Finance Committee on May 31st, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Sorbara, we've gone over the time.

Thank you very much. They were great questions.

We now have MP Ste-Marie, please, for the next six minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome all the witnesses.

I'll have some questions for Mr. Vronces, of Fintechs Canada, but I will likely only get to them in my next round. My first questions will be for the representatives of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Thank you, Ms. Sreenivasan and Ms. Jeanes, for coming and for your presentation. I was stunned by what you said about how Bill C‑69 is proposing changes which, without any consultations, would affect four areas and seriously undermine Canada’s authority and international reputation.

Why do you think the government is doing this?

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

Jenny, we can see how we each want to answer it.

It is indeed a concern. Why introduce these changes into a budget bill without going through a more in‑depth consultation process? At the Canadian Council for Refugees, we have a lot of information, considerable expertise and substantiated positions on this subject. We were therefore surprised to see these changes added to the bill in that manner.

The budget included significant funding, which we supported. However, we are not in favour of these particular changes.

We understand that the government has regulatory plans that have not yet been announced, and so it wants to make the legislative amendments quickly to ensure that these regulations will be adopted. But that's not how to make legislative changes. Without having seen the regulations, it's very difficult to know exactly what impact the proposed changes will have.

In any event, we feel that these changes were proposed too quickly. We even believe that there are errors in them and that the government has not fully understood the consequences of these proposed legislative amendments. For example, the expressions and words used are very inflexible.

For example, it says, “the Minister must refer”.

Many of the amendments that would cause automatic guaranteed outcomes to happen to refugee claimants absolutely would not only jeopardize their rights and their justice but also lead to massive backlogs, counterintuitively, in the process.

We're recommending that we put a pause on the refugee and immigration law reforms. Cut them from the bill and find ways to review them separately, or simply delete the measures.

Would you like to add anything, Ms. Jeanes?

[Jenny Jeanes]

I would add that this is not the first time it has happened. In 2019, for example, the government proposed, in a federal budget implementation act, measures in response to the number of people who were crossing the border in order to seek asylum in Canada. The end result was that people who had applied for asylum in the United States were from now on deprived of access to Canada's refugee determination system. We were fiercely opposed to this measure, and in particular to the fact that it had been put forward in connection with a budget.

It's clear that the government is doing this in order to be able to make changes more quickly, but it's the wrong way to go about it.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Unfortunately, we have misgivings about several areas targeted by this bill. Many other witnesses have come to tell us exactly what you have been saying, which is that they were wondering why certain provisions were in this bill and that these had been proposed too quickly and without any prior consultation. It's very worrisome.

Ms. Jeanes, I can't get over the fact that the government wants to put asylum-seekers in federal prisons. Can you tell us more about that? Why is the government proposing that? What should be done instead?

[Jenny Jeanes]

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows the administrative detention of foreign nationals, and sometimes of permanent residents. Canada has three centres administered by the Canada Border Services Agency. In addition, provincial prisons have for a long time been used to detain persons considered high risk, but also others who are not.

You may be aware that all the provinces have announced that they will be putting an end to the practice that allows detention of this kind in their institutions. Although the practice continues in some provinces, it will end soon in keeping with these announcements.

In response to this, the federal government wants to allow detention in federal institutions. The claim is that it will be for high-risk individuals, but that's not necessarily the case.

As these administrative detentions are tied to immigration rather than justice, we believe that the agency should be able to administer these detentions itself through appropriate supervision or control.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you. You've just given us a lot of information.

So, according to you, the Canada Border Services Agency should be handling this, not federal prisons. Is that right?

[Jenny Jeanes]

That's right. What's needed is a program with a wider range of alternatives. There could, for example, be training, mental health support and addiction programs. All kinds of less expensive and more appropriate measures could be introduced.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

It's clear that this part of the bill is raising a lot of questions.

In short, what you're suggesting is removing this entire section of the bill so that it could be studied in a separate bill. That would make it possible to consult other organizations like yours and various other specialists in this area, which could lead to something more coherent. Is that right?

[Jenny Jeanes]

That's it exactly.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste-Marie.

Now we'll go to MP Davies for the next six minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

This is for the Canadian Council for Refugees. Can you confirm approximately how many people are detained in Canada under immigration law each year?

[Jenny Jeanes]

The statistics are available on CBSA's website.

Before COVID, it was in the range of about 8,000 people. It was much lower during COVID. We've seen a gradual ramping up. I don't have the latest numbers in front of me, but we can send them to you. As I said, they're on CBSA's website. At any given moment, there are usually about a couple hundred people detained, but there's quite a turnover in the numbers, with some short-term and some very long-term detentions.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Can you give us a flavour of what that population looks like? What proportion of those individuals are detained because the CBSA suspects they may not appear for an immigration proceeding or is not satisfied with their identity documents versus detained because they may pose a risk to public safety?

[Jenny Jeanes]

Again, there are quite detailed statistics on the CBSA website. I'm just looking at—

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

I can help you, Jenny.

[Jenny Jeanes]

Thank you, Gauri. Go ahead.

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

Over 90% of those currently in immigration detention, including those held in provincial jails, are held for those reasons. There are concerns they may be missing an identity document, or there's a question about whether they will turn up for a hearing. Fewer than 5% are identified as potentially being a high security risk. The vast majority of those detained, including those in provincial jails, are held for questions about identity and how to find them for a document, which is why a place where criminals are held is a completely inappropriate institution for incarceration.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm going to get to that in a moment.

Just to get a flavour, though, of the demographics, can you give us an idea of what proportion of those detained in Canada under immigration law are children, mothers with infants or people with disabilities?

[Jenny Jeanes]

Very few children have been officially detained over the past few years. We don't actually have reporting on people with disabilities or, for example, pregnant women.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Is there currently any time limit on immigration detention laid out in Canadian law?

[Jenny Jeanes]

No, Canadian law has no limit. There is a review by the Immigration and Refugee Board on a statutory time frame: after 48 hours of detention, again seven days later and, after that, every 30 days until the person is released or removed from Canada. Canadian law has no time frame, no limit, whatsoever.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Per The Globe and Mail, “Immigration Minister Marc Miller insisted that [federal] prisons would only be used for ‘a very small segment’ of the migrant population, which he described as ‘not criminals,’ but ‘high-risk’ individuals who often have ‘severe mental health problems.’”

In your view, do correctional facilities have the appropriate expertise and capacity in place to act as mental health care facilities for those who are detained under immigration law?

[Jenny Jeanes]

If they're in a mental health crisis, there's nothing stopping somebody who's detained for immigration reasons from being taken to a mental health-specialized hospital, for example. They remain detained while they receive the care and treatment they need for a mental health crisis. This happens all the time. Then once they've stabilized, if they're still legally detained, they could be brought back to a detention facility. The same thing could happen if somebody were to be violent, destroy property or commit any other criminal act. They could be criminally charged and dealt with in the criminal justice system.

Our position is that people who are in immigration detention should be in immigration detention facilities. If at all, we recommend the use of alternatives—mental health and other treatments—where needed, but you'll see in the budget that the amounts necessary to convert federal facilities to immigration stations are astronomical. We believe that the same funds could be used to expand alternatives, do mental health training and do security training if needed. Any kind of training would be more appropriate, more humane and far less costly than converting federal facilities.

We really fear there will be de facto solitary confinement. Somebody may not officially be in solitary confinement but be that way de facto because they're separated from anybody else. They are held alone. This already happens in immigration holding centres and is more likely to happen for this small number of people who would be in federal facilities.