Evidence of meeting #20 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 appeal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
I wanted to know if you understand that even under the safe country of origin policy, there are exemptions for certain classes of nationals--
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
--including that there will be a regulation that the minister can designate a group--for example, sexual orientation--from a specific country? You knew that?
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Sorry, could I just finish the question, because it may be helpful?
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
But even without an exemption, nationals from countries that would be designated as safe still have access to a hearing at the Immigration and Refugee Board. And they can still seek judicial review afterwards, the same as they have now.
Rainbow Refugee Committee
Yes, and we've seen that it doesn't work terribly well.
There are a couple of concerns I have about that. One is the concern I raised in my talk. If LGBT people are treated as an exception to the rule, this becomes a clear incentive for people to make fraudulent claims. This is not helpful to us and it's not helpful to the refugee system. So I would advise against it.
Allowing someone to have their hearing and then the possibility of a judicial review if something goes wrong is inadequate. We see people refused leave for judicial review all the time; it is not the same as an appeal. People need access to a full hearing and a full appeal, particularly in situations where it is complex and the situation is changing.
The UNHCR guidelines are quite clear on this. It is all right to designate countries for expedited processing. They see that as sort of in keeping.... But denying procedural fairness--so denying an appeal--would not be in keeping with the UNHCR position.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
With regard to fairness, in the current system it can take up to two years to have a claim heard. It's more than four years, in some cases, to remove a failed claimant, which in my view is another kind of unfairness. Do you find that fair?
Rainbow Refugee Committee
Absolutely not. It's very clear to me that we need to move people through much more quickly than we currently are; 19 months is unacceptable. A great deal of that waiting time is due to understaffing of the IRB. Now that the problem has been dealt with, I think we will see claims move through more quickly.
I think there are better ways to deal with moving people through expeditiously than having expedited timeframes and denying appeals based on a safe country list.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Once a claimant has gone through the various levels of appeals, why shouldn't they be removed?
Rainbow Refugee Committee
Once they've gone through a full hearing and a full appeal and have had an opportunity to have humanitarian and compassionate considerations looked at, I think it's quite fair to remove someone.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you.
Did you want to ask a question, or can I continue?
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Okay, thanks.
Ms. Jordan, very good presentation, by the way. I thought you did a good job in terms of research and purposes stated of the changes you'd like to see. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but I thought you did a great job.
One of the things you've led me to believe, though, and what I want to ask is, can you give me the name of some countries where you would consider gays, transgender, and lesbians to be safe?
Rainbow Refugee Committee
We have good protection here in Canada. What you need to look at is, are there anti-discrimination laws present--
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
No. There's a purpose to my question. Give me a number of countries. You can't give me only one, because what you're saying then is that basically every country on the planet.... You basically could apply for refugee status in Canada based on the fact that you could be mistreated in any of those other countries if you were--or your life may be in danger, as you explained.
We have experiences of that right here in this country, in all of our communities. So it's not like we're the only country on the face of the earth that is a home or is the right place to be if you're gay. There are other countries that certainly--
Rainbow Refugee Committee
Absolutely. We don't see very many refugee claims from those countries. I think there is still a fundamental problem with designating an entire country as safe if that designation is then going to be used to deny someone access to appeal. The United States is, in many ways, a progressive place for LGBT folks to live, and yet we do have one woman, a lesbian, an American soldier, making a claim.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Well, yes. That might be for a bit of a different reason.
Rainbow Refugee Committee
It's a different reason, but her sexuality--
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
In fact, there's a private member's bill dealing with that issue.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
But even from the United States, 1% of the claims in 2009 were approved, so it's not like it can't happen. It's an extreme situation, obviously.
I think the point I am trying to make is this. There has been some misinformation with respect to safe countries of origin. It's obvious, even when you look at proposed section 109.1, that while the minister is going to be the person at the end of the day who designates, the minister isn't going to have that without receiving a recommendation from an expert panel on the issue across ministries here. I do think there is opportunity for us to move in this direction because it actually frees up those whose lives are in danger, who actually end up in a line or end up not able to have their application heard here in Canada because we have a number of applications that simply shouldn't be refugee applications.
Rainbow Refugee Committee
My concern is that it's a very cumbersome way of freeing up space. If you look at countries that do have a designated list, they spend a lot of resources and time in managing this list and managing challenges against this list. The U.K. is a really good example of that. It's inflexible and quite cumbersome.