Foreign Affairs Committee on May 11th, 2023

[Orest Zakydalsky]

One of the issues is that the models used by these businesses are complex and are designed precisely to avoid sanctions regimes. They put up a trust, etc. There are all sorts of mechanisms people can use to make sure that the asset held by someone sanctioned is not actually sanctioned.

Certainly, we've seen cases brought in the United Kingdom by Russian oligarchs to get their assets unsanctioned or returned. As our legislation evolves, so too do the methods to circumvent it. I think one of the things that we'll need to do is to keep up with those methods that the individuals and the entities we seek to sanction use to avoid the sanctions once they're placed.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Daoud, I'm going to ask you to comment, because you've raised the concern that automatically making inadmissibility through the SEMA sanctions makes it too broad for exactly the.... Can you respond to the concerns you've just heard on the evasive tactics of the oligarchs? How would you respond to that?

[Abdulla Daoud]

Sure. Listen, I'm not a legal expert in this matter, but in terms of what they're referring to, they're talking about the assets of certain individuals, and that is a completely different discussion.

Here, we're talking about foreign nationals and their admissibility into Canada. Our concern in regard to this bill and this legislation is that we're casting too big a net. We're going to be impacting a lot of innocent individuals. We're not talking about assets here. We're talking about individuals' inadmissibility into Canada. We're talking about their relationships and how they could be misrepresented in terms of where they're from.

Given our population and the people we deal with, there are a lot of innocent individuals who are trying to come into Canada who are parts of.... There's a huge list of countries on our sanctions list. I mentioned Venezuela as an example, but there's Syria and there's Yemen. All these individuals are parts of states where they could be tied as shareholders. They could be tied by just having money in their bank. They could be tied to other individuals just by a misspelling of their name, as mentioned earlier.

This casts way too large a net. We're missing a lot of nuances, and I think that's pretty glaring, given how fast this bill was put through the Senate.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Are you concerned, though, about speed?

[Abdulla Daoud]

I'm concerned about speed without a looking over of the actual bill. As we have seen in the previous testimony from the Honourable Peter Harder, he said that this was one of the fastest things they've passed. Typically, when you pass things this fast, it means you've overlooked a couple of things.

We're bringing our concern, and I think it's well backed by the CBA and by Mario Bellissimo's testimony—he's a leading expert in this field—that we need to tweak a couple of things. We're not asking for a major change. We're asking for simple definitions that if done, I think, could accomplish both goals very efficiently.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Epp.

Next is Mr. Zuberi.

You have five minutes.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here in person and by Zoom.

I want to start off with Ms. Middlemiss from the Canadian Bar Association, as an immigration lawyer. I want to confirm that if the legislation stays as is, an individual who is named under a sanctions list and also becomes inadmissible through immigration pathways because of this legislation still has recourse to the preremoval risk assessment.

[Lisa Middlemiss]

Yes. There's a very limited measure left for the PRRA, as we would call it. It removes a mechanism for ministerial discretion as well as oversight by the immigration division that would currently exist for those who are subject to an international sanction. That provision would be removed. The person would be left with dealing with Global Affairs Canada, trying to apply for their name to be delisted or for what they call “a certificate of mistaken identity”. From what I understand, it is a very complex process.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

To confirm, they would still have access to the preremoval risk assessment.

[Lisa Middlemiss]

That is my understanding, yes.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Okay. Also, on top of that, they can still apply to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to be removed from the sanctions list.

[Lisa Middlemiss]

Yes, but as I said, I think there's trouble with that. I noticed that there was a study from this committee in 2017. There was talk about how that process is very obscure, I guess.

Basically, the committee called for more of an independent administrative process, because it's hard to know what reason you're being sanctioned for. There are security partners like CSIS that come up with why you're on the list. There are some questions of procedural fairness for people who may allege that they have been erroneously listed.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Do you think that those mechanisms should be made more accessible to applicants for removal from the sanctions list, let's say by the foreign affairs minister?

[Lisa Middlemiss]

The difficulty with this bill is that it puts inadmissibility in the hands of Global Affairs Canada instead of in the hands of the IRPA.

We have a whole regime to govern inadmissibility, which has been in place for 20 years with the IRPA. It's very adept at treating individuals and giving them procedural fairness while still keeping bad actors out.

We have subsection 35(1), paragraphs (c), (d) and (e). That covers SEMA, the Magnitsky act and international sanctions for human rights violations primarily.

Expanding this inadmissibility regime beyond those to international economic sanctions is casting the net quite wide.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I wanted to touch on what you said.

Both you and Mr. Daoud talked about the overbreadth when it comes to “entity”.

What is your recommendation about narrowing that definition so that it encompasses those who we really are...? When they're sanctioned as individuals, there is a robust threshold, which can include, as you said in your testimony, “a country” or a government. There was a very broad threshold there.

How do we narrow it so that it meets the threshold that, when we study the individual, will match it for the entity when it comes to a government in question? Are we talking about leadership, middle management or rank and file? What's your commentary on that?

[Lisa Middlemiss]

I think we'd have to consult a sanctions expert, perhaps Dr. Andrea Charron, for the definition.

The most important thing I think is to define it within the immigration law context, so that individuals are aware of what applies to them in terms of whether they can come to Canada and stay in Canada. Perhaps there's a definition that is a little less broad but still keeps out the people we're trying to keep out.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Finally, I'd like to confirm that “sanctions” is defined in other legislation. We know that in this specific bill, it's not defined there, but it is defined in other legislation in question. Is that correct?

[Lisa Middlemiss]

In other legislation it is...you're right.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

When it comes to those sanctioned on a UN list, they—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm afraid you're out of time, Mr. Zuberi.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

—cannot remove themselves before [Inaudible—Editor]. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

You can very briefly respond.

[Lisa Middlemiss]

I'm sorry. I didn't catch it.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Regarding those who are sanctioned on a UN list, they cannot remove themselves through a domestic Canadian mechanism. They have to appeal to international instances. Is that correct?