Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 10th, 2007

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Then I would move that amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Are there two amendments or one?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

There is one amendment covering two points.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Would you repeat the second point for the clerk, please?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Okay: “and to immediately fill remaining board vacancies by reappointments and new appointments from the pool of qualified applicants”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That is new appointments and reappointments.

Are you ready for the question on the amendment?

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

Could we have a look at that amendment before we call the question on it? I'd like to speak to it too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We'll be able to read it to you. The second “whereas” is changed and acceptable to the mover.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Samy Agha]

Insert the words “has created a crisis by its failure to appoint a sufficient number of adjudicators”--to insert those words in between “government” and “failure”, and to add at the end of the motion, “and to immediately fill remaining board vacancies from the pool of available and qualified applicants”.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

No, by reappointment.

[Samy Agha]

It is “by reappointments and--”

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Is there any further discussion on the amendment?

I call the question on the amendment.

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

First of all, we haven't seen it, and I thought he was going to draft it so we could see it. Then we want to have a discussion on it, don't we? Can we see it?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

We don't need to see it, Chair. We've already read it a number of times. It's very clear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Let's allow a couple of minutes.

In the meantime, is there any further discussion on the main motion?

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I think the amendment and the motion are great, Chair, and I will be strongly supporting them. It is very important that we do this now, given the crisis that has been created at the IRB, given the crisis in hearing refugee claims, given the crisis in hearing immigration appeals. We know that this affects people directly in that it puts lives on hold. It increases anxiety and frustration for many people waiting for these decisions--for many Canadian citizens waiting for these decisions, for many refugee claimants waiting for these decisions.

I think it's unconscionable the position the government has taken to delay these reappointments and appointments and to throw the IRB back into crisis again. It's totally the government's doing. That is why we need to pass this motion now and get a report to the House as quickly as possible on this particular issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Madam Faille and Mr. Komarnicki.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Chairman, my remarks will be very brief.

In fact, I wanted to reiterate that the situation is urgent. The Quebec representatives have talked a lot about this. We should support this important motion on their behalf. We owe it to the future citizens of Canada and Quebec. There's currently a crisis: cases and hearings are delayed. An enormous amount of stress is being imposed on the immigrant population.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Komarnicki.

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

The fact of the matter is, this particular committee heard evidence quite a long while ago and is in the process of completing a report based on hearing that evidence, which will be concluded, I understand, on Tuesday of next week, and this committee will be making a report to the House, as a whole, dealing with issues specifically raised in this motion.

This motion was done for one reason and one reason only--to play some political games and for some political points, when in fact the report will be forthcoming on Tuesday of next week. I think it is inappropriate to have a report going to the House without the specific evidence being referred to, when we have a report in the making that will be presented to the House very close to Tuesday of next week. I don't see why we would do two reports, a pre-pre-report and a report. The committee has extensively discussed this issue in the main and is in the process of almost completion. I think it is inappropriate for this motion to go forward, because it has no reasonable basis for it to proceed when we know a report is forthcoming as early as next week.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Well, we've already dealt with the appropriateness of calling the motion. The committee has agreed that the motion should be dealt with at the committee, and we all voted on that.

It's pointless to pursue that particular point. If you're going to pursue that particular point, Mr. Telegdi...because we've already dealt with all of this.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Actually the points I'm going to make, and there are a number of them.... When we sat in government there was one party, the Reform Party, the Alliance Party, and the Conservative Party, that rightfully lambasted the previous government for not putting in place adequate measures to reform the IRB and on the backlog.

I think we achieved in the House of Commons a joint victory when the previous Liberal government, maybe not as quickly as possible, fixed the system. The backlogs had been drastically reduced from a high of 52,000 down to 20,000, which was the low-water mark.

We left office. There was a vacancy rate of five members out of 156 members on the Immigration and Refugee Board. Well, now the vacancy is up around 60. If the parliamentary secretary has the correct figures, we'd appreciate it if he would share them with the committee.

The issue is that we're dealing with a system that makes life and death decisions. I think that's very, very important. I'll tell you the one thing that I really find passing strange, particularly coming from the Conservatives. By not having sufficient members on the board, we cannot have immigration appeals heard. One of the things that immigration appeals deal with is people who the government believes should be removed from the country for criminal activity, organized crime, or whatever. These folks—and I state the worst end of the case—are able to hide behind the fact that they cannot be removed until they get a hearing.

Now maybe the parliamentary secretary could inform the committee as to the numbers of people we're talking about. The reality is that by having an IRB that's in crisis, we are not able to remove undesirable folks from this country. I find that passing strange.

Given the previous rhetoric I heard in my thirteen and a half years in Parliament, that's the hardest one I have to reconcile, as to why the government wouldn't be moving to restore the efficiency and the non-partisan nature and protection of the IRB.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Let's get along to the amendment and the motion. The parliamentary secretary is under no obligation to answer any questions in committee on this motion. From that point of view, I don't think we can deal with that.

Okay, I see no more questioners. I think it's necessary now to call the vote on the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

On the main motion, Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to propose another amendment, that we add further, “Be it resolved that the Chair of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration issue a press release and call a press conference on behalf of the committee to outline the committee's concerns on this issue.”