Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 11th, 2010

[Mitchell Goldberg]

Refugee determination is very complicated. It is a very individual process. Every individual must have the right to a hearing. That is in our charter, and it is recognized by the Supreme Court. It is very dangerous for a border officer to say he has a problem with someone or does not like someone's attitude or story. That is very dangerous.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. Chow, you have up to five minutes.

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

Can I ask Ms. Valiani about the 100 cases of minors trafficked from China to Canada? They are mostly for sexual purposes, I would imagine. You said that eight days is too short a time for them to be interviewed, because they're probably fairly traumatized. There's the 28 days suggestion, and the four months for a hearing that I heard from the Canadian Bar Association for these minors being trafficked to Canada. Is that an adequate period of time? Eight days is too short. Would 28 days at least give them a chance?

Please give a short answer, because I only have a few minutes.

[Salimah Valiani]

Yes, we may need longer than that for those kinds of traumatic cases.

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

But with four months for a hearing plus 28 days, you're looking at five months. Would that be sufficient time?

[Salimah Valiani]

Sometimes it can take an entire year. If the children are detained, which happened in one of our cases, we have to deal with their detention as well. There is safety within Canada, which is first and foremost. On top of that we need to compile the evidence to make the actual claims. So it may take up to a year to file the evidence for the hearing.

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

Mr. Goldberg--

[Salimah Valiani]

These are not easy cases.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Goldberg, in terms of the safe third countries, it sounds like the bar association is against the designation. Some of my colleagues support it, I don't. Who would you ask to assist the minister? Because ultimately it's the minister who makes the designation.

Are you suggesting that it should be an arm's-length agency--let's say Amnesty International? I can't see Amnesty International willing to take up the task to designate safe countries, because they don't support the concept. They have said that after 50 years of doing human rights work, they can't term or designate any countries as being safe.

So who do you think the government can request to assist? I can't imagine any organizations that are willing to do so. Can you suggest an organization? Would the Canadian Bar Association be willing to do that?

[Mitchell Goldberg]

I can't speak for the CBA at this moment without consulting our membership on that point, but there are many individuals, human rights experts, such as professors....

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

So should this be a political appointment by the minister to appoint three or four people who have human rights knowledge?

[Mitchell Goldberg]

I would like to see a process that would be similar to where people are nominated--judges for example, where there are recommendations from stakeholders--

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

From the bench.

[Mitchell Goldberg]

--not only lawyers' associations in this case, but from other organizations, human rights groups.

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

So for example, if we--

[Mitchell Goldberg]

There's the Canadian Council for Refugees. I think if organizations were consulted, organizations could propose certain names of people who are very well recognized as having serious credentials.

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

So let me just picture this. Previously, before you came here, we had Amnesty International and the Council for Refugees. They certainly have experience. Then the minister would ask them to suggest some names to propose to sit on a panel. The panel would then suggest. So would the panel be the one that would pick the safe countries, or would it be the minister? Or would the panel say that the following five countries we believe are safe, and therefore the minister would declare them safe? Is that--

[Mitchell Goldberg]

Our submission is that it should be strictly the panel that would recommend it. The minister would not have the power to override the panel.

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

Because you don't want to politicize--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldberg.

Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

It's Dr. Wong.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Dr. Wong, you have up to five minutes.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Right now I think I just want to let the committee know, and also the panellists, that the IRB actually has discretion to adjourn the interview if the claimant appears vulnerable or traumatized. So that's on the record.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Can we have order, please?

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Also, there have been concerns mentioned with regard to the selection of the IRB's people division that will be interviewing the claimants. The IRB chair last time did indicate that the selection of the members of the IRB division is not only limited to civil servants. They are open to looking for people with merit. So that is on the record from our last panel as well.

I would like to ask the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, because those two communities I'm very familiar with, do you feel that the current 19-month decision-making time is too long for refugees to wait to have a decision on their claim?