:
We'll start, ladies and gentlemen.
This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 32. We are here to study the main estimates under the Citizenship and Immigration Act.
We have before us a number of witnesses, including the Honourable Chris Alexander, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Minister, I'd like to welcome you to the committee and thank you for coming. I think we know all your colleagues, but you may wish to introduce them to the committee as well.
You may proceed, sir, with your presentation to us.
I'm delighted to be here, Mr. Chair and colleagues, with my highly qualified and decorated colleagues, because they are the real experts in the business of this department. They are Tony Matson; Catrina Tapley; my deputy minister, Anita Biguzs; and Dawn Edlund, who is the number two person in operations as associate assistant deputy minister.
I'm pleased to be here with these officials to present the main estimates for fiscal year 2014-15. Citizenship and Immigration has planned spending for this fiscal year totalling about $1.39 billion, an overall net decrease of $270 million compared with last year's main estimate funding levels.
Before anyone draws any sweeping conclusions from that decrease, keep in mind that I will come to that. There's a very simple explanation for it.
In my opening remarks today, l will highlight several of the significant funding increases and decreases in our main estimates. The most significant investment of the year is $45.5 million in funding to allow the department to address increased application volumes in the citizenship and temporary resident lines of business. You will recall that these were initiatives in previous iterations of Canada's economic action plan to meet a growing need, with more permanent residents than ever applying for citizenship and more people from around the world visiting Canada than ever before. A portion of the new funding will be used to add processing capacity to keep pace with growth in the temporary resident line of business, particularly in key markets such as China, India, and Brazil, where most of the growth is anticipated.
On the citizenship side, which we've been discussing quite a lot lately, our government is committed to timely service even as we face record numbers of applications due to the highest sustained levels of immigration in Canadian history over the past eight years.
I apologize for having been late and for having made life difficult for the interpreters.
[English]
We have admitted as immigrants an average of more than a quarter of a million newcomers to Canada each year since 2006, as the committee well knows.
We're taking action to further strengthen the pride that Canadians take in citizenship, the value of citizenship in this country, with the first comprehensive reforms to the act since 1977. We do this, in contrast to the previous Liberal record, by cracking down on fraud, demanding and promoting greater attachment to Canada, and speeding up processing for eligible applicants.
This new funding will result in improved processing times and overall service. Combined with the efficiency measures proposed in the , we will see processing times for citizenship applications come down to one year or less by the end of 2015-16.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank committee members for all their hard work on Bill —the pre-study, the clause-by-clause, etc. As you all know, it passed second reading last week and report stage this week. We're very close, one step away, at least in House of Commons terms, from turning this bill into law.
Another $35.5 million in funding represents an increase to the grant for the Canada-Quebec Accord in 2014-15 and future years to meet our obligations under the accord.
[Translation]
As you know, the Canada-Quebec Accord gives the Government of Quebec exclusive responsibility for settlement and integration services in the province in return for financial compensation from the Government of Canada.
You may recall that the grant amount for 2013-2014 for Quebec for the settlement and integration of immigrants and refugees was $320 million. This includes the base amount of $284.5 million, plus an increase of $35.5 million based, in part, on the number of non-francophone immigrants settling in that province.
As a result, CIC's main estimates are now increasing by $35.5 million on an ongoing basis, starting this fiscal year, to reflect the updated grant of $320 million.
[English]
My department's main estimates for this year also include an increase of just over $13 million to develop and implement the electronic travel authorization, or eTA, under the Canada-U.S. perimeter security and economic competitiveness action plan. This is a low-cost, quick, and easy-to-use online application process that will allow us to screen visitors from all countries who do not require a visa to enter Canada and who travel by air, with the exception of citizens of the United States.
When the eTA is implemented, in 2015, we'll be able to screen most visitors before they board a plane to verify whether they pose a risk to Canada, or to the health, safety, and security of Canadians. Resolving issues prior to a traveller's arrival at a port of entry will enhance security, improve border efficiencies, reduce the need for removals and returns, and facilitate the movement of legitimate travellers. We are closely working with our partners at CBSA, and with the airline sector, to ensure the smooth rollout of this initiative in 2015-16.
For the first time in the main estimates, you will also see a line item for the passport program revolving fund, which was transferred last year from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, along with allocations for International Experience Canada, which was also transferred.
[Translation]
In addition to the items I have already mentioned, funding increases in CIC's main estimates also include $4.2 million to meet our commitments under the roadmap for Canada's official languages.
These include promotion and recruitment activities in Canada and abroad; language training and other settlement services for French-speaking newcomers; and immigration research and knowledge-sharing projects of interest to both francophone minority communities and English-speaking communities in Quebec.
[English]
Mr. Chair, these and other increases are offset by a number of funding decreases in the estimates. The previous Liberal government left an immigration system with serious shortcomings. That resulted in potential immigrants putting lives on hold, waiting for up to eight years for an answer. This is something our government didn't accept, and we are endeavouring to do better.
That is why—
And thank you to my colleagues as well.
[English]
Under Bill , passed in 2012, our government included measures to transform the economic immigration programs that we have into a just-in-time system that will recruit people with the right skills to meet Canada's labour market needs today and into the future, fast-track their immigration, and get them working in a period of months, not years.
This is what's best for our economy. It's certainly what's best for newcomers, who will see their economic outcomes improve as a result. They already have improved, as we have reduced backlogs and made processing faster in preparation for this new system. Our government is committed to building a fast and flexible economic immigration system focusing on finding people who have the skills and experience required to meet Canada' s economic needs. The federal skilled worker program backlog was an issue in the past, but because of our government's action, the backlog will be eliminated this year.
We put a pause on the program and are returning up to $130 million in fees paid by certain federal skilled worker applicants who applied before February 27, 2008. The statutory funding decrease that you see in the main estimates this fiscal year relates to a longer than anticipated time horizon to return the fees paid by applicants to the FSW program, but they will be returned. My department has reallocated this funding to future fiscal years to address the anticipated refund requests in those years.
Eliminating this application backlog allows us to focus on new applicants with the skills and talents that our economy needs now. It also sets the stage for the launch this coming January of express entry, our government's next-generation approach to economic immigration, which will completely change the way we manage and process applications in our existing economic immigration programs.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, let me be clear: Canada's doors are open to high-skilled workers. They have a pathway to permanent residency in this country. Investors can come to Canada under the Canadian Experience Class, under the Federal Skilled Worker Program, and under the Provincial Nominee Program. And the process is even faster for these investors because they have these programs available to them, as well as those offered by Quebec.
And as of January 1, 2015, applicants under these programs will have their application processed in six months or less under express entry. Express entry will be a faster, more effective, more efficient and more proactive process that will select immigrants based on the skills and attributes that Canada needs, and based on criteria that anticipate immigrants' economic success once they arrive.
Once it is launched, we expect to see a number of improvements to Canada's economic immigration system that will benefit our economy, our prosperity and labour market. Which, as you know, is a top priority for our government.
For example, the skilled newcomers that our economy needs will arrive here in months, rather than years.
In addition, by requiring candidates to first receive an invitation to apply before submitting an immigration application, we will prevent crippling backlogs from accumulating, like the one that plagued the Federal Skilled Worker Program for years.
[English]
We're getting faster, Mr. Chair, and we are identifying immigrants whose skills match Canada's needs and the needs of employers more closely than ever before.
CIC's main estimates also contain a decrease of nearly $30 million compared to the previous fiscal year for funding related to the implementation of biometric screening to reduce identity theft and fraud in our temporary resident visa program. Since biometric screening was successfully implemented at various missions over the last year, no additional investments are required this year. As this screening now forms part of our regular operations, ongoing funding is included in our operational budget.
All told, Mr. Chair, these and other items represent a net decrease of $270 million, with the largest single item relating to the passport revolving fund, which is part of our estimates for the first time this year. There's been a reduction of $270 million, though, across the board compared to the previous fiscal year, which brings my department's main estimates for 2014-15 to roughly $1.39 billion. Keep in mind that the revolving fund is reduced in response to higher revenue in the previous period. We had that unbelievable interest spike in demand for the 10-year e-passport last year, which partly explains the reductions in our main estimates this year.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm happy to answer any questions that you or members of the committee may have now or when we return.
Thank you, Minister, and staff for attending.
Immigration is probably one of the greatest hallmarks of Canada's history in our nation-building and how we've evolved and where we are today.
Minister, you spoke about Bill , strengthening Canadian citizenship act. We know that the Liberals had 13 long comfortable years to reform the Citizenship Act, but they didn't do it. That's why our government set out to make the first comprehensive reform to the Citizenship Act in 35 years; that's since 1977.
:
Thank you so much, Mr. Leung, and thank you for your work on this committee, on its reports, and on Bill .
The simple answer to your question is twofold. First, we are getting faster processing already, thanks to budgetary commitments and money in these estimates. We did have some years, last year and the previous years, when residency concerns were widespread, when residency questionnaires were distributed in relatively large numbers. That scrutiny was required, as you said, because there was abuse. But we've overcome many of those obstacles. We've put in place new resources to process more, and in the first five months of this year, over 100,000 permanent residents became citizens of Canada, which is a record number.
I hope that all members of this committee have had the opportunity to participate in a citizenship ceremony recently.
The bill will give us even more tools to press ahead with this faster processing. It simplifies the decision-making model and will allow us to use the resources you are voting on today in these main estimates, and which we are discussing today, to greater effect. It will literally help us make tens of thousands more permanent residents citizens this year than we would be able to do were the bill not passed, or passed much later.
In addition to faster processing, in addition to reinforcing the value of citizenship and lengthening the residency requirement slightly, we will have new tools to maintain program integrity and combat fraud, which should prevent us from having the kinds of doubts hanging over this program that we've had in the past.
:
Thanks for mentioning that.
The residency requirement was five years, until 1977. The five-year requirement was put in place back in 1914—one hundred years ago this month, actually—by another Conservative government, and it served us well over that long period.
My view is that the reduction to three years, and then this inattention to abuse, really did cheapen Canadian citizenship. It really did fail to fully express the value that it has, and that's why we're moving back to four years out of six to ensure that the attachment, that sense of belonging, that experience of Canada that only physical presence here can provide, is really there.
The other sad chapter, as you know, Mr. Leung, from the decades after 1977, was that there was little done under Liberal governments to deal with people who were present here only through a post office box, who literally dissimulated their residency in Canada. I'm not talking here about small numbers. We're talking about thousands of people confirmed to have done so, perhaps tens of thousands over the decades. That will no longer be possible and that's what Canadians expect, because across all our immigration and citizenship programs there is zero tolerance for abuse from Canadians or from any of us.
To finish on the previous subject, just to be explicit here, residence is not defined in the current Citizenship Act. It is vague. It doesn't say physical presence, and hence the scope for the abuse that we're now trying to overcome.
Express entry is also a major focus of investment in these main estimates. It's the top priority of our department. It's the new system for delivering all of our economic programs starting on January 1, 2015, building on the reduced backlogs and faster processing times that we already have.
But what will it allow us to do? Instead of just mechanically processing applications as they come in, we will have a much larger group of people, interested in Canada, who've submitted their profiles. We will sort and rank those profiles based on the criteria, the point systems for economic immigration that we already have, and we will invite the ones who are best qualified, who best meet the needs of the Canadian economy today, to come here. That means the skill levels, the educational attainment, the suitability for the job market here of immigrants will be better than ever.
So it's very exciting. The Australians and New Zealanders have shown us the way on this. They have been pioneers, and we are emulating and improving on their experience. We—
It is interesting that you also spoke of the costs for provinces, because there are studies that have been recently published on the matter. For example, the latest one I have read was published May 8, 2014, by the Public Library of Science. It is entitled:
[English]
“The Cost and Impact of the Interim Federal Health Program Cuts on Child Refugees in Canada”.
[Translation]
Could you explain how exactly you calculate these savings? A year after the reforms to the program, more and more studies are showing, for example, that parents are increasingly worried about the bills they will have to pay if they no longer have a right to free care. They thus delay their hospital visits more and more. As a consequence, more and more children, who are as you call them illegitimate refugees—though they aren't so necessarily—go to the emergency room or increase the costs for provinces and hospitals in another way.
You really do not use the same methodology to calculate these costs as the one used by these researchers and by the hospitals participating in the study or even that of the provinces who complain that their costs are increasing, precisely because of the reform made to the Interim Federal Health Program.
I took note of the $600 million number. I thank you for your reply.
As for the Express Entry program, you say that the applications will be processed in six months or less. Has that period of time been calculated starting from the moment the applicant has submitted their application and gets a positive answer and an invitation to come to Canada? Do you calculate the time during which a person must wait before receiving an invitation from a business or a province?
:
Thank you, Ms. Blanchette-Lamothe.
[English]
Mr. , you mentioned in your opening remarks that the previous Liberal government had left a broken immigration system, with people waiting over eight years.
I agree with you that it was a broken immigration system that needed to be fixed, sure, so my question to you is pretty simple. You also talked about Bill and thanked the committee. With respect to Bill making it harder for people to get citizenship in Canada, and with the previous Liberal government's backlogs, delays, and whatever—the broken immigration system, as you mentioned—why has it taken your government so long to actually do anything about it? It's been over three years now that this Parliament has been in session. Why has it taken you so long to actually do something about it?
:
I would like to ask you a question based on
The Globe and Mail article, an editorial saying “don't banish them”, where it quotes the charter of rights, saying:
“Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.” The principle is so fundamental that the Charter’s notwithstanding clause cannot be used to override this section.
They then say:
Stripping a citizen of citizenship is characteristic of a totalitarian regime such as the Soviet Union, which banished dissidents, including the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1974. It’s not a model for Canada to emulate.
I would like to ask you about that, but I have a bit of hesitation, because given your background, I don't believe that you believe your own answers. I believe that you would, as a normal person, agree with The Globe, and you would not agree with cutting basic health care to refugees. But I know in your current position you take a position that I don't believe you believe. I'm not sure it's worth asking, but I would ask one thing and that is whether the officials could provide the clerk with copies of the briefing binders that they and the minister have used today and if they could do that before the end of the month.
If there is time, minister, you may like to answer my question, but I'd like to ask that one first.
I will now be talking about your allocations because the opposition isn't doing the job on this issue.
Through the chair, Minister, I want to talk about the $45.5 million in funding that you said the department will be using to address increased application volumes for citizenship, etc. I strongly and honestly believe that citizenship is a privilege, not an entitlement. That's my belief. Of course it comes with rights and responsibilities.
I also believe that citizenship should be earned. When we talk about the time requirement, the opposition thinks it is fair that those who have no connection to Canada or have spent very little time in Canada should have the right to be Canadian citizens. The impression I also got from the opposition during the debate was that they have shown that they believe it is also right to obtain citizenship by fraudulent means.
So my question to you is this. In order for someone to become a Canadian citizen, is it too much to ask them to spend a significant amount of time in Canada? How do you compare this with other peer countries?
The U.K. and the United States have five-year requirements. Other countries in Europe have even longer requirements. Australia has a four-year requirement, which will be the same as ours if and when Bill becomes law. So we are absolutely in the right ballpark.
In my contact with Canadians, the strongest proponents of this four-year residency requirement are newcomers themselves. They see some of the abuse, and they saw it in recent decades. They want to have that sense of knowledge, that direct experience, and be well oriented in Canada as a society. That does take time. Four years is a reasonable amount of time. In fact 45% of those applying for citizenship already spent four years or more here before they applied.
It's absolutely important to us as a country. It's a special federal responsibility.
[Translation]
We want the francophone communities in northern and eastern Ontario, in Manitoba, in Yukon, in New Brunswick, in Moncton and everywhere in the country to benefit from increased francophone immigration.
[English]
We're going to make that happen through express entry. I'm very proud that the OECD, in its report on Canada today, has spoken in glowing terms about express entry and the prospects for it to meet the needs of our labour market better than ever before. They expect it to increase “the responsiveness of the immigration system to labour-market demand (notably by implementing the Express Entry system)”.
This is a reform that hasn't even been fully implemented but is already being celebrated because it's been well planned.
[Translation]
We are going to use Express Entry to favour francophone immigration in all parts of this country because we acknowledge and support French language and culture everywhere in Canada.
Express entry has also been discussed before as well by my colleagues.
You mentioned that express entry will be a faster, more effective, more efficient, and more proactive process, which will select immigrants based on the skills and attributes that Canada needs.
More importantly for me was when you made the comment that new Canadians will have a better chance of economic success. You might want to elaborate on that a bit.
I'll ask one question on the processing times, if I could, then.
Through these main estimates, the government is requesting $45.5 million in additional funding relative to the previous year, due to the increased volume demands in the citizenship program and temporary residence program.
I'm wondering about wait times. Are average wait times increasing as a result of these increased volume demands, and how will the additional funding be utilized to address this increased volume demand?
:
Thanks for those questions.
On citizenship, wait times are not growing. They are, in our view, unacceptably high—two to three years—but they are starting to come down as we move through a much larger number of cases. Already this year we have gotten through 100,000 in the first five months, and with the measures in Bill , we will get through them at a much faster rate in the second half of this year. This means that by early 2016, wait times for citizenship applications will be under one year once again.
For temporary resident visas, which we are issuing in record numbers around the world, in the first three months of this year, demand was up 30% in China, our biggest market, if you will. We issue well over a million every year.
We are put to the test to meet this demand, to stay within our 14-day service standard. I haven't checked the numbers this week, but as recently as early this month and late last month, we were within those service standards, and in many parts of the world, including China, we were well below them.
As you know, we announced CAN+, a service for Mexico and other countries whose visitor visas are processed in Mexico City by us. It will ensure that a large class of visitors from Mexico will have service in seven days or less.
We're also issuing, in some missions, a record number—as much as 90% or more—of multiple-entry visas, 10-year multiple-entry visas, which means that Chinese citizens, Indian citizens, and Mexican citizens, in unprecedented numbers, are coming and going as they see fit to visit family members or to do business. That's a very positive and popular measure, but we've really accelerated it in this past fiscal year, and we plan to continue to do so as our trade relations, economic relations, and tourism with all of these countries continue to grow.
:
Mr. Chair, perhaps I can just begin my remarks by indicating that the Immigration and Refugee Board is responsible for undertaking its own measures. This was not an undertaking of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration in terms of actually looking at measures to achieve certain savings.
My understanding, if I can just comment on the IRB's decisions in terms of offices, is that they offer hearings in Montreal since they closed the Ottawa office, and that move was based on the number of hearings that take place. They basically are looking across their network and trying to rationalize, certainly from the point of view of where the numbers are, and they feel they can actually meet their requirements. It's not unusual in other locations that people have to travel a certain distance to attend hearings.
It would really be more appropriate for the Immigration and Refugee Board, which is not present today, to reply to that question.
Through you, Chair, thank you, all, for being here today.
Citizenship and Immigration received the passport program last July, and as you know, our government is committed to fairness and respect for the hard-earned tax dollars of our citizens while ensuring, of course, the delivery of a quality service. The passport program does provide one of the highest levels of service, and the service standards in Canada are being respected in over 99% of the cases.
Would you be able to tell me how many passports were issued last year?
As the deputy minister has just indicated, we've just finished another round of consultations in all provinces and two of the three territories, focused on employers. Employers will have an opportunity, through the revised Job Bank, to be able to search or look for candidates who are in the pool, who are after that first stage. Where they find a good match for skills, and where they have a labour market opinion in most cases, then what we see is that employers will be able to make a job offer.
Once employers have made that job offer, that's almost an automatic invitation to apply for those who are in the pool; that's significant to pull through.... When we talk about drawing candidates from the pool or providing those invitations to apply, those who have job offers and those who have provincial nominee certificates are drawn first, so to speak. Then we go to our ranking list, which the deputy minister has described, on who we're pulling next for those high human capital models or those high characteristics on their ability to participate and succeed.
As I do not have a great deal of time available to me, I will ask a general question.
The minister spoke to us of investments made within the context of various programs. In his conclusion, he said that there was a net reduction of $270 million compared to the previous financial year.
Could you tell me exactly where and why the savings were made and exactly what they represent? Is this a staff cut or restructuring?
Much has been said about areas where money was invested, but it can also be seen that savings were made. I have the impression that these are the result of cuts.
Regardless, I will leave that for you to answer.