Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 19th, 2006

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Do you have any idea of what kinds of problems or difficulties are faced by these individuals who are in detention?

[Avvy Go]

Right now the system is that if you're in detention, you can seek review--at 48 hours, then seven days, and then every 30 days. The problem I have seen with certain claimants or refugees is that they come from countries where....

Well, a lot of the reason you're detained is that they want to deport you, but they can't deport you unless they have a travel document. The problem is that a lot of countries don't issue the travel document, partly because, as was alluded to earlier, a refugee coming into Canada may not have proper ID; they couldn't get it from the government they were fleeing from. That in and of itself could be a reason for the detention.

You can imagine the conditions. In Toronto, for instance, there's a centre near the airport. It looks like a hotel but it's basically a jail, with very little facilities, no access to counselling, no access to programs, and no support. Even to get medical support you have to wait for the one doctor who comes in whatever month. We have heard stories of people being denied medical support a lot of the time.

We were involved with one group of young Chinese girls who were detained for nine months. They had nothing--no access to programs, schooling, interpretation. We had volunteers going in to do ESL classes, bringing in food for them.

So the conditions are horrendous.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Are there any other issues involving refugees that this committee should be studying and should be aware of?

[Avvy Go]

The list could on, I guess. Honestly, the list could go on.

To start with, I think you could look at the appointments system. This is the moment to do it. You have a lot of former members not being renewed for appointment. Please, please make sure that you get the right people in there. Don't get someone just because he's some MP's hairdresser or whatever. Make sure that the people who are appointed have the qualifications to understand not only domestic law but international human rights law and international law governing refugees. Our own immigration law requires us to take into account international human rights law. The people who would make these determinations must understand those things.

You must urge the government to implement the refugee appeal division. I think that will get rid of some of the problems as well.

There are many other issues around security. Look at the CCR website and at their list of all those issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Bill.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to go back to something you said, Cecilia. You were talking about the employment standards situation in British Columbia, and you talked about the change in the employment standards law in 2002.

I just want to be clear that you were saying that the situation is indeed worse for live-in caregivers because of that new law, and that they weren't complaining because, even if they do make a complaint, there's no remedy for them. They've essentially given up on employment standards.

[Cecilia Diocson]

Yes.

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

Okay. I just wanted to be clear on that.

[Cecilia Diocson]

We're doing a study right now within our community with regard to the restructuring of the Employment Standards Act in British Columbia. We'll be coming out with the report soon.

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

Okay.

To Avvy, I want to come back to the question of undocumented workers. You mentioned 20,000 to 200,000. Can you talk a bit more about the sense that people have with regard to the numbers?

[Avvy Go]

Actually, I think I got the 20,000 to 200,000 figures from one of the reports done by CIC several years ago, so I'm not sure how accurate they are. I guess they looked at the number of removal orders being issued, and tried to calculate how many of those were actually executed. I've heard numbers as high as a million, so I'm not quite sure, although 200,000 sounds reasonable and realistic to me.

Certainly in cities like Toronto and Vancouver, almost every single person I know is aware of at least one person who is undocumented--and I don't think they're all the same person.

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

Thank you.

Stan, you mentioned earlier the question of why Canada doesn't have a movement similar to the one in the United States around regularization and undocumented folks. But I've heard the argument made that the situations in Canada and the U.S. are different.

The number in Canada is probably lower, first of all, in terms of percentage of population. And in Canada, for most of the people who are here undocumented, there's paper on them someplace in the system. Most of them came in legally, at least originally, made a refugee claim that failed, and then went underground, or came in as visitors and overstayed. In the United States there is a much more significant problem with people sneaking into the country and then becoming undocumented persons.

Is that your sense as well? Perhaps you could talk about those differences. And are the people who are cropping up in the system ones we've never seen? Is that who we're talking about?

[Stan Raper]

I think you're exactly right. Visitors, foreign students, temporary workers, SAWP AWOL workers—if you want to find undocumented workers, you don't need to only go to Toronto. You can go to any agricultural sector anywhere in Canada.

There are numerous workers. In fact, they did a raid on a farm just outside of Windsor. When the police went in, all the workers were running out into the fields behind the greenhouses afterwards. They caught eight workers. Those workers were detained and are now going through the refugee process.

What happened was that a reporter started calling about what the raid was about and what was happening. The reporter was asking if they got everyone, who the workers were, and that kind of thing. There were Asian, Vietnamese, and Mexican workers detained.

We asked the questions because it was a big story in the paper about these criminals, these undocumented workers who were just trying to live. Basically, that's all they were trying to do. They got cash under the table, but no one was asking how come the employer was paying these guys cash under the table and there were no charges against the employer. It was the workers who were criminalized and the employer got away with nothing. I've asked the reporter several times to do follow-ups with Immigration Canada and others, but I still have not heard if any charge has been laid against the employer.

These workers are invisible. They're afraid to come forward, because they're going to be dealt with as soon as they come forward.

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

I want to come back to the criminal thing, because I think it's really important.

Avvy, you mentioned that the people who are undocumented are not a significant criminal group in Canada. Could you just say why you have that belief?

[Avvy Go]

A lot of them are afraid of getting into trouble. By definition, if you're undocumented, you want to stay away from the authorities and give them as little opportunity as possible to come look for you.

At the same time, it's the perception. Every time we talk about illegals, people have this thing in mind that these are people coming in to bomb our airports or do whatever. Every time we hear something from the United States, it's that all these people are going there for a 9/11, but those terrorists all came in with some kind of a regular visa.

So by definition, they cannot be a significant criminal group.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I have to cut it off there.

I'm going to try to give three minutes to Mr. Komarnicki and three minutes to Andrew, and then we'll have to call it a wrap.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I noticed your comments with respect to implementation of RAD. Fair enough, but you said that would somehow help the church sanctuary cases. Do you really think there would no longer be any church sanctuary cases if that was implemented? It seems to me that as a last resort of refuge, church sanctuary probably would continue in any event. You might want to comment about that.

Also, with respect to numbers, you would like to expand in various areas. It's awfully difficult if you're dealing with a total number. If you keep expanding, then something else would have to go. One of my questions is what you would say to those who come through the queue legitimately but might not be able to do so if you put the others in the queue just simply because of the fact that they've come through some other means.

And a question that you hadn't answered initially, Mr. Raper, was whether you have had any concerns about processing times. In Saskatchewan, I hear from the agricultural community that it's difficult to process at least seasonal workers and that there is an issue relative to that.

So those are perhaps two questions.

[Avvy Go]

In terms of the RAD, certainly I agree that putting in the RAD alone is not going to solve the problem. If you have the RAD and then you have people who are sitting on the RAD who know nothing about anything, you will still end up with—

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Let's make the assumption that they know something about something.

[Avvy Go]

Yes, but at least we will try to strive toward building a system that is much fairer than what we have now.

I would agree that there will always be cases that cry out for some kind of correction. At the same time, though, in terms of the queue issue, the queue is an interesting thing.

If you look at the queue, it depends on which country you come from. The length of the queue is different. The same people who tend to be found here living without status tend to come from countries where the queue is extremely long, because the resources in terms of visas and consular services are not evenly distributed.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Shouldn't we be directing our resources toward making sure that is fixed rather than going the other way around?

[Avvy Go]

Certainly that would also help. That's part of the reason why applications from people from China are dropping. They're waiting six to ten years. If you want to—

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

But you have to focus somewhere.

[Avvy Go]

Right, but I'll just give you one example. Clients that I have from China, if they come in as independent immigrants, tend to wait anywhere between three and five years. I have a similar client with accreditation and all that, but instead of coming directly from China, he lived in Germany for three years. He applied from Germany and it took him 21 days to get his immigration visa.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Shouldn't we focus on that aspect, as opposed to adding to the problem?