Evidence of meeting #65 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was individuals.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
Chair, Immigration Law Section, The Canadian Bar Association
From my reading of this bill, I don't believe that this would have any impact on human trafficking, inadmissibility for human trafficking.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Mr. Daoud, you talked about there being some amendments you'd like to see, slight amendments that you think would be good.
Could you table those amendments with this committee, so we could have a copy of those?
12:55 p.m.
Executive Director, The Refugee Centre
Yes, absolutely. I will give them to you right after.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
It's so we have a chance to see if it's something we can consider or not.
One thing I noticed is that there's nothing in the act that talks about people with PR, permanent residency, in that they're not Canadian citizens, but they're not tourists.
How do we address that issue properly within this legislation, in regard to people with PR status?
12:55 p.m.
Chair, Immigration Law Section, The Canadian Bar Association
I don't think we have addressed that fully in the bill. We don't really understand the full implications for citizens either under the revocation provisions that are proposed.
Permanent residents obviously have very important rights in this country, so it is important to know how they would be impacted. It would be nice to see it a bit more fleshed out in the regulation or the proposed regulations, so that we could understand the mechanism.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
The problem with regulations is that we don't get to go back and look at them or change them here in the committee. It's the government and the bureaucracy that have put forward the regulations, so we can critique them and study them afterwards, but it doesn't mean it allows us to change the legislation to reflect a bad reg or a good reg.
Is there anything else in the implementation of the act that concerns you?
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Mr. Hoback, your time is up. Thank you.
For the final question, we now go to Dr. Fry.
Dr. Fry, you have four minutes.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Thank you very much, Chair.
I want to thank everyone for coming in and for flagging a whole lot of things. As my colleague said, we really need to look at the balance between security, human rights and individual rights.
Thank you. This is a very interesting conversation.
I want to welcome Mr. Kolga, because we worked on Magnitsky together, a long time ago.
I want to go to the Canadian Bar Association. The Canadian Bar Association flagged that the referenced country really does become too broad a net. In other words, we are struggling with it here when we look at what's happening with China, disinformation and the foreign interference question. We don't want to say that the Chinese are not admissible to Canada. How do we balance and define that? I know that you have to name people on the sanctions list, but how do ordinary citizens inadvertently not fall into that particular trap because they come from a bigger country, say, like Belarus, China or Russia? They may have similar names or may have a relationship to somebody who has nothing at all to do with government distinction and government deliberations. How do you do that?
I've heard a lot of people suggest things. Is there somebody with a nice, clean recommendation?
Mr. Bellissimo, it looks like you're ready to put your hand up.
Go ahead.
1 p.m.
Lawyer, Certified Specialist, Bellissimo Law Group Professional Corporation, As an Individual
Thank you. It's an excellent question.
It has to be tied, again, to grounds of violating human or international rights. For any individual who is sanctioned, there has to be a direct link. It cannot be separated out as a stand-alone sanction ground because of geographic location or country. I think that is a step backwards in the legislation we currently have in place. I would caution everyone to be careful moving forward on that basis, because it might be three steps backwards rather than a few steps forward.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Are you recommending that we define that a little bit better in the legislation?
1 p.m.
Lawyer, Certified Specialist, Bellissimo Law Group Professional Corporation, As an Individual
Yes. We are recommending that it remain a sanction tied to grounds of violating human or international rights. For some reason, in this bill, those things have been divorced. They've been decoupled, as my friend from The Refugee Centre said, and I think that's risky in law in terms of enforcement.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Thank you very much.
Now, people have talked a lot about redress, if your name is inadvertently on a list and you want to have it taken off because you are John Smith and there are hundreds of John Smiths around the world. The minister told us at a meeting that there were ways to address that problem. You could go to GAC. You could get relief at the Federal Court. As well, for people who do not have money or the means by which to address those things, there is money being put into legal aid to help them get access to that kind of justice.
Do you think that's sufficient? Do you think there is something else that can be put into place? That's for Mr. Bellissimo, but I'd like to hear from Mr. Kolga as well.
1 p.m.
Lawyer, Certified Specialist, Bellissimo Law Group Professional Corporation, As an Individual
Just very quickly, I'll add that I think you need to leave safety valves in place where there are innocent individuals. There should be more immediate redress within the IRPA, such as ministerial relief and access to the immigration division. It think those safety valves are important, both for the constitutionality of the provisions and for ease of reference. Again, we want to get the bad actors.
Thank you.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Thank you, Mr. Bellissimo.
I'll give Mr. Kolga the last bit of time I have. I don't think I have a lot.
1 p.m.
Liberal
May 11th, 2023 / 1 p.m.
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
We need to be very sure we're not inadvertently creating loopholes that will be exploited by these Russian oligarchs and others who are targeted by those sanctions.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Thank you very much.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our witnesses for having been here, for their testimony, and for answering all the questions posed by the members.
Thank you, Mr. Bellissimo, Mr. Kolga, Ms. Middlemiss, Mr. Michalchyshyn, Mr. Zakydalsky and Mr. Daoud.
We're very grateful indeed.
Is it the will of the committee to adjourn?
(Motion agreed to)
I will just remind everyone that Tuesday is clause-by-clause for Bill S-8.
Thank you.