Bill C-31 (Historical)

Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Marine Transportation Security Act and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Balanced Refugee Reform Act to, among other things, provide for the expediting of the processing of refugee protection claims.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is also amended to authorize the Minister, in certain circumstances, to designate as an irregular arrival the arrival in Canada of a group of persons and to provide for the effects of such a designation in respect of those persons, including in relation to detention, conditions of release from detention and applications for permanent resident status. In addition, the enactment amends certain enforcement provisions of that Act, notably to expand the scope of the offence of human smuggling and to provide for minimum punishments in relation to that offence. Furthermore, the enactment amends that Act to expand sponsorship options in respect of foreign nationals and to require the provision of biometric information when an application for a temporary resident visa, study permit or work permit is made.
In addition, the enactment amends the Marine Transportation Security Act to increase the penalties for persons who fail to provide information that is required to be reported before a vessel enters Canadian waters or to comply with ministerial directions and for persons who provide false or misleading information. It creates a new offence in respect of vessels that fail to comply with ministerial directions and authorizes the making of regulations respecting the disclosure of certain information for the purpose of protecting the safety or security of Canada or Canadians.
Finally, the enactment amends the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act to enhance the authority for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to enter into agreements and arrangements with foreign governments, and to provide services to the Canada Border Services Agency.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

It's been a few years since I read that agreement. Maybe it has been a year and a bit. I did read it thoroughly at the time. But I must admit that I was paying more attention to the education factor than to the impact on wine. Thank you for that answer.

Does anybody have any more information on that? Obviously it is not your bedtime reading either, which is always good to know, right?

Here's another question. How would Bill C-31 benefit provinces or territories in which, at present, wine grapes are not grown and/or wine is not produced?

Business of the House

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before I go to the question, I have a point to make. As we know, we will have the budget later today. What we have seen repeatedly is a breach of the long-standing tradition of the Westminster Parliament of not putting out in advance information that is in the budget. However, we have seen it repeatedly done by the government, not just in this budget but in prior ones.

My first question for the government House leader is whether that will be a continued practice and, if it is, why do the Conservatives not just do away with the sham of any confidentiality around the budget.

My next question is this. Could the government House leader confirm which four days will be dedicated to debate the budget? We have had various indications from him. If he could, we would ask that he be more specific at this time, assuming that it will start tomorrow.

Also, the government should accept the fact, as expressed by all Canadians, that Bill C-31 would dismantle our immigration and refugee protection policies and that the minister obviously does not understand the impact of that legislation.

Can the hon. member opposite confirm that the government is dropping that bill, yes or no?

We also have Bill C-30 outstanding, which is the so-called lawful access bill. It was up for debate at some point but it seems to have disappeared off the radar, along with Bill C-4. Both of them are quite misguided pieces of legislation. I am wondering if the House leader can tell us if the government will go ahead with these bills or come to its senses and either send them back for rewriting or just drop them completely.

Finally, there is a motion, which all parties in this Parliament accepted, with regard to the voter suppression scandal and it calls on the government to rapidly look at amendments to various pieces of legislation that would prevent that type of scandal and abuse of the democratic process from happening in the future. Is the government proceeding with any legislation and, if so, when will we see it?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Guterres absolutely did not. If you want to point to me anything in the UN convention that talks about an appeal, let me know what it is, because there isn't anything. The requirement of the convention is essentially this: a commitment of non-refoulement. A country must have a system available to assess the legitimacy of a claim as to whether someone has a well-founded fear of persecution on various enumerated grounds.

We provide every claimant, under Bill C-31, with access to a—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Minister, I think I can help you with that request for criticism.

I wanted to talk about the designated safe countries provision under Bill C-31. This is the proposal you have in your bill that would allow you, on your own—without the committee that you've now said you were wrong to have praised for being transparent and clear—to designate a country as safe for certain refugees.

Now, we know that these people who come from a safe country will have no appeal to the refugee appeal division, only to Federal Court. I'm aware that you're not a lawyer, but I assume you're aware that an appeal to the Federal Court is not an appeal on the merits of a decision; it's an appeal only on procedural fairness grounds.

You've also said that this complies with a statement of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and that he approves of the practice of designating certain countries as safe. However, the UN High Commissioner actually said that if a country designates certain countries as safe, there must be an appeal on the merits of any initial decision, something that your bill explicitly does not have.

So why did you remove the appeal to the refugee appeal division from the previous bill for refugee claimants from so-called safe countries when you agreed that it was a good thing in the past, and in violation of the statement of UN High Commissioner for Refugees?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you, Madame Turmel, for giving me the opportunity to clarify a great deal of misunderstanding on this point.

In point of fact, section 108 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act already allows the minister to apply to the Immigration and Refugee Board for the cessation of protected persons status, or the revocation of permanent residency on various enumerated grounds, including a change in country conditions.

So there is no new power accorded to the minister under Bill C-31. Cessation of protected status or revocation of permanent residency can only be decisions made by an independent member of the IRB, not by the minister.

The only change that's made under Bill C-31 is that cessation of protected status and revocation of permanent residency could be made in a one-step process at the IRB rather than a two-step process. After all, if you're going to cease the protected status of someone who obtained it fraudulently with the intention of subsequently removing their permanent residency, the view is that it's much more sensible to do that in one stage rather than two.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is a pleasure to be with you.

I want to ask a question of the minister. Under Bill C-11 you had an independent committee with a role to establish safe countries. At the time, you said this was a great idea. I want to quote what you said at that time:

Regulations would also require that a designation can only be made if an advisory panel including at least two independent human rights experts recommends it.

These amendments go a long way in providing greater clarity and transparency around the process of designation.

Now this is part of Bill C-31, as you know very well, so here's what I want to know. Were you wrong at the time on the clarity and transparency when you said it, or are you wrong not to remove it...? So one way or the other....

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

One of the reasons we proposed additional reforms to our asylum system through Bill C-31 is that since the adoption of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act in June of 2010, we have seen a growing wave of unfounded asylum claims coming in, particularly from member states of the European Union—last year, 5,800 EU claims—which has created the bizarre situation that we're getting more asylum claims from the European Union than we do from Africa or Asia.

I mentioned this in my speech to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees 60th anniversary meeting in Geneva, and there were visible gasps in the audience. The high commissioner himself said that was the single most remarkable thing he had heard during the conference.

It just strikes us as being, at best, peculiar. Virtually none of those EU asylum claimants actually show up for their hearings. Since we've had the visa exemption for the Czech Republic, Hungary, and other European countries in 2008, about 95% of claimants have abandoned or withdrawn their own claims. That is to say, through their own admission, they're saying that they made claims but they didn't need Canada's protection.

So clearly we need flexible tools to address highly organized waves of unfounded claims coming from democratic countries, where life may not be perfect, but if you are a citizen of an EU member state, you can move. If you need protection, you can cross into any one of another 27 states. Why is it, I ask myself, that there were I think zero asylum claims from the EU in Australia last year, and I think about 30 in the United States, but 6,000 in Canada?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes, we did indeed hear from the RCMP, CSIS, and CBSA—acronyms again—and certainly we saw a willingness, even for cross-department communication, to ensure that we secure the borders as much as possible.

Minister, if I may, I'd like to ask a question about one of the issues that Bill C-31 actually addresses; that is, dealing with people who are claiming refugee status and who come from countries around the world that have democracies much like ours. Can you tell us really how effective you think that would be?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

In respect of the Bill C-31 provision, we wanted to clarify what we had said before, which is that the minister had discretion under Bill C-4 to release minors from detention. We wanted to clarify because there were misunderstandings fueled by you and others that we are going to have mandatory detention of all minors, without discretion.

We wanted to be clear that the default position will be to release unaccompanied minors from detention if they are coming in as designated irregular arrivals.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Fair enough.

Bill C-4, which is the very first bill that you introduced in this Parliament, the so-called human smuggling bill, has been scrapped and rolled into Bill C-31. That first bill you introduced, Bill C-4, actually required the mandatory imprisonment of children of any age if they arrive by irregular means.

Of course, in Bill C-31, the only change made to that provision is that you've taken it out. Now only children who are 16 or 17 would face mandatory imprisonment. Would you acknowledge that it was a mistake in Bill C-4 to have unbridled imprisonment of children, regardless of their age?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

It is our contention that Bill C-31 complies with the charter, and that there is a compelling rationale to identify smuggled migrants who have arrived here illegally before releasing them from detention.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes, we have. We believe that Bill C-31 complies with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We believe there is a compelling policy objective in ensuring that we have identified illegal and irregular migrants. These are people who typically arrive without documentation in suspicious circumstances, who by definition have been smuggled into Canada by a criminal organization in violation of multiple laws.

We believe there is a compelling security rationale for maintaining immigration detention for such individuals until we have identified who they are. In a vast majority of these cases, though, it is a practical reality. Smuggled migrants who make asylum claims will benefit from the accelerated timelines of our faster asylum system. In many cases, if they are in fact bona fide refugees they would receive protected person status and be released from detention in a matter of months.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

First of all, you can find a lawyer to offer you any opinion, and we are confident that Bill C-31 complies with the charter.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I'd now like to turn to Bill C-31.

Mr. Minister, mandatory detention without review is a clause that is present in Bill C-31. A very similar clause has been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court Canada in the security certificate case. How much money does the government expect to pay to defend the charter challenge that lawyers across this country have said inevitably will come?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you.

The IRB is funded to make up to 25,000 asylum decisions per year. In any given year, if we get more than 25,000 asylum claims the backlog will go up. If we get fewer than 25,000 claims, it will go down. Fortunately, through the visa impositions on Mexico and the Czech Republic, plus additional resources to the IRB as a part of backlog reduction, it managed to see the backlog come down quite significantly, by almost 20,000 cases in the past two years. I am hopeful that the new faster and fairer asylum system we will put in place this fall following the presumptive adoption of Bill C-31 will discourage significant numbers of unfounded asylum claims, thereby reducing the intake of new claims and allowing us to further reduce the backlog.