Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 14th, 2008

[Joseph Ben-Ami]

No, I do want to answer your question. If you're asking me whether in theory I would support the idea that any minister can just get up in the morning and make policy without any input from professionals in the department or any oversight from parliamentary committees, or anything like that, then the answer is no, I don't support it. But I stress that's not the case here, and I have yet to see, in my years of experience in this city, anything like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, thank you, Mr. Ben-Ami.

Mr. St-Cyr.

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

Good afternoon, everyone. I hope that everyone's interpretation is working. First of all, I would like to apologize on behalf of the members of the committee for the undignified spectacle that you were forced to witness. Apparently, there was a competition between Mr. Karygiannis and Mr. Komarnicki to see who could raise the most inappropriate points of order. At the moment, the contest is extremely close and I hope that it will be over as quickly as possible.

More seriously, I would like to know if each of your organizations was consulted in any way about the development of part six of Bill C-50.

[Vikram Khurana]

Thank you. I have been consulted on the policy, and I have had a chance to provide input on what's positive and what's negative.

[Elizabeth Lim]

No. I'm speaking on behalf of Status Now!, which represents many communities and organizations, and none of us have been consulted about this. In fact, it was quite a surprise when it was announced and put into the bill.

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

Okay.

Mr. Ben-Ami, you spoke about the importance for Canada to have an integrated and more considered immigration policy. I tend to agree with you. However, I am a little confused when you tell me that you are, after all, in favour of the provisions we are studying, which are quite the opposite of what you are advocating.

There is no thought. You said yourself that very few people were consulted. Hearings were held, people were rushed, people were forced to react in a week. The process was flawed from the outset; this bill is not a new immigration policy, it is an attempt to fix a problem without going to the root cause. It is exactly the opposite of what you want.

Would it not be better to set this aside and to work seriously to come up with a real, thought-out, coherent and intelligent immigration policy?

[Joseph Ben-Ami]

I'm sorry, was there a question?

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

Would it not be better to stop winging this and to come up with a genuine, coherent policy?

[Joseph Ben-Ami]

It's not so much a question of consistent policy as comprehensive. Ideally, we would like to see an overhaul of the system come up with a comprehensive, I think more sensible, more sustainable policy. But the fact that that's not happening right now doesn't preclude us from, or invalidate the importance of, doing this in its own context.

We often do that in our lives. If you have a house and you want to paint every room, well, you can hire a contractor and paint every room in two days. But if you don't have the money, you don't have the resources or whatever.... And I'm not speaking for the government, so I don't know what the resources are or the reasoning for it. I'm just saying I would do one room at a time.

So the answer to your question is, I think, a qualified yes. We would prefer to see something a little more comprehensive, but the fact that we believe we should be going in that direction in no way invalidates our position on the specific changes being proposed now.

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

Mr. Ben-Ami, if I am doing renovations to my house and I do not know how to go about it, I am at least going to take the time to think how to go about it better rather than making decisions without being really sure that they are thought-out and effective.

I going to stop there, because I want to ask Ms. Lim a question.

According to the bill, applications for permanent resident status on humanitarian and compassionate grounds will no longer be processed systematically. They could be, but there will no longer be a requirement to do so. That particularly worries me, given that the Appeal Division for refugees whose cases have been dismissed is not in place. Refugees who lost their case often used the option in order to keep themselves safe.

Are you not afraid that the government will use that provision to close another door on the fingers of a person whose life may well be in danger? Is this a breach of Canada's international obligations?

[Elizabeth Lim]

Absolutely. One of the objectives, as stated under IRPA, is to respect Canada's humanitarian and compassionate traditions. The minister has said that these amendments would not affect humanitarian and compassionate applications, and note that she adds “from inside the country”. But these legislative changes specifically target humanitarian and compassionate applications from outside the country. They specifically change the “shall” to “may” on examining humanitarian and compassionate applications from outside of the country.

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

Thank you. Have you finished?

[Elizabeth Lim]

I was just going to add that humanitarian and compassionate applications from outside the country mainly deal with reunification of family members. A refugee child who wants to sponsor his parents to come to the country may not be able to do so because they cannot qualify under the regular regulations. They don't make enough money to sponsor their parents. But it makes a hell of a lot of sense to be able to let the child sponsor the parents instead of putting the child through foster care. But under these regulations, these amendments, the officer does not even have to look at this application.

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

Thank you, I am going to give the rest of my time to Mr. Carrier.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I am sorry, but as you can hear....

Ms. Chow.

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

Why don't I continue asking that question? Are there other examples of humanitarian and compassionate cases of relatives who need to be sponsored outside Canada? Perhaps you could describe a few more of those examples. I think that was where my colleague was going.

Ms. Lim.

[Elizabeth Lim]

Absolutely. For example, you have what are called “de facto family members”, family members who, under the law, are specifically...their dependent child qualified. But they may be a sister who essentially is that person's child. Under humanitarian and compassionate applications, these people can be sponsored. The officer never has to grant these kinds of applications, but they at least have to look at the merits of the application.

Now, we're going to allow the changes to come into effect so that the officer can just return the application. If the minister is just going to target occupations, why is this change in here? It does not make any sense.

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

What about the whole notion of charter-protecting the rights of immigrants who are outside Canada? My understanding is that Canada never ratified the UN convention on the rights of migrant workers and their families, which means that if the person is outside Canada, if the employer wants to pick a certain type of employee and it may violate the person...but because the person is outside Canada, the charter does not apply. Or does it? We've heard different interpretations on that. Since you're a lawyer, I thought I should ask you that question.

[Elizabeth Lim]

Sure. The charter is called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the courts have ruled and the minister has been fond of saying that immigration is a privilege and not a right. Therefore, the charter will have limited application to foreign nationals who are not already permanent residents and citizens of this country. If you do not want to discriminate against a person, but you allow employers to be the persons who decide essentially who can come into this country, you are opening this process up to some sort of discrimination.

We have heard from groups who have heard from employers that they may not want to have workers from certain areas of the world. Now certainly Canada needs people who come to this country to have jobs, but it cannot be the only way we bring people into this country.

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

So what you're saying is that if the employer wants to hire a housekeeper from Mexico rather than from Pakistan, that is totally up to the employer.

[Elizabeth Lim]

That is up to the employer.

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

Yes, of course, and if the minister wants to fast-track workers from Mexico and not fast-track workers from Pakistan, even though it's the same type of work, let's say a cook or whatever, she could do so under this Bill C-50, and it really wouldn't violate the charter?

[Elizabeth Lim]

She could absolutely do it, and if we made arguments, the courts may accept them, the courts may not.

Why do we have this law that allows a minister to do this? If we are only going to choose based on occupation, let's face that. Let's talk about it. Let the minister give us legislation that says how we're going to choose occupation, how we're going to determine which occupations come to this country, unless there's been parliamentary scrutiny over this.

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

So you're saying the best way is to change the point system to give certain skills, certain careers, or certain occupations x or y number of points. Then that could be fine-tuned and adjusted through regulations. Therefore it would be debated in Parliament and then it would be democratic. It would not be behind closed doors. It would not be up to the minister to make decisions and not debate it in the House of Commons?

[Elizabeth Lim]

Yes. The minister should give us legislation that matches what she says she is going to do.

Right now the legislation does not match what she says she's going to do. It allows her very broad powers to limit family applications and humanitarian and compassionate applications.

This is not according to what she says she's going to do, so let's have legislation that matches what she says she's going to do and let's have a debate in Parliament about this.