Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 25th, 2010

[Chantal Desloges]

My position is this. Forget about Africa for a minute. Take any visa post in the world. I do not think that locally engaged officers should even be touching refugee applications. The information is so private and so sensitive that I think only Canadians should be handling those files at all. I don't even want a locally engaged clerk photocopying my application forms if that's my situation.

Now I do agree that locally engaged staff can be very helpful for other types of applications--for example, skilled workers, visitor visas, marriage applications, those types of things. I just think that refugee matters are simply way too sensitive.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

That's a very good clarification. My sense of what you were saying was that you just didn't want any pre-screening going on at all, where in reality a well-handled pre-screening, a pre-screening done only by Canadian embassy staff, would possibly actually assist the process and expedite the process.

[Chantal Desloges]

Right. My issue is not with pre-screening; my issue is with locally engaged officers.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

As for the timelines you suggested, I guess it's on a fact basis that it's 50 months in Kenya, in Nairobi. Is that correct? Is that what you said?

[Chantal Desloges]

Yes. If you're a privately sponsored refugee, you will wait 50 months just to get your visa for Canada, and that's not counting the amount of time at the office inside Canada, where the sponsors have to apply to be qualified as sponsors. So that adds another--I don't know--maybe two to three months.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So if my church decides to sponsor X, Y, or Z refugee or group of refugees, we have the timeline prior to qualifying, and then it's 50 months on top of that.

[Chantal Desloges]

Right. You'll be waiting over four years, period.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Really? All right.

Thanks for that. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

I'll take advantage of the fact that we have a little bit of extra time to ask a couple of questions myself. I wanted to deal with the issue of using local personnel who are nationals of the relevant country and then a bit with the timeline issue as well.

With regard to the use of locals, obviously we are only one of a number of immigrant- or refugee-receiving countries. Others, I assume, have different practices. Is there any other country you can point to that seems to have practices that would serve as a good example for Canada in this regard?

[Chantal Desloges]

I'm not aware of any.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. Maybe we'll ask our analyst to take a peek at that.

With regard to the 50 months, I can certainly understand the frustration. That seems like a terrifying barrier to someone who is in a position of uncertain safety and is in danger.

One thought that occurs to me in this regard is that if we improve our capacity and lower the time, I assume we would actually become more of a destination for people who are in danger in those particular countries. The very fact that it's such a substantial barrier causes some to turn away and not attempt to come to Canada.

So I wonder if we face a bit of a catch-22 here, such that if we improve our capacity we'll get more people applying in the relevant places. That's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, because it may mean that deserving people are able to come to Canada, but I wonder if in the end that is the right metric to be measuring by, if you follow.

It's virtually increasing bandwidth, right? You increase bandwidth on the Internet and people start downloading bigger movies with higher pixilation rates. I wonder if there is some other way of measuring efficiency.

I could reverse that, though, and just ask whether, for other areas, like Nairobi, there are genuine refugee-receiving countries that are producing a faster turnaround time successfully in an environment where there is obviously a large number of potential refugees seeking asylum.

[Chantal Desloges]

I don't know if you have considered calling a witness from the UNHCR, but they would have very good information about that. I don't know what the turnaround times are for other refugee-receiving countries. Whether they're faster, I really couldn't tell you. It would only be anecdotal. I have heard that places like New Zealand, for example, are faster, but it's purely anecdotal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

My impression with New Zealand, unless things have changed, is that they are probably fast at saying no. They actually are not big recipients. There are very few people who manage to make it successfully there.

[Chantal Desloges]

Yes, the information that I was privy to was about Iraqi families who have resettled in New Zealand. Also, those particular individuals had family there, so that may have also played a factor in it. I'm not sure about the regulations.

But if it's a floodgates argument that we're worried about, the government does impose quotas. If you were to streamline processes or make the system more efficient, you don't necessarily have to admit more numbers. You could still have caps on it, only issuing a certain number of visas per year. That's what they do now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I think what you don't want to do is give people false hope and cause them to put time and energy, in an environment that is not inherently safe for them, into something that ultimately stands a high degree of failing, having strung them out for a while—and expense as well. That would seem to be the least optimal result. It sounds like we're getting a fair bit of that right now.

[Chantal Desloges]

Yes, there's a pretty high refusal rate. I'll tell you what I attribute that to. It's not only bad decision-making, although that accounts for some of it. It's also because the majority of people who use this type of category don't have someone like me helping them. There are people who are doing it on their own. They're well-intentioned church people in Winnipeg or whatever it is, but they're lay people. What you're asking them to do is to pitch a case to the visa office where you have to meet certain very specific legislative requirements. There are all kinds of case law and rules about it that people wouldn't know about. A lay person wouldn't know that.

People apply their colloquial definition of what is a refugee, and sometimes they're sponsoring people who don't even really fit into the category. They probably should have never even gone in that category in the first place. So you always have a certain amount of attrition just through people being in the category they shouldn't be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Right. Thank you. That's actually very helpful.

We are actually at the end of our time. Are there any further questions?

Mr. Marston. We'll make it the last question.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

It's not so much a question as it is a comment. I really appreciate the information we've been given today, but I want to bring our discussion a little bit away from the process, which we're getting fairly in-depth with, to the fact that we're dealing with gays and lesbians who have basically been put on a hit list in a country. My concern is that even if they get out of Uganda—and it was mentioned before that the attitude towards homosexuals throughout Africa puts them at risk.

For the committee's deliberations, is there a recommendation we can make to our government in order to enact some process or some means of literally saving their lives? They are going to be walking targets. They're identified people. Even if they go into other countries, they still remain such. I'm concerned about that.

But I really want to thank you for the testimony, because it's been very helpful. I strongly recommend, as I said before, that this testimony be forwarded on, because I think it would be of value to the other committees.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. I think we have to stop here. I will thank our witness.

Thank you very much, Ms. Desloges. We really appreciate your being here.

[Chantal Desloges]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Just for members of the committee, after I gavel the meeting to a conclusion, the clerk will be handing out a memo from me regarding working meals. It's a matter we can discuss offline.

As I said, I appreciate it very much. We'll see you all next Tuesday.

We are adjourned.