Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 13th, 2007

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

He had a PRRA application?

[Claudette Cardinal]

The PRRA officer said this man was not at risk. He was an ex-slave, and slavery has been taken off the books in Mauritania, so he should not be in trouble. He was detained three times and tortured three times because he was defending the human rights of ex-slaves and telling them what their new rights were.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

So he had no H and C in?

[Claudette Cardinal]

I don't know if had an H and C.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Have you seen cases where people have been removed, where a PRRA officer says it's all right to go, not a problem, but they have an H and C in and they have been returned after their H and C has been heard in Canada?

[Claudette Cardinal]

And they come back here?

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Yes.

[Claudette Cardinal]

I have not personally witnessed that, no.

[Richard Goldman]

I have heard about one case, a Palestinian fellow who was removed and has a successful H and C, and now apparently should be returned to Canada. It's definitely a potential part of the system, but it seems to happen very rarely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Karygiannis.

Mr. Gravel.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

You said earlier that the acceptance rate for refugee claimants was 3% in Canada but 1% in Quebec. Is that right?

[Claudette Cardinal]

With the PRRA, people whose refugee claim is rejected are told that, before being sent back to their home country, they can undergo an assessment to determine the risks they would face if they were sent back. Across Canada, 3% of these cases are successful. So these people are considered to be facing risks. In Quebec, it is only 1%.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

That is incredible. I would like to know how the PRRA process works. For example, when notice of a request is given, how long does it take for the officer to make a decision? If people are turned down, how long is it before they are sent back to their country?

[Richard Goldman]

It varies a lot. To begin with, the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board, the CIRB, makes its decision. If the claim is successful, the problem is resolved. If not, the claimant can ask for a judicial review by the Federal Court but the Court refuses 89% of the applications. Going that route suspends the file for two or three months. Many claimants simply do not have the resources to appeal to the Federal Court. It varies a great deal. It is an interesting point because people often say that the process is too long. They say that the CIRB, for example, takes too much time. The longest timeframe is one between the CIRB's decision and the pre-removal risk assessment, or PRRA. I know files that have dragged out for a year and a half before people have their PRRA, although, as I mentioned, it can be done within two or three months. Then there is the pre-removal risk assessment. There is a 30-day period for the request. The answer can come after one or two months, and the date of departure may be set right away, or it can drag out for six months or a year.

So basically, the length of the process that starts with a refugee claim and ends with removal from Canada—if that is the result—can vary from one year and three months to two or three years. The longest steps in the process are at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, first with the initiation of the PRRA and then with the decision resulting from the PRRA.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

You indicated earlier that Louise Arbour had said that the bar was set high and that it was not being reached. What do you mean by that?

[Claudette Cardinal]

She said that Canada, because of its resources and great opportunities, should set the bar high concerning the number of people that we can accept as refugees, etc., especially in comparison with other countries. She was not talking specifically about refugees, but I made a parallel with the work that we are doing. I believe that the bar may not be high enough and that, especially with respect to the PRRA, we do not always reach it. We should require more from Canada than other countries, since we consider ourselves to be a welcoming country and one where the rule of law exists. Given all our resources and opportunities, more should be required of Canada than of many other countries.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I am a new member of the committee, and I heard you talking about incompetence and lack of training, probably. Have the officers involved in PRRAs received instructions that most people must be refused? Is it possible that there are such instructions?

[Claudette Cardinal]

You would never find such kind of instructions on paper. The administrative manual that officers have to consult to enforce the act and regulations, the PP 3, is very well done, except that it is not always followed. In the early summer, there were some tables found that summarized the officers' duties. No table indicated how to accept PRRA cases, but there was one showing how to reject them. That speaks volumes, it seems to me.

Some time after I started this job, Michel Frenette, who was the Director General of the francophone section of Amnesty International in Canada at that time, asked to meet with the acting manager for immigration in the Quebec section. I do not remember the person's exact title. Near the end of the meeting, she asked me how we could be 99% certain that these people were at risk if they were removed to their own country. I was absolutely shocked to hear her say that. The threshold is not 99%; the balance of probabilities is what needs to be applied.

If she talks that way to her colleagues at lunch or on break, she is spreading that attitude to the whole staff. A lowly PRRA officer may decide that he will get his knuckles wrapped if he accepts too many applications. These are employees and they need to follow instructions, even if those instructions are not written down.

I will give you another example. I was at a meeting that two immigration representatives attended and one of them made a presentation. I was once again very critical of the PRRA, since I felt that there had been very serious problems, as I explain in my brief. At the end of the meeting, when I was getting my coat, one of the two young women came to see me and said that they would sometimes like to be able to say that a given person was at risk, but that they did not dare to because they were afraid that the CIRB would lose face, since the Board has already decided that there was no risk.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

There's a problem there.

[Claudette Cardinal]

I do not know what the situation is like elsewhere in Canada, but that is what we are dealing with in Quebec.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Gravel.

We'll have Ms. Chow, please.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Is there any world body, the UN perhaps, where there can be a class action suit or some kind of action that said that CIC and the Minister of CIC are showing contempt for the House of Commons, given that they have not implemented the refugee appeal division, not given oral hearings that they're supposed to through the PRRA process, and not really had a genuine appeal process, other than through the Federal Court?

Is there any body that you can possibly think of for some of the refugees who have been deported and are now facing death or torture or now have to flee to another country? Are there any possibilities that there could be a class lawsuit?

[Richard Goldman]

I don't know if class actions exist on a world scale, but some international bodies have pronounced on the problem of the absence of an appeal, notably the Organization of American States in its review of Canadian asylum procedures. It has commented on the fact that the absence of a review is a problem, and the UN High Commission for Refugees has as well.

In terms of individuals who feel they have not been properly treated, there are a couple of recourses. There's recourse, for example, to the Committee Against Torture, on an international scale, and there have been some successful applications. Some of them have criticized features, including the lack of an appeal in the Canadian asylum system. The problem is that none of these are specifically binding in terms of forcing Canada to enact legislation or to respect legislation that's on the books.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

With reference to your first longer-term recommendation, if PRRA is to go to CIC, I often—

[Richard Goldman]

No, it's from CIC.