Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 31st, 2010

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

Mr. Minister, you are saying that this is an improvement. If the person comes from a designated country, they will not have the right to appeal, nor will they be able to claim humanitarian or compassionate grounds, have access to the temporary resident's permit, nor the pre-removal risk assessment any longer. Therefore, for that person, there is in fact less.

I understand the will to expedite the process, but the bottom line is that it is false to say that everyone gains something. There will be some who lose.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

I do not understand the problem you have with the concept of designation of certain countries. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is full of country designations: safe country designations for refugees in their own countries, designations for temporary moratoria on removals, designated countries for which visas are mandatory, etc. There are already many designations. We continue to subscribe to the same legal principles, that is those that are at the heart of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

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

In this case, we are depriving some people of rights as a result of their country of origin. In many of the most problematic cases, we will be withdrawing the right of appeal.

In the case of people from Iran who claim they are being persecuted, there is a low risk of error, because everyone agrees that there is a great deal of persecution in that country. On the other hand, in the case of people from Poland who say they are being persecuted because they are homosexual, the risks are greater that they will have difficulties and the risk of making mistakes is greater. That is where an appeal division would be useful.

I asked you the question the first time you appeared before the committee, Mr. Minister. You have designated a list of countries where it is very unlikely, in your opinion, that people could be refugees. If these people are recognized as refugees, your bill would ensure that you deny them the right to appeal. Under your bill, you withdraw the right to appeal in the case of people coming from countries where, in your opinion, it is unlikely they would have suffered persecution. Finally, it is as though you would be admitting that—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Perhaps you could wind up.

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

—ready to live with mistakes just in order to speed up the process. You are ready to live with those mistakes in order to speed up the process.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

No. As I have said, Mr. Chair, we are proposing a system that exceeds our obligations under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the convention and our international obligations. Everyone will be able to access the Refugee Appeal Division, even foreign nationals from designated safe countries. The vast majority of people will win their fact-based appeals before the Refugee Appeal Division, which currently does not and will never exist if immoderate changes are brought to this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Minister, Mr. St-Cyr.

Ms. Chow.

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

What do you think of getting the extra layer, getting rid of the interview? Rather than having the interview, people would come in, an officer would describe the refugee process, the destination, or humanitarian grounds, or temporary worker, tell them that this is the place if they need a lawyer, and this is how they can find a lawyer or qualified consultant. Lay out the information to the people who want to declare refugee status. Leave it at that. Skip the entire process. If they say refugee, then give them the form, let them go and find a lawyer or whoever, fill that in, and actually then go into a hearing. Why not do that? Why have an extra hearing? You can call it an interview. Whatever you call it, it's almost like a hearing because you're being interviewed. Sometimes, whether it's eight days, ten days, twenty days, if you haven't quite processed your information, then it's difficult to get your information out.

Also PIF, which is the personal information form, allowed the claimants to set out their story. Since you're talking about the U.K., I noticed that the U.K. got rid of PIF and the UNHCR applied for the reintroduction because the use of the forms helps to focus a hearing. So why get rid of that PIF? Why add another layer and have an interview right at the beginning?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

We actually see it as streamlining rather than adding a layer. We believe, and this is the reflection of the department in consultation with the IRB and experts, after years of analyzing this, that right now people don't have.... First of all, I would remind you, when people come in, very typically they have an interview with a CBSA officer, a law enforcement officer, at the port of entry. We talked about—

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

But that information is not being used for the hearings.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

That information is on their file. That information is being taken by someone wearing a uniform. We talk about people who are being traumatized. They're fresh off the plane, they're sitting down—and I've been in the rooms—in these sealed rooms that, frankly, look like an interrogation room, and they're being asked questions about their claim. That's all going on their file. That's part of the eligibility review, but it's all on their file.

We propose there be much less reliance on that, by not having a hearing or confrontational questioning but having the intervention and the help of a trained public servant at the IRB, who would sit down, explain the process to them, take the nature of their claim, and help them to understand what they're going to need. If they need advice on how to find counsel, then they would be told how to do so. If they need a recommendation for a later hearing date—

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

So does that actually replace PIF, or is it in addition?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes, it replaces it—

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

Why replace it?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

The triage interview replaces PIF, although the outcome of it will be a PIF-like form that will be gathered by the interviewer. That form and the relevant tape recording will be provided to the claimants and they will then have the ability to make amendments to the information they have furnished up to probably about 20 days prior to the actual hearing, which, based on the timelines we're suggesting, would be 70 days into the process.

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

Why not give the person the information? If you're asking someone who has been tortured to actually describe the situation, that's very difficult in the interview process, because it often takes a few discussions, a few connections with that person, two or three times, before the person can actually open up to an advocate, or a lawyer or a consultant, before they could actually write their story out. Why not rely on themselves to write their story, their narrative, rather than doing it through the interview process? Because it's a fundamentally different process, different practice here.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

They do write their own story.

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

I don't understand how that would have to do with—

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Let's be honest. Sometimes we're talking about people who are illiterate. So they're not actually writing their own story here; they're actually able to relate their own story in their own words and then subsequently amend it, even upon the advice of counsel. I don't understand why there's this notion that trained public servants who are working in the refugee board are somehow going to be aggressive or hostile when faced with particularly bona fide refugees or any claimant.

Right now you come, you make your claim at the port of entry, you're taken into an interrogation room, you meet someone who's wearing a uniform, and you're interviewed. Then they give you a form and say they'll get back to you. They don't see someone from the IRB for 19 months.

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

Well, it could be 60 days or 90 days. That should be faster.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Here, under the system we're proposing, someone from the IRB will be giving them the standard information on their source country, which they can seek to address or rebut. They will be giving them a tape recording of their interview. They'll be given a PIF form, which is the result of the interview. They'll be scheduling their interview later if they need time for trauma counselling or earlier if they're clearly bona fide claimants and can be accepted more quickly.

So we think it allows for a kind of positive intervention that actually helps the claimants and renders the system more efficient.

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

Let me just go on to another area.

In the past, how many have had the benefit of having more than one panel member because of the complexity of their case? Occasionally there's more than one panel member, right? In the 1980s there used to be three panel members. That was reduced to two panel members, and then reduced to one panel member. The appeal division came about because we kept shrinking that panel from three to two to one.

So do we know how many there have been? Have there been hardly any? There have been maybe two cases?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

My officials tell me there have been very few, and we'll get back to you with a precise number.

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

So there have not been a noticeable number of them.

Would we still allow those complex cases to have more than one board member?

[Jennifer Irish, Director, Asylum Policy Program Development, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

There is provision for that. In fact, one of the roles of that information-gathering interview is to make choices about the complexity of the case.