Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 14th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I want to welcome committee members.

I welcome as well, from the Islamic Humanitarian Service, Shafiq Hudda, director—sometimes I shouldn't attempt some of the pronunciation; from St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church refugee outreach committee, Pierre Gauthier and Lisa Barnet; from the Inter-Cultural Neighbourhood Social Services, Andrea Seepersaud, and from the enhanced language training program, employment advocate Patrick Hynes.

I'll turn it over to you folks. I know some of you are in a hurry.

Who had planes to catch? Okay, so we'll go to you for your opening statements first. What time do you have to leave here?

[Andrea Seepersaud, Executive Director, Inter-Cultural Neighbourhood Social Services]

My plane leaves at 8:30.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, 8:30. I think we'll get you out of here on time.

Go ahead, Ms. Seepersaud.

[Andrea Seepersaud]

Chair, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

My name is Andrea Seepersaud. I am the executive director of Inter-Cultural Neighbourhood Social Services. We are located in Mississauga. With me today is Pat Hynes, who is a work placement internship advocate in our enhanced language training program. He is the only person we know in the Peel region whose mandate is to advocate for the internship of internationally trained professionals in the business and private sectors. That's the specific program we run for internationally trained professions.

As settlement serving agencies go, ICNSS is a medium-to-large agency employing about 75 staff at any one time in four locations across the Peel region. It provides services annually to more people than it would take to fill the SkyDome to capacity. ICNSS has spend the greater part of 22 years--and I have spent all of my 14 years with this particular agency--conceptualizing, developing, and implementing programs and services aimed at individual capacity-building and the resettlement and adaptation of newcomers to Canada. The issue of reciprocity remains at the top of our list of priorities, and second to that is the importance of family reunification within the context of the social integration of immigrants.

The amendments to Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that are included in Bill C-50 are of grave concern to us. If we understand the implication of the amendments, this bill would give the minister and visa officers the power to arbitrarily refuse applications by individuals for permanent residency, visitors' visas, work permits, and study permits, even when it is clear that all the requirements of the IRPA have been met. It would also shift the power into the hands of these individuals representing the Government of Canada to discard applications seeking consideration on humanitarian and compassionate grounds from individuals outside of Canada. As well, the minister and her representatives would be given the unequivocal authority to set quotas and criteria so that predetermined outcomes were achieved. Such authority would be absolute and would not require sanctioning by Parliament.

Our agency believes that these provisions will erode the very foundation of a system that individuals from around the world have found to be fair, compassionate, humanitarian, and friendly. Inherent in the current IRPA is the right of individuals to apply for and be granted entry into Canada under specific categories.

Statistics relating to immigration from 1997 to 2006 indicate that the main source of immigrants is the economic class, followed by family class, and then refugees. In 2006, for example, Canada accepted over 250,000 individuals. Of those individuals, 138,000 were under the economic class, which is equal to 54.9%; 70,000 were under the family class, representing 28%; and 32,000 were refugees, accounting for 12.9%. Under the amendment, these immigration class profiles that have remained steady over the last decade will dramatically change to reflect what the minister determines on an ad hoc basis to be the need and therefore the focus of our immigration drive in Canada.

As an agency serving immigrants and refugees for over 22 years, we can vouch for a number of things. Once economic-class immigrants, or the highly skilled and trained individuals, arrive in Canada they expect to restart their specific careers. This does not mean they are willing to retrain or are overly interested in upgrading their qualifications to ensure integration into their specific sectors. This does not mean that the regulatory bodies representing these sectors are willing to provide the information, advice, and assistance to facilitate the re-entry of these individuals into the Canadian labour force.

Two years ago, the Ontario Minister of Citizenship and Immigration proposed a bill, Bill 124, that sought to address these very issues with respect to regulatory bodies, internationally trained professionals, and fair access to professions and trades. Today that bill is law, and to our knowledge it is the only such legislation in Canada. In fact, that's what it takes to look after internationally trained individuals.

Again, within the context of our repertoire of services and experience as an immigrant-serving agency, we know today's economic class immigrants are not necessarily loyal to Canada. This amendment will focus on the economic class--in other words, the best and the brightest from around the world.

This class has been known to either stay long enough to educate its children and then leave for opportunities elsewhere or to leave one parent to settle and anchor the family in Canada while the breadwinner seeks his fortune elsewhere, which is most likely back in his home country. When the children become educated, they in turn are often enticed to return to run the family business, which of course is located abroad and has been thriving in the meantime.

Essentially, Canada accepts ITPs, internationally trained professionals—and I'm by no means speaking about all of them—who obtain citizenship but have not lived and worked for substantial timeframes in Canada but will retire in this country for many reasons, including the fact that we have an enviable health care system, are compassionate to our seniors, and are technically a safe, democratic country.

I'll ask my partner to continue.

[Patrick Hynes, Employment Advocate, Enhanced Language Training Program, Inter-Cultural Neighbourhood Social Services]

I refer this committee to the writings of Dr. David Foot, a renowned demographics expert, who has reiterated in his writings that current and future predicted demographic trends indicate we have an aging population and will continue to have one for the foreseeable future. He further suggested we currently do not have a mechanism to take care of these seniors, either socially or economically.

Dr. Foot concluded that the best remedy is to target source countries, places where large families are still predominant, places where working families consist of large groups whose psyche is family-oriented and committed to the elderly, which will assist Canada in a new demographic reality.

Our conclusion is this. Given current and future demographic trends, we strongly feel that the immigration focus should not be on the economic class, but rather on family-related applicants, large educated working families who move to Canada, will be loyal to Canada, and will resolve the impending aging population dilemma. We must ask ourselves who is going to pay for the cost of our seniors and assist them. Predicted demographic trends by Dr. David Foot suggest that we will soon arrive at a point where we will not be able to care for or afford our most vulnerable. Allowing large families under family-related unification versus concentrating on economic class immigrants will build a stronger Canada.

And I'll give you a specific point. Many years ago, in 1896 to 1905, the Minister of the Interior at that time focused on immigrants whose families were large and had a longstanding tradition of farming. The agenda at that time was to ensure we would have a class of new Canadians who could work the land in the prairie provinces and become self-sufficient. Using that underpinning or underlying philosophy, we now need to focus on current and future population trends and learn from our experiences. Adjusting our immigration policies to include countries that still have large working families willing to emigrate is the most optimal solution to our immigration woes.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Okay, who do we have next?

Mr. Gauthier.

[Pierre Gauthier, Refugee Outreach Committee, St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church]

Thank you, sir.

As a committee devoted to assisting refugees who arrive in Canada--and some who need assistance to enter Canada--we are very concerned by both the process and substance of the amendments proposed to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act contained in Bill C-50.

We believe that Canada is a country that is welcoming to immigrants and refugees, and that our future as a country depends largely on a fair, open, transparent, and humanitarian selection and refugee protection system.

We commend the government's stated objective to clear the backlog in immigration applications. The slow process of H and C applications for refugees is equally deserving of attention. However, we are not convinced that the changes proposed in Bill C-50 will be effective or necessary to achieve the goal, since proposed section 87.3 only affects applications made after February 2008.

The inclusion of amendments to the IRPA in a budget implementation bill is an inappropriate means to modify immigration law. The government is playing politics with this legislation and limiting the proper scrutiny of this committee and other interested parties, and forcing Parliament to choose between poor immigration legislation and forcing Canadians into another election. It would be better to seek consensus from all parties and interested groups in a clear proposal of amendments that are subject to the scrutiny of this committee and interested Canadians.

We are deeply concerned by the arbitrary discretionary powers given to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in Bill C-50 to make important changes to the immigration processing and acceptance systems, by issuing instructions without parliamentary oversight or mandatory consultations. Granting such extraordinary discretionary power without any accountability is an affront to democracy and circumvents the rule of law, which requires that ministerial authority function within the limits set by Parliament.

We are equally disturbed by the discretion accorded visa officers in proposed subsection 11(1). The change allows an officer discretion in issuing a visa, even though the officer is satisfied that the individual is not inadmissible and meets all other requirements under the act. This allows for the potential refusal of a visa on the basis of that particular officer's prejudices.

Also troubling is the move to eliminate the right to permanent residence for applicants who meet the requirements of the act, and the right to have an overseas application for humanitarian and compassionate consideration examined.

In the introduction of proposed section 87.3, proposed paragraphs (1) to (7) are the most disturbing of all. This new section proposes to give powers to the minister to create categories of applications, and then to establish an order to processing requests: limiting or setting the number of applications by category, or otherwise, to be processed in a given year.

These are extensive, sweeping powers given to the minister with little or no constraints. There is a lot which is completely unknown. For example, what are these categories of applications? Are we going to categorize people by geography, race, religion, skills?

While it may be useful to provide expedited review of applications from those who are in a skill category necessary to Canada, it would be very harmful if we limited people coming from a particular racial group or religion. Why not simply spell it out up front instead of creating these sweeping discretionary powers that have the potential to be abused? Even if they were not abused under this administration, we would not want to create a system which could later be abused.

As a refugee committee that has had a sanctuary case, we are concerned that proposed paragraph 87.3(3)(d) of this section could also prevent an application process for these cases.

The government, or the minister, has made responses to some of these criticisms, and I would like to express a few comments.

To the allegation regarding fairness, the government has responded that it would still be subject to the charter. First, the application of the charter comes only after the fact. The goal should be to make a fair rules-based system upfront. If an individual has to engage in a charter challenge, there is already a problem. We want a fair system from the outset. Second, there are costs involved in a charter challenge that are often too much for newcomers to Canada with little resources to begin with, as well as little knowledge of our legal system.

Why don't we simply create a more fair and transparent system at the outset? This system would alleviate the backlog. It is questionable as to whether this is the best approach to achieve what is a good goal, the alleviation of the immigration backlog. However, as the amendments put a lot of discretion in the hands of the minister, it seems that this would be a more time-consuming process for the minister, reviewing all of these individual cases, than to have fair rules in place and allow immigration refugee officers to administer those rules.

The minister would offer guidelines to immigration officers. If the minister is going to offer guidelines to officers and not intervene on a case-by-case basis, then why not legislate this new review process and hold it up to the scrutiny of the legislature and the public?

In conclusion, we urge this committee to recommend that the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act contained in Bill C-50 be severed from this bill, and that a new bill be presented to Parliament where substantive changes could be made and implemented after a meaningful consultation process. This is too important a subject for Canadians, and the proper forum for the review of proposed changes to this act is this committee, where interested Canadians can make a meaningful review of what is proposed.

Thank you for your attention.

I want to offer my apologies for not having a French text of our observations. We received the invitation to appear before this committee only last Friday, and we did not have time to prepare a French text.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you. Your text will be translated and sent around the table to those who require it.

Mr. Hudda.

[Shafiq Hudda, Director, Islamic Humanitarian Service]

I begin in the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate.

Mr. Chair, I first of all want to thank you and the clerk, Mr. Chaplin, for giving me this opportunity to appear before you and share my thoughts and my words with the honourable members on this committee. It is an issue that is very dear to me. It is an issue that is very important to me.

I was born in the country of Uganda in east Africa. When I was five years old, my family and I were exiled. Part of my father's family--the majority of them--went to England, and the rest of us came here to Canada. Although we were not refugees--my maternal aunts were already here, and we came as immigrants--I can see some issues in this proposed act that are very relevant and that could be of great concern.

First of all, we see that the honourable minister would have a significant amount of leeway. Where the law once upon a time stated or currently states that once somebody fulfills all the requirements of having a Canadian visitor visa or even an immigrant visa, the officer “shall” issue it, the wording now proposed--that the officer “may” issue it--has created a lot of discomfort for me personally and for a number of members of my community.

Basically, it can lead to a very true practical situation. I was born in a country in which a lot of authority was centralized in one individual, one person, or one ministry. The effects of that were very evident, and the destruction that was caused as a result of having too much authority consolidated in one individual, one department, or one ministry is something I do not need to elaborate upon.

If somebody has gone through a process and for example had their immigrant or visitor visa denied, up until now or before this law would be in effect, they would still have an opportunity to appeal, and they would be able to go through a process in which....

One of the foundations of our Canadian society has been that in case something was overlooked by one person, one bureaucrat, one member of the visa team or the consular team, somebody else might be able to check the appeal and be able to reflect upon it, to think it over and perhaps make a different decision based on that information and based on the new review, again with this potential or possibility for bias. While I may have my full trust in the current minister, and I don't doubt that she will abuse the authority, do you realize what precedent we are setting for the future? Though the minister now will be honest and hopefully have integrity, down the road we do not have any guarantee that the minister, whether they are from the same party or from a different party, will not enjoy these new-found powers that they have. This is the destruction, and this is the foreshadowing of something much greater.

It seems as though there's a certain degree of preparation for this type of thing to happen step by step. It's not going to be something that happens overnight, but today you give this power to a person, to an individual, whether it's the minister or consular officials in any country of the world, and from there it's a stepping stone to much broader and much more dictatorial things. I don't mean to cause fear in anyone's mind, but this is something that is a reality, which I have seen in many places that I have visited, and in many of the individuals I have counselled.

Our organization, the Islamic Humanitarian Service, has dealt with so many cases of people coming from countries in which this has happened. Basically if one person said no, that was the be-all and end-all, and I was always proud to say that Canada was not like that. If one individual says no, maybe they missed something. Maybe they overlooked something. Maybe there was something else that may not have been looked at by that individual or that official that somebody else might have caught on to.

Regarding the issue of the reunification of families, when a skilled worker comes to Canada, obviously this is an asset to the Canadian economy, to the Canadian culture, to Canada itself. Very rarely will you find just an individual who is single, unmarried. These are issues that we cannot legally and constitutionally ask about--who is married, who has children, and so on. Of course dependency can be asked about, but it is likely that somebody who is a skilled worker will have family--that is why they have the skills--and will be at an age, or they would be at least at a level where they had already established themselves and their families. So that has to be looked at very practically and very carefully.

Mr. Chair, my entire upbringing from kindergarten to grade 13 was in the city of Kitchener, Ontario, about a five- or six-hour drive from here. I got a chance to see not only my own community, which is the Muslim community of which I am the imam or the religious preacher, but also various other communities and various other cultures, faiths, and countries that were represented in my school. I went to public school.

And in my retail work and in my job experience as well, I met with people who have provided a very rich and wonderful wealth to Canada as a result of the policies we have had up until now.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to bring to your attention and perhaps to that of the members of the committee here that had these laws, this legislation, been in effect over the last few decades, how many members of Parliament who are immigrants, or whose families have immigrated here over the last 100 years, would be sitting at this table or be in Parliament today?

I believe that we want to try to keep Canada true north, strong and free, Mr. Chairman, and I think that by putting this bill into place we will be destroying that foundation and the fabric we have all fought for throughout our lives, if not our parents' lives.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, once again.

Thank you, members of the committee, for listening to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Hudda, for your remarks.

And I want to thank all of you for your very interesting presentations, indeed.

I guess we will go to questioning, and I will go to Mr. Telegdi first. Seven minutes, Mr. Telegdi.

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

I will be splitting my time with Ms. Beaumier.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, thank you.

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

Thank you very much for the presentation. I just want to make a couple of points before I ask you a question.

The government and the parliamentary secretary will say that the act has to be charter-compliant. Security certificates were not charter-compliant for almost 25 years, before they went to court and the court finally ruled on them. So beware when somebody tells you it has to be charter-compliant, especially when the Conservatives stand up and say they're the great defenders of the charter, which they hate.

The other issue is that, essentially, what this does is that it removes transparency and accountability. We lead the world in terms of the openness of the point system, which came into place in 1967. We were copied by the Australians; we were copied by New Zealand; we were copied by Europe; and the Americans are now looking at it.

But we do have a problem, and I have to acknowledge the problem. The problem is that the 2002 changes to the point system created a situation that was way too elitist. It was pushed by the bureaucracy. It certainly wasn't pushed by the political end; it was pushed by the bureaucracy. And the government's response seems to be let's give more power to the bureaucrats. I say this because when you say the minister, forget the minister, because it's the bureaucrats. Anyway, the idea is let's give them more power and let's make them less accountable.

I really have a problem when you have policy made in the shadows, because one of the nice things about our system is that it's supposed to be blind to your religion, to your background, and to the country from which you come. But what they're proposing here really opens itself up to abuse.

We can fix the system; all we have to do is to look at the Australian and New Zealand models, and we can make it responsive to the economic needs of the country and still keep the transparency.

So my question to you is, to what extent do you oppose the closed nature of what the minister is doing, or what the government is doing, in terms of putting more power in the hands of the bureaucrats? And what do you think it will do to accountability?

[Shafiq Hudda]

To whom is the question directed?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

To all of you, I guess.

[Patrick Hynes]

I suppose that at the end of the day, when we prepared our brief, we could have made fifty points. But unfortunately you only have seven minutes in which to give a presentation, so trying to make fifty points in seven minutes is virtually impossible.

I know I'm probably not answering your question directly, but what we decided to do was to focus on the whole issue of family class versus economic issues, simply because in our experience, Andrea and I—the executive director of a social services agency and a workplace advocate for the enhanced language training program, respectively—feel that one of the fundamental flaws coming down the pipes with this particular bill, if passed, is that at the end of the day, if we focus on the economic class versus family reunification or family-status applicants, one of the problems you will have is that the best and the brightest won't necessarily be the best to have in Canada. I say this because one of the problems you have right now is that the best and brightest are no longer loyal to Canada; they get their education in Canada, and take off to another country and use their Canadian citizenship and come back here for retirement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Do you want to pick it up from there, Ms. Beaumier?

[Colleen Beaumier, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

When Mr. Solberg was there, and he discovered they were going to be 26,000 short, he said to his officials, “Get them in, land them”, and it was done. So we know there are other ways of dealing with the backlog.

This government has been apologizing left, right, and centre for the sins of dead men, past Canadian governments, and yet we continue to make the same mistakes. It would probably be better to stop making these mistakes so our progeny don't have to apologize.

We know that in the IRB the bureaucracy has interfered. There have been discriminatory decisions, and that showed up in the Roma case, which a judge ruled against. So can you tell me if you see anything in this bill where that bureaucratic interference and discrimination, based on the desirability of the country from which these people are coming, can be stopped?

[Shafiq Hudda]

Again, then, I'll try to address both honourable members' points to the best of my ability.

I think if the honourable Mr. Telegdi is asking to what extent I would want to fight this, I would go as far as I can to fight the clauses that are in this proposed act, or the proposed bill. The reason is that, whether it is the bureaucrats or whether it is the minister herself or himself in the future, whoever it may be, a precedent is being set that can be dangerously abused.

Regardless of whether it is a bureaucrat making the decision, who has obviously no accountability to Parliament, to the House of Commons, or to the people of Canada, or whether it is the minister herself or himself or the deputy minister, whatever the case may be, the issue that is more relevant and strong in front of me is that it is creating a very, very dangerous setting. I think that has to be addressed, rather than any specific area of who is going to get the power.

The issue is not who is going to have more power, whether it is a bureaucrat or the minister. The issue is having too much power in one small area. That is the danger I've seen in many places and in many countries.

Thank you.

[Colleen Beaumier, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I just end by saying thank you for appearing and the work you're doing is wonderful. I admire you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Great on timing, I must say. Thank you.

Do you have your French translation on, because we are going next to Mr. St-Cyr? The clerk will fix it up for you.

It should be done beforehand, of course, as you were saying, Mr. St-Cyr, but we'll make an effort in future to make sure people are on the right channel before we begin our meetings.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The interpreters are probably translating what I'm saying now to see if they're on the right channel. So is everyone on the right channel now?

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

Thank you all for being here.

First of all, I would like to know if any of your organizations was consulted by the government before chapter 6 of Bill C-50 was drafted?

[Pierre Gauthier]

Not in the least.