Evidence of meeting #7 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was safe.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
It would be helpful to know that, yes.
You mentioned that folks go through a six-month kind of.... I'm sorry.
3:55 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I was going to say we also have national packages; the research department does research on countries. This research is what is given to everyone in the hearing. There's no information that is not divulged to everyone.
The research department on the country condition is always updating international documents that come from Amnesty International or whatever institution.
I'm sorry I interrupted you.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
No problem.
Do they do that in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Affairs as well?
3:55 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
No, we work independently, to keep the independence.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
So there could be a country that Canada has serious problems about internationally in terms of raising human rights questions that the IRB takes a different view of.
3:55 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Well, if the Department of Foreign Affairs published something that's in the public domain, we would definitely....
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
I think a year ago or more there was a real discrepancy in the number of cases that were heard in Vancouver without legal representation for the claimant, as opposed to other parts of the country. Is that still the case, and do you have a sense of why that is?
3:55 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I don't have my statistics to hand, but I will provide them.
There was an issue with legal aid. The federal government was negotiating with the province, and for a while it looked like legal aid would not be awarded or granted for refugee claims.
It did pick up. We adjusted. We started having staff give briefings to the non-represented, and then the situation was remedied and an arrangement was agreed to. But I would say it is possibly the region where there are more people unrepresented, and I will get you the numbers.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
I just wonder what kind of support the board members get, especially IRB panel members. They have a very difficult job. I'm sure that hearing the difficult stories people tell them day in and out must be very draining and demanding on them. I've heard from some folks who work in the field that they're often concerned about the people hearing the cases, just because of the difficulty of what they listen to day in and day out.
4 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
There are a few things we do, for sure. First of all, the coordinator knows their decision-makers very well, and if the stress level is such that they need to have less work, a different kind of country, or something like that, we sometimes look at that. That is why to a certain degree there is quite a lot of value in not allowing people to serve for more than 10 years, because of the demands. I think we watch that very carefully.
I agree we've had people on stress leave, but proportionally that would not be greater than in any other organization of the federal government.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you.
I have a couple of questions on some of what's been said, looking at it on a comparative basis. There was some mention of the turn-down rate or acceptance rate, and the processing times. When you look at it in the bigger context, how do we compare with other developed countries in acceptance rates or turn-down rates and processing times?
When I listen to some of the factors you have to deal with—in other words, you may have a drastic reduction in claims in one area because of a third-party agreement, and you have positions that aren't filled according to what you might like—I appreciate you're balancing quite a few things. But you have a program to ensure you have quality people in place, and you have a program that deals with the assessment of risk, or pre-removal risk assessment, following a determination in the event of a negative decision.
Have you looked at how our system, process, and procedure compare to developed countries? How would you compare what we now have in place...obviously not what you had hoped for?
May 29th, 2006 / 4 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Mr. Chair, I want to clarify that we don't do the risk assessment; the risk assessment is done by the department.
But going back to your question, I see three parts to it. First of all, we're very engaged with the UN in terms of comparing with other countries. When I came in, I went to England, and we compared England. We looked at France. And that information is updated every year. When I go to Geneva every year, we have round tables of similar countries that have similar.... That allows us to see new ways of doing business, whether it's technology or whether it's how they interpret the convention, and the UN helps us with that very much.
The second thing is that there is no methodology known to measure and compare countries in terms of acceptance rate. We are not measuring necessarily the same thing. If I were to give an example, I'll use the United States. The United States has the first level rendering a decision within 60 days, and it is a public service. Then there's an appeal, and then there's another level of appeal over and above. So by the time they do their three levels of appeal and by the time you look at the acceptance rate, we're not very far behind.
In terms of the processing time that I've talked about, six months, I don't think I'm in a good position to compare, but I will say that if we ever get to six months, we're doing very well. If you could do it in four months, then there would be a limit as to how.... You can't sacrifice quality, you can't sacrifice equity, but you have to make sure that justice is not denied by having cases not heard. So that's our big....
I hope I've answered your question. The acceptance rate is difficult sometimes to measure. I would say we rank very well with the United States, contrary to the myth, the myth being that we would be porous or more.... My sense is when we look carefully we're not, and I think we're doing very well that way. But I'm not happy with the fact that we haven't reached the six months. I am not happy and will never be. I think when you look at the provinces and the responsibilities they assume on refugee determination, it's very important.
My other concern, of course, is with appeals. We never had a backlog on appeals; we were always rendering decisions on appeals in six months. Now we're going to 10 months. The numbers are too high. I have redeployed some decision-makers to the appeals side to make sure we're not falling too far behind. But on that side of the issue, the resource issue is very important also for the department, because in appeals it's an adversary system, where the department comes and represents the minister versus the appeal that is going to be heard. So if they don't have their resources...even if I had 60 decision-makers, it would not necessarily help me.
Some comparisons are possible. Best practices are compared—I'm going back to the refugee file—and on the acceptance rate I know that we are not, as we are portrayed, more generous than any other system in place. But it's hard to compare.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
The bottom line is, I gather, that the six-month target you would like to meet is one that would be reasonable given all of what you have seen in the system.
4:05 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I would say yes, like Sweden.
In England they have blitzed, they have done a lot of work, but by the time you put the appeal system that they have.... We try to do it right the first time. We invest a lot of money and a lot of time on getting it right the first time.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Blair Wilson Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Fleury, for your presentation.
I just have a couple of questions. I'm looking at the numbers and the graphs and trying to determine the trend of what is shaping up in Canada.
Before I say anything, I must congratulate you on your job of getting the backlog down from the 52,100 that it was in 2002 to the 20,000 where it stands today.
The question I have is on the number of claims that are being referred. Obviously, as the years go by, the number of actual refugee claimants coming into Canada has decreased. If you combine that with a $10 million increase in budget, and we start having an effective eating into the backlog in a consistent way, it appears that if you keep on track the way you are going, we are probably two to three years away from a just-in-time system, where the refugee claims are being processed as quickly as they are coming in, which I think is a positive sign.
In the second line, where it says “claims finalized”, where it seems to have been dropping from 45,000 to 35,000 to 25,000, I'm wondering why the number of claims we process in Canada is decreasing. Are there fewer refugees in the world or are there fewer refugees coming to Canada?
4:05 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Well, it's a phenomenon everywhere. It's not just us. The same thing happens in the States and everywhere. The drop that you see in the last two years is international. And then you have safe third that plays into it.
The year we had so much productivity...we couldn't sustain that all the time. We knew people were going all out, but at the same time, if I had all the members I need, we could eat away at the backlog at a faster rate than I'm doing it at right now. Right now, I'm plateauing.
As a matter of fact, if you look at the numbers.... I was hoping to come here with 19,999, but we have been at 20,300 to 20,500 for the last six months. And it's a direct relationship.
I don't want to talk too much about appointments, but I think I did try to make the point that once you start having a time stop in terms of appointments, it has its bearing.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Blair Wilson Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you.
I'm new to the committee, so I'm assuming that the countries of origin for most of our refugee claims are from countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan. What are the top three or four countries we receive refugees from?
4:05 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I'll read them out, the top ten. As of today, the top ten are Mexico, China, Sri Lanka, Colombia, India, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Haiti, Nigeria.... We could send the list.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Blair Wilson Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Okay, yes.
I'm just curious, though. My initial assumption would be that you would have Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Sudan in that list. Why...?
4:10 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Well, there are programs of refugees sponsored by government that would come from many refugee camps. Those are people arriving in Canada. But when you look at the privately sponsored and the government-sponsored, you'll probably see what you had in mind in terms of where the refugees are situated.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Blair Wilson Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
As a last question, what is your sense of the number of refugees that Canada as a society can consistently take in and integrate into our country? Is there a number where we reach a ceiling? How much more capacity do you think our society has?
4:10 p.m.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I'm not in the policy area, nor am I with the government. I'm talking about the department. They have analyses, and I haven't been privy to that. But my sense is that we have to be proud as Canadians that we're doing so well. We have an inside refugee determination, but just 44% are accepted; someone is not being accepted.
So there's a fairness there.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Blair Wilson Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
If I still have time, what effect is the European Union going to have on our refugee claimants, since that safe third-party loophole allows us to push refugees back to other safe countries?
What impact do you think that will have on Canada?
