I am here to represent the Canadian Council for Refugees, which is a confederation organization. We have nearly 170 member organizations across Canada. Our mandate is to promote the protection of refugees in Canada and in the world, and the settlement of refugees and immigrants in Canada.
I'm going to start with a little history. Since the creation of the Immigration and Refugee Board, the Canadian Council for Refugees has consistently identified two principal concerns relating to the Board: the issue of appointments and the lack of an appeal on the merits for refugees.
The main issue of concern in relation to appointments has been the quality of appointments and reappointments, i.e. whether those appointed have the required competencies for the job. A secondary but nevertheless important issue has been the timeliness of appointments; that is, whether members are appointed when vacancies arise.
The current crisis facing the IRB because of the failure to appoint is not without precedent in its history. The underlying problem has been that various governments have sacrificed the needs of good and timely decision-making at the IRB to partisan political concerns. It's worth emphasizing that we are concerned about both appointments and reappointments. For the latter, concerns include the maintenance of excellent and experienced members, the damage to the credibility of the IRB when bad members are reappointed, and the lack of motivation and morale problems for sitting members when it is evident that reappointment is not tied to performance.
Now you've heard a bit, particularly from Mr. Green, about attempts at reform. In response to the persistent criticisms of patronage appointments and the appointment of incompetent members, there have been some attempts at reform. In 1995, then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Sergio Marchi, created a ministerial advisory committee. This committee did not succeed in establishing any credibility. There were rumours that it was made up of people such as the minister's golfing partners. Perhaps this is why, after the initial announcement, little information was disclosed about the committee, and in subsequent years ministers even refused to give the names of the members.
In March 2004, then minister Judy Sgro implemented a more significant reform. This was welcomed by the CCR as a step in the right direction, although we continued to have concerns. In a letter to the minister in April 2004 we drew attention to, and I quote, “the potential for political patronage considerations to re-enter through the backdoor, particularly should your successors not share your commitment”. We particularly drew attention to the fact that the new process did not establish a ratio of candidates to vacancies, leading to the danger that ministers could hold off making appointments asking for more and more names to be forwarded until they found names that met their political criteria and diluting the effect of a screening panel as a mechanism to identify the most qualified candidates. We also highlighted our concern that the process did not address the question of reappointments, which also need to be protected from real or perceived partisan political influence. We believe that subsequent events have shown that the concerns we raised in 2004 were well founded.
To look at the current situation, as we've all said, the IRB is facing a crisis because of the lack of members in place. There is a serious shortfall of approximately one-third of the members. This problem has been gradually growing in intensity over the last couple of years. The shortfall in appointments began to occur in the last months of the previous government.
We want to highlight the devastating impact of the government's failure to appoint members on refugees and people waiting for an appeal on family sponsorship. Claimants are waiting longer and longer for a hearing because there simply aren't enough board members to sit on hearings. This is very difficult for refugees who live in a constant state of anxiety while waiting to know whether Canada will protect them. For refugees separated from their immediate family members the wait is particularly excruciating.
Let me give you an example. An Iraqi fled persecution in his home country and arrived in Canada 10 months ago. He is still waiting for a date for his refugee hearing. His wife and baby daughter remain in central Baghdad, where every day your life is at risk. If the IRB had its full member complement, this man would probably have had his hearing by now. As it is, who knows when he will have a hearing and, if accepted, begin the procedures to bring his wife and daughter to Canada.
There is a particular problem as a result of the refusal—