Evidence of meeting #17 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was claimants.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Given the implementation of this new refugee appeal division and continued access to the refugee's goal, do you think it is reasonable to limit access to additional avenues of recourse and to allow a brief window to remove a failed claimant?
4:15 p.m.
Director, Action Réfugiés Montréal
I think you can only remove a failed claimant once they've gone through the entire process. The refugee appeal division, as Rick has just mentioned, is extremely welcome. We've been waiting since 2002, since it was passed, and we think it's wonderful that this reform will institute it.
4:15 p.m.
Committee Coordinator to Aid Refugees, Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes
If you're referring to the pre-removal risk assessment and to the H and C, the pre-removal risk assessment does not work very well. We certainly are much happier with a refugee appeal division that works than with the pre-removal risk assessment. That's an excellent trade-off in terms of fairness, in our opinion.
In terms of the humanitarian application, as I said a little earlier in my presentation, we cannot see the justification for closing that off. It's the only instance in which the best interests of the children, for example, our obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, are actually examined in deciding whether a child or a family will be able to remain in Canada or not, and it does not suspend removal. So we see absolutely no justification for closing off that avenue.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond, BC
My question is for the Association for New Canadians. It seems that you haven't had the opportunity to comment on the two questions Mrs. Grewal just asked. Do you think the current system is vulnerable to abuse, according to your experience?
4:15 p.m.
Settlement Social Worker, Association for New Canadians
I do think the current system is vulnerable to abuse, and that's one of the reasons why some of the colleagues were speaking about a prioritization system. It's a good opportunity to have the claimants speak about their stories and not closing off...having those systems in place. But at the same time it's a really difficult place to draw the line around who says somebody's claim isn't correct or reasonable enough to get refugee status.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond, BC
I understand that in England they're using this safe country of origin. In Ghana, for example, the men would not be considered to be vulnerable for refugee claims, but the women are because of certain practices that are against women in their country. Do you see that as a possible sort of solution, if those are your concerns?
Anyone can answer this question now.
4:15 p.m.
Committee Coordinator to Aid Refugees, Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes
I don't think we quite understand the question.
4:15 p.m.
Settlement Social Worker, Association for New Canadians
One of the problems that I—oh, sorry.
4:15 p.m.
Settlement Social Worker, Association for New Canadians
One of the problems I have with the whole safe country issue and countries designated as being safe is that it discounts individualized cases. There could be a gentleman in Ghana who is experiencing something that is quite horrific, but would his case be listened to in other safe countries, especially a country like Mexico?
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Sorry, time's up.
Mr. Dryden, welcome back to the committee. You have up to five minutes.
May 25th, 2010 / 4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Dryden Liberal York Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
All of you have spoken quite strongly about the eight days and the 60 days and the designated countries. What I'd really like to ask you is to imagine that this system goes into place tomorrow, and this is five years from now and we've had five years of experience in watching this work. What would happen? What would the experience be of each of these claimants? Who would succeed? Who would fail? Why would they fail? If in fact this happened, what would happen?
4:20 p.m.
Director, Action Réfugiés Montréal
I think we would see some people sent back to unknown fates, having been refused their claim. We are talking about people. We've all tried to introduce human beings with whom we have worked over the last years, and refugee law is about people and their lives. In the detention work we have seen people excluded from making a refugee claim when that was their intention, and in some cases they have been sent back and ended up in jail. I have worked with Iranians who ended up in Evin prison.
I think we should not lose sight of the fact that five years from now we could be speaking about more cases of people who may have been wrongfully refused, removed very rapidly, and live the consequences, which we do not live.
4:20 p.m.
Committee Coordinator to Aid Refugees, Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes
I would definitely agree. I have to say, frankly, that it's hard to imagine that the system, as it's presented, could work. There are just so many question marks that we have. What is the purpose of the eight-day interview? How would it be done?
But let's say it did go ahead. There are certainly many people who are not prepared to talk at all. I have sat down in my own office with people who had been here two years and were still so traumatized that it took me an hour before they were willing to talk about—
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Dryden Liberal York Centre, ON
What I'm trying to get at, again, is imagining this system is in place. These refugee claimants have eight days for this interview. You've talked about how that's an inappropriate period of time. They have only eight days and then they get to the 60-day period. A lot of things have to happen within that 60-day period of time, and a lot of information is not easily available during that period of time. They have to present a case and they have to sort of win the argument when that hearing comes up that many days later, having less access, it would seem, to information that is going to be able to prove the authenticity of it.
That's what I'm trying to get at, concretely. What is going to happen? Who's going to get penalized by all of this? What is the individual circumstance that is going to be problematic out of this?
4:20 p.m.
Committee Coordinator to Aid Refugees, Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes
I think I understand your question better now. In terms of who would be penalized by the eight-day interview, there's been a whole experience over the years with what's called port-of-entry notes, where a refugee arrives at the border, or at the airport, and has a short interview in which the questions are very unstructured and the notes are taken in a very summary fashion. We have seen very often over the years those same notes used at a refugee hearing to say, “Oh, why didn't you mention such-and-such during your interview?” or “You said something slightly different at the airport”, and this is used with very grave consequences for a person's credibility.
Actually, this is a battle that has been played out at the IRB and in the courts for the past 20 years or so, to the point where Citizenship and Immigration Canada and CBSA have more or less dropped the port-of-entry notes because they cause more problems than they solve. Yet the government—
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I'm sorry, the suggestion and recommendation of what the eight-day triage is going to be and talking about this in terms of some notes that are taken at the port of entry is unfair. They are absolutely separate and different things.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
