I will make my presentation in French. I'm told there is translation. But I will participate in the discussion in English, if it's easier for everyone.
I will leave it up to my colleagues from the Canadian Bar Association and the Barreau du Québec to talk about technical details [Technical difficulties—The Editors] judicial. I want to talk about the context and mainly about the issue of migrant rights at the level of the principle.
There is a tendency, in Canada as well as in other western countries, in the northern hemisphere, to consider that strangers have less rights than we have, that their rights are not as worthy of respect. This is true in Canada and elsewhere. There is a sort of general trend in the media, in the public discourse as well as in the government discourse.
And yet, strangers are right holders. In the Canadian Charter, strangers are holders of all the rights conferred by the Charter to persons on Canadian soil, except for three of them: the right to vote and be elected, the right to education in a minority language and the right to enter and stay in Canada. All other rights conferred to strangers—the right to protection of freedom, to the security of life and to equality—are protected at the same level. And the lack of the right to enter and stay in Canada does not mean that officials have the capacity to do just about anything when processing the claims of strangers.
Since the 1950's, administrative law of which immigration law is a part has become more and more sophisticated to the point that today, at least as much as in criminal law, this administrative law is potentially violating... [Technical difficulties—The Editors]
I'll continue in English, since we're having translation difficulties.
I was saying that since the fifties, administrative law has--