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.

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

I move That Bill C-43 in clause 16 be amended by replacing line 39 on page 4 with the following:

misrepresentation, unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that the misrepresentation was unintentional, for a period of five years.

As committee members know, clause 16 increases the penalty for inadmissibility for misrepresentation from two to five years and precludes a foreign national from applying for permanent residency status in that period. It would therefore also limit family sponsorship.

It's in the interest of working with government to get this legislation through and fix it that we are moving this amendment, specifically to make an exemption for those who might have entered data unintentionally.

Many witnesses have said that five years is overly punitive, especially where misrepresentation was made by an inadvertent error. The NDP members on this committee share this concern. The Canadian Council for Refugees, in their submission to us, points out that a five-year inadmissibility is excessively harsh in cases of minor infractions when a person was acting under some form of duress.

They offered two of many examples where this would be an unfair punishment. Number one is a woman who didn't declare a husband or child because of social and family pressures. Number two is an applicant who was not personally responsible for the misrepresentation because of an unscrupulous agent or even a family member who filled out the forms for them.

It is this second case I find particularly troubling. I believe that we must make sure to punish those who are criminally misrepresenting themselves and not victims of shady consultants.

While the CCR recommends that we simply delete this clause, we are proposing a very moderate alternative. Our amendment creates an exception for permanent residents and foreign nationals who are inadmissible for misrepresentation that is demonstrably unintentional. We think that this strikes the right balance.

We urge committee members to support this amendment to mitigate clause 16 from unintended consequences.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I move that Bill C-43, in clause 13, be amended by adding after line 24 on page 4 the following:

(2.1) Paragraph 34(1)(f) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(f) being a member of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages, has engaged or will engage in acts referred to in paragraph (a), (b), (b.1) or (c).

Chair, paragraph 34(1)(b.1) that you see was actually excluded from the original bill, and therefore we are inserting paragraph 34(1)(b.1) so that it in fact is consistent with the intent.

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

Mr. Chair, I move that Bill C-43, in clause 10, be amended by replacing lines 26 to 31 on page 3 with the following:

or who does not meet the requirements of this Act and may grant the foreign national permanent resident status or an exemption from any applicable criteria or obligations of this Act if the Minister has reasonable grounds to believe that it is justified.

Similar to our amendment to clause 9, this amendment seeks to restore the minister's ability to consider humanitarian and compassionate grounds, including the best interests of children involved.

I want to point out that the TCRI, which represents 142 community organizations in Quebec, which assists immigrants and refugees, submitted that the complete exclusion of humanitarian and compassionate considerations in these contexts is contrary to Canada's international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which, among other things, provides protections of family rights and security of the person, and as well violates Canada's obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

While we may agree that dangerous, violent criminals should be removed from Canada as quickly as possible, we hope that committee members would also recognize that it is important to make sure the minister can still consider the protection of children in these cases.

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

I move that Bill C-43 in clause 9 be amended by replacing lines 7 to 16 on page 3 with the following:

or who does not meet the requirements of this Act, and may, on request of a foreign national outside Canada, examine the circumstances concerning the foreign national and may grant the foreign national permanent resident status or an exemption from any applicable criteria or obligations of this Act if the Minister has reasonable grounds to believe that it.

Mr. Chair, we believe we need to address an issue here that gives us considerable concern. Both clauses 9 and 10 cause us great concern as they remove the possibility of humanitarian and compassionate consideration from the minister. The consequences of the best interests of an implicated child would no longer be considered.

In their brief to this committee, Amnesty International put their concern this way: “Eliminating the possibility of humanitarian relief for these types of people runs afoul of international law. Denying individuals access to this process might result in them being sent to torture...or persecution...”.

The Canadian Council for Refugees points out that these inadmissibility sections are extremely broad and catch people who have neither been charged with nor convicted of any crime and who represent no security threat or danger to the public.

New Democrats believe that the minister should not be relieved of the obligation to consider humanitarian and compassionate circumstances, including the best interests of children. Therefore, we are moving this amendment that restores the minister's ability to consider these factors with the caveat that the minister has reasonable grounds to believe it is justified.

We think this amendment will help dull one of the sharper and more mean-spirited edges of this bill and at the same time will constrain the minister's duty to consider humanitarian grounds generally.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move that Bill C-43 in clause 8 be amended by adding after line 2 on page 3, the following:

(4) The Minister must, within 30 days of making a declaration under subsection (1) that a foreign national may not become a temporary resident, table in each House of Parliament a report on the reasons for the declaration.

To keep it short, Mr. Chair, in essence the minister would have 30 days to report to the House when an individual is denied entry based on public policy considerations.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chairperson, I am going to read it so that people are aware of it.

I move that Bill C-43, in clause 8, be amended by adding after line 2 on page 3 the following:

(4) The Minister must, within 30 days of the coming into force of this section, table in each House of Parliament a list containing the criteria of public interest that will be used to determine the policy considerations to be taken into account for the purposes of subsection (1).

Mr. Chairperson, ultimately this would require that the minister table in Parliament the criteria used to determine denials, based on public policy considerations, 30 days following the coming into force of the bill. I think it takes it another step forward. That's as opposed to putting it on the Internet and having the minister decide one day to make a change. There would be no real accountability to the House.

I would encourage members to give it serious consideration.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chairperson, when Bill C-43 first came out, it was one of those hot issues which not only members of Parliament but many different stakeholders interested in this whole file jumped on. The issue is one of public policy considerations and how wide open that was. There was a great deal of concern. Then the minister, quite a bit later, indicated, “Well, you know, this is kind of like what I mean”. I'm happy that he has something now listed on the Internet, but those are all things that can change quite easily also. People need to be aware of and concerned about that.

The issue before us now is not whether the government will vote down this amendment. I will be voting against the amendment. However, there's got to be concerns in terms of where this particular list comes from. Is it all-encompassing? Is it possible that something might have been missed? We don't know. To what degree did we afford presenters the opportunity to come to the committee and say, “You're missing this” or “Why would you include this?”, in terms of the amendment?

That's why I think it's premature for us to support the amendment, but I do believe it highlights the importance, in terms of the whole public policy consideration, which is a huge flaw in the legislation itself. If we really want to deal with this, I would suggest that we defeat the amendment and then defeat the clause itself, and send it back to the drawing board. That's what I would recommend to all committee members.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Quite obviously, I would like to support this amendment because it is extremely important.

I would like to respond to Mr. Dykstra, who thinks the amendment will dilute the minister's powers. I think it will only define them. We heard testimonies that alerted us and that made reference to concerns about the minister's discretionary power.

I think it is important to consider all these testimonies. We want to limit and define the concept of public interest more specifically. We would also like to define the minister's discretionary powers.

This is just to clarify. I think we wanted to be clear from the beginning. We spoke about improvements and clarifications to be made to Bill C-43. I think we still have that same perspective. It's important that the government can follow our lead with this amendment.

[Karen Clarke]

Mr. Chair, if I may, section 94 of the act already provides a requirement to report to Parliament. There are a few instances where it codifies what types of things the minister must report on. For instance, gender-based analysis is one.

In the proposed amendment is a requirement to add this as another item which the minister would be required to report on. It's something that's not currently in Bill C-43, but we do have the flexibility that we could report on and include the instances where this authority is used within that annual report.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Chair, to follow what my colleague mentioned, we're really trying to make proposals that are actually valid to strengthen the legislation that is before us today. This amendment actually does strengthen the proposed legislation, Bill C-43 by including criteria which the minister himself spoke about. As my colleague, Jinny, mentioned, when the minister came to this committee, he introduced those suggested guidelines and even hinted to us that, as the committee, maybe we should look at putting it into the legislation.

We're taking his lead on this really when he suggested that maybe the committee would want to put it in the legislation. Rather than leaving it to the arbitrary discretion of the minister and broad-based public policy considerations that are still not really defined, I think it makes sense to put these into the legislation itself. It allows it to be more clear and transparent, and it moves us away from a precarious path of giving the minister more arbitrary power. Once again, it's one minister with an extremely high amount of arbitrary power. I do hope that our colleagues in the Conservative Party would support this amendment. It is a very reasonable amendment that looks to make this legislation work. It would strengthen this piece of legislation which is what we're all working towards.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chair, we agree that if the government is going to use public policy considerations in order to deny entry, the criteria should be well defined in the legislation, but we also want to ensure the framework is one which is carefully reviewed and discussed in its own committee study.

We heard very little of what should be considered or included specifically in the framework in clause 8. As such, we'll be voting against this NDP amendment as well as the clause in Bill C-43 itself.

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

Mr. Speaker, with this amendment, we are proposing to do two very important things to limit the overly broad ministerial power to declare a foreign national inadmissible based on public policy considerations.

First, we suggest codifying word for word in the legislation the minister's own guidelines that he presented to this committee. When Minister Jason Kenney visited us on October 24, he suggested this approach when he said, “The committee may recommend that we codify these guidelines in the bill...”. We hope that committee members will agree to do just that.

Second, and perhaps more important, this amendment introduces a new threshold for the exercise of this power. Specifically, the minister must have reason to believe that a foreign national meets one of the listed requirements in the guidelines.

There were many witnesses who raised serious concerns about this part of Bill C-43 , but I would like to highlight the concerns set out in the submission by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association who said:

The Minister would be granted broad authority to deny entry to a high profile speaker on purely ideological or political grounds. Such a decision would engage the Charter protected freedom of expression and freedom of association of all Canadians.… In our view this provision has serious procedural flaws which undermine the rule of law, the cornerstone of a free and democratic society.

We concur with some of these criticisms and suggest that the current language is too broad and discretionary. Therefore, we would ask members to consider this very reasonable amendment to curb this overly broad ministerial power.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chair, I move that Bill C-43 in clause 5 be amended by adding after line 15 on page 2 the following:

(2.2) The following conditions apply in respect of any interview conducted in accordance with subsection (2.1):

(a) the foreign national has a right to counsel;

(b) any information procured and used to impair the liberty or security of the foreign national, or any third party, is subject to a fair and impartial review process, including requirements for the retention of interview notes; and

(c) the interview is conducted in a fair and impartial manner that promotes accountability.

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

I move that Bill C-43 in clause 5 be amended by replacing line 14 on page 2 with the following:

must answer truthfully all questions relevant to the application put to them

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have proposed nine very reasonable amendments which, if accepted, would help produce a more balanced piece of legislation. We hope members will give them fair and honest consideration. We remain committed to working with the government to make sure serious violent offenders are removed from Canada as quickly as possible, but we need to curb the excessive power this bill gives the minister and restore some due process rights to newcomers. Our amendments do just that.

It was clear from the testimony we heard that Bill C-43 is not a silver bullet when it comes to public safety.