Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 1st, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

And thank you, Ms. James.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of our witnesses.

My questions are mostly going to be for Mr. Mossallanejad.

You are a victim of torture and persecution. You've been working for the last 27 years with refugees in this country. It hurts me, and probably you as well, when I hear the members opposite talk about asylum seekers as queue-jumpers. In my understanding, there is no queue when you're fleeing persecution, when your life is at risk, when you're coming to a country that is going to be safe and where you can be alive, where you can have a life. There is no queue. Asylum seekers are just that, asylum seekers.

There was also mention made of people who come in as mass arrivals. They come without proper documentation. Given your 27 years of experience, would you say that all refugee claimants arrive by plane? I ask because government members seem to think that real refugees are people who can afford a plane ticket. Do all refugee claimants who come by other means have all their proper documentation ready to go like that?

[Ezat Mossallanejad]

Thank you for the question.

First of all, let me tell you that being a refugee is the bitterest experience in the life of a human being. You have to leave everything behind forever. Your legs are stuck here and your eyes look back. The whole world becomes a jail for you. The realm of freedom is a tiny corner of the globe that you have no access to. Let me tell you that refugees are people with the highest standard of values, because they raised their heads against tyranny and against human rights abuses. They contribute to the global endeavour of Canadian society in promoting human rights.

I came here as a devastated refugee. There are certain dates that you never ever forget and one was February 12, 1985, when I landed in Montreal without any documentation. In your concern to save your head, you leave your family behind, and you even leave your children behind, because if you don't escape, they will kill you. They are always after you to kill you. Then you don't bother about documentation. You are looking for asylum. It's like a fire in your flat: When fire is coming from all sides and there's only one window open to the neighbour's house, you jump and you don't bother. There is no documentation.

I think what is at stake today is Canadian compassion. We have always been proud of Canadian compassion. Let me tell you that in Canada, I worked for five years doing hard physical labour, although I came with a Ph.D. degree in political economy, and I used to be an assistant professor of political economy. In Canada I did my best to contribute. I said, “Down with political economy. I want to serve human rights”. I joined a Jesuit centre and I work with refugees and for refugees.

The challenge is building a new home in a new country, and I'm very happy that I did it successfully here. I have published three books, and I have published at least 70 articles. I'm working very hard. I'm a member of many organizations as a volunteer. I'm on the board of the Canadian Centre for International Justice. I'm a proud Canadian. Don't think that refugees or asylum seekers are a burden. We also contribute.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Absolutely. You're here clearly—

[Ezat Mossallanejad]

Please be compassionate as legislators. Governments come and go, but the law will stay forever, not our legislators.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Mossallanejad, you're clearly an example of a refugee who has come to Canada and has contributed so much to this country. As you said, this legislation is missing Canadian compassion, the element of Canadian compassion. I saw Mr. Fildebrandt nodding his head, as well, in agreement with you. And I agree with you.

I want to talk about the penalties, the penalization of refugees, in this bill. As you mentioned earlier, there is mandatory detention without a review before the immigration division for 12 months, and the denial of the right to apply for permanent resident status until five years have passed since arrival in this country.

The fact that these and other penalties are based on the mode of arrival in this country is, I think, quite problematic. These penalties are only for refugees who are designated as irregular arrivals. That means.... Actually, it's not really defined in this bill, as far as I see. But it's based on the mode of arrival. The removal of the remedies actually created for victims of persecution I see as a problem.

How do you feel about that, Mr. Mossallanejad?

[Ezat Mossallanejad]

First of all, let me share with you one dark page in Canadian history and one bright page in Canadian history.

The dark page goes back to 1939, when Canada sent a boat of Jewish people back to the high seas. The bright page comes with Canada receiving the Nansen Medal for protecting boat people escaping war in southeast Asia.

Now we have come up with a new category: designated foreign nationals.

Yes, I agree that smuggling should be fought. I'm with you. But again, why should we penalize victims rather than victimizers?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ezat.

We'll go to Mr. Lamoureux.

There's a point of order by Mr. Weston.

Stop the clock, please.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

On a point of order, Chair, I didn't want to interrupt, because that was an important dialogue, but I think it was a little unfair for my colleague to impute something that was being said through non-verbal communication by another witness when he couldn't speak for himself.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Politics is a tough thing. I'm sure that the government members will ask Mr. Fildebrandt whether that was correct or not. You may or may not be correct. I didn't see it, and it's not my job to correct....

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well, maybe sometimes it is.

Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank both presenters for coming here before us today.

I first want to pick up on what the Taxpayers Federation said. Their overriding concern seems to be wanting to save tax dollars for Canadians, and that's admirable.

It's been over the last number of years that this whole backlog issue of our taking years to process refugees has really come to the surface. In the last four or five years, have you figured out how much that extended prolonging of processing has cost the taxpayers?

[Derek Fildebrandt]

We haven't seen a dollar figure attached to it, although I think that would be a valuable figure for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to produce. I think it would provide a lot more light to the discussion we're having.

How much is that backlog costing taxpayers? We know that they've attached a dollar figure to clearing that out and having a speedy process. It's good policy in terms of processing refugees in a timely manner: It's good for the refugees and it's good for the Canadian taxpayer, because it's moving them off that queue. But it's also good policy in terms of knowing how much extra we're spending by keeping people in that backlog, wasting the time of legitimate refugee claimants and wasting the money of the taxpayers who are paying for it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

You see, that's one of the concerns we had about the minister of immigration years ago not filling some of the appeal board appointments, thereby creating an additional backlog and ultimately adding to the costs the federation is concerned about.

One of the suggestions from an earlier presenter was that there should be the possibility of incorporating a pool of money within the federal budget to help facilitate this, by providing some basic services to some of these refugees. Is this something the federation would support?

[Derek Fildebrandt]

Are you talking about supplementing the costs that the provinces bear for refugee claimants?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

The suggestion of providing assistance for refugees through a different form of legal aid was made under the Progressive Conservatives back in 1989. That was a great way to deal with the backlog. Ultimately, it would have saved considerable dollars, no doubt. Is this something that the federation would support?

[Derek Fildebrandt]

We would have to see dollar figures attached to it. For every measure, there's a cost and a benefit. We would have to see the dollar figures attached to that. It's not something that we've studied in any depth.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Ezat, if I may use your first name, I caught that you came to Canada on February 12, 1985. I was wondering if you could tell me—and it's a bit of a personal question—how long it took you to become a refugee from the moment you arrived in Canada. I assume you're a citizen now. Can you give us a timeframe of your personal experience?

[Ezat Mossallanejad]

It took me four months to go before an immigration officer. It took me another four or five months to do an examination under oath. At that time, we didn't have another way. They sent me the documents and asked me to correct them. It took another two months, and then I got my convention refugee status. After another year and a half, I got permanent resident status.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

You come across as a very knowledgeable, passionate man with a great deal of life experience. I'm wondering, with that perspective, what would you say would be an appropriate timeframe? I'm thinking of those individuals who landed from the Sun Sea or the Ocean Lady, just over 560 people total. From your perspective, how would you like to see those develop?

[Ezat Mossallanejad]

First of all, I think justice should be provided to all claimants across the board. I don't understand discrimination. For example, people who are exceptions to a safe third country are denied some remedies. Why? I don't understand.

Secondly, the timeframe should be adequate for the documentation of people's persecution and, specifically, torture, because a survivor comes with so many scars. We have to send that person to a physical practitioner. They take x-rays. They do all these—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry. Thank you.

Mr. Leung, you have the floor.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

My question is for Derek Fildebrandt. I want you to give us a clearer understand of the total cost of documenting the illegal arrivals and refugees. We sometimes confuse refugees with other arrivals.

The figure of $50,000 per year has been tossed around, but I think the cost is more pervasive than that, because there's a cost to the economy. There's a social cost. There's the cost to government having to provide security, provide the supervision, and perhaps the legal aid. Would you mind just running through the federal, provincial, and municipal levels of what those costs are? We might come up to a figure approaching close to $100,000 per person or per family. Would you please comment on that?

[Derek Fildebrandt]

Thank you for that question. That's a very good point.

The costs that have been attached to processing and maintaining the average refugee claimant at $55,000 are primarily, as I said, focused on health care and welfare costs, and essentially direct transfers to the individual.

There are many other costs, some of which are buried, such as using our roads. Those are shared public goods. They are using public goods paid for by taxpayers. Those are sometimes buried costs. I suppose that policing will depend a lot on the circumstances. These costs won't include the cost of policing extra individuals, or participating in the other broad basket of the many goods that come with living in Canada, the broadest one being national defence.

As I said, many of those costs are buried; some of them might be more direct. They're harder to attach a direct figure to than what Citizenship and Immigration has already done with direct transfers to individuals.