Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 27th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Karygiannis, if you could just allow me one more question...

The concern that seems to be given is that if this person says something during this eight-day period and then contradicts himself or herself later, could someone say, oh, you know...? That could affect the whole process, for whatever reason.

I appreciate what you're saying. You've been very helpful. But they're nervous, scared, frightened, and their language... All kinds of reasons have been given to us. Could that testimony, if it's given in those first eight days, be used against them if it's contradicted later on?

[Jennifer Irish]

Well, it would not be appropriate to conjecture on how a first-level hearing would regard a changed record, except to underscore that the claimant would have the ability to amend that record with the participation of counsel through the disclosure period in advance of the hearing.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Karygiannis.

I'm sorry to go on like this. I've probably opened up a can of worms.

Mr. Karygiannis, please go ahead.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to explore safe country of origin with you. Would the European countries be safe countries of origin? That is, EU countries.

[Peter MacDougall]

Would they be safe countries of origin? I'm going to answer your question, but first I'm going to describe a bit of the process.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Sorry--I'd like just a simple answer.

[Peter MacDougall]

Well, there isn't a simple answer. We're putting a process in place. Most likely—

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Give me a second, please.

We've been told by a lot of the witnesses who have come here to make presentations that a lot of the EU countries are safe countries of origin; if you can't be in one country, you can move into another country. So I would assume you're promoting that the EU countries are safe countries of origin.

[Peter MacDougall]

No. That's not the case. We would not assess a country for safe country of origin status unless it met a certain volume threshold.

Let's take a country like Germany--

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Is Germany a safe country of origin?

[Peter MacDougall]

No. I'm not saying that.

Germany is a good example of a country where... We have very few claims from Germany. We would not even need to look at it because the safe country of origin tool is designed to respond quickly to spikes in claims and to deter future spikes in claims. So while many EU countries may, on qualitative human rights protection grounds, say, be “safe”, we would not be assessing the vast majority of them because they are not--quote, unquote--a “concern” for us with respect to our asylum system. We don't get volumes of claims from most European countries.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

So in order to assess it, you must have either volume or no volume. If you have no volume, then I guess you would say that it is a safe country.

[Peter MacDougall]

Well, we wouldn't pronounce on it. We wouldn't even consider it.

If I take Germany historically, we would not be looking at Germany at all.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Would Germany today be on the list of safe countries of origin?

[Peter MacDougall]

In terms of the data we have on Germany today, for the last five years, we would not even consider it because we don't get very many claims from Germany.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Would Italy?

[Peter MacDougall]

Well, probably not, but sir—

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Would Greece?

[Peter MacDougall]

Sir--

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I'm just exploring the countries.

[Peter MacDougall]

Well, I'm trying to explain to you that there's a threshold, so we don't... The minister is going to explain in some detail the quantitative thresholds when he comes on Monday.

But unless a country has a very low acceptance rate at the IRB and has a significant level of claims in the IRB, we're not even going to look at them.

[Luke Morton]

Just very briefly, I think some witnesses may have suggested that there are going to be 200 countries in the world either on the safe country list or the “not safe” country list. That, I think, is part of the confusion. That's not the policy objective.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Well, I guess the minister will explain the criteria on Monday for the list.

[Peter MacDougall]

Yes.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

So you're not privileged to discuss that with us?