By Anna Bretzlaff
The immigration department can be more of a hindrance than a help to newcomers settling in Canada, critics say, adding that it is responsible for poor quality service, over-stretched waiting times and mounting frustration among immigration claimants.
“It is a department that, frankly, is in a mess when it comes to servicing the people they are supposed to be servicing, namely immigrants and refugees,” says Ottawa Centre MP Ed Broadbent.
Advocates like Broadbent say immigrants are having an increasingly tough time accessing information about their files, whether it is an application for permanent residence, change of status or sponsoring a family member abroad.
While some blame the sheer volume of applications the department processes every year, others point to a system bogged down with bureaucratic red tape, and one that fails to put people first.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada uses two main tools to communicate with its clients – its immigration hotline and website.
Claimants say it is not uncommon to spend hours if not days trying, unsuccessfully, to reach a live attendant on the hotline.
The website provides information that some call misleading, such as the average time it takes to process an application.
Carl Nicholson, executive director for the Catholic Immigration Centre on Argyle Avenue, says lengthy waits are harmful to separated families.
“If you’re here with your wife and your child is sitting somewhere in a refugee camp, you’re going to be worried anyway. And then you make your application and then you get a letter saying that it’s been received. And then you wait and you wait and you wait. It’s going to drive you bats because you can’t do anything, you can’t hear anything.”
Despite the government’s promise to prioritize such cases, processing times continue to drag on for years.
Navigating the immigration department website also requires language and computer skills that not all claimants and their families have.
“Alternative modes of communication are needed,” says Broadbent, who advocates more face-to-face communication.
Case workers review applications received by the department, but there is limited opportunity for claimants to meet with them and obtain information about cases as they proceed.
“It used to be that you could see an immigration officer and ask for help, but that ended 10 years ago,” says Nancy Worsfold, executive director of the Ottawa Carleton Immigrant Services Organization. “There has been a huge reduction in regards to what the government provides to the public, and that has been a loss to the community.”
Nicholson says a lack of staff is just one of the problems.
“The system is not working, period. There isn’t one real problem, there are many real problems. The system was always tenuous but when you cut budgets and cut people and add security issues, that makes things worse.”
Frustration with the system mounts as claimants and their families turn to local groups for help.
“The slack is being picked up by all kinds of dedicated non-governmental organizations on the one hand, and MP constituency offices on the other,” says Broadbent, adding that the problem is nation-wide.
He says his constituency staff spend up to 90 per cent of their time handling basic immigration questions and performing routine case follow-ups, services that many people in the community feel should be provided by the department.
Maria Iadinardi, spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, says that while Canada’s immigration system isn’t perfect, there have been significant improvements to its services.
In 2003, the department consolidated its four existing call centres, creating a more efficient system, she says.
“Reinvesting in the single call centre was done to enable call agents to answer more than 200,000 calls annually. We want to improve accessibility by reducing busy signals and improving the quality of the calls,” says Iadinardi.
There are also plans to cut down on waiting times by improving the knowledge of call centre agents.
While aiming to increase immigration department efficiency is a step in the right direction, many feel that the system needs an overhaul.
“We have to get our immigration system up to the times,” says Nicholson.