Finance committee  I don't have the regulations in front of me, but I think a hearing is an oral hearing. The hearing is the mechanism that allows the individual to present their case and to be heard by the decision-maker.

Finance committee  According to the current process, the asylum seeker first submits their asylum claim in writing. Based on the relevant factors in the regulations, when the asylum seeker's credibility is critical in the decision-making, a hearing must be held. That is also what the Supreme Court ruled in Singh v.

Finance committee  In my opinion, the meaning of the word “oral” is included in the meaning of the term “hearing”, but we would need to look into this more closely with our legal services.

Finance committee  The process followed at the IRB is similar to a court process. If the minister gets involved, the procedure becomes contradictory: the two parties must prove their case and the decision-maker makes a ruling. In the context where Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, must decide after a pre-removal risk assessment, the process involves two opponents: the decision-maker, who is at the hearing, and the asylum seeker—and their lawyer if they are represented.

Finance committee  No. In fact, the decision-makers are all independent, be they at the court or at the IRCC. Their decisions cannot be influenced in any way.

Finance committee  Decision-making powers are delegated to the decision-maker, and it is up to them to assess whether the individual needs protection or not. To do so, the decision-maker looks at the facts and relies on the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  According to our figures, since January 2017, approximately 23,400 claims have been automatically referred to the board prior to our officers having completed their assessments. Of course, they keep working on the assessment, even after the file has been referred. At that point, we identified about 25 cases where we had to review eligibility and stop the process initiated by the board.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, we don't have that information. The new measure is meant as a deterrent. We hope it will encourage people to follow through with the process that was initiated in the country where they claimed asylum and to comply with the resulting decision. According to our numbers, if the measure had been in place in 2017 and 2018, between 3,200 and 3,400 people could have been affected, given that they had made a number of refugee claims.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can't comment in detail about how the scheduling and postponements are taking place, but cases are postponed for multiple reasons. It could be that security screening is not ready for the hearing. It could be for an actual justice and fairness matter, when applicants, claimants or their counsel are not able to come to a hearing, or for operational, internal reasons, such as if the decision-maker at the IRB is sick or unavailable.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  What the bill actually does away with is the fact that a claim is automatically deemed eligible when the three-day deadline has not been met, even if it has not been assessed by a Canada Border Services Agency or Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada officer. We still plan to assess the eligibility of a claim in a timely fashion, whether it be within eight hours, as Mr.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. It will give our officers more time to assess admissibility to Canada and the eligibility of a refugee claim.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The refugee protection division is a quasi-judicial tribunal. It's similar to a court setting, so if the minister's delegate intervenes, it becomes adversarial. In a pre-removal risk assessment context, it's an IRCC official who reviews the application, and in the case where there's a hearing, would interview the applicant through that hearing.