Evidence of meeting #21 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was person.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
The last hunger strike--you obviously are familiar with the centre?
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
10:05 a.m.
Director, Inland Enforcement, Canada Border Services Agency
Was it in May? June?
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A voice
The end of June.
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Director, Inland Enforcement, Canada Border Services Agency
It was the end of June.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
And what was the hunger strike on?
Would you like to have your official join you? It seems that he knows a little bit more about it than you do.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Okay, we'll have to pick it up on the next round. That was five minutes. We're done; we're over time.
Thank you, Mr. Karygiannis.
We'll go to Nina.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all for your time--
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. I would suggest strongly to the chair that if he's going to call the gentlemen by the title of “Mister”, he should also call the ladies by the title of their married name. Nina is Madame Grewal, just as Mr. Karygiannis is Mr. Karygiannis.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for your time and your presentation.
Mr. Therrien, you mentioned in your presentation that three people involved in the security certificates process were granted a release on conditions. Can you describe the conditions of release for these individuals?
I can't understand one thing. Why were these men who are supposed to be inadmissible to Canada on security grounds being released into the community?
10:05 a.m.
Kimber Johnston Director General, Policy and Program Development Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
I can answer your first question with respect to the conditions of release. As Mr. Therrien mentioned earlier, the conditions vary depending on the individual who is released.
Mr. Suresh, for example, is out on a $40,000 cash bond, as well as an additional $150,000 performance bond. He is required to report once a week.
Mr. Charkaoui is out on electronic monitoring, as is Mr. Harkat. They too have been asked to post a cash bond: Mr. Charkaoui a $50,000 cash bond, and Mr. Harkat a $35,000 cash bond.
In addition, they have various restrictions around the time they must be in their homes, and again that varies per individual. They also have restricted access to telecommunications and to associating and communicating with certain individuals. Those are the types of specific conditions for each of those three individuals.
I'm sorry, could you repeat your second question?
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
My second question was, if those men were inadmissible to Canada on security grounds, then why were they being released into the community?
10:05 a.m.
Director General, Policy and Program Development Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
I can answer that in part, but Mr. Therrien might also like to provide his point of view on this.
As he mentioned earlier, one of the concerns has been the length of time in detention. The fact of the matter remains that from the government's point of view, these individuals are still considered to be dangerous, and dangerous to the security of Canadians. However, in light of the length of time they were detained, this was a concern to the court. Ultimately the checks and balances came into play, and the court decided in the case of these three individuals to release them, but again under very strict terms and conditions.
Daniel, did you want to add anything?
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Senior General Counsel, Office of the Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice
No, I think that's a complete answer.
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Conservative
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Barry Devolin Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
I'm going to need more than two and a half minutes, so I guess I'll continue with this the next time.
But I want to talk about decision-making processes a little and what kinds of mistakes can be made. In the business world, there's a book called Getting to Yes. The suggestion is that in a negotiation, yes is the desirable answer, and no, meaning no negotiated settlement, is not what you want.
In a criminal court, we want to get to the correct answer, whether it's guilty or not guilty, recognizing that there are two kinds of mistakes that can be made. You can either find a guilty person innocent, or you could find an innocent person guilty. I think our system is set up in such a way as to avoid the latter, recognizing that we may actually err on the side of freeing guilty people so that we don't incarcerate people who are innocent.
In our immigration system, the appeals are set up to get to yes, I would argue--in a normal immigration system or for refugees--because we recognize that the appeals are there to get a yes answer. When someone is admitted to Canada, the government doesn't appeal it to try to block the refugee or immigration status. I think that's based on the notion that what we don't want to do is make an incorrect decision where we deny a refugee or immigrant claim, because the consequences of that could be more dire than letting someone in who perhaps technically doesn't meet the test if it was perfectly applied.
I've raised that because in the case of security certificates, there's obviously a serious mistake than can be made on either side. If you issue one and detain someone who should not be detained, obviously there's a serious violation of that individual's rights. On the other hand, if we admit someone to Canada who actually is a security threat and we don't stop them, that could pose a very serious security threat to public safety in Canada. I think that's the difficulty of the situation you're in. There's no kind of easy side to err on here. Errors on both sides potentially have serious consequences.
My specific question is this. When someone is detained and when the court upholds that they are a security threat to Canada, we're saying we wouldn't put them out of the country if they were going back somewhere where potentially they could be subject to torture—
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Barry Devolin Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
My question is this. If someone has come from a place where there is not a threat of torture and we want to deport them, have there been circumstances where they simply choose not to leave the country and remain in detention?
10:10 a.m.
Senior General Counsel, Office of the Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice
Of the certificate cases, no, there have not been. They all come from countries where country reports by reputable organizations would say there is some risk of torture. But beyond this general analysis of the country conditions, there needs to be an individualized assessment of whether the individual in question is truly at serious risk of torture.
In some of our cases, the delegate of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has come to the view that the individual in question does not face a substantial risk of torture—that torture exists in the country of origin, but that the individual in question is not personally at risk of torture—and this would provide a reason to remove.