Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 12th, 2008

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

You were also reported to have said that you believe that changes would make the program wiser and the backlog shorter, while limiting spending. What did you base that statement on, after having read the legislation?

[Warren Creates]

Well, I, like you, believe if the inventory continues to grow, it's going to cost us as Canadian taxpayers a fortune to manage. That has to stop. And the sooner it happens, the better for all of us. We oughtn't to let it grow and get out of control like it is now.

I want to see a smaller backlog, the present backlog reduced, and a new one not created. I want to see processing times that approximate two years. This will be cheaper for all of us.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Ultimately, when you get down to the nub of the issue, the legislation will need to set policy of some kind. The government of the day will have to be responsible to the electorate for this policy. That's pretty much in line with what your first statement said. Wouldn't you agree with me?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

This will have to be your final comment.

[Warren Creates]

There will be a political price for issuing instructions that are unpopular and possibly illegal.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Ultimately—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

No, no, that was the last question.

Is there anyone with a follow-up comment?

[John P. Ryan]

Any choice at this point, given the size of the backlog, the size of the fore-log, and the inefficient system, is going to be unpopular. Whatever the colour of the government in force, it is going to have to make some hard decisions. We have Bill C-50 in front of us. There may be other alternatives.

One of the concerns we have at the society is the government's limitation of the consultations to government partners and stakeholders. We think there are a lot more groups—the professional bodies, the trade unions, the immigrant groups—that need to be consulted. We would recommend to the minister that she change this stance and that she have a more inclusive consultation going forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Thank you to all of you for appearing today. As Ms. Chow reminded us, we're expected to have a report by Thursday. Stay tuned; we'll see if we can achieve that.

Again, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm pleased to welcome today, from the Chinese Canadian Community Alliance, Mr. Tom Pang, acting president; Mr. Roberto Jovel, coordinator of policy and research for the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants; and Mr. Ping Tan, national executive co-chair of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians.

Welcome, gentlemen. I believe all of you have opening statements you want to make, so I would invite you to begin your opening statements, please.

We'll begin with you, Mr. Pang.

[Tom Pang, Acting President, Chinese Canadian Community Alliance]

The Chinese Canadian Community Alliance is a non-profit organization that's based in Toronto. One of our main purposes is to promote better communication between the Chinese community and those outside the Chinese community. As such, we are very much interested in our country's immigration policies.

Recently the federal Conservative government tabled amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Since then, those amendments have been hotly debated within the community, with obvious pros and cons.

After studying the amendments, this organization, the Chinese Canadian Community Alliance, would like to express our support for the amendments.

There are two problems with the status quo.

First, as we all know, the waiting time is too long. More than once, people have mentioned a 920,000-person backlog and people having to wait for four to six years to have their application processed. This is not acceptable, because as somebody has already pointed out, so many things can happen within those four to six years. People can pass away, the kids can grow up, beyond the point of family, or they could wind up in Australia or New Zealand, or maybe they would decide not to come at all. This is one of the major problems: the wait time.

The other problem is that we're not getting the right immigrants in Canada. I have a friend who runs a music school who has lots of chances to talk to parents. I was surprised to learn that so many families, mostly Chinese immigrants, have only one parent in Canada, because after they arrived in Canada they couldn't find the right job. This has been going on for years now, from Hong Kong, from Taiwan, from China, among the kinds of people they associate with. Lots of those families have only one parent with the kids in Canada, because they couldn't find the right job. No matter how qualified or how trained they are, there simply are not the kinds of jobs they want in Canada.

Some of them have gone back to the old country. In Chinese, there's even a term for those kinds of people, meaning a husband working in Hong Kong who comes to Canada maybe four or six times a year to visit the family. They have no friends, they couldn't find jobs in Canada, and now they work in Brazil and Argentina. They, in turn, do the same thing, fly several times a year to Canada.

I'm not a lawyer; I'm just a layman. Any bill that can solve those two problems—to cut down wait times and to find the right immigrants to come to Canada, those who could find the right kinds of jobs—is a bill that would be welcomed by the community and by the people.

Unfortunately, the focus of discussion has been too much on the minister's power. Again, I'm a layman; I don't understand that. But when I look at it, from my point of view there's nothing in the bill in that area.

Any bill that will solve the problems we've mentioned is a good bill. There is nothing about refugees, there's nothing about family reunification, there's nothing about race or place of origin.

We accept this bill and we support this bill.

Should, in future, the minister base her policy on race, on place of origin, or on religion, then the Chinese Canadian Community Alliance will be the first to stand up and work against the government.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Are you finished, Mr. Pang?

[Tom Pang]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Mr. Jovel, or Mr. Tan.

[Ping Tan, National Executive Co-Chair, National Congress of Chinese Canadians]

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Ping Tan. I am the executive co-chair of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians. I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee this afternoon on these very important amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The National Congress of Chinese Canadians was established in Vancouver in 1992 following a resolution at the national convention of Chinese Canadians in May 1991 in Toronto to discuss and try to get a fair settlement of the Chinese head tax and the Chinese exclusion act. Over 500 delegates from across the country representing over 200 associations attended that meeting and, as a result, the congress was established to pursue a fair settlement of the head tax and the Chinese exclusion act.

In October 2005, I appeared before a committee of this House regarding a private member's bill, brought by Mr. Inky Mark, a member of Parliament from Manitoba, regarding redress of the head tax and the Chinese exclusion act. The bill received second reading. Unfortunately, an election was called and it did not receive third reading. So it did not pass and become law.

Also in October 2005, I signed an agreement in principle on behalf of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians with the then Minister Raymond Chan, to address the head tax and the Chinese exclusion act. That agreement in principle was signed. However, the current government has yet to honour that agreement.

Today I appear before you again on behalf of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians to study the proposed amendments to part 6 of Bill C-50. I would like to recommend to the committee that it remove these proposed amendments from the budget bill. It is the view of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians that the proposed amendments give too much discretionary power to the minister that is not necessary. Part 6 should be removed from the budget bill.

We share the view of the legal profession, as represented by the Canadian Bar Association, that the proposed amendments are not necessary, because they will remove parliamentary oversight of the exercise of the proposed discretionary power by the minister. The exercise of that discretionary power would not be subject to judicial review. I'm sure you have heard similar views expressed already.

These proposed amendments are inconsistent with Canadian values and the Canadian parliamentary system of government. The proposed amendments, if passed, will fundamentally change the current legislative and regulatory framework for the selection of immigrants. It will erode public confidence in the integrity and fairness of our immigration selection system, because qualified prospective applicants, after waiting years, will be subject to ministerial discretion and not be approved.

We support the government's announced intention to deal with and reduce the immigration application backlog, and the need to bring in the skilled workers that we need in the most speedy way to meet the current labour market demands. We are all supportive of that. However, the current legislation and the regulations already give the minister the needed authority to deal with these issues. More powers, especially discretionary powers, are not justified.

We are particularly concerned that there has been no public consultation about these major changes. In the last 30 years, when the government of the day decided to bring in new immigration laws, there have always been wide public consultations.

Why such a rush this time for such a fundamental change? The Chinese Canadian community is still dealing with the impact of the Chinese head tax and the Chinese exclusion act. We should not make another mistake again.

I have tried to confine myself to seven minutes, Mr. Chairman. You can see that I'm not done yet, but I'd like to take questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have a couple of minutes, if you want to keep going, Mr. Tan.

[Ping Tan]

I'm a lawyer. I have been practising law for 31 years. I spend a lot of time dealing with immigration files, particularly from Asia—Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China.

Mr. Chairman and members, if these amendments are passed, we are going to lose confidence. Somebody who is highly qualified can wait for years and then be told by an officer, “Sorry, thank you very much for your application; I just got instructions from the minister, and I'm going to return your file. Thank you very much.”

I don't think that is fair. I don't think it is the Canadian way of doing business.

We are highly regarded internationally, and to have this kind of a law adopted, and then for me to present it to my community and prospective immigrants overseas, you can see the negative impact Canada is going to face as a result.

Mr. Chairman, there are already powers for this; you have already heard evidence in the submissions to you that the current law, the act and the regulations, allow the minister to do what she has announced she wants to do. The previous government did that. You can identify certain workers, the IT workers, for instance, and speed up their applications and have a special project to bring them in. But it did not work. Why? Because there was no coordination between the various government departments. There are other departments that are holding you up.

Why don't you use the wide network that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has worldwide? They know the overseas community well. We could tap into their expertise, their information, their intelligence. Work with them to find the immigrants we want. The minister has the power to do that under current law. Why don't we do that, and go out and actively recruit the skilled workers we need for our labour market? We don't have to fundamentally change the system. In 1976, when there was to be a big change to the system, a green paper was issued and there were wide public consultations. Everybody had input into this process.

So I submit to you, Mr. Chairman, that the proposed law is bad and the process is bad. We don't have to do it this way. It is important that we take this out. Let us have a proper proposal and draft legislation in front of Parliament and, more importantly, the draft instructions the minister is going to issue. Let us take a look at them and have input, and then we will come back with a very good Canadian legal framework for our prospective immigrants.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Tan.

Mr. Jovel.

[Roberto Jovel, Coordinator, Policy and Research, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I too wish to thank the members of the Committee.

I represent the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. It is an umbrella organization, somewhat like the Canadian Council for Refugees. The latter operates at the national level, whereas our Council is the umbrella organization for Ontario. The Council is made up of approximately 200 organizations throughout the province serving immigrants and refugees. From the very beginning, we have been strongly opposed to part 6 of Bill C-50. We did an analysis that we are going to be sharing with you over the next few minutes. We mobilized our members. We asked the various organizations to contact their local MP in order to explain why we have concerns with regard to the process, the content and the possible repercussions.

I'll go very quickly, because many of the issues were already mentioned during the first panels this afternoon—I was able to listen to them—and I don't want to be repetitive. Of course, the first one, the existing backlog of over 900,000 applications, is not going to be resolved by this, contrary to what has been said in the media by government officials. The measures are now going to be in place, but only for those applications that have been filed on February 27 or after. So that huge backlog is not really what these proposals address.

Of course, we are concerned about the arbitrary power that is given to the minister. It's unchecked power. I'm going to go into detail on this in a bit. The applicants are also losing their legal right to have their application dealt with properly. We're concerned with the issue that if your application meets all the requirements of the law, if instructions issued by a minister say that you fall within a category that shouldn't be even treated, then you wouldn't even have a way to have reparation for such a wait to deal with your application.

As well, there has been a lot of discussion as to whether or not this applies to or affects family reunification. In our analysis it does in different ways. I'm going to be looking at that in detail as well. It also impacts on humanitarian and compassionate applications, which are filed overseas. Of course, these proposals shouldn't be within the budget legislation. They have nothing to do in there. They should have gone through a proper proposal submitted to Parliament and to the Canadian public, with proper consultation. So that was one of the things we have been asking directly from Prime Minister Harper and the department, that part 6 be removed from the bill project.

As a response to all the criticism and all the concerns that have been expressed publicly since the bill was announced on March 14, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration issued a news release from the minister on April 8 that was intended to respond to all the criticisms and all the issues. I think it addresses the issues, but it doesn't respond properly, and I'm going to go through it as well very carefully. One of the major problems is that even a news release or a public statement of that kind is not binding enough to prevent any misuses of power that may occur in the future by this minister or any other minister, by this government or any other government. It's just a problem with promises or statements of intent that are not equivalent to the law or that are not equivalent to properly checked and controlled proposals.

One of the concerns is an example that has happened very recently. When the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was being discussed, the minister back then promised that the regulation on section 117 that deals with people-smuggling would not be applied to humanitarian workers supporting refugees. So those were ministerial promises back then, and everyone agreed, “Okay, your promise is enough. We believe in your good faith.” But what happened only a few months ago was that a humanitarian worker, who was only accompanying refugees within the U.S. to the Canadian border, was detained under this as if this person had been a smuggler. So ministerial promises and public statements of that nature are certainly not enough and we won't take them as seriously as the government would like us to believe in them.

So family reunification concerns.... If you look closely at proposed section 87.3 in the proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act within Bill C-50, you look at the application of ministerial instructions. So the only subsection that is excluded from application of the instruction is subsection 99(2). But then sponsorship applications made by persons referred to in subsection 13(1) will be included for application of instructions. Maybe the minister doesn't have the intention to issue any instructions now, but under the project that is being submitted for a vote, it could happen and it's a reason for concern. The minister could issue categories or groups to be processed in order to be just not dealt with.

Another issue is that there's also a backlog and very long waiting times for family reunification sponsorship applications. This bill is not dealing with that.

We're also concerned that if, through the instructions, the minister would give priority to skilled workers or certain categories of skilled workers' applications, this might mean less in resources and less priority to family reunification. That's also a good reason that a government should go through proper consultation, through Parliament and through the public, to look at these kinds of impacts and not have to just deal later with statements and promises.

There are other misuses of power that should be prevented as well in terms of discrimination. There are many ways in which you could issue instructions that may be neutral or appear to be neutral at first reading but may have a differential impact on people from different countries or from different religions or cultures or races.

If I may have two more minutes like my predecessor—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You can have a minute to wrap up.

[Roberto Jovel]

Well, you gave him three minutes; let me have two.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, we'll give you a couple of minutes.

[Roberto Jovel]

There was a case in Canadian history, the continuous journey policy, that was worded in a way that said that no one who didn't come to Canada through a continuous journey would be accepted. It didn't say we don't want people from that country or from that continent, but as a matter of fact, as neutral as the wording may have looked, there were people who were being excluded.

We also have cases like the lobbying by the Fraser Institute, which has been saying that if we look at Statistics Canada results recently of outcomes in terms of employment and income for recent immigrants, people coming from the global south are not doing as well as immigrants used to do a few years ago. The Fraser Institute is saying that it's not necessarily a problem with the host society that doesn't accommodate diversity and doesn't address systemic issues but that perhaps people from those countries are fundamentally incompatible with settling and integrating in Canada.

So we're saying that if you don't have proper checks and balances, it's the moral duty of the organizations that serve immigrants and refugees to raise a banner of alarm and to tell committees like yours to pay close attention to this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I notice that I have six people on the list. If we went five minutes each, everyone would be assured of getting their chance to ask some questions of our witnesses.

We'll start with Mr. Karygiannis--then Mr. St-Cyr, Ms. Chow, Mr. Komarnicki, Mr. Telegdi, Mr. Carrier, and Mr. Komarnicki.

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

Thank you.

To the panellists, thank you very much for coming.

Mr. Tom Pang, sir, you were involved with the redress issue, the head tax issue.