Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2006

[Mary Leddy]

Some of you alluded to this, but I think this will become more clear the longer you're in Ottawa. With the RAD, I think what is intended is that those appeal judges or members would be appointed. They would not be members of the civil service. After 15 years, I see underlying many problems the conflict between whether the important decisions about people's lives are made by civilians appointed by a government who, no matter how lousy they are, are still accountable to the government, and a civil service that would like to control that process and seize it as their turf, their territory, and their right.

I generally sympathize with them, because I think they're terribly overworked, but I have certainly heard some of them say “The politicians are the renters; we own this place.” And I think that's underneath this.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Do I have any time left for one quick question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have one minute, then we go to Madame Faille.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

The other overlap I see is that today we're talking about refugees, but other days we talk about immigration and we all agree Canada needs more people. I keep saying that when I get old I want someone to pay taxes and look after me. My wife and I have replaced ourselves, but not every Canadian appears to be doing that.

I'll just make up this example to make my point. A Portuguese drywaller applies to be a refugee in Canada and we go through this five-year process to determine whether or not he's actually a refugee. We decide he's not and send him home. In the meantime, we have this incredible shortage of drywallers in Canada. I appreciate that refugee policy is not based on the economic needs of Canada; it's based on the other end. What I sense is that the system in Canada, both on immigration and refugees, is constructed to keep people out. It's like a dam that holds back the river and we control the flow. The irony to me is that at a time when we actually need people, we have all these complex and expensive systems to figure out ways to keep them out.

I wonder if anyone can comment on that.

[Gordon Walt]

I would like to make a comment about that.

In our own case with Moti Nano, we recently decided to change his legal counsel—with his okay, of course. But standing back and just looking at this case, the amount of time and money that has been spent by the government and by him to deal with this process....

At the same time, our new legal counsel has advised us that he would be very well qualified as an immigrant. If he applied as an immigrant, he would be probably accepted; however, the rules are he can't apply to become an immigrant while he's in Canada.

If you stand back and give your head a shake, you ask what's going on here; this man could be a very productive, and was a very productive, member of our society. And yet we seem to be about preserving a system.

[Heather Macdonald]

Let me speak for the Raza family.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

There are so many people who wish to reply—

[Heather Macdonald]

They have been working since they arrived in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

—that my clock is totally off up here.

[Heather Macdonald]

The employer guarantees them a job. They are under a removal order. They are living in a church. There are Canadian-born children.

There is not even a queue in the immigration system that this family could apply to. They are the labour this country was built on. They don't meet the elite qualifications. They just want to build a future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

[Mary Leddy]

I think sometimes there is a stereotype around this. To speak of the house I live in right now, there are three doctors, a lawyer, and an engineer who specialized in AutoCAD. They all could have come as immigrants easily. They didn't have the time to apply.

It isn't as though all the refugees are Portuguese drywallers. We have also people who are immigrants as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

Mr. Allen.

[Stephen Allen]

There's no doubt changes can be made to our immigration system, but I think we have a responsibility as churches and you as elected officials to ensure that Canadians understand that an immigrant is here for a particular reason, but a refugee fears persecution.

We can never stop saying that: there are two different categories of people who have very different issues. We should keep those issues quite separate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

Madame Faille, you may take maybe three or four minutes, so that we can go back and forth and see whether we can get everyone on for a second round.

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

One of my concerns has to do with the decisions made by the members. At the beginning of my term of office, we had to examine a list of negative decisions made by members. When refugees came to meet me at my office because they had been given a negative decision, I asked which member had heard their case. I knew what the reasons for the negative decision were based on which member had heard their case.

For instance, the case of Mr. Belaouni, in Montreal, had been examined by a certain member named Laurier Thibault. During my entire time in office, he only accepted one refugee. His rate of refusal was therefore close to 100%.

Mr. Belaouni is Algerian. Mr. Thibault’s decision was based on the fact that the Algerian government had promised to introduce programs for the blind. It was an electoral promise that wasn't necessarily kept. The person was therefore refused because the improvement of the situation in Algeria was probable.

Mr. Belaouni received the support of 40 organizations in Montreal. We wrote to the Minister's office, and the answer was similar to the one Bill received—that the department had not made an error, and that this person had been refused on reasonable grounds. This person has been in a church for a year now and has asked to be protected. A group of citizens in the region has undertaken to ensure that he is. I would like to add that this is another reason why the appointment of members should not be political appointments.

My colleague speaks of the economic aspect. Another study on the question of refugees has been conducted, showing that their profile is no different from that of immigrants. These people are not necessarily welfare recipients. Not all of them are; no more than others.

Here, on the committee, we have two colleagues who have been refugees. There is one on either side. I don’t want to play politics, but, given that I have very little time, I would like to make sure that we consider the fact that the contribution of refugees who come and ask for our protection is important. These people want to succeed here.

I would like to hear a few testimonies from you on the state of mind of these people when they arrive and the will they have to succeed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Nagy.

[Phil Nagy]

Mr. Mia, as I said earlier, is an illiterate cook. He has four children, and all five of them are working full time. All four children are going to school, in two cases full time. Last month they bought a house. So it's not simply the refugee, but it's the family. As soon as one of the boys passes the TOEFL, he will be enrolling at Carleton to continue his studies in chemical engineering.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Komarnicki, Mr. Siksay, and I guess we'll probably have to wrap up then.

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

To follow up a bit, I was heartened to hear that the person who ultimately makes a decision whether a congregation is going to get behind a refugee is not necessarily the person at the door, but there is a process in the congregation that obviously puts it on a level where there is respect for not only the place, but the process within the place. I think that's really an underpinning of the process.

Have you done a comparative study of how the system in Canada works, versus other countries, such as United States, and how we compare to them in our process? Ultimately I wonder if it doesn't boil down to the fact that if we did some of the improvements you suggest—in terms of the appointments to the IRB, bolstering up the inefficiencies, and making it efficient—in the end, are we still faced with the issue that someone's decision on the evidence may not equal your decision on the evidence? No matter what we do, although perhaps in a less constrained area, aren't we going to be faced with the fact that you still may decide you don't like how someone has interpreted the evidence, or how they made a decision—whether it's for pre-removal risk assessment, or on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, or for whatever reason?

Various people deal with these issues, but you look at that within your structure and say, “Well, you may decide that way, but we don't agree with that decision.” Ultimately, are we not faced with that, no matter what we do?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Anyone who may wish to reply, please feel free.

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

So there are two questions there: one regarding the comparative study; and the second asks, ultimately do we not have an issue no matter what happens in terms of sanctuary?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Even if you had RAD--is that what you're saying?

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

If you had RAD, if you had any number of things fixed, are we still not facing the bottom line that you might not agree with the decision that's made or the evidence as interpreted by somebody else, vis-à-vis your institution, congregation, or denomination?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Ms. Leddy.