:
I call the meeting to order.
Good morning, and welcome.
On behalf of our committee I want to welcome the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to our committee hearing this morning. Also, I want to welcome his officials, Deputy Minister Richard Fadden, and Wayne Ganim, chief financial officer and director general of the finance branch. Welcome.
The minister has been here on a couple of occasions, so he's well familiar with the operation of the committee. He is here to speak to us about his estimates today. The committee of course will have comments and questions afterwards. I think the minister will be here until about 10:45, after which we will call the various votes in the estimates, and what have you.
Minister, I'll turn it over to you for your opening comments.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a real pleasure to appear before the committee again.
Bonjour.
I place before you, my colleagues, my department's supplementary estimates for the current fiscal year, which I respectfully submit for the committee's consideration and approval.
I believe the majority of the items here are fairly routine in nature, so if I may, I will use my opening remarks to address some broader matters regarding citizenship and immigration. I will of course respond to any questions members may have.
Accountability is a priority for this government, Mr. Chairman.
[Translation]
Over the past few months, I've had the opportunity to travel across this country and see firsthand how Citizenship and Immigration is contributing to the country.
[English]
At citizenship ceremonies I've seen the joy and determination in the faces of new citizens. In Manitoba I met with Karen refugees who've arrived over the past few months. I've met and talked with people at community agencies, who work with dedication and care to deliver support to newcomers. I've also seen how much more we could do to build this country, and why we must do more. Immigration has been a cornerstone of our prosperity for decades, and it will be even more critical in the future; in fact it's expected that immigration will account for all net growth in our labour force within ten years.
[Translation]
We need that labour force.
[English]
This summer in Whistler, British Columbia, business owners told me they were short 3,500 workers. They are worried that they won't have the people to run the ski lifts, work in the restaurants, or make beds this winter. Managers are already pitching in to clean hotel rooms.
But the problem is bigger than that. The B.C. Ministry of Economic Development says new infrastructure projects planned or under way are valued at $100 billion. In my home province of Alberta, the Canadian Energy Research Institute says $100 billion will be invested in the oil sands by 2020. There is a desperate need for workers to support these investments.
[Translation]
Our future success depends to a very large extent on our ability to address these challenges.
[English]
Certainly we need more people. As members are aware, I tabled our new immigration plan last week. We intend to accept between 240,000 and 265,000 immigrants in 2007, the highest planning range in 15 years. But our success is not measured in mere numbers; success in immigration is ensuring that those who come here are happy and stay here. In the 1980s, after a year in Canada, skilled worker immigrants were earning one-quarter more than the Canadian average. In 2003 their earnings were almost one-third less than their Canadian-born counterparts after one year. We need to look at what went wrong over the past decade and fix it.
Settlement funding for newcomers has been static since the mid-1990s, but the number of immigrants has been increasing steadily. We have to do more than say welcome to Canada, and good luck. Immigrants have to be supported with adequate resources. Settlement programs are exactly what you would expect—programs that help newcomers get settled here. Language and literacy training is key, but integration programs are just as important. Teaching newcomers how to register their children in school, how to find a doctor, and how to look for a job are all critical to welcoming newcomers and getting them off to a good start. Those are simple things to you and me, but essential services for newcomers.
[Translation]
That is why our government has committed an additional $307 million to settlement funding over the next two years to support our partners in the delivery of these important services.
[English]
We're also providing direct help to newcomers. We've cut the $975 permanent residence fee in half. Since that took effect, we've saved about $22 million for 46,000 people. We work hard to attract skilled workers and professionals. That's what a responsive immigration program does, and I will be pursuing measures to make the system even more responsive to both short- and long-term needs. For example, there are some 150,000 international students in Canada right now. They earn Canadian qualifications. Since we opened the off-campus job market to them in May, more than 7,000 have received work permits under this program. These are young, motivated people with Canadian qualifications and now, potentially, Canadian work experience, yet we send them home when their student visas expire. Many of these young people may wish to stay and accept jobs in Canada.
[Translation]
I want them to have that opportunity.
[English]
We need these well-educated highly skilled people. But I've also been told by employers, time and again, that this country was built with bricks and mortar, and of course we will be building that for some time yet. In other words, as they used to say, we also need people with hard hands. We rely on the temporary foreign worker program to meet this need, and there's no question it helps. We accept 100,000 temporary workers a year. We've opened new temporary foreign worker units in Vancouver and Calgary to work more closely with employers to meet their needs. We will do more. This fall, I will take steps to make the temporary foreign worker program more responsive to labour market needs, while looking at more fundamental changes to ensure it can meet Canada's needs in the years ahead.
[Translation]
At the same time, it is clear that we need many of these people on a more than temporary basis.
[English]
Temporary workers are getting Canadian work experience, learning our languages, and adapting to the Canadian way of life. They have all the ingredients for success, and just when they're getting settled here, we send them home. I've made no secret of my intention to look at ways to encourage successful students with work experience and temporary foreign workers to stay in Canada permanently. Let's give them the opportunity to call Canada home.
These changes will have an important impact. What's more, they will not compromise the integrity of the system, or the overarching need to play our part in protecting the security of Canada and its allies. Still, immigration alone will not solve Canada's labour and skill shortages. Nor will immigration alone secure our future prosperity. We need to make the best use of the human resources we already have, examining things such as training and education, workforce mobility and bringing under-represented groups into the workforce. My colleague, , is the lead on broader human resources issues, and I am working with her as she provides leadership on foreign credentials recognition.
[Translation]
There is no question that immigration can do more. We are doing more. We will do even more in the future.
[English]
We will increase our capacity to deliver the skills and people our economy needs by giving international students and foreign workers the chance to put what they've learned in Canada to work for Canada.
[Translation]
I would like to thank honourable members for their time.
[English]
I look forward to your questions and advice as we carry out our part of the job of building Canada.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
:
Minister, welcome. We are pleased to have you here.
I notice from your opening statements you have a great deal of focus on the need for new workers, driven by the Canadian economy. It's with this in mind that I'm going to pose a question to you.
When we changed our new points system in 2002 it really threw things out of whack. It made it much more difficult for people the economy needs to get into this country and work in this country legally. I'm talking about the undocumented workers. The fact we have so many undocumented workers, estimates being from 200,000 to 500,000, is driven by the fact that people who the economy needs aren't getting in by the points system.
Minister, we filed a report from this committee last summer and we wanted a moratorium on undocumented workers until such time as we get our points system rejigged. The committee also recommended that the resources that were being used to get rid of undocumented workers would be redirected at dealing with some of the very serious criminal cases we have in Canada, people who everybody wants to see deported.
This whole issue has been a real problem. It was a priority of the previous minister to get something done and fix it. I am sure there were reports prepared for him by the bureaucracy, and all that seems to have come to a stop.
Mr. Minister, you wrote us a letter, along with Minister Day, in response to our report. I read the letter. You suggest we get public input from across Canada and not just Toronto. I want to let you know that the citizenship and immigration committee in the last number of years has travelled the country twice, and the message we heard was coming from right across Canada; it wasn't just Toronto, but right across Canada. So in regard to whoever writes your letters for you, Minister, I suggest you get an upgrade in that department. But the fact of the matter is that's the input we got from across the country.
In your statement you document very well the need for things like somebody who will work on a ski lift, somebody who will change beds. Those folks are not coming in under our current points system. So my question I put to you, Minister, is why don't you give Canadian employers a break and start a program of regularization for those who have proven themselves and helped build the Canadian economy?
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Telegdi, for your question. I know this is an important issue to many members, but I think it's important before we answer that directly to just review the facts.
The fact is that over the last number of years the previous government deported around 100,000 people who were not here legally--around 100,000. Many of those people were undocumented workers of the type you describe. During the 13 years that your government was in power they did not move to regularize these people, and I think that's because previous ministers understood that if you start down that path, you compromise the integrity of the system.
I think there's also concern that if you start down that path, you are putting in jeopardy relationships that we have, for instance, with the United States, where they would be very concerned about a plan to regularize people who have not come through the regular system.
The other point I would make is really a question to you. If this was such a concern for the previous government, why wasn't it part of your election platform to regularize these people? If this was the overriding concern of the previous government and they just didn't have time to do it, why wasn't it part of something you campaigned on? Obviously this does not even carry the judgment of the Liberal Party, so I don't think you can argue with credibility that this is something your party supports.
I would argue that most regular Canadians would say that people should line up. If they want to come into this country, come in by regular means, especially when we have 800,000 people waiting to get here right now in the waiting list trying to come here by regular means.
:
I'm going to respond to it and pose the question again.
One of the reasons we got into this problem, Minister, was that previous ministers, just like you, unfortunately listened to the bureaucracy of what I would say is a pretty dysfunctional ministry.
The previous minister was committed to doing it, and we were expecting something to come forward on that. The fact of the matter is your officials will have had reports on that, and if I were you I would try to get my hands on some of those.
On the United States being concerned, let me remind you, Minister, George Bush is trying to regularize millions of workers in the United States.
As far as the Liberal Party not being concerned about it, we were very concerned about it. I dare say if there hadn't been an election we would have had legislation to fix this.
I've been on this committee long enough to figure this story out. But the problems you really have--and previous ministers had them as well--come from the department. They're the ones who recommended changing the point system. I was on this committee, and if you look back at the reports and the discussions in this committee, we were very much opposed to it. The problem is that this department is driven too much by the bureaucracy and not enough by the committee or the ministers.
:
Thank you very much for your question.
This study was prompted by a request from the chair of the IRB, Mr. Fleury. He appeared before the committee a couple of times in the last little while and raised this. He pointed out that it has been two years since the previous guidelines were put into place, and he felt that after a couple of years there should be a study.
We've asked the Public Appointments Commission to have a look at this and focus on timeliness, ensuring that we have the broadest possible cross-section of the Canadian public represented as panellists on the IRB, and of course ensuring that these people are competent and can do the job.
Obviously we don't want the kinds of problems that arose under the previous system, with the fallout we continue to see today. Mr. Bourbonnais was one of the people who was appointed under the previous system, and we all know the problems that created.
So being merit-based is key, but this is really prompted by Mr. Fleury wanting to have a review after two years.
Welcome, Mr. Minister, to this committee.
You referred to the increase in the numbers of immigrants in planning for 2007. Over the years there have been alleged promises by the previous government to attempt to hit 1% of the population as an immigration target. That has never been met over the years, but there have been modest increases. Yet at the same time I note in your remarks that settlement funding since the early 1990s, 1994, has not been provided, while the numbers have gone up. I'm encouraged to see in your 2007 plan that the economic class has been increased by 15,000 compared to 2006, and the family class also has its targets raised to 5,000 members, including the parents and grandparents by 1,000. Having said that, there has also been a budgetary item of $307 million over two years, to be used for settlement and immigration.
What are your hopes and aspirations regarding the settlement funding and the immigration funding? And what correlation do you see between that and numbers or increasing numbers? Have any of these funds started to flow? How is that coming along?
:
Thank you for the question.
As I said in my remarks, this is the highest planning range in 15 years. We think we need to have more immigrants coming to Canada. They've been critical to our success as a nation in the past, and we see them as being critical to our future success. We have labour market needs to meet, but beyond that, they also enrich our country immeasurably. But it's more than just raising the numbers. We also have to provide the support in terms of settlement funding, which is why, in the budget, we announced $307 million in new funding. By the way, that comes after many years of stagnant funding, which meant real cuts for settlement agencies that were providing literacy training and language training and career training for all kinds of newcomers. They were lined up trying to get the services they need to succeed. It's not just about bringing more people in, although that's critical. It's just as importantly about ensuring they have the support so they can be as successful as the previous generation of newcomers.
In 1980 the average standard of living for newcomers one year after arriving here was 25% higher than the Canadian average, and in 2003 it was 32% lower than the Canadian average. That's not acceptable. So we have to increase this funding, which we've done, and the money is flowing now. We've paid out $60 million already to settlement agencies in Ontario, and that's on our way to dramatically increasing the overall settlement funding in Ontario, an increase of about 70%. The money is flowing, and we think it's going to make a big difference in helping newcomers to be the success they should be.
:
The numbers for provincial nominee programs are going up. We think this is a good way to help provinces meet labour market needs, or in some cases demographic needs, because some provinces are losing in population and want to bring people in.
In Ontario we haven't really reached the point yet where we've actually struck a deal on PNP, but Ontario is the biggest recipient of newcomers. It may not be quite as critical in Ontario, but we think it's a good program
The other issue is something I've alluded to. I think there's a need for us to find a way to ensure there's a pathway for temporary workers who aren't necessarily people with university degrees and who can't meet the criteria of the point system today. We need to find a way for them to become permanent residents.
I think if we can do that, we can go some distance in dealing with Mr. Telegdi's concern, which is that under the point system, as it is today, the very people we need the most to help us achieve our labour market goals are simply shut out. We have to reverse that. We think one way to do it is to take temporary workers, who are already proving they're contributing, and make them permanent residents.
:
The problem is particularly acute at the Montreal offices. When the documents are in Vegreville, there is no problem getting them. However, it is when the documents are transferred to Montreal that problems arise. This of course delays the application for permanent resident status for refugees whose claims have been accepted, in other words, the people whom we have agreed to protect.
Since it is very difficult to get a handle on the overall cost of immigration services, and because more and more people are asking us for information in this area, I would like the department to provide the committee with its most recent version of the model that is used to monitor, coordinate and manage costs.
Immigrant support groups are particularly concerned about the costs of operating your offices abroad. Therefore, could you give me an idea of the number of employees that you have per foreign office and the costs related to providing immigration services, including the regional offices here as well?
You also spoke earlier about the unit costs for visas and additional amounts that would be over and above the $36, as we have read about in the newspapers. Could you provide a graph showing the accurate unit costs for immigration services?
I have no other questions, really. However, I am still intent on having a refugee appeal section, Minister, because I feel it is necessary. In view of the amounts that you have quoted and in view of your requests, is that a definite no? Have you any intention of repealing the act?
FIrst of all, with respect to language training, according to the main estimates, about $100 million was spent on language training across the country last year. This year it will be $181 million. It's an $81 million increase, which is a very large increase, with respect to language instruction for newcomers.
We're also providing funding for enhanced language training, which is relatively new language training. It gives immigrants language training by using the vocabulary they would use in their professions. In the past it has been one of the key barriers to people working in their professions and realizing the outcomes they want to achieve.
We think this is really important, and we think it's an important step forward. After years of having had settlement funding frozen and language training frozen for newcomers, it will be a substantial step forward. We think it will help a lot of people.
Yes, there are standards that different settlement agencies have to meet. They are asked to prepare reports to indicate how they're spending the money that is given to them, in most cases, from the federal government through the province or, in the case of Ontario, directly from the federal government.
If they meet those standards, the money continues to flow. If concerns are raised with those settlement agencies, they are told what we expect of them in terms of reporting and the usual standards, the accounting standards that need to be met and performance standards. We want to see these groups demonstrate that they're actually getting results.
The good news is that some of the most dedicated people in this country are people who work in settlement agencies. For every dollar we give them, I would say that in general we get three dollars worth of value. They are committed at a heart level, and they're doing a tremendous job.
I applaud them. Most of us would never work for the wages they work for to do that job. They really deserve our thanks and our praise.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Minister and welcome back to our committee.
[English]
You mentioned that settlement workers are very devoted and are working for very little. You mentioned a while ago that you and your government have invested $307 million.
I would like to remind you that last year, before the elections, we, the Liberal government, had invested $398 million for settlement and integration funding. As the Liberal government, we outspent the Conservative government in 2003, as opposed to 2006.
I put it to you that I agree the settlement workers are very devoted. But if you moved the $307 million up to $398 million, perhaps they could live better and still live on their devotion to helping immigrants integrate into Canadian society.
It's just a comment I wanted to make. I couldn't help but react to some of the things you have said.
[Translation]
I would like to come back to the annual report on immigration levels for 2007.
The end-year results show that 130,242 qualified workers entered the country in 2005. The original target was 112,500, between 112,500 and 124,500. In looking at your annual report, I see that in fact, there were 5,000 more qualified workers than expected who entered Canada during that time.
Once again during this year, the department's annual report states that 53 per cent of these qualified workers had already entered the country between January and June, or slightly more than 55,528 people, when the upper limit was 116,000 people.
There is quite a spread between the figures in your report and the numbers that we would like to see. You say that you would like to attract more qualified workers, yet your target for qualified workers alone is steadily decreasing.
Could you explain that to us, please?
:
I will split my time with Ms. Grewal. I just have a brief remark, and then for the record we'll shift to Ms. Grewal.
I listened to Madame Folco, and I've read the annual report. The annual report indicates that in 2005, and I believe those are some of the figures she was referring to, there was a spike from the planned amount of immigrants for a number of reasons. The minister alluded to some. One was, as I read it, on average, the immigrants used their visas faster in 2005 than in 2004, with the standard time between the visa issuance and the immigrant arrival in Canada declining by close to 30 days in 2005. This resulted in almost an extra month of admissions in 2005. Also in 2005, the number of people with immigrant visas who chose not to use them dropped substantially compared with 2004, so there was a bit of an aberration there.
Notwithstanding that fact, as I see it, the upper limits of the ministry in this year is in excess of even what happened with the spike in 2005. Could you just clarify that, perhaps, and then I will defer to Ms. Grewal.
Again, welcome, Mr. Minister.
I have a number of questions to ask in my short period of time, so if you could keep your answers as brief as possible I would truly appreciate it.
The first issue I want to delve into is the skilled worker shortage in British Columbia and in western Canada. The people in western Canada are coming to discover that Conservative times are indeed tough times--if it's not the $25 billion that was wiped out on income trusts, or the $7 million plus that was wiped out to our tourism industry through the cancellation of the GST rebate.
Now we are, as you stated in your preamble, 3,500 workers short in Whistler, British Columbia, which is just a small community in western Canada, but an important one. What efforts is your department making with respect to extending the temporary worker visas from one year to two years? A lot of hotels and restaurants bring these people in, train them for a month, then eleven months later they have to ship out. What's your ministry doing with respect to that?
:
I'll move on to the second question then.
Yes, we do have a major shortage of skilled workers in Canada. As you know, we have 800,000 people on the waiting list to come into Canada, 500,000 of whom are in the skilled worker category. It takes them five years to get in.
Last year the Liberal government let in a record number of new Canadians, 262,000. I'm happy to see that as of the discussions we've had, the scale has been moved up from 240,000 to 265,000. Even at the upper end of that scale, 265,000 is still only 3,000 more people than we let in last year, 262,000. I would ask you to re-evaluate that number in light of the massive shortages we have in Canada. In light of the fact our baby boomers are nearing retirement, we're going to have fewer people paying into the system and more people on the retirement side. I would ask you to re-evaluate that number upward to closer to 350,000 people. How is increasing the number of immigrants or new Canadians by 3,000 going to deal with it? That won't even deal with the 3,500 skilled worker shortage we have in Whistler, British Columbia.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Minister, I've been listening to you, and you really indict the department--It's really dysfunctional. You just mentioned that it's unacceptable that incomes of the new wave of immigrants are 32% lower. Well, I put it to you, one of the reasons they're lower is when you have doctors coming from overseas and they end up driving taxis, obviously that's not going to give them the income they should have, and the same with all the other professionals.
The point system is out of whack, and I can't repeat it strongly enough for you, Minister. Ministers come and go; the only people who go faster probably are the deputy ministers. I can't underline it enough: that was a horrific policy decision, and it was driven by the bureaucracy, unfortunately, rubber-stamped by the minister, who had no more experience than you do, and that's the problem.
We talk about accountability. I really wish we could have the minister and the committee and the MPs holding the bureaucracy accountable. One of the ways we could do it, Minister, is we could try to chase down who drove the decisions, the advice on various policy options that were inevitably taken up by the government. Who was responsible--who drove the change to the point system? It certainly wasn't parliamentarians who drove the impediment to lost Canadians. That was a strong Conservative policy in the last Parliament. It was sponsored by Senator Kinsella and Mr. Reynolds from the Conservative Party.
And the list goes on. Right now, we're celebrating war brides who are going off to Halifax's Pier 21, celebrating 60 years of the war brides. We have Remembrance Day coming up when we honour our veterans. Yet, Minister, your department--and you approved it--is appealing the decision on Joe Taylor, son of a war bride, son of a Canadian veteran who fought for this country in the Second World War. You are challenging his citizenship, which was wrongfully taken from him, the courts have ruled. And of course you got rid of the court challenges program.
Minister, I really appreciated you when you used to be a great finance critic, whether it was for the Reform or the Alliance or the Conservative Party, because you knew what you were talking about; you really did. It's not just you, Minister; let's see, you have one, two, three, four, five, six ministers coming through, five of whom have come through on my watch.
We all recognize Senator Roméo Dallaire is a great Canadian, was a great army person. When he was dealing with the case of Joe Taylor he was asked what he thought was behind the decision to appeal his case. I'm not sure if you saw the clip, but he called the decision absolutely nonsensical.
Now, this is a man who worked in the big system, worked within the bureaucracy, knows what he's talking about, and he said there's a term called “bureaucratic terroris”--that's the gang in the middle of the system that has this power trip of authority, and interprets things not for the benefit of the citizen but for the benefit of the government. That is not their duty. Their duty is to make sure the government is complying with the laws in order to help citizens.
Now, Minister, getting back to it, I wish you'd do an audit to look at some of the bad decisions that have been made. I hate to say it, but they came from the bureaucracy. Try to find out who made those recommendations. Work more with the committee when the committee goes across the country and gets reports on questions you want to know, and use it.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to have a little more time today to question the minister.
Last spring, I had expressed my concerns to the minister with respect to the various categories of immigrants abroad who had simply given up applying. I wonder if the minister could provide the committee clerk with an outline of the number of people who do not complete the immigration formalities.
Earlier, I listened to the discussion between the minister and other committee members, and I requested the most recent unit costs. However, we need an idea of how these unit costs have evolved since the change in government. Therefore, we would greatly appreciate an outline for 2004, 2005 and 2006. It only involves a few details.
Moreover, you seem to be steadfast in your refusal of the demand to have some type of amnesty or regularization system.
Can we expect some type of commitment from you? You have some discretion when it comes to determining the penalties that can vary from six months to two years. Also, could undocumented workers working in Canada who are forced to leave be given minimum sentences by your department? Could there be a limit of six months?
I firmly believe that we need some type of regularization program to meet the needs of the industry. However, would you be willing to commit to a six month penalty? That does not seem to be the case in the offices abroad; they seem to be applying a much stricter penalty at this time.