Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have serious problems with the issue of visitors visas for relatives who have applications pending in that particular post, not only for mothers, fathers, grandparents, but for children or spouses. They assume that because there is an application, the visitor visa is going to be used for people to come and stay in Canada, which is true.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  On family reunification, if the person here is waiting for peace in a moratorium country and the family is not here, they will not be able to bring their family until they are accepted as landed immigrants, and that could take 10, 15 years sometimes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  This is not only for French-speaking people. We have an issue of a cultural understanding or cultural sensitivity. When you speak more than one language, when you have a second language, you also understand the body—the way people present themselves and the cultural interpretation of things—and you tend not to be so rigid in the way you analyze a case, if you know what I mean.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. One that is very close to my heart is that of the non-status people. We don't even know the numbers we have of people without status in Canada. There are people working here who are not committing crimes and don't have security problems or whatever. I think we have to focus on the possibility of materializing a program to regularize their life in Canada, because there are a lot of children involved, and there is poverty.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The new appointments also imply more time, because the people have to be trained and employed, and they are going to be coached at the IRB refugee hearings, and so on. What we are trying to say is a balanced approach, in terms of reappointment with experience and new appointments, is the best way to go.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's why I said the emphasis for us, in terms of the refugee determination system. If you provide a stay of removal at the appeal division and you then go to the judicial review, the number of cases that are going to the judicial review will be fewer. The time people spend on judicial review could be reduced as well and the stay of removal could be discussed in terms of the judicial review because you will have an appeal decision before that happens.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  What I want to say is that we have to change the emphasis that we put on some parts of the system. We now have an emphasis on judicial review. If we remove that emphasis and put it in the appeal division, for instance, we can do an exchange, because the appeal division will be on merit and that will be more fair than the judicial review we have right now.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The other thing we can mention is having reliable international organizations do the different processing outside Canada. The UNHCR is everywhere in the countries that produce refugees, but we don't trust the UNHCR, in terms of the immigration procedure, to process the applications for refugees.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think you're right, in terms of the situation we are facing now. We are under a lot of stress—the NGO sector, the civil society—because people are talking about the refugee process getting longer and longer. I think partially the government is responsible for that, because there haven't been reappointments, or very few.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is also the lack of understanding of the process by the family members who are overseas and the people here. There is no really clear publication or explanation. Most of the time, the explanation they receive is in the hands of the NGOs or the community centres try to explain the process that they have in front of them.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Good morning. I am going to talk about refugee determination in Canada. First, to talk about the positives, the fundamentals of Canada's refugee system are sound. Refugee determination is inherently difficult. Beware of those who advise you to throw out the current system in favour of some other supposedly more efficient system.