Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 19th, 2007

[Stephen Green]

Absolutely, and as I indicated, in Toronto you can't get hearing dates because they're too far ahead, and no one has a calendar that far ahead.

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

Then it's fair to say that under Canada's new government, it certainly has failed the Canadian public.

[Stephen Green]

I won't comment on that, but I'll just indicate that the lineups have become long for whatever reason, and that is because we do not have enough board members.

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

Okay. Then I will make the assumption that you are telling us, sir, that Canada's new government certainly is failing its people.

[Stephen Green]

Well, I didn't say that.

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

I said I would assume.

[A voice]

[Inaudible--Editor]

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

I just want the clock stopped right there until....

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

No, there will be no stopping of the clock. I ask you to continue your conversation with the witnesses and not back and forth, please. We ran into that before. The chair had to adjourn the meeting because it got a little bit out of hand, so I'm not going to tolerate that today.

Mr. Karygiannis, talk to the witnesses, please.

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

My next question to the board members would be the following. Was the system working before 2005, and if it was working and it's not working now, would you want to see the system that was working back then be reinstated today--the appointment system, the selection criteria, the reappointment system?

[Stephen Green]

As my friend indicated, I believe it started to slow down and didn't work too well prior to the present government's coming in. There were lots of vacancies at that time. It certainly has gotten worse.

That's my opinion of that.

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

The shortage right now is probably one-third of the judges, if you want to call them that, versus what was then about 2%, if I'm not mistaken.

The other question I have is, can we not appoint panel members as we appoint judges or JPs, so that they sit as a judge for the duration of their life? These people are certainly similar to judges.

[Joseph Allen]

I think that's a GIC policy that runs across all administrative tribunals, not just the IRB, and that's an issue that goes well beyond the particular sphere of—

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

The IRB is not any more a political appointee system.

[Joseph Allen]

It shouldn't be.

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

And it isn't, the same way that judges are not any longer under a political appointee system.

So would it serve us well for this committee to even recommend or to think about IRB panel members getting appointed if they are qualified and they do good work?

[Joseph Allen]

If they're qualified. We've been in situations where we're praying that mandates will come to an end.

[Stephen Green]

I think you have to look at this very carefully with respect to the appeal provisions in judicial systems, the law, and with respect to criminality. There are tremendous more levels of appeal. In the particular system that we're looking at, it's very limited. So we have to look at that carefully, because 10 years may be okay. We may want to get rid of someone. We don't know, but I'm saying at least in the criminal justice system you have many more levels of appeal where you can correct a wrong. We don't have that.

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

This is my last question. Certainly any one of you can answer it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have 10 seconds, please.

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

Would you disagree or agree that Mr. Fleury had had enough and he said, “It's time for me to go, time to walk into the sunset, because this is not working, and certainly I've been put under the gun by the government in order to do their bidding,” and he said no?

[Joseph Allen]

I'm not privy to his decision, but I suspect that's the case.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Next on my speaking list is Mr. Siksay.

Do we have anyone from the Bloc? Okay, Mr. Gravel.

I think I'll stop for a moment and clarify something, because I see eyebrows being raised by members here.

We did have a ruling some time ago, as you know, that we were alternating back and forth on the second round. I would imagine this is why we have eyebrows raised for my going to the Bloc party.

I'm informed by the clerk that there was a ruling, the most recent ruling, on May 17, 2006, which said, and Mr. Wilson moved:

That witnesses from an organization be given ten (10) minutes to make their opening statement; and that, at the discretion of the Chair, during the questioning of witnesses, there be allocated seven (7) minutes for the first questioner of each party and that thereafter five (5) minutes be allocated to each subsequent questioner of each party until all Members have had a chance to participate, after which, if time permits, a new round will commence.

The motion, apparently, that had the questions alternating back and forth was an old one. This is the most recent one we have. So I have to go with this one until I am informed that there are any changes to be made.

Mr. Gravel.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Earlier you said that there was a shortage of some 40 Board members and that there were qualified Board members whose terms had not been extended. Why weren't the terms of those Board members extended, if they were qualified, since there's currently a shortage of them? Was it for political reasons?