Foreign Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2023

[Stephen Burridge]

In June of last year, the government passed new amendments to both the Special Economic Measures Act and the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act. These amendments give the government the authority to seize and forfeit any assets that are held in Canada by a listed individual or entity. That decision is looked at on a case-by-case basis, and assets in Canada, especially financial assets, are proactively disclosed by financial institutions to the RCMP.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you. We're out of time, I'm afraid.

We now go to the last question and to Mr. Oliphant.

You have five minutes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a couple of quick questions to make sure we're all on the same page.

The first thing is that my colleague, Madam Bendayan, brought forward the issue of the problem of Bill C-21 and a concordance issue, to make sure that we weren't superimposing an act over something that had just been changed. Do you know of any other acts that we may need to make amendments for in this act to make sure that we are not tripping over ourselves, as well?

[Kelly Acton]

Mr. Chair, I would offer that, in terms of coordinating amendments, there were changes made to the inadmissibility regime under Bill S-223 around trafficking in human organs. In bringing these additional changes to the inadmissibility regime, there are coordinating amendments to—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

It's my understanding that there would need to be technical amendments to coordinate Bill S-223—Senator Ataullahjan's bill, sponsored by Mr. Genuis—to make sure that we don't superimpose something over a bill that we just passed.

[Kelly Acton]

That is correct—and that we not undo—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

We may have some amendments that the government would need to bring on that issue. That's not my department, but I understand that may happen.

Okay, I wanted to clarify that.

The second issue is that I feel a bit like I'm in an alternate universe, and it seems to me that we have blended a bunch of issues. I just want to make sure that, if I'm explaining this to my constituents, I'm correct.

We have a sanctions regime that is operated—very different from criminal checks under our immigration or public safety—under three possible acts: SEMA, the Sergei Magnitsky Law and our UN agreement. That is a process that you do. We have people who may have fallen through the cracks and been allowed to come in because there's been discretion in the system where visa officers may not be following this. We're making it very clear under IRPA that, if you're sanctioned under these sections, you are inadmissible as opposed to discretionarily inadmissible. Am I correct on that?

[Kelly Acton]

Yes, I'm just—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

The process of sanctioning is a temporary measure taken, hopefully, inshallah, to make sure people change their behaviours. You can get off that list if you change your behaviour. That's the nature of a sanction. Am I correct?

[Stephen Burridge]

I would say that sanctions ultimately have a number of goals, one being to change the behaviour of states or individuals. There are other impacts sanctions can have, including signalling, preventative, etc.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Yes. You're sending a strong message. What we're adding through this kind of housekeeping bill is making sure the three regimes we do sanctioning on are in agreement with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act admissibility. It would then be implemented through a Public Safety removal order, if they're in Canada. CBSA would be monitoring this, so we have double checks.

This is, to me, not a big deal. Am I missing something? We have procedures whereby you can be taken off a sanctions list. There is an appeal process under those. The UN one is a bit different, but under that.... We'll get into that in our sanctions. However, there is still some degree of discretion if mistakes have been made. Largely, this bill is to take the discretion out of that, to ensure the bad people don't get to squeak through and get into Canada when they've been sanctioned—trusting that our sanctions regime, which is very rigorous, is correct.

Am I getting it, so I can explain it to the people of Don Valley West?

[Kelly Acton]

Thank you.

Yes, I think this is a closing of the gap. It is an alignment of regimes. I think it's also fair to say that it doesn't necessarily introduce new discretion. As you say, it is about alignment across all regimes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I have a last question, but I'm probably running out of time.

Other countries have sanction regimes. We try to do our sanctions in concert with other countries, because they're more effective that way. We do it with the EU, the U.K., the U.S., like-minded partners, etc.

Do other countries have a similar thing about inadmissibility with sanctions? Are we getting in step with them? Are we leading the pack? Are we behind the pack? Where are we with other countries on the relationship between admissibility and sanctions, knowing we have a very different Immigration and Refugee Protection Act?

[Stephen Burridge]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Very quickly, yes, this would be bringing us in alignment with the measures a number of our allies are able to impose, including our G7 partners. Some of them are linked to sanctions directly. Others, including the United States, have other mechanisms that allow them to impose things like visa or travel bans.

This will give us the ability to ensure that all of those listed under our sanctions are inadmissible.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

In any time I have left—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

No, I'm afraid not, Mr. Oliphant. You have no time remaining.

At this point, we conclude the questions.

Allow me to thank all the officials who appeared before us today. Thank you Mr. Bush, Ms. Acton, Mr. Aubertin-Giguère, Ms. Fradette, Mr. Chan and Mr. Burridge. I'm very grateful for your time, and for your patience in explaining this framework to us.

Now we will give the officials a few minutes to leave. We will very soon be going in camera to talk about the travel proposal.

[Proceedings continue in camera]