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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 151

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 1, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 151 - Feb/1/23
Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)
  • Feb/1/23 7:38:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight because I am deeply concerned about the state of our immigration system in this country. I am overwhelmed by the horrific stories of people's lives being ruined because the government has failed to provide a service it is required to provide for people who are trying to come to Canada or who are trying to bring their loved ones to Canada. I do not think anyone in this place is going to be surprised when I say that my office is dealing with non-stop stories about IRCC issues. Every single member of the House of Commons is getting non-stop calls about how our immigration system is failing to meet the needs of Canadians. It is failing to meet the needs of all those people who are trying to make Canada their home. We have a government right now that is promising things. It promised to bring in “unlimited of this” and “40 of that.” It makes tons and tons of promises like “500,000 of this”. The way I have described this in the past is that we have a goat track. Our immigration system right now is a goat track. Do not promise to buy me a Lamborghini when what one has is a goat track. The system is broken, and the government has an obligation to fix our immigration system. The fact of the matter is that we have people who are trying to come to Canada to go to school. The question I asked the minister, and that I am bringing forward again today, is about students who want to study in universities in Canada. My goodness, we want these people to come to Canada. We want these people to study at our universities. Our universities need that tuition. Our country benefits from having these people come to our country, yet they cannot come because our immigration system is so broken. This question was about students and their ability to come to Canada to study, but I need to take this opportunity to tell the House a little about some other folks. Yesterday, I was walking into the House of Commons. There was a man from Afghanistan who worked for the Canadian government. His family and his loved ones are still in Afghanistan. He cannot get them out. He was sobbing on the steps of the House of Commons because he is so worried his family will be murdered. It breaks my heart. I have been working with members of every party in the House to bring female members of Parliament from Afghanistan to Canada and to safety. I woke up a week ago to news that one of those members of Parliament had been murdered, so I do not want to hear from the government that it is going to bring in 100,000, 20,000, or whatever the number of people is, because it is not fixing the immigration system. The problem, when it does not fix the immigration system, is that it ruins people's lives. It ruins our chance of having people come to be part of this beautiful country that is Canada. I do not want to hear that the government is doing enough. I want to hear what it is going to do to fix the deeply broken immigration system in this country now.
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Context: House Hansard - 151 - Feb/1/23
Mr. Irek Kusmierczyk (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, Lib.)
  • Feb/1/23 7:41:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to highlight our government's progress as we continue working to improve our immigration and refugee system. In addition to the challenges brought by the pandemic backlog, Canada is the top destination in the world for immigration. There are record levels of people wanting to come to Canada. We also saw back-to-back humanitarian crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine, which significantly impacted processing capacities as more resources were reallocated to these crises. Our government has added the tools and resources, with more than 1,250 new employees in 2022 to tackle this challenge for students and all others, and the results of 2022 show it. Last year, IRCC processed over 5.2 million applications, nearly double those processed in 2021. This is thanks in part to improvements to the immigration system, including digitized applications, the hiring and training of new employees, streamlined processes and the harnessing of automation to increase efficiency while protecting the safety and security of Canadians. The results for study permits were even better. IRCC processed approximately 739,000 study permit applications, compared to 555,000 in 2021. The fact is that we have made international study permits a priority, which is why there has been a 100% increase in international students since 2015. Canada is on track to meet its goal to process 80% of new applications within service standards of 60 days and provide shorter wait times for clients. We have been taking concrete steps to reduce our backlogs, which, to be clear, are the applications that have been in inventories longer than the service standards. The government knows the wait is too long and is working hard to address the problem and return to service standards. That is what Canada's future students, workers, permanent residents and citizens expect. To support greater transparency, we have implemented solutions like online status trackers that provide reassurance to clients by allowing them to view progress on their applications. Our case status trackers are in place for citizenship applicants and certain permanent resident applications. We will continue to expand these trackers to more applicants across our system in the coming months, including study permits. To keep Canadians up to date on our progress on reducing backlogs, the department has also been publishing monthly updates on its websites. These actions demonstrate our commitment to improving processing, reducing backlogs and ensuring our immigration system works for everyone.
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