Bill C-291 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171)

Balanced Refugee Reform Act

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, it was in March that the federal government introduced the bill we are discussing today, Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Federal Courts Act and called it part of its balanced refugee reform. The minister said that its objective is to preserve the system's integrity by reducing wait times for refugee claims to be processed and, he said, to give people the protection they need more quickly. The bill proposes spending an additional $540.7 million over five years.

The Bloc Québécois will support this bill so that it is referred to committee and an in-depth study can be undertaken of the refugee system, its flaws and the proposed amendments. The Bloc Québécois will work hard to see that all the necessary amendments are passed so that this reform is effective and so that claims are processed quickly and processed fairly, in the case of refugees. Many of the measures in this bill are interesting. And even though they are being proposed as part of the reform of Canada's asylum system, we believe that they are hiding other, more worrying proposals. In our opinion, the bill we are discussing today, Bill C-11, contains fundamental flaws.

What we noticed as we were going through this bill initially was the typically Conservative ideology that seeks to differentiate between genuine and false claimants. We are concerned about that because we believe that reforms based on that kind of discriminatory principle could be deeply prejudicial toward refugees. The bill also gives the minister significant latitude in designing the asylum-granting system. We also noticed that several of the measures announced as part of this reform do not appear in the bill. For example, the minister can designate countries of origin according to criteria set out in regulations published in the Canada Gazette, but the criteria used in creating the list of safe countries cannot be debated in the House. We believe that lacks transparency. The minister is really giving himself a lot of powers.

Several other measures also make us worry about the politicization of the system. First, the minister may designate, by order, a country whose classes of nationals, in the Minister’s opinion, meet the criteria established by the regulations. Second, the minister can designate countries whose nationals are precluded from appealing decisions to the refugee appeal division. Third, the minister can prohibit nationals of certain countries from applying for protection. Fourth, the minister can grant an exemption from any obligations of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act on humanitarian and compassionate grounds or on public policy grounds.

Once again, the minister really would be assuming a lot of powers.

The Bloc Québécois believes that an appeal process for refugee claimants should have been instituted when the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act came into force in June 2002. In fact, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration unanimously passed a Bloc Québécois motion requiring the federal government to set up a refugee appeal division immediately.

We also introduced Bill C-280 in 2006, which became BIll C-291 in 2009, with the aim of establishing a real refugee appeal division. Unfortunately, the House's two official parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, joined forces to defeat that bill. Members on both sides either abstained or were absent.

Some members hid behind the curtains, so they would not have to vote.

The Bloc Québécois is delighted that the bill before us could finally establish a refugee appeal division and allow new measures to be added to the system, even though the refugee appeal division will not be up and running until two years after the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act comes into force.

Also, unsuccessful claimants from countries that are deemed safe will have no right to appeal the initial decision rendered by public servants. We believe this measure is far too strict. It is unfair that claimants from a safe country whose first application is denied cannot appeal their cases before the refugee appeal division, and instead must take their cases to Federal Court.

Earlier I spoke about designated countries of origin. I spoke about designated countries and other countries. The United Kingdom uses a fast tracking process to examine refugee claims from designated countries. Canada, on the other hand, would assess all claims from all countries the same way. The only reason the process would be any faster is that unsuccessful claimants from countries that are deemed safe will have no right to appeal their case before the new refugee appeal division. We think this measure is discriminatory.

The principle of safe countries raises a number of other concerns. First, the fact that a refugee can be classified as a false claimant even before his or her case is analyzed can be extremely prejudicial. Even though the government assures us that all claims will be analyzed on their own merits, it cannot guarantee that no mistakes will be made in first-level decisions. For this reason in particular, the committee must look at this issue and consider how such a designation by the minister could affect refugee claimants.

The Bloc Québécois had made it known that it wanted all failed refugee claimants to have access to the refugee appeal division, regardless of their country of origin. Our critic on the committee is willing to look at any measures that would correct this flaw, such as including criteria for designating safe countries in the bill. As things now stand, these criteria would be established by regulation.

Canada's asylum system has always been based on reliable, solid resources that make for sound decisions. The proposal to submit all the necessary documents within eight days and hold hearings within 60 days after the claim is made could mean a change in this procedure and could have serious consequences for refugees. With such short deadlines, decision-makers could make decisions too quickly, and the quality of the decisions would suffer as a result.

Refugees have the right to find a lawyer and assemble all the documents they need for their testimony. This is a fundamental rule of justice.

I want to make one last point. The fact that IRB officials make the first-level decisions is problematic. These officials are probably long-standing employees, but it is essential that they demonstrate a certain level of independence.

Lastly, Bill C-11 must be studied in committee, because it has major flaws. That is why it will be sent to committee. I am sure that our critic on the committee will clearly state the Bloc's position.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Before we proceed with routine proceedings, I have an important statement I would like to make to the House about the result of a vote taken on December 10, 2009, on the motion for third reading of Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171).

As hon. members will recall, the announced result was a tie, with 143 members recorded as having voted in favour and 143 members recorded as having voted against. On hearing that the votes were equally divided on the motion, I gave the casting vote in the negative on the procedural grounds that the existing act should be maintained in its current form in order to uphold the status quo.

Since then, it was brought to the attention of the Table that a member had been erroneously counted as having voted yea. Further verifications were made to confirm that an error had in fact been made, namely that the hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence had remained seated throughout the vote.

As hon. members will realize, if this yea vote had not been counted in error, events would have unfolded differently. No tie vote would have occurred. No casting vote would have been required. However, and most significantly, the outcome of the vote remains the same. The motion for third reading of Bill C-291 remains defeated, but on a vote of 142 yeas and 143 nays.

Accordingly, in keeping with precedents for when such errors are discovered, I am informing the House that a corrigendum was published on December 30 to correct the Journals of December 10, 2009, so that the true result of the vote may be properly reflected in our official records.

I thank hon. members for their attention to this detail. It is an important one from the point of view of the number of casting votes the Chair has to cast in the House.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, December 8, 2009, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-291 under private members' business.

The House resumed from December 2 consideration of the motion that Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171), be read the third time and passed.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise and speak to Bill C-291 today. I think that if the viewing public had been with us for the last hour, they must be shaking their heads by now, having listened to the speeches that have enumerated and outlined the history of this particular piece of legislation.

This is an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act with regard to the coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171. Those three sections deal with the refugee appeal division. Clearly, Parliaments past have debated this legislation, have passed this legislation, have sent it off to the Senate, and it is only the multiple elections that we have had that have thrown us back to where we have to deal with it again.

Contrary to what the Conservative member just said, the fact of the matter is that there was good thought put into these provisions. They went through various committees. They were deemed to be proper, intelligent measures. So the issue then is why, since 2001, 2002, do we still not have this appeal division? Why is it not there?

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act approved by Parliament in 2001 created the refugee appeal division. In 2002 the government implemented the act but not the sections that give the refugee claimants the right to appeal.

As a result, refugee claimants in Canada have been denied the appeal that Parliament granted them in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Instead, their fate is determined by a single decision maker. I will deal with that issue in a couple of minutes.

To correct this injustice, the last Parliament voted to force the implementation of the refugee appeal division; however, the bill did not become law because the House was not able to approve the Senate's amendments before the 2008 election was called. It has been through the entire process.

When we talk about the fate of refugees being decided by a single decision maker, that is a big part of the problem. One of the previous speakers talked about how 15 years ago there were actually three people involved, and then it was changed in 2001 to two people, and subsequently down to one.

If we look at the speeches of some of the other members who have spoken on this bill, we will see why and how having one person making the decision is not a good idea, particularly because the people appointed to the refugee board are political appointments.

The Conservatives are now sitting comfortably over on the government benches, but when the Liberals were in power and making political appointments to refugee boards, they were regaling themselves, exposing some of the activities of some of the Liberal appointees. The Liberals were appointing totally unqualified people, defeated candidates, friends of friends, and putting them on the refugee appeal board. It became a big joke, showing favouritism. The Conservatives, who were then in opposition, were raising a storm over this, and well they should have.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot and they are now the government, well, rather than change that system, what have they done? They have simply fallen into the same old trap, as did the same old Liberal government for the 13 years before that, and more or less the major part of 100 years before that. They appointment hacks and flaks to the board, and then they wonder why they get very bad results. We are saying that having one person making the decision is not a very good idea.

As a matter of fact, the mover of the motion, the member for Jeanne-Le Ber from the Bloc, points out a couple of very interesting examples where there was a board member appointed by the minister who had a very questionable past. This gentleman was chief of staff to the former prime minister of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. We all remember him as the former president of Haiti and that regime committed many atrocities, and was complicit in major crimes. Here this man was in charge of deciding on refugee appeals for the government. In some cases he was judging people from Haiti.

Certainly, if there were a two-person board, or more than one at least, and then the right of an appeal, it would be added protection so that Conservatives would not get the stories that they were raising a fuss about when the Liberals were in power doing the same thing. It is not fair to Conservatives to put themselves in that situation, making political appointments who then make decisions that in many cases do not make any sense at all.

The sponsor of the bill talks about another case of two people on the refugee appeal board. In one case, Laurier Thibault, in terms of his cases, 98% of them were rejections. If we were to study the people on the refugee appeal board and one member has a 98% rejection rate and then another member has a rejection rate of 98% the other way, it would make us wonder whether that system is operating properly.

I want to refer to the comments made by the member for Trinity—Spadina. I would go over some of the comments made by government members, but they are all just negative. They have made up their minds on the bill and just say they are not interested in making any changes.

However, the member for Trinity--Spadina talked about the Canadian Council for Refugees having documented different examples of how decisions were made in a very inconsistent manner. In one case there were two Palestinian brothers who had the same basis for their refugee claim. One was accepted and the other was refused. The refused brother was deported and these were identical cases.

In another example a person was arrested and detained for two months in Iran. Canada's refugee board concluded that this person was not credible because of inconsistencies and gaps in her evidence. When she told the board she had scars on her body from torture, her testimony was rejected because she had not provided a medical report and it went on to come up with a different conclusion.

The point is that we should not rely on a single person making a judgment when that person is not qualified. I am not going to disqualify individuals because they were defeated Conservative candidates. I am sure there are enough of them out there that a good choice could have been made, but that is not what happens.

In the great Liberal days, the Liberals managed to somehow always find the worst one they could from all their defeated candidates. I am sure there were some Liberal candidates who would have made fine board members and why the Liberals could not pick one of the good ones is beyond me. But they always managed to pick the one that got them into the most trouble. That is certainly a sad history of this particular board. I would hope that we would eventually make the right decision in the House and make this correction that is long overdue.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak on Bill C-291.

Hon. members of this House are well aware that this government is a strong advocate and supporter of the humanitarian dimension of our immigration program. I think every member of this Parliament meets with constituents or advocates for refugees who are working to assist people with a legitimate need for asylum on our shores, and we hear some very sad stories. I regularly give thanks that I was born in Canada.

Every year we welcome almost a quarter of a million permanent new residents, who embrace our values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. This government has welcomed the highest number of people to Canada ever in our history, including refugees and students. Among them are thousands of refugees attracted by our values and a chance to start a new life. Most of these refugees will become citizens and enjoy, for the first time, freedom of speech, the freedom to vote and run for public office, the right to criticize governments, the right to join a union and engage in collective bargaining, the freedom to move anywhere they want in Canada, the right to equal treatment before the law in a fair trial, and a freedom that we often forget about, the right to have a family with more than one child if they so choose, a right not available everywhere in the world today.

Since this government came to office in 2006, we have accepted more than 51,000 refugees from around the world. In fact, Canada is one of the top three countries in the western world in terms of the number of refugees it accepts for resettlement. The welcome we extend has given us an international reputation as a champion of human dignity. As a member of Parliament, I am proud of that and we all should be, but we are growing increasingly concerned about the abuse of our asylum system.

As my hon. colleagues have heard, between 2006 and 2008, there was a 60% increase in the number of refugee claims filed in Canada. The growing backlog in claims reached 61,000 at the end of June. It is only responsible to manage that backlog to ensure that those who are in true need of asylum go to the front of the line.

The government inherited about one-third of that backlog when it took office. Roughly another third is a result of the transition to a merit-based appointment system, which resulted in delays of appointments of members to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, but which now stands at 98% capacity in terms of the number of board members. Another one-third of the backlog is the result of the growth in claims. Even at full capacity, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada can only handle 25,000 asylum claims a year. Last year we had 37,000 asylum claims. Clearly at this rate the backlog will just continue to grow, and so will wait times.

Almost one in four asylum claims Canada received last year were from Mexico, yet the Immigration and Refugee Board, with its high standards of fairness, accepted only 11% of those claims. It is not fair to make legitimate refugees wait due to systematic problems that we should be fixing. In fact, in some cases it is downright dangerous for those asylum-seekers to make them wait, while others are trying to immigrate with dubious claims.

A large number of the current asylum claimants are not in need of Canada's protection. Yet as it currently stands, an individual who is determined to play the system can stay in Canada for years while he or she works through the multiple recourses available to a failed refugee claimant and while our acceptance rate is one of the highest in the world. Some do so while working in Canada, while others rely on social assistance. This delay fundamentally undermines the fairness of our immigration system by allowing failed refugee claimants to remain in Canada for many years, in some cases for over six years, and often at taxpayers' expense.

I am pleased to report that since we began requiring visitors from Mexico and the Czech Republic to first obtain a visa, the number of refugee claims from those two countries has slowed to a trickle. In the almost three months since the visa requirement took effect, there have been only 16 refugee claims at ports of entry from Czech nationals, compared with 831 claims in the same period leading up to the visa imposition. Similarly, in that period, claims at ports of entry from Mexican nationals have fallen significantly from 1,287 in the nearly three months before the announcement down to 35.

Prior to the imposition of visas, Mexican and Czech refugee claims accounted for almost 50% of the total number of claims made at Canadian ports of entry. What does that tell parliamentarians? It tells us that the vast majority of these people from the Czech Republic and Mexico were probably so-called economic refugees, people who should be applying to immigrate to Canada in the normal way.

We have managed to stem the tide of refugee claims with visas on Mexico and the Czech Republic. However, I think we can all agree that visas are a blunt instrument and not the ideal solution.

We need to reform the asylum system. Too much of our time is spent on processing applications from people who are not in need of protection and whose claims are ultimately refused.

I think most MPs have constituents in their riding offices, as I do, some in tears, who simply want family members to visit for a wedding or an anniversary, but who are experiencing delays in getting visas. They suffer because others have abused the system.

We have repeatedly articulated why we do not support private member's Bill C-291, which would establish a refugee appeals division, as outlined in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Asylum claimants already benefit from multiple avenues of recourse, including seeking leave from the Federal Court, and pre-removal risk assessments and applications for permanent residence based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

I wish to remind my hon. colleagues that since 2002, no government, Liberal or Conservative, has agreed to implement the refugee appeal division, and for very good reasons. Refugee claimants in Canada are already treated with the utmost procedural fairness. Our current asylum system is already too slow and complex. Adding yet another level of appeal would not only make the process even longer, but it would also result in tens of millions of dollars in ongoing annual costs to the federal and provincial governments.

An appeals division would cause further delays, with no different outcome in most cases, I strongly suspect, as immigration consultants and lawyers would stay busy grasping at an additional paper review for the chance, however slim, of a different outcome. It is unfair to their clients, unfair to those waiting to be heard, and unfair to Canadians.

While I appreciate the member's motivation behind this bill, the latter is unworkable. What we have been advocating instead is reform of the asylum system. With a streamlined system, we could include a full appeal that would allow for the introduction of new evidence, not simply a paper review of a decision made at the refugee protection division, as suggested in the private member's bill.

The refugee appeals division, as envisioned in this private member's bill, would not improve the refugee determination system. In fact, it would make the system worse. If adopted, the proposed legislation would weaken, if not cripple, our current system. The implementation of an appeal would only be possible in a streamlined and simplified system.

My colleagues opposite are well aware of the government's position on Bill C-291 and know that our position has not changed. I strongly urge the opposition to consider the comments already made by the government during this debate. We support strong and effective protection for refugees, but this is not it.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak today to Bill C-291, which was introduced by my colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber, whom I thank. Essentially, this bill would ensure that a real refugee appeal procedure is put in place.

Those of us who represent urban ridings are aware of the injustice created by the refugee system. When we meet with people in our ridings, we realize that more and more people are seeking asylum. The Canadian system creates real human dramas, and that is why my colleague introduced this bill, in order to restore some justice to the processing of claims to the Immigration and Refugee Board.

It is a bit paradoxical that we are having to debate my colleague's bill today, because the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which came into effect in 2002, included a number of sections that provided for the implementation of the refugee appeal division. Sections 110, 111 and 171 of the 2002 act provided that, if a person was not recognized by the Immigration and Refugee Board as a refugee under the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, he or she should have an opportunity to appeal.

Today, the paradox is that these sections of the 2002 act have not yet come into force. It is time to honour the spirit of the legislation this Parliament passed in 2002 and implement these sections.

Restoring justice is fundamental. We must remember that as a result of certain decisions, the number of members on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada has gone from two to one. The implementation of the refugee appeal division was to restore justice and to compensate, to a certain extent, for the reduction of the number of board members. Today, there is only one member who sits on the Immigration and Refugee Board and the appeal division has yet to be established. It is the worst possible situation for a refugee claimant.

In the past, this government as well as the previous Liberal government indicated that there were a number of safety nets. In 2006, the government claimed that people could apply for refugee status when they crossed the Canadian border. Of course they could not be returned to their country of origin provided that a proper application had been made to the commission. We agree that they should have been protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The minister told us that there were safety nets, including pre-removal risk assessment, known as PRRA. People can also apply for permanent residency under certain conditions and on compassionate grounds, known at the time as the 114.(2). The government said that everything needed was in place in order for claimants to appeal. The government considered these two mechanisms to be appeals. In reality, that is not the case.

I will take a few minutes to remind the House of what the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said in 2006.

People already have endless possibilities when it comes to a judicial review before the Federal Court or applying for permanent residency on compassionate grounds. We must look at the (immigration) system as a whole before deciding whether or not to establish an appeal division.

Let us go further and examine this immigration system to see whether, indeed, these two provisions, these two chances people have to appeal, according to the minister, actually work. What is the reality? The reality is that as far as the pre-removal risk assessment reviews are concerned, claimants can ask the Federal Court to review their file. What is the reality? Just because a claimant asks the Federal Court to review their file does not necessarily mean that their file will be reviewed. The Federal Court has agreed to review a file in only 4% of cases. Let us be clear: the Federal Court does not examine the merits of the case. Some new evidence may be added, but the court will never examine the merits of the case.

What does that mean? It means that the vast majority of claims are denied. In very few cases have decisions been changed. Rarely has a decision of the Immigration and Refugee Board been overturned. In about 30% of cases, claims have changed, but in the vast majority of cases, the decision has been maintained.

The minister should have realized back in 2006 that his appeal system, which he claims offers unlimited opportunities to request a review, does not work in this case.

Let us look at the second option for refugees, permanent residency for humanitarian reasons. Once again, when it comes to what the minister called his second safety net, the numbers tell us that 28% of cases are approved. Consequently, 28% of those whose claims have been denied by the Immigration and Refugee Board have then submitted applications for permanent residency within Canada for humanitarian reasons, and in about 28% of cases, these people have been admitted for humanitarian reasons under section 114.2.

Clearly, the system is not working. That is why, in 2004, the House Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration passed a motion calling on the Liberal government of the day to change the system and ensure that these three sections on the appeal division would be implemented. Parliament took the initial step of passing a motion in committee, but the Liberals did not listen and refused to follow through on the motion.

The second important element is a bill that was introduced by the Bloc and passed in October 2007. It went through the whole parliamentary process, but unfortunately, did not receive royal assent because of the 2008 election.

What I am trying to say is that, basically, the purpose of my colleague's bill is to restore justice and ensure that a bill passed in 2002 is implemented in full. International organizations, such as Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, have all told us that we have to implement the appeal division

That is why I urge all parliamentarians to vote for the bill introduced by my colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171).

I want to thank the member for Jeanne-Le Ber for bringing forward this piece of legislation. It is similar to legislation that was brought forward in the last Parliament by the member for Laval, with the support of the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges. It is something that I and the member for Trinity—Spadina, the NDP's citizenship and immigration critic, have strongly supported over many years.

The irony is that this is a bill that calls on Parliament and the government to implement legislation that is already in place. It is a bill to implement an act. Could anything be more ridiculous? Why should that be necessary in our system? It is absolutely ridiculous. It is absolutely unfortunate.

It is absolutely disrespectful of the current Conservative government and the previous Liberal government which refused to enact provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, legislation that was fully debated in this chamber and in the other place back in 2001. It was passed by this chamber and the other place back in 2001. It has been largely implemented by governments in the meantime, except for the provisions in the sections I mentioned earlier. Those sections are the ones that pertain to the refugee appeal division.

There is a history behind the bill we are debating today and the failure by governments to implement the refugee appeal division. I want to go back to that debate that happened before the adoption of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, IRPA, back in 2001.

There was an extensive debate. a long debate about that legislation, because it is very important legislation to Canadians, to our place in the world, to what happens on the issues of immigration and refugee policy in Canada. That new legislation was very thoroughly debated.

Over the course of that debate, the government put forward a recommendation to reduce the IRB panels that hear refugee determination claims from two people to one person, and there was a lot of concern about that proposal. There was concern that a one-person panel that sits in judgment of these very important refugee claims could make mistakes. There was no one else to counter the decision and the process of decision that the one-person board would go through, and there was no appeal in the process as it was standing.

Over the course of the development and the debate on that legislation, a compromise was reached. Opposition members and government members agreed to go forward with the proposal that there be a one-person board if there was an appeal process implemented, and that was the refugee appeal division.

This compromise meant that a one-person board could go ahead. Hopefully that would make the process more efficient, but there would be a backup appeal, an appeal on the merits of the case where any errors that were made by that one-person board could be corrected. That was made part of the legislation in the sections that we are talking about in the bill today.

It is perfectly reasonable work, good work by parliamentarians to discuss the process thoroughly, and the benefits and the problems of that process, to reach a compromise and to suggest a new process that would be workable and that would protect people in that system. It would protect refugees from an arbitrary decision by a one-person board and give them a significant opportunity for an appeal on the merits of their case. That passed the House of Commons and the other place and it became law.

However, the Liberal government of the day and the current Conservative government have always refused to implement the sections regarding the refugee appeal division, so in fact we do not have that appeal. We have the one-person board, but we do not have the effective appeal of that decision.

If we ask anyone who has an association with the refugee determination process in Canada, he or she will tell us that it is very important. If we ask international observers of Canada's refugee process, they will tell us that appeal is an absolute necessity. Yet we still have not implemented it. It is in the law, but it has not been implemented. That is an absolutely despicable situation. It means that we have a bill, like the one we have today, which is legislation to call on the government to implement legislation that is already in place. It is an absolutely ridiculous situation.

Lest one thinks that the refugee appeal division is some cumbersome mechanism that will further delay the immigration process, which is what we often hear, it is not. It is a paper appeal. It is not one that would involve a lengthy court proceeding. It is a paper appeal of the merits of the case, an essential paper appeal, but a paper appeal.

Other people have said that it is too expensive and that the immigration and refugee system already takes up too much money. That is not the case either. I remember when I was on the standing committee in the 37th Parliament. The government at the time estimated that it would cost $8 million to set it up and $2 million a year to run the system. That is not a significant amount of money by any stretch of the imagination when one considers the importance of having a just and fair immigration and refugee system in Canada.

This was a very concise and precise appeal. It was not a costly appeal and yet governments have refused to move on it. As I say, it is a very simple and necessary step that could be taken tomorrow if there was the political will to ensure fairness in our system.

As I mentioned earlier, there are many organizations in Canada. The Canadian Council for Refugees, which is the coalition of almost every refugee and immigrant serving group in Canada, has strongly supported the implementation of the refugee appeal division, the RAD, and they have been strong supporters of Bill C-291. They know and appreciate the value of this kind of appeal to people who have made refugee claims in Canada. They know it is a measure of fairness to the system, where there is only one person sitting in judgment of the life and death situation of a refugee claimant in Canada. They also point out that international organizations have criticized Canada for not having this kind of appeal in our refugee system.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has said:

Given that even the best decision-makers may err in passing judgment, and given the potential risk to life which may result from such an error, an appeal on the merits of a negative determination constitutes a necessary element of international protection.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees wrote to the Canadian government to express its concern about non-implementation of the refugee appeal division. It considers an appeal procedure to be a fundamental, necessary part of any refugee status determination process.

The UN Committee Against Torture, hearing a complaint from a rejected refugee claimant, found that the Canadian refugee determination system had been unable to correct a wrong decision in his case. What an outrageous condemnation of our system, that a refugee claimant could not correct an error in his case that went against him and the United Nations Committee Against Torture had to point that out to the Canadian government.

In fact, despite our incredible record on refugee matters and despite the fact that we won the Nansen medal from the United Nations in the 1980s for our refugee policies, there is this huge gap in our refugee process. It is a gap that our law anticipates but that our governments refuse to correct. That is an absolutely outrageous situation. In fact, Canada is one of the few countries in the world that fails to give refugee claimants an appeal on the merits of their case. We need to change that immediately.

This is not rocket science. This is not a huge process. This is the result of good work and political compromise here in the House of Commons. All the parties who were looking at the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act came together and decided on a direction we could take that accomplishes the goals of everybody in this place.

What has happened? The previous Liberal government and the current Conservative government have turned their backs on that process. They have shown disrespect to Parliament and to the many committees that debated this legislation at other times by not moving to implement these provisions which already exist in the immigration and refugee protection law.

It is about time we got on with this. Needless to say, New Democrats will strongly be supporting this legislation. We believe it is high time that this measure of fairness was implemented in Canada. Refugees who make a claim here in Canada deserve an appeal on a negative decision on the merits of their case.

The refugee appeal division provides that appeal. It should be implemented tomorrow. We should not have to wait for this bill to proceed all the way through the House and the other place to have that measure of fairness in our immigration and refugee determination law.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, other than our indigenous peoples, our first nations, all the rest of us in Canada are recent arrivals. We either arrived ourselves or are the descendants, the sons and daughters of wave after wave of arrivals to Canada's shores over the last few centuries.

The assumption is that all of these arrivals to Canada were immigrants, when in fact, especially during the latter part of the 20th century, a large proportion of those who arrived on Canada's shores were refugees, those who were seeking sanctuary.

I am the son and grandson of refugees. In the years after World War II, my father and my grandparents on my father's side were in a displaced persons camp in Italy. On my mother's side, they were in a displaced persons camp in Germany. In the years after the war, Canadian government officials arrived in those camps, they took notes, reviewed documents and my parents and grandparents were among the lucky few who received travel documents to come to Canada.

They came across the Atlantic and arrived on freedom's shores, Canada, where they could live in freedom and democracy, work hard and build a new life.

Unfortunately not everyone was so lucky. Many of those who found themselves in those displaced persons camps, the refugee camps, were sent back to the Soviet Union, except they never arrived home. They ended up mostly in Siberia and most ended up dead.

Canada has a tremendous legacy of welcoming and accepting refugees, whether it was post-World War II in 1956 from Hungary or more recently Vietnamese refugees from the Philippines and Burmese refugees from camps in Thailand.

However, over the past half century it has become a little more difficult to figure out who in fact are bona fide refugees. It is no longer the case that we have officials who go to refugee camps and those are the sole source of refugees to Canada. Today, anyone, anywhere on the planet from any country can buy a plane ticket, arrive at a Canadian airport and claim refugee status or they can arrive in Canada, stay here for a while, check things out and then decide to make a refugee claim.

The system is not working, especially over the past couple of years where our backlog has increased by some 18 months and we have ended up with a backlog of approximately 8 years and over 60,000 refugee claimants.

There is a huge cost to this dysfunction in the system of approximately $30,000 for every refugee claimant. At the same time, statistics show that about half of those claims are bogus. That is a cost to the Canadian taxpayer of some $900 million, $100 million per year over the next eight years. That is a huge cost.

There is another cost to the current dysfunction. Real claimants, those who are seeking refuge from totalitarian regimes, dictatorships, those individuals and their families have to wait years in anguish not knowing whether they will be sent back to a country where they could be tortured or worse. The system has to be fixed. That is why I will be supporting Bill C-291.

The bill would provide greater efficiency in our refugee system. The refugee appeals division would be a specialized appeal division as opposed to the federal court. It would increase the efficiency of the system, while still ensuring the humane treatment of those in need of protection. It would enhance the reputation of our system. The implementation of an appeal division would improve public perception of the Immigration and Refugee Board.

As well, the federal court, where appeals go today, does not specialize in refugee matters. Advocates for the RAD system would have expertise in refugee determination. There would be greater consistency in decision-making. The creation of a specialized RAD would allow for consistency when reviewing the facts of decisions.

The judicial review of an IRB decision is more limited in scope than an appeal contemplated in the RAD. The court cannot replace a decision by the IRB with its own judgment.

We cannot continue with the system that we have in place today, up to eight years to finalize a claim. We are in a cycle. People note that it takes this tremendous length of time, so frivolous claims are made so they can extend their stays in Canada year after year.

The bill envisions reforms that would provide three new pillars to our refugee system. First, it would start with a good first decision. Second, it would allow for a reliable appeal. Third, it would allow for the prompt removal of failed claimants. As well, tribunal members would be appointed solely on merit.

By creating a strong system, the pre-removal risk assessment and back end humanitarian compassionate applications we see so often today and their associated judicial reviews could be removed from the system. Under the proposal, refugee claims would be decided in approximately six months, reviewed most likely in the subsequent four months and removals, should they be necessary, within three months after a negative appeal decision.

We are dealing with an immigration system in Canada that currently is broken. Canadians want us to enact a fulsome package of reforms. Unfortunately, the government has not come forward with such a fulsome package.

However, in the lack of the aforementioned, we have an opportunity to address one aspect of this broken immigration system, the broken refugee system. We must have a system that is just, that respects and meets Canada's international obligations to protect refugees and that re-establishes the confidence of Canadians in our system.

Canadians are a people who above all believe in fairness. They would like to see a refugee system that is fair. We deserve to have a refugee system that works, a system that respects due process, ensures avenues of equal opportunity and provides safety for individuals who are in need of protection.

That is why, as a son and as a grandson of refugees, I will be supporting Bill C-291.

The House resumed from November 19 consideration of the motion that C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171), be read the third time and passed.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism]

Madam Speaker, this country has a long history of offering protection to those most in need. There are an estimated 10.5 million refugees in the world today who live in desperate conditions, many in refugee camps, often forgotten by the world at large. Their plight is real and their stories are moving.

Every year Canada welcomes nearly 30,000 refugees for asylum and resettlement programs. In fact, we are one of the top three countries in the western world in terms of the numbers of refugees we accept for resettlement, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has called this country a model for other nations.

I am proud to say that Canada is living up to its reputation when it comes to providing refuge and protection to those in need. I am proud that there is a consensus in this country to help provide refuge for the persecuted.

However, there is no doubt that refugee status determining process, as it exists now, faces substantial challenges. Most significantly, the large and growing number of bogus refugee claims is putting a real strain on the system and, as a result, wait times are getting longer.

We have a system where even the decisions on the most straightforward refugee claims take too long. It takes too long to determine the status of obvious refugees in need of protection. Unsuccessful claimants regularly wait years before they work through the various levels of appeal available to them. Consequently, they remain in Canada while making those appeals and have every reason to drag out the process regardless of the merits of their case.

This government strongly supports an effective asylum system, one that is efficient and consistent in its application of the rules. We oppose Bill C-291 because it is neither necessary in the current system nor efficient as it would—

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am going to deliver a well-prepared, well-thought-out speech on Bill C-291 to indicate that the Bloc Québécois is in favour, as you may have guessed, of a refugee appeal division.

We are in favour of this because we have to make sure that when someone is initially refused refugee status or if a ruling can put the refugee in danger, the refugee can have the right to further expand on the facts regarding why they need an appeal, a right that currently does not exist.

The bill is quite simple. The purpose of it is to implement a refugee appeal division. After Bill C-291 has been passed and has received royal assent, three sections of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, sections 110, 111 and 171, will come into force. They would come into force one year after royal assent.

A proper appeal process for refugee claimants ought to have been put in place as soon as the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act took effect in June 2002. This is one of the significant changes required to ensure that asylum seekers are treated fairly and equitably.

Implementing a refugee appeal division is a matter of justice. By stubbornly refusing to do so, two successive governments have perpetrated injustice on asylum seekers.

For several years now, many voices have been calling for a refugee appeal division. The Bloc Québécois has called for it many times, of course, and it is not alone. I would like to list the organizations that support a refugee appeal division. They have many good reasons for their support, including humanitarian ones, of course.

Even before the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act came into force in February 2000, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was calling for an appeal division. It said:

Where the facts of an individual situation are in dispute, the effective procedural framework should provide for their review. Given that even the best decision makers may err in passing judgment and given the potential risk to life which may result from such an error, an appeal on the merits of a negative determination constitutes a necessary element of international protection.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has always felt it was necessary to have a mechanism for appeal on the merits of a ruling. In a letter dated May 9, 2002, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees expressed its concerns to the former minister, who is now the member for Bourassa. It said:

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees considers an appeal procedure to be a fundamental, necessary part of any refugee status determination process. It allows errors to be corrected and can also help to ensure consistency in decision making. Canada, Italy and Portugal are the only industrialized countries which do not allow rejected asylum seekers the possibility to have first instance decisions reviewed on points of fact as well as points of law.

I would like to point out, and members will be pleased to hear this, that since 2002, Italy and Portugal have created procedures for appeals on merit. According to the letter from the UN High Commission for Refugees, Canada is the only remaining industrialized nation that has not yet accepted its responsibility in this regard.

The UNHCR representative appeared before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. Although he initially acknowledged “Canada's procedure for the determination of refugee status to be of a very high quality”, he reiterated the need for an appeal mechanism.

I will quote him once again for those interested in refugee law, namely all Quebeckers and Canadians:

...implementation of an appeal on the merits to review negative first instance decisions would strengthen even further the Canadian refugee status determination system. For UNHCR, an appeal on the merits would correct first instance errors and help to ensure consistency and fairness in decision-making.

He also said, “The Federal Court judicial review is not an appeal on the merits.”

Also:

The pre-removal risk assessment, PRRA, is an important safety net, especially when there's a long passage of time between a negative decision and removal. Like the humanitarian and compassionate application, the PRRA is a circumscribed process that does not correct a first instance negative decision.

In December 2004, in its Falcon Ríos v. Canada ruling, the UN Committee Against Torture criticized the Canadian system as follows:

It [the committee] expressed particular concern at the apparent lack of independence of the civil servants deciding on such appeals, and at the possibility that a person could be expelled while an application for review was under way. It concluded that those considerations could detract from effective protection of the rights covered by article 3, paragraph 1, of the Convention [meaning a return to torture].

In its July 2005 report, the UN Committee Against Torture made several recommendations to Canada. Among the areas of concern, it mentioned the fact that unsuccessful applicants cannot benefit from a review on the merits of their application. In fact, the committee recommends that:

The State party should provide for judicial review of the merits, rather than merely of the reasonableness, of decisions to expel an individual where there are substantial grounds for believing that the person faces a risk of torture.

For all these reasons, we must ensure that a refugee appeal division exists.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened very carefully to the mover as well as the parliamentary secretary, and want to express my gratitude to the member for presenting Bill C-291, but I do want to give it some context.

There is no question in Canadians' minds that they deserve a refugee system that works, one that respects due process, creates avenues of equal opportunity, and provides safety for individuals who are in need of protection.

Unfortunately, today we have a broken refugee system with the following problems: a staggering 61,000 backlog of refugee claims; an increase of 17.7 months for the processing of claims, in other words, a wait of almost two years; a drastic decrease of 50% for the number of finalized claims; an almost 50% increase in the cost to finalize a claim, an estimated cost to Canadian taxpayers of approximately $29,000 for the processing of each claimant; and a 50% increase in the number of deportations from Canada over the last decade.

One of the first questions I asked when I was appointed opposition critic for citizenship and immigration was precisely on this issue and I want to cite the response given by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. In response to the question he said:

Mr. Speaker, I am really delighted to hear the interest of the member in hopefully working together to create a more efficient refugee determination system...However, the member is quite right, it is not efficient and the reality is that last year we received 38,000 inland refugee claimants, about 60% of whose applications were rejected by the IRB.

I would like to work with the member to find ways that we can dissuade people from making false refugee claims, seeking to jump the queue and to come to this country illegally under the cover of being refugees.

There is no question that the minister understands that the system is broken and that question was asked on March 11, 2009. This is a question that still of course requires an answer.

The Auditor General has stated some major concerns as well and so has the minister's departmental plan. To cite from what the minister said in committee on October 6: “As I indicated, that growing backlog reached 61,000 this summer”. He also said: “Mr. Chairman, under the current system, it's taking over 18 months for a claimant to get a hearing at the IRB”. He also said: “This is a broken system, and it needs to be streamlined”.

Where the minister stands is obvious. I have a suspicion that the minister is not getting the support he requires in cabinet to make the necessary investments to fix the system that we on both sides of the House all agree is indeed broken. So here comes this bill, Bill C-291. Of course, it is a bill that compels the government to bring certain provisions of IRPA into force for the purpose of creating the refugee appeal division of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Section 110 deals with the appeal, section 111 with the refugee appeal division decision, and section 171, the proceedings of the refugee appeal division.

On both sides are those who oppose and talk obviously about duplication. The CIC officials argue that the RAD is unnecessary given other avenues of appeal and recourse prior to deportation. They also say that we have a need for wider reform. I agree with that. We have to look at the entire system. It is arguable that the implementation of RAD must be accompanied by reform of the refugee determination system in order to enhance efficiency overall. There are concerns about costs. There are concerns that the RAD would only provide a review on the record. It would burden the system even further. We have heard all that.

We have heard all the points. I am very happy about the fact that I pushed for the bill to go to committee because both sides have raised important issues that required careful analysis and thought.

Those in support speak to fundamental issues of justice. For example, the administration of justice itself, that the RAD provides a way to balance the rights of refugees with the integrity of the immigration system.

On the issue of efficiency, the RAD would be a specialized appeal division as opposed to the federal court. It would increase the efficiency of the system, while still ensuring the humane treatment of those in need of protection. The implementation of an appeal division would improve public perception of the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Consistency in decision-making was also mentioned as one of the rationale for the original proposal. The creation of the RAD would allow for greater consistencies when reviewing the facts of a decision.

The other issue that was raised was procedural safeguard. The RAD would serve as a procedural safeguard and would enhance the IRB credibility to ensure justice is done so that no decision to deny refugee status would lead to serious consequences, such as detention, torture or death.

On the final point under judicial review, the judicial review of an IRB decision is more limited in scope than the appeal contemplated in the RAD. The court cannot replace a decision by the IRB with its own judgment. The federal court does not specialize in refugee matters, whereas advocates for the RAD would have an expertise in refugee determinations.

That is what we heard. This is an important bill to analyze because this is an important issue. I want members in the House to remember the context I presented today, that we are dealing with a broken system.

As a member of Parliament who likes to hear both sides of the debate, I want to put the government on notice. I am waiting for a reform package. I am 100% behind the concept of co-operating with the government and parties on all sides of the House to ensure we address the key concerns I cited earlier in my speech in reference to the broken refugee system. It has to be a system that is fair, a system that is just, a system that respects and meets Canada's international obligations to protect refugees and maintain confidence in the system. We have heard that inland refugee systems can take up to eight years to finalize a claim. That leaves thousands of people living in limbo, and that is not fair. A decision needs to be made within a responsible and acceptable timeframe. We need an appeal decision process that is fair and accessible.

The reality is when claimants fail, they unfortunately need to leave. The entire process should take closer to 12 to 18 months rather than 8 years. It has to be efficient, it has to be fair and it has to also maintain the integrity of the system itself.

It is for this reason that I put the government on notice. I support the bill. I will give the government time to present a reform package that also includes an appeals division.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I will get to my notes, but I wanted to say that we were going to be working through this private member's bill a couple of weeks ago. We came all prepared one morning to debate and give our speeches; however, the member for Jeanne-Le Ber was not here. We were trying to figure out what had happened.

At first, we worried a little. He has a couple of young children back home. We thought that maybe something was up. Then I thought that perhaps he had seen the light and that he was not actually going to present his bill because he saw that it was not the right thing to do. However, the reason that he decided to not be here was because he was a little bit concerned about a vote that was going to happen and the potential of this working into that vote. It was a little bit of strategy. He did not quite see the light, but there was a short time period when I thought he just might have.

Canada's asylum system has one of the highest acceptance rates among Western countries, accepting 42% of claimants in 2008. Last year, we granted protection to more refugees per capita than either the United States or Australia. Unfortunately, a large and growing number of unfounded refugee claims are putting a real strain on our system and, as we have repeatedly argued, are making wait times longer for legitimate refugees. Longer delays put more stress on real refugees who have already suffered enough in their homelands.

I do not see how Bill C-291 would even begin to solve this problem. That is why I rise with my colleagues in the government to oppose this bill. Clear, straightforward refugee claims are taking far too long to reach a decision and unsuccessful claimants are typically allowed to stay in Canada for years, taking advantage of the various levels of recourse that are available to them.

This bill would add an additional recourse to the already large menu of recourses available to failed claimants. Expanding the already complicated process would make Canada more attractive to economic migrants seeking to game the system and stay in Canada by filing a false refugee claim. We continue to oppose Bill C-291 because it is not necessary in the current system. As we have said, it is not efficient, since it would add considerable delays and further costs to the refugee determination system.

For the past several years, we have been advocating for a fair and balanced asylum system that provides timely protection to people in need and removes those who would try to circumvent the immigration process by claiming refugee status when they simply should not. As we have told hon. members of the House, since 2006, the number of asylum claims Canada receives has increased by 60%. The increase in refugee claims, many of them unfounded, places stress on decision makers and on refugees.

With at least 60,000 refugee claims in the system backlog, we now have a two-tier system in which some immigration applicants wait patiently in line, often for years, while others use the asylum system to jump the queue. Our system is simply not able to handle this many claims. With every incentive for bogus refugees to come here and with every delay, we add to this system. We make Canada more attractive, not to the refugees who need our country but to those who want to process under false claims.

Too much time and too many resources are being spent to review claims of those who are simply not genuine refugees and who stay in Canada for years, often at taxpayers' expense. Canadians support a refugee system that is generous to those truly in need, but the current system of unending recourse and the cases of unfounded claimants exploiting our generosity undermines Canadian confidence and our system itself.

Bill C-291 would not address the pressure related to rising asylum claims. It would not fix the lengthy and complex system related to various recourses available to failed claimants. In fact, it would simply make the situation worse. All it would do is add another layer. It would do very little to provide additional safeguards for claimants. As we have long argued, under the proposed legislation, the refugee appeal division would provide only a paper review of decisions made at the refugee protection division of the Immigration and Refugee Board.

As we have said, a paper review would not provide the opportunity for an in-person hearing. That means no oral appeal. This review would be based on the same information and evidence on record that was used by the board in assessing individual refugee cases. This review would only determine if errors in fact and/or law had been made.

The current system, and no one is arguing this, is slow and complex, and it already includes multiple recourse mechanisms, so a further level of review is simply redundant and unnecessary. Not only would it make the current process even longer but ministry officials came and presented to the committee that it would result in tens of millions of dollars in ongoing annual costs not just to the federal government but to the provincial governments as well.

We need to fix the system. No one argues that, but we need to fix it so that real victims of persecution quickly receive protection in Canada and those whose claims are unfounded or bogus are sent home quickly.

With no fewer than three separate opportunities for recourse: judicial review by the Federal Court of Canada, pre-removal risk assessment, and application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, there is no reason whatsoever to add another. That is all that Bill C-291 would do. It would just be adding another layer of review, another layer of process.

We are here to fix government, not to burden government, and not to add more and unnecessary processes, which actually helps no one.

Make no mistake. This is not an “instead of” any of these provisions. This is in addition to them. Bill C-291 would not streamline anything, nor would it do anything to reduce the months or even years it can take to make a final determination on a refugee claim. In fact, the opposite would be true.

This is just simply not fair. By adding yet another layer of review, we would be putting at risk the fairness Canadians have come to expect and that has allowed our global reputation to take shape. It is certainly not fair to ask the provincial and the territorial governments to continue to provide social and financial supports to someone whose claim has already been unsuccessful four times.

We already have a process that allows an individual to appeal three times, and around the world, we have met with presenters who have said our system is by far if not the best, one of the best in the world as we stand.

We are aware, the government is aware, and the minister is aware of the problems with our refugee system. I want to make it clear that we intend to work toward building a better system for refugees and for Canadians. However, this bill would not lead to positive change. It does not take us in the direction that we need to go with respect to revamping the system. In fact, it would further complicate our system.

Therefore, I simply conclude by indicating that the government will not be supporting Bill C-291 and I urge my colleagues on the other side of the House to support that position.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is especially true because the refugee appeal division process is much less complicated than the Federal Court process. The Federal Court gets more bogged down in procedure and is not specialized in these cases, and can therefore not rule as effectively as a specialized tribunal like the refugee appeal division could.

This means that an appeal to the division would be much less costly than an appeal to a higher court. I truly believe that there would be savings there. It is the same thing for pre-removal risk assessments, or PRRAs. Lawyers who testified before the committee told us that nowhere in the legislation does it state that public servants must examine these appeals. The government could very well assign this responsibility to the refugee appeal division.

It is possible that more changes would have to be made. Members will understand that we are rather limited in what we can do with a private member's bill. If the government has some better suggestions, we will listen. In the meantime, I think that the least we can do, as self-respecting parliamentarians, is to enforce and respect the wishes of Parliament.

Once the bill is passed in this House, there will still be a few weeks in the Senate, royal assent and then a full year. If, by chance, the government decided in the meantime that it had a real, more effective solution than what is proposed in the bill, we would still have a year to examine it and put it into effect. In any case, we are better off not taking any chances, and supporting Bill C-291.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be here to debate my bill, Bill C-291, now at third reading.

I would like to start by pointing out that we have discussed this bill very intensely in committee. I know that the governing party did not support the bill, but I must nevertheless point out that all of these debates were respectful. Other subjects create more acrimony and tension in the House. During the vote at report stage just a few minutes ago, we saw an example of how the process was not abused as a diversionary tactic. I give the Conservatives credit.

This bill is very simple. It would establish the refugee appeal division provided for in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act passed by this Parliament in 2002. Before this reform, two board members would examine the refugee claims together, and if one of the two members accepted the claim, refugee status was granted to the individual.

At the time, the government determined that it would be too costly, particularly given that in 95% of cases, the board members' decisions were the same. That was not surprising, considering that they sat side by side. They had plenty of opportunity to discuss the case and to influence one another. The government said that having two board members was too expensive and pointless, so it decided to cut down to one. To prevent arbitrary rulings, the government decided to set up an appeal division to allow people to appeal a number of possible errors. After consulting the population, immigration lawyers, experts in the protection of refugee rights and all kinds of other groups, Parliament concluded that this was a good compromise. It cut the number of board members by half in exchange for an appeal division.

The problem is that the Liberal government of the day and the Conservative government that followed never implemented that part of the legislation. Those listening at home may well wonder how the government can get away with ignoring the law.

When the House passes a law, it presumes that the government is acting in good faith and intends to respect the will of Parliament. When the time comes to implement legislation, the House generally gives the government plenty of flexibility in terms of when to implement particular provisions. Laws usually contain subsections stating that sections x, y and z are to be implemented when the government issues the order. That way, the government does not have to say whether it needs six months, eight months, 12 months or 14 months to implement a particular provision—in this case, the refugee appeal division. Parliament believes that the government will eventually implement the provisions. In this particular case, that should be all the more true because the government had a majority at the time. So members have every reason to wonder why a provision was included in the legislation if the government had no intention of acting on it.

Unfortunately, that is what happened. This happens rarely—never, as far as I know, until now. This provision has been languishing for eight years. It is part of the legislation, but it is meaningless because the government has refused to issue the necessary order.

The bill before us amends the original provision that gave the government the authority to determine when the division would be created and replaces it with a fixed deadline of one year after it receives royal assent.

I mention this because basically I think, with this bill, before even touching on the content and wisdom of the provision itself, we must see this as a matter of respecting the will of Parliament, and by extension, democracy.

Every time there is an election, millions of voters take the time to go to the polling stations and vote to elect the 308 members who sit in this House so we may pass legislation, and keep an eye on the government and keep it in check. When a government—or two in this case, since it was first the Liberals and then the Conservatives—shows complete scorn for the will of this House for eight years and gets away with it—and we are not talking here about a motion that will have no impact, but rather a duly passed law that was given royal assent—when Parliament is ignored by the government for eight years, I think the minimum act of respect that we owe each other as members of this House is to send a message to the government, regardless of its political stripe, to the effect that when this House and the Senate pass a law, it becomes law and the government must implement it. There is an important aspect to this bill. I think that if it were not passed, that would send a very odd message to the government. We would basically be telling it that it can do whatever it wants with the laws we pass here.

That being said, let us look at the crux of the issue. Why is the refugee appeal division necessary? I would say that the answer has to do with natural justice. Regardless of their political systems, western nations and modern countries have relatively sophisticated justice systems that are designed to prevent arbitrariness and abuses. These government legal systems came out of the middle ages. They are not a recent invention, but began when it was decided that a single individual would no longer have the power of life and death over people and that rules and mechanisms to enforce them would be created. That is what really came out of the middle ages. All around the world and throughout our own legal system, there is the fundamental principle of the chance to appeal, the chance to say that there was clearly an error in a decision and to request that it be reviewed by a second independent party. The appeal process exists everywhere. In Canada, there is just one time when there is no chance to appeal a decision on its merits, and that is when it comes to determining refugee status.

Yet refugee determination decisions are far more serious than decisions handed down by many other tribunals where there are opportunities to appeal. You can have a fight with your neighbour over a fence, and if you are not happy with the decision, in many cases you will have the chance to appeal.

Here, we are talking about decisions that, in some cases, could mean removing someone to a country where he or she will be tortured or even killed, yet there is no chance to appeal. A decision will be made based on the judgment of a single person. It is simply irresponsible.

Human nature being what it is, every person who acts as a board member can make mistakes. In addition, some board members have serious competency problems. Some accept nearly all the claims they hear, while others reject nearly all of them.

I have a case in my riding where a person's claim was rejected by a board member, Laurier Thibault, who at the time was rejecting 98% of the claims he heard.

If a person appeared before a judge—which could happen to anyone here—and before entering the court room they were told that the judge hearing the case convicts 98% of people who appear before him, the person would say this is a parody of justice and they would be right.

Such things can continue to happen because the board's rulings are currently not subject to any control. They can do what they want and there will never be an appeal or any way to know whether their rulings are appropriate. If a judge's rulings in regular court were systematically overturned on appeal, at some point the chief justice would tell him there is a problem.

No such thing exists when it comes to determining refugee status, with the perverse effect that immigration lawyers cannot answer their clients when they ask what their chances are of being accepted. The lawyers are forced to tell their client that it is like a lottery: if they appear before a generous board member, they will be accepted, but if they are heard by a racist board member, they will be turned down.

As a result, people end up making an application when they otherwise would not. If there were a system equipped with an appeal mechanism and real case law, people would know that even if they are heard by a rather generous board member who grants them refugee status, the minister could appeal that decision in order to avoid setting a precedent. After a few months, there would be clear case law: we would know who will be accepted and who will not. The same rules would apply to everyone and this would greatly decrease the number of not so legitimate applications made at the beginning of the process.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague the parliamentary secretary will probably tell us in a few minutes that there are many avenues of appeal. I must admit that there are avenues to appeal the process but there can be no appeal of the merits of a case. Every lawyer who appeared before the committee told us so. Many lawyers, disappointed with the decision on the merits of a decision, use the procedures of the Federal Court to overturn the decision when they cannot appeal the merits of a decision.

The Federal Court itself ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to rule on the merits of a decision. For example, if a board member says that he finds the statements of an applicant to be false and rejects his application, the Federal Court cannot overturn the decision. In some cases, the judge has even said that, had he been the commissioner, he would probably have made a different decision, but that he can only rule on the process and that it was followed correctly.

There is also the pre-removal risk assessment, the PRRA. Once again, it is not a true appeal. It only makes it possible, and in very rare cases, to avoid removal when, for example, the political situation has changed in the country of origin or when new evidence is submitted. However, evidence submitted in the initial hearing to the commissioner cannot be submitted once again, and therefore it is impossible to appeal on the merit of the decision.

Everyone agrees that, at present, those applying for refugee status must wait too long. We need a more efficient system, and case law and rules that are clear for everyone. There would be no point in filing an application unless you met the criteria because you would know in advance what the decision would be. There would no longer be a board member lottery. It would shorten the process and decrease the number of people who make pointless or unfounded applications. In addition, it would be less costly and would allow lawful applicants to obtain a decision more quickly.

For all these reasons, and out of respect for our democracy and this Parliament, I encourage all members to support this bill.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171), as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171), as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Visas for Mexican Nationals

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this week a CBC report showed how the sudden decision by the Minister of Immigration to require visas for Mexicans at the height of the tourist season damaged Canada's reputation in addition to being detrimental to the Quebec tourist industry. The minister's sudden and amateurish actions caused considerable harm to Canada-Mexico relations.

The large number of illegitimate refugee claimants is due to the fact that the decisions of IRB members are inconsistent. Some members accept almost every claim; others, virtually none. It is like a lottery. The only way to put an end to this chaos is to establish the appeal division, as provided for in the legislation, to ensure consistency in decision-making.

Unfortunately, the Liberal and Conservative governments have always refused to do so. It is high time that Parliament adopt Bill C-291 in order to uphold democracy.

Citizenship and Immigration

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 12th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. Your committee has considered Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171) and reports it without amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm going to call clause 1 of Bill C-291.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I was wondering if we could ask the witness to confine his remarks to Bill C-291 and not expand beyond that as to the determination of refugees. We're studying the appeal mechanism, and I think the committee.... I certainly would like to hear more about the appeal mechanism versus how we determine what is a refugee and what is not a refugee.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're going to call this meeting to order, ladies and gentlemen.

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 28, Tuesday, October 20, 2009. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, April 22, 2009, we are considering Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171).

We have before us this morning two witnesses: Mr. Francisco Rico, from the FCJ Refugee Centre; and Martin Collacott, a former Canadian ambassador in Asia and the Middle East.

Good morning to you, gentlemen.

We are going to give each of you 10 minutes to address the committee, and then we will have questions from members of the committee.

Mr. Rico, you're first on the list, so we'll let you go first.

[Janet Dench, Executive Director, Canadian Council for Refugees]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for the invitation to speak to you this morning about Bill C-291, compelling implementation of the refugee appeal division.

The Canadian Council for Refugees urges the Committee to complete its study very quickly, given that the bill has already been studied by both the House and the Senate in the previous Parliament. It is very important that the bill be passed quickly, for three reasons.

The first is that the bill is important. Providing refugee claimants with the right to appeal may save lives. Wrong decisions at the refugee hearing that go uncorrected can lead to refugees being returned to persecution, torture and even death. Contrary to much popular opinion, there is currently no appeal on the merits for refugee claimants. The limited recourses that are available are incapable of correcting many errors in refugee determination.

The second reason is that the bill needs to be passed quickly. It is already more than six years since the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act came into effect without implementing the right of appeal for refugees foreseen by the Act. As a result, for six years refugee claimants have been having their fate determined by a single decision maker in a system never approved by Parliament. Refugees have already waited too long for this injustice to be corrected.

The third reason is that the bill was very close to becoming law. All that was left was for the House of Commons to vote on the amendments made by the Senate. It should therefore be a straightforward matter for the House and Senate to pass the same text without further debate and delays.

As you discuss this bill and the broader question of possible changes to the refugee determination system, we would encourage you to bear in mind several points.

First, refugee protection is a matter of human rights. A refugee determination system must first and foremost ensure respect for the human rights of those who claim our protection. Of course, you have a responsibility to ensure that the system is working efficiently and that it is not hampered, for example, by large numbers of claims from people who do not need Canada's protection. But your primary concern should always be to ensure that the system is ensuring that no one who needs Canada's protection is sent back to persecution or torture. We are therefore concerned when there appears to be more time and energy given to worrying about unfounded claims than about claimants who are wrongly rejected and face return to persecution or torture because there is no appeal on the merits in the Canadian system.

Second, refugee determination is about offering protection to individual human beings who need it. The success of the refugee determination system must be judged on whether it recognizes those individuals who need protection. It is not about whether the overall acceptance rate is high or low. To an individual person who needs protection and who has been rejected, it is no help to say that the acceptance rate in Canada is high. We want to underline the dramatic implications of the lack of appeal on the lives of individuals.

I invite you to read the story of Juan Manuel in this document that was circulated, on page three in the sidebar. Juan Manuel made a refugee claim that was denied in Canada. Shortly after his return to Mexico, he was brutally attacked by the people he had originally fled. He was in intensive care for 12 days. He was lucky to survive. If bystanders hadn't intervened, he would have been killed.

In another case, the UN Committee Against Torture intervened to stop Canada deporting an individual to a risk of torture.

It was in December 2004. The Committee Against Torture found that Canada had failed Enrique Falcon Rios, a victim of torture. The decision also highlighted some problems with Canada's refugee determination system, notably the lack of any effective appeal or recourse for correcting errors in decisions by the Immigration and Refugee Board.

There is a third point we would encourage you to bear in mind. There is a lot of misunderstanding about the refugee system. Unfortunately, the refugee system, which is quite complex, is often misunderstood or misrepresented. As you review problems in the system and consider changes, we strongly recommend that you make sure you get really good information about the system. For example, people frequently suggest that delays are caused in the refugee system by humanitarian and compassionate applications, commonly called “H and C”. We were discussing this earlier. However, it does not seem to be widely understood that there is no stay of removal pending an H and C application. So it is not true that a person can delay their removal by simply making an H and C application.

Another example of a misunderstanding is the common assumption that the problem lies with legislation if it takes a long time to remove refused claimants. In fact, it is more often a problem of bureaucratic processes and priorities. Despite the growing backlog at the Immigration and Refugee Board, many Mexican claimants have been having their hearings very quickly, because their claimants have been given priority by the board. Yet there may have been no effort to remove them for many months or years, those whose claims were rejected, because they are not a priority with another arm of the government.

The CCR and its member agencies have a wealth of experience with the system. We can see what is working and what is not. We urge you to recommend to the minister that he consult with the NGOs serving refugees before drafting any legislation.

There is a fourth and final point that we urge you to consider.

Discussion of refugee issues needs to be respectful and well-informed. We have heard numerous serious inaccuracies in recent public comment on the Canadian refugee system, often apparently motivated by hostility to refugee claimants. This does not support reasoned discussion about the important policy issues. Refugees are among the most vulnerable people in society and are easy targets for attack, as non-citizens in a foreign country.

We encourage you, as you discuss these issues, to always keep in mind that we are talking about human beings who deserve our respect.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Maurizio Bevilacqua]

I call the meeting to order. This is the second session. As we all know, the orders of the day are, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, April 22, 2009, for study of Bill C-291, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, coming into force of sections 110, 111, and 171.

The second panellists include, from the Canadian Council for Refugees, the executive director, Janet Dench. Welcome. As an individual we have a former ambassador and former executive director of the Canadian Immigration Service, Mr. James Bissett. Eventually we'll have Rivka Augenfeld, representative from the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes.

We will begin with the Canadian Council for Refugees and executive director Ms. Janet Dench. Thank you very much for coming. You have approximately seven to ten minutes—closer to seven, please.

Thank you.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you for the correction.

Bill C-291, which we are looking at right now, appears to go in an entirely different direction to some of the things you have warned against. How do you think this would affect the flood of bogus refugees and the difficulty in removing them? We have seen so many cases here. Please comment.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Maurizio Bevilacqua]

I'd like to call to order meeting 27 of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. According to the orders of the day, pursuant to the order of reference of April 22, 2009, we have Bill C-291, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, on the coming into force of sections 110, 111, and 171.

Today we have the pleasure of having the following witnesses for our first session: Lorne Waldman, who, as everyone knows, is an immigration lawyer; Julie Taub, an immigration and refugee lawyer and a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada; and Raoul Boulakia, who is also a lawyer.

Some of you have appeared here before, so you know how this works. You get a few minutes to do introductory comments. Thereafter, we will engage in a question and answer session.

We will begin with Mr. Waldman. Welcome.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, welcome once again. Thank you for your comments on your planning and priorities. I would also like to congratulate Mr. Yeates and Mr. Linklater on their appointments. It's a fun department, I understand, and there's a lot of work to do. I'm sure that as public servants you will excel, as do many public servants in this country.

I want to pick up on the points raised by the minister on the issue of the refugee system and its reforms. As you know, this is an area I've raised in question period and in discussions with you. I believe it is of vital importance to the integrity of Canada's immigration system, and I would very much like to see this package presented to the House as soon as possible.

One of the concerns I believe we share is that it takes far too long for the status of refugees to be determined. That has to change. By the same token, I also don't want the reform package to be slow getting in. That would not be a very good start if we're trying to speed things up. So I'd like you to elaborate on that point.

We're also dealing with Bill C-291, so I wonder if you have any advice on the issue of an appeals division, and whether or not your package includes an appeals division that would alleviate some of the concerns we share here in committee.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Thank you, Chairman, for having me.

Dear colleagues, it's great to be back at committee. I'm joined by our new deputy minister, Neil Yeates, who's joined us from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. He has gotten right into our big and complex files. I'm also joined by our new deputy minister of strategic programs and policy, Les Linklater, and our old DM for operations—I mean in the sense of veteran—the ADM, Claudette Deschênes, who we rely on for her expertise and for all of the operations around the world in our many offices.

When I appeared before the committee in June, Mr. Chairman, I explained how our action plan for faster immigration was paying off. Today I am pleased to inform the committee that we continue to make important progress. You may recall that in 2008 Canada accepted more than half a million newcomers, including permanent residents, temporary foreign workers, and international students. We also granted citizenship to more than 176,000 new Canadians. You may also recall that our backlog in the federal skilled worker category, which had reached more than 600,000, had dropped to roughly 515,000 by the end of last year. That was a significant drop of 15%.

Mr. Chairman, as of the end of August this year, this backlog has dropped even further to a little more than 432,000, a reduction of more than 30% since a year ago. We're committed to a strong immigration program that balances Canada's economic, humanitarian, and family reunification goals. We're planning to welcome between 240,000 and 265,000 new permanent residents this year. While many other countries have cut back immigration levels as a short-term response to the global economic downturn, we are actually maintaining very ambitious levels in response to our country's medium- to long-term economic needs and indeed our demographic challenges.

I'd like to update you on some of the things we've done, but it's always worth remembering that since coming to office, we've made some important progress. We're cutting in half the right of landing fee and tripling federal investment in settlement and integration services outside Quebec.

That has always been very well [Inaudible—Editor] in Quebec.

My department has also made progress on foreign credential recognition. Indeed as you know, the Prime Minister reached an accord with the premiers in that respect. I think we'll have exciting announcements to make later this fall in that regard.

Mr. Chairman, since becoming minister almost a year ago, I have also become increasingly concerned by the growing backlog in—and indeed the abuse of—our asylum system. Some people have suggested that the backlog of refugee claims, which now is an inventory of 60,000 claims pending at the IRB, is a result of unfilled Governor in Council appointments at the Immigration and Refugee Board.

As my colleagues here know, the GIC appointment process to the IRB has twice been modified since 1997. Every time there is a modification in the appointment process, there are delays in appointments as a natural result.

I should point out that I have personally made 51 of those appointments and 19 reappointments to IRB positions, and now the Board stands at more than 94% of its full complement of its Governor in Council members.

The current situation is far more complex than just the number of decision-makers at the IRB. Between 2006 and 2008, there was a 60% increase in the number of refugee claims filed in Canada. As I indicated, that growing backlog reached 61,000 this summer. This government inherited about one-third of that backlog, about 20,000 cases, when we came to office in 2006. Another one-third, about another 20,000 cases, were the result of delayed appointments as a result of the transition to the new merit-based appointment system, which I think is working pretty well.

But at least one-third of that 60,000-case backlog before the IRB is the result of the growth of claims above and beyond the capacity of the IRB to process. Even at full capacity, full appointments, full budget, the IRB can only finalize about 25,000 asylum decisions a year. Last year we received 37,000 claims above and beyond the IRB's maximum capacity of 12,000 claims. Clearly at that rate the backlog will continue to grow, and so will wait times.

The government's decision this past summer to require visas for all citizens of Mexico and the Czech Republic entering Canada was based on hard facts and demonstrated the need for action. It was not an easy decision, but in my judgment it was in our national interest. For example, almost one in four of the asylum claims in Canada last year came from Mexico, yet the IRB determined that only about 11% of those claims were well founded. That means that a growing number of asylum claimants are not in need of Canada's protection, based on the numbers we've seen.

The acceptance rate of claims at the IRB currently is in the range of 44%, yet an unsuccessful claimant who is determined to game our system can stay in Canada for several years with a work permit and our social assistance. That fundamentally undermines the fairness of our immigration system. For a legal immigrant waiting to come from Mexico, for instance, through the federal skilled worker program, it's fundamentally unfair to have to wait four to five years and see someone simply jump off a plane, make an asylum claim, and get a work permit even though the claim is not well founded.

Since we began requiring visitors from Mexico and the Czech Republic to obtain a visa, the number of refugee claims has slowed to a trickle. In the two and a half months since the visa requirement took effect, there have been only 17 refugee claims at ports of entry from Czech nationals compared to 831 claims in the same period leading up to the visa imposition. Similarly, in that period, claims at ports of entry from Mexican nationals have fallen significantly to 35, down from 1,287 in the two and a half months before the announcement. Prior to the imposition of visas, Mexico and Czech refugee claims accounted for almost 50% of the total number of claims made at ports of entry. Since we imposed the visas, only 6% of claims were made by nationals of those countries. We've managed to stem the tide a bit with visas on Mexico and the Czech Republic. But I think we can all agree that visas are a blunt instrument and not the ideal solution. I think we need to reform the asylum system.

Since we began requiring visitors to first obtain a visa for Mexico and the Czech Republic, the number of claims has slowed to a trickle. I won't review in English what I've just said in French, except to say that obviously visa imposition is a last resort. It's not something we prefer to rely upon, but to protect the integrity of our immigration system we need to look at reforms to the refugee asylum system.

The committee has Bill C-291 before it, which I acknowledge is inspired by very good sentiment and a desire to ensure a full and fair appeal for refugees. And as the committee knows, the government supports, in principle, the idea of the implementation of a refugee appeal division.

However, that applies only in the context of a more efficient system. We can't add another appeal level to a system that in some instances takes years to turn a false refugee claimant away at the border.

To summarize, I look forward later this fall to bringing recommendations to the committee and the House on how we can streamline and improve our asylum system so it is more balanced--a system that will fully respect rights, due process, charter rights, and our international obligations to asylum claimants, but will also ensure that we protect the integrity of our immigration system and that it does not take years to remove false claimants who abuse Canada's generosity.

Mr. Chairman, I'm available to answer the questions of all members; my senior officials are as well. Thank you very much.

[Richard Fadden, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Chairman, yes we do have estimates for supplementary costs. We also have the agreement of cabinet. If Parliament passes Bill C-291, the means to obtain supplementary funds have been provided for.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

During the last Parliament, Bill C-280, a bill to implement the Refugee Appeal Division, was adopted in the House at every stage, as well as in the Senate. However, it died on the Order Paper before receiving Royal Assent.

In this Parliament, Bill C-291 also aims to implement the Refugee Appeal Division. It has been adopted and is moving forward.

I know that the Conservatives are against the implementation of the Refugee Appeal Division, as it was set out in the legislation of 2002, but has your department nevertheless set aside money, or created mechanisms, in case Parliament decides to adopt this bill?

Liberal Party of Canada

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this House has twice supported implementing a refugee appeal division. The first time, Bill C-280, introduced by the Bloc Québécois, went through all the stages in the House and the Senate, but died when this government made an early election call. Reintroduced barely a month ago, Bill C-291, sponsored by my colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber, once again received the support of the House.

Yet even though they supported Bill C-291 during the vote at second reading, the Liberals are now working with the Conservatives to block the bill in committee. The Liberals claim to stand up for refugees, but in fact, they are in bed with the Conservatives.

It is pathetic that the Liberals, who claim to support Bill C-291, should be playing the government's game.

Clearly, the Liberal leader's new strategy is to talk out of both sides of his mouth in order to fool the public, especially refugees, whose status is precarious.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This is the motion I introduced:

That, notwithstanding the referral motion adopted Thursday, May 7, the committee proceed immediately and without further delay with the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-291 and that this clause-by-clause consideration be completed before the committee undertakes any other business.

When we met on Tuesday to prepare the committee's agenda, I agreed that we would study the issue of ghost consultants and migrant workers, which is underway this week, provided that we completed the clause-by-clause consideration of my Bill C-291 on the Refugee Appeal Division on Thursday. However, last Thursday, once our business was completed and there remained only about five minutes to vote on the one and only clause in the bill, the Conservatives introduced a dilatory motion, seconded by the Liberals. They had obviously consulted each other in advance since there wasn't even any debate on the matter. The purpose of the motion was to defer to a much later date the study of Bill C-291, on which Parliament has ruled on a number of occasions.

Parliament spoke once eight years ago, when it decided to implement the Refugee Appeal Division. In 2004, this committee unanimously held in favour of implementing the Refugee Appeal Division. In the last Parliament, an identical bill was passed with the support of the Liberals and the NDP. This time the Liberals supported the bill again in committee.

We have to be consistent. We can't support this bill in the House on the one hand and, in committee, accept a dilatory tactic designed merely to conceal a certain hypocrisy. Ultimately, you support the bill because that looks good in public, but you don't intend to pass it.

I understand why the Conservatives are trying to delay this bill. It's legitimate in their case, since they oppose it. So they are doing it in good faith. Nevertheless, today I'm asking the Liberals to show that they are in good faith as well when they say they support Bill C-291. We have five minutes left, which is enough to conduct the clause-by-clause consideration and to adopt this bill.

Although we often like to do nice things for the media that have good show value, I would like to remind you that our primary duty is to vote on and pass laws. I am opposed to deferring this item until the fall. Rather than devote time to making presentations that are often more for show than the work of a legislator, let's use the five minutes we have left to study my bill.

For all these reasons, I invite the members, particularly the Liberals, to show their good faith in this matter and to proceed immediately with the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. It will take us five minutes, and we can refer the bill back to the House.

[Richard Fadden, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I'll try to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

May I start by introducing my two colleagues?

Micheline Aucoin is the director general of refugee affairs in the department, and Luke Morton is senior counsel in our legal services unit.

Let me start by thanking you for the opportunity to appear before the committee to discuss Bill C-291.

As members of this committee are aware, the Government of Canada is a firm supporter of the humanitarian dimensions of our immigration program. However, it does not support this proposed legislation. Although a lot of time and a lot of words have been expended so far on the proposed refugee appeal division, the government's position can be articulated quite simply. If Bill C-291 is passed into law, it will not help address the challenges facing the refugee status determination system, and in fact it will likely hinder the system.

As I will argue below, a system with multiple review and appeal points does not need another one. Indeed, the excessive delays found in the current system may to some extent seem to benefit individual applicants. In point of fact, I do not think this is the case, as the system spends far too much time dealing with applicants with little or no claim, to the detriment of those who have a real claim to make and who we have a responsibility to deal with in a reasonable timeframe.

Every year, Canada takes in nearly 250,000 new permanent residents who adopt the Canadian values of freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law. They include thousands of refugees attracted by our values and the chance to start new lives. In the past three years alone, more than 80,000 refugees from around the world have been accepted through the Refugee Resettlement Program and Canada's refugee system. In fact, Canada is one of the three countries in the western world that admits the most refugees for resettlement purposes. We also know that the number of refugee claimants in Canada has risen at a higher rate than in most other countries of the world.

In 2008 there were almost 37,000 new refugee claims, as compared to over 28,500 in 2007. This represents an almost 29% increase in refugee claims. A recent United Nations report indicated that the percentage increase of refugee claims for Canada is almost three times the average of the 51 countries they studied. The welcome we extend has given us an international reputation as a champion of human dignity. Nevertheless, Mr. Chairman, this is a system under serious pressure. It is becoming clear that our refugee protection system, while recognized internationally as one of the fairest and most generous in the world, faces a number of challenges.

We know our in-Canada refugee status determination system is complex and can be slow. At the moment, even the most straightforward refugee claim takes far too long to be resolved. But it is the large and growing number of unfounded claims that is putting an incredible strain on our system. For instance, lately there's been a sharp increase in the number of asylum seekers from other countries with relatively low acceptance rates at the Immigration and Refugee Board. Mexico is a good example: almost 90% of claims from Mexican nationals were not accepted by the IRB last year. In fact, and it's important to remember this, last year only 42% of all refugee claims were found by the board to be valid.

We need to consider whether this is an efficient use of resources, or if unfounded claims are bogging down the system and slowing the process for those who truly need Canada's protection. In this context, I want to stress that even without Monsieur St-Cyr's proposed refugee appeal division, Canada's refugee status determination system meets all the requirements of the charter and all of Canada's international legal obligations.

Mr. Chairman, the government has maintained it is committed to exploring options to improve the refugee status determination process so it can better assist the people it was designed to protect and who Canadians want to protect. The question is whether Bill C-291 is the way to go.

Failed refugee claimants already have access to three recourse mechanisms that ensure no one is removed from Canada before all aspects of their case have been thoroughly reviewed. These failed refugee claimants can apply for leave to the Federal Court for judicial review, they can apply for pre-removal risk assessment, and they can apply for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Indeed, these recourses are often available to applicants two, three, or more times.

I'd like to say a couple of words on the comprehensiveness of the judicial review available to failed claimants. You'll remember that Monsieur St-Cyr emphasized this aspect as well. It is sometimes asserted that the Federal Court does not review the decisions of the refugee protection division on the basis of errors of fact. This contention is not supported by the law, or by Federal Court jurisprudence. Parliament has given the Federal Court legislative authority to overturn a tribunal decision on several grounds, including an erroneous finding of fact that is made in a perverse or capricious manner without regard to the material before it. There are numerous examples in the jurisprudence where the Federal Court has remitted a matter to the refugee protection division on the basis of an erroneous finding of fact.

The point I'm trying to make here, Mr. Chairman, is that the Federal Court is a comprehensive appeal body from the refugee protection division. The Federal Court can review matters of law, matters of fact, and mixed matters of fact in law. It is in fact the appeal body Mr. St-Cyr is talking about in a different mode.

Implementation of the proposed bill would add an additional review stage that would further extend the process. In addition, Bill C-291 proposes only a paper review of refugee claims refused on questions of fact and law. It provides for neither the introduction of new evidence nor a hearing in person.

However, it will no doubt have the effect of increasing costs and further slowing an already overloaded system. The cost associated with the implementation of the Refugee Appeal Division is estimated at some tens of millions of dollars in addition to permanent annual costs that will have to borne by the federal government and provincial governments. In addition, it would extend the processing time for the files of refused claimants by at least five months.

Mr. Chairman, the fact that many refugee claimants are not genuine refugees offers food for thought. This means that we are devoting a large portion of our time to processing claims filed by individuals who are not genuine refugees and who are ultimately refused. As I've already said, our ability to assist individuals who are genuinely in need of help is thereby further reduced.

Minister Kenney has stated that he wants to look at changing the system as a whole. We submit that implementing the refugee appeal division at this time would complicate efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the refugee status determination system and would make the existing system more cumbersome. I would therefore ask members of this committee not to proceed with Bill C-291.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. I would be pleased to try to answer any questions the committee might have.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am pleased to examine the bill I have introduced, Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171).

At the outset, I would like to recall the text of the motion.

Whereas: The Refugee Appeal Division is included in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act; Parliament has passed the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and can therefore expect that it be implemented; and The House of Commons and parliamentarians have a right to expect that the Government of Canada will honour its commitments; The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration requests that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration implement the Refugee Appeal Division without delay.

That motion was unanimously agreed to by this committee, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, on December 14, 2004. Nearly five years ago, the four political parties around the table believed that the Refugee Appeal Division should be implemented without delay. I am convinced—and this is my greatest wish—that the same political parties meeting here today will consider that five years of waiting is much too long when they believe that something should be implemented without delay. Bill C-291 must be passed soon.

In the House, I have had occasion to name a number of organizations that formally supported this bill. I won't name them all again, but I would like to single out a number of organizations that themselves represent a number more, or that represent a number of people. They are as follows: Amnesty International, the Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association, the Barreau du Québec, the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Fédération des femmes du Québec and the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes.

Bill C-291 has received the widespread, not to say unanimous approval of the organizations involved in the advocacy of immigrant and refugee rights and from the legal community.

The reasons for this bill are very simple and can be divided into two categories. The first category concerns natural justice. The second is important for reasons of efficiency.

I'll start with the issue of natural justice. As you are no doubt aware, Mr. Chairman, in our Canadian legal system, it is still possible to appeal from court decisions. The same is true in the case of crimes and much less serious disputes, that is to say the consequences of which for individuals are much less significant than the consequences related to deportation to the country of origin of a person who seeks asylum in Canada because his life is in danger.

And yet there is currently no opportunity to file an appeal on the merits with the Refugee Appeal Division. These are decisions that may have serious consequences for the lives of individuals. These individuals may be sent to torture or even death. If provision is made for appeals to be instituted in cases where the lives of individuals are not threatened, it should be possible to do the same in these cases.

This is a matter of natural justice, and there must be an end to the arbitrary attitude that currently reigns. Arbitrariness arises in any organization composed of human beings. Human beings inevitably make mistakes and are not perfect. That is why our justice system provides for the possibility of appeal.

Although this is not true of the majority of board members, there are some who are simply incompetent. This may be seen from the refusal rates of some, which approach 100%. One seriously wonders whether some are not simply racist.

I would like to encourage members to do the following simulation in their heads. Imagine you are appearing before a judge—and I hope you never will—because a charge has been laid against you, and you learn that this judge convicts 98% of the individuals who appear before him. You inevitably think that this is all a masquerade, that you have no chance. And yet we tolerate that for refugees.

At the other extreme, some board members have acceptance rates of nearly 100%. As a result, individuals who are not refugees within the meaning of the act file claims and are lucky to be dealing with a fairly easy-going member who allows their claims and lets them enter the country as refugees.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to recall that there is no possibility of appeal on the merits. Of course there are a number of other mechanisms based on related matters, but none of them makes it possible to institute a genuine appeal on the merits. The pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA), enables a claimant whose claim has been refused to present new evidence before being deported. However, if the work has been done well at the time the refugee claim is filed, if all evidence has been submitted and there is no new evidence to provide, the PRRA provides no remedy.

As to the possibility of seeking a judicial review in Federal Court, first, it must be emphasized that this procedure is rarely allowed and, second, even where it is, it can only concern the formal aspect, the legality of the decision. In no case can a refused claimant or even the minister—because the Refugee Appeal Division could be used by the minister—ask the Federal Court to rule on the merits of the case.

Lastly, the permanent residence application on compassionate grounds is not a viable avenue either. By its very nature, it is a purely discretionary option, and thus just as arbitrary, and those who file such an application may always be deported before the decision is even rendered.

Mr. Chairman, with respect to natural justice, the Refugee Appeal Division will permit coherence among decisions. There's currently no way to know from the outset, in a definitely reasonable manner, what the board members' decisions will be. We have the example of two Palestinian brothers who were in the same situation and who filed identical claims. The claim of one of them was allowed by one board member, while that of the other was refused by another. This makes the system completely inefficient.

I now come to the question of efficiency. One may think that there will be fewer applications for judicial review with a Refugee Appeal Division. Lawyers currently use this mechanism, this option, somewhat out of despair, because they feel that their client has been a victim of an error. This is virtually the only method they see, but it does not work very well. Judicial review is a very costly method. These are very busy, unspecialized courts, unlike what a Refugee Appeal Division would be.

Lastly, the enhanced predictability of board members' decisions should result in fewer frivolous claims being received at the outset, since the minister would also be able to appeal from decisions. As a result, the lawyers of individuals whose claims have no chance of being allowed will no doubt be advised not to file them, since that would be pointless. We currently hear more and more about the board member “lottery”: you file a claim, you throw the dice and, if you are lucky, you get a good board member and your claim will be allowed, whereas if you're dealing with a bad board member, it will be refused. This is what must be stopped.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to recall that Parliament has ruled on this matter on a number of occasions. It did so for the first time in 2001 by passing the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Then, in 2004, it unanimously supported a motion introduced by the four parties requesting that the Refugee Appeal Division be implemented, and immediately, as I recall.

In the last Parliament, Bill C-280, the intent of which was exactly the same, passed through all stages in the House of Commons. It was also passed in the Senate. Unfortunately, as you know, Mr. Chairman, the bill died on the Order Paper, because the House of Commons lacked the time to adopt the Senate's amendments.

I encourage all members of this committee to be consistent with the position they adopted in 2004 and to give their unanimous support to Bill C-291.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Pursuant to order made Tuesday, April 21, 2009, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-291 under private members' business.

The House resumed from April 20 consideration of the motion that Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my turn now to rise in favour of Bill C-291, introduced by my colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber on behalf of the Bloc Québécois. As my colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert already pointed out, it is absurd that we have a bill here to force the government to fully implement legislation already passed by the House and entitled the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Sections 110, 111 and 171 of this act provided for the creation of a refugee appeal division, which was supposed to enable claimants who were initially refused refugee status to appeal the adjudicator’s decision.

As things currently stand, a single adjudicator judges the validity of a claimant’s fear of persecution if returned to his country of origin on the basis of his race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinions. Sections 110, 111 and 171 creating the refugee appeal division were supposed to be implemented four years ago to enable people to appeal the decisions of adjudicators, but they still have not come into force.

I worked for nine years in the offices of two Quebec immigration ministers. For much of that time, one of my jobs was to deal with the cases of refugee claimants whose applications had been turned down by federal adjudicators and who were now appealing to Quebec ministers to try to find a solution to the impasse they were in. This job helped me understand the terrible solitude of many of these people and how helpless they felt when faced with a sole adjudicator without any chance of appeal.

In many cases, I had an opportunity to read the decisions handed down by the adjudicators very carefully. Some rejections, of course, were perfectly well-founded, but others left me stunned by the ignorance or insensitivity of the adjudicator. When some adjudicators reject nearly 100% of the claims submitted to them, the inevitable conclusion is that they are motivated much more by a desire to get rid of people who, in their view, disturb our society than by the humanitarian principles and compassion that should guide any civilized person or nation.

Because of the way in which the law is currently being applied, or more accurately, is not being applied four years after passing the House, claimants still have no chance of appealing arbitrary decisions based sometimes on bizarre reasons.

We, the Bloc Québécois, are not the only ones calling for the implementation of the refugee appeal division provided for in the legislation. For many years, countless voices have been raised, calling for a refugee appeal division. Before the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act even came into effect, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was calling for such an appeal division:

Where the facts of an individual’s situation are in dispute, the effective procedural framework should provide for their review. Given that even the best decision-makers may err in passing judgment, and given the potential risk to life which may result from such an error, an appeal on the merits of a negative determination constitutes a necessary element of international protection.

In a letter dated May 9, 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that it considers an appeal procedure to be a fundamental, necessary part of any refugee status determination process.

For all these reasons, I urge all members of this House to support Bill C-291 introduced by the Bloc Québécois.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit I am somewhat disappointed and saddened, because in the speech just given by the member from the Conservative Party on Bill C-291 some of the language was offensive to me. She talked about refugees having useless appeals and about the additional health and social services costs, as well as court and IRB costs.

What I did not hear and what I think is the reason people want this bill to go to committee is that the system does something very important to Canadians: it is our duty and our social responsibility. The member is familiar with the system and she gave some statistics. However, when we consider that the Parliament of Canada passed an act, we have been through this before. We understood what the role of the amendment to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act would be and the issue of the implementation of the refugee appeal division. The bill is very straightforward. It is just three paragraphs long, and it asks for enforcement on a bill that has already been passed by Parliament.

It puzzles me from the standpoint that it reminds me of an attitudinal issue about how people address newcomers to Canada. Obviously we have two forms: one is the application from abroad for immigration; and the other is the refugee system.

Legitimate refugees are determined in a number of ways. Primarily the UN designates which countries have legitimate refugees, but the member will also know that at one point in time almost half of the people applying for refugee status in Canada came here from across the Canada-U.S. border. They landed in the U.S., found out that they could not get the court assistance, could not get welfare, could not get social services or health care, so they came to Canada. The arrangement took a very long time to negotiate with the United States, that when a legitimate refugee lands in safe haven, it is that place of first safe haven that is the jurisdiction in which it has to be dealt with.

Those are the kinds of things that we have to be vigilant to fix. The member seems to be preoccupied by costs. The member seems to be preoccupied that we do not need more refugees. We have a responsibility. That value is what we have to deal with.

I want to reassert that I have been a member of Parliament for almost 16 years now. We have had many, many cases through our office. It is a very busy office near the Pearson airport. The Peel members deal with a very large number of refugees. As to the idea that somehow it already takes five years to go through all the various levels of appeals and this is going to make it worse, if a situation is taking five years, let us understand why. Maybe when the member's office gets more involved in these over a period of time she will understand that there are many cases where it is not the refugees themselves who are the reason for the delay.

Before I became a member of Parliament, I had a practice as a chartered accountant and did work for multicultural assistance services in Peel and also for the Peel Multicultural Council, which assisted refugees coming to Canada. People would get off airplanes in the middle of winter wearing sandals, shorts and a T-shirt, and that is all they had to their name. It has been a long time since I looked at the statistics, but there are millions and millions of human beings around the world who have no country, who have no future, who have no life. They are just like every other Canadian in that they are looking for better lives for themselves. A better life for them is where they can have the dignity of a roof over their head, proper nutrition, and an opportunity to be as good as they can be.

It bothers me, it concerns me, and it troubles me, because I remember hearing many times from members—and I am not going to be too partisan on this—the question, why are we letting all those criminals into the country? That was applied to all immigrants and it was applied specifically, for those who perhaps knew the system, to refugees. Somehow they said that immigrants and refugees were all the problem, because those happened to be the ones who were in the newspapers.

When I was a member of the finance committee, StatsCan reported to us the statistics related to new Canadians. Immigrants are actually better educated than born Canadians, because they cannot get into Canada otherwise. They are healthier than born Canadians. They are least likely to fun afoul of the laws, because to get into this country is very difficult.

Unfortunately, we tend to have arguments coming forward to us where the refugee issue is mixed in with the immigration issue. It is different. I know many Canadians do not understand it, but on the refugee side, it is not a great number, but the system is difficult because we have people who got bad information from people who got them into Canada, where they had destroyed their papers, if they had any, or they came from places where there were no papers and it was going to take a long time for them to get papers and they had to go through all the various checks.

We are dealing with people who come from countries that do not have the same government administration that Canada does. There is no support or very little support for the people, especially when they are trying to find a better life.

Therefore, I am pretty sure Bill C-291 will pass, because I think the opposition members are not going to take the rhetoric of the department that says it is going to cost a little more and is going to delay the process a little more. These are frivolous reasons in the context of the whole reason that Canada accepts refugees. It is a relatively small number compared to the number of people we bring in as immigrants.

The bill should pass. It should go to committee. We should look at this. During private members' business at second reading there are only two hours of debate. I think only about 12 people will get a chance to speak, and we do not get a chance for questions and comments other than with the mover of the bill. That is a problem.

I think the refugee issue is important to everyone in the House. The member may have raised some issues: is it a fact that it is taking too long; is it a needless or useless appeal? It has nothing to do with determining who is a legitimate refugee. We know who the legitimate refugees are. The question is whether they meet the criteria of being able to be here, because many refugees ultimately get turned away and sent back and it is a very serious proposition for that to happen.

We will take the allegations of the Conservative Party that it is going to cost money and the various problems that the member articulated, that we have to pay for their health care, and so on. These people have nothing. If we gave them nothing, as they do in the U.S., the only thing they could do possibly would be to rely on illegal activity to try to survive.

That is a problem. We do not want that. That is why we support refugees while they are here going through a legal process. We want to look at it more carefully. We want to make sure we dispel some of the myths that the member has raised.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I would like to state the government's opposition to Bill C-291, the bill that seeks to establish the refugee appeal division.

Hon. members of the House know very well that this government is a strong advocate and supporter of the humanitarian division of our immigration program. Every year we welcome almost a quarter of a million new permanent residents who embrace our values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. As an immigrant myself, I was one of them. Among these newcomers are thousands of refugees attracted by our values and the chance to start a new life.

Since the government came to office in 2006, we have accepted more than 51,000 refugees from around the world. In fact, Canada is one of the top three countries in the western world in terms of the numbers of refugees we accept for resettlement. The welcome we extend has given us an international reputation as a champion of human dignity. For example, we have made major commitments for the protection of Karen and Bhutanese refugees in Asia. We have also offered protection to refugees from Africa and Latin America.

We have a very generous asylum program as well. Asylum seekers from all over the world have found a durable solution to their refugee plight in Canada. Canada's asylum system has one of the highest acceptance rates among western countries, accepting 42% of claimants last year. No less than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has called us a model for other nations.

Those are facts in which we can take great pride. I think we can all agree that Canada's refugee system is acknowledged as one of the strongest and fairest in the world today.

However, as everyone in this House knows, we also face significant challenges. It has long been the view of this government that the implementation of a refugee appeal division is not the way to address these challenges.

I would like to talk about the large and growing number of unfounded claims that are putting an incredible strain on our system. These unfounded claims are using up resources that should be used to help people with legitimate refugee claims. As a result, the wait times are getting longer. The most straightforward, successful refugee applications can take an average of two and a half years to reach permanent residency because of a backlog that has continued to grow, despite the current 90% occupancy of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.

As the Prime Minister and others in this government have said many times before, Canadians expect our refugee system to help and protect legitimate refugees. The refugee appeal division proposed in Bill C-291 would not help us meet these objectives. It would provide only a paper-based review on issues of fact and law. It would not provide an opportunity to introduce evidence, nor would it provide for an in-person hearing. It would, however, add unnecessary delays and costs to an overburdened system. It is not just the cost of the appeal division which, as my colleagues previously have pointed out, would be in the tens of millions of dollars, but there would also be other costs to the provinces and the federal government for health care and social assistance. This is why it is surprising that the Bloc would be pushing the bill at a time of economic uncertainty that would increase the costs of services to the province of Quebec.

Moving to another point, I want to acknowledge the steps this government has taken to assure the quality of decisions at the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Based on the recommendations of the Public Appointments Commission Secretariat, we implemented a new process for the appointment of members of the IRB in July 2007. This new process strengthens the merit-based focus of governor in council appointments to the board and increases transparency and fairness at the same time. This was an important step forward that was endorsed by the Auditor General when she released her latest report this spring.

It is essential that refugee claimants and Canadians have the utmost confidence in the decisions of the Immigration and Refugee Board. This selection process helps to ensure that confidence. Since this government took office, there have been 111 appointments and 59 re-appointments to the Immigration and Refugee Board. The board now stands at 90% of its full complement. As a result, more genuine refugee claims can be process and finalized, while more frivolous asylum applications are dismissed more quickly.

However, even with a full complement, the rate of applications has increased beyond the capacity of the board, increasing the backlog. This is why the refugee system needs to be reformed instead of creating another useless appeal process that will only make the problem worse.

We have repeatedly urged the opposition to consider the comments already made by the government during this debate. We have a system where even the most straightforward successful refugee claims are currently taking too long to reach a decision. Unsuccessful refugee claimants regularly take over five years before they finish the various levels of appeals available to them. This is five years of federally funded health care and provincially funded social programs, on top of court costs and IRB costs.

Our goal should be to focus more of our time and resources on the people who genuinely need our help and protection, and deal more quickly with those who are trying to take advantage of our generosity.

While Canadians are proud of our support for refugees, less than one in four think we do a good job of removing people who not legitimate refugees. Not only do they read stories about how long people are here before we can deport them, they also notice increases in the number of asylum seekers from countries they do not consider unsafe. Hon. members know, for example, that there has been a sharp increase in the number of asylum seekers from Mexico and only 11% of those claims are accepted.

These failed refugee claimants now have assets to seek leave for judicial review of the IRB decision. After that, they may apply for pre-removal assessment and, if they are still unsuccessful, they may apply for permanent residence status via a humanitarian and compassionate application. This process will take years and all the while these failed refugee claimants have access to social benefits paid for by taxpayers.

Canada will continue to show strong leadership in providing protection to those in need. We will continue to work closely with the United Nations and our partners to do this. However, to do this we require some changes to ensure that people who are not legitimate refugees cannot take advantage of the system through a multi-year system of appeals that will only be increased by this bill.

We support strong and effective protection for genuine refugees but the implementation of the refugee appeal division, as described in Bill C-291, is not the answer. Again, I urge all hon. members not to support Bill C-291.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to talk about Bill C-291, which seeks to implement an appeal division for refugee claims, introduced by my Bloc Québécois colleague, the member for Jeanne-Le Ber.

It goes without saying that I wholeheartedly support this Bloc Québécois bill. It is a fairly simple bill, but it is important because it would implement the refugee appeal division. Once Bill C-291 has been passed and has received royal assent, three sections of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, sections 110, 111 and 171, will come into force. These three sections would come into force one year after this bill receives royal assent.

The Bloc Québécois has decided to introduce a bill to ensure full enforcement of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

A proper appeal process for refugee claimants ought to have been put in place as soon as the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act 2002 took effect in 2002. This is one of the significant changes required to ensure that asylum seekers are treated fairly and equitably.

The creation of the refugee appeal division is a matter of justice. To persist in not making this change, as the two most recent governments have done, is to allow a situation that is unfair to asylum seekers to continue.

When the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was drafted, the refugee appeal division was seen as a fair compromise to satisfy the desire to move from two board members responsible for examining asylum claims to just one. Yet now we have the worst of both worlds. There is only one board member, not two, to examine the files, and there is no refugee appeal division.

The arbitrary aspect of the system is being magnified by the government's inaction and the piecemeal approach to implementing the new legislation. For four years now, the federal government has been stubbornly postponing the establishment of the refugee appeal division, as called for in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It is time for the Conservative government to comply with the legislation and implement the refugee appeal division.

The federal government claims that a safety net already exists, consisting of the opportunity to request a pre-removal risk assessment—also known as a PRRA—a judicial review by the Federal Court, or permanent resident status on humanitarian grounds. However, unlike a refugee appeal division, they do not offer any protection for refugees. The Federal Court provides only for a judicial review and does not provide for a review of the facts of a case.

There is also a flagrant lack of political will to establish the refugee appeal division, or RAD, which, I would remind the House, is already enshrined in the legislation. After their own legislation came into effect, the Liberals avoided establishing the RAD. Now that the Conservatives are in power, the former immigration minister still has not established the RAD, despite the positions his party took in the past.

In 2004, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration adopted a motion calling on the then Liberal government to establish the refugee appeal division or rapidly come up with a solution. Yet the government has consistently refused to comply with the committee's motion.

The Bloc Québécois tabled an almost identical bill in the 39th Parliament. Our bill was passed by the House on October 16, 2007 and sent to the Senate to be studied. The bill passed third reading stage in the other chamber. However, because of the elections in the fall of 2008, our bill did not receive royal assent and died on the order paper.

Many groups in civil society in Quebec, Canada and the international community are demanding that a refugee appeal division be established. These include the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Committee against Torture, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canadian Bar Association, Amnesty international, the Civil Liberties Union, and the KAIROS group.

There are four reasons why the refugee appeal division should be established: efficiency, consistency of the law, justice, and political reasons that I will explain.

A specialized refugee appeal division is a much more efficient means of dealing with unsuccessful claimants than the Federal Court, an application for pre-removal risk assessment or requests on humanitarian grounds. The refugee appeals division can do a better job of correcting errors of law or fact.

The second reason is consistency of the law. An appeal division deciding on the merits of the case is the only body able to ensure consistency of jurisprudence both in the analysis of facts and in the interpretations of legal concepts in the largest administrative tribunal in Canada.

In other words, an appeal mechanism helps the system to make decisions by establishing precedents that will be applied to lower court rulings when the facts are exactly the same.

The third reason has to do with justice. The decision to refuse refugee status has extremely serious consequences, including death, torture and detention. As in matters of criminal law, the right to appeal to a higher court is essential for the proper administration of justice. Because human error occurs in any decision-making process, it should be standard practice to have an appeal process, especially to offset the fact that decisions are now made by a single board member.

As I said earlier, the fourth reason is political. By not establishing the refugee appeal division, the federal government is going against the will of Parliament—which is a serious matter—and of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, which has called for such an appeal division. As I said, this is a serious matter.

The Bloc Québécois is dismayed by the lack of justice shown by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration when dealing with refugees since the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act came into force in 2001.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to place this bill in context.

In 2001, during the first session of the 37th Parliament, the Minister of Immigration introduced Bill C-11 in this House, concerning persons who are displaced, persecuted or in danger who apply to enter Canada and receive refugee protection.

Bill C-11 was designed to update the former Immigration Act, which had been passed in 1976 and amended more than 30 times.

Unlike Bill C-11, which was passed in 2002, the Immigration Act, 1976, did not provide for a refugee appeal division. To make up for the fact that there was no refugee appeal division, two board members examined refugee claims.

Claims were granted if one of the two board members ruled in favour of the claimant. However, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act cut the number of board members from two to one.

The refugee appeal division makes up for the absence of one board member and offsets the arbitrary power the remaining board member has in ruling on refugee claims. The Bloc Québécois considered this an acceptable compromise under the new act.

Why was the number of board members reduced from two to one? It would seem it was for the sake of efficiency.

On March 20, 2001, the former chair of the IRB, the Immigration and Refugee Board, Peter Showler, told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration that:

In contrast to the present model, where claims are normally heard by two-member panels, the vast majority of protection decisions will be made by a single member. Single-member panels are a far more efficient means of determining claims. It is true that claimants will no longer enjoy the benefit of the doubt currently accorded them with two-member panels, and I think that should be noted. However, any perceived disadvantage is more than offset by the creation of the refugee appeal division, the RAD, where all refused claimants and the minister have a right of appeal on RPD decisions.

According to the former chair of the IRB, the presence of the refugee appeal division justified moving from two members to one for asylum claims. However, we still do not have an appeal division.

The act contains three sections to create an IRB-administered refugee appeal division. Citizenship and Immigration Canada briefly defines the refugee appeal division as follows:

The refugee appeal division will provide failed refugee claimants and the minister with the right to a paper appeal of a decision from the Immigration and Refugee Board. Unsuccessful refugee claimants have the right to apply for judicial review in the Federal Court.

More specifically, the three sections that create the refugee appeal division are as follows:

110. (1) A person or the Minister may appeal, in accordance with the rules of the Board, on a question of law, of fact or of mixed law and fact, to the Refugee Appeal Division against a decision of the Refugee Protection Division to allow or reject the person’s claim for refugee protection, or a decision of the Refugee Protection Division rejecting an application by the Minister for a determination that refugee protection has ceased or an application by the Minister to vacate a decision to allow a claim for refugee protection.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that these arguments have persuaded members of other parties, particularly the governing party, to vote in favour of Bill C-291.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on private member's Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171).

This is not the first time that I have discussed this type of legislation, and I want to thank the member for Jeanne-Le Ber for reintroducing the bill. This legislation was introduced in the last Parliament by another member and the House passed it in the last Parliament. It then went on to the Senate where, with a few amendments, it was also passed. Unfortunately, it did not have an opportunity before the last election to come back to the House to have those amendments approved, and therefore, the bill died without having completed the full parliamentary process. The fact is we are now debating that bill as amended by the Senate in the last Parliament. We are talking about it yet again.

The bill calls for the implementation of legislation that in fact was passed by Parliament back in 2001. It calls for the implementation of the refugee appeal division, which is a feature of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that was passed here in the House after a lengthy process back in 2001. When the Liberal government of the day implemented that legislation, it refused to implement the provisions dealing with the refugee appeal division. Those sections that are named in the current bill we are discussing today were never implemented. The Conservative government has also refused to implement the provisions regarding the refugee appeal division.

We are now in this bizarre situation where we are debating a bill to implement legislation that has already been passed by the House of Commons and the Senate. The bill has been largely implemented, except for one part. One of the strange features of my time here in Parliament is that we actually would need to debate legislation to implement legislation that we had already fully debated and passed in this place a number of years ago, but that, in fact, is what this is about, because of the government's refusal to abide by the will of Parliament, by the decisions of parliamentarians, on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act back in 2001. This is disturbing because the refugee appeal division emerged out of the debate and discourse and the committee hearings in 2001 on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

It emerged as a compromise because the government of the day wanted to reduce Immigration and Refugee Board panels from two members to one member. It was thought that to serve the needs of fairness and justice, a one member panel only represented the interpretation of one person and that increased the likelihood of mistakes, errors and inconsistencies. It was thought that some other appeal process was necessary to balance that reduction in the panel from two members to one member. A compromise was struck. Members of Parliament agreed to the reduction of the panels from two members to one but also insisted that the refugee appeal division, the RAD, be a part of the legislation in order to give people a recourse to appeal a decision made by a panel in a refugee determination case.

That was a very important piece of the process. It showed Parliament perhaps at its best by reviewing legislation, finding the problems, responding to the needs that the government of the day addressed, and finding a compromise and implementing that compromise. Yet after the fact, the government went ahead and reduced the panels from two members to one, but refused to implement the other procedure that would have ensured some fairness and some justice. The government refused to implement the refugee appeal division. That speaks rather badly of the government of the day and its respect for the parliamentary process that we engage in here daily.

If the Conservative government had respect for the kind of process we go through in this place, it would move immediately to implement the refugee appeal division. New Democrats would certainly proceed that way. We have been strong supporters of the implementation of the RAD.

I remember speaking to people at the Canadian Council for Refugees a number of years ago when I was acting as citizenship and immigration critic for the NDP and indulging a fantasy that some day I would be the minister of citizenship and immigration. I gave notice then, and I will do it again, that should I ever become minister of citizenship and immigration, I would expect the folks working in that department and the minister's office to blow the dust off the pile of paper in the corner of the office that is the refugee appeal division file and put it on my desk. One of the first things I would do would be to implement the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act without delay because it would bring a measure of fairness that is required. It would also respect the parliamentary process.

This is not an extra piece of process; it is an essential piece of the refugee determination process. There are many concerns about that process. I have mentioned already that in Canada when a person goes before the IRB, that person goes before a one member panel, which means that his or her future is in the hands of a single person.

Many of the folks who serve on the IRB do great diligence in that job and are very concerned about the process and the work they do. However, the reality is that one person can make mistakes. One person can have a blind spot. When there were two members on the panel, through the discourse they engaged in at a hearing, those blind spots could be exposed and could see the light of day, but with a one member panel that is not as possible.

When a single person determines the fate of a refugee claimant, a bad decision can mean that the person is removed from Canada ultimately and sent back to a situation where the person faces danger and threats to his or her life. The basis of the whole refugee process is to protect people from that kind of threat. Therefore, a one person panel is a very serious problem with our current refugee determination process.

We have seen over the years that the IRB process can be very inconsistent. Different panel members make different decisions based on the same facts. There is a huge inconsistency in IRB decisions. This is another reason that a separate refugee appeal division is so important to that process. It would strive for more consistency in the process.

Everyone knows that mistakes are made in any decision-making process. That is why appeals in the refugee appeal division are very important. We also know there are often difficulties finding, and being able to afford, appropriate representation. There are difficulties dealing with a legal process that people may not be familiar with because of cultural and language differences and their newness in Canada. There are often difficulties with the hearing process itself. There are times when not every bit of information is examined and due process does not take place in the course of hearings. That is another reason that a separate appeal in the refugee appeal division is very necessary.

There have been calls from international organizations for Canada to implement an appeal. While Canada is known around the world for having a positive refugee policy, it is also known that the lack of an appeal is one of the significant shortcomings in the refugee process in Canada. We have been criticized by a number of international organizations for the lack of an appeal on the merits of a case.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights commented:

Given that even the best decision-makers may err in passing judgment, and given the potential risk to life which may result from such an error, an appeal on the merits of a negative determination constitutes a necessary element of international protection.

That was its reflection on the lack of an appeal before a refugee appeal division in Canada.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees wrote to the Canadian government to express concern about the non-implementation of the RAD. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees considers an appeal procedure to be a fundamental, necessary part of any refugee status determination process.

This is not frivolous. It is not an expensive proposition. The previous government and the current government have indicated the expenses related to it. It is a necessary provision. I hope that I never have to stand in this House again to call upon the government to implement legislation that was in fact passed here in 2001 and is already part of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. We need the refugee appeal division and we need it to be implemented now.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-291, moved by the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber. It is an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171.

As I read the statements made by the hon. member, I just want to bring to the attention of the House the type of work that is required to address Canada's refugee system and the challenges it faces. What became very evident during the debate, here in this chamber and outside the chamber, was that there are many challenges faced by the refugee system in this country. I want to quickly read some sections from the speech delivered by the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber. He said:

Let us start at the beginning, with the issue of arbitrary decisions. There are quite a few board members at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB), many of whom are undoubtedly competent. However, the problem is that many of these people are not well-suited to this work.

He went on to say:

There is an obvious problem here: some commissioners do not have what it takes to do the job. We need an appeals division to overturn these decisions. Even if they were all very competent, we would still have a natural justice issue on our hands. Even though we have very competent judges in our other courts, we still have an appeals division. Why do citizens and permanent residents have access to appeals in the regular system, but refugees do not?

The second reason he gave was the lack of consistency in the decisions:

When there is no appeal division, each IRB member can decide one way or the other. As all immigration lawyers will agree, this makes it impossible to tell someone whether they are eligible or not by simply looking at their file.

Lastly, I think we could even save money in our justice system, since the appeal division, as it is defined in the legislation, is an administrative tribunal. But since this administrative tribunal does not yet exist, claimants who have been refused by the board tend to avail themselves of all kinds of procedures before superior courts to try to obtain justice. In the end, this is more expensive for the system, since those proceedings tend to be much more costly.

The view on the other side, of course, is the government response through the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. He has a different view on this issue. He said:

The government opposes this legislation because it is neither necessary in the current system nor is it efficient. It would add considerable delays and costs, both in the start-up and operating costs as well as the prolonged costs for services provided to failed refugees waiting for their fourth level of appeal, which would be this appeal division.

The cost of implementing the refugee appeal division would be in the range of $15 million to $25 million annually in new operating costs, about the same amount in social services costs paid by both the provincial and federal governments for refugees, not to mention start-up costs of approximately $10 million.

He also said he believed there were individuals taking advantage of our compassionate nature in seeking refugee status on dishonest grounds, and on and on.

I thought it was my responsibility, when there are divergent opinions coming from both sides of the House, to promote debate in the House. I listed some of the supporting arguments to implement the refugee appeal division, which means passage of the bill would ensure that the entire design in IRPA would be realized.

Implementation of RAD would increase the efficiency of the system, while still ensuring the humane treatment of those in need of protection. The creation of RAD would allow for greater consistency when reviewing the facts of a decision. RAD would serve as a procedural safeguard to enhance the IRB's credibility and ensure justice is done so that no decision to deny refugee status leads to serious consequences, such as detention, torture or death.

A human decision-making process is subject to potential errors, especially when information is limited, and testimony is usually heard through an interpreter. Judicial review of an IRB decision is more limited in scope than the appeal contemplated in the RAD. The court cannot replace a decision by the IRB with its own judgment and the Federal Court does not specialize in refugee matters whereas advocates for the RAD would have an expertise in refugee determination. That is one side.

The other side says:

--implementing the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) at this time would provide very limited benefit at a very high cost...the RAD would only provide a review on the record similar to a federal court review, without the calling of additional evidence or the provision of new or additional facts...an appeal to the RAD...would allow only a paper review of a RPD decision, and that no new evidence would be allowed to be presented at a proceeding before the RAD. To add another layer of appeals and process would simply make an already extremely lengthy refugee determination process even longer. Failed refugee claimants can apply for a Federal Court review of their decision. They can also apply for a pre-removal risk assessment and for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, including consideration of possible risk if returned to their home country. As things stand, it can take years to conclude the adjudication of a case. To add additional months and even possibly years to the delays is unfair to refugees and their families who expect a timely resolution and decision with respect to their application for refugee status...Resources would be better directed at seeking ways to improve and streamline the existing refugee determination process as a whole.

I do this research. I meet with people. I talk about the refugee system with those people affected. I speak to the people on the government side. I speak to the hon. member who proposed this private member's bill and I am left with a decision. I think this particular bill requires further study. I want to draw the member's attention to a question that I asked of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism where I quoted the departmental performance report. Under the Conservatives, the backlog of refugee claims has more than doubled. The number of finalized claims has decreased by 50%. The average processing time has increased to 14 months. The average cost per claim has increased by almost $2,000 to nearly $5,000. My question was: Why has the government failed to provide a timely and efficient refugee system to people who desperately need it?

One may think I am being unnecessarily critical. However, in response to my question in question period, the minister basically came back to me and said:

I am really delighted to hear the interest of the member in hopefully working together to create a more efficient refugee determination system.

I do this with a great deal of sincerity. I see that there are divergent views that exist on this particular issue. When there is a minister who in many ways admits that there are problems in the refugee system and that we need to collectively work together to improve the system, I think it is time to provide this member and members of our immigration committee with further study. There has also been a very critical report by the Auditor General on this particular issue. We need to take the time to study this bill. While we are studying this bill in committee, we should also be looking at all the issues I have raised. Working together to improve Canada's refugee and immigration systems is a commitment that I have made to the House.

I think it would be wise of all members in the House to support the bill so that we can study this particular issue. There are divergent opinions that require time and reflection, so that we may have a more efficient and effective refugee system and protect those individuals who require protection.

The House resumed from March 12 consideration of the motion that Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Committees of the House

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I am a little surprised by that statement. I am quite anxious to have a look at Hansard and review this situation which would apply perfectly to my bill, Bill C-291, which will compel the introduction of the refugee appeal division.

I agree wholeheartedly, but the two are not mutually exclusive. In my neck of the woods, we often say that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Frankly, I cannot see how the minister's acting to accept American conscientious objectors who come here to seek refuge would adversely affect all other refugee claimants. People who make that claim currently do so in Canada. As long as their claim has not been processed, they are not sent back to their country. Their life is not in danger. So I really cannot see what difference it would make if the minister were to intervene on behalf of conscientious objectors.

Of course, the minister and the government have to allocate more resources and process refugee claims more effectively so that these people can get answers more quickly. Moreover, to avoid arbitrariness, the government needs to support my bill to introduce the refugee appeal division.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your generosity and for waiting until I got over my coughing spell.

It is obvious that I am pleased to rise in this House to again debate Bill C-291. But I feel a bit like I am acting in the film Groundhog Day. This is about the 300th time I have spoken about the same things in this House in connection with the same bill, even though its number was different last year.

This bill, which my colleague has totally reworked with the recommendations of the previous Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, responds to all the minister's requirements. I cannot understand why the government does not want to pass it, after it has been passed by the Senate. That is absolutely incomprehensible.

I am absolutely dumbfounded, so I do not see what more I could say to convince the hon. members.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise today to speak about this bill. I am new to this House, as you know, and new to the immigration committee. I have found many interjections in committee by the hon. member presenting this bill to be thoughtful.

In particular, on this motion that we are debating today, there is so much more that goes into an immigration system. Having had the opportunity to work for many years at the provincial level dealing with a whole range of issues and representing a riding, working for a member who represented a riding where a number of the hostels that housed refugee claimants were located, I can say there are a number of problems in the current system, not the least of which is the length of time it takes for us to actually deal with refugee claimants in the system.

I can give many examples, from the former riding of Scarborough East where I worked, of people who had claimed refugee status and who had been in front of the board and in the system for years, and of the difficulties that placed on the community I was from at the time, the difficulties placed on the schools, the difficulties placed on the social services.

We've all heard of instances. I received emails not long ago with respect to a case of an individual who had been in the country, whose refugee claim was refused by the IRB, and some 15 years later was still resident in Canada. We had not been able to deal with him.

There are number of things that we can do and that we must do as a government to ensure that our immigration system truly represents what it is meant to represent.

I am a child of immigrants. My parents came to this country, immigrating here from Italy in the 1960s. They were very hard-working people, as were many of the Italian immigrants at the time, as are many of the people who do come to this country.

What they want, what all immigrants want, what most Canadians want is an immigration system that is fair, that treats everybody equally, that does not reward people who seek to jump the queue, that does not reward people who take advantage of Canada's generosity, its kindness, and the types of services that we have here.

I would also like to point out that as a government we are coming through a time when the immigration system under the previous Liberal government was hurt badly by inaction. We had a waiting list that approached one million people.

We have taken action on that front to address that. We are moving people through the system faster. We are making sure that the right kind of people are coming to Canada. We are working with the provinces and with our municipal partners to make sure that the people who come to this country have access to the types of jobs for which we need workers, so that they can benefit from Canadian society the moment they come to Canada. These are the types of things that the people in my riding are asking of their government.

I am also blessed that Oak Ridges—Markham is an extraordinarily diverse riding made up of people from all over the world.

In the last number of years we have had a significant immigration from Sri Lanka. These are people who have come here with very little but in a very short period of time have contributed to our community in so many ways. They are successful business people, teachers, doctors and lawyers.

We have an enormous Chinese community, where 10 or 15 years ago that was not the case in my riding of Oak Ridges—Markham.

We are doing what we need to do as a government to make the immigration system responsible so that Canadians can again have the confidence that the government and the systems that support government, in particular the immigration system, are reflecting their values.

On this bill in particular I would like to reiterate the government's opposition to Bill C-291, which seeks to establish the refugee appeal division. We support strong and effective protection for genuine refugees, but this bill simply does not do that. I believe this bill, if passed, will increase the motivation for those who seek to defraud the system.

Again, I reiterate that we all know of instances of individuals who do not deserve to be in this country and who are still here five, six, seven, ten and even fifteen years later. We all know these people do not deserve to be here, but are taking advantage of Canada's generosity, thereby hurting all those who would seek to come to Canada legally and who do the right things. It hurts all of those who genuinely need Canada's protection.

Individuals whose claims now are rejected have access to judicial review in Federal Court. They may also have access to other means of regularizing their status in Canada, including pre-removal risk assessment and application for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate needs.

Canadians expect their refugee system to help protect legitimate refugees. Unfortunately, as experience has shown and as was mentioned earlier, many refugee claimants are found to not be legitimate refugees. Fewer than half of the refugee claimants, just 42%, are found by the IRB to be in need of Canada's protection.

As I mentioned, it can take a very long time to remove failed refugee claimants from Canada. I cannot stress this enough. These are individuals who are taking advantage of Canada's generosity and are thereby making it even more difficult for legitimate refugees to find their way into Canadian society more quickly.

As the Auditor General has noted, the longer failed refugee claimants remain in Canada, the more likely it will be that they will stay here permanently, often illegally. Our current system already has multiple recourses, including an application for leave to the Federal Court for judicial review of a decision. This proposal would add yet another unnecessary level of review to an existing system without providing significant additional safeguards for applicants.

I say “unnecessary” because of the weakness of a paper-based appeal that only considers existing evidence. In fact, under the proposed legislation, the refugee appeal division would provide only a paper review of decisions made by the refugee protection division of the IRB. A paper review would not provide the opportunity for a new in-person hearing. That means there would be no oral appeal.

Let us be clear. What would happen is the appeal division would simply take the information that was presented to it already, information that a decision was already made on. It would review that paperwork and make yet another decision, thereby delaying a decision for another four, five, six or seven months.

The review would also, as I said, be based on exactly the same information. No new evidence would be presented in assessing the individual refugee's case. In addition, the division would not provide failed claimants the chance to introduce new evidence on circumstances that have changed since the initial decision was made on the case. The current pre-removal risk assessment process does this. It provides claimants with a final opportunity before removal to present evidence and have it assessed.

Bill C-291 would not address the pressure related to raising asylum claims. It would also not address the ability of failed claimants, through a series of dilatory appeals, to rely on Canadian taxpayers for health care and social assistance.

Once established, it would result in tens of millions of dollars in additional annual cost to the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments. It would cost the federal government and our provincial and territorial partners additional resources, as asylum-seekers would continue to access a range of services, including interim health benefits and social assistance.

Canadians would be right to question whether yet another layer of process and another layer of cost would make the system better. The implementation of an appeal would only be possible in a streamlined and simplified system.

In conclusion, my colleagues opposite are very well aware of the government's opposition to Bill C-291, and our position has not changed.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his speech and certainly the work that he is doing on the immigration and citizenship committee. Regardless of political stripe, we on occasion have been able to find some common ground and have been working quite well in the early days of this 40th Parliament.

I do want to thank the hon. member for not singing in the House of Commons. I certainly do not mind him speaking once in awhile, but the last thing I would really want is to hear him sing a tune here in the House of Commons.

Off the top, I want to state that our government's position on Bill C-291 has not changed from that in the 39th Parliament. In fact, we will be opposing the bill, because this bill seeks to establish the refugee appeal division.

There is no question that we strongly support an effective refugee status determination system, but as the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said yesterday, he was delighted to hear the interest of the member who asked a question on this topic and was hopeful that we could all work together to create a more efficient and effective refugee determination system.

The government opposes this legislation because it is neither necessary in the current system nor is it efficient. It would add considerable delays and costs, both in the start-up and operating costs as well as the prolonged costs for services provided to failed refugees waiting for their fourth level of appeal, which would be this appeal division.

The cost of implementing the refugee appeal division would be in the range of $15 million to $25 million annually in new operating costs, about the same amount in social services costs paid by both the provincial and federal governments for refugees, not to mention start-up costs of approximately $10 million.

It would also add five months to the decision-making process. Provinces such as Ontario, British Columbia and even Quebec would be disproportionately affected by this.

Canadians have a right to be proud of our humanitarian tradition, no question, and as the member for Eglinton—Lawrence, a former Liberal minister of citizenship and immigration, said last June before the human rights committee in the other place:

--[T]he people that I consulted, those from the United Nations responsible for refugees, liked to think of Canada as the premier example of a system for refugee determination that underscored fairness and product.

The member concluded that the current system is fair, that there is no need for another appeal process, as four steps already exist in this decision-making process.

As the member for Eglinton—Lawrence put in his own words:

--I said I would not implement it. Of course, we got into an election so I could not change my mind. When Bill C-280 came forward, I did not see any compelling arguments to make me change my mind.

If a former Liberal citizenship and immigration minister is willing to publicly speak against the bill, which has not been substantively changed since its previous incarnation as Bill C-280, then I have to ask all of my Liberal colleagues across the floor why they would not listen to one of their colleagues and also oppose this bill.

There is a full range of recourses offered by the refugee determination system as a whole. Our refugee determination system is based on a strong, independent, first level decision-making process at the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Rejected applicants can then seek leave for a judicial review at the Federal Court, another form of appeal, if you will. If both the IRB and the Federal Court turn down the applicant's claim, he or she is still entitled to a pre-removal risk assessment before leaving and can also apply for permanent residence on humanitarian or compassionate grounds.

The addition of the refugee appeal division would only add a further level of review to an already comprehensive refugee determination system. Successful refugee applications can take an average of two and a half years to reach permanent residence status. Negative applications can take over five years, and in some cases much longer than that, before an individual has exhausted all avenues of appeal.

We changed the selection process to make it more open and more accountable. This is a great improvement over the years of Liberal patronage to their political friends, appointments such as Mr. Mouammar, who had an acceptance rate double that of the IRB average at that time, which rose to virtually 100% in some cases if one was from the Middle East.

Last year there were 40 Governor in Council appointments and 24 reappointments. With the minister's announcement on March 10, 2009, of two appointments and five reappointments, and his previous announcement of 25 appointments and 3 reappointments in 2009, the board now stands at close to 90% of its full complement. With fewer vacancies on the IRB, genuine refugee claims will be processed and finalized faster, while frivolous asylum applications will be dismissed much more quickly.

Canadians expect their refugee system to help and protect legitimate refugees. As the minister said yesterday in the House, “last year we received 38,000 inland refugee claimants, about 60% of whose applications were rejected by the IRB”.

There are individuals taking advantage of our compassionate nature and seeking refugee status on dishonest grounds. They know the significant length of time that this process affords them. We must fix this.

It is not an uncommon tactic to make a false refugee claim to allow the individual to attempt to make enough connections within the community so that they are able to bolster their humanitarian and compassionate grounds case. This is a fundamental problem that this bill simply does not address. In fact, it would legitimately add to the incentive to make fraudulent applications, as the time before deportation would be extended by at least five months.

In 2008, 34,800 refugee claims were referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board, as compared to 27,912 claims in 2007. This represents an almost 25% increase in refugee claims.

Last year, the former minister of citizenship and immigration, the member for Haldimand—Norfolk, shared her concerns at the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights. She noted the number of refugee claims in Canada was increasing at a rate higher than in almost every other country. She reported that a majority of claimants were found not to be in need of protection. Only 43% of claims finalized by the Immigration and Refugee Board were accepted in 2007 and the acceptance rate dropped to 42% last year.

There are those who would like to take advantage of our generosity in this country and take a place away from those who are genuinely in need of our protection and their own. There are those who come to Canada from countries, such as Mexico, that are not typically seen to produce refugees. Mexico is the largest source country of refugees, with approximately 8,000 individual claims in 2008. Only 10% are successful in their application for status. Very valuable resources are being increasingly diverted from those who need our help to those who are found not to be genuine refugees.

If this bill is implemented, failed refugee claimants will be the ones filing for secondary appeals. It is impossible to predict the number of appeals that could be made every year because each refugee claim is assessed individually. On average, it takes three days to determine an eligibility claim but it takes about 17 months from the date a claim is referred to the IRB to an initial decision rendered by the IRB.

Leave applications for judicial review of the IRB decision can take about four months. If that leave is granted, it can take approximately a year or more to decide the appeal. A pre-removal risk assessment takes about nine months. An application made on humanitarian and compassionate grounds can take an additional 21 months.

A claimant has a right to seek judicial review of negative pre-removal risk assessment and decisions made on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. It adds up. It can take up to five years for almost all of these cases to be handled through the process and up to ten years in some cases. The hon. member's bill would extend that by at least another five months.

We need to consider that almost 35,000 refugee claims were made to the IRB last year. Adding another layer to the current refugee status determination process would not only further paralyze our system, it would erode its very integrity. The Refugee Appeal Division would conduct only a paper review of the evidence presented at the original hearing, it would not allow for the introduction of new evidence or an in-person hearing.

We have monitored the impact of delaying implementation of the Refugee Appeal Division. We have consistently found that even without this fourth layer of review, the current system already provides protection to those who need it.

The implementation of an appeal would be possibly only if the current system could be streamlined to avoid access to multiple and overlapping recourses. Therefore, I urge all hon. members to not support Bill C-291.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

moved that Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171) be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to begin this debate today on Bill C-291, which I tabled in this House a little earlier in this session and which proposes to establish the refugee appeal division. It would be useful to start with a short history to indicate the need for and the pertinence of this bill.

In 2002, this Parliament adopted the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Before this act was adopted, two board members examined refugee claims. Approval by one of the two members was sufficient to grant refugee status. When the IRPA was adopted, this Parliament decided to reduce the number of members examining refugee claims from two to one. However, in their wisdom, parliamentarians decided to provide for an appeal section. Although included in the legislation, it has never been implemented because the successive Liberal and Conservative governments have never issued the cabinet orders required to bring it into force.

The purpose of the bill before us today is simply to respect the will of Parliament and begin that process. It is important that this appeal section be established for three basic reasons: first, it will prevent arbitrary decisions in refugee status cases; second, it will ensure that decisions made by members are consistent; third, it will prevent decisions from being too costly and ensure that the cost of the system for handling these applications is not too high, as I will explain later in my presentation.

Let us start at the beginning, with the issue of arbitrary decisions. There are quite a few board members at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB), many of whom are undoubtedly competent. However, the problem is that many of these people are not well-suited to this work.

I will give a very topical example, one that I revealed in the House this week and for which the minister had a chance to defend himself—the case of Pharès Pierre. This board member, appointed by the current minister, has a very questionable past. He was the chief of staff to former Prime Minister of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That controversial regime committed atrocities and was complicit in major crimes.

Some people were only underlings within this regime. Police officers and civil servants have been refused the right to ask for asylum in Canada because they worked for the regime. Yet we learn that this board member was at the top of the pyramid. And, from now on, he will be the one to receive and study refugee requests coming from everywhere, including Haiti. We would all agree that there is an obvious ethical issue there. Some of the people claiming refugee status, who say they were persecuted by the Aristide regime, will find themselves being judged by a person who was at the top of this regime. That makes no sense.

This candidate managed to slip through all the cracks in security.

The IRB selected him. Then he underwent Privy Council security checks—the Privy Council being the Prime Minister's Office, which looked into the matter and declared that there was no security problem. These are, of course, the same people who investigated the Couillard affair. Then the minister appointed him. When I asked the minister in the House why he appointed that individual, he candidly admitted that the man was obviously not the right guy for the job. Yes, he has a B.A. in mathematics, and I have a lot of respect for people who have a B.A. in mathematics, but that does not mean they have the skills it takes to be commissioners any more than if they have a minor in administration or are on the board of the Lions Club of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

This appointment is glaringly partisan, because Pharès Pierre was the vice-president of the Conservative riding association in Saint-Jean and vice-president of the Quebec wing of the Conservative Party. This is clearly unacceptable. He managed to slip through the net and become a commissioner. Now he is the one who will be making extremely important decisions that could have life-or-death consequences for people. This is the person who will be making these decisions. It makes no sense.

And then there is Laurier Thibault, who handled Abdelkader Belaouni's case. Mr. Belaouni, who lives in my riding, is an Algerian refugee who, despite being blind, wants to get involved in the community. At the time Mr. Belaouni appeared before him, this judge, this commissioner, Laurier Thibault, was rejecting 98% of the cases he dealt with. Imagine appearing before a judge who finds 98% of the people he tries guilty. Would anyone think that justice was being done? Surely not.

There is an obvious problem here: some commissioners do not have what it takes to do the job. We need an appeals division to overturn these decisions. Even if they were all very competent, we would still have a natural justice issue on our hands. Even though we have very competent judges in our other courts, we still have an appeals division. Why do citizens and permanent residents have access to appeals in the regular system, but refugees do not?

In the past, the Liberals have often told us that appeals to superior courts and judicial reviews were possible. However, these are not appeals on the merits; they are simply appeals based on technicalities or for procedural reasons. However, if the IRB member followed all procedures, but simply does not believe the refugee claimant's version, the claimant has no opportunity to appeal.

The second reason I gave was the lack of consistency in the decisions. When there is no appeal division, each IRB member can decide one way or the other. As all immigration lawyers will agree, this makes it impossible to tell someone whether they are eligible or not by simply looking at their file. In the end, the decision will depend on which member of the IRB gets assigned to the file. We sometimes refer to this as “the board member lottery” and it is inconceivable that people's lives are being decided on so arbitrarily. With a real appeal division in place, board members will have case law that they can refer to when deciding a case, in order to ensure greater consistency.

Lastly, I think we could even save money in our justice system, since the appeal division, as it is defined in the legislation, is an administrative tribunal. But since this administrative tribunal does not yet exist, claimants who have been refused by the board tend to avail themselves of all kinds of procedures before superior courts to try to obtain justice. In the end, this is more expensive for the system, since those proceedings tend to be much more costly.

In my opinion, it is important to move forward on this. In committee this week, the minister told me he was afraid that, among other things, the possibility of appeal would snowball and the appeals would drag on forever.

I invite the Conservatives to support the principle of my bill and to send it to a committee that will determine if measures can be implemented to prevent this from happening. We cannot wait for the entire system to be reformed before taking action. Critical decisions are being made about people. I therefore invite all members to support this bill.

It is a matter of respect for the Parliament that voted for a law. Although seven years have passed, this measure should be implemented. It is a matter of natural justice. It is the way things are done in all western democracies. Every judicial system provides for appeals in order to eliminate arbitrary decisions, which do occur at present, and also to preserve the honour of Quebeckers and Canadians by respecting the dignity of those human beings who seek refuge in our country.

I would like to close on a more poetic note in this House by quoting Gilles Vigneault, a great Quebec singer. I am sorry, but I will not be singing. I would just like to read his lyrics for all my colleagues:

About my solitary country
I cry out before I am silenced
To everyone on earth
My house is your house
Inside my four walls of ice
I take my time and my space
To prepare the fire, the place
For the people of the horizon
And the people are of my race

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171).

Mr. Speaker, in June 2002, this House passed legislation to amend the number of board members hearing refugee claims, lowering it from two to one. In the past, only one board member was needed to rule in favour of a claimant to approve his or her claim. For the sake of efficiency, it was reduced to one. In their great wisdom, parliamentarians at the time created the refugee appeal division in order to ensure that people's fate would not be decided arbitrarily. In any justice system, one must have the right to appeal. Unfortunately, neither the Liberal government at the time nor the Conservative government since has ever implemented this appeal division, as called for by the House.

The purpose of my bill is to force its implementation. A similar bill introduced by the Bloc Québécois made it through all stages in the House and the Senate during the last Parliament. I hope there is enough time to do so once again. I urge all members to fully cooperate in order to get it passed. Perhaps we could even begin second reading of this bill today.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)