Evidence of meeting #39 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Sharalyn Jordan  Member of the Board, Rainbow Refugee Committee
Christine Morrissey  Founder and Member of the Board, Rainbow Refugee Committee
Michael Deakin-Macey  Past President, Board of Directors, Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society, As an Individual
John Amble  As an Individual
Richard Stanwick  President Elect, Canadian Paediatric Society
Glynis Williams  Executive Director, Action Réfugiés Montréal
Jenny Jeanes  Program Coordinator, Action Réfugiés Montréal
Marie Adèle Davis  Executive Director, Canadian Paediatric Society
Gina Csanyi-Robah  Executive Director, Roma Community Centre
Maureen Silcoff  Representative, Roma Community Centre

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

The time has expired.

You know what? She didn't understand the question.

I'm going to let you ask the question. Go ahead, Madam Groguhé.

But you have to be brief, Gina. You promise me—

6:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Roma Community Centre

Gina Csanyi-Robah

I promise you.

6:20 p.m.

NDP

Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC

Could you describe for us the situations that present a risk of death and persecution that the Roma in those countries are confronted with?

6:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Roma Community Centre

Gina Csanyi-Robah

Okay. I'll give you one example.

In the European Union in general, we have anti-Roma riots, homes being burned to the ground. Just in Italy a few months ago, 200 homes were burned to the ground. In Bulgaria there are non-stop Roma riots, homes being burned to the ground, people being killed. There are mass expulsions in Italy, in France. There are internment camps.

Ujjal Dosanjh, who was a member of the Liberal government and a former premier of British Columbia, came to a public education event that I organized at the University of Toronto in November 2010. He saw these integration camps and said they were more like internment camps. He even brought back pictures.

I'll give you an example that took place in Hungary last Easter—not this past one, but the one in 2011—in Gyöngyöspata, a small village in Hungary. The Jobbik political party, which is on the far right and openly anti-Roma, has a paramilitary organization that works in solidarity with them. They wear the same Arrow Cross uniform from during the Nazi era.

Jason Kenney came to our Roma community centre in October and heard first-hand testimony about this.

These neo-Nazis stayed in this village, 2,500 of them. After the demonstration and the rally ended that day, they stayed for three weeks. It took the international community—Amnesty, Red Cross—to intervene to get these thugs to stop terrorizing the people in this community.

Just now—

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

Excuse me, Gina.

Mr. Leung.

6:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Roma Community Centre

Gina Csanyi-Robah

That was too much.

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

No, I'm sorry. I know you're passionate about this—

6:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Roma Community Centre

Gina Csanyi-Robah

I'm sorry. It's just too much information.

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

—but I have to keep things moving.

6:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Roma Community Centre

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

Mr. Leung.

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Gina, for your impassioned plea about the situation of the Roma.

I look with interest at this document, “Roma Refugees in Canada and Bill C-31”. You go to great pains in this document to try to explain the difference between gypsy fiction versus Roma reality. I'd like you to elaborate on that.

Secondly, in my travels in Europe, I have come across all kinds of people. Perhaps you can tell me how current European society discriminates in terms of how they would prosecute the Roma or the gypsies. How is the treatment different? To me, they, or least those I've come across, can ethnically or racially blend into the society.

I would just be curious, then, to know more about that in the context of gypsy fiction versus Roma reality.

6:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Roma Community Centre

Gina Csanyi-Robah

I do a lot of public education around gypsy fiction and Roma reality. A lot of people, even some people with double degrees, still don't know who the Roma are. They've heard of gypsies and know all the stereotypes, the negative connotations, that go along with being a gypsy.

I grew up in this country. My Canadian friends always thought it was kind of cool, but they asked me funny questions—i.e., do I have a crystal ball at home, or do I have a caravan in my driveway? Some of my friends would wear the gypsy Halloween costume to school. That stuff was a little bit perplexing at times, but it didn't hurt me.

Whenever I encountered a person who was ethnic Hungarian, for example, they would tell me—not every time, but often—if I were willing to divulge who I was and my background, “Keep that to yourself. That's shameful. Don't let anybody know that. Keep it a secret.”

There's this whole fiction that gypsies like to travel and can't settle down, and find it impossible to be sedentary. That's a lie. I mean, when you're kicked from place to place and not allowed to stay, it doesn't mean that's how you normally are.

Another fiction is this whole criminality thing. There's not this mass community of criminals in Europe. It doesn't exist. There are people who are criminals, just like in every other single community there are people who are criminals.

In the Roma community there's been a huge problem with the cycle of poverty—lack of education, people committing crimes of poverty. You hear this whole rhetoric in Hungary of the gypsy terror. You hear about gypsy criminals. It's dehumanizing. In Gyöngyöspata they had that mass rally because of the gypsy terrorists. But if you read a little bit deeper, you end up finding out that people were stealing firewood from the local privatized forest to heat their homes because they live in such endemic poverty.

The reality is so much different from the fiction that we have over here, but the problem is that the fiction here influences people's thought process, even at schools. At the schools our kids go to, staff are reporting to me that many of their colleagues have these very negative stereotypes of gypsies. When kids hear the discourse that happens often in our media, it just compounds the problem.

They believe the kids don't want to go to school. What they don't realize is that they're living for three years in this abysmal state of not knowing if they're coming or going, or what they're going back to.

There are so many complicated issues. It's so important to be able to depict Roma reality versus gypsy fiction.

In Europe it's very clear who are the Roma, as these are homogeneous societies. Ask somebody from Greece, from Italy, from Hungary, “How can you tell if someone is Roma?” Often it's because everybody who's not the ethnic majority are Roma. The only diversity that exists is in the main European city centres. As soon as you leave Budapest, it's a mono-ethnic, homogeneous society.

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON

I appreciate that distinction. It's just that in my travels in eastern Europe, I have come across them, and sometimes, when you're coming as an outsider, it's not easy to understand.

I address my next question to Maureen Silcoff.

There are lots of Roma claimants in Canada. Why is there proportionately higher abandonment and withdrawal, because that causes a problem for those of us who are looking at this. We're asking what the reason is. There has to be a reason. Are they really committed to this country? Do they really need to seek asylum, with that status, here in Canada?

6:25 p.m.

Representative, Roma Community Centre

Maureen Silcoff

Thank you for the question.

I'd like to first of all address statistics, and then I'll deal with why people withdraw.

We see in the year 2011 that about 4,500 people initiated claims. About 800 were withdrawn, about 250 were abandoned, 160 were accepted, and 738 were refused. Half of the claims initiated were still pending.

When you look at the numbers, the percentage of withdrawn claims over the number of claims pending is not very high. It's a matter of how you look at the statistics. There is no refusal rate of 98%. There is no abandonment rate of 98%, and there is no withdrawal rate of 98%.

We see that in one in five cases of people who actually appear before board members, their cases are approved.

Now, why do people withdraw? This is a little bit of a complex situation, and there are certain factors that I think warrant looking at.

First of all, as Gina mentioned, it's very difficult for people who have low or little education to navigate a complex legal system. Until recently, there has been very little community support to assist these refugees. There has been a huge problem with a handful of unscrupulous lawyers and consultants who have actually done an injustice to this community. Numerous complaints have been filed at the law society against these lawyers. I myself am cleaning up dozens of messes from what happened. People lose hope. The lawyers don't show up. They don't answer their phones, and sometimes people just end up withdrawing their claims.

I'd like to make another point. If you come here to so-called scam the welfare system, you don't withdraw your claim. You stay here, and you take every last penny from welfare. The fact that people withdraw means that they're not in it for the money.

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

Ms. Sitsabaiesan, can you get a question and an answer in one minute? Probably not.

6:25 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Probably not, but maybe I can. All I have is one minute?

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

Yes.

6:25 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Okay. In the brief there is mention of the minister showing up on Hungarian TV. Can you comment more on that, please, Maureen? Go.

6:25 p.m.

Representative, Roma Community Centre

Maureen Silcoff

The minister showed up on a right-wing TV show. It's described in Gina's brief. You can see the YouTube video yourself.

As well, he stated in the National Post a little while ago that his delegates were handing out leaflets in a city in Hungary that said, don't come here. The message on TV and the message in the leaflets is, do not come to Canada. More or less, they're saying, “You are not refugees”.

I've never heard of this happening before. I've never heard of a minister taking such measures in a planned, strategic way to tell people that they are not refugees. Sometimes people make off-the-cuff remarks, but this is completely different.

I think it is a concern, because these cases, in effect, are being prejudged. The refugee board is an independent tribunal. They're supposed to look at each case on its merits. The board members, of course, are human. If they hear that this is happening, and they hear this kind of information coming from the minister, how could they not take it into account?

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative David Tilson

Thank you.

Our time has expired.

Thank you kindly for coming. You're two very passionate ladies. We appreciate that and thank you for your contribution to the committee.

This meeting is adjourned.