Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 12th, 2008

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

But it is very brief, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Well, it's not very brief if you keep going, Mr. Telegdi.

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

I could have finished by now, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We agreed we were cutting this off at five o'clock because we have important business to get around to before voting time, so very briefly, please.

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

That's right. This is an important clarification.

If a permanent resident commits serious criminal offences in Canada--not before they got into Canada, so it's not a question of inadmissibility--before that person can be deported he or she has a right to a hearing in front of you.

[Krista Daley]

I actually wonder. This really is the interpretation of the law, and of course we have a board member....

Now, with all due respect, the statute itself uses the word “inadmissibility”, and once again, the drafting of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act merged the two words “removal” and “inadmissibility”. So if you look at subsection 64(1), it says, “No appeal may be made to the IAD by a foreign national...permanent resident if [they] have been found inadmissible...”.

“Inadmissible” is the phrase that is used to mean both trying to enter Canada and also being removed from Canada. That's part of what happened at the drafting of IRPA: a merging of those two words into one: inadmissibility on grounds of security, violating human rights, serious criminality, or organized criminality. Serious criminality is defined as being punished in Canada by a term of imprisonment of two years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Carrier.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Chairman, earlier I asked Mrs. Daley a question, and she didn't have the answer. I'd like to have it now or to have her provide it to the committee later on. I asked her for the approximate number of bilingual positions among board members.

[Krista Daley]

My officials here were able to get some information. I'm still not sure it is profound enough to answer your question.

Thirty-one members out of 103 have indicated that their preferred language is French, but that doesn't mean that if a person has preferred English they're also not bilingual. Okay?

So I do have to follow up. There was some information we--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Maybe you could follow up, Mr. Carrier, on that.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

You could provide the additional information to—

[Krista Daley]

Absolutely.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Thank you for appearing before the committee. As I said, I hope you found it to be an enjoyable experience as much as we enjoyed questioning you. Thank you again.

We're going to go in camera to discuss a couple of things we have to do on the agenda, so we'll just give a moment to people to dismiss themselves.

Pardon me? Okay, you want to do that publicly?

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

Sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. So we won't go in camera for a moment. We'll go in camera to discuss our motion.

You want to deal with that now?

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

Sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Karygiannis, you want to welcome a delegation we have here today.

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

Mr. Chair, I'm seeking the committee's indulgence to address this for a couple of seconds.

There's a delegation that has come from Somaliland. Somaliland is part of the old Somalia. Somalia has gone through trials and tribulations. There was a civil war. The north part, which was a British protectorate, broke away and has been a country for which they've been trying to get international recognition for about 15 years. These folks have a lot of people who immigrated to Canada, and if the members at the end of this want to speak to them individually, they can, or if the committee wishes them to address us, by all means.

We have a member of parliament, Mr. Nasir Hagi Ali, from the Somaliland parliament, Mr. Ahmed Hussein Mohamed, who is the UCID party secretary of foreign affairs, Mr. Ibrahim Rashiid Axmed, Mr. Maxamed Ibrahim Aden, and Mr. Kayse Cali Geeddi. Should the committee want us to invite the individuals to give us a couple of minutes on what's happening in that country and the difficulties the folks face when immigrating from there, because we have absolutely no office there, by all means. If not, they can talk to them individually after this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We can probably give a couple of minutes to one individual from the delegation, if you wish, to say a word to our committee.

Would you like to do that? Maybe one individual from the delegation. This is going to be very informal, because we do have business to conduct.

We welcome you here today.

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

For the record, I'll get you the individuals' names and the spellings.

I do want to thank all members of the committee for allowing this to take place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Welcome.

[Nasir Hagi Ali, Member, Somaliland Parliament, As an Individual]

It's a great pleasure for me and my colleagues, the other members of my delegation, to thank you for giving us an opportunity to say a few words.

I would like to request that the chairman, Mr. Norman Doyle, let me ask a question to the honourable MPs who are here with you now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Feel free.

[Nasir Hagi Ali]

How many of you know Somaliland?