Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 13th, 2010

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

According to your estimates, how many refugees are in the Niagara region?

[Peter Partington]

I don't have that information, but I can repeat what I said earlier, that 600 refugee claimants a month enter Ontario via the Peace Bridge, and 13% of them stay in the region of Niagara. The rest move on to other parts of the province.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

You're saying 13%, but it's very difficult for me to compare them. The population of Surrey is about 450,000. The same with yours, so I wanted to see the effects.

I was talking to a councillor in the city of Surrey who's done great work on social justice issues, Judy Villeneuve. She said we have about 800 refugees in the city of Surrey. She mentioned they are very productive citizens in most cases.

Do you agree with that?

[Peter Partington]

Completely. As a matter of fact, it was interesting, because we've stressed more than once that the importance of successful settlement and integration of immigrants to Niagara is key to the health of Niagara. There are so many examples, and I know we talked earlier about Greece. There are so many examples of the contribution of people from Greece, and from all countries. They have made a better Niagara. When I talk about that, I mean making a better quality of life for everybody in Niagara, and that's key.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Can you tell me whether there are a certain number of people out of those 13% who stay in the Niagara region who are not productive?

[Peter Partington]

No; 13% of the 600 who come across monthly stay in Niagara, and the rest go. I would hope that they're all productive. We certainly work at making that. As I said earlier, Niagara is the fabric of people from all over the world who live and help make Niagara the success it is. It's pretty amazing.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mayor Salci, you were saying Greece is a safe country, but as Mr. Karygiannis mentioned earlier, he brought in a lot of issues with that country. The issues will change and different populations will face different challenges during the course of time. Do you still feel that it is safe to put the safe country designation into this bill when those countries can be bountiful in the future?

[Ted Salci]

Again, I can't speak to the whole climate in Greece, and I'm not an expert in that area, so I would have to defer to those people who could answer the question.

As you heard the regional chairman say, the people coming to our country, in general, are very productive. It's just very disheartening when we have people waiting to be processed. It takes many, many years, where they're waiting for appeals and different matters to be dealt with. Time goes by, but it's way too long. We need to expedite that process.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I don't think there is any member of Parliament in the House of Commons who would not agree with you. The thing is, those people come to our offices as well. I would like to see a fair, fast process, right? But certainly my issue is that when we are putting those countries as safe countries into this bill, and the citizens of those countries can be wonderful, any time, under different circumstances.... So that's where I was finding some risk.

On another topic, I would like--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I don't think you have time. Sorry.

Monsieur St-Cyr.

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

Thank you.

During my first intervention, I tried to demonstrate that in wanting to speed things up, we sometimes risk obtaining the opposite effect. I subscribe to the government's aim of processing the files more quickly. I believe this is what you wish as well. However, in wanting to skip over a few steps, the risk to my mind is that things could take even longer. This is why I was saying that if we impose the holding of a hearing and if people are not prepared, we will simply be forced to postpone the hearing and very little time will be saved.

I wanted to bring to your attention another example and hear your opinions. The bill establishes two very distinct channels, that of the refugee status claim and that of the temporary resident permit for humanitarian and compassionate considerations. We do not allow people to move from one stream to the other. We understand the intention behind this is to force people to make a choice and to not multiply the number of appeals.

That being said, it seems that this might have perverse effects. For example, a person who applies for refugee status, and who along the way realizes that it is perhaps not the appropriate stream, is not allowed to change his or her application to one for temporary residency on humanitarian grounds. Indeed, this is prohibited by the bill. The bill provides that, if a person has applied for refugee status, that person may under no circumstances make an application invoking humanitarian and compassionate considerations and must remain in the same stream until the end.

Do you not believe that this very restrictive situation might have harmful effects? These people, after having consulted, will perhaps realize before the hearing that a dishonest consultant suggested to them that they claim refugee status, but that that was not the right route to follow. We will be pushing these people to continue on the wrong path, because the system simply has no flexibility.

[Ted Salci]

Your question is to whom?

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

I put the question to whomever would like to answer.

[Peter Partington]

Certainly without studying the documents and not having been involved in drawing them up, I don't have the technical capacity to answer that, but I would hope that those who prepared the bill, the deliberations on that, have considered that.

Overall, it would be my hope. There always will be exceptions. There always will be those difficult cases, but I think what we have to do is provide a bill that really captures, for the most part, the wide range of what's necessary to be done. There's no question that in life, in any aspect of life, there are always those difficult cases and those exceptions, and I would hope that was taken into account when they drafted the bill.

[Ted Salci]

If I may add, I was hoping that the process would allow for fair and equitable matters to be dealt with in terms of time and a request for information. Once again, I would rely on the hearing chairman and the process to allow for amendments to time to be granted, if that was required. I would think that everybody would expect a fair trial or process to take place and that the deliberations would be dependent upon the access to this information.

Anything would be better than waiting for the time it takes now, the months and years that are being taken to have these matters dealt with. So I think that would be a matter that would be very subjective in terms of decisions to be made at the time of the hearing, and the hearing chair could sort those matters out, depending upon the circumstance.

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

If I understand correctly, the aspect you wanted to discuss was more technical. The exclusively silo-based approach concerns me greatly and my fear is that it will push people who, otherwise, might have applied on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, to ask for refugee status despite the fact that it is inappropriate.

I will give you another example. There is another provision in the bill that states that when an application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds is being studied, all of those elements that might otherwise fall within a refugee application for protection and asylum must be excluded. We understand the will of the department. It wants refugees to apply for refugee status and those persons who are not refugees to apply under humanitarian and compassionate grounds. At the same time, is there not a risk that under such a provision, where you have people whose situation overlaps the two and who might be able to apply on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, they could be pushed into the refugee stream? Could such a provision not lead to the exact opposite of the desired result?

[Peter Partington]

For my part, I have not studied the bill to that extent or any matters in back of it, so I really am not in a position to answer that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It's not the end of the world if you say you don't know. I say it all the time.

Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. If you have an answer, fine.

[Ted Salci]

Once again, Mr. Chairman, I understand what the regional chairman is saying. That's something that we wouldn't necessarily be privy to on the process. But we hear from people on a regular basis who are well-intended, and I'm not sure whether matters are being dealt with expeditiously enough to allow them to proceed with their lives in a timely manner. I think that was the whole thrust of my presentation, that it would be nice to be dealing with these in a more expeditious manner—if I can use that word— and to have them get on with their lives.

We would hope that there would be fairness and equity applied to their hearing so that if there were information requirements or background requirements to be supplied, it would be done on a very timely basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Dykstra.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a couple of questions, but before that, I know we have about two rounds of five minutes each, more or less. I do have a couple of questions that I would like to ask, but if there's consensus around the table to see the clock at 5:30 when I finish those questions, I would be happy to entertain that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Actually, by the time you've finished, it will be 5:30.

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

Okay.

Mayor Salci, one of the things you mentioned, which I found interesting, is that a lot of the witnesses who come to speak to us about the bill—whether they are in favour, and some obviously are opposed, but some who want some changes made to it in terms of moving it forward—speak about their relative experience in terms of dealing and working with refugees within their responsibilities.

You mentioned that you have a number of them come to your office to sit down with you. Could you just speak to that a little bit further in terms of what they ask you, and further, what you're able to do in getting them some assistance on a very practical basis through the region?

[Ted Salci]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Dykstra.

Primarily, most of the cases are dealing with the time that it's taking these people to have their cases heard. In my case, they're asking me to facilitate or to help them facilitate the acceleration of the time taken to have their matters dealt with. That's what I hear mostly.

I have people come to my office who are engaged in jobs, who have relationships established, who want to be able to get on with their lives in this new country and to proceed onward. All I can do, usually, is to pass them on to the federal member's office. Many times, they ask for letters of reference. I see them in a very positive way. They are contributing to our society. Most of the time they're working as volunteers. I can recall a number of situations where we had people being involved with their church groups or as volunteers on our various committees in the city. They've integrated well and they're very positive people. Usually they're well-educated. I think their intentions are certainly well-intended. They want to get settled in our country and be dealt with in a very timely manner.

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

This is my last question. Basically you've provided the committee today with a pretty sound example of actual refugees whose major complaint, when they come to sit down with you, is that the system takes far too long from their perspective.