Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 31st, 2006

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

And that's pretty typical--not having the right to go to school and not having the right to work. I understand a lot of people make their living as street vendors because they're not legally allowed to work.

[Mai Nguyen]

That's right. It's illegal to sell goods on the street, so it's a catch-22: starve or try to survive and go to prison for it.

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

Either way, the only options open to you are the illegal ones.

[Mai Nguyen]

Right.

Something else I find really touching is that children who have parents who are stateless are born into statelessness. There's no way out of it; they will remain stateless. Even if stateless Vietnamese men are married to Filipina spouses, their children are still stateless. There's no solution right now.

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

So there's no particular status conferred on them, nor their children, because they marry a Filipina citizen.

[Mai Nguyen]

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

Well, Bill, I think I'll use your last two minutes and give Rahim a question. Then we'll wrap up.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

It's nice to see many of you again. It's unfortunate that it's still on this issue. We were hoping it would have been resolved. We first talked about this in this committee almost two years ago, I guess.

Under the new class that the minister talked about, there are approximately eight individuals who have arrived here thus far. Could you just verify this for me?

[Hoi Trinh]

Two of them are right here.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Yes, two of them are here now.

Are there others who have applied? I know you mentioned they were concerned that they would not be able to be processed or that they would be rejected or something. Maybe I misunderstood. How many of the 500--the 200 families--we have identified have actually gone through the process? Maybe I missed that.

[Hoi Trinh]

Originally, 56 families--approximately 200 people--were found to be eligible. The committee recognized 500, but the policy covered around 200 people.

Of those 56 families--200 people--only 8 families applied. The rest went to the U.S. The majority chose the U.S. because the U.S. recognized them as refugees and gave them money and all that when they settled there.

With regard to the 10-year sponsorship, there was a family we brought over last year who couldn't afford it because she's the sole-income earner. Her six siblings were in the Philippines. She was eligible to apply, but it would have cost the family tens of thousands of dollars. So they couldn't be reunited.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

So you're saying there are 188 individuals left. Do those people have matched sponsors or potentially some sort of a link here in Canada? If we're going to be focusing on those particular groups, is there a way to expedite their cases?

[Hoi Trinh]

If they are recognized as being in the country of asylum class, one of the criteria is still that you need a private sponsor. And what we do say is that the committee does want to step in and wants to provide the private sponsors.

In the case of Patrick, we would like his mother or his uncle or whoever to be the sponsor. But in the case of someone who has no relatives, the committee will step in and provide the sponsorship that is required under the country of asylum class. It's willing to share the burden with Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you. We really appreciate your coming here today to present your case. You presented it very well, believe you me.

We can't help but be moved by the support that you've brought along here today. Please be assured that the minister will be made fully aware of everything you had to say today, especially as his parliamentary secretary sits on our committee.

Thank you.

[Maxwell Vo]

Mr. Doyle, would it be possible for me to make a couple of concluding remarks?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Sure.

[Maxwell Vo]

First of all, we just want to thank you once again for having us here today, and we want to say thanks to the 38th Parliament CIMM for passing the motion last year.

As you can see, we have members here from across Canada--Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, including members of the United Buddhist Congregation--who have come out to support us.

As we all know, there are currently 20 million refugees worldwide. So why should we step in and help this group? First of all, I just want to say that Canada has a great history of helping the boat people who have now integrated into society. In my case, being born a Vietnamese Canadian here in Canada, I've been able to contribute back to this community and this country.

Canada takes in some 30,000 refugees every year. We're asking for only a small number: 188 people. That's less than 1% of the annual quota. Last year alone, 200 spots were allocated for family reunification, and we used only 27 of those spots. As well, these people are deserving. They've waited 17 years.

We have the support of the Vietnamese Canadian Committee and our friends from across the country who have said they're ready and willing to help integrate these people into society, provide the private sponsorships necessary, and raise the money necessary to bring them over.

In fact, we put our money where our mouth is. My good friend Thao Duong and I have personally signed on as personal, financial sponsors for one of the cases of the eight coming to Canada.

For all of the above reasons, please help us find a way to help alleviate this ongoing humanitarian tragedy. Thank you very much, everybody.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. Thank you.

We'd like to continue longer, but we do have the Falun Gong group coming in. People just want to continue asking questions

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

I don't want to ask a question. I just want to mention that we had a discussion here, and tomorrow morning I'll be tabling a motion in the wording agreed upon by the members, reflecting an update of the motion that I tabled last year in support of the SOS Viet Phi. Then we can pursue work on this with representatives of the department. So I think we'll find a way of getting the support that you require.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Rahim, I think you had indicated to me that you had some certificates to pass out.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Yes. These are not from me or any of our members. There's a Vietnamese member, Wayne Chow, whom I think many of you know, from the Alberta legislature. He has actually produced a bunch of certificates from the Legislative Assembly, identifying many of you who have been working for this cause, and he wanted to present it on behalf of the people of Alberta and those who are interested in this issue.

Seeing as I am from Alberta, he asked me to present them. It's an honour for me to do so. Once we adjourn, I will hand them out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You can pass them out.

Again, many thanks, and you'll be hearing back from us without a doubt.

We will suspend for about five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I will ask everyone to please take their seats as we want to begin our meeting.

On behalf of the committee, I want to welcome representatives from the Falun Dafa Association of Canada.

I will leave it to you, Mr. Chipkar, to introduce your people.

We have approximately one hour. I think you know the drill; we start off with about a 10-minute presentation, and then committee members will ask questions and engage in discussion.

I'll pass it over to you as spokesperson for the group, or to whomever your spokesperson might be.

[Joel Chipkar, Spokesperson, Toronto, Falun Dafa Association of Canada]

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Matas will speak first, but I will just introduce our panel: Shawn Li, president of the Falun Dafa Association; Carolyn Jin; and we have three witnesses with us today, practitioners, who face persecution inside China.

This is Mr. David Matas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You can begin any time you want. As I said, you have a 10-minute presentation or so, and we will pass it over to committee members for questions.