candidates who are French speakers or bilingual within the system. To date, the means by which the department is able to recognize and contribute to this goal is through the addition of extra points.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can confirm that the proposed amendments have no impact on the selection authority that was granted to Quebec via the Canada-Québec Accord.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would be happy to. The amendments to the express entry provisions in the act essentially provide the ability for the minister to issue instructions that would focus on particular candidate attributes in the express entry pool and allow for invitation rounds to focus on individuals with those particular attributes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The pandemic in particular highlighted the value to the government and the immigration program of inviting those who wish to come to Canada to participate in the labour market, whether it be in central services or in areas of the economy where labour is needed. This, I would add, was something we were striving to do prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic placed a focus on the need for our economic immigration programs to be as flexible and nimble as possible to address what could be labour market shortages sectorally, nationally or regionally.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss the proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that are included in the budget implementation act. My name is Philip Somogyvari, and I am director general of strategic policy and planning at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Finance committee  Thank you, Chair, for the question. That is correct. This is an area of selection, which is an area of jurisdiction of Quebec, pursuant to the accord.

Finance committee  The amendments to the express entry system will further support Canada's ability to respond to a broader variety of labour market needs across the country by allowing what are called “rounds of invitation” to be tailored to more specific attributes that would be assessed and recommended to the minister, for which the minister would relay through instructions.

Finance committee  Currently, these needs are assessed through the express entry profile builder, for which the candidate will relay various attributes, including human capital, education, skills and work experience. In the presence of an offer of arranged employment, those would essentially be assessed and scored for us to be able to respond to the needs across the country in that manner.