Citizenship and Immigration committee  We will be sharing our time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. On behalf of all my colleagues at the Rainbow Refugee Committee, I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our point of view on Bill C-31. Rainbow Refugee supports efforts to create a fair, efficient, effective, and affordable refugee system. We shar

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is precisely when country conditions appear safe on paper that LGBT refugee decisions are most complex and the safety net of an appeal is crucial. A life or death decision should never rest in one person's hands. The safe list was proposed to deal efficiently with surges in un

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We strenuously object to the provisions that detain without prompt and independent review, deny due process, and delay access to permanent residency. Recently we received a letter from a gay man in detention in the Lower Mainland. He was from a country that imprisons LGBT people.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We are deeply concerned about the impact of barring claimants from an H and C application both during and for 12 months after the claim. These measures form a crucial safety net for LGBT people at risk of serious harm in their home countries. Determining when homophobia and tra

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's important to recognize that just because a country is democratic, has an independent judiciary, and has civil society organizations, it does not mean it is not refugee-producing, when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity claims. We have seen that people's soc

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We appreciate that the government has seen that the initial interview or the screening interview at 15 days will not work. It will be ineffective and costly. As people who are on the ground with refugee claimants, we can tell you that legal aid applications in B.C. take at leas

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not sure I understand the question, I'm sorry.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's exactly right, yes, very much so. We gave the example of South Africa. We've seen this in Colombia. I've had one gentleman describe Bogotá as a wonderful city in which to be gay, and another had to flee for 10 years and stay in hiding because of death threats. So it is ver

Citizenship and Immigration committee  All forms of persecution are heinous, but there are particular characteristics to sexual orientation and gender identity based claims that make giving an account of this kind of persecution especially difficult for claimants. One is that it usually occurs outside of the public ey

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's an absolute denial of justice and due process, and it puts Canada at serious risk of returning someone to their death, to persecution. When we signed on to the Geneva Convention, we signed on to be a place of refuge and protection for all refugees and to give them access to

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It clearly violates the constitution and our charter obligations, and there are intentions to move forward with challenges.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I wouldn't mind responding to some of the comments that were addressed to Rainbow Refugee. Do we have time?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. We do share the goal of seeing refugee claimants move through their claim much faster than the current system allows. Clearly waiting a year or two in limbo is unacceptable. However, that waiting time was created through inadequate resourcing of the refugee board. You can

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We see overseas protection as a complement to good inland protection, but not a replacement. Canada has an important role to play in upholding good standards of refugee protection for sexual orientation and gender identity claims. We should continue to pass measures that allow us