Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 6th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The meeting will come to order.

I want to welcome the witnesses this morning: Michel Jobin, full-time member, Immigration and Refugee Board; Anna Maria Silvestri Corriveau—I trust I'm pronouncing that properly—full-time member, Immigration and Refugee Board; and François Guilbault.

We are going to examine the reappointment of these particular members. I want to remind members again that the scope of the committee's examination of order in council appointees or nominees is strictly limited to the qualifications and competence to perform the duties of the post. Questioning by members of the committee may be interrupted by the chair if they attempt to deal with matters considered irrelevant to the committee's inquiries. Among the areas usually considered to be outside the scope of the committee's study are the political affiliation of the appointees or nominees, contributions to political parties, and the nature of the nominating process itself.

We will begin our examination. I will call upon our witnesses. If you wish to make a statement, please feel free.

[Michel Jobin, Full-time member, Immigration and Refugee Board (Montreal Regional Office), As an Individual]

Good day, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Michel Jobin. I'm from Quebec City. I have a university education: I have two undergraduate degrees, including one in law. I am also a member of the Quebec Bar Association. I worked in a private firm, then in public administration in Quebec, in a hospital. Then, I applied to become a member. I had an oral interview and a written interview in the winter of 1998. In September 1998, I was appointed by the government.

Both my colleague and I received training upon our arrival on legislation and the application of the relevant case law. Over the course of our eight years within the Immigration and Refugee Board, we have had continuous updating, and regular legal briefings. For example, when a new Immigration Act was passed, we had in-depth training on that legislation. We also have regular thematic training on the various countries.

The various members of the board are divided into geographic teams. So, in my case, when I arrived at the board, I worked on the Northern African and Middle Eastern team and, then, on the multidisciplinary team. This sounds quite technical, but it means that these are more complex cases, which require that the minister or his or her representative intervene. Sometimes, there are exclusions from the application of the act. Also, someone's status may be terminated or lost.

In short, this is what I have been doing in my eight years with the Immigration and Refugee Board. Those are the comments I wanted to make at the beginning of this meeting.

I am now available to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Jobin.

Are there any other opening statements? Ms. Corriveau, if you wish to make a statement, fine. If not, we can just go to members of our committee for questions. I want to give all of you the opportunity. If you don't have any opening statements, that's fine. I can just go to members of our committee to begin their rounds. It's entirely up to you.

Madame.

[Anna Maria Silvestri Corriveau, Full-time member, Immigration and Refugee Board (Montréal Regional Office), As an Individual]

I want to give you a brief overview of my training and qualifications.

Good day, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. As you have noted, I speak with an accent. I hope that you will be able to understand me properly. I was born in Italy. I was 15 when I came to this country. I married quite young and I am the mother of two children. I went back to school when I was in my 30s.

I began my first degree in political science and psychology, a degree I have not completed. Then, I studied law. I have a bachelor of law and passed the bar. Finally, I completed a master's in labour law and social law.

Both early on in my career and later, I worked on administrative boards. I was also a community member of the Quebec Parole Board. I have also taught labour law and municipal law at the CEGEP level at the Collège de l'Assomption.

My considerable experience in administrative law led me to apply for the position of member with the Immigration and Refugee Board, where I have been working for the past eight years and some months. My colleague, Michel Jobin, and I were appointed at the same time.

I will not repeat what my colleague has said, except that initially, I worked with a team that dealt exclusively with Eastern European countries. Then, I moved on to Latin American countries, and then francophone African countries. For approximately seven years now, I have been dealing with francophone African refugees.

That, in a nutshell, is my profile.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you very much.

I want witnesses to be totally at ease here this morning. You're obviously very qualified people. You've been reappointed. I'm sure you wouldn't be reappointed if you weren't very qualified. We're not here to grill you in any way, shape, or form. We're just responding to a motion that was made to have you come before the committee for examination and what have you.

I'm sure this is going to be a very informal kind of meeting that we're having here this morning. We just want to exchange some views with you, I'm sure, as we go to our first questioner, Mr. Alghabra. He'll be the first to lead off this morning.

We generally have seven-minute rounds for each party and then we'll go to five-minute rounds.

Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to all of you. Thank you very much for coming here. It's a rare opportunity for us to get to speak to people like you, with the experience you have.

I'd like to take this opportunity to learn more from you about your experience and the system itself. Both of you, I think, have been on the IRB for at least eight years. Right now this committee is examining a lot of the issues with the refugee process and reviewing a lot of the system that is in place.

I'm not sure whether this is a fair question, but I'm really interested in hearing from all of you, if you had the opportunity to submit three recommendations to improve or enhance the process right now of the IRB, or the refugee application process, what you would recommend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That might be a question that is difficult to answer.

If there are any questions that you feel you don't want to get into, that's fine; just indicate it to us. As I said, it's an informal kind of setting—we're trying to make it that way—so feel free to make any comments about it that you may want to, or not.

[Anna Maria Silvestri Corriveau]

As a member, I cannot answer that question, since that is not part of my duties. My job is to hear from the claimant and to make a decision with regard to the claim. My job is not to make recommendations to improve the system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, and maybe members, in asking their questions, could concentrate somewhat on the qualifications and the competence of the individuals to perform their duties. I know that's narrow in scope, but this is what the Standing Orders deal with. We have to examine the qualifications of the individuals to perform their duties.

The point I'm making, I suppose, is that it's a fair comment from the witnesses to say that they want to remain within the area of their competency and qualifications.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think it's an opportunity for us that we don't always get, to have individuals who have a lot of experience in the system. I don't mean to put them on the spot, but I think it's our responsibility to learn from them, if we can, how to make their job better, how to help them make the system better, because they have a very difficult job, in my opinion.

I don't know whether anybody can claim that the system is perfect. I'd really like to take this opportunity, especially now that we have also a private member's bill that talks about the implementation of the appeal mechanism....

Maybe that's a question I'd like to ask the witnesses here, about the appeal mechanism. How do they feel right now, after the reduction a couple of years ago of the number of IRB board members from two to one? How do they feel about enacting the appeal mechanism?

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

I have a point of order, if I may, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

On a point of order, we have Mr. Komarnicki.

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

When we look at why the two appointees are here, it's because Mr. Karygiannis brought a motion, as he's entitled to do under the Standing Orders, to bring the two individuals before this committee with the purpose of examining their qualifications to perform the roles and duties assigned to them. That is all that these witnesses are here for.

The questions Mr. Omar Alghabra raises are fair questions to put to people who are brought here specifically for the purpose or who have the.... The committee can bring people in to deal with those issues that he raises, if the committee chooses to, but in fairness to these two appointees, they are here specifically under the Standing Order, pursuant to the motion, and the questions should be limited to those areas.

I think the chair should overrule any question outside that scope and should interpret it exactly as it's meant to be, and I think the witness makes a good point.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I'd be happy to respond to that point, as long as it doesn't take any time out of my questioning time.

If we want to talk about qualifications, that's fine. I think trying to understand and learn from the individuals about their experience and what they've learned and what they can share with us is part of their qualifications. It's very difficult to see why you're objecting to these questions.

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

It's just the point that you don't call people for one purpose and with a mandate specific to that purpose and then try to deviate from it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order. I'm still listening to Mr. Alghabra.

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

I'm sorry.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I'm not saying every question I ask would be to your liking, but these questions are relevant. It's part of their qualification, part of their experience, part of their résumé, for us to benefit from.

They're here. How often do we get IRB members here to talk about their qualifications? These are relevant. These are important issues relevant to their experience.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Alghabra.

Mr. Telegdi, I think, was next.

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

Actually, I put my hand up before Ed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Oh, yes, so you did.

Mr. Devolin.

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

Speaking further to the same point, I don't disagree that these are interesting questions and relevant to the committee's broad agenda. I do think, though, to use a different example, that you wouldn't bring police officers, for instance, in front of the justice committee and ask them whether they agree with the law or not.

I think it's inappropriate to ask people who are working in the system whether they agree with the public policy issues that are before the government. To ask for observations about how they do their job is one thing. But to say, here's a proposal, or here's an idea.... As you said, if someone gave you the opportunity—

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

That's what I said.

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

No, your question was asking them to comment on issues of public policy.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Absolutely. You can ask them what they need—