Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 13th, 2008

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Khaki.

[Aziz Khaki]

No. As usual, we were not consulted. Our organization is 25 years old, and we have a record. Invariably we were consulted, but this time there was no indication of any consultation.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Szeto.

[Eric Szeto]

No, I was not consulted about this bill.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

All right.

Here's my second question. Some of you talked about the fact that, from now on, a permanent residency application made on compassionate grounds would no longer be systematically reviewed. It clearly states that it could, and not should, be studied, as is currently the case. That's a major concern for me because this recourse is often used by rejected refugees who can't appeal to the refugee appeal division because it isn't yet in place. Those people therefore have no further alternatives and then apply for permanent residency on compassionate grounds. That's often how they manage to remain in or enter the country, even though they have been refused.

Aren't you afraid, as I am, that this bill eliminates another option for these people and that it closes another door to people who have been victims of an injustice by a board member at the first level?

[Aziz Khaki]

As I said in my presentation, the whole bill in itself is not very clear. The intent is to restrict. The intent is to deny what was available to other people, whether refugees or immigrants, especially refugees. Unfortunately, the bill is very one-sided. I've said it, and it is not going to help those people who are trying to apply under the refugee status. The intent is not to help. The intent is to literally stop them from trying to come into the country through the process that was once available to them.

[Tung Chan]

As a Canadian organization operating with 70% of our grants coming from the government, I think when we craft this law, what is needed is for it to be fair and to be balanced. Having said that, we do recognize and share your concern in terms of the privilege we can confer to refugees--and I stress that it's a privilege that we confer to refugees. At the same time, we have to balance out Canadian interests. Striking that balance needs the wisdom of Solomon. I don't think we can always get it right. We may need to err on the side sometimes of refugees and sometimes on the interests of the country. That's why we propose that there should be a very clear, open, and transparent monitoring system.

To refer to a previous question, we need to make sure the civil servants who are given those discretions cannot, without political masters and the public, knowingly violate those trusts that were given to them. I think that's the fear. It's a fear that's being expressed here as well as from some of the discussions I've heard in the media. That fear is that when civil servants are given those kinds of discretions, they may abuse them. I think that's the key point here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You only have about ten seconds, but I think we can afford to be a little easy on the time this morning, so we'll allow a little bit of overtime. So you go ahead, Mr. Carrier.

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

Good morning, gentlemen. I very much appreciated your presentations. Please be assured that the comments you make to us are very instructive. I agree with the vast majority of your arguments.

Personally, I've been a member at this committee for only six months, and I find it very frustrating to see that a potential reform of our immigration system amounts to two pages.

Two pages of the bill, which contains 130, concern immigration. In two pages, all discretion is simply left to the minister. I find it appalling that this kind of treatment is given to the entire immigration system, of which you are good representatives. You have expressed some good ideas which could be used to reform immigration.

Mr. Chan mentioned that the points system had raised false hopes. I would have liked him to develop that idea. What false hopes has the system raised? You also talked about improving our immigrant integration program. You cited the example of Quebec, where my colleague and I are from. Thank you for your good appreciation of Quebec. Quebec puts a lot of emphasis on integration of the communities it wants to welcome, and I think that's appreciated. I wonder how it can be explained why Canada does not succeed as well as Quebec. Is Quebec more aware of its nationhood and does it want the people it welcomes to integrate? Is it a lack of appreciation by the Canadian nation, as manifested by the Canadian government? I note that what you said about Quebec is interesting.

Do you want to react to what I've said?

[Tung Chan]

Thank you.

I think you asked me a couple of questions. The first one is to talk about the false hope. All you have to do is to go to the website www.notcanada.com. This is a site that was developed by a group of new Canadians or immigrant professionals who came here and who were very discouraged about how they were being treated. Many of them are doctors, lawyers, accountants, or architects, who couldn't find jobs. They couldn't find the jobs they were trained for, so they set up this site to tell the whole world not to come here, not to come to Canada, because if you come here, it's a waste of time.

Principally what happens is that if you go through the point system, you are assessed in points based on your occupation, based on your education, and based on your language ability. When people went through that point system they felt they had it made, and that since this country approved them to come in, they were sure it had a job for them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm going to have to interrupt here and go to Madam Chow, then to Mr. Komarnicki, followed by a brief question or two from Mr. Bevilacqua, and that will include everyone who wants to get on the list.

Go ahead.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Chan, I know SUCCESS very well. With all your workers in your organization, do you think most of them would understand what damage this bill would do? Do you think the massive numbers of clients you serve would understand that their applications can be discarded, that there will be winners and losers, and that if the winners are just skilled labourers then the losers inevitably would be the family people, because there's only a fixed number of resources? If you're moving some people ahead, and obviously if that's skilled labour, then it wouldn't be the family members. So do you think most of the clients you serve, the people who work under you, or the large number of volunteers would understand what is happening because of this bill?

[Tung Chan]

Thank you for the question.

I don't think I can answer entirely accurately on behalf of all the 390 people, the full-time equivalents who work for us, nor can anyone, without doing scientific polling. So I'm sorry that I can't answer that.

However, I think there are many ways to interpret a bill, and I've done everything I can do. I've talked to the minister directly, personally. I've gone to a technical briefing by the deputy minister of the department. Our board has held discussions on the topic, and the position that I'd represent to you, the core message, is from the organization and is not my personal view. We have not done the same with the workers who work for us, because we don't have the mechanism for that. Perhaps in the future I should do that.

I thank you for your question.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

The reason I asked that question is that we are hoping that this bill will not pass by the second week of June, which is the summer break. That would give us time in the summer to come to organizations such as yours to invite your workers and their clients, together with Mr. Szeto and others, to actually have a balanced discussion. Because right now, the minister has really just presented one side. The minister has financial means of over $1 million to put out ads--and I've seen full-page ads in the Chinese paper--that talk about the backlog. This bill, if passed, if implemented, has nothing to do with the 925,000 people who are in the backlog. And if people are already there in the 925,000 backlog, an administrator could find out who they are without having to change the bill, without changing IRPA.

Let me then ask you about the point system. You talked about the need to review the point system, and I totally agree with that. Do you think it would make sense for us to put in more points, first, if there are family members, such as brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts in Canada? Second, is the ability to speak fluent English or French or both really...? I've noticed that we have a lot of temporary workers coming in who are chefs. I looked at the list of all the temporary foreign workers who are coming in across the country--to B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, and so on--and the majority of them are chefs. Is it critically important that we have a large number of chefs who can speak either fluent French or English?

[Tung Chan]

I want to answer that quickly. Thank you for the question. It's a wonderful question.

Quickly, should relatives have more points? Yes, definitely.

Second, on the ability to speak French and English, I'd like to answer this way. I think what we need to measure is the ability to adapt and adjust. Take me for example. When I first came here at age 22, my English was so poor you would not have been able to understand me. I went to Alliance Française and studied French. I spent four months learning French, trying to adapt, but I never had a chance to use it. I live in Vancouver, so all my French is comme ci, comme ça.

It's important, though, to find a way to help people adapt and integrate and adjust. If we have some kind of measurement, language is not as important. It's not that it's not important, but it's not as important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Let's have a brief comment from you, Mr. Khaki.

[Aziz Khaki]

On the issue of the point system, my organization, which is 25 years old, was very much involved. The point system came about as a result of our thinking that there was racism in the process of immigration. The country wanted to keep itself white. That was the immigration policy. That's why the point system was introduced; it was to make it a little bit more fair. It worked in some areas. It didn't work in other areas. My friend from Quebec said that we are a country of immigrants, but unfortunately, the way we work, we seem to hate immigrants. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Khaki.

Go ahead, Mr. Komarnicki.

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

Thank you.

I'm listening with interest as the honourable member speaks of the current system. She says there are over 925,000 applications in the backlog, and she's saying many people have died in the process because it has taken so long. I think that would underscore the point that it just takes too long to process an application if many people have died during the term. That certainly wouldn't be the type of thing that employers--and others who need skilled trades--would expect. They need people here within months. Other countries are able to do that, and some would suggest even more quickly than that, certainly not taking years, or multi-years, where people die in the process.

I was also interested to hear from Mr. Chan that the point system builds a certain amount of false hope where people came in but aren't matched to what the country needs. There needs to be a better alignment of those types of services, and certainly Bill C-50--whether you like it or whether you don't--addresses some of those issues and says that you are no longer required to process every application. I think many have said that simply receiving applications and storing them in a warehouse, and processing every application as it comes, or trying to circumvent it, is not the way to work a system. Bill C-50 would allow the departments to select among the applicants those who are best suited to Canada's labour market needs, which would make it more flexible and quicker, and it would respect the three pillars: family reunification; refugees; and skilled workers. It's in the skilled-worker class that the selection would be made to best match those who are most suited to what the country needs.

Now, you have to do it somehow. Bill C-50 does that. Now just to put to rest some of the concerns, at least a couple of lawyers who testified yesterday indicated that refugees will not be affected by Bill C-50. So you can rest assured that those applying for refugee status in Canada or out of Canada are not covered by Bill C-50.

Now having said that, in listening to Mr. Khaki, he seemed to indicate that Bill C-50somehow would weed out groups of people. I think we heard the word “undesirable”. What did you mean by “undesirable”, and what did you mean when you said groups of people would be taken out of the system?

[Aziz Khaki]

By “undesirable”, I was not referring to a specific group. In our history of Canada there have been times when numbers of groups have not been treated fairly and have been looked upon as those who will not contribute to the wellbeing of Canada so there is no specific group, but during the time of our evolution of history, a number of groups have been targeted in a way that there was less emphasis to bring them than others.

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

When you say “targeted group”, what kind of group are you referring to?

[Aziz Khaki]

I did mention, first of all, you didn't want anyone who was not white. Let me say very openly that's why the point system was introduced.

After the point system was introduced, you could apply in Europe. I lived in Europe for years--in Sweden and in Britain--and in three to six months, your application to come to Canada would be accepted. If you lived in Africa, it would take three years before your application would even receive some attention. That tells you which groups are wanted and which are not wanted.

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

You see, we also had some lawyers testifying the other day, indicating that this legislation, Bill C-50, would have to pass the test of the charter, and in order to be charter-compliant, you can't base your decisions on race, religion, ethnicity. It can't be discriminatory; it must be universal.

We have to understand that Bill C-50 is not the instruction. It's the power to make the instruction, I think, as Mr. Chan said. That will come, and you see, there hasn't been a whole lot of consultation because the instruction is as yet not issued. The minister said there will be consultation eventually with the stakeholders before the instruction issues, but the instruction itself will have to be charter-compliant, which will ensure that the kinds of things you talked about are not part of the process.

[Aziz Khaki]

Are you suggesting that there will be steps taken to make sure there is no conflict with the provisions of the Charter of Rights and--

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

Absolutely. The instruction, the legislation--