Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have to say that I don't have expertise on biometrics. As a tool, I think it's worth studying to evaluate its usefulness. Many of the people whom we deal with in detention have never been to Canada before, have often never travelled outside their country of origin, have never

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not familiar with that particular initiative, but I can say that in the investigations process, it often occurs that information that helps to identify people is obtained either from the United States or European countries. What I was trying to get at in my presentation is th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I didn't really understand your question. Are you talking about technology at the border?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The investigation measures are used to identify people. But in this field, the money may be better spent in some cases than in others. As for alternatives to detention, the investigations could go on. I mentioned examples where the information about the identity of individuals wa

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, we're not there on behalf of any government. We're a non-governmental organization, but for many years we have been visiting the holding centres in Montreal, and not just the one in Laval but the previous incarnations as well. We have a formal agreement with the Canada Border

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I think that the committee's visits to prevention centres in Canada is a very important initiative. Congratulations. I hope my comments today will complement that information. In fact, by visiting the centre, we can see what the conditions are like, but we cannot real

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There is a lot of research available. As I said, I recently attended a conference where international research was presented by the International Detention Coalition and by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. There were examples from Canada, the U.S., and Australia

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's a bit complex, because my presentation was focused more on refugee claimants: children who themselves are claimants, or children of adult claimants who are found in detention in Canada. The question about removals is somewhat of a different concept. What's very important is

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I hope my comments are helpful in this regard. Thank you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No problem.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay. However, most of the families that I have met in detention include young children between zero and five, even breast-feeding children, where it is not reasonable or even possible for the children to be separated from their parents. One of the key problems with accompanying

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Hello. My name is Jenny Jeanes, and I coordinate Action Réfugiés Montréal's detention program. Thank you for inviting me here today to speak about immigration detention. Some of the comments I will make today will echo some of the evidence provided during the examination of Bill

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Basic school services are currently offered, but it isn't a full-time school. There may be a few hours of schooling a week offered to school-aged children. Otherwise, as Dr. Stanwick said, very few activities are offered, aside from television.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In our brief we recommend sticking to a timeline that more resembles the current 28 days for what's called a personal information form. I heard the witnesses from the previous session talk about 30 days—15 days in our experience working with detainees would be, for many, far too

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As far as I know, that kind of situation wouldn't happen because young children are not kept in the men's wing, and family members can see each other during the day.