Hon. Sean Fraser, P.C., M.P., Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship: Your Honour, with respect to the honourable senator’s question, I expect that members of the Senate will appreciate that when it comes to specific visa applications, I’m not at liberty to comment.

That said, the families of the victims of PS752 have suffered an egregious injustice. We’ve advanced certain measures, including from an immigration perspective but not exclusively so, to see if we can better support those families. I do agree with the Prime Minister that it was a mistake to invite the Iranian soccer team to take part in that match.

Thankfully, better judgment prevailed, and at the end of the day, the game did not happen. There was a request for an additional soccer team to come and fill the space. That game didn’t happen either, not as a result of anything to do with immigration but, I understand, labour negotiations between the athletes and the organization.

With respect, there was no special effort made on my part regarding the particular soccer match that the honourable senator has referred to.

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Minister, I asked your colleague, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, a question on June 2 about the troubling issue of the labour shortage, particularly in Quebec, where this problem seems to be having a serious impact on the economy. One reason for this shortage is the basically unacceptable amount of time it is taking your department to process visa applications, as well as the equally unacceptable wait times. It can take more than a year to get a work visa from Immigration Canada.

Minister, we know that the backlog of applications at the department is in the millions. According to some media reports, we are talking about 2 million pending applications across all categories. Can you tell us how many work permit applications are pending and what you plan to do to fix these unacceptable delays, which are having a negative impact on the Quebec economy?

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Thank you for being here today, minister. We’ve heard a lot of questions about work visa backlogs. The wait can be up to 13 months, but we need to shorten these wait times if Canada is to remain competitive.

What would be your ideal target for processing foreign worker applications? Four months, five months? What measures have been implemented to achieve the target processing time that the department has set or that we should set?

[English]

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Minister, I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying, “There is no end to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.” On May 3, 2022, minister, your parliamentary secretary told the other place that the NDP-Liberal government did not support a proposal in Conservative MP Kyle Seeback’s private member’s bill — Bill C-242 — to allow super visa applicants to purchase private health insurance from foreign companies. She told the House it would be risky and too complex.

A week ago, minister, your government completely changed its tune, and you, minister, issued a press release which passed off two of the three proposals put forward by MP Seeback on Bill C-242 as your own.

Minister, why didn’t you show any respect for your House of Commons colleague by simply acknowledging his work? Why did you pass off Mr. Seeback’s proposals as your own?

Senator Plett: On May 3, your parliamentary secretary also told the House that increasing the length of a super visa from two years to five years, as Mr. Seeback’s bill proposed, would undermine the system and contradict the spirit of the super visa. She said that the NDP-Liberal government supported increasing the stay to three years and not five.

A week ago, again, your government’s concerns about the five-year extension disappeared and you, again, minister, claimed this idea as your own.

Minister, you’ve been condemned for the delays in helping thousands of Afghans and their families come to Canada. Passport Canada is a complete and total mess. Isn’t that why you passed off Kyle Seeback’s ideas as your own — because you need some positive news to cover for your many failures?

When it comes to Afghanistan, we now have more than 15,500 refugees who have landed. When it comes to our response to Ukraine, there are tens of thousands of people already in Canada. When it comes to our permanent residency, we have now welcomed 200,000 new permanent residents who were already here a month and a half faster than any year on record. We are pumping out work permits at more than double the pace of last year.

With great respect, senator, there are many successes to point to. I would chalk up the changes to the super visa as one of them, but I would not claim it as my own; it has been the result of collaboration amongst different parties in the House of Commons. I think that is something we should all celebrate.

Hon. Amina Gerba: Minister, welcome to the Senate. Nearly every one of Canada’s immigration programs requires a job offer, which workers need to have prior to applying for a work visa. It is extremely difficult for foreign workers to get a job offer if they are outside the country. As an employer, I have had to deal with these difficulties myself when trying to recruit qualified foreign employees. However, as you know, minister, there is a major labour shortage in Canada, and immigration is now seen as a solution to this problem.

Minister, what can you do to ensure that the job offer requirement is no longer a barrier to addressing labour shortages in our country?

Hon. Sean Fraser, P.C., M.P., Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship: Thank you very much for the question, senator. For everyone who is seeking to come into Canada who is not subject to visa-free travel, there is a requirement that you complete the biometrics analysis in order to come into Canada. In addition, we typically do a biographic screening.

It sounds, in the case that the senator has laid out, that there was an absolutely horrible fate that befell the individual. Not being familiar with the personal circumstances, I hesitate to go further, but it’s essential that we continue to apply a rigorous analysis to understand that the people who are coming here meet a very high threshold for people we would like to come to Canada and who will make a contribution and not be a detriment to our society.

To the extent that there are shortcomings in the system that anyone would like to raise for us to continue to improve the process, please know that I’m not rigid in my defence of the status quo. We seek to continually look for ways to improve the system and strengthen the integrity so that Canadians continue to believe that immigration is a good thing for our communities. I believe this is essential to our social and economic well-being.

[Translation]