We are pleased to be here today, and we would like to thank the committee for inviting us to speak. Today I will update you on improvements that we have made within the past year to program delivery, and I will briefly share some of the challenges we face in processing applications.
[Translation]
I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak. Today I will update you on improvements that we have made to program delivery during the past year. And I will briefly share some of the challenges we face in processing applications.
Statistics Canada reports that immigration will account for all labour force growth in Canada within the next 10 years, and all population growth within the next 20 years. Given the importance of economic immigration to our future, we introduced substantial changes last year to the way we process federal skilled worker applications.
I am pleased to report that new federal skilled worker applicants can now expect to receive an initial assessment from CIC within weeks rather than years. We are also working to make decisions within six to twelve months and not six years as was previously the case.
There are a number of reasons for this. One reason is that we are being more efficient. Our Centralized Intake Office in Sydney, Nova Scotia—created with funding from budget 2008—has allowed us to reduce the administrative burden on our missions abroad.
[English]
However, the bigger reason for our improved processing times is that we changed the rules. Before changes were introduced in February of 2008, we had to process every application to a final decision. If you passed the skilled worker grid and your health and security checks, you were in. Under the new system, which we call our action plan for faster immigration, a set of ministerial instructions identifies eligibility criteria for federal skilled workers, criteria that reflect Canada's current labour market needs.
Now the centralized intake office does an initial assessment of all federal skilled worker applications against those criteria. Applicants are getting an initial idea of their eligibility in 60 days, and if they aren't eligible, they get a refund. If successful at Sydney, they are asked to submit further information to the appropriate mission for possible processing.
Because these applications have been triaged, the mission's efforts are now more focused. Since February 2008, more than 240,000 people have applied to the federal skilled worker program, and as of the end of September 2009 we've processed more than 100,000 applications and issued visas to over 8,000 skilled workers. Many of these people applied before the ministerial instructions were issued in November, so there were nine months when we couldn't process applications because the criteria weren't yet set. It's taking some time to catch up, but as I mentioned, new applicants can expect a decision within six to 12 months.
We are also making substantial progress on the backlog of old federal skilled worker applications that existed before we introduced these changes last February. We must still process all of those applications under the old rules, but I am pleased to report that in the last 18 months we have reduced the number of applicants in that backlog by more than 30%.
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I will now describe the ways in which we have improved program performance.
In mainland China, we are processing study permit applications faster by giving students the chance to undergo a medical examination before submitting their application at our visa office in Beijing. Despite being implemented late in the peak season, students quickly started taking advantage of this procedure. Accordingly, more than 30% of applications received in August and September 2009 were processed this way.
Applications were processed in 16 days in 80% of the cases, compared to 43 days for regular applications. We anticipate that more than half of student applicants will use this procedure by the next summer peak season intake. Our service improvements are helping to promote Canadian education abroad. Since we launched the Student Partners Program with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, our visa offices in India have received over 1,500 student applications.
This program has several checks and balances. Applicants are required to provide complete and verifiable documentation, and there is a feedback mechanism allowing colleges to report on whether students show up. In 2008, 80% of applications were processed in six months or less overseas, and in 10 months or less at CPC Vegreville.
Last year, CIC processed more than a million and a half visa applicants. To meet this growing demand on our services, in June 2008, we launched the successful pilot project called e-services, which allows international students in Canada who wish to apply for off-campus work permits to confirm their eligibility and submit their applications on line.
[English]
Since February 2009, students using e-services have been able to extend their study permits online. Soon workers and visitors will also be able to extend their status online. AIl institutions participating in the off-campus work permit program have been using the electronic notification system to exchange information with CIC regarding student eligibility for work permits.
In April 2008 we introduced a business express program in New Delhi that provides fast-track visa processing and simplified application procedures to business visitors employed by a number of large corporations with important trade and investment relationships with Canada. More than 80 companies have been invited to participate and 50 have been enrolled. Since the program's inception, over 1,800 visas have been submitted, with a refusal rate of less than 1%.
We face some challenges in processing applications. While we control the number of visas we issue, we cannot control when visa holders will actually exercise their right to come to Canada. In 2008, fewer parents and grandparents arrived than we had projected, which resulted in lower numbers for this category. The trend is continuing in 2009.
We have seen some increases in processing times, for example, for spouses and partners sponsored by Canadians and permanent residents. Visa offices in Colombo, Hong Kong, and Islamabad have reported increases from eight months at the end of 2007 to 11 months at the end of 2008 and 12 months as of June this year.
In the past three years, the average processing time for spouses and partners in Colombo has increased due to a special effort by CIC and processing partners to prioritize and complete older and more challenging cases. Since 2007, Hong Kong has processed approximately 10% of the global total of spouse and partner applications. This has increased processing times in the office and affected global processing times.
In 2008, the Hong Kong visa office established a family class team dedicated to rooting out fraudulent applications and relationships of convenience and screening for security and criminal inadmissibility. The challenges associated with focused processing in this high-volume office have added time to the application process and to global processing times.
Finally, global processing times for spouses and partners were further compounded by similar increases in two other offices, namely Islamabad and Nairobi, which together processed approximately 16% of the global total of spouse and partner applications in 2007 and 2008. Both of those offices operated in environments of significant civil unrest during those years.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, there are major demands on Canada's Immigration system. It took many years for the application backlog to build up, and it will take many years to draw it down. Exactly how long that will take will depend on a number of factors, including the total number and mix of immigrants we admit every year.
We continue to consult with provincial and territorial governments and stakeholders to learn their needs. And as I mentioned earlier, we are controlling and monitoring the flow of new applications to avoid creating another backlog.
Thank you. I am ready for your questions now.
I actually have something like six questions. What I'm going to do is ask them all, and you can batch them together.
I know that for a family class sponsor, they put in the $75 sponsorship fee and then it takes a year or two years to sort that out, and then the permanent residence application fee is $475 for each person. Why would you take both up front, if you normally take quite a bit of time for the sponsorship application to go through first—a year or two years—and then the permanent residence application comes later? Why not separate them? That's number one.
Number two, you don't really need the medical until the application is fairly far along. Often I've seen that they would do a medical examination—this would be for the applicant overseas—and then the medical examination would expire. Then it costs them quite a bit of money to redo it. They have to travel far distances. Can it be coordinated so they only need to do one medical rather than repeating medicals over and over again, and repeating the security clearance over and over again, because they are not in sync with each other?
My second batch of questions really concerns the dollar amounts. I know in 2005 you got an extra $36 million to help out the visa posts overseas that are the busiest. I think that money would have run out by now. Are you requesting more funds because you have three or four trouble spots that have very long wait times? I notice your expenditures are not very high. How do you divide up your expenditures in visa posts overseas, especially those in the areas where it impacts tremendously on Canadians because Canadians are waiting for their fathers, mothers, or kids coming from overseas?
I have one case where a person waited seven years to bring a daughter from Nairobi to Canada. This is a 12-year-old daughter, and I can't imagine what happens to a 12-year-old waiting for seven years. She was a lot younger than 12 back then. So there are desperate situations in some of the visa posts overseas. What kinds of resources do you need in order to speed that up?
Speaking about resources, I know your department tried several times to have a computer program that could speed it up, and then it keeps not working out and you try it again. I look at Australia. They have computer tracking programs. An applicant in Australia can look at their sponsor—let's say it's the father—and you can tell what number the application is, how long the wait is. It's completely transparent.
In our case it's not transparent at all, and all our offices get asked, and you get asked all the time, “What happened to my application?” or “Where is my application?” So every MP's office gets a huge number of calls. We then ask the visa office overseas, and it goes back and forth about a status update. Why not load it up on the computer to save MPs' offices a lot of time and also save the applicants in Canada grief?
My last question concerns the targets. Have they changed? Often the processing stops when you've met the target in an area. Let's say the target is 5,000 parents, or whatever, from the Beijing visa post. Once the target is met, then you don't process any more. That's my understanding of how it works. So have the targets changed according to how many applications come in? Has it changed in the last four or five years, and if it hasn't changed, why is there such a backlog?
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Imran Qayyum and I'm the chair of the Canadian Migration Institute, which I will refer to as CMI. The role of CMI is to provide a platform for authorized immigration representatives who work collaboratively to enhance their profession.
The Canadian Migration Institute came into existence in September 2007, and we currently represent over 1,500 fellows, all of whom are authorized immigration representatives belonging to the immigration consulting, legal, and Quebec notary professions. These fellows practice throughout Canada and overseas.
CMI's mandate is to educate, accredit, advocate, and act as a policy research body on behalf of fellows. As the largest professional organization of its kind in North America, we're honoured to be here today in order to share our views on the subject of processing times related to the family class and investor class of immigrants.
Let me start by sharing some of our observations on the family class, which for the purposes of today's submission we've divided up into two main categories: spousal or partner applications, which I will refer to as FC1; and parent or grandparent applications, which I will refer to as FC4.
As the committee knows, all family class cases are initiated in Canada when the application is submitted to the case processing centre in Mississauga, commonly known as CPC Mississauga. The case processing centre confirms whether or not the sponsor, who is sponsoring his or her close family relative, meets the legislative requirements to do so. In the case of FC1-type applications, this process takes between one to two months, whereas in the case of FC4-type applications, this process is taking between 32 to 36 months. Once the case processing centre in Mississauga accepts the sponsorship and confirms the eligibility of the sponsor, the application is forwarded to an overseas visa processing post or to the MICC, as in the case of sponsors residing in the province of Quebec.
In today's submission I'll be referring to statistics that were obtained through access to information requests made by Lexbase for FC1 and FC4 cases for the period of April 2008 to March 2009. These statistics show that during the 12-month period in question, overseas visa posts completed approximately 40,000 FC1 cases. 80% of these cases were completed within 11 months or less. During the same period, approximately 9,800 FC4 cases were completed; 80% of these cases were completed within 20 months or less.
Given that one of the objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is to see that family members are reunited in Canada, CMI is concerned that these processing times run contrary to the spirit of the family reunification objective of IRPA. We believe more can be done, especially in the FC4 category.
Some of CMI's recommendations to address these issues are as follows.
First, we would recommend that the government allocate more resources to FC4 processing.
Second, we would recommend the perfected application for FC4 cases, wherein sponsorship forms as well as the immigrant forms and supporting documents are submitted to CPC Mississauga, as is the case for FC1-type applications.
Last, we would encourage CPC Mississauga to use electronic communications with the sponsor or their authorized representative as often as possible when acknowledging receipt of sponsorship applications or requesting additional information or supporting documentation. Leveraging electronic communication would certainly alleviate some of the current pressures contributing to lengthy processing times.
I would now like to turn your attention to CMI's views on the investor class processing times. For today's submission, I will be making reference to statistics obtained through access to information requests made by HSBC for the period of January 2009 to August 2009.
As of August 2009, the global inventory for investor class cases was more than 11,000. Given that each case requires, at minimum, an investment of $400,000 in Canada, this inventory represents a potential of $4.4 billion in available dormant and virtually zero-cost stimulus capital that could be flowing to Canada to fund infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy.
The current annual target set by Citizenship and Immigration Canada for investor class cases is 2,155. It is worth noting that the current annual target of 2,155 represents final dispositions, or FDs. These numbers include refused or withdrawn applications, not just approved cases.
For example, from January until August 31, 2009, of the 1,697 final dispositions, approximately 50% were approved cases, 25% were refused cases, and 25% were applications withdrawn by the investors themselves, who were largely frustrated by the long processing delays. If extrapolated and applied to the current inventory of cases in process, this 25% withdrawal rate represents a potential $1 billion of zero-cost stimulus capital that Canada will never benefit from.
According to our calculations, the current inventory of 11,000-plus investor applications at an annual target of approximately 2,000 represents a global average processing time of more than five years. This year to date, over 4,000 new applications have been received, representing double the current annual processing target. With new application intake rates at this level, we believe processing times for investors will continue to grow as inventories balloon.
By definition, investor applicants are successful, high-networked individuals with business experience willing to invest $400,000 of their capital for five years to be used by participating provinces for infrastructure and other economic priorities. Lengthy processing times represent a clear discouragement to such applicants and will encourage withdrawals of applications as these highly desirable immigrants turn to other, more attractive options available to them globally.
Nor is the economic impact of these individuals and their families limited to their $400,000 qualifying investment. These individuals represent a significant potential additional positive economic impact as they and their families establish in Canada and buy homes, cars, and furniture, and make other investments for their future in Canada.
Measures must be introduced that will shorten processing times in order not to miss the opportunity to quickly flow desperately needed zero-cost capital to provincial governments, who in turn can use it for much-needed infrastructure projects and related stimulus spending.
Once again, the current inventory represents over $4.4 billion in available potential capital. This statement bears repeating because it is so important.
Some of CMI's recommendations to address these issues are as follows. First, we recommend increasing the annual target for federal and investor applications to 5,000 FDs per year, which will have an immediate impact on reducing processing times. The federal immigrant investor program already appears to be losing significant market share to the Quebec immigrant investor program, which underwent changes to make the Quebec program more attractive in February 2009. Quebec has established an ambitious target for 2009 of 2,004 actual approvals and investments, not final dispositions. It's important to understand the difference.
Quebec processing times are generally much better than federal processing times, and recognizing the importance of this investment capital during these tough economic times, the Quebec trend is toward faster decision-making.
CMI would suggest the need to balance the interest of all Canadian provinces and territories and the benefits they receive individually through immigration necessitates a substantial increase in the annual federal investor processing targets.
Second, CMI would recommend establishing a centralized intake office, or CIO, for investor applicants in Canada. The establishment of a CIO would allow for more training and specialization for reviewing officers related to business cases, centralized and coordinated management of applications, and increased program security and integrity. This recommendation would also result in additional employment opportunities for Canadians. Given that 85% of federal investor cases are assessed without the need for an interview, adopting a CIO at the front end and reviewing investor cases would make it possible to address such issues as identity, available funds, qualifying business experience, and source of funds.
CMI suggests CIC establish at such a CIO an eligibility requirement step for investors, similar to the federal skilled worker program. This would be separated from the processing under the regulations. This would also remove the current investors simplified application process, which many believe is a significant cause of the current processing delays.
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I can certainly come and help you individually later on.
I would like to echo what Imran mentioned earlier: the federal government does indeed make 2,000 decisions per year. That is somewhat comical. In other words, with the federal program's annual goal of 2,000, the higher the inventory, the longer the delays, the more individuals withdraw and the more CIC meets its objectives. So, if this same type and level of objective were to be maintained based on the current inventory—as mentioned, over 11,000 federally and 3,000 in Quebec—our millionaires have to wait more than five years to be told that we are interested in their application and their $400,000 investment.
I am referring to the third block for those of you who have it. It shows the number of investments, individuals who have invested $400,000 over the last few years. Every year, that amounts to 3,000 cases, at the Quebec and federal levels combined, that Canada receives. That amounts to $1.2 billion a year currently coming into Canada.
However, under Quebec's three-year plan for investor immigrants, in the coming years, Quebec alone should achieve 3,000 investments. Currently, there are 3,000 investments combined, and Quebec has a three-year plan to be more effective in the coming years. We encourage the federal government to do the same, given the number of cases and the delays, as it would mean an additional $2 billion in our economy.
There is one interesting point to note on the last line of my table. Even if CIC were to adopt an enhanced investor policy that made it possible to double the number of cases processed, for example, the relative weight of investors among other categories would remain negligible, going from 4% to 6%. So, you double the number of investments without doubling the relative weight of investors in comparison with the other classes, which are equally important.
There are currently 14,000 investors online waiting to be granted permanent residence in Canada when you combine Quebec and federal numbers. They want to invest $400,000 in the provinces and settle there. In concrete terms, that means they would purchase property and other durable goods, often at rates that would be higher than average, given their financial wealth. We are conscious of the fact that CIC has hundreds of thousands of cases in its inventory—perhaps even one million—all classes combined, that resources are limited and that choices must be made.
Considering the current economic situation, experienced economists, especially in Quebec, have shown that the program provides an economic benefit, that a high percentage of waiting investors have other options, contrary to other immigrant classes, and their situation can change quickly, that 90% of investors apply to immigrate to Canada mainly so that their children can have a high-quality university education, that they will put down roots here, that they will transfer their family assets here and that the impact in terms of the number of visas issued is negligible in comparison with other classes. It represents 3.7 visas.
Case selection in Quebec has already been done. Only the medical and security checks are left. For these already selected cases, matters could be expedited. Recently, Bill C-50 gave the minister complete flexibility in setting priorities. Canada should therefore pay special attention to this category.
In closing, if we do not take action and establish a policy, both for Quebec and Canada, that would allow this type of case to be processed within a maximum of 24 months—we believe that to be the longest period our investors are willing to tolerate—we run the risk that the most sophisticated and affluent investors will go elsewhere, and Canada will only choose second-tier investors, without meaning to be derogatory. Those investors would not be Canada's best ambassadors to their business communities abroad.
Also, CIC will run the risk of difficult inventory management when it implements, in the near future, its proposal to increase the mandatory $400,000 investment. So we will be asking these investors to make a larger investment, and telling them to wait five years. If CIC is unable to meet such objectives, other avenues need to be quickly explored in order for our schools to be able to take in the children of those immigrating investors, until those kids are old enough to attend university. Thank you.
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If you wish, I could add to that.
With regard to the wait times in Quebec compared to those at the federal level, it is important to understand that the two systems differ. In Quebec, a process was established under the Canada-Quebec Accord: the provincial government pre-selects the immigrants. During the first part of the process, for which Quebec is responsible, a selection certificate for Quebec must be obtained.
At present, this process takes approximately 12 months, an average calculated for all countries. So, an application is filed and a Quebec selection certificate is received about 12 months later. In some places, it may take 8 months; in others, 14 months. Then, candidates have to send their file to the federal government for security reasons.
Since the number of files in both Quebec and Canada is rising, we have determined that the problem is due to the federal government's limited resources. The federal government cannot look at just Quebec's files or just federal files. That is why Quebec is seeing longer wait times. Previously, permanent residence visas were being granted within three or four months once a Quebec selection certificate was obtained. Now, it takes nearly 20 months. This means that 12, 15 or 20 months are being added to the 12 months for the overall process, and we are seeing processing times of about two or three years.
Why are we saying that it is faster? Because at the federal level, it typically takes five years. However, there is a difference between three years and five years.
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There are two parts to your question.
In fact, unlike the other provinces with the Provincial Nominee Program, Quebec has a system with a good level of due diligence. I think that Quebec is doing an excellent job of selecting candidates. There are specialized business people, there are offices, namely in Hong Kong and Damascus where there are essentially business people. They travel around the world for interviews, and they are specialists. It is a good selection process, and I think that this is why, ultimately, the refusal rate for Quebec, once the permanent residence visa is issued, is currently around 3%. I think that Quebec ensures good due diligence, unlike the other provinces for which the refusal rates are much higher.
Now in terms of security, you understand that Quebec's hands are tied to some extent. It does not have the security tools needed, whereas the federal government has the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP, etc.
However, there could be better communication, by mutual agreement—this already exists, Quebec is already communicating better with federal officials abroad—to exchange information in the files and so on, to ensure that there is no duplication of effort. We talked about the medical exam and the security check. However, often, at the federal level, although the source of the $800,000 has already been verified by Quebec, the thinking is that this is a security issue as well. That is why there is sometimes duplication.
I think that we, in Quebec, need to have the appropriate discussions with our federal government counterparts to demonstrate that the work has been done. This depends on the mission. We see that, in some missions, the wait times are much longer and there are many more applications. We need to speak up and say that there is a problem at a given mission and that changes need to be made.
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It is a little difficult to speed up the process. In fact, we must ensure fairness for all immigrant classes in relation to security. That is important.
However, overall, immigrant investors are typically about 50 years old; they are not 30-year-old millionaires. As I mentioned in my conclusion earlier, 90% of these people are doing it for their children, not for themselves. They already have a whole network of contacts around the world. They are doing this to ensure a better education for their kids and give to them a North American base. At present, our problem with regard to the five-year wait time concerns kids who are 14 and 15 years old. Their parents enrol them in other schools, be it in the U.K., the U.S. or wherever. Once the kids put down roots in one country—through the education system—they never leave, they get married, etc. So, unwittingly, if the kids settle in London, the parents will follow.
We feel that if we cannot speed up the processing time with the needed manpower, society will have to find a way to try to make it easier for these young people to come here in one way or another, so that they are schooled here. Quebec has already taken steps in that direction, recently, under its new legislation equating a diploma with a CSQ. In other words, we are telling them that if they come to Quebec to study, they will be able to apply for their selection certificate, and then get it.
The federal government needs to work towards something similar to allow these young people to study in our universities and put down roots here. Then, the parents will follow, as will the heritage and all the rest. The kids are the means to the end. We need to think of second generation and not only the first.
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Many investors are like university students. When someone wants to go to university, they apply to three or four universities, such as York, McGill and Simon Fraser. You need to understand where these people are coming from. Our immigrant investors are not from Europe or the Americas; they are from Asia and the Middle East. Why? Because there are political or economic problems in their country. They do not meet the criteria to apply under another class either.
Why would these people invest $400,000, when they could immigrate to Canada as a skilled worker? Because they do not meet the required criteria, they cannot get enough points because they are too old, do not speak the language or do not have the education. The program was created in 1985—it has existed since then—to attract these individuals. You would be surprised to see how many people are extremely well off.
There are two programs in the United States. Earlier, I mentioned a program requiring $500,000; there is a $1 million requirement under another. You would be surprised at the number of people investing $1 million.
There is a program in the U.K. with a 750 000 £ requirement, and the whole process is completed in three months.
Anyone can travel by plane between Montreal and Vancouver. You can go business class, economy class or first class, but the fare is not the same. These are the choices these people have.
There are other countries. We are lucky to have the best program in terms of costs, finances, structure, benefits for these people and their children, unlike other countries around the world. I did a comparative study with other similar countries: Australia, New Zealand and the United States. What is currently killing us? The wait times. Obviously, if it is too fast, we will get a flood of applications. No, we will not get 25,000 applications per year, because the pool of investors is limited.