Good morning, and thank you for permitting me to appear.
I think it's important to go through a very brief history with respect to this board. It was created in 1989 for the purposes of hearing matters. It was an independent tribunal, and it reports to Parliament through the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. In 1995 there was a minister's advisory committee that was struck to assist with respect to the selection of individuals who would be sitting on this board.
In 1997 the Auditor General examined part of the selection process with respect to individuals and expressed some concerns as to how people were selected to be placed on this board. In 2004 the minister was the Hon. Judy Sgro. She created a system in order to respond to the Auditor General, where an advisory panel was created and a selection board was created, and that's what we have been operating with as of today.
In 2006 the then minister asked for a review of the appointment system, and then there was this report we have before us today, from January 2007, by the Public Appointments Commission Secretariat, talking about these recommendations.
We think it's important to bring to your attention that we're talking about really four separate groups that hear matters.
We have the refugee protection people who sit on the board to hear refugee matters.
We then have public servants who hear admissibility matters: Are you allowed to come into Canada? Are you allowed to visit?
We have another group, again public servants, who deal with detention: Should this person be released within the Canadian community?
The last group, which is also very important, is the appeal section, and it's that section that Canadian citizens and permanent residents appear before to see if their spouses or partners can be admitted into Canada as a result of a refusal of a visa back home; whether or not an immigrant who has been removed from Canada perhaps because of criminality should be removed from Canada or permitted to stay; whether or not an immigrant loses their permanent resident status because they haven't lived here according to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act residency requirements; and, finally, whether an appeal by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration should be allowed against a permanent resident or even a person who is visiting here in Canada.
We submit to you that the present system of selection, we believe, is quite professional. It is functioning well, and we have quite competent people who sit and hear these matters. The selection process, as indicated to you, looks at these competencies in determining whether or not a person should be appointed to the board.
It is, in our submission, non-political. It's based not on ideology but on merits. It's a merit appointment system based on those competencies that have been put forward. But the final decision still remains with the minister. So there is the prerogative that is protected and respected within the system.
What exists today, quite candidly, in the present process is a crisis. When the government came to power there were approximately five vacancies; we now have over 50.
Canadians should be concerned, and are concerned, with this appointment system. The objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are spelled out quite clearly in this act, and one of them is family reunification. The problem is that people who appear before this board who are trying to bring their family members to Canada who have been refused are waiting up to three years because there aren't board members who they can appear before. Canadians and permanent residents are being separated from their spouses, partners, and parents because there's no one to hear their case. There are presently eight Federal Court applications dealing with this exact issue: “I am a Canadian. I am a permanent resident. My spouse has been refused a visa. There's no one to hear my case. Help me.” That's what exists.
On security, people who should or should not be removed from Canada don't have anyone to hear their cases. There are not enough board members, so we have people who have perhaps been convicted, who have an absolute right in certain circumstances to go before this board and argue their cases to stay—or the minister argues that they shouldn't stay—but no one is hearing these cases because there's no one to hear them.
Finally, many of these officers who represent you and me to put these cases forward don't have much to do because there's no one to hear their cases. So we have CBSA officers who are willing and ready to put these cases before board members who just aren't there.
We need to come to a decision quickly about the selection of these board members. We believe we have a pretty good system. It's transparent and based on merit. We respectfully submit that permitting the minister to be involved in the appointment of people who will make that selection just doesn't provide Canadians with a transparent and meritorious process to support our board. The present system still provides the minister with that final prerogative of yes or no.
That is our submission. Thank you.