Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 28th, 2009

[Simon Coakeley]

There are provisions in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act dealing with relieving a member of his responsibilities. I do not have the details in front of me, but those procedures are set out in the act.

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

They are in the act. Does the responsibility lie with the board or the minister?

[Simon Coakeley]

Let me consult with a colleague.

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

Fine. You can invite him to come to the table.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Maurizio Bevilacqua]

You can come and sit in the front if you like.

[Simon Coakeley]

The procedure depends on the situation. For example, if there were an allegation of misconduct against a member, the board would conduct an investigation and make a recommendation to the governor in council.

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

Okay.

Mr. Coakeley, in your presentation, you talked about appointment criteria for members. But there seems to be absolutely nothing about legal skills. No criteria deal with experience with immigration matters and geopolitical knowledge of the world. But that is what this administrative tribunal is all about. Is it correct to say that criteria like that are not considered at all when members are appointed?

[Simon Coakeley]

Criteria are not set out that way, it is true. One of the provisions in the act requires at least 10% of members to be lawyers. If memory serves, currently, about 20% of members are lawyers. So that is not a cause for concern at the moment. I have sat on a selection committee where one person in four was a lawyer by training.

The competencies required include oral and written communication, conceptual thinking, decision-making, judgment and analytical thinking, and information seeking. These are all competencies that someone with legal training has acquired at law school, but someone who is not a lawyer by training can also have them.

Experience with groups working with refugees, no. Our basic criteria lead us to look for people who are already involved in their communities. People who have previous experience with immigrant groups and refugees can demonstrate experience of that kind. We provide a six-month training program to all newly appointed members. In addition, the board has a research section that provides members with information on situations in different countries.

It is not absolutely necessary for someone to have this knowledge already because we have the necessary tools to provide members with information when they are making a decision in a particular case.

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

Do you examine the past of candidates and the effect that this past could have on the board's credibility? I do not want to talk about specific cases, because I know that you will not be able to answer. If a person is suspected of a war crime, for example, a human rights crime, or if the person has been convicted of contempt of court, is that considered? Do you ask yourselves if that person, having become a member, could be in a situation of having to administer laws that he himself may have broken, thereby putting the board's credibility at risk?

[Simon Coakeley]

Not having sat on what we call in English the SAB—I think it is CCS in French—I cannot tell you about the exact nature of the discussions that take place around that table. Clearly, if someone's application indicates that he has a criminal record, the case would be looked at a little more closely. The individual would be asked more questions, to determine, for example, whether the conviction was for shoplifting, impaired driving, or whatever. As to whether the consequences of the decisions are looked at, I can tell you that, if a person is not happy with the decision of the board before which he appeared, he can always ask for a judicial review by the Federal Court. The Federal Court refers less than 2% of board decisions back to the board for a new hearing. That is a measure of success, in a way.

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

That was not what I was asking, but we can talk about that too.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Maurizio Bevilacqua]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Coakeley.

Ms. Chow.

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

Ms. Fraser, I note that 89 board members were recommended, but as your report said, 42% were turned down. There were 99 new members recommended, with 43 appointed, and there are more.

My calculation is that 108 were not appointed by the minister. Does the minister have to justify that? Do you have the power to ask why 108 of former and new board members are not qualified? What criteria would they possibly use, given that the IRB chair already recommended and they obviously qualified? What criteria does the minister or Governor in Council use to reject the 108?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

The decision to appoint or not to appoint is the prerogative of the Governor in Council. We do not audit the Governor in Council. We would not ask those kinds of questions.

We simply looked at the process up to the point where, essentially, a recommendation was made, and then we looked at the result afterwards, but we do not audit the Governor in Council.

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

Given that it takes six to twelve months to get a new member to be fully productive and that in your calculation that's $100,000 per person, that's phenomenal. Of the 89 that were recommended, 52 were turned down. These members obviously qualified. They had been IRB board members. If more of them were to come back in, surely a lot of money would be saved, since each new member would cost $100,000 to get fully productive. Have you calculated the lost opportunity? I guess I could just multiply it; you don't really need to do a report on that.

But have you done an exit survey? For example, would you have the power to interview the 52 who were not reappointed and examine why they weren't reappointed and how much money was lost as a result?

[Sheila Fraser]

Again, Mr. Chair, the decision to not appoint is a decision and the prerogative of the Governor in Council.

We are concerned by the turnover. We note in the report that, as at March 31 of 2008, half of the board members were serving in their first term, which means that the board is not functioning at full capacity, if you will.

There will always be a certain amount of turnover. I think it's almost to be expected that there will be a certain amount of turnover, but the level of turnover should be better planned, and there shouldn't be such a significant turnover, because it does put a strain on the board being able to fulfill its mandate. The number of cases goes up just because people aren't as efficient as they would be in, say, their second term.

So there is a question of planning this, of knowing when terms are going to expire, what turnover would be desirable, and then what level of members are reappointed; it's really managing how the board is composed over a longer period of time.

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

May I ask a question to the IRB chair, then? Of the 89 that you or your predecessor recommended to be reappointed, do you say to the minister that you would prefer to have a certain percentage of members with experience rather than new members? That's the first question.

My second question is this. Why would you disqualify members who would take six to twelve months to be productive? I would imagine there are some members who have more experience than others, who would be a lot faster at becoming fully productive.

Thirdly, on the increased backlog, have you thought of recommending that perhaps you expand your board membership and have even more members?

Lastly, what plan do you have to deal with the significant backlog that is caused mostly by the vacancies in the last two years? Plus, it takes the new members who have been appointed as a result a long time to become fully productive.

[Simon Coakeley]

First, I should clarify. Thank you for the promotion, but I'm actually not the chair of the IRB. I'm the executive director.

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

Pardon me. A different title.

[Simon Coakeley]

Your first question, in terms of what the chair said to the minister, I really can't speak to. I do know that the chair has indicated to the current minister, and indeed to his predecessors, the need for appointments, the impact of delaying appointments, and the amount of time it does take to train our members.

In terms of the training period, the six to twelve months is obviously an average. There are definitely some people who are able to get up to speed quicker than others and there are some who need a little bit more help than others in order to get up to speed. We generally say that our formal training program takes about six months, but having trained the member, that doesn't mean that he or she is as productive as an experienced member. That varies again from individual to individual, and in terms of the appointments that we've had recently, we are definitely looking at whether or not we can tweak our training program to recognize that not everybody maybe needs to go the full six months of formal training. They will be able to “fly solo”, in a sense, before that six-month period and indeed become fully productive before the end of the twelve months.

In terms of your last two questions, particularly around the backlog, we are looking internally within the board at the numbers, as I indicated in my opening comments. Our current backlog in the RPD is 58,000. While the gap in the membership complement has definitely been a contributing factor, the very significant increase in refugee claimants is also a very significant factor in the backlog. We took in approximately 36,000 claims last year--

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

I know those numbers.

[Simon Coakeley]

We expect about 45,000 this year.

So we are looking at what we could do administratively to improve that process, and we are working with our colleagues in the minister's office and also within Treasury Board to indicate what the possibilities might be in terms of increasing resources to the board. Obviously, this isn't the time, from a government point of view, when it's easy to get increased resources, given the economic situation. So we are having those discussions at the moment, but we don't have a specific plan at this point.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Maurizio Bevilacqua]

Thank you. You're well over the time.

We're going to hear now from Ms. Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for coming to this committee.

I have a few questions. I'm sharing the time with Mr. Dykstra.

Probably these questions are more for Ms. Fraser.

When we looked at this new report, I wanted to clarify the context. What period did your report cover, from when to when, looking at the data and everything? I wanted this point to be clarified, please.

[Sheila Fraser]

The period covered was from January 1, 2006, to March 31, 2008.