Foreign Affairs Committee on May 11th, 2023

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I particularly want to ask Ms. Middlemiss and Mr. Bellissimo about their experience as legal advisers in removing people from our sanctions list.

You both spoke extensively about the problems in the system. I'm just wondering about your expertise in that area and your experience in the number of cases you've had of people you've removed or have been unsuccessful in removing from those lists.

[Lisa Middlemiss]

I think I'll allow my colleague, Mr. Bellissimo, to take this one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. Bellissimo, please proceed.

[Mario Bellissimo]

The reality is that immigration lawyers are not dealing with individuals who have been sanctioned, because, as you can see from the testimony, it's just not come up in 20 years.

The system is quite robust now. The dangers of what I'm discussing are.... In the 26 years of seeing what legislation falls for constitutional challenges or for other reasons and ends up getting struck down, what happens is there's almost an echo chamber. There's a lot of emotion and a lot of energy. There's an issue where you can almost get into a situation in which, by targeting the bad actors—whom we all agree we want to eliminate—and by going so far, those bad actors suddenly have legal options available to them because the law is so broad and so vague. Suddenly the law—

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

Thank you. My time is limited.

Ms. Middlemiss, do you have a comment on that?

[Lisa Middlemiss]

I think it's very rare, as Mr. Bellissimo said.

We heard it in testimony yesterday as well. I believe in the Senate, one of the government officials said that only 25 individuals had applied for a visa and then been found to be inadmissible for sanctions.

It hasn't come up a lot yet, but if it does come up—because we're talking about an expanded inadmissibility regime—I believe it would probably look like a very cryptic process in which you don't know the evidence in front of you, which is sort of similar to cases of security.

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

Thank you.

I'd just like to use my remaining minute to give a shout-out to our officials at Global Affairs Canada. I fear they may have sensed they were maligned today. The sanctions regime in Canada, as I think Mr. Kolga said, is one of the most profound in the world. It is different. Every jurisdiction has a different legislation. We have three pieces of legislation and we have a committed group of officials who diligently investigate.

They do it in partnership with allies, Mr. Chair. They also do it on recommendations from civil society, but it's not a majority vote. It's not as though people come as neutral players and suddenly say that someone should be on the list and they get on the list. That's not the way the public service works. They take very seriously the responsibilities and, equally, they need to do it when someone is removed from the list.

I think we will have a sanctions study that can look at that process, but I just wanted to make sure that they didn't feel that this committee was saying that they were somehow failing in those duties. I think our activities—particularly since Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine—on Belarusian and Russian autocrats have been fantastic.

I just wanted to get that on the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant.

We next go to Madame Vignola.

You have two minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much.

We talked about inadmissibility for sanctions related to a person, an entity or a country. The word “country” seems to be very broad.

Would limiting sanctions to persons and entities be a way to prevent an overly broad scope, Mr. Daoud?

[Abdulla Daoud]

I think we just have to follow the recommendations put forward by Mario and the CBA and me, just to define the terminology so that we're targeting individuals. Once we go to the proposed 35.1(1), I've stated that it should be defined, as far as we believe it should be worded, as foreign nationals inadmissible for sanctions on grounds of “violating human or international rights”. This rejoins the term back to what it currently is and takes away the broadness, ensuring that we're not casting a big net. Hopefully that will push it forward.

Also, I would probably push the question toward my colleagues as well.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Middlemiss.

The Sergei Magnitsky Law and the Special Economic Measures Act have similar definitions of “foreign state”. The Sergei Magnitsky Law defines it as follows:

means a country other than Canada, and includes

(a) any of its political subdivisions;

(b) its government and any of its departments, or the government or any department of any of its political subdivisions;

(c) any of its agencies or any agency of any of its political subdivisions.

Does that need to be changed? Could merely being from another country, as currently defined, be grounds for inadmissibility?

If you don't have enough time to answer, I'd ask that you please submit your answer in writing to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Answer very briefly, please. Again, I'm sorry. It's already been two minutes, so could you condense your response to no more than 20 seconds, please?

[Lisa Middlemiss]

The sanctions could be included. Bill S‑8 covers all types of sanctions against a country, even economic sanctions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We will next go to Madam McPherson. You have two minutes, please.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair, and again, thank you to the witnesses for being here.

I have a question for UCC. One of the things we know is that we have a problem with not just making sure people who are sanctioned don't come here, but also dealing with folks who are already here. It has been brought to our attention that there are 81, I believe, Russian diplomats and diplomatic staff who are still in Canada, yet there are only 25 from Ukraine.

Mr. Oliphant has said that our sanctions regime is among the best in the world, but I would argue that perhaps the enforcement, perhaps the transparency.... The clarity is not top of the line. Could you comment on that?

[Ihor Michalchyshyn]

Thank you.

On the issue of the expulsion of Russian diplomats, our position is that we should be closing all of the Russian missions—the 81 people—and it's up to Canada to decide how many Russian spies we want to have in Canada. We've been making the point that they are not here on benevolent work. Our NATO and EU allies have expelled hundreds of these “diplomats”. We know they are here fomenting online and real hate against parliamentarians and against our democratic institutions and our community.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

That's against members of different community groups as well.

Mr. Zakydalsky.

[Orest Zakydalsky]

On the point of sanctions methodology and enforcement, the short answer is we don't know why some people are left off our lists. That, I think, would be a question to put to officials and to the minister. We certainly don't understand why some people have been left off who have been sanctioned by our allies.

In terms of enforcement, part of what we hope your upcoming study looks at is the kinds of resources that are needed by the RCMP and other enforcement bodies to indeed find any assets that are here, freeze them, and hopefully seize them soon and turn them over to Ukraine for reconstruction.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you. That is why I brought that study forward, so that we could actually get to the bottom of some of that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We next go to Mr. Epp.

Mr. Epp, you have four minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will begin online, with Mr. Bellissimo, specifically to the fifth recommendation that you brought forward. I believe that was put forward by the CBA. It specifically states that “a Canadian refugee determination, whether inland or abroad, should lead automatically to the deletion of the name of the person from...all sanctions lists.”

I'm going to ask you to comment on what you might feel the impact would be on irregular immigration into this country. Would that slow it? Immigration is something that we all support around the table, but ordered immigration.

Can you comment, please?

[Mario Bellissimo]

It's a recommendation made by Mr. David Matas.

The impact on regular arrivals, given the amendments to the safe third country agreement, would now be minimal at best. The issue with the delisting is that even though there's access to refugee status, there is no access to any sort of status, be it temporary or permanent, until you're delisted, so those individuals remain in a state of legislative limbo. That, practically speaking, would be very difficult moving forward. I think it's a part of the bill that hasn't embraced the next step of what happens when someone is able to make a claim but not to seek any sort of status while remaining in Canada.

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

I'm going to cede the rest of my time to my colleague, Mr. Hoback.

Before I do, I'm going to make a statement that I'm wrestling in terms of the balancing of security and safety concerns with some of the legitimate concerns that we've heard today.

We heard in the testimony from the senator this morning that speed and urgency were behind pushing forward Bill S-8, and that's why it was introduced in the Senate. However, I have to ask myself why, given it's been a year since that process started, we are now faced with it. I feel a sense of urgency for the situation in Ukraine, but I will acknowledge some of the concerns that I've heard from other parties.

Go ahead, Mr. Hoback.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

You have two minutes remaining, Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I'm curious about something. I asked the senator in regard to the removal of certain sections that related to human organ trafficking, and he said that it was encompassed in another part of the bill.

I'm not sure if it would be you, Ms. Middlemiss, to best answer this.

When it comes to human trafficking, has the terminology changed in such a way? Is there a justification for removal of that from this piece of legislation?