Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's virtually impossible to communicate with IRCC. If you use the telecentre, most of the time you can't get through. When you do get through, they tell you that they can't really say much; they're not very much help. If you use the web form, a lot of the time you won't get an a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm talking about things like people losing their jobs, people having to leave Canada because of the expiry of certain things because their application hasn't come through in time, people missing delivery of their child in Canada, or marriages breaking down. I have a client who

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would never suggest doing that if it was a security-related issue. I'm talking about, for example.... Sometimes an officer might have a question about somebody's job reference letter, an education diploma or maybe their English or their French is not quite at the standard that

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. I would 100% never recommend doing it in that case.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was nearly finished, but I wanted to give you some examples of things that happen regularly. You'll be prompted in one of the online forms to hit a button, and that button doesn't exist; applications that you've uploaded simply disappear; you're unable to log in to various po

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I do have some colleagues from various lawyers' organizations who do give feedback to IRCC. They keep asking for specific examples and we keep feeding that information back to them. However, it puts the burden on us to troubleshoot their system for them, and at the end of the day

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. Basically, there's a multiplicity of different online systems and different portals that you have to use to upload applications nowadays. They're very buggy and very glitchy. Whenever you try to upload an application, not only do you have, as one of the other witnesses talk

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. As a lawyer specializing in immigration law for more than 25 years, processing delays have been a thorn in my side for virtually my entire adult life, but I have never seen the sit

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. This is technology that the private sector has been using for decades. It's baffling to me how we can't use it in IRCC matters. A couple of weeks ago an entire refugee hearing was done online via Microsoft Teams. That is perhaps the most sensitive subject matter I c

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, the computer system and the IT infrastructure at IRCC are notoriously out of date. I really think that the government of the day has to bite the bullet and just invest in upgrading that infrastructure. Yes, it's a headache; it's difficult, and it's going to be expensive, but

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I have a couple of ideas in regard to that. I think citizenship oath-takings by Zoom are a wonderful initiative. It means you don't have to congregate people in one room. You can do it person by person. For women who cover themselves for religious or cultural reasons, this

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's interesting. When someone applies for a visa to visit Canada in the first place, most individuals have an invitation letter from a person in Canada who's inviting them for the visit, whether it's for business purposes or personal. Those invitation letters are not enforceab

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't think they're allowed to work more hours during the academic session because they are supposed to be studying full time. However, they really should be allowed to work more hours during non-academic breaks, for example, during COVID.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  On the issue of the bonds?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I'm not mistaken—I'd have to go back to double-check this—I believe there is a legal mechanism that allows it, but I've never seen it actually used. It is interesting to me that people in Canada who have already violated Canada's immigration laws and are in detention can post