Justice committee  May I just suggest...? Of course, access to justice is part of a key mandate of the law society, and it's one of our priorities. In fact, last year, at the strategic planning day at the law society, the suggestion of making pro bono mandatory for all lawyers did come up as one solution.

Justice committee  Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm here on behalf of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. I should mention that I'm also a bencher of the law society. The law society has struck a working group on legal aid, studying this very important issue, as we recognize that this is a critical issue that challenges all of us.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure, in particular it's around the Citizenship Act. Until 1947, for instance, Chinese were not allowed to become citizens of Canada. There are many different ways in which we exclude individuals from citizenship based on race, particularly during those days. In my comment, I talk about the various ways in which this particular bill would result in the exclusion of certain groups.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Can I also respond?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The current system actually does not count all of the time; there's a one year cap. It's not like we're allowing people before they become a permanent resident to live 10 years, for example, and then automatically become a citizen. We have a very reasonable system right now. I find it contradictory to say that we want to strengthen the residency requirement.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I'm the clinic director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, which is a non-profit community-based organization providing free legal services to Chinese and other Southeast Asian community members in Toronto. I would like to thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to comment on this bill.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Let's say we get rid of conditional permanent residence. The women who are coming in as a sponsored spouse will be a permanent resident the minute they land, right? The only situation, I think, where a woman is in a spousal relationship and their status is conditional upon the marriage or somehow tied to the sponsor is when they're applying from within Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In our experience with respect to the isolation, we find that because they don't have a lot of family members in Canada, a lot of the time their family members are the spouse's family members or the spouse. That's the kind of isolation we see. That's why we think if there's a way of facilitating family sponsorship for those women who are victims of domestic violence, it will in fact allow them to have more family support.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In terms of the discriminatory impact, you can look at it from two ways. First of all, if there is an income requirement, it means that only those who will meet the income requirement will be able to sponsor their wife. Up to this point, the spousal sponsorship so far has not been subject to this requirement, I think because the Canadian government recognizes that spouses and dependent children are an integral part of our families, so they do not want to make a distinction between people who are rich enough to sponsor and those who are not.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, sure. One of the studies I have included is a study from Statistics Canada which looked at measuring risks against women. They looked at aboriginal women, women who were born here, immigrant women, and women living in rural and urban areas. They found that education level and income have no bearing whatsoever on the risk faced by the women as to whether or not they will become victims of violence.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. My name is Avvy Go. I'm the clinic director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. We're a non-profit community organization that provides free legal services to low-income immigrants and refugees from the communities in Toronto. We've been around since 1987, and over the 27 or so years, we have served tens of thousands of clients, many of whom are immigrant women, refugee women, and non-status women.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. I understand, but we need to understand the context in which violence against women happens.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, and to prevent violence from happening against these women. Right?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Violence is happening in Canada to all women, no matter if they are immigrants or if they are Canadian-born, as some of the stats in my paper show, including the fact that every six days a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner.