Evidence of meeting #41 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was c-50.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Yes.
I'm going to Mr. Bevilacqua, who will be the last one. Hopefully you'll have a chance to continue on with the next group of witnesses and get into that point you were going to make.
Mr. Bevilacqua, I'll give you about four or five minutes. You didn't speak before.
Liberal
Maurizio Bevilacqua Liberal Vaughan, ON
We seem to invest a lot of minutes figuring out how many minutes we should get.
Liberal
Maurizio Bevilacqua Liberal Vaughan, ON
First of all, I want to thank you so much for your presentation.
Obviously the purpose of this committee is to find ways to improve on what appears to be a seriously flawed piece of legislation. I'd like to give you this opportunity, the two or three minutes I have, to basically tell us how you would improve this bill and what changes you want.
Professor of International Law, Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de l'Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM)
There are not many elements of this part 6 that I like. Probably what's needed is to scrap it altogether--at this point.
I recognize that there are important administrative issues relating to the backlog. Something has to be done about that backlog, because that in itself is an injustice to many people who've been waiting five, six, seven, eight years for their cases to be decided. But I don't think increasing discretion on the part of the bureaucrats or the minster is the way to do it. Certainly spending more money would be, especially in CIC, which is, from what I understand, a department that produces money for the government. Certainly on this issue, spending more money, having more people to process the files, would be a solution.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
And instead we've spent money on facilitating a greater foreign worker program that works faster for employers. Service Canada is all set up to help channel migrant workers and foreign workers into the Canadian economy faster, but we haven't spent the money on bettering the processing of permanent residency applications for the many people in that backlog who have the same skills as the many foreign workers who are being brought in to work in low-skill sectors.
Professor of International Law, Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de l'Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM)
I think the idea of processing each and every file according to their order of appearance was a very sound principle. I don't disagree with the idea of having priorities, but having priorities should be something that is discussed democratically. There shouldn't simply be instructions that are not debated beforehand, etc. If we are going to make an exception to the rule of the order of application, we have to understand why. It has to be debated.
Prioritizing some people means putting other people at the back of the list. And it's not those who are prioritized that I'm concerned with; it's those who are at the bottom of the list.
Liberal
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I'd have to say as well that there's not much I like either in the whole bill. The discretionary powers are not the only way to handle the backlog. I also don't see the backlog as much of a problem; I see it as a good thing, a sign that we have a lot of people who would like to come to Canada, and we need to go through those and fairly and equally assess each and every one of those applications. It is the right of those people.
Liberal
Maurizio Bevilacqua Liberal Vaughan, ON
Basically, both of you are saying you want to scrap the bill.
Professor of International Law, Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de l'Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM)
And probably replace it with other provisions that would accelerate the process of all these applications in the backlog, but not this way. There are other means available.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I would concur.
Professor of International Law, Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de l'Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM)
Such as putting more money in the system, having more civil servants processing the files. Who said justice was cheap?
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
Digitizing everything....
Professor of International Law, Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de l'Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM)
There are ways of accelerating. Our universities have accelerated the processing of student applications. I'm sure we can do that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you, Mr. Bevilacqua, and thank you, Ms. Hennebry and Mr. Crépeau, for your testimony today. We will be doing a report, as you know, and we advise you to stay tuned.
We will call the Canadian Bar Association forward: Stephen Green is the treasurer and Kerri Froc is the legal policy analyst.
Maybe we can begin. We're about 10 minutes late. Sorry, Mr. Green and Ms. Froc, to keep you waiting, but we had people who were enthusiastic about their questions and wanted to get them in. I do welcome you here today from the Canadian Bar Association. I think you've been here before, so you know the drill and how it's done.
I invite you to make your opening statements, after which our committee members will engage in some comments and questions and what have you.
Welcome. Thank you for coming.
Kerri Froc Legal Policy Analyst, Canadian Bar Association
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Canadian Bar Association is very pleased to appear before this committee today on part 6 of Bill C-50, amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
You heard from the chair of the citizenship and immigration section of the CBA at the end of March regarding our concerns with the ministerial instructions contained in Bill C-17. Our written submission on Bill C-50 builds on this previous submission and has been circulated to you in advance.
The Canadian Bar Association is a national association with about 38,000 members across the country. The primary objectives of the organization are improvement in the law and improvement in the administration of justice.
It is in this light that we have made our written submission and that we make our comments to you today.
I'm going to ask Mr. Green, who is a member of the executive of the citizenship and immigration law section, to address the substantive issues in the bill.
Stephen Green Treasurer, Canadian Bar Association
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to begin with a little history. I think it's important to understand what part 6 is trying to do.
Prior to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the issuance of visas was pretty much a discretionary matter. Even qualified people were denied visas. IRPA brought us in line with other jurisdictions and really established the rule of law within our immigration process in order to prevent some of the historic difficulties Canada has had with respect to the entry of various people.
IRPA, at the time it came in, was framework legislation. Many of you were on that committee when we were discussing it. As does the legislation of today and recent years, this framework provided great regulatory authority within the act. Very broad regulations were permitted to be made, and this committee heard great submissions with respect to dealing with the transparency of these new regulations that were going to come out under IRPA.
How do we go ahead and make sure there is some type of scrutiny with respect to the regulations? Section 5 in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act answered that question for us. It resulted in subjecting the regulatory-making powers of the minister to great scrutiny. It provided that each of the houses would receive a copy of these regulations, and they would go to the appropriate committees.
What do we have now as it stands today? I submit that there is sufficient parliamentary oversight consistent with the principles of responsible government and democracy with respect to the regulatory-making power of the minister. We have a transparent system. It permits input and consultation through gazetting, and there really is no perceived arbitrariness with respect to regulations that are passed. Now with the introduction in part 6, that changes. It brings forward instructions with respect to all aspects of visa issuance, except refugee selection outside of Canada. It affects our family class, economic class, temporary class, and humanitarian class. It affects all of that.
What is the result of these instructions? Quite candidly, we have instructions being issued with no oversight. Unlike regulations, which I submit to you have tremendous power and tell us how to interpret our act, there is no oversight with respect to these instructions.
What are the dangers? What will this result in? In our respectful submission, perhaps one of the most dangerous things is the ability of people to lobby the government in power at the time with respect to the manner of developing and issuing instructions. It is all secret. No one will know. We have heard they will meet with unions and various organizations, but that's all in private. Citizens will not know how these instructions will come to be.
On judicial review and the ability to review a decision of a visa officer abroad, we are told in part 6 that a decision to return or not process is not a decision. Therefore, how are we going to go ahead with oversight of our visa officers without the ability of our courts to review a decision to return that really is not a decision according to part 6?
We've heard great talk about this backlog. Let us be clear: part 6 does not affect the backlog. It will not have any effect on our backlog, we submit. Right now there are matters to deal with the backlog, which the present government, to their credit, is dealing with. Individuals who have work permits are expedited through the process, in between four to six months in some countries, and they are able to get their immigration. There are provincial nominee programs under which immigration visas are issued, again within six months. There are SWAT teams that the government sends into various visa offices to deal with the situation as it now exists. It is our submission that we do not need this new legislation to deal with this problem. The minister could, or the government in power could, increase the points under the selection system with respect to economic foreign nationals and therefore reduce the intake.
It is our submission that if this legislation passes it will result in Canada's going back to the dark ages of immigration selection and processing. It would allow the minister to operate in an unfettered manner, opening the back door to many interest groups. There are other initiatives that the government has taken with respect to assisting in the speed of applications. We've heard about the Canada experience class. There have been consultations. That's the way it should be done, and we look forward to seeing the results as they come out.
Those are my submissions with regard to this present situation.
Liberal
Maurizio Bevilacqua Liberal Vaughan, ON
I think it's pretty clear where you stand on this issue. It's a question that causes a great deal of concern to us. We feel that the bill is seriously flawed. It doesn't even address the original intent, which was the backlog. We fail to understand the reason that so much ministerial power is required.
We also question the seriousness of the government—departmental funding in this area was increased by only 1%. We also question the seriousness and sincerity of the government when it talks about wanting more skilled labour, when 36,000 fewer landed immigrants have been accepted over the past two years. This is the framework we're looking at.
I will repeat a question I asked to an earlier panel. One of the roles of this committee is to try to find ways to improve on the present system. Could you share with us some of your ideas on this?
Treasurer, Canadian Bar Association
I think the government is improving the processing of people who have job offers in Canada. I commend them for this. To get these workers to Canada, they are actually plucked out of the system and expedited.
We might be able to look at the level of points that individuals get. We could reduce the intake if we can't deal with the number of people who are applying. Another possibility would be, as we heard from one of the witnesses, to increase the resources available to process the backlog. But as with any type of regulation, we have to sit down and try to figure it out. It's a hard question to answer. But I don't believe part 6 is the way to solve the problem.
Liberal
Maurizio Bevilacqua Liberal Vaughan, ON
Suppose you have a Canadian who is reading your comments and is concerned about Canada's immigration system as a tool for nation-building. Explain to him the real dangers of the concentration of power in the hands of the ministers responsible for immigration. Why is this a dangerous thing?
