44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 13, 2022 10:00AM
- Dec/13/22 11:58:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to table a petition from members of the Dublin Street United Church in Guelph. The petitioners call on the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to intervene immediately to ensure that the backlog of refugee applications is greatly reduced and that Canadian sponsors can welcome many more refugees. There are 148 signatures from this group, which is really focused on helping refugees come to Canada.
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- Dec/13/22 2:25:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we all wondered how it was possible for the government to build up a 2.2 million person backlog in the immigration system, and now we have found a clue. There are 60,000 people whose cases have been handed over to employees who no longer work for the government. Just imagine someone calling up and saying, “I'd like to speak to Jack. He's my case officer. I've been waiting for my immigration." and he is told that Jack has not been there in 10 years. No wonder things are delayed for so long.
These are people who are separated from their families, refugees who need to get here quickly for their safety. How could the government have been so careless?
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- Dec/13/22 2:26:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we continue to grow our immigration system. We continue to transform it and modernize it so it is able to respond to the needs of people who want to become Canadians and contribute to our society.
That is why we are investing in our system to provide a modern client experience and a more efficient immigration system. Modernizing our immigration system is about putting people at the heart of everything we do. We will continue to be there and resolve any technical issues.
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- Dec/13/22 2:28:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if I may, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I would also like to offer our condolences to the family and friends of the former minister and member Jim Carr.
The Prime Minister has skilfully calculated that Quebec should take in 112,000 immigrants based on Ottawa's goal of welcoming 500,000. In doing so, he ignored the fact that there are about eight million francophones in the country and about 300 million anglophones on the North American continent. Oops. It was basic math. He himself is having such a hard time managing immigration that his government assigned 60,000 files to people who are no longer on the job.
Should he not double-check his math and let Quebec manage its own affairs on immigration and the French language?
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- Dec/13/22 2:29:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I merely pointed out that Quebec is entirely capable of increasing its immigration levels, if it wants to.
This decision is up to Quebec, and we respect Quebec's jurisdiction with regard to immigration, as we do across our system of government.
We will always work with the Quebec government and other governments across the country to protect the French language and to welcome francophone immigrants. We have a lot more work to do, but we will continue to do it.
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- Dec/13/22 2:29:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the past 24 hours, the Prime Minister said that Quebec must take in 112,000 immigrants.
He says that he is not imposing that number. However, all the other times, he said that he would like to impose it. He sent a former minister and now sitting member to say that Bill 96 should be blocked, because the federal government obviously must not recognize Quebec's jurisdictions.
He is forgetting about Roxham Road and the thousands of irregular claimants, who would have a hard time integrating into French-speaking society, and he is forgetting about the thousands of francophone African students who he himself is preventing from entering Quebec.
Could he do the smart thing when it comes to the issue of language and recognize that the French language and immigration are Quebec's jurisdictions?
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- Dec/13/22 2:30:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what I am doing. I did not propose any numbers for Quebec. I acknowledged that Quebec was capable of increasing its immigration levels, if it wanted to do so, because it has those powers. We recognize the important role that Quebec plays in protecting the French language and the Quebec nation. That is why we will continue to work respectfully with the Government of Quebec.
However, we do want to point out that the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause is something that the federal government should never support.
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- Dec/13/22 2:45:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal-created immigration application backlog is at over two million applications. People are waiting to reunite with family, spouses, children or parents. They are waiting for work permits and waiting for health care, and now we find out that tens of thousands of these applications were sent to immigration officers who do not even exist. These are people who have not worked for Immigration Canada in years, so these applications are just sitting there. Nobody has been working on them.
Who is going to explain this incompetence, apologize and fix this mess?
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- Dec/13/22 2:47:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration has assigned more than 59,000 immigration applications to 779 inactive employees. Some of those officers have not even been employees of the department since 2006. What is most disturbing about this whole affair is that the Liberal government does not seem to care. Even the minister does not seem to think this is all that serious.
Will the minister apologize to the thousands of families who were waiting in vain for their turn to come to Canada?
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- Dec/13/22 2:48:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if I understand correctly, the minister is saying that CBC News is reporting fake news. That is what it sounds like to me. It is being reported in the news this week that 59,000 cases were transferred to 779 employees who no longer work there. On top of that, we are also learning that CBC News warned of problems at the beginning of the year. However, the minister never said anything about it. There was never a word from him about anything.
Meanwhile, we get so many requests in our offices. People have no idea what is going on. Our immigration system is deeply flawed. Can the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship at least apologize to the people who have been waiting, in many cases, for years?
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- Dec/13/22 2:51:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister says assigning immigration applications to agents who are no longer working at IRCC is ordinary process and part of inventory management. That means the Liberals are deliberately assigning applications to officers knowing that they do not work there anymore. Close to 60,000 applicants have been in a state of limbo, some for as long as 15 years, unable to move forward with their lives.
What does the minister have to say to the families whose lives are being destroyed when their files are deliberately sent to oblivion for processing?
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- Dec/13/22 2:52:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as always, I thank my hon. colleague for her concern for the well-being of newcomers and people seeking to access the Canadian immigration system. It is very important that we provide clarity to families seeking to be reunited, as well as the workers seeking to improve their economic outlook by coming to Canada for opportunities.
There are applications that were tied to officers who no longer work for our department. We maintain the codes of those officers in order to trace the cases, but when those workers leave IRCC, we convert the codes in a manner that allows us to send those cases to the location where they can be most effectively processed. This is a strategy we use to make sure we can process files quickly, and I want to reassure people that every file will be processed.
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