Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Our meeting will now come to order.

I want to welcome all of you here today. I welcome the Canadian Council for Refugees and thank them for having taken time out of their busy schedules to be with us today to talk about refugee issues. I welcome the three members: Francisco Rico-Martinez, co-chair of the working group on inland protection; Janet Dench, executive director; and Debra Simpson. Welcome to our committee today.

Generally, the format is that you have ten minutes or so to make your presentation to the committee. Then we will go into questions and discussion and what have you, starting at the left and going right around the table.

I will turn the meeting over to you for your presentation.

Good morning.

[Janet Dench, Executive Director, Canadian Council for Refugees]

Good morning, and thank you very much.

We're going to be making the presentation with all three of us taking part.

I will begin by introducing you to the Canadian Council for Refugees, which is an umbrella organization of approximately 170 organizations across Canada committed to the rights of refugees and immigrants.

Our mandate calls on us to work for the protection of refugees in Canada and around the world and for the settlement in Canada of refugees and immigrants.

In 28 years of existence, the CCR has established itself as the leading advocate for refugees in Canada.

We are pleased to have this opportunity to speak with you about some of our concerns relating to Canadian refugee policies and programs, as you begin your study of refugees issues.

According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants World Refugee Survey 2006, there are 7.89 million refugees who have been warehoused for five years or more, refugees who have no durable solution. It also reports 21 million internally displaced persons. Yet Canada is now offering asylum and a new home to fewer refugees than in the past.

In 2005 the number of refugee claims made in Canada was under 20,000 for the first time since sometime in the mid-1980s. This compares with an average of 34,700 over the previous five years. This low 2005 number was largely the result of the designation of the U.S. as a safe third country, closing the door to most refugees at the U.S.-Canada border. At the same time, in 2005 the numbers resettled were stagnant. In fact, privately sponsored refugees came in under the bottom end of the range.

We have a broad range of concerns relating to refugees, and there's no time here to go into all of them. Other issues one could talk about relate to government-assisted refugees, interdiction measures, settlement issues for refugees, and the impact of negative public opinion and misconceptions about refugees.

We do want to note, without going into detail here, our concern about processing fees that refugees recognized in Canada must pay for permanent residence--that's $550 per adult. These create significant hardships.

We also want to underline the concern over the continuing detention of children, including some who are seeking asylum in Canada. This raises a more general issue that relates to Canada Border Services Agency, and we have questions about how this committee deals with the split between CIC and CBSA and the confusion that entails, including, with respect, parliamentary committee oversight.

Finally, as a general introductory comment, we would like to encourage members of the committee to attend our full consultation in Montreal in November. This would be a great opportunity for you to learn more about all these issues and many more. The theme of our fall consultation is youth, and perhaps some of you might be able to sponsor a refugee youth from your riding to attend the consultation.

I'll pass over to Debra to talk about private sponsorship.

[Debra Simpson, Member, Canadian Council for Refugees]

The private sponsorship of refugees program is one of the issues you've identified as of interest to you, and also of high priority. It's also of high priority to the CCR.

Following are some reasons why you should care about the private sponsorship of refugees program. It's the only program of its kind in the world that allows citizens to make their own contribution on top of what the government does to the resettlement of refugees in need of protection and a permanent home. Sponsor contributions include financial support roughly equivalent to $79 million annually. The cost to the government to resettle these refugees is minimal.

Largely because of private sponsorship efforts, the people of Canada were awarded the Nansen Medal in 1986. It was the first time the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had awarded this medal to an entire nation.

Communities right across Canada, large and small, can participate in welcoming refugees through private sponsorship. This allows communities to get to know refugees face-to-face and build a commitment to upholding Canada's humanitarian traditions as well as facilitating successful integration and reducing xenophobia.

The private sponsorship of refugees program complements the government resettlement program, which largely relies on referrals by the UNHCR, and allows Canada to respond to refugees in need who would otherwise fall through the cracks.

In the last ten years, 29,000 refugees were able to find a permanent home in Canada as a result of this program. If the government permits, sponsors can do even more in the next ten years.

If it's so great, what's the problem? There is a lack of clear government support for private sponsorship as shown by the low targets, roughly 3,000 to 4,000 per year, significantly below the willingness of sponsors to be involved.

We're also concerned that actual arrivals are at the bottom end of the range. In fact, in 2005 we didn't even meet the bottom end of the range. As a result, there is an accumulated backlog--roughly 14,000 as of September 1, 2006--and there are long delays. For visa office processing alone, 50% of cases take more than 22 months. One in five cases takes more than 34 months. And we are concerned about the perception of the program and the sponsorships we submit from CIC and visa posts oversees.

Our recommendations include increasing the targets significantly for privately sponsored refugees in the 2007 annual immigration plan and increasing the resources for processing privately sponsored refugees to ensure that these targets are met and that the backlog is eliminated. We also recommend that the committee study private sponsorship refusal rates in order to better understand the reasons for refusals.

I will now turn to Francisco.

[Francisco Rico-Martinez, Co-Chair, Working Group on Inland Protection, Canadian Council for Refugees]

Good morning. I am going to talk about refugee determination in Canada.

First, to talk about the positives, the fundamentals of Canada's refugee system are sound. Refugee determination is inherently difficult. Beware of those who advise you to throw out the current system in favour of some other supposedly more efficient system. Look at other countries that make amendments to the refugee system as often as they change their socks, supposedly fixing the refugee system, but in reality making it tougher for refugees.

Positive aspects of the refugee determination system include: most claimants get an oral hearing on their merits before the decision-maker; independent quasi-judicial tribunal with expertise in refugee determination; excellent research and documentation services decision-makers can rely on. What we need are some changes to the refugee system to build on it, not dismantle it. The refugee determination system in Canada has a strong foundation.

Now the negatives. Since the current refugee determination system came into effect in 1989, refugees' advocates have consistently drawn attention to two major flaws: the lack of a bill, and the appointment system to the Immigration and Refugee Board. Since then, a third has been added: safe third country agreement. We won't get into this here. We'll refer you to the CCR report on the first years of the safe third country agreement. The name of the report is Closing the Front Door on Refugees: Report on Safe Third Country Agreement It was published August 4, 2005.

The U.S.-Canada safe third country agreement called for a first review of the agreement and implementation no later than 12 months from the date of entering into force. The 12 months were up in December 2005. Nine months later, the reviews have still not been made public.

We take this opportunity to remind you that in December 2002 this committee adopted a report outlining a number of concerns with respect to the safe third country agreement and making a series of recommendations. The last recommendation reads:

The Committee recommends that when the Department performs a full review of the Agreement one year after its implementation, it should report its findings to this Committee. The Department's report to the Committee should include the following information....

There follows a long list of information requested by the committee. This has not been done.

With regard to the Refugee Appeal Division, the act passed by Parliament in 2001 includes a right of appeal. The implementation of the act without the right of appeal subverts the will of Parliament and undermines the democratic process. Members of Parliament agreed to the reduction of decision-makers in each case from two to one, because refugee claimants were still going to get an appeal process. Since 2002, refugee claimants are heard by a single decision-maker, with no right of appeal on the merits.

Inevitably, mistakes are made. Any human decision-making process is subject to error. This is even more the case with refugee determination, a very difficult process involving things happening in different countries, when information is often limited and testimony is usually heard through an interpreter. Yet the consequences of a wrong decision are huge. It may be a matter of life and death. As has been said, since the abolition of the death penalty, refugee determination is the one place where Canada's decision-makers are making life-and-death decisions. And yet there is no meaningful review of a negative decision. The only possible review is a judicial review, which is a narrow legal review, and most importantly, only by leave.

Only one in ten applications for leave to the Federal Court is granted. That means that nine out of ten claimants who ask for even this limited review are denied. There are no other reviews. Other recourses that may be available for refugee claimants are H and C, or humanitarian and compassionate applications, and the pre-removal risk assessment applications. These do not review the initial IRB decision. On the contrary, they regularly use the negative IRB decision against the person who is using these recourses.

On December 14, 2004, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration unanimously adopted the following motion:

Whereas: the Refugee Appeal Division is included in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act; Parliament has passed the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and can therefore expect that it be implemented; the House of Commons and parliamentarians have a right to expect that the Government of Canada will honour its commitments;

...or advise the committee as to an alternative proposal without delay.

The recommendations about this: Ask the government to account for the non-implementation of the committee's earlier motion regarding the Refugee Appeal Division. Support the private member's bill calling for the immediate implementation of the Refugee Appeal Division.

The next topic is the Immigration and Refugee Board appointments. Appointments to the IRB have been a longstanding problem. There have been improvements with the introduction of a merit-based selection process. However, the process still depends on the government in power actually making the necessary appointments in a non-political manner. This has not been happening, and the IRB is facing a crisis now, a deep crisis, due to the failure of the government to reappoint qualified members and to appoint sufficient new members.

[Debra Simpson]

I would like to address family reunification. It's important to recognize that the process does not finish for refugees once they are granted refugee status. They still need to get permanent residence and in many cases reunite with family members from whom they have been separated. It's scandalous that Canada allows family reunification for refugees to drag on for years in many cases. A few examples: one out of five cases in Islamabad takes more than 39 months, one out of five cases in Colombo takes more than 35 months, and in Nairobi it takes more than 30 months.

The long delays, of course, are very costly for the refugees, for their family members, and for Canadian society at large. As long as refugees are separated from their spouse and their children, they cannot settle down. Families that are reunited after a long separation are more fragile. Children who wait two to three years in a vulnerable situation before arriving in Canada are more likely to have health problems and to be behind in their schooling.

A particular and inexcusable problem is that there is no mechanism for children recognized as refugees to be reunited with their parents and/or their siblings. This is clearly in violation of Canada's obligation to facilitate reunification of children with their parents.

Recommendation: that family members of refugees be authorized to travel immediately to Canada to finalize processing of their permanent resident applications in Canada, and that the regulations be changed to allow refugee children to include parents and siblings on their application for permanent residence.

There are also many other concerns relating to family reunification that also affect some immigrants. We particularly highlight the devastating impact of the so-called excluded family member rule, regulation 117.( 9)(d). This creates permanent separation of families, including of children from their parents.

[Janet Dench]

Many members of this committee met on May 9 with the Lives on Hold delegation that came to draw attention to the very difficult situation of nationals of countries to which Canada does not deport because of a situation of generalized risks, generally called moratorium countries.

Nationals of these countries who are not recognized as refugees are protected against deportation by the moratorium, but there is no sure mechanism by which they can become permanent residents and get on with their lives, even if they have been in Canada for over 10 years.

The Minister reminded the delegation that they can always apply for humanitarian and compassionate consideration.

Over the summer, a number of people found out in a painful way that humanitarian and compassionate grounds do not offer them a solution. A whole series of negative decisions have been received by moratorium country nations, that is by people who have been in Canada for over four years, and some six, seven or even thirteen years.

Among those refused was a Congolese family. Their father was among the delegation that met with Members of Parliament on May 9. This is a family that speaks French and English, the parents and the oldest daughter are all working, the younger children are doing well in school, there is no criminality and all are in good health. They come from a moratorium country and have been in Canada for five years.

What more can one need to be accepted? Yet, their application was rejected. The impact of this rejection is devastating for the family. Their children remaining in Congo have no way to come to join them in Canada and the children in Canada will have to give up dreams of post-secondary education. The parents must resign themselves to continuing in minimum wage jobs, even though they have a professional background.

Some of these negative decisions have been analyzed by the Lives on Hold Coalition. Our report, “Lives on Hold – The Limits of H & C”, showed that H and C decision-making is extremely inconsistent. Similar cases get different answers. This inconsistency is inherent to H and C because it is a discretionary process in which individual officers reach their own conclusions about whether humanitarian intervention is required or not.

There are many people in Canada without status, and the CCR urges parliamentarians to work on solutions for regularization. In the meantime, an urgent solution should be brought to the situation of moratorium nationals in limbo. Their case is particularly compelling, given the acknowledged situation of risk in their home country, which means that they cannot be removed. Everyone stands to gain by letting them get on with their lives.

We have two recommendations, then, in terms of policy. The first is to adopt a regulatory class providing permanent residence to all persons from countries to which Canada does not remove and who have been in Canada for three or more years. Secondly, in terms of process, we encourage you to invite the Lives on Hold Coalition to one of your meetings to learn more about their situation.

And there we conclude our presentation. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you very much.

Could you talk a little bit more about family reunification and why it's taking so long, up to three or four years, to have families reunited? I'm personally working on a case—just completed, as a matter of fact—in which it has taken three years to bring a family from Nairobi back to St. John's. I'm really not sure why it has taken so long. What, in your opinion, is the main reason for the great delay in family reunification?

[Janet Dench]

One of the things to note is that the timelines vary enormously among visa offices. In some offices, it often happens within a matter of months, which is, of course, the way it should be, in our view. The disparity among these offices is in itself troubling, because people should not be treated differently depending on where their family members are.

It also points to a problem that exists in visa offices. It seems that some visa officers are simply overwhelmed by the number of files they have to process and it takes them a long time to get to the files that need to be dealt with.

We have talked at some length to the immigration department about the various barriers that exist in the process. Some are things that are beyond the control of the family members of the refugees here in Canada, such as requirements for documents that prove the family relationship. This sometimes leads to immigration officers making a request for DNA testing. It's a process that in itself lengthens the delays because it takes quite a lot of time. Sometimes the refugees have to wait until they can get the money together, because it's very expensive, not to speak of the actual processing time.

A number of efforts have been made by the immigration department to speed it up. But when we see that the delays remain so long despite their attention to this issue, it then brings us back to this question: Why don't we take the bull by the horns, recognize this is unacceptable, let the family members come to Canada, and do the processing in Canada? It would probably be cheaper for us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Would having people process the visas, and DNA testing, and what have you, mostly be a human resource problem at their end?

[Janet Dench]

It seems to partly be the problem. They also speak about the difficulties of communication.

Obviously, refugee family members by definition are often in very difficult situations. They may be in countries that are torn apart by war. In some cases, we're also dealing with separated children. The parents are in Canada and the child is left behind to stay with a relative or neighbour. Even for these cases, which we would think most Canadians would find absolutely compelling in the highest order, it can go on for months or over a year in many cases.

If there are consistently a variety of different barriers to it being speeded up, why not simply say these people should immediately travel to Canada and sort out the paperwork here?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Rico-Martinez.

[Francisco Rico-Martinez]

It is also the lack of understanding of the process by the family members who are overseas and the people here. There is no really clear publication or explanation. Most of the time, the explanation they receive is in the hands of the NGOs or the community centres try to explain the process that they have in front of them. Overseas, sometimes there is a lack of understanding of what the DNA process means.

We have a case where a mother here is sending money and everything back home to Eritrea. The person taking care of the two small children decided it was too expensive to bring the two children to the lab. They brought two other children who were of similar ages because they didn't have a clue as to the whole implication of DNA testing. We now have a problem where the children have been denied entry to Canada because the DNA doesn't match the mother. We have to convince Immigration Canada that basically something stupid happened. They ask us how we can dare tell them that someone doesn't understand DNA testing.

It's part of the reality we deal with. It's the lack of understanding of a process that is so complex and demanding. It demands too many things of people. They basically get lost in the whole process, and that complicates it even more. It's a situation of a lack of resources.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

We will now go to our questioners.

I'll start with Andrew, for seven minutes.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Since the Conservatives took the first round of questions, I guess Mr. Komarnicki will give a pass on the first round.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor].

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Well, we do that. I used to do that as chair to make sure everybody got a round. Then at the end, when it came to me, I took the question.

I'm glad you raised the issue of wasting time and resources and the problems there. If you look at the department, we waste an incredible amount of resources, time, and manpower on incredibly stupid things, I think, one of them being the DNA. It's very costly and it serves as a barrier to people getting here, particularly from Africa. People are in incredible danger, sitting there waiting in a war zone, if you will. Nobody around this table would disagree that the refugee camps in the Sudan or Darfur are anything but very dangerous, where women--and children, I might add--cannot go outside to gather wood without the risk of being raped.

Another place where we waste our time is with the type of case that's in the press right now, the case of Mr. Joe Taylor. We as a committee met with Mr. Taylor, the son of a Canadian serviceman and his war bride. We're spending an incredible amount of resources fighting this case in the courts. Mr. Taylor won in the courts, a Federal Court judge ruled parts of the Citizenship Act unconstitutional, and yet the government appealed the decision at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon.

It's an incredible waste of resources. The government has to pay part of the costs incurred by Mr. Taylor, yet somehow the bureaucracy feels that they have unlimited resources to waste on stupid court battles like this. And the cases go on. There's also the case of the lost Canadians.

So it really is bothersome. Having sat around this table since 1998, I know that you really don't have a problem with members of this committee. This committee comes to an agreement. The problem we have is with assistant deputy ministers in the department and the directors of various departments. Somehow we have to make sure they do the kind of priority work that needs to be done.

You mentioned RAD. The committee went through it, and we all agreed, but we have had no movement on it. The reality is that if we had RAD, we probably could speed up the processing of the cases, and fewer cases would go to Federal Court. We could have a much more efficient system. We had that in front of this committee.

I mean, one could just go on and on here. Take the third country agreement; you're right, we didn't get that report because resources are being used to fight Mr. Joe Taylor's case and other such outrageous cases. I have had some sleepless nights over the third country agreement. The committee has always been very consistent in terms of where we saw that going.

To go back to the issues you raised, I can speak from personal experience here. This is the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution. I've been through the refugee system. I went through it when the refugee system was at its best. There was political leadership from the top. Canada was probably at its finest hour. Some of the changes made had an impact on Mr. Rahim Jaffer, who came as a refugee from Uganda.

When we want to, we can do very well. Look at what we did with the Kosovars. With an incredible herculean effort, Canadians opened up their hearts and opened up their arms. We received a lot of people from Kosovo. We can do it. But we have to get away from some of these things that waste resources, that waste people power, and that don't make sense. It doesn't make any sense to have some kid sitting in a refugee camp for a couple of years, missing out on development, missing out on becoming acclimatized to this country, missing out on going to school, just for the sake of some bureaucratic testing.

You mentioned one question about...and I'm going to raise this. As a member of Parliament, I have made recommendations for appointments. Believe it or not, on many occasions I nominated people from other political parties because I knew they were very interested in service.

That brings me to the Immigration and Refugee Board. My understanding is that no reappointments are happening. They're being cleaned out wholesale.

I know this committee talked about having competency-based.... We had the Auditor General's report, where we talked about the need to make sure there is a length of service and a length of continuity.

If you're slow in filling up the vacancies and are putting in new members, you really are going to harm the system. The committee was spectacularly unanimous, when I was in the chair, that we should not have appointments based on political considerations and that we wanted to make sure to fall in line with the Auditor General's report.

I want your commentary on that. I think this can really muck up the works for the refugee board, and you're saying there is a crisis developing. I'd like to have you make some comments on that.

[Francisco Rico-Martinez]

I think you're right, in terms of the situation we are facing now.

We are under a lot of stress—the NGO sector, the civil society—because people are talking about the refugee process getting longer and longer. I think partially the government is responsible for that, because there haven't been reappointments, or very few. I don't remember that there have been reappointments. Worse is that there haven't even been new members appointed to the IRB. The number of members of the IRB has reduced almost to 50% of the full capacity, which means few members processing cases, which implies that the refugee process is getting longer and longer.

Our concern is that some sectors of society that don't understand this particular situation are going to use this, the long process, against the Immigration and Refugee Board. In that case, we are going to be facing a political crisis asking to re-examine the refugee determination system because the process is too long. It would be possible to solve this if we started appointing members to the IRB in a normal way, or the way it has been done in the past.

I know we have some issues with IRB members, and don't take me wrong, we are very aware of that situation. We have been saying that the political appointees to the IRB are not the way to go. But on the other hand, the system is failing us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you. The seven minutes are up.

We'll go to Madame Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank the Canadian Council for Refugees for appearing once again before our committee. I've had the opportunity to hear testimony from CCR representatives several times since being elected to office. I'm starting to think that no one is listening or stressing the need to welcome refugees. I've known many refugees over the years and I can honestly say that they have a strong desire to integrate into society in Quebec and throughout the rest of Canada.

Recently, the department has been sending us data on the number of persons waiting for a decision. What I find especially disheartening is that the number of people with applications on hold at certain offices, whether in Nairobi, Damas or Islamabad, has been growing over the years.

In the case of Islamabad, it is distressing to see that Afghan nationals applying for refugee status are being turned down on the grounds they do not qualify. My office has been looking into such cases for some time now. Canada could do considerably more to welcome these nationals, in view of the war currently raging in their homeland. These applicants are sponsored by groups or agencies and, as Ms. Simpson noted earlier, these groups are receiving financial support. Therefore, the cost of bringing these people to Canada would be lower.

I'd also like to talk about family reunification, still in relation to the same offices, namely those in Nairobi, Islamabad, Colombo and the Ivory Coast, which in recent years has been added to the list. What saddens me is that the committee had an opportunity to meet with these persons last May, in particular with a woman awaiting reunification with her children. Her eldest child died over the summer. Her remaining children are now here in Canada.

Like yourself, Mr. Chairman, we did everything we could to alert the local authorities. The process of reuniting this mother with her children took six years. The mother, who worked as a security guard, had witnessed the kidnapping of a child for the purposes of removing some vital organs. Initially, she believed the kidnapping was the work of a rebel group, but then discovered that it was part of an organized network. She suffered the consequences, namely the loss of one of her young sons.

A refugee's life is not always easy. When persons apply and have the support of their community, we must make the process as uncomplicated for them as we possibly can.

Previous governments as well as the one currently in power have promised to review the refugee determination system. Witnesses have repeatedly told the committee that the system was working, but needed to be improved on several levels. The CCR will have more to say about the decision-making process. However, regarding the appointment of IRB members, we will soon be facing a staff shortage, which will impact the quality of the decisions made.

Can the CCR tell us how long it takes for a member to get completely up to speed? I'd also like to hear its views on exclusions in so far as rejected applications are concerned. One good example is the outright rejection of an application of a person who is a police officer.

I'll have additional questions later, but for now, I'd like someone to explain to me how the decision-making process works and why people mistakenly believe that the current system has a safety net.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

We have two minutes. We'll move along to Bill.

Does any member of the committee wish to respond?

[Janet Dench]

I would just point out that the problems arising in Canada because of the lack of an appeal mechanism also exist abroad. Many applications sponsored by the private sector are denied, and in some cases, we find that negative decisions are not well founded.

Errors can occur when a person appears before the IRB in Canada for a hearing. Mistakes can happen and that's why we are lobbying for an appeal mechanism. A hearing in Canada lasts a minimum of two hours and the applicant is assisted by counsel or a lawyer. Some board members are highly trained and have access to a database and to documentation.

Abroad, however, visa officers do not have access to this documentation and do not have the same level of training. As a rule, refugees are not represented by counsel. More than likely they do not understanding the definition of refugee and often, interviews last a mere 30 minutes. Obviously, it's impossible to claim to have made a sound decision after a half-hour interview, especially when interpretation services are required.

Owing to the lack of an appeal mechanism and to the relative laxness of the rulings, there is cause to be greatly concerned about the decision-making process abroad. During our meeting, we discussed the decisions made in Damas, particularly those involving Iraqi applicants. We're all aware of the situation in Iraq. We also know that the approval rate in this case if very low. Our visa officers reject the applications of persons who seem to have very good reasons for fleeing Iraq. This situation is very worrisome.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Bill, please.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank you folks for being here again. The work that the CCR does across Canada and with all your member organizations is so important to so many people. Thank you for all of that.

I'm hopefully going to give you a chance to say a few things in my seven minutes. I'm wondering, first, Debra, if you might say something about the private sponsorship program. It's a hugely important program, and as you said, it has been unique in the world. I think it has been a model for the world and something the world has envied. The government often tells us now that they see it being used as a back door for family sponsorship. How do you folks respond to that comment, and how do you see the program being used? Who's in that backlog of 14,000 cases?

[Debra Simpson]

Thank you for raising that question, because when I referred to the concern about the perception of the program by visa officers and CIC, CIC has indicated that they are concerned that this is what we're doing, using this program to bring family members in through the back door.

The reality is that we have an obligation, as sponsorship agreement holders and sponsoring groups working with the sponsorship agreement holders, to assess each case that we put in. We must make an assessment about whether or not we believe these people fit the definition of refugee. It's only after that that we will submit a case for sponsorship.

It is true that people have family members overseas. It's also true that they are refugees, and we will only use this program for that. We believe strongly that this is a protection program only and not a way to bring in family members.

It is unfortunate that there isn't a more broadly defined definition of “family” in the other programs to facilitate family reunification for some families. For example, if you have a family member who is over the age of 22, a child who is over the age of 22, you are unable to use the family class sponsorship program to bring that person in. That is not to say, however, that we are using that program in that way. We are using the program to bring in refugees.

As Canada, we have been doing this program for what, 27 years? Many people have come here through this program as refugees. These people are here now in Canada and are aware of their family members overseas who are in similar situations as they were. That is how we are hearing the stories they have.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Debra, we've also heard that some of the groups that come together for a private sponsorship are getting frustrated with the delay and are dropping out of the program because of that. These people are ready to receive someone, and if it takes years and years and years, they look for some other way of serving the community.

Is that a problem you're noticing?