44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Salaberry—Suroît for her speech.
I agree with many of the things she said in her speech, in particular the fact that the two official languages do not have equal status and that French is in decline in Quebec. However, we need to concern ourselves with minority languages across Canada and not just in Quebec.
I would like her to clarify a few points. She said that asking immigrants to take a French test would not have an impact on immigration. She gave the example of Victor, a young man in her riding.
I wonder whether taking a French test will not hold back some immigrants. Afterwards, I would obviously like for these people to learn French.
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- May/9/22 12:12:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to respond to the question of privilege raised by the member for Simcoe—Grey on May 5, 2022. In our view, it is deeply concerning.
The email discussions referred to by the member do indeed amount to interference by the executive in parliamentary work that is the sole responsibility of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. There was an email chain concerning the preparation of drafting instructions for a report on a study the committee has been conducting on differential outcomes in Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada decisions.
In our view, it is deeply concerning that the chair communicated with employees of the executive branch to receive guidance on how the committee report should be drafted by non-partisan analysts, who must be impartial and independent in their professional duties.
However, contrary to what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons alleged last Friday on the matter, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the Privy Council Office could in fact be trying to interfere with the work of the committee in this situation.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government said that the emails chains make it clear that the advice from the minister's office was to suggest an approach to the drafting of the report to ensure that the government's position was understood by the Liberal members on the committee. The very fact that ministers are suggesting how parliamentary committee reports should be drafted is what is troubling and disturbing.
I remind members that the committee is required to be completely independent from the government and that it is meant to monitor what the department and the government are doing. It is rather ironic that the department and the Privy Council Office can give opinions on certain findings and recommendations that could cause embarrassment for the government. The House recognizes that the government must not see a draft committee report before it is approved by the committee members. That said, the committee and committee staff cannot be instructed by the federal public service, cabinet or the government. We understand how this might not be viewed as a breach of a specific privilege.
However, according to Bosc and Gagnon in House of Commons Procedure and Practice, beginning at page 81, “any action which...tends to obstruct or impede the House in the performance of its functions...or is an offence against the authority or dignity of the House” may be found as a contempt of Parliament.
It is up to the House itself to consider any misconduct as contempt and to deal with the situation as it sees fit.
In this case, the email chains informing the immigration minister's office of the committee's work and the replies from his staff giving instructions raise concerns about the independence of the House in managing its own business.
We must not forget that, initially, as the member for Simcoe—Grey mentioned in referring to Bosc and Gagnon at page 62, parliamentary privileges were considered and established “to protect the House and its Members...from the power and interference of the King and the House of Lords”.
It is important to remember that the House must oppose any attempt or action by the government suggesting interference in the work of parliamentary committees, which must remain independent in accordance with their mandate.
The Bloc Québécois believes that the facts raised require the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to be mandated by the House to conduct a broader study on the real or potential issues of government interference in the reports of parliamentary committees.
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- May/9/22 2:37:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this government seems to think that everything is going well.
Inflation has not been this high in 30 years, the deficit is huge, immigration is in a terrible state and every young Canadian's dream of owning property is shattered.
What is this government going to do so that our young people can believe in the future and own property? What is it going to do now, not in 10 years or five years?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.
I would like to hear her thoughts about immigration and resources, particularly when it comes to temporary foreign workers.
I am a bit disappointed that there is not much about that in Bill C-19. There are a few general measures on economic targets, but they will not really affect Quebec, because Quebec makes its own selections in the economic classes. What we need is significant resources to process applications.
Again this morning, I spoke to an asparagus farmer in my riding who had asked to have his workers by April 23. He was so worried he would not get any workers at all that he was prepared to pay them to sit around and do nothing until May 10. Tomorrow is May 10 and he is still short six workers. That is a loss of $100,000.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
I completely agree that we need to invest more resources in our immigration system. Members from across the country and I are also getting calls. I know that there are major delays, but there is also work to do in partnership with the Government of Quebec.
We set federal immigration levels, and Quebec set other immigration levels, which unfortunately are lower.
I think that everyone here in the House is capable of working together to ensure that we have enough workers in the country so that our small businesses and farmers can be as successful as we all know they can be.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to learn that the NDP is in government, because I was not aware of that.
The Liberal government is incapable of providing services to Canadians. The immigration delays are a catastrophe. The unemployed find it impossible to talk to someone about employment insurance. Now there is a crisis with passports, even though everyone knew that people would want to travel when the pandemic ended.
Is my colleague seeing the same thing in his riding? People may well have to give up their plane tickets and their travel plans because government offices cannot meet the demand for passports.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my neighbour for his interesting speech. I did not really see a profound investment in immigration. In my riding, we are having hundreds of calls day after day from people trying to figure out their status. They have done all of their paperwork and they have done everything they should. They are already living in Canada. We have people on worker visas who have done everything right and now cannot work. They are losing their homes. It is becoming a mess.
I am wondering if the member could talk about his government's responsibility and how long it is going to take to actually address these really important issues.
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Madam Speaker, I absolutely agree. In this budget, there is over $2 billion going to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to be able to deal with the backlogs. The idea is that by the end of this year, with these investments, we will get back to a normal service standard, as well as introducing new programs, such as an expedited temporary foreign worker program, which I know would be a game-changer for some of the hardest-hit sectors where there are major labour shortages, such as tourism in my riding.
There is a lot here on immigration. Because of the backlogs related to COVID, we have a lot we need to do. With these investments and some of the changes that are being made to expedite the processes, we are going to be able to deal with some of the backlogs that are causing major issues.
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- May/9/22 7:07:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier this year I asked the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship about the unprecedented backlog of immigration applications. The system is struggling to recover from two years of the pandemic due to a lack of planning and crisis management, as well as poor leadership. If the approach is not changed, it will take years to catch up on the millions of applications in the queue.
Shockingly, according to data from the IRCC, the backlogs have increased to more than two million applications across all categories. For over two years, the department has closed almost all in-person interviews. Interviews, tests, citizenship ceremonies and other appointments have been cancelled and offices shifted to working on a rotating basis. While most Canadians transitioned to online work with minimal trouble, that is not the case with the IRCC and the government.
Instead of identifying the problem that we, as Conservatives, have been flagging along the way and fixing it at the very beginning, the government ignored it. It had more than a year to do so, but then the first crisis hit. In September 2021, the Afghan government collapsed. Canada introduced special programs to resettle the refugees, but with the government's broken immigration system, during the most pressuring six months, the government was able to help only 4,000 Afghans, or 10% of its campaign commitment.
Then the second crisis hit. In February of this year, the Russian Federation launched an unprovoked attack and genocide against the Ukrainian people. Instead of implementing visa-free travel from Ukraine to Canada, which Conservatives called for from day one, the government introduced the authorization for emergency travel, allowing Ukrainians to arrive in Canada on temporary resident visas. Ukrainian passport holders can travel visa-free to the European Union, the U.K., Switzerland, Israel and many other countries. None of them have any concerns about the made-up excuses by the Liberal minister. The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration voted in favour of visa-free travel for Ukrainians; the Liberals voted against it. The members of this House also voted and passed a similar motion, but again, the members voted against it.
To give colleagues a perspective on why this is important, the minister of immigration claimed that that sort of change would require 12 to 14 weeks of work to implement, because the department's IT systems would need certain renovations. Here we are, almost 11 weeks since the beginning of the war, and the system could have been already working, but the government failed to listen and act accordingly. To date, we have heard that more than 140,000 applications have been submitted by Ukrainians. That is how many fewer applications there might have been in the queue if the Liberals had followed our advice and eliminated all visa requirements.
If that was not enough, we now have a third crisis across this country. Canadians are desperately trying to renew their passports, and while improvements were supposed to have come in to alleviate the backlog, little change has occurred. Nearly 500,000 applications were received in March and April of this year. Streams of constituents are calling, writing to me and coming into my office about the issue. The government had years to plan ahead to tackle the passport issue before it began. The government should have had that in mind before the pandemic hit, that the 10th anniversary of the 10-year passport was coming.
We literally have a trifecta of burning issues in our immigration and citizenship systems, all of which were avoidable and all of which were preventable.
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- May/9/22 7:11:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member opposite presents a picture that is entirely out of step with reality. As the hon. member is fully aware, the world has been in a global pandemic for two years. Borders were forced to close worldwide and, for obvious reasons, this resulted in some processing delays in our immigration system.
In spite of the pandemic's many challenges, Canada admitted a record 405,000 permanent residents last year. This surpasses the previous record from 1913, making it the most newcomers admitted to Canada in a single year in our entire history.
Since the start of the pandemic, IRCC has worked to improve processing for all permanent residence applications, and our work to date has produced results. As part of the 2021 economic and fiscal update, our government announced an investment of $85 million to further build on our progress to date. This will enable us to further reduce processing times and process more permanent and temporary resident applications. Most importantly, we will get back to our processing service standards in various programs by the end of this year, including study permits, work permits and permanent resident card renewals. We are also working to reduce processing times for visitor visas and proof of citizenship.
As the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship announced on January 31, the government has implemented a number of additional measures to further improve the client experience and modernize the immigration system. These measures are part of a broader process to address key challenges faced by our clients and to achieve the more predictable processing times that our clients expect and deserve.
Canadian businesses are in need of support, and our government knows that we have a role to play in increasing the available workforce. On April 22, the minister addressed the decision made last fall to temporarily pause invitations to apply under the federal high-skilled stream, including the Canadian experience class, federal skilled worker class and federal skilled trades class. He announced, in July of this year, that we will end this temporary pause and resume inviting qualified candidates to apply for permanent residence. We anticipate that the vast majority of new applicants will be processed within the six-month service standard.
At the same time, the miinister announced that beginning in mid-June, Canada will extend post-graduation work permits for recent international graduates. Those whose permits have already expired or will expire this year will be eligible for an additional open work permit of 18 months. In addition, as of April 25, nearly 35,000 agricultural workers have already arrived in Canada for the 2022 season, and this represents a 10% increase over the number of agricultural workers that had arrived by this time last year. As members can see, we are doing our utmost to ensure that employers have the workers they need.
Moving forward, we are going to continue to support those who wish to live in Canada. I was pleased to learn that IRCC has surpassed its goal to make 147,000 permanent residence final decisions in the first quarter of 2022. From January 1 to March 31, 2022, there have been over 156,000 final decisions on permanent resident applications. This is a doubling of the number of final decisions in the same time period in 2021.
This is an encouraging example of progress, but our work is not yet finished. We are moving forward to ensure that Canada's proud history of immigration is matched by a modern immigration system that supports our economic recovery, improves client experience and strengthens our communities.
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- May/9/22 7:15:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have just listened to a great collection of talking points that Canadians and parliamentarians are hearing over and over again.
Will the parliamentary secretary acknowledge this failure and all the problems that his government caused to Canadians and other nationals who will become future Canadians? Is the government willing to consider any compensation for the delays, cancelled trips, personal traumas and lost opportunities of those nationals? When will this immigration system be reformed, transformed and upgraded and start working efficiently?
These are the questions that must be answered by the parliamentary secretary on behalf of his Liberal government. Enough with the talking points.
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- May/9/22 7:16:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his questions and comments, but as he is fully aware, the world has been in a global pandemic for two years. In spite of this, we landed over 405,000 immigrants last year, which is an all-time record, to help with our economic recovery.
As the Minister of Immigration announced on January 31, the government has implemented a number of measures to further improve client experience and modernize the immigration system. We have also committed an investment of $85 million to further reduce processing times and build on our progress to date. Most importantly, we will get back to our processing service standards in various programs by the end of this year.
We are taking a whole-of-government approach to address labour shortages across our country. We have taken major steps toward this by processing more than 100,000 work permit applications in the first quarter of 2022, nearly doubling the number processed over the same period in 2021.
As I mentioned—
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