Bill Siksay

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, anyone who has looked at the timing of the cuts that were engaged in Ontario a few years back and what is currently happening in terms of youth crime in Ontario would see that the parallel is exact. It is very clear that those kinds of preventive programs were cut, such as recreation as a preventive program when it comes to criminal justice issues.

This is not rocket science. It has been proven time and time again here in our own country. Quebec understands it very clearly. Other jurisdictions around the world get it and yet somehow we have turned our backs on that and the negative results are showing up. It is time we reversed that and did so definitively and decisively.

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Mississauga South for his work on FASD. He is one of the experts in the House and should probably answer his own question because I am sure he knows more about that particular subject than I do.

However, it is a glaring example that if we are truly serious about dealing with the rate of crime in our society, dealing with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder has to be a top priority. However, it does not seem to have made it on the list in that sense.

We know that a high percentage of folks incarcerated in Canada are living with FASD, which should give us cause to say that something has gone awry. We do not put enough resources into prevention. The whole prospect of getting alcohol labelling in Canada has apparently been so fraught with difficulty that we have not managed to accomplish that even though the House on a number of occasions has spoken very clearly on that issue. That is just one small piece of the prevention issue.

We could be doing a significantly better job. It would be cost effective for us, make us safer and improve people's lives dramatically. There are all kinds of reasons for doing it and yet we see it as some kind of side issue on the corner of somebody's desk. It is time we put it front and centre and ensured that the kinds of programs that are successful will provide a benefit all across society.

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any doubt about the fact that there is a problem with the reporting of crime statistics. However, the reality is violent crime has gone down as have violent crime statistics. That is an important one to know.

I also think, though, if we changed our approach to dealing with criminal justice issues, there would be better reporting. People would have more confidence in the system. If there were a restorative justice option available to people, they would report more property crimes.

In the past I was a victim of a property crime. One morning I got up to walk the dog and someone had spray-painted all down the side of my house in great giant letters, “You've almost been robbed”. It was all spelled correctly, punctuated correctly, which maybe is a credit to our educational system. However, it did make rather a big mess of the house.

When I walked the dog, a couple of blocks away the police arrested a young man. I noticed there were a series of spray paint cans lined up on the roof of the car. I suggested to the police officers that they might want to come and check out my house. He was an aboriginal young person.

We were approached to participate in a restorative justice program through the Native Friendship Centre in Vancouver, which we engaged. We were incredibly impressed by that process. We lived in a duplex at the time. The folks at the front of the duplex were corporate lawyers, and they also participated, reluctantly at first. However, they, too, were impressed with the rigour of the process, with the demands that it made on all the participants and with the goal of to ensure that both action was taken by the offender to get his life together and to give up the kind of petty crime in which he was involved. It also went to the extent to ensure that we had a positive relationship as neighbours with this young man.

If other people had that kind of positive experience of the criminal justice system, that kind of confidence that a petty property crime could have this kind of positive outlook, I think more Canadians would engage the process and we would all be better citizens and better neighbours because of it.

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, restorative justice is a concept that has been around for a long time. In fact, it is fundamental to first nation, Inuit and Métis people in Canada. We and the rest of Canadian society have been learning largely from them. However, it is also a concept that has been proven time and time again to be a very effective way of preventing crime and restoring relationships in communities, which also goes a long way to preventing future crime and recidivism.

We know this. It has been proven over and over again, yet, we still do not put this front and centre in our approach to criminal justice issues. It is always on the corner of somebody's desk. People who work in the area of restorative justice have to fight tooth and nail for any kind of acknowledgment of their work, any kind of funding to build these important programs.

That needs to change. Instead of this being something that gets worried about once in a blue moon, we need to ensure that it is front and centre, that it is part of the everyday conversations we have in government and in the Department of Justice about how we better serve Canadians and how we improve our criminal justice system.

There are many ways to do that. Perhaps we need, as I proposed with a number of members in the House, a bill establishing a department of peace, which would have as its mandate ensuring that restorative justice measures were front and centre at the cabinet table, that there was an advocate at the cabinet table to argue for a restorative justice approach, both domestically and internationally. We need to ensure that this was not just an afterthought, that this was not just something where we said, “let's go and check that out if we have time”. We need to ensure it there from the get-go in any kind of conversation about criminal justice matters in terms of matters of restoring peace in our communities and around the world.

We need to move to this, quit putting it off and get to it right away.

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to have this chance to continue the discussion on C-4, the amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Concerns have also been raised about ending the publication ban on the names of young people charged with a crime in the apparent hope that denunciation will be a deterrent. The bill would require the courts to consider lifting the publication ban on the names of young offenders convicted of violent offences when youth sentences would be given.

The publication ban has been important in the past. It helps ensure a situation where young people can truly be rehabilitated and put a serious mistake behind them by avoiding the publicity associated with their crime. It also prevents the shaming that is part of any criminal conviction. The publication ban was also seen as significant in that it interrupted and even subverted the ability of criminal organizations and gangs to recruit young people who were in trouble with the law. These are all crucial considerations for our youth criminal justice system.

It is also very unclear just what the bill proposes with regard to the publication ban. It seems that judges will still have discretion in this area, so the bill may not change the current situation. The government may only be pretending to do something on that issue.

The Conservatives are still chipping away at an important concept in our youth criminal justice system in the way they regularly criticize this aspect of the system. The Conservatives continue to whip up hysteria about crime. They continue to refuse to analyze youth crime statistics. Prior to 2005, violent youth crime was declining in Canada. Yes, there was a spike in 2005-06, but in 2007 it started to decline again.

Understanding these trends, rather than merely offering a knee-jerk reaction to them, would be a more responsible approach. Looking at what actually works to reduce youth crime would also be helpful.

Quebec provides a great example. Quebec is perhaps the most successful jurisdiction in Canada when it comes to reducing youth crime. It has the lowest youth crime rate. How has Quebec done that? It has stressed rehabilitation and treatment, first and foremost. It also has the lowest number of youth raised to adult court. Ensuring particular programs and process that recognize the needs and realities of youth has worked to lower youth crime. The federal government could learn much from this example.

We know that prevention works. Making education affordable, keeping youth unemployment low, ensuring excellent health care for children and youth, ending child poverty, providing high-quality child care and early childhood education, affordable recreation, putting in place accessible drug education and treatment programs, programs for those living with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and programs to prevent it, all of these have shown, time and time again, to be more cost effective and a more effective way of dealing with alienation and criminal activity of children and youth.

When one looks at the research, if one bothers, there is no doubt about how effective this approach is. In particular, the situation of aboriginal youth demands more attention from the government. The correctional investigator of Canada pointed out in her recent report:

Aboriginal youth are also overrepresented among criminalized young people. Research shows that Aboriginal young people are criminalized and jailed at earlier ages and for longer periods of time than non-Aboriginal young people....the gap between traditional correctional approaches, and Aboriginal methods of justice and reconciliation [must be addressed]. The ongoing support and involvement of elders, Aboriginal liaison officers, community representatives and Aboriginal organizations is viewed as key to closing the outcome gaps for First Nations, Métis and Inuit offenders. Advocates for Aboriginal inmates have long stressed that Aboriginal people and Aboriginal organizations must be directly involved in developing and providing appropriate programs, and actively involved in the evaluation of current assessment tools used by CSC.

Finally, the correctional investigator points out that the government must “implement a security classification process that ends the overclassification of Aboriginal offenders”.

Restorative justice is another approach that must be taken. Restorative justice has been defined as a turn away from the adversarial, punishment-oriented philosophy of criminal justice toward the focus on bringing victims, offenders and the community together to repair harm, build understanding and restore relationships.

Building a justice system that seeks to restore broken relationships, rather than merely punishing those who commit offences, has shown huge promise and often startling and positive results.

In the United States, teen courts, which deal with actual criminal cases and issues, have been shown to sharply reduce recidivism. Youth who commit crimes and are judged by their peers are far less likely to reoffend. What is more, the teen court model is much more cost effective than the regular criminal justice system.

Here is how Ritchie Eppink and Scott Peterson described the U.S. experience of teen courts in an article in LawNow. They say:

American teen court programs continue to demonstrate phenomenal success, all at a miniscule cost. Peer courts not only appear to reduce repeat crime by youth, they are dynamic programs that promote volunteerism and community service, build a range of interpersonal skills in their participants, and interactively teach youth about law and justice in partnership with adults. Though letting youth co-operatively handle their own problems is a simple concept, it has turned out to be an uncommonly effective one--one that is fast becoming an integral part of youth justice in America.

In my community, the Burnaby youth restorative justice program has proven very successful. Its shoplifting program in particular has had great success in helping young people appreciate the seriousness of the crime, but in a way that ensures that the relationships it damages are restored. Here is how the program was described in a recent article in the Burnaby NewsLeader. The reporter says:

The retail theft circle program was created last June in a collaboration between RCMP detachments in Burnaby, North Vancouver and Richmond, and was based on a model used to combat graffiti in Vancouver.

Burnaby has since taken the lead with the unique program and has held four such circles with 38 youth participating, said Stephen Morton, Burnaby RCMP’s restorative justice program coordinator.

Youth caught shoplifting, generally aged 13 to 17 and first-time offenders, are referred to the voluntary program by RCMP officers. Morton said the kids involved come from a broad cross-section of society, he noted. He’s seen kids from middle-class families to single-parent families, students and dropouts.

The program’s name is reminiscent of aboriginal healing circles, and other elements are borrowed from aboriginal traditions. For example, participants sit on chairs in a circle, with no table in between to hide behind, and a “talking piece” is passed around allowing the person holding it to feel empowered to speak.

In addition to the youth, participants include police officers, loss-prevention officers and store managers. The circles are as much about those harmed by shoplifting as it is about those picked up for the crime, Morton said.

Over a two-hour period, they each speak about the impacts of shoplifting. For retailers, the losses add up and lead to increased prices on all goods, and they feel victimized. For police and mall security, such incidents take time away from more pressing emergencies such as people needing medical assistance.

As for the youth, they often speak of how a shoplifting incident has made them feel shame and how it’s affected their relationship with their parent

Some kids say they steal because they want something but don’t want to or can’t pay for it, said Morton.

“Sometimes it’s because of a peer influence. There’s a perception among their peers that it’s a victimless crime.”

What’s important to Morton is that the youth acknowledge what they’ve done and that it’s affected people.

“Sometimes you kind of see the light go off for some kids. They’re able to see how it affects the broader community.”

He’ll sometimes see the same happen with the adults in the room. “The adults can see these youth are humans, not just thieves, but members of the community.”

There are all kinds of good results from this kind of process, better citizenship on the part of the youthful offender, the victim of crime, community members and enforcement personnel all result. It is a success story that cannot be dismissed and an approach that should be expanded. Why does restorative justice remains the very poor cousin of our justice system when its benefits are so very obvious?

Bill C-4 takes our youth criminal justice system in the wrong direction. While it seems apparent that the bill will move to committee for further study and discussion, I hope the process will make its flaws absolutely clear and that it will either be abandoned or significantly changed.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 26th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton East—Stoney Creek for raising that issue, because it points to another important issue around how we support seniors, elderly folks who are refugee claimants in Canada. There is a problem with the kind of support they receive collectively from our community, from our pension system. Often, because they are not deemed to be eligible for old age security or the guaranteed income supplement, they live in a situation of deep poverty.

This is clearly something I do not think is acceptable to Canadians. They believe that people who have made a successful refugee claim in Canada should be supported so they can integrate into Canadian society and live a decent life. When those people happen to be senior citizens, that is even more difficult for them, since their work prospects are probably even more limited than other refugee claimants. We need to ensure that the support system, the pension and old age security systems, applies to those people as well.

This is very controversial and governments in the past have not been as clear as they could have been to explain how our pension system works, the cost of our pension system, how it works to support new immigrants and refugees in Canada. This could use the attention of governments. I am glad my colleague suggested to the minister that it be something the government take up.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 26th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for participating in this debate today. It is not always the case and he deserves to be applauded for that.

He raised a number of issues in his comments. First, he talked about the normal process of a bill. One of the processes that is available to Parliament is a referral before second reading. The minister knows full well that means there can be the broadest possible revision of legislation, that new issues can be introduced by the committee into legislation.

When the bill goes to second reading and then is referred, that is more limited. By then, the principle of the bill has already been established, new concepts cannot be introduced into law and we are very limited in what we can in fact do in terms of amending the legislation before the committee.

Given the importance of this legislation, and I do not think anybody in the House disagrees that this is important legislation, that was an appropriate request. It came from many people who are directly and significantly involved in the refugee determination process in Canada. I am disappointed the minister does not see fit to consider that. I hear that he is willing to listen to possibilities of reform and change in committee, but there are limitations placed on that by the route he has decided to go.

I am also glad there are new resources being allotted to the refugee process. I wish it had been done a lot sooner. This process has always needed more resources dedicated to it to make sure it was fast and fair. We have already heard this morning members raising concerns that the new resources were not part of the budget package we have already debated in the House, so we need to nail them down, so to speak, to make sure they are really there.

I am also concerned that we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. We are going down the road of establishing lists and saying that some claims are more deserving than others, but there will always be an exception to that rule. The consequences of getting this wrong are tragic. That is the whole point of having this kind of asylum process, to make sure people are not persecuted to the point of death in their countries of origin. We have to make sure we do this right.

To use language like “bogus” and “abusive” denies the fact that there can be a substantive claim, even from a country where there are a significant number of claims that do not seem to be related to persecution. Even the minister this morning, when he was talking about claims from Hungary, noted despite all the problematic claims from that country, that there were three claims from three individuals or families where there was a problem of their persecution in Hungary and that the process found in their favour.

We want to make sure there is a system that can be responsive to those particular exceptions and those cases are treated on their individual merits in the system. I have yet to be convinced that what we have before us is a system that will do that.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 26th, 2010]

I appreciate the minister's applause. He did speak about that in his remarks as well. However, there have been failures of our immigration refugee policy that left people unprotected. One of the most egregious of those cases was the Jewish refugees who came to Canada during World War II and were not welcomed and were turned away. There were also the people on board the Komagata Maru who arrived in Vancouver at the turn of the last century and were returned to India.

Our failure to welcome refugees has had terrible consequences as well for those individuals. When we turn away someone whose life is in danger, the possibilities are not very positive, to say the least.

However, Canada overall has been known as a country that welcomes refugees and does it in a way that most other countries do not, which is something that is very significant. We were recognized by the United Nations for our efforts in refugee resettlement in 1986 with the Nansen medal. Canada is the only country to have been recognized in this way. Other individuals and agencies have been recognized but Canada remains the only country to have received the Nansen medal.

One of the successes of Canada's refugee policy has been the fact that there has been a significant grassroots and community involvement in refugee resettlement. We have seen that in most of our communities. There are individuals who participated in the resettlement of a refugee and worked with a family, for instance. Many agencies and community organizations work on these issues. Many of them are related to the private sponsorship program, which has been an inspired part of Canada's refugee legislation, where groups of Canadians can get together and participate directly in helping the resettlement of refugees and refugee families in Canada. That was a brilliant policy decision and continues to be a backbone of our refugee policy.

Canadian churches have been very active in sponsoring and resettling refugees in Canada and they remain one of the key players in our refugee policy.

All of this has led to the fact that there is considerable ownership of our refugee policy at a grassroots level in Canada. Because so many Canadians have been directly involved in the refugee process, they believe they have an important interest in the policies and in legislation of the kind we are debating today.

Canadians recognize that the job is not done and far from it. Millions of people still languish in refugee camps near trouble spots around the world. That number is not reducing in a significant way and continues to be very troubling. The conditions in those refugee camps are also very difficult.

Far too many people are still persecuted, even to death, for their political views or for their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity around the world. Steadily, in many ways, we have been making it harder for those people to escape their own country and find a safe haven here in Canada.

We did things like the safe third country agreement with the United States that said that if a refugee came through the United States before making a claim in Canada they could be returned to the United States. I think that was abandoning Canada's responsibility to those people when Canada's policy was different from that of the United States when it came to offering people protection.

We introduced things like documentation requirements before people board airlines to fly to Canada ensuring they had documentation when often many refugees and people who are escaping persecution do not have the required documents.

In recent years, our refugee determination system has been a mess, frankly, because we have used it as a political football. We have seen many political considerations given, political appointments in terms of people who were sitting on the IRB, and other ways that we have played games with our refugee system at the cost of protecting people. That has resulted in huge backlogs in our refugee determination process.

Our previous governments, both Liberal and Conservative, have allowed this backlog to grow. At the end of the last Liberal government, the Liberals had taken some important steps to improve the situation. They had made progress with regard to the backlog and the Immigration and Refugee Board, the IRB, was at a point where it was almost caught up in a sense when the Conservatives came to power in 2006. There was still a backlog but there will always be a backlog situation in any of these agencies. However, the IRB was to the point of believing that the backlog was manageable and one that would not have produced many serious delays at that point.

Unfortunately, when the Conservatives came to power I think they played politics with the IRB. They refused to reappoint board members who had been appointed by the Liberals and they also refused to appoint new board members. The result was that the backlog ballooned back to where it had been in earlier years. As a result of that backlog, the unfairness also grew. We lost many experienced people from the IRB in that period. The IRB lost that experience, that ability to do an effective and fair job.

The Auditor General even became involved when she warned that the system was collapsing under the huge backlog. This is another situation where the IRB and refugee process as a political football came back into play. I believe the crisis today was created by the Conservatives, by the current government, and now they are creating a solution to the problem that they created. It is a bit of a revolving door and one that continues to concern me.

Conservative and Liberal governments have also shown great disrespect to the existing immigration and refugee law, and that is primarily for their refusal to implement the refugee appeal division which is a feature of the current Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This act was brought in and debated in 2001, given royal assent in 2002 and contains a provision for a refugee appeal division, something that the minister described as “dormant”. Well the reality was that the Liberals and Conservatives refused to implement that part of the law that had been debated and passed here in the House of Commons and in the Senate. It was never implemented. I think the refugee appeal division would have brought a measure of fairness to our refugee determination system.

The refugee appeal division, RAD, came about through negotiation when the government of the day wanted to move from two member boards at refugee hearings to one member boards. The compromise to ensure fairness was the refugee appeal division. It was not an expensive proposition. It would have cost $8 million to $10 million to establish and $2 million a year to run, not a significant sum in terms of our overall expenditure in the refugee program, but it would have added a measure of fairness to that process.

There was a distinct lack of respect for the process in the past and I wonder if the current legislation before us has a provision for a refugee appeal division, but I do not know. My expectation of fairness of actually seeing that implemented, I have to say, I am a little cynical given our experience with the existing RAD and the fact that it was never implemented.

The NDP has always called for an effective, fair and streamlined refugee process and we have said that there are some principles that need to be the foundation of our refugee determination process. We believe that each case should be assessed on its individual merit. We believe in the need to invest in high quality initial decisions and that we need to get it right the first time. It needs to be a non-political process and the decisions need to be made by an independent body. It needs to be a simple system that avoids unnecessary rules. The necessary resources to ensure that the system functions appropriately need to be in place so that backlogs can be avoided. We also need to remember at all times that human lives are at stake and that we need to uphold human rights standards throughout this important process.

New Democrats have long proposed some specific measures for a fast and fair refugee process. These include that all appointments of IRB board members should be done by an independent appointment commissioner with set criteria for expertise in refugee matters. Such a merit-based appointments process was championed by our former leader, Ed Broadbent. We believe that there needs to be a crackdown on unscrupulous immigration consultants by banning them from the Immigration and Refugee Board hearing room and providing legal aid for proper representation. A provision for appropriate legal representation for refugee claimants continues to be a real issue in our refugee determination system.

We believe that we need to hire more permanent refugee protection officers to clear the backlog. We have seen this done in the past with some success. We also believe that we need to set up the refugee appeal division so that consistent decisions can be made based on fact and law. Parliament mandated, as I mentioned, this refugee appeal division in 2001 but the Liberals and Conservatives chose to ignore the law and not put it in place.

Bill C-11 has some serious flaws. Some of the key organizations that have an interest in the refugee process have outlined some of the problems.

Whenever I look for information on our refugee process, I look to the work of the Canadian Council for Refugees, which is an umbrella organization of many Canadian refugee serving organizations. It has delineated its concerns with this legislation, which I believe merit close attention. One of its key concerns is the designated countries of origin list. This bill would empower the minister to designate countries whose nationals would not have access to the refugee appeal process. This is the so-called safe countries of origin list. The council points out that the word safe does not appear anywhere in Bill C-11, which seems somewhat problematic given the intent of this legislation.

The council also believes that this is an unfair proposal because treating claimants differently based on country of origin is discriminatory. It believes that each case must be assessed individually. It believes that some claimants will be particularly hurt, including women who are making gender-based claims and persons claiming on the basis of sexual orientation. In many countries that are otherwise considered peaceful or safe, there can be serious problems of persecution on these grounds.

Claimants from designated countries will face a bias against them even at the first level since decision-makers will be aware of the government's judgment on that country. There will be an overall presumption of safety in certain countries that will affect the process.

Some claims from countries that are generally seen not to be refugee producing are among those that most need appeal due to the difficult issues of fact and law, such as the availability of state protection. The denial of fair process to these claimants may lead to their forced return to persecution, a violation of human rights law.

The Canadian Council for Refugees says there are other concerns as well about designated countries of origin. It says:

Having a list of “safe countries of origin” politicizes the refugee system. There will be new diplomatic pressures from countries unhappy about not being considered “safe”.

As currently drafted, the amendment would give the minister a blank cheque to designate any country, part of a country or groups within a country without reference to the principles of refugee protection. Those are serious issues that have been raised by the Canadian Council for Refugees.

The council goes on to note that it has problems with the eight day interview and hearing process after 60 days. The government has proposed that claimants be interviewed by the Immigration and Refugee Board after eight days and that their hearing take place 60 days later. The council believes that eight days after arrival is too soon for a formal interview. The interview is used to take the claimant's detailed statement about his or her claim. It would be unfair to the most vulnerable claimants, such as those traumatized by experiences of torture or women unaccustomed to speaking to authority figures.

Some claimants are ready for a hearing after 60 days, but others are not, including refugees who need to build trust in order to be able to testify freely, such as persons who have experienced sexual assault. Other refugees need more than 60 days to gather relevant documentation to support their claim, especially those whose claim relates to a newly emerging pattern of persecution or those who are in detention.

Again, there are very serious concerns about holding hearings before claimants are ready to deal with that important part of the process.

The Canadian Council for Refugees also raises concerns about decision makers and who is making the decisions in this process. It notes that first-instance decision makers would be civil servants rather than cabinet appointees. Members of the refugee appeal division would be appointed by the cabinet.

It says that this does perhaps go in some way to dealing with problematic political appointments, but it also raises some concerns, noting that assigning refugee determination to civil servants is fundamentally problematic because they lack the necessary independence

It also notes that limiting appointments to civil servants will exclude some of the most highly qualified potential decisions makers, from a diverse range of backgrounds such as academia, human rights and social service. It believes that will affect the quality of decisions.

The question of appointments to the RAD remains unresolved. Under the bill they would be political appointments, which will affect the quality of decision making.

The CCR notes problems with the appeal and pre-removal risk assessment. It notes that the pre-removal risk assessment still exists but that it is an ineffective and inefficient system. Also it believes that, for some claimants, this will continue to be an issue because of its inefficiency requiring a whole second structure to do the same work as the immigration and refugee board, something that is not fully addressed in the bill.

The Canadian Council for Refugees is also concerned for the humanitarian and compassionate consideration provisions of the bill. The bill would bar refugee claimants from applying for humanitarian and compassionate consideration while their claim is in process and for 12 months afterwards.

Applicants for H and C consideration would also be barred from raising factors related to risks here and in the country of origin. The CCR believes that H and C consideration is necessary as a recourse to consider human rights issues including the best interests of children and potential risk to persons. Closing off this recourse may be contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Those are some of the concerns raised by the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Amnesty International, another well-respected organization that has a key interest in refugee policies, also has very serious concerns about the safe country of origin list. It says that such lists constitute discrimination among refugees that is strictly prohibited by article 3 of the refugee convention. Article 3 of the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees is about non-discrimination. It states:

The Contracting States shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin.

Amnesty International also notes in a statement on this new legislation:

...over the course of nearly fifty years of human rights research around the world we have consistently highlighted it is not possible to definitively characterize countries as safe or unsafe when it comes to human rights. We are very concerned that decisions about which countries to include on any such “safe country of origin” list will almost inevitably be influenced by considerations other than human rights, including trading relationships and security cooperation with other governments.

One of the other organizations that has taken a very key interest in this is the Canadian Bar Association. Its citizenship and immigration law section is very concerned about the bill and asked that it be subject to a referral before second reading so that the committee could deal with the very serious concerns that are raised in it.

Yesterday I met with a refugee activist in British Columbia who is also very concerned about this legislation. She was very concerned that safe countries do not necessarily mean that all the people of those countries are safe and that the legislation needs to talk about safe people. She was also concerned about the language around bogus claims and abuse of the system, which she thinks was not particularly helpful in all of this.

There are many concerns about this legislation. I hope we can have a very fulsome debate on it and one at committee as well. I would have preferred that we got there before second reading so it could be a really extensive debate at committee.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 26th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak in this debate on Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Federal Courts Act.

The Conservatives, in their penchant for giving bills nicknames, have called this the “balanced refugee reform act”. I am hoping beyond hope that this will be the case with this legislation but there have been some serious concerns raised about the bill and I hope to speak to some of those.

Canada has always been a haven for refugees. We as a country have done very well by those refugees who have arrived here and made Canada their home. Whether it was the United Empire Loyalists at the time of the American revolution, Hungarians in 1956, people from the Unites States who resisted the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese boat people after the end of the Vietnam War, or people from the People's Republic of China after the events of Tiananmen Square, Canada has benefited greatly from these significant refugee movements. Those are just some of the movements of political refugees that have seen people come to Canada.

There have also been significant refugee movements fleeing economic problems and other social problems in their country of origin. We saw the Irish in the 19th century at the time of the potato famine. We saw Scottish emigration, eastern European emigration and emigration from Asia and Italy. In fact, my own family and probably many of our families came to Canada as economic migrants. All of these groups and many others have contributed greatly and continue to contribute greatly to building our country.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 26th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, on the same subject of that streamlined timetable, there has been concern raised about the ability of refugee claimants to get appropriate legal advice. Some folks have said they fear the streamlining will actually force people into the hands of unscrupulous immigration consultants for that kind of advice or that it will make it impossible to obtain the advice of a lawyer, and that it will put pressure on immigration lawyers in terms of the timeline. Others have suggested that perhaps we need a system with duty counsels to advise people in the circumstances of that initial interview.

I wonder if she could comment on the provision of legal advice to claimants, given the proposed streamlined schedule of this legislation.