Hiring.
Evidence of meeting #15 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was claim.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #15 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was claim.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:40 p.m.
Professor, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It is presumed under the legislation right now that the chairperson presumably would have the authority for the hiring. This is of the public service decision-makers. What I pointed out, however, is that since it only says it's under the Public Service Employment Act, in actuality that act says that it's the Public Service Commission that could make the designation of who is in charge of the hiring process.
My advice to the committee is that you make it absolutely clear in the bill. Other than that, the minister would not have a role in the appointment of those public service decision-makers. That is the expectation. In a sense, the government has surrendered that in order to have a long-term competent corps of decision-makers.
6:40 p.m.
Liberal
Maurizio Bevilacqua Liberal Vaughan, ON
I have approximately 40 seconds to ask a question. I'd like a very simple yes or no answer to the following question.
As you know, in any public policy debate you have those who are in favour of a particular bill, those who are totally against it, and then somewhere in between there are those who would like amendments to the present state. Before we go any further as a committee, does this bill have the raw materials to build a law that will make sense for Canadians and be effective, efficient, as well as respect due process?
6:40 p.m.
Professor, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
In my view, yes.
6:40 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
I think Professor Showler and I are in agreement. We both took the same position. The raw material is there, but if it's not amended, we'll be worse off than we are now.
6:40 p.m.
Lawyer, As an Individual
In my view, the answer is no. In my view, the legislation presented to Parliament should be transparent enough, should be fleshed out enough, that we truly know on the ground what we're going to be dealing with.
There are a number of components in this bill that are going to be very problematic and that will impair people's rights. It does not, in a transparent way, truly deal with the whole issue of appointments.
I think this process that we've had has been that the package was developed without meaningful public consultation. Then it's presented to Parliament, and Parliament is truly being rushed through this process. As a result, Parliament, if it passes legislation, will be passing legislation without a really strong sense and without clear legislation that guarantees how this is going to play out.
May 11th, 2010 / 6:45 p.m.
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Showler, in your presentation, you refer to this provision designed to exclude the factors used to establish refugee status in humanitarian applications. I suppose you are referring more particularly to the new subsection 25.1(3).
I had the opportunity to question officials about this measure and I did not get a satisfactory answer. You explained to us that you didn't understand its utility. I don't know whether one of our other two videoconference guests or you, Mr. Showler—even though you don't support this provision—could tell me what's the reason behind it? Why does the government want to include this subsection, the purpose of which is to rule out the factors used to establish refugee status in humanitarian applications?
I have to ask you the question because the officials did not really answer it.
6:45 p.m.
Professor, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It's very hard to answer that question. Of course, I'm not the government. So I can't speak to its motives.
It wants to completely separate the two processes, as though they were completely different. That's a theory. In fact, that's not the case because the reasons for those two processes are mixed.
I would like to add something in English.
It also does not follow, if you will, the modern theories on forced migration, and this is what we always see at the international level. There is always this observation that people leave their countries for motives that contain a mixture of voluntary and involuntary elements, but you can always make this separation, or try to make this separation, in terms of whether or not
There is a well-founded fear of persecution, for example. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But the reasons for leaving one's country are mixed reasons.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Mr. Boulakia, I think we cut you off. Did you have a comment?
Mr. Boulakia, can you hear me?
6:45 p.m.
Lawyer, As an Individual
Yes. My impression is that the assumption underlying restrictions is that humanitarian applications hold up deportation. So the idea is to place restrictions, because in public debate often humanitarian applications have been treated as if they were some kind of an appeal. But in practice, a humanitarian application doesn't actually block deportation. To stop a deportation based on humanitarian application, you would have to go to the Federal Court and convince the judge that you had a serious case and that the deportation should be stayed.
6:45 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
I think the question was why they're trying to restrict it. From what I understood from officials, I think their belief is that if you make a refugee claim, you should have a determination through the refugee stream, and the H and C should deal with everything that isn't in the refugee stream.
The difficulty with that approach is, of course, as Professor Showler said, that some things are not black and white. To give you just one simple example, there is jurisprudence that says if you make a refugee claim and your risk is one that's felt by everyone, then you're not entitled to refugee status. But the jurisprudence also says that even though there's a generalized risk, it is relevant to an H and C application.
I'll give you an example. In Haiti, there's this disaster now because of the earthquake. That may not be the basis for a refugee claim, but it could be a highly relevant factor when you were deciding whether someone should be given humanitarian grounds. So the problem with the proposal the government is putting forward is that it tries to put everything into nice, neat little silos where one is for refugees and one is humanitarian. But the reality is that life is much more complex than these nice little categories, and there is often overlap, as Professor Showler said.
6:50 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
I just want to talk about the appointments at the first level.
On October 20 of last year, the Public Service Commission did an audit. They found that more than half of the Immigration and Refugee Board's appointments were made based not on merit or the guiding values of fairness, transparency, access, and representativeness. Approximately 61% of appointments--or 33 out of 54 appointments--were not made based on merit. More than half of the appointments were made based on partisan considerations, and preferential treatment was given. This was in the audit done by the Public Service Commission.
I am quite worried. I asked the chair of the board, and he said it's not that they weren't based on merit; it was just that they couldn't show the merit. So maybe the hiring was done without a clear process or there wasn't any specific process. I don't know how people were hired.
Now, that is a huge problem, because these are the ones who are appointed by the chair of the board.
Coming back to your first point, Mr. Showler, and then perhaps I'll ask Mr. Waldman, what do you think should be done and what is the clear recommendation that we must have so that the people with merit are the ones who are hired, and they're hired based on competence rather than for partisan purposes?
It's not necessarily based on being a Conservative or a Liberal, though it seems that had been the track record for a few years, but I'm not necessarily casting stones at one party or another. The system seems to be a problem.
6:50 p.m.
Professor, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
First of all, in terms of public service decision-makers, I've said the authority should lie with the chair because that's where you gain your independence.
In actuality, the Immigration and Refugee Board has become quite good at selecting RPD decision-makers.
6:55 p.m.
Professor, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It's the Refugee Protection Division. We're talking about the refugee decision-makers.
The first half of the current appointment process right now is a very complicated selection process involving an examination to identify six qualities of members. They go through quite a subtle process, so they have a lot of those skills.
This not being any more critical than necessary, but unfortunately the system right now is a hybrid system. All that comes out of the assessment is a recommendation to the government. It's not a ranking of the candidates. It's not a categorization of superior, average, or barely competent. It's only recommended or not recommended. It then goes into, if you will, the political pool.
The skills of the board to analyze that position are there. The board is capable of doing a merit-based assessment.
What I've said is critical for that assessment is the field of candidates: it has to be not only within the board or within the public service, but it has to be open to the general public.
6:55 p.m.
Professor, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
That's right.
In Elections Canada, it actually provides in the act that for the position of the chief electoral officer they must go outside. It doesn't mean a public servant, an immigration officer, or a board member can't apply, but that we get the widest possible field of candidates.
We're hiring 124 of these people. We're paying $100,000, which is a pretty good dollar. We can actually get some excellent decision-makers if there's a commitment through the system to do it.
6:55 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
I'm wondering whether you can provide some specific guidelines on how we could amend this area to make sure that we tighten some of the rules.
We need to know for sure that for these people who are hired, if there's an audit a few years from now, we won't get the kinds of results that I just read out from October.
6:55 p.m.
Professor, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I'm not sure all of those could go in. It could certainly be in the board policy and in the rules, and there could be a commitment from the chair. This is framework legislation for the general authority to do it and the requirement for a broad external hiring process. It would be difficult to put more detail than that into the regulations.
I would say for the immigration officers you're referring to, the public service hiring process is very difficult and very different. They were inherited a long time ago. They were transferred to the Department of Immigration. There isn't the same commitment or history.
This is an opportunity for a fresh start, and I really hope the board and the government will take it.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Boulakia and Mr. Waldman, we've run out of time.
We're going to move on to Mr. Dykstra.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'm going to turn some of my time over to Mr. Calandra.
I only have one and a half questions.
Peter, you've answered a number of the questions that I had listed. Thank you.
There's one that I would like to get your response on. If we could keep it brief, that would be great, because we could ask a couple of extra questions.
One of the things you talked about was on amending the format for hiring and what would make up the new complement in terms of government employees, rather than political or ministerial appointments. Which do you prefer as being the best one?
6:55 p.m.
Professor, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Do you mean between political appointments or the public service?