Bill C-43 (Historical)

Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to limit the review mechanisms for certain foreign nationals and permanent residents who are inadmissible on such grounds as serious criminality. It also amends the Act to provide for the denial of temporary resident status to foreign nationals based on public policy considerations and provides for the entry into Canada of certain foreign nationals, including family members, who would otherwise be inadmissible. Finally, this enactment provides for the mandatory imposition of minimum conditions on permanent residents or foreign nationals who are the subject of a report on inadmissibility on grounds of security that is referred to the Immigration Division or a removal order for inadmissibility on grounds of security or who, on grounds of security, are named in a certificate that is referred to the Federal Court.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, Mr. Neve, Bill C-43 doesn't change Canada's commitment to remove people from the country, or to a country rather, to countries where they're going to face persecution, so I think you might be wrong to suggest that. Also, what I got out of your presentation is that you were talking mostly about the rights of criminals. I haven't heard you say anything about the rights of victims of these criminals.

Sir, what I'd like to know is, what is Amnesty's view on the right of Canadians not to be victimized by criminals, such as Mr. Stamatakis has just outlined?

[Tom Stamatakis]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee.

It's my pleasure to appear before you today in support of Bill C-43, the faster removal of foreign criminals act. I'm appearing today in my role as president of the Canadian Police Association, an organization that represents over 50,000 front line law enforcement personnel from across Canada, serving in over 160 different police services. Our members include police officers from federal, provincial, municipal, and first nations police organizations.

While I understand that Bill C-43 has a number of wide-ranging provisions, I'd like to focus my brief opening statements on the sections of the legislation that deal specifically with the streamlined process for removing serious offenders from the country and why this is an obvious priority for our organization.

On the night of June 16, 1994, Toronto Police Service Constables Todd Baylis and Mike Leone were on foot patrol in a public housing complex on Trethewey Drive in west Toronto when they encountered Jamaican-born Clinton Gayle. Gayle was a 26-year-old veteran drug trafficker who had with him a fully loaded nine millimetre handgun and pockets filled with bags of crack cocaine. Clinton Gayle struck Constable Baylis and attempted to flee the scene. He was caught by the two young Toronto officers and a gun fight erupted. Tragically, Constable Baylis was shot in the head and killed in the line of duty, after only four years' service, leaving behind family, friends, and colleagues who continue to honour his sacrifice.

Unfortunately, this is one of the very real dangers that face our police personnel every day. What makes this case so particularly tragic and why I am here before you today is that this case was entirely preventable, if only the provisions within Bill C-43 were in effect then.

Clinton Gayle had been under a deportation order because of a number of criminal convictions he had on his record for various serious issues such as drugs, weapons, and assault. Despite these convictions, Clinton Gayle had used his time in prison to appeal his deportation order. At the conclusion of his sentence in 1992, he was allowed to go free by an immigration department official after posting a meagre $2,000 bail.

We now know that between 1990 and 1996, the government had made a number of efforts to deport Mr. Gayle, efforts that ultimately proved to be unsuccessful, and that red tape and abuse of the system by a known criminal is what led to the tragic murder of one of our colleagues, Constable Baylis, as well as serious injuries to his partner, Constable Leone.

Let me be absolutely clear. Canada as a nation is a stronger country because of immigrants who come here to enrich our communities through a shared culture. Police services across Canada, from Vancouver where I serve as a police constable to Halifax and all points in between, count among our members a number of first and second generation immigrants who serve their adopted country with honour and pride every day, and I'm one of them.

Unfortunately, there are those that come to Canada and choose not to respect and follow our laws. In fact, I was surprised to note, in preparing for my appearance today, that since 2007, according to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, there have been an average of 900 appeals of deportation orders filed per year by serious criminals, over 4,000 in total. Surely, we can agree that our communities would be safer, and our police would be helped by streamlining this process in removing these security concerns as quickly as possible.

Under the current regime, criminals who are currently serving a sentence of less than two years are eligible to file an appeal to the immigration appeal division. The CPA entirely supports the measures contained within this bill to reduce that time to sentences of less than six months. We also support the new measures that would make it more difficult for criminals,who have been sentenced outside of Canada to access the immigration appeal division.

These are common sense solutions that are necessary to help our members protect their communities. The problem has become that the criminals we catch are becoming increasingly aware of ways to game the system, abusing processes that were put in place with the best of intentions.

Once again, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee, I appreciate the invitation that you extended to allow me to speak to you today regarding the tragic circumstances of Constable Baylis' death. I would be happy to try and answer any questions you might have regarding the Canadian Police Association or our support for this proposed legislation.

Thank you.

[Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada, Amnesty International]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm pleased to be here with you this afternoon and to have this opportunity to share Amnesty International's concerns and recommendations with respect to Bill C-43.

Amnesty, for well over 25 years now, has been actively commenting upon and making representations to Parliament regularly with respect to reforms to Canada's immigration and refugee laws. Our focus, of course, has always been to ensure that those laws conform with Canada's international human rights obligations, be that with respect to refugee protection, the ban on torture, the rights of children, equality and non-discrimination, fair trials and due process, and other fundamental rights that are enshrined in international law.

We certainly recognize there are always challenges and tensions that arise in ensuring human rights are fully protected in law, in policy, and in practice when it comes to immigration and refugee matters, be it the tension between speed and efficiency versus fairness and justice, or as arises with Bill C-43, by responding to concerns about criminality and security, but doing so in full compliance with important human rights norms.

Amnesty International is of course a human rights watchdog. We're not an organization with a particular mandate with regard to immigration or refugee policy or law enforcement and criminal justice. Our role is to remind governments, including the Canadian government, of those binding human rights obligations and the absolutely essential need to ensure they are upheld.

Amnesty International certainly accepts that it is not only permissible but often essential for the Canadian government to use immigration law to exclude and remove from Canada individuals who pose threats to the country's public security or national security, including when there are concerns about serious criminality, terrorism, and related threats.

Today I would like to share with you our concern that the approach to this that we see reflected in Bill C-43, some of which builds on or adds to provisions that are already part of Canadian immigration law, raises a number of real and pressing human rights concerns in three principal areas: accountability, protection, and access to justice. Let me turn briefly to each.

With respect, first, to accountability, Amnesty International has frequently, for well over a decade now, raised concern that when Canada is faced with the attempted entry or the presence of an individual in Canada against whom there are credible allegations of potential responsibility for serious crimes under international law, such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, terrorism, overwhelmingly, immigration remedies such as denial of entry or deportation are used to deal with the case.

The end result very often, therefore, is the serious human rights accusations against the individual are not dealt with in a way that will ensure justice, namely, that the person would be perhaps turned over to an appropriate international tribunal, extradited to face justice in another country, or investigated and prosecuted within Canada. That runs counter to numerous international obligations that require Canada to ensure that such individuals do in fact face justice, including under the UN convention against torture and the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court.

We are concerned that the provisions in Bill C-43, be that clause 8 significantly broadening ministerial discretion to keep people out of Canada, or the restrictions of humanitarian and ministerial relief and appeal rights in clauses 9, 10, 18, and 24, will serve only to increase dramatically the propensity for immigration remedies to dominate. If it is even easier and faster to deport, the chances of a case being properly considered from an international criminal law perspective will be that much less.

There is nothing in Canadian law at this time that operationalizes and formalizes the legal obligation to pursue extradition and prosecution over such possibilities as barred entry and deportation. We strongly believe it is time to do so. It is too important to be left to policy and budgetary decisions. Our brief, which we'll be providing to the committee after the hearing—it's not yet available in French—proposes an addition to the bill establishing a clear obligation to pursue extradition or prosecution in appropriate cases, in compliance with international legal requirements.

Let me turn to our concerns about protection. Bill C-43 restricts or removes a number of appeal and relief mechanisms which, at present, serve as a final opportunity or last resort to address concerns about human rights violations that may be associated with an individual's removal from Canada. These may be concerns that the individual will experience torture or other serious human rights violations in the country to which he or she is being deported. They may be concerns about the best interests of children left behind or about the disruption and separation of families that will arise because of the deportation.

All of these are fundamental human rights obligations, not just policy aspirations or social matters. These are human rights obligations found in such important international treaties as the refugee convention, the convention against torture, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, all of which are binding on Canada.

Canadian court decisions have affirmed that Canada must take account of these international obligations in its immigration laws and practices. Restricting or taking away these appeal and relief options significantly increases the likelihood that these sorts of concerns will not be addressed.

The importance of keeping open these appeal and other relief avenues is all the more important when we consider the wide sweep of these exclusionary provisions. The elimination of humanitarian relief, in clauses 9 and 10, for terrorism, violating human rights, or organized crime may well apply to individuals who have never even been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime, and may extend to individuals who do not themselves pose a danger or security threat.

The Canadian Council for Refugees, in some of its past research, has highlighted ways in which these kinds of provisions have impacted on past members of the African National Congress and on individuals who are members of groups that opposed repressive governments, such as the Gadhafi regime in Libya and the Pinochet administration in Chile.

The appeal right restrictions in clause 24 extend to permanent residents who have been sentenced to six or more months in prison in Canada or who have been convicted of an act outside Canada that could be punishable within Canada by a maximum term of at least 10 years. It is a very low threshold. As such, this extends to such crimes in Canada as growing as few as six marijuana plants for trafficking, making a recording in a movie theatre, or injuring cattle. When considering crimes committed abroad, it, of course, gives rise to concerns about unfair and politically motivated charges and trials, the use of torture, and other serious shortcomings that are endemic in the justice systems of many countries.

An appeal hearing is the avenue that can consider all of these dimensions: the nature of the accusations; the seriousness, or lack thereof, of the crime; the unfairness of foreign convictions; and human rights violations that will occur if the deportation goes ahead.

Amnesty International's strong recommendation, therefore, is that clauses 9, 10, 18, and 24, which propose restrictions on and removal of humanitarian relief, ministerial relief, and appeal rights, all be withdrawn. They are an indispensable means of ensuring that human rights are protected, but they also ensure and leave open the possibility that serious concerns about criminality and security will be addressed.

The last point I would briefly like to raise is the issue of access to justice. Removing these avenues for appealing or seeking relief from a deportation order are essential in that they are a means of protecting individuals from human rights violations, as I've just laid out. What they represent, which is access to justice, is also a human rights concern in and of itself. International law has long recognized that deportation is no casual matter. While it may not be tantamount to criminal sentencing, it certainly carries a similarly strong message of punishment and societal disapproval, with tremendous consequences for the individual.

As such, internationally and nationally, it has long been recognized that there must be sound procedural protections associated with deportation. The UN Human Rights Committee, which is the expert UN body charged with overseeing and implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, has stressed that this means that anyone facing deportation should have an opportunity to appeal the deportation order, unless there are “compelling reasons” of national security.

The wide sweep of the clause's restricting relief and appeal opportunities in Bill C-43 go far beyond compelling reasons of national security.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 56, Wednesday, October 31, 2012. This meeting is televised. The orders of the day are, pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, October 16, 2012, Bill C-43, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen. We are late because of votes. We're going to divide up the time between the two groups. We have two guests.

From Amnesty International, we have Alex Neve, the secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, and I assume Anna Shea is with you.

We have by video conference from Regina, Saskatchewan the president of the Canadian Police Association, Tom Stamatakis.

Mr. Neve, you're first.

[Andrew Brouwer]

Yes, you've asked me whether or not I agree with the broad principles of Bill C-43.

When I read Bill C-43, the broad principles that I see being articulated there are quick deportation, denial of access to consideration of circumstances of cases, no humanitarian consideration, no ministerial relief—quick removal with no consideration of context.

If you're asking me whether I agree with those broad principles, I absolutely do not. I believe in fairness and justice, and I believe that most members of this committee do, too.

Unfortunately, this bill isn't about those. This bill is about stripping away access to at least a chance to appeal to humanitarian and compassionate motives; to at least raise the considerations and get a decision. For those individuals who are currently eligible, if they refuse, that's the end of the day.

A question was raised, I think by Mr. Weston, about the cost and the endless delays, which is something we hear about frequently. I'd like to point out that even under the current system, if those people who are found inadmissible on criminal grounds and who get to the IAD and are lucky enough to get a stay of their deportation commit even one more offence during that five-year stay, they're out; that's the end.

So all we're talking about here is one chance for an independent, impartial person to take a look at all the circumstances prior to the deportation. If a person shows that they can't actually abide by those conditions, and they commit another crime, that's it. That's harsh for those individuals, and there are cases in which I would say even that is too much, but let's understand what we're dealing with now: this act would take even that away.

From my perspective, no, that's wrong.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thanks to our witness, Andrew.

Thank you for your tenacity in appearing here for the third time.

Many of us who were not born here came to Canada for a number of reasons, either to seek a new land or to seek the new type of freedom that is available to us. At the time we come here, we appreciate what this country has to offer to us. I would say that part of it is certainly peace, order, and good governance. These are the broad, general principles of those of us who live in this country.

In this particular case, you have identified some specific cases of fairly extreme violent acts. Yes, we certainly remove these people who are not Canadian citizens—I'd say regardless of the time they have lived here—if they haven't committed themselves to being Canadian citizens; basically, this is what this act addresses.

But I assume that in general you agree with the broader provisions of Bill C-43. Let's set all those extreme cases aside. Would you not agree with the broad principle of what Bill C-43is trying to achieve?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I see no further requests for debate, so we will have a vote on the motion.

(Motion negatived)

To return to Bill C-43, Mr. Leung, you have about three and a half minutes.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

In most parts, I think Mr. Dykstra articulated quite eloquently and much better than I would what I wanted to say.

As we all know, the budget was introduced on March 29, Mr. Chair. I don't know of another budget in the history of Canada that has had this much debate—as much as the first budget implementation act had, and the amount of debate we are getting now. In fact, Mr. Chair, I might add that the member from Burnaby—New Westminster, a member of the opposition, spoke for 13 straight hours on the budget, and the leader of the opposition just last week spoke for 45 minutes.

I might add that during debate in the House on this second phase of the budget implementation, the “BIA 2”, there wasn't any question on the immigration section that pertains to the electronic travel authorization. This is clearly an issue to be dealt with by the finance committee.

I totally concur with that approach. It's premature to come here at this time, and it certainly does not pay any respect to the witness who is here before us, nor is it relevant to the discussion on Bill C-43 that we're having. These are two different bills, Bills C-43 and C-45.

So I cannot in good conscience support the honourable member's motion. I will conclude with that.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I have been a practising public accountant for just shy of a decade, as has Ms. Bateman. When you come to debate something that is budget oriented, you need to look at it in its totality. You can't separate out the departments; it's built up into a total budget. That's how budgets are formulated. That's how budgets are debated: in a specific budget committee. Generally, that is the finance committee, whether you're in a corporation or a non-profit organization, because you're dealing purely with monetary issues. It is at the committee levels, such as these standing committees, that we debate policies and so on.

I don't see how breaking this up makes any sense, really, and besides, we're debating Bill C-43 here, not Bill C-45. Therefore, I will speak against this motion.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thanks, Chair.

It took me about two seconds to find it on the website. There is a list of recent reports, releases, and documents, and the second most recent one—there are a couple in there—is on Bill C-43. I'm just realizing there are a few of them, and they were submitted to this committee today, this morning. It is absolutely possible that Ms. Sitsabaiesan's office did their research, that therefore she is doing nothing but being an excellent member of Parliament, and that she is not involved in any kind of conspiracy, as the opposite side seems to be alleging.

Thank you, Chair.

[Andrew Brouwer]

One of the problems with IRPA and its relationship to Bill C-43 is that IRPA right now, particularly in paragraph 34(1)(f), allows for a decision-maker to find a person inadmissible on security grounds on very vague and broad criteria.

I have many clients who've been found inadmissible because of membership in a terrorist group. For example, I refer to this report from the CCR on Eritreans. There was a brutal 30-year civil war for independence in Eritrea. Many members of various organizations fighting for independence for Eritrea from the bloody Ethiopian regime were members, supporters in one form or another, of the Eritrean Liberation Front or one of the other organizations engaged in that fight.

When they come to Canada, those individuals now make refugee claims. If they were indeed involved in some way in the liberation struggle, they are frequently recognized as convention refugees, in part because of the sad history of what happened in Eritrea after liberation in 1991, when one of the two liberation movements took power. Those who were part of the other liberation fighters, the ELF, were refugees. Those individuals come to Canada. They have given their entire lives to working for justice and independence and human rights. Under paragraph 34(1)(f), even if the extent of their involvement was teaching in a school, handing out pamphlets, or organizing meetings to provide updates on what was happening in the field, those individuals are inadmissible.

Under section 25 and subsection 34(2) of the current act, there was at least the possibility for relief from that very broad inadmissibility. There was a possibility that a decision-maker could say that, formerly, maybe some members of the Eritrean Liberation Front engaged in terrorism, and because you were somehow involved in supporting that organization, fine, it's broad enough that you are described. At least we have a relief valve that permitted the presence of those individuals who actually didn’t support terrorism, who didn't hold the gun and didn't engage in violence, to be found not to be detrimental to the national interest.

Bill C-43 takes that away. It denies any access to humanitarian and compassionate consideration, and it appears to dramatically limit the scope of the meaning of “not detrimental to the national interest”. By doing that, we expect to see many long-term members of the Canadian community who have been determined to be inadmissible on these very broad grounds facing removal.

That, from our perspective, is fundamentally unjust. These people, like Nelson Mandela, like my Dad, who was engaged in the resistance in Holland under the Nazis, are heroes, not terrorists.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Brouwer, to take it in the broad context, Canada is renowned for its generous immigration and refugee policies. Those generous policies rely upon continued goodwill from the general populace. For people who are elected to enact and preserve laws, we have to have some commitment to those things. To me, the most humanitarian and considerate thing we can do as lawmakers is to ensure that we continue a generous open door to refugees. We have people who have been admissible on the most serious grounds, war criminals, human rights violators, people whose examples we heard cited earlier before you started your testimony today. Some of them are organized criminals and they've been able to delay their deportation for years and years. We've heard it costs millions of dollars. My concern is that we'll lose the popular support of the whole refugee program if we allow such people. Furthermore, people who are parents, like me, average Canadians, want to know that serious criminals are being deported, especially if they're not Canadians.

I would have thought you would be coming here complimenting the government on Bill C-43, saying this is what we need to make sure that 10 years, 20 years, or 50 years hence, the people who follow in our footsteps are similarly defending a generous refugee system.

[Andrew Brouwer]

Thanks very much. It's a pleasure to be back before the committee. I've been here...this is my third time in seven months, I think. You've been busy; the minister has been busy. I think the fact that the committee has been this focused on immigration and refugee legislative changes is an indication of the massive reforms that are happening in the world I work in, so I'm grateful for this chance to talk with you.

On that note, though, I would like to mention that a number of us were surprised when Bill C-43 was tabled in the midst, as I understand it, of the proceedings that were already going on here at this committee with respect to the background study you've been doing on immigration security provisions. It looks as though there was a bit of a missed opportunity, because I know from a number of the witnesses who appeared before you in connection with the other study that there are a number of reforms to the provisions addressed in Bill C-43 that could have been proposed in the context of that study's report.

It would have been nice to have it all together in one package. That said, I'm going to comment on Bill C-43. I want to point out and make it clear that I'm not here as an individual this time; this time I am here on behalf of the Canadian Council for Refugees, for whom I'm a member of the legal affairs committee.

The CCR is an umbrella organization that works on issues of refugee protection and the settlement of immigrants and refugees in Canada. I'm on their legal affairs committee, as I mentioned, and I'm also a practising refugee lawyer in Toronto. We've provided a short brief, setting out our main concerns; however, because of the short notice, it probably hasn't been translated and circulated yet, but I presume will be before you're done your study.

I'm going to limit my comments to a few of the issues that are set out in the CCR brief, and I look forward to an opportunity to address those issues as well as some of the others during the question and answer session.

Overall, the CCR is concerned that Bill C-43 contains a number of provisions that will lead to less fairness in the refugee and immigration system, that do not honour Canada's international legal obligations, and that deny people the right to appear before an independent decision-maker for decisions that go to fundamental rights and interests.

The inadmissibility provisions that are already in IRPA are extremely broad and catch people who have committed no crime and represent no danger to safety or security. Among those who are affected already are people who are inadmissible simply because they worked against a repressive regime or an undemocratic government in their own country. It is by now a cliché to observe that the anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela—Nobel Prize winner, honorary Canadian citizen—could be caught up by the revised section 34, as it is drafted.

The CCR has produced a number—two, in particular—of excellent reports on the impact of those very broad immigration security provisions, and the impact upon certain communities in particular.

The more recent report is called From Liberation to Limbo, and it addresses the impact of the provisions on the Eritrean refugees who have come to Canada. The impacts are profound and devastating upon those who are labelled as terrorists under the act.

Bill C-43 would deprive those who are labelled as terrorists of fair consideration of their actual circumstances in a number of ways: it does it by limiting the scope of the exemption from inadmissibility, known as ministerial relief; it does it by denying access to humanitarian and compassionate consideration; and it does it by imposing mandatory conditions when released from detention. It's our position that those changes are inconsistent with the charter and with Canada's international legal obligations.

The limiting of ministerial relief will prevent some refugees from making a refugee claim, leading to their being returned to their countries of origin, directly contrary to Canada's obligations under the 1951 refugee convention. The proposed new wording for ministerial relief—I think it's in clause 18—will also prevent the minister from considering whether a refusal of relief and a finding of inadmissibility will violate the charter rights of the individual affected.

Elimination of access to humanitarian and compassionate consideration will prevent consideration of the best interests of any child directly affected, which is also directly contrary to Canada's obligations under international law.

Bill C-43 also denies permanent residents the right to appeal to the IRB, the IAD, if they're sentenced to an imprisonment term of six months or more. This means these permanent residents will not have an opportunity to have an impartial and independent decision-maker consider all the relevant circumstances of their case prior to their deportation.

This is a significant denial of access. For example, with someone who came to Canada as a young child and has lived in Canada for decades, that is no longer going to be taken into account prior to the deportation of an affected individual. The person will be sent back to a country where he or she may have absolutely no connection. Likewise, as one of the previous witnesses noted, people who are suffering from mental health problems that contributed to the commission of a crime will also be denied access to any consideration of those circumstances.

I'd be happy to give you some examples of these cases that we have in our office. That denial of access to any humanitarian and compassionate consideration, in our view, is inconsistent with fundamental Canadian values of fairness and justice, particularly in those cases where we have very long-term permanent residents of Canada facing deportation. These are circumstances where it's exile, practically speaking, not deportation. They have no direct contact, no connection, anymore with the country of origin.

I'd like to close my opening remarks by reading from Hansard. This is from 2001, at the time that the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act itself was under consideration in the form of Bill C-11. There was a comment made by a PC member, Gerald Keddy, from South Shore, when he was considering the impact of deportation of long-term permanent residents. He said this:

Somehow we will say that an individual, after residing in the country 30, 40 or 50 years, does not have the same rights as any other Canadian. Rather than sending them to prison for a criminal offence should they commit one, we would deport them to a country they may no longer have ties with. That is not what being Canadian is about. It is certainly not what I have always thought being Canadian is about.

A little bit farther in his comments to the House, he said:

...surely in this nation and at this period in our history we would not deport them to a country to which they no longer have ties.

I would like for Mr. Keddy to be right, but under this bill it would appear that he's wrong.

Those are my comments.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

As she was working through her list of examples, she said that she had generated a larger list and would be prepared to give it to the committee. If not, I'd at least like to get the list that she actually stated here at committee then.

The other piece was that we have had one witness who has indicated that they could not actually participate in Bill C-43. We had a suggestion that MADD Canada come to present to the committee. We have an agreement that in general, if there is a witness we'd like to add to the list, we bring that name to the committee, have the committee agree to it, and then add them to the witness list.

So I'd like to put forward MADD Canada as a witness here for Bill C-43.

[Irina Sytcheva]

I appreciate your bringing forward the mental health strategy and the great work your government did with the contributions and investments you made in this area. However, in the context of Bill C-43, we are not seeing any special provisions to accommodate individuals with mental illnesses or even to study the impact on this population with the proposed changes. That is what I'm saying here—