Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Canadian Bar Association is very pleased to appear before this committee today on Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act.
The Canadian Bar Association is a national voluntary association with about 37,000 members across the country. The citizenship and immigration law section comprises about 1,000 lawyers, with expertise in all areas of citizenship, immigration, and refugee law. The primary objectives of the organization are improvements in the law and in the administration of justice. It is through this optic that we make our comments here today.
For the purposes of our appearance today we have circulated to you the executive summary of our larger submission. We'll also be providing the larger submission to you in due course.
I'm going to ask Mr. Mitchell Goldberg, who is an executive member of the citizenship and immigration law section, to make substantive comments about the bill.