44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 1, 2022 10:00AM
moved that Bill C-242, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (temporary resident visas for parents and grandparents), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
He said: Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about a bill that I think is going to make a dramatic difference in the lives of many Canadian families.
In 2011, our Conservative government brought in the super visa. The super visa is a 10-year, multiple-entry visa that allows families to reunite with parents and grandparents. They were allowed to stay for two years over 10, and there were certain conditions with respect to that visa. They had to undergo a medical exam and be admissible on medical grounds. They had to have provided satisfactory evidence of private medical insurance, and the host child or grandchild had to have certain financial means in order for the parent or grandparent to qualify to come to Canada and be eligible for the super visa.
This has been a fantastic tool for families to reunite in Canada over the past 11 years. It is one of the things I am very proud of, as I was part of the government that brought that in. What we have learned over the past 11 years, however, is that this is something that could be improved. In fact, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration studied this in 2016 and heard from stakeholders about the challenges that exist with the super visa.
My bill would do three things. Number one, it would extend the time that a parent or grandparent could stay in Canada from two to five years, which is going to be an incredible benefit to families. Imagine being able to have a parent or grandparent there for five months every year over 10 years, to spend time with a person and their children. This would make things so much better for Canadian families.
Number two, the issue of health insurance has been brought up. It is costly. The bill would address that. It would allow for the purchase of insurance from outside of Canada, as approved by the minister.
Number three, the bill would require the minister and the government to prepare a report on reducing the minimum income requirement that a child or grandchild of a foreign national must meet.
I am going to go into the importance of these improvements, and why the bill is going to mean so much for Canadian families. Health care and private health insurance can be enormously costly for families and can range up to $5,000 per year. In addition, families are looking at paying for the cost of a flight back and forth. This was clearly heard in the evidence that was brought before the committee.
What we have to point out is that someone has to be medically admissible before they are eligible for the super visa. That health check has to be provided as a precondition to the super visa being issued. We are not talking about people who have health care, health conditions and health concerns. By allowing insurance from other countries, this will lower the cost of insurance.
I believe this, because I believe that competition is a good thing. If one can purchase insurance from an American insurance company, a British insurance company or an Indian insurance company, and the list goes on and on, this will create competition for Canadian insurance companies and it is going to lower the cost to these families.
Some will say that maybe this could be an insurance company that would not pay. That is why I have included a safeguard in the bill. It is as approved by the minister, so insurance companies that say they want to be eligible to provide their products to this could make a submission to the minister. The minister has the capacity, the skill and the knowledge to ensure that this is an insurance company that would be able to pay for any health claims that are made while in Canada.
The bill would lower the cost of insurance for those trying to use the super visa, and we have a safeguard in place that would make sure that no health care system or health care provider in the country would be left with an unpaid claim.
The other issue is the income part of this: the low-income cut-off. This is a challenge, especially for new Canadian families, when they are struggling to actually build the lives that they wanted to build in this country.
They may be working in jobs that do not pay a lot. They work very hard, and with the income test as it is, many Canadian families are excluded from being able to apply because they are not going to meet that income test.
When I think about this, I think what the extra cost would be if my parents came to stay with me for five months. We can debate whether or not I would want my parents to come and stay with me for five months, but that is of course a different topic. Many people do want that, but there really is not a significant cost involved in that. It is not a cost that would require a family to somehow become financially insecure or financially unable to meet their obligations.
The income test itself does not make sense to me, which is why the bill would require the government to table, within one year, a plan to lower the low-income cut-off and the income required. There may be some criticism of that, saying we may therefore have problems. That is actually not what the committee study showed in 2016. What we saw in the evidence presented at committee was that having a parent or grandparent come and stay with family was actually a boon, in an economic sense. Those parents sometimes were able to provide extra child care, so the family could take an extra shift or maybe work some overtime, and their economic situation actually improved.
It is kind of the opposite of what we think, or the perception being put forward of the low-income cut-off: that somehow this is going to be detrimental to the family. When we look at how this will expand opportunities for families, we have to consider how important it is for families to be able to reunite with their parents and grandparents, so that children can spend time with their grandparents. There are important lessons we learn from our grandparents and having them as part of our families.
In many communities across Canada, there are multi-generational homes where having the parents and grandparents there is an important cultural aspect of life. Why are we limiting this on the assumption that somehow having our parents or grandparents come and stay with us for a few months is some kind of financial burden?
I talked to communities all across this country before I introduced the bill. This has been unanimously approved by them. They are excited about the prospect of having their loved ones be able to come to Canada for a longer period of time. They are excited that health insurance costs would be reduced to make it more affordable, and they are more than excited that by lowering the low-income cut-off, more families are going to be eligible for the super visa.
I am encouraging my colleagues from the government to support this bill. This will be good for Canadians from coast to coast to coast. I look forward to questions from the members opposite, and I hope I will have their support to pass the bill.
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Madam Speaker, super visas generally get processed faster than other types of applications, so having the super visa expanded to more Canadians is absolutely going to get people reunited with their families faster than any other immigration stream. I think it would contribute immensely to that.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-242, because not only was I a member of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, as the member for Winnipeg North mentioned, but, as a lawyer in my previous practice, I worked with families who wanted to bring their parents and grandparents to Canada.
In working with these families, I saw to what extent the logistics, red tape and delays were an onerous administrative burden. What these families often wanted was to sponsor their parents or grandparents and bring them here permanently.
In that context, not only does the super visa provide the opportunity to have one's parents here while the sponsorship and permanent residence application is being processed, but it is another option for those not picked in the lottery. The lottery system is very restrictive, and few people manage to get chosen to submit a sponsorship application for parents and grandparents. The super visa is therefore a useful option.
Given the administrative burden of immigration procedures, I am very much in favour of the opportunity to make them less onerous. What is a super visa? What do we want to change?
The super visa is valid for 10 years. It does not permit the holder to work during their stay. It allows multiple entries over a period of up to two years. It requires the applicant to have medical insurance from a Canadian company that is valid for at least one year from the time of entry. Lastly, it requires the applicant to prove that the child or grandchild who will be hosting them here has the financial capacity to support them. This means that there is a minimum income threshold that must be proven by the child or grandchild in order for the parent or grandparent to be issued the visa.
The member for Dufferin—Caledon’s bill addresses the last three points that I mentioned. Before I get into the details of the bill, I want to say at the outset that my Bloc colleagues and I will be supporting the bill.
The bill has a relatively limited and minor impact on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It does not put a burden on the government, because we are talking about temporary status. There is no service or financial aspect to making this application for parents or grandparents. It accounts for a very small number of the temporary residence permits that are issued. Year in and year out, of the 1.6 million or 1.9 million applications, about 20,000 are for a super visa. This represents about 1% to 2% of applications. The impact on Canada is relatively small, but the positive effects on families are major. In light of this, it is important to support the bill.
One of the legislative amendments proposed in the bill would allow individuals to purchase health insurance from insurance companies outside Canada. The length of stay allowed would be increased from two years to five years. The bill also requires that the minister conduct a new review of the minimum income requirement to obtain a visa for a parent or grandparent.
Existing legislation requires that individuals have valid insurance coverage for at least one year from the date of entry. This insurance must cover at least $100,000 and be obtained from a Canadian provider. This is set out in the legislation. Some basic research shows that this type of insurance is very expensive. For someone relatively young, in their 40s, without any pre-existing health conditions, it would cost around $1,000 to $1,500. For someone who is a little older or who has some pre-existing health conditions, that kind of coverage can cost up to $6,000 to $7,000 a year. For a couple, that is $12,000 a year, on top of the other fees associated with immigration.
By opening things up to competition, we take away Canadian companies' monopoly on this type of insurance coverage. We also hope it will reduce the cost of coverage. It will also allow some foreign nationals to combine this insurance coverage with a policy they already have for their home or auto. People might be able to save money.
This bill also ensures that there will be no problem harmonizing insurance coverage and claims for hospitals, for example, because the insurance companies will have to be pre-approved by the minister. We can expect a study on the possibility of submitting claims to these approved insurance companies.
The second point the bill covers is extending the stay from two years to five years. This would limit the number of return trips parents and grandparents have to make between Canada and their home country for the duration of the super visa. Those plane tickets cost money. This measure alone will significantly reduce costs.
The two-year permit has to get renewed. The person has to have another medical exam to get the insurance premium. It is therefore possible that during the 10-year period there is a change in health status, and consequently an increase in the premium, which potentially makes it harder for some parents and grandparents to get their coverage.
I did not mention that the visa also came with the requirement to submit to a medical exam. If it has to be renewed every two years, the person is a little more vulnerable. There is less predictability with respect to eligibility.
Finally, with respect to the low-income cut-off, the evidence of being on fairly solid financial ground to welcome one's parents or grandparents, the bill does not propose lowering or eliminating it. It proposes that the minister conduct a study on the need to keep the cut-off at the same level or just maintain it, full stop. That being said, many people are talking about repealing it outright. In the event that the minister, within a period of two years, wishes to keep the low-income cut-off where it is, he will have to explain why.
This is not a very compelling bill for parliamentarians in that regard. It seeks a review of the relevance of a legislative measure, something that it seems to me is always seen in a positive light.
I would like to mention that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration already looked into something similar and made a recommendation regarding the sponsorship of parents and grandparents. The committee stated, and I quote:
That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada allow the income requirements for the parent and grandparent sponsorship program to be the minimum necessary income equal to the low-income cut-off established by Statistics Canada for the years impacted by the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, conducting a yearly review to determine whether to extend allowing the minimum necessary income to be equivalent to the low-income cut-off, all while respecting Quebec’s jurisdiction.
That raises another issue. In some cases, in a recession year, for example, people may find that they are no longer eligible for a visa simply for reasons that are beyond their control. It would be a good idea to look into that.
In passing, I want to mention that, when it comes to spousal sponsorships, Quebec does not even assess the spouses' financial capacity, and it works very well.
The study on this aspect could help determine whether this threshold is appropriate in different places across Canada. The cost of living is not the same everywhere, as we know. Could there be different sponsors depending on where the individuals will be living? That would be a positive and would also acknowledge the fact that many families see a positive financial impact when parents and grandparents come, since it allows them to rejoin the job market.
For all of these good reasons, we suggest that the bill be supported.
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