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.