CIMM Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

¹

1535

The Chair (Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.))

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ)

The Chair

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean (Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Program Development, Department of Citizenship and Immigration)

¹

1540

The Chair

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy (Calgary—Nose Hill, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

The Chair

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

¹

1545

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

¹

1550

The Chair

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham—Kent Essex, Lib.)

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Jerry Pickard

¹

1555

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

º

1600

M. Daniel Jean

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

The Chair

Mr. Frank Andrews (Deputy Director, Economic Policy and Programs (Selection Branch), Department of Citizenship and Immigration)

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

º

1605

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

The Chair

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

The Chair

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1610

The Chair

Mr. Massimo Pacetti (Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, Lib.)

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Massimo Pacetti

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1615

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1620

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1625

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1630

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

The Chair

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy

The Chair

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1635

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1640

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

Mr. Jerry Pickard

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1645

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

Mr. Daniel Jean

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1650

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

º

1655

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Jean

»

1700

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

---

NUMBER 077

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹  (1535)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.)): Good afternoon, colleagues.

[Translation]

    Good afternoon, Madeleine. What is it?

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): The House could just about adjourn.

    The Chair: I do not know.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Our chair is improving in French!

[English]

    The Chair: Pursuant to Standing Order 32(5), we are considering amendments to the immigration and refugee protection regulations, referred to the committee on Wednesday, October 1.

    We have the privilege to have with us today, from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, Daniel Jean, assistant deputy minister, policy and program development. With him are a number of his colleagues, whom I won't list. If in fact there are specific questions that Daniel can't answer, which I don't believe would be the case.... Or maybe he'll want to share the glory or trials and tribulations with some of his colleagues.

    Anyway, we're here, obviously, because it has been of great interest to our committee not only to follow the new regulations that were put in place over a year ago and to find out how things are working, but we know the minister and the department have issued these amendments, which I think go a long way to doing what the committee had suggested about a year and half ago. So it's nice to see that most of the time the committee seems to be on the right track.

    We're looking forward to having this dialogue, Daniel, and I want to thank you and your officials for joining us and helping us in this great endeavour called “immigration” that we have in our country. I know you might have an opening statement for us, and then we'll go right to questions. So thank you very much in advance.

    Mr. Daniel Jean (Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Program Development, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I hope I can share the glory, because they certainly share the pain at times.

[Translation]

    Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the committee. I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to appear before you in order to better explain the goal of the various regulatory changes proposed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

    As you know, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and its regulations, which came into force on June 28, 2002, represented a major reform of a legislation that was designed to better adapt it to the new realities of our society and the new needs of our economy. On behalf of my department, I am proud to report that the implementation of this new legislative tool has proceeded smoothly, and that we are beginning to see and assess the results.

    However, as with any new tool, it is only by using it that we discover the small adjustments and fine tuning needed to improve its effectiveness. That is exactly the case of the proposed regulatory changes that are part of the package of changes before you for review. The majority of the changes are technical in nature.

    Some of them are designed to clarify the meaning of existing provisions in order to provide a better understanding of the policies behind the regulations. Changes have been made to the provisions dealing with members of a crew, the family class, the renewal of study permits, pardons, refugee resettlement and skilled workers. They simply clarify and better reflect existing policies and did not require the approval of new policies.

[English]

    In order to clarify the spirit of the regulation, a somewhat more substantial change was made to section 82 of these regulations. We propose that the points for arranged employment be granted only when the offers for arranged employment are made for levels O, A, or B of the national occupational classification, which would restrict the application of the section to managers, professionals, and skilled tradespeople. This would include, for example, health care professionals, teachers, plumbers, and carpenters. We would exclude cleaners, cashiers, and retail salespersons.

    This change is consistent with our goal of selecting skilled workers who meet the needs of our labour market, and is supported by Human Resources Development Canada. I should add that it was also the initial spirit that was intended in the legislation.

    In addition, amending this section will broaden its application to include temporary workers who do not require confirmation of employment--in particular, recent foreign graduates and those already in Canada who have a work permit who are not covered by the current regulation.

    These changes are also supported by Human Resources Development Canada. The goal is to avoid penalizing temporary skilled workers who are already in Canada who meet our criteria and who, according to the current regulations, will not receive the additional points for arranged employment.

    The changes to the regulatory provisions dealing with fees correct certain omissions and include certain policy elements that were left out of the initial regulations.

    Finally, certain changes correct inconsistencies between the French and English versions.

    As these regulatory changes concern several of our programs that are mainly very technical in nature, I am accompanied today by experts who will assist me in answering your questions. They are in the audience, and I may have to refer some of your questions to them. These experts are Rick Herringer, director of the resettlement division, refugees branch; Johanne DesLauriers, director of social immigration policy and programs, and Frank Andrews, deputy director, economic policy and programs, both of whom are from the selection branch; and Neil Cochrane, director of hearings and admissibility, and Barry Jackson, deputy director, permanent resident card project, both of whom work in the enforcement branch.

    This concludes the points I wanted to present today, Mr. Chairman. Now I'm prepared to answer your questions.

¹  (1540)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much. That was short and sweet and to the point, so that means we have a lot more time to ask you some questions.

    Diane.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy (Calgary—Nose Hill, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Jean. We all know the devil's in the details, so you're a fighter for the right, by getting the details right. We appreciate your being here.

    I am unclear about whether the regulations you are here to talk to us about today include the changes to the point system for skilled workers, from 75 points to 67. Can you clarify that for me?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: The current package of regulations that we have was pre-published prior to the regulation you're referring to.

    In relation to that regulation, what is really the change there is the fact that people who had submitted an application prior to January 1, 2002, will be dealt with under the old regulations, and if for any reason they don't meet the old regulations they will also get the benefits of the new system and the revised pass mark.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: But those new regulations are not necessarily in front of us today?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: No, they are not. I could certainly handle some general questions on that.

    The only comment I would make is that the change of the pass mark itself is not a regulatory matter. It is an administrative matter that the minister announces.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: Mr. Chairman, I just want some clarification.

    The Chair: Yes. Let me ask the question.

    Daniel, if I'm not mistaken, I think they were just published on, what, Saturday?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Yes, about two weeks ago.

    The Chair: Would there be any problems? Surely the committee would be able to ask you some questions with regard to those particular regulations. Now that they're in the public domain, they're out for comment.

    I think it would be in order to ask some questions, Diane.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Yes, sir, I would certainly be able and prepared to answer questions to the best of my ability.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I was just going to say, are we going to have the officials back to talk about those specific regulations before November 7? If not, we should probably try to deal with them today, at least a little bit.

    The Chair: Both.

    I would agree that we should get some of those questions in, and if we can't get answers, we can make sure that those answers come to us, and if we need to, have an additional meeting with regard to those particular questions with regard to those regulations on the point system. I think there's nothing stopping this committee from asking these questions and Daniel and his officials answering. If they can't get the answers, then we can get them given to us, and if we need an additional meeting before November 7 or 9, or 2004, or whatever the magic date is, we will deal with it. Sure.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: The proposed amendments are divided into seven groupings. Because time is so short, it's very difficult to prioritize these. All these categories or groupings are extremely important to our immigration system. But I would like to ask questions about the new point system, since it's in order, because I think that's going to have some pretty immediate impact.

    First of all, with respect to that, with the changes in the point system, can you give us some idea of the percentage by which applications are forecast to be increased? Because now more people will qualify, so more people will apply.

    Of course the reason we're concerned about this as a committee is because we know there's already a huge backlog and a delay in processing applications for skilled workers. So I wonder what the department can tell us about your assessment of the timelines for processing applications and how they're going to be impacted now with the changes in the point system.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: It's very difficult. This is not a perfect science. The best analogy you have, I guess, is the interest rate that the Bank of Canada announces every week and how much of a drop is required to stimulate demand, how much of a rise is required to fight inflation. It's not a perfect science.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: But surely you've made some assessment, just because you need to resource the system.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Yes, absolutely.

    We set two pass marks, as you will remember, in the transition last year. We set the pass mark for cases that were in process, which was 70 points, and we set a higher pass mark of 75 points for new cases. We said that by setting a higher pass mark for new cases, we wanted to slow down a little bit the volume of applications that were coming in, because we had important inventories. That has materialized. We've had a reduction in the volume of new applications that have come in. As a result, we felt that we were at the stage where we could reduce the pass mark.

    At 67 points, we think it's probably going to bring us the kind of flow of applications that we need. I would not venture to tell you what number we think it's going to be. At the same time, it is a profile of applicants, high-quality applicants, the types of skilled workers that I think the committee has been vouching for.

¹  (1545)  

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: With respect, you're not giving me any hard information. I asked for percentages and I'm asking for a calculation as to how this will add to the backlog, because even though you're saying these applications will be the numbers that we need, we already know we have more people queued up than can be dealt with in a reasonable period of time. So we do need to have some hard idea about what we're looking at here, because our constituents, the people of Canada, are asking us about the expectations under this new regime.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: First of all, the actual residual inventory has gone down the last year as a result of higher pass marks.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: Can you tell us by how much? Can you give us numbers?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: I didn't come here expecting that I was going to get that precise level of questioning. This is something we can easily provide to you in writing, Ms. Ablonczy, and we'll be able to do so.

    What really is the challenge is to try to provide you a prediction of what it's going to be. It's like you were to ask the Governor of the Bank of Canada what the impact would be on inflation of a drop of a percentage point in the interest rate.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I don't want to be impatient here, but surely, Mr. Jean, the department must have some assessment in order to properly resource the system as it will be configured with the change. You surely can't just say “We have no idea”. If you have an idea, would you please let the committee know, so that we can also be in on that assessment?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Under our old selection system, we needed about 70,000 cases per year of skilled workers, including the cases we refused, to meet our immigrant levels, which are set somewhere around 125,000 landings, meaning persons.

    Under the new system, whether or not we're still going to require about 70,000 cases remains to be proven, because that depends on whether or not we're going to have the same approval rate, which is not something you can predict.

    What I can tell you is that if we assume that we want to have somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 new cases per year in order to meet levels in the long run, we are confident that a pass mark at 67 is going to help us.

    I want to be very clear that these are predictions, and that I cannot be held accountable for predictions.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I understand that. The thing that puzzles me, though, is that while we were all in Europe in the spring, as you know, and had some very good meetings, each of the missions that we talked to there said that under the 75-point pass mark, they were meeting their targets. In other words, under the high pass mark, the targets are being met. But you're telling us now that a much, much lower pass mark will just be sufficient to meet the targets. So something isn't connecting for me.

    How can it be that when a lot more people are able to apply, suddenly we'll just have enough to meet our target, when we already have enough to meet the target under the high pass mark?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: I can assure you, Madam Ablonczy, that at 75 there were not enough new applications coming into the system to be able to sustain our targets in the long run.

    As I've said before, we had two pass marks, one for new cases at 75 points, and one for existing cases at 70 points. As long as you have some remaining cases you're processing at 70 points, it's fine if some of them are approved, but if you aim at meeting your levels in the long run, you need to have a sufficient volume of new cases coming in.

    I can assure you that at 75 points, our data show that this was not sufficient.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: Yes, that's the data we'd like to see. I wonder whether you could provide it to us, just so we understand why we're suddenly needing more people to meet the targets when people are already backlogged. This needs to be clarified for me.

¹  (1550)  

    The Chair: We'll follow up on some of the questioning.

    Daniel, the specifics of any of that information would help us in the assessment of the impact study, or what have you.

    Jerry.

    Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham—Kent Essex, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    Mr. Jean, thank you very much for coming.

    I would assure you that Diane's questions are consistent with the views of most of the members of the committee. From day one we were not supporters of the 75-point system. We had reservations and were assured the 75-point system would fill the demand.

    On that basis, I think we need to have a lot more dialogue, because I now see a major change. It is going back toward what many of us had thought at one point: that it's an awfully high target, and you're targeting very special people. We're going to miss what I think we need in some parts of our society.

    Going back to one of the issues, you look at business and the skills of people coming in. You mention that you will select qualifying businesses to allow people to come in under those qualifying businesses. Could you give me an idea where we're talking about?

    I think back in my own experience. I'm in a relatively small area not that far from Toronto—200 miles from Toronto. If a cook comes into Chatham-Kent and does a reasonably good job, two or three years from that point he's in Toronto working in a restaurant at much higher pay. We cannot sustain certain skills and certain people in our communities, in much the same way as the provincial system has problems maintaining people in their system. It seems the migration always happens over a period of time into Toronto. Even though we have certain demands—needs for technology, for skills, for groups of people—our business demand I'm certain is very different in my rural setting from what it would be Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal.

    How is the determination made as to the types of businesses we would try to attract people for, and where we're going with this policy? I see it having a major negative effect in many areas of Canada. You might get certain kinds of higher-quality people with a higher points system, but much of Canada loses out in the interim for the kinds of skills we need at this time.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: There are two streams of skilled workers who come in. There is the stream of those who come as immigrants. That's very much a human capital supply-side model, which means people are selected based on their skills. There is not necessarily a job waiting for them yet. They come here and compete in the labour market based on their skills and find employment. That is the immigrant model.

    A small proportion of them come with arranged employment and have a job waiting for them. There is also a possibility for employers who have specific demands and are not able to fill them with the domestic labour force to receive confirmation that they can hire foreign workers. There are a number of workers who come that way.

    In recent years, as you know, we've also worked very closely with the provinces through the provincial nominee programs. Many of the provincial nominee programs—British Columbia's is an example—are based on labour market needs. These cases are processed in a fairly fast manner. That's another means to meet some of the business needs you have identified.

    Mr. Jerry Pickard: I'm trying to get to a little different point. It's along the same line, though. Listen to the difference.

    If someone comes to an area like mine in Chatham-Kent, the cost of living is much lower; a lot of things are very different. We might be able to attract people for a brief period of time. If an employer wants to hire a specialized cook or something and train them, that's well and good, and it occurs in ridings like mine. But suddenly, once this person has the skills, they can go elsewhere and demand a much higher wage. And they do that; we cannot keep those....

    So the program doesn't work well for everybody, and it certainly doesn't work equally. My question is, how do you compensate for those differences that occur? And can you compensate? Quite frankly, I think we're losing out.

    The best example I can give you is that the owner of a Chinese restaurant told me he has trained six people in the last ten years. They all left him after they learned the skills, because they can get double the pay in Toronto once they learn the skills. There has to be some other system that helps this person.

    He has a brother who would like to come, and because of the family connection he could come, but he can't make it on the points system. How do we deal with those issues?

¹  (1555)  

    Mr. Daniel Jean: The problem you're raising, Mr. Pickard, is one of regional development that applies as much to immigrants as to the local labour force. We've certainly drawn the same lesson, in terms of the efforts we've been making around regionalization: that you need to approach it the same way. It's not just an issue of bringing in workers in a stream to people for two or three years, workers who then go somewhere else. We need to work with the communities in a way that will deliver conditions that will convince these people to stay there. Yes, wages sometimes are more attractive in major urban centres, but there are other things that you get in small centres that you may not get in a big city. The problem is very similar to the one we have with doctors in rural communities and things like that.

    Mr. Jerry Pickard: I have another question I would just touch base on. We have a side deal that is suggested under our agreement between Canada and the United States. There are those who think that side deal was put in place in order to have very specific people come into Canada. Guantanamo Bay was one of the suggested areas from which to bring people into Canada because of the terrorism issue and what has happened in that relationship.

    Is that in fact the reason why a side deal is there? Second, if there is a side deal to bring people into Canada from other questionable situations, how are we handling it?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Currently we can get referral for cases as refugees either from UNHCR or from organizations with whom we've signed an MOU. What we're proposing in the set of regulations now is that a foreign government could also be a referral group. Indeed, in the context of negotiations for the safe third country agreement, we have signed off, as part of an annex, on the possibility of the United States, and Canada as well, referring cases for resettlement. In the context of cases being referred from Guantanamo, the United States is not interested in referring cases that may have made the media because of their role in the context of global terrorism or things like that. These cases would be inadmissible to Canada. They are not cases we would be approving.

    The cases they may be interested in referring to us are, for example, Haitians who may have been interdicted on the high seas and have fears of return that are credible, and who may have ties with Canada—maybe family in our communities—or other reasons of that nature.

    Mr. Jerry Pickard: Would this, then, be more a case of social restructuring than a political one?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: This is very much part of what we call burden sharing. It is a possibility for us to work with other partners who receive refugees and to refer cases where it makes more sense. We may have a Haitian who has been interdicted at sea and is in Guantanamo but who has brothers in Montreal. It may make more sense for him to be reunited as a refugee in Montreal rather than ending up in Little Haiti in Miami.

    The Chair: Thank you. We'll come back to you for some more questions, Jerry.

    Madeleine.

[Translation]

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I had a bit of time to go through the "Regulatory impact analysis statement". I got to page 24. You are right, this is not necessarily easy. So I flagged the things that I did not understand, thinking that you could no doubt explain them to me.

    Hence, in the part on temporary residents, particularly the section pertaining to temporary workers, there is a sentence that I would like you to clarify, found on page 3 of the English version:

The restriction that a foreign national not be “inadmissible” was removed from the work permit issuance requirements to ensure that Temporary Resident Permit holders could be authorized to work.

    If I have understood this correctly, there used to be a requirement stating that the temporary worker must not be inadmissible and now we are removing this requirement. The term “inadmissible” is very broad, and there are a lot of grounds.

    A little bit later on in the text, there is a reference made to medical requirements. Inadmissibility because of medical requirements is a serious matter. We had SARS here not too long ago.

    I would simply like you to explain that to me.

º  (1600)  

    M. Daniel Jean: I am going to have to ask a colleague to answer that question, Ms. Dalphond-Guiral.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: They came and so we have to make them work.

[English]

    The Chair: Daniel, perhaps you could ask him to come up to the microphone.

    Perhaps you could introduce yourself so that we have it for the record.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Frank Andrews (Deputy Director, Economic Policy and Programs (Selection Branch), Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Good afternoon. I guess it's time for me to share the pain again.

    Thank you. My name is Frank Andrews. I'm the deputy director of the economic policy and programs division.

    Unfortunately, I'm going to have to ask you to repeat the question.

[Translation]

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I will repeat the question in French.

    In the French version of the document called “Regulatory impact analysis statement”, when referring to temporary workers—I would imagine that this must be somewhere towards the bottom of page 3 in the English version—, you mention:

The restriction that a foreign national [...]

    So we are talking about the temporary worker, given that we are in this section.

[...] not be "inadmissible" was removed [...]

    So I understand that this is no longer a restriction.

[...] from the work permit issuance requirements to ensure that Temporary Resident Permit holders could be authorized to work.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: That is because in many cases, Ms. Dalphond-Guiral, temporary resident permits—which have replaced ministerial permits, as you know—are given to people for good reasons, in order to bypass a requirement making them inadmissible. Someone might be inadmissible for all sorts of reasons. In many of those cases, it is felt that those people should have permission to work. The way the regulations were worded, however, it was no longer possible to give them that permission.

    Let us take a concrete example. Let us suppose that someone came here freely, with a permit. The department decided that that person should come to Canada and would be able to work. But the person has a medical problem or some other type of problem. According to the regulations, he or she was not allowed to work.

    The idea is to be able to exercise discretion when temporary resident permits are issued for good reasons and to authorize the holder to work. We want people to be able to get a work permit.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: But I suppose that there are always investigations, even if people apply for a temporary work visa. I imagine that if there were no investigations, it would be the ideal way to get in to this big beautiful country of ours. So there still are security investigations.

    What happens if the security investigation shows that someone has been convicted of something that would be considered an offence here? Is all that ignored?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: No, not at all.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I do not really understand. If this restriction if being dropped, no temporary workers, theoretically, would be considered inadmissible.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: No.

    What we're looking for is to be able to issue a work permit to someone who, for some reason, was inadmissible. We want to have the possibility of doing that, which does not mean that we will do it. It does not affect our screening measures in any way whether we are talking about medical, security or criminal checks.

    Take the example of someone who is inadmissible on medical grounds and who has a temporary resident permit, which, as I said, has replaced the ministerial permit. That person is in Canada even though he or she was deemed inadmissible on medical grounds and it was always assumed that he or she would be working. We want to be able to authorize that person to work.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: That is precisely what I do not understand. How can we say that someone is inadmissible on medical grounds but then ignore that fact and want the person to be able to work? There is something there I do not get. I do not know whether I am being slow on the uptake, but I have the right to be, since it is Tuesday afternoon.

º  (1605)  

    Mr. Daniel Jean: I gave the example of a medical problem. Let us suppose that the person comes to Canada as a temporary worker and that his or her medical problem imposes a burden on the health system but does not pose any risk to public health. The person is in Canada only for a few months and needs to work because he or she is here for a particular reason. A temporary resident permit has been issued because the person could not enter Canada because he or she was inadmissible on medical grounds. So we want to be able to authorize this person to work.

    I will take another example. Someone maybe inadmissible because of a criminal conviction that dates back many years. A decision has been made to issue a temporary resident permit to allow that person to come to Canada. The person is coming for a specific job and therefore we want to be able to authorize him or her to work.

    The way the regulations were worded, there was a technical error that prevented us from being able to give these people work permits when we wanted to do so.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I trust the answer almost implicitly.

    May I ask another question, Mr. Chairman? He will say yes, I am sure.

[English]

    The Chair: Yes, of course.

[Translation]

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Since we have been on this committee, we have often noticed that immigration officers had discretionary authority that was definitely in keeping with their duties, however we have found that this authority was relatively broad. In the regulations, we see the whole issue of discretionary authority regarding the financial requirements for temporary resident applicants or skilled workers. Even if the applicants are perfect, outstanding, and meet all the qualifications, if they have no money, that is too bad, because they will not be able to come to Canada.

    It seems to me that if they do not have any money, it may be because they were spendthrifts or were very generous to the members of their family. However, the fact remains that they have certain qualifications. However, they're told that unfortunately, they will have to go off and save some money. Moreover, we are going to be setting aside the inadmissibility criteria.

    I would just like to understand.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: As I explained earlier in my answer to Mr. Pickard, people have to comply with our selection model, which is not based on demand. They're therefore not coming to take a job that is already waiting for them. They must find a job on the labour market, and that can take some time. There are delays and adjustment costs. Our data on passed experience have shown that if people do not have a minimum amount of money to help pay for these initials settlement costs, many of them will be dependent on welfare or other types of support.

    In the past, we had administrative directives telling our people that such cases, which require discretion under the former act and a substitute evaluation under the new act, be used very sparingly. Now, we have clarified that in such cases, this should not be used, except where applicants have a job waiting for them, because in that case, they will have a source of income once they arrive.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: May I continue?

    The Chair: Yes.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Thank you.

    Further on in the document, in the section on families, we read that paragraph 117(4)(a) of the Regulations removes the reference to provincial rules governing adoptions of individuals over 18, because no province has such legislation.

    I know that in Quebec, all matters regarding adoption come under the Civil Code, and that they are not at all in contradiction with these provisions. I know that if the Citizenship of Canada Act is passed some day, this will not be a problem, because some material has been added to the legislation to comply with the requirements of Quebec.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: There is no contradiction. The provinces were consulted. We included this in our legislation specifically to allow provinces, if they wished, to pass regulations on this, but none of them have done so nor stated their intention to do so.

    Thank you very much.

º  (1610)  

[English]

    The Chair: Massimo.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti (Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I think we spoke about the backlog, and you were saying that the point system was increased originally because we were going to reduce the backlog. It has in effect reduced the backlog, so now we've reduced the points to increase the backlog. Do you understand this correctly?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Yes. I think it's an excellent question, and for me it's an opportunity to go back to when we talked about the pass mark in IRPA and what was going to be the role of the pass mark. In the past we had other criteria in our regulation to regulate the volume of applications. We had the demographic factor, we had the occupational list, where we could fluctuate the points for the various occupations, and we had the pass mark, which was regulatory at the time.

    So there were different ways whereby by playing with factors we could stimulate more demand or slow down demand. In the new selection criteria, when this was being developed, the department was always clear that the pass mark was going to be the primary way to regulate demand. That pass mark would fluctuate, and it would go up and it would go down. And when we announced the new selection criteria we explained that we put the higher pass mark for new cases, while returning a lower pass mark for cases that were already in process, because we wanted to slow down the volume of new applications to allow us to deal with the inventory that we had in place.

    It has had the impact that we wanted. Our inventories have started to go down. Our volume of new applications has gone down substantially.

    The committee has asked to see the figures. We'll be happy to provide that to the committee.

    Now we are at the stage where we are ready to lower the pass mark for new cases, and we've also extended that for cases that are in process as well. So we've gone from 75 to 67, both for new cases and for existing cases.

     If next year the volumes of new applications are so high that inventory starts to grow again, we may have to readjust the pass mark. It has always been a clear policy statement that the pass mark will be adjusted up and down.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: You keep talking about numbers, but we don't have the numbers. How about time? How long does it take to process, whether it's a refugee claim or an immigration claim or permanent resident, any type of claim? In my office, I've been there over a year and a half, and I don't see it slowing down at all. If anything, it has increased.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: It's very difficult to give you an answer, because, as you know, it's different by categories and it's different by locations.

    Mr. Massimo Pacetti: Pick one. We seem to be getting an increase in all the categories.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: And we are, there's no question, except for the skilled workers, where we have a little bit of a reprieve. The family class is growing, both spouses and minor children. We're making huge efforts to try to process those the fastest. Spouse and minor children is our number one priority; we're aiming to process 80% of those cases in six months. We're not there yet, but we're processing about 50% in six months or less.

    The rest of the family class is expanding exponentially, and this is creating major tension on our mix. As you know, we want to do 60% economic class, but if the growth in the parents and grandparents category is always growing really, really fast, the time it takes to process those cases is going to take longer.

    As far as the skilled worker category is concerned, processing times have gone down a little bit because the inventory in that category has gone down. For example, in a case that has arranged employment, meets it on its own so it doesn't need an interview, is a provincial nominee case or is a Quebec case, it gets processed in about eight to ten months.

    If it is not a case that is not--

    An hon. member: Where? Where?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Oh, there are a number of cases that are processed at that pace. The problem is--

    The Chair: Daniel, I wouldn't mind you telling me where that happens.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: As I said, we're talking about the cases that either have been selected by a province, under provincial nominee or Quebec, or cases that we've been able to select on paper.

    Now, the cases that take longer are cases that require an interview, particularly if they come from an area of the world where we have a huge concentration of applications--China, for example.

º  (1615)  

    The Chair: Yvon, do you have a question, or Diane?

    Perhaps I may follow it up. One of the biggest challenges of the committee, obviously, is trying to get a handle on the backlog. That's why, when we were dealing with this whole issue, we asked for an extension of the date. We asked that retroactivity, which is a repugnant sort of instrument to use by any government, though we understand and realize sometimes why that must occur.... But I think Diane, Massimo, and Jerry have asked the questions.

    We knew we had a tremendous inventory. That's why, as you said, the point system would be used as a way of slowing that down. Obviously that has proved correct, because even in our travels we were told that the 75 points was slowing the applications down so much that in some cases 60% to 70% fewer applications were coming forward under the 75, and that 70 as a pass mark, even for those who had already applied, was turning out to be a real problem anyway.

    In fact, the minister, at a meeting with his people in Cairo, essentially said the same thing, that you have a whole bunch of applications that, if you were to apply the 70 pass mark in the transitional phases, wouldn't pass. Therefore, what are we supposed to do with them? I know discretion was something that was used in the past, and I have a lot of faith and trust, as we found out from our travels, in your frontline people who were assessing it. In most cases they're right, probably 99.9% of the time. But discretion seems to have been taken away.

    My point is that I think you still have a resourcing problem, no matter what that number is, and I understand that moving it from 75 down to 67 is now going to get you a whole bunch of applications. The courts and other people have told you the retroactivity provisions were wrong to start with, and hopefully the 67 is going to get you those people who were being rejected under 70, so you'll be able to fill your numbers, this year maybe.

    We'll wait for the minister's report in November. If we have the minister here next week we'll ask him about some of these questions, as well as the supplementaries, and talk to him a little bit about these issues.

    My point is that you still have a resourcing problem. What we heard when we travelled, and what we continue to hear and what we've been very supportive of as a committee, is to try to get you the right number of people to do the right job, to process the right number of applications, no matter whether it be 75 or 67.

    However, we continue to be frustrated that it is taking so long to process applications. When we talked as a committee, when we talked to our provincial counterparts, when we did the provincial nominee agreement program, when we did the settlement program, everyone told us, even including some of your missions, that they can't do their work on family class inside of six months, that it's taking, as you said, eight to ten months.

    On skilled workers, it doesn't matter whether it's a provincial nominee agreement and so on, they say you can't get a decision quicker than two years or two and a half years. Yet there are a lot of countries out there looking for a lot of people, the same skilled workers that we are.

    Daniel, I want you to tell me whether or not the new system, present system, or old system is right in terms of resourcing, so we can process these applications in a speedy way. I'm not asking you to compromise the integrity of the system, but surely we should have an idea of how long it takes to process an application properly.

    I know we've tried the central system, that we've done a number of innovative and creative things, but we're all very concerned with regard to the resourcing as it relates to these new regulations, present regulations, and as we go forward. So can you talk to us a little bit about the resourcing issue?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: On the issue of the resources, I have to go back to the last time the minister testified on that issue. He told you our levels for this year, 2003, were set at 220,000--the minimum of the range--to 245,000, and the minister testified that we were going to be at the bottom of the range. I can assure you now, several months later, that the minister's prediction was right, because this is pretty much where our resources are. We are resourced to process at about the minimum of the range of 220,000 to 245,000.

    It's also not only an issue of processing. That's something that is very important, and the committee saw that when it did its report on integration. It's also having the right investment in terms of making sure that these people optimize their skills once they get here. It's one thing to process these numbers, but you also need to give them the language training and the tools for orientation so that they are going to be successful in Canada, because, as the census reports have shown, nationally our immigrants seem to have a bit more difficulty than before. We need to look at that as well.

    When we're talking about resources, it's resources for processing but it's also resources to make sure these people optimize their potential.

º  (1620)  

    The Chair: We've been very supportive on both. In fact, on the settlement side we indicate that more resources, more innovative and creative ways of making people resettle.... So when I'm talking resourcing, of course, we have to separate it from the processing for those people who are working with you to choose those people who will come to Canada. Once they've been chosen, obviously, there's a whole battery of things. And I think our settlement report, to which you haven't responded yet, looks at ways of being able to make sure that they can integrate a lot quicker.

    You said 228,000, that you're resourced to reach the minimum. But what's your tolerance level? Two years? Four years? Five years? Is that acceptable? If you're resourcing at that level and your results are two, three, or four years, surely you can't find that this is acceptable in terms of dealing with an application.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Absolutely, Chairman. This is precisely, for example, why we set the pass mark at 67, and not, let's say, 60. We don't want to generate a huge new demand. We're also concerned about quality. So we want to make sure that we don't have more cases coming into the system than we are able to handle.

    On the skilled worker side, we are able to at least use that criterion to manage intake--generate more intake, slow down intake. On the family class there is no such thing. And when you have objectives that say that you're going to try to do 60% and 40% “others”, being refugee and family class, and when you have finite resources, it means that the queues in the family class are getting longer.

    I can tell you that in most provincial nominee cases--Quebec cases--people who have arranged employment are processed in eight to ten months. I can tell you that. I also know it's not the reality of the people who are knocking on your door in your riding office, because these are not the people who are being processed in eight to ten months. And you're absolutely right about this, Mr. Chairman.

    The Chair: Diane.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I would point out that we do need to have some real satisfaction on this issue. Two years ago we were told a pass mark of 75 will give us plenty of skilled workers. Now all of a sudden we're told that a pass mark of 67, which is much lower, will not give us a surfeit of skilled workers who can be processed in a timely manner. So something's not adding up to us, and we need that clarified.

    There are a couple of other issues I'm concerned about, and I want to move on to those. I understand that under the new regulations students applying to renew their study permits will have to demonstrate that they are in “good standing” at their educational institution.

    We have concerns about educational institutions, more recently because of Project Thread, where people were coming to Canada basically under the auspices of a bogus school, but also because, as we have been told in our missions abroad, the so-called bogus fees of schools are proliferating and really cause problems for foreign students and defraud them of large sums of money.

    I really have two questions, but let me ask the main one first. Do institutions have to be accredited in any way--by the provinces, by the federal government, by anybody--before our immigration department issues student visas to individuals to attend a particular school? Does that particular school have to have any kind of accreditation before a visa is issued?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: The answer is no, because not all of these schools are offering what you would call a provincial curriculum. It may be a secondary, post-secondary, trade, or things like that. Some of these schools offer English or French as a second language.

º  (1625)  

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I know that, but some of them don't offer any education, period. Surely we have an obligation to foreign students to at least make some cursory examination of the so-called school to make sure these students are getting something useful.

    In my view, it's a complete abdication of our responsibility to the human capital of this world to allow them to spend thousands of dollars coming to Canada and then not get any kind of proper curriculum. So I know your answer is no, because a school isn't always a school in Canadian terms, but surely it has to be a school in some kinds of terms.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: You are absolutely right that when we give a visa for somebody to come to study in Canada the expectation is that they are here to acquire skills, skills of any sort.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: It's an expectation but not a requirement.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: And it is a requirement, and certainly in our conversation with the provinces we want to make sure that we are equipped in the best possible way to deal with that.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I know, Mr. Jean, but I was told in our missions abroad--and I'm sure other committee members have heard the same--that our officers abroad cannot refuse a student visa unless they absolutely know the school does not exist. Otherwise, no matter what the school might or might not look like, they have to issue the visa. Surely that situation is not a healthy one.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Our officers abroad can refuse a visa if they're not satisfied that the person is either a bona fide visitor to Canada or a student.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: No, I mean when we're talking about the school requirement, the school end of it.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: There are a number of reasons why our officers can refuse. As far as the school is concerned, if they are satisfied that the institution in concern is not offering any kind of education, our officers can refuse an application, and we do so.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: But how are they supposed to know if there's no investigation made, no requirement for any kind of accreditation?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Our officers have the possibility, if they want to know more about a school, to come to our services. We can also work with the provinces to try to find out whether or not the school is correct. What I need to explain to you is that in the past we used to have these lists of schools in various provinces that were supposedly fine from an immigration perspective. The problem with having lists of that sort is by the time you print it, or by the time you put it on your website, you have new schools coming in and you have schools that no longer exist.

    You've used the example of Project Thread. The problem with Project Thread is that the school no longer existed. And it was, in fact, our mission abroad working with our offices in Canada that uncovered that and asked the immigration service and the RCMP to investigate, which led to the arrest you're referring to. So rather than trying to create lists that are constantly out of date, what we're trying to do is we're trying to use the resources we have to support our offices when they do require a bit more information for a school.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: But that doesn't add up either, because the officers we talked to gave us a list of schools that they know are bogus, and if they gave it to MPs, surely the department must have had it a long time ago, and yet visas are still being issued for the schools that our officers abroad, from thousands of miles away, already know are bogus. So what are we doing here to make sure that schools are valid? Even by the time our officers abroad find out about it, nothing is done.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: I think from having read the report, Ms. Ablonczy, that when you were visiting these missions our officers shared lists of schools that they felt were not as scrupulous in their recruitment as they should have been and maybe were catering to a visa clientele. I don't think they used the word “bogus”, certainly not in what I've read in our report.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: They told us that some of those schools had no more room than half of the boardroom we were in, that they weren't real schools. They knew that from wherever we were.

    I find it odd that somehow there's not a hue and cry of alarm within the department about foreign students being treated in such a shabby manner. We seem content to sit on our hands and say this is.... I don't know what reason we're giving for not acting vigorously on this front.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: We're not content at all, Ms. Ablonczy. This is like any situation with enforcement: we have limited resources, but we certainly want to make sure that we use the resources in the best possible way to target abusers like the ones who you refer to. To give you an example, we signed an agreement with Alberta last week on processing the students, and in there we're developing a new partnership whereby schools will have to report to us whether or not students are actually studying.

    When you have limited resources, this is where you want to try to devote your energy, to try to make the schools accept responsibility, and work with the provinces and make sure that you create a better system to deal with these issues.

º  (1630)  

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: But if a school is run by fraudsters, surely any information they might give you is pretty suspect too.

    I do have another question about permanent resident cards. I don't want to--

    The Chair: Go ahead.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: Let's move on to permanent resident cards. The question is, this thing is now underway. Has the department conducted any audits of the permanent resident cards issuing process to assess how much, if any, fraud is occurring?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: There are two types of clients who are currently receiving permanent resident cards. In terms of the new immigrants who are coming in, their identity is verified at port of entry when they receive landing and they receive their permanent resident card by mail about four weeks later, because in their case we have authenticated their identity upon arrival at the port of entry and we have a picture. The picture that is put on the permanent resident card is the actual thing.

    For existing permanent residents in Canada, this is precisely why the process takes longer. This is precisely why we've had to organize the distribution throughout Canada in person, because when people come and pick up their card, they are subject to a verification of identity. We have set a much higher threshold in terms of what they are required to provide.

    As you know, this is a new project. On top of that, we are also developing quality assurance whereby in the future we are going to do random checks. But we are satisfied from what we've seen so far that we have a pretty good process in place.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: You didn't answer my question, and that was whether any audit has been done of the process.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: The process is very new. As you know, for existing immigrants, which is where there could be such a vulnerability, we've only been issuing these cards for less than a year now. We are putting in place quality assurance whereby there will be continued monitoring and random checks to make sure we are not being defrauded in any manner. They're already subject to a much higher threshold than the other things we do.

    Of course, once the project has been running for a little while, we'll have a complete audit performed. But yes, we are putting these checks and balances in place. There's already a much tougher check and balance in place for these applicants, because what they have to provide in terms of identity is at a fairly high threshold.

    Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I would just suggest, Mr. Chairman, that if the program has been going on for over a year, it should be audited—particularly because it's so critical. You say quality control is working. Yes, it's well to say you have quality control, but how do you know it's working if there's no audit?

    This is really a critical area. So I would simply make the observation that I think it's remiss that an audit wasn't undertaken just a few months into the program, particularly because the program is so important and affects so many people.

    The Chair: I think that can be part of one of the recommendations of the committee too, with regard to the permanent resident card. It was such a new one that in fact an ongoing monitoring of the integrity of that system was being put in place. But that's a very good suggestion that Diane has raised.

    Maybe you can get us an answer as to when you would normally do that with a new program, whether it is a year down the road or a half-year, or whatever, and whether or not it's an internal or external audit—just to verify that the process is working.

    Jerry.

    Mr. Jerry Pickard: You've made several recommendations or proposals for changes in the business immigrant class and in skilled worker areas. How are they going to change the flow of workers into Canada?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Are you referring to the current technical package in front of us, or are you referring to the other announcement?

    Mr. Jerry Pickard: I mean the proposals that you've put forward with regard to changing the definition of qualifying businesses, the types of things that you suggested would better define some of the issues regarding businesses, and the immigrants who can come and the opportunities they have.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: As far as the business class is concerned, the modifications there are highly technical. They are things that the provinces wanted. This is something that's going to protect us well in terms of competitivity with other programs worldwide. The modifications are small in nature, and as you know, the volume of business immigrants itself is small.

    As far as the skilled workers class is concerned, I would say the most notable change we're making in that technical package is the one that's going to allow people who may come for just a year. Let's say they have received a work authorization under NAFTA, or under one of our other trade policy agreements; they could not apply right now because they do not have an employment authorization that is valid for more than 12 months, and are not able to benefit from the 15 points of interim employment on our selection grid.

    We go back to our policy premises, that people who are either working or studying in Canada are great immigrants, because they've been trained here and have worked here and the barriers to integration are much lower. These are the kinds of immigrants we have.

    The way our regulations were drafted, they did not allow these people who had come in, let's say, for just 12 months to be able to apply for immigration and benefit from those 15 points. So what was happening was that we even had some of our practitioners, some lawyers, who were four months in the process, applying for renewal of a work permit with our office in Vegreville in order to have another 12 months and then to apply and benefit from the 12 months.

    So from a public policy perspective, it's going to support getting good immigrants in. From the perspective of using your resources wisely, it's not going to force people to do things that are inconvenient for them and at the same time not convenient for us in terms of the optimal use of our resources.

º  (1635)  

    Mr. Jerry Pickard: For instance, say a business needs special expertise from another operation. The best example I can give you is this. A business operating in my area might require special expertise from Holland in the agricultural sphere, and certainly in some products they are ahead of us in some of the technologies. In other things, we're ahead of them. But we share those skilled technical people often.

    There are problems, at times, bringing the same expertise into the area, giving certain advice to different operators, and then going back to Holland, calling back three months later for new.... We have that flow of skilled workers back and forth. Eventually it may even become more permanent, but the fact is, do we deal with those kinds of flows of information, flows of technology, flows of skills as well as we should? I don't think we do. And I think this has become more of an issue in our whole economy, as major auto companies start looking at certain areas of expertise, as other groups would look at various areas of expertise and pull in those professionals for an advisory capacity in different areas around the world for up to six months or a year.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Our labour mobility provisions and trade policy agreements, like NAFTA or GATS, or some of the work that is being done in the WTO right now, usually have provisions whereby we try to facilitate what we call the movement of speciality knowledge, the types of people you are describing. If for any reason the types of needs that are identified don't meet one of these exemptions, there are always possibilities for the employer to work with HRDC and to make sure that these people will be allowed to apply and come and fill that gap. There are indeed provisions. Should there be more? This is a continued dialogue in the context of our trade policy work. We are always involved in these trade policy discussions.

    Mr. Jerry Pickard: One of the things that I'm finding is there is a limited time. And where the same person is coming--it might be a consultant from a certain firm--if he's in Canada several times, then HRDC starts saying, well, we're not sure we're moving in that direction. There are barriers over time that build up in those cases, and I know different folks need that expertise. I'm not sure if it's your department or HRDC; I guess that may be a question that comes between both of you. I know in my area I'm seeing a problem evolve in those particular areas.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: If it is a case where it meets one of these trade agreement exemptions, normally the fact that they have to come on repeated occasions is not going to be an issue. It may be a different story if it is an issue where you have received a labour market test. These people should be allowed to come to transfer knowledge, and they come again and again. At some point, HRDC, who has the responsibility for labour market opinions, may say that by this point in time the transfer of knowledge should have occurred.

º  (1640)  

    Mr. Jerry Pickard: On the permanent resident card, and I know no one's asked it, there have been some suggestions that fraud may be occurring. Do you have any evidence of that? Are the permanent resident cards that we are issuing now fairly safe? Because that has all centred around some of the discussions we've been involved with on national identity cards as well, and with how secure our cards are and what is happening. And I think that interrelates with what this committee has been doing for the last several months.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: On the card itself as a security document, I can assure you that since June 2002, when we started issuing this card, we have not seen one good-quality replica of the card.

    The Chair: Did you see a bad one?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: A very, very bad one.

    So as far as the card itself is concerned, there is no evidence that this is a problem.

    Now, on whether on not there is a risk that people who should not qualify for a permanent resident card are getting a card, which is what we call the integrity of the process itself, it is the same vulnerability we had when we were issuing a form 1000. We are doing the checks and balances, short of a full audit. As I said, you can do a full audit after a certain period of time. We have in fact plans to have a formal systemic quality assurance process, but we haven't had any evidence that this is a problem at all.

    As a matter of fact, on the subject of an audit, as the public servant who has been responsible for this project, I can say we have now issued close to two-thirds of a million cards, and we are on budget, on time. It's a major, complex, mammoth task, and it's worked so well that I will welcome an audit.

    Mr. Jerry Pickard: Thank you.

    The Chair: He did bring up the favourite question that we still don't have an answer to. That is, how much is it costing per card? We've heard a lot of numbers in the past week or two, as Jerry mentioned, in dealing with a national ID. I know that you've issued or will issue 600,000, and by the end of the year it will be close to a million. I don't know what the figure was. At the forum I heard the minister talk about a certain number as to what has been expended. But the number we were given--this may be something for another day with regard to the supplementary estimates--was $100 million, or something like that, from the development to the issuance and so on and so forth, which would put it at about $30 a card.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: We will be able to share with you some documents on the cost. Indeed, prior to the forum on biometry, the minister asked the department to come up with costing per unit, which I think is what you're looking for. I think the department will be able to share that with you in the context of supplementaries.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Madeleine.

[Translation]

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I have one last question. In your presentation, you said that the best way to become familiar with a car was to drive it. That is the way to find out what works and what does not work. A few weeks ago we talked about the case of a girl about ten years of age who was unable to go to school because her parents were visitors, thus temporary residents, and their children were specifically not allowed to go to school. However, these parents were involved in a process to obtain permanent residence status.

    Are you planning to include some provisional measures somewhere in the regulations to avoid a recurrence of this situation?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: My knowledge of that case is limited, Ms. Dalphond-Guiral. I understood that because of the provincial legislation, these people, given the type of documentation they had, could not send their daughter to school. In this specific case, both the province and our minister used their prerogative and decided to deal with the problem.

    However, it would be dangerous, of course, to say that we are going to change our procedures so that we can take such action in many cases, because this could encourage people to come without following proper procedures. I am not saying that was the case in this specific example, but it is something about which we must be careful.

º  (1645)  

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I understand the reason for the regulations, but would it not be a good idea to provide for some exceptional measures? I am thinking of the situation of someone in my riding who went to look for her daughter and grandchildren, who were living in France. The father was violent and the grandmother told them to come on a visitor's visa, which was the easiest solution. It was clear that this woman would not be going back to live with her spouse.

    I know that those children are at school at the moment. I was therefore wondering whether there were some exceptional procedures to deal with similar situations. If people have major problems, the easiest approach is to get a visitor's visa. If a person is a French citizen, they do not even have to get a visitor's visa.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: There are some exceptional procedures in place, for example our humanitarian considerations. On the issue of school attendance, you will recall that in the previous act and regulations, the CIC minister had also decided that no authorization was required for children to attend primary school.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: In particular for illegal immigrants, and all of that.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: But that does not mean that the province will not have its own requirements.

    Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Yes, of course, but if the parents are illegal immigrants, that is not the children's fault. I think society has a collective responsibility in that regard. Perhaps the new governments will put new rules in place. We will see.

[English]

    The Chair: I have a few questions to close the circle here, Daniel.

    With regard to the skilled worker, I find that one of the best instruments is to put some faith and confidence in the people you work with. Most of the time they do a very good job. Positive discretion is something that we as a committee encourage, and I think you encourage it as a department. But you seem to be taking it away more and more. It says, “Clarify that where an applicant does not meet the minimum funds requirement, an officer may not substitute an evaluation in order to overcome the requirement”. I'm talking about settlement funds.

    With regard to the points and discretion, some of your people who have been in the know for a long time can usually make a determination as to whether or not those people are going to succeed in this country. But you seem to be taking more and more of that discretion away from them, including now the substitution, so that if they don't have the right settlement funds, it's no. Can you comment on that part of the regulations?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: There is substitution of evaluation, which used to be called discretion. There is very little we've taken away as part of the IRPA. The only one we're taking away here, very clearly, is in cases where people come without arranged employment and don't have sufficient funds for initial settlement.

    You are absolutely right, Mr. Chairman. When we've done research in the past, we've found when you look at successful immigrants versus various factors and those who were selected on discretion, our officers' judgment is usually fairly good.

    But also, when we look at evidence, the evidence shows very clearly that immigrants who come without arranged employment and don't come with sufficient funds to establish themselves rely heavily on social assistance and other social measures.

    This is why, in this very precise situation, we are taking substitution of evaluation away. It does not apply to people who have arranged employment.

    The Chair: Second, with refugees you've created a new protected temporary resident class. I'm just wondering what exactly that means. Also, for claimants under the PDRCC who benefit from a stay of removal until a decision in the PRRA is made, you've obviously introduced some technical changes. But I wanted to specifically ask about the new protected temporary resident class.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Those are two distinct issues, Mr. Chairman.

    On the first one, the temporary protected class and what we're trying to do there, as you know, in places like Colombia and others like it we very often in a matter of days will get people out of the country, bring them as refugees into Canada under what we call urgent protection.

    We're creating in the regulations the mechanism for our being able to exempt fees for them, since they are refugees, and deal with them as a specific class that has been recognized for protection and needs access to different things.

    On your second question, on what we are extending to people who were considered under the PDRCC and now have to face a PRRA, a pre-removal risk assessment, why are we giving them a stay? We are basically harmonizing these with new cases.

    People who have come in under the IRPA are entitled to stay until they get their first pre-removal risk assessment decision. We wanted to make sure cases that were in process at the transition and were moved into a PRRA mode were entitled to the same benefits.

    It's purely a harmonization.

º  (1650)  

    The Chair: In your statement you talked a little bit about substantial changes being made in section 82. I continue to be a little unclear as to what the role of the Department of Human Resources is, because we've moved from an occupation-based system to a human capital model and so on, yet every time there's ever arranged employment.... I think it's been mentioned that if an employer can find--under a provincial nominee agreement or a certain sector of construction or so on--people who have the credentials and come in as temporary workers, the Department of Human Resources has to confirm that this is a bona fide occupational class.

    So we seem to be talking out of both sides of our mouths. We aren't relying specifically on an occupation-based model; we're looking at a human capital model. But we seem to want to go back to the Department of Human Resources to confirm that the job is a bona fide one, or as you say, meets the requirements under levels O, A, and B.

    I'm still trying to understand how that whole system is supposed to work.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: It's a good question, Mr. Chairman.

    What we're trying to clarify here is that the people who receive arranged employment are not all subject to labour market tests through HRDC. Some of them have come through our trade agreements. Some of them have come on other exemptions from the labour market test.

    The intent and the spirit was always that we would be giving credits to the people who are working temporarily in Canada if they are in a skilled occupation. They could be carpenters, plumbers, professionals. But the idea was not to have a plumber working as a salesperson on a temporary work permit in Canada suddenly say he was going to apply for permanent residence and ask for the arranged employment points because he has a job in Canada. Yes, you have a job in Canada, but not in the skill set of the human capital model we're trying to vouch for.

    The Chair: Okay, I have two final questions.

    On processing times of applications, my understanding is we're trying to find ways to keep the integrity of the system but process paperwork as quickly as we possibly can. There seems to be absolutely no tolerance whatsoever for any mistakes on an original application that's made. People are applying, hopefully on their own, but if not they're going to lawyers or consultants--which we hope to regulate soon. You would think they would know better, but these applications are being sent back because there are technical errors in them, and so on. That's backing up the system an awful lot.

    Can you just tell me a little bit about why there's such intolerance for imperfect applications? Wouldn't it be better to just get on the phone and ask the person to clarify what, if anything, might be wrong with that application, as opposed to sending it all the way back, getting it corrected, waiting for it come back, and having to go through it all over again? Months and days keep going on and on. 

    I'm just wondering who designed such a system that says unless you've dotted every i and crossed every t the application will be sent back. I've got a feeling that's an excuse for some of our people to just send it back because they've got so many applications and the backlog is still fairly heavy. They can't do it, so send it back and they'll deal with it another day.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: I certainly hope that's not the case. That wouldn't be much of a solution, since it would come back to them anyhow.

    There was a high incidence of that in the transition to IRPA because, if you'll excuse the expression, some of our applications needed to be IRPA-tized. What I mean by that is there were some requirements that we didn't have in the old applications and forms. So missions had to return a substantial number of applications—I'm not talking about 40% to 50%, but in some places it may have gone as high as 10% to 15%—to be corrected. Now that this transition is over, I hope the incidence is lower.

    We are putting some onus on the applicants to bring what is essential for us to make an assessment. We've also received a number of complaints of that nature, and we've refined instructions to the field to try to make sure there is not the kind of abuse you are describing. If you think there are situations where there is abuse, I would invite you to refer them to us and we'll be happy to look into them.

º  (1655)  

    The Chair: But you've said there is no such rule, you're not sending back imperfect applications, and you're accepting applications that might not be just right.

    Mr. Daniel Jean: We have defined what an application is under our act. As long as people submit what is essential for that, the application should not be returned. There is the possibility that people, or their intermediaries, as you've described, may not send the minimum requirements in terms of what constitutes an application.

    The Chair: Finally, on the question of retroactivity, can those people who applied under the new rules of January 1, 2002, where the pass mark was 75—forget about those who were in the backlog, where the number was going to be 70, is now 67, so on—and were rejected because they couldn't meet the 75 mark reapply, or are they being looked at again under the present 67 mark rule?

    I'm trying to get this through my head. Let's say you applied in January 2002 and gave yourself a mark of 75 because you thought your language skills were good, or you had credits for education or arranged employment, but you were rejected because you were given 71 or 72. Now you're saying we're going to accept new applications with a mark of 67. Do you look again at those people who applied and were rejected because they didn't get 75, or do they have to reapply now?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: They have to submit new applications.

    The Chair: Are there new fees, new everything?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: Yes. That was in the past, and the criteria have changed. The old argument was, if we use common language, that the carpet got pulled from under my feet. These cases cannot make that argument. They knew when they applied that it was 75.

    The Chair: I just want to know, because questions will come up. Now we're not pulling the rug out from under people's feet; we're going to put the rug under their feet.

    Maybe you can give us some information that I'm sure you've tracked. How many applications came in after the new rules? How many were rejected because they couldn't get the 75 points? This is just so we have a little understanding of what has gone on. Are such numbers available to the committee, so we can find out the application rate, the failure rate, and so on?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: I think we have those numbers, and I will be happy to provide them.

    I have some numbers here that we shared when we made the announcement, which I'm happy to report to you, on the people who were targeted by the announcement. There were 104,000 people who had applied prior to January 1, 2002, whose files were in the process. There were 2,000 people who applied prior to January 1, 2002 and were refused between the coming into force of the new selection grid on March 31, 2003, and June 2003, when the judge directed the department to no longer refuse cases. In lay language that means 2,000 people who had applied under the old rules were refused under the new grid.

    There were 10,000 people who withdrew their applications between January 1, 2002, and the date of the announcement, but had applied prior to January 1, 2002. That does not mean they all withdrew for the same reason, so some of them may not reapply. The potential population affected by the announcement is about 116,000.

    All of the 2,000 who were refused have the ability to reapply without a fee and be processed. They will get the benefit of the old rule of 70 marks, and if they don't make that they will also have the benefit of the 67-mark rule.

    The Chair: Do we have anything on how many may reapply?

    Mr. Daniel Jean: It's too early to tell. We're giving those people ample time to apply, so we will not have that for a while.

»  (1700)  

    The Chair: All right.

    Are there any further questions from the committee?

    You got off pretty lightly today, Daniel.

    I want to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for coming and sharing with us the gazetting of the new changes to the regulations. We may have some additional questions. I've just received a copy of the new regulations, with the changes on skilled workers as of October 11.

    On October 28, if I'm not mistaken, the committee is going to be dealing with the supplementary estimates. Hopefully the minister will be here. It will be the last opportunity before they are deemed to have passed. I don't want this committee to be unable to discharge its duties and responsibilities as they relate to supplementary estimates. We hope to see you then, on October 28.

    Thank you so much.

    The meeting is adjourned.