Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Sharma, go ahead.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, I agree with you that the system has to be changed. I'd have to think about whether the idea you proposed would be the best solution. You have to recall that when we had that type of system years ago, the backlogs got to be so huge that people would file their sponsorship a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I agree with that. It seems obvious that the only way we're going to be able to meet our quota for 2021 is by looking at the resources in Canada, regardless of whether they're in status or out of status. If they're working and they're contributing, we should be encouraging them t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I understood your question, I think we can focus on some of the positive things. As Mr. Sharma and I both said in our opening remarks, there's been a major move forward in digitalization. I think that's extremely positive, and I think that the more we move forward with that th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. We should expand the program, as I said in my opening remarks, to all persons in Canada. That's the only way we're going meet our quota in 2021, and it's the humane response.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I understand your concerns. We see lots of very significant delays in the processing of applications, and that situation has only been exacerbated by what's happening with COVID. People have talked for years about the need for some kind of ombudsperson to be able to take complai

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I agree. It seems to me we need to do everything we can to facilitate reunification of spouses in Canada. Notwithstanding the direction, there still will be discretion. I've seen the discretion exercised in very different ways by different officers. Some are very generous. S

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, absolutely; I think that would be a very positive step. The super visa for grandparents has made it much easier for parents and grandparents to be issued visas, because the government has made it clear that this is the expectation. I don't see any reason why a similar type o

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I read the direction. Obviously it's certainly a step in the right direction, because otherwise many visa officers would refuse an application by a spouse outside of Canada to come to Canada and would say, “No, you're coming as an immigrant. You should do a sponsorship applicatio

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Honourable committee members, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to appear before the committee. The COVID pandemic has had a dramatic impact on all aspects of immigration program delivery and the clients served by the program. Foreign nationals in Canada are often f

Finance committee  That's precisely our concern. The current pre-removal risk assessment is usually used after someone has already been rejected, so they get a second possibility of a review a year later, if their case is over a year, before removal. It's a paper review done by an officer. Now th

Finance committee  Thank you very much. It's an honour to be asked to appear before the House of Commons committee to speak on the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which, strangely, are contained in this budget bill. As I have been asked to speak before the finance commit