Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 18th, 2010

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

So in fact that suspension covers everyone at the current time. Obviously, where it's deemed necessary, these folks who may fall under the category of section 230 in fact are being held?

[Claudette Deschênes]

We are making the case in front of an independent IRB member to keep them detained.

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

What are your thoughts on...and I don't mean to implore personal thoughts, but just—

[Claudette Deschênes]

I have no thoughts.

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

I realized as soon as I said it I'm putting you on the spot, as if you should write the new....

You do have thoughts, Claudette, I know you do, but the fact is we do have a motion from one of the members of this committee to seek a permanent suspension to what we have deemed, at least for the moment, a temporary suspension.

It would seem to me that we've done everything humanely possible to be fair, but at some point in the near future the suspension of the removal aspect is going to have to be lifted for certain individuals who fall under section 230.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Yes.

I guess I do have a thought. When it comes to immigration, I really do think it's case by case, and we should be careful not to take that possibility of looking at a case that might be very difficult and for which there might be security—

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

A point of order, Chair. Wouldn't this question be out of order?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You hear everything I say up here--that's the problem--but I was going to say, Mr. Dykstra, that that is probably a political question as well; it's probably a policy question.

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

No, it's a policy question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm wondering whether it's appropriate. You're asking her to look into a crystal ball, and I don't know whether that's fair.

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

No, I'm not. At some point I would like to think that regardless--throwing politics aside here--we already have a provision with subsection 230(3) that is a clear policy by this ministry, and what we have said, or what the ministry has said and the government has agreed to, is a temporary suspension of that, but there will come a point where we will have to honour section 230 and the temporary suspension will be lifted.

All I was asking was, is that consistent, and is that something the ministry believes should happen?

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

Chair, that is, if the ministry...and that's the minister's decision, not the bureaucrats. Therefore, I would say to you that this is out of order.

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

You put a hold on my time obviously? Okay, thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It's frozen.

You know what? I'm going to rule that Mr. Karygiannis has a valid point of order, and it's the same ruling I made with Madame Thi Lac. I'm going to say it's a political question and it would be inappropriate for you to answer that at this time.

There will be a time when the minister comes and you can ask that question of him.

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

Asking an official whether or not a policy should be--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Don't do that, Mr. Dykstra. I'm ruling it out of order.

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

I understand. I'm not necessarily agreeing with your ruling, but I will respect it.

One of the aspects that I also have a question on is the whole issue around how difficult it has been having to work outside of Port-au-Prince and the damage to the buildings there. Overall, what is the current status, and how soon do you think we'll be moving into a position where we're formally more organized on the ground in Port-au-Prince?

[Claudette Deschênes]

Again, what I want to say is that the Port-au-Prince office is being set up in part because we want to test delivery networks in different ways. So we've used the situation of the earthquake in Port-au-Prince, but some of us believe that if you centralize the front end of creating files and all of that, you can probably do it in a more cost-effective manner. So I think it is clear to say that we're not anticipating, that even if Port-au-Prince is up and running and rebuilt, there will be major construction to the chancery and so on. We're not necessarily going to go back to the same model. We're going to test this model and see if that means we can do more within the resource space we have.

But certainly DFAIT anticipates at least a year before a lot of the construction is....

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry. It's Mr. Coderre's turn.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Chair, for the record, I heard a lot from my colleagues in the government who are pleased with what the government did with Haiti. Maybe I should put on record that in the hour after the earthquake I spoke personally with the Prime Minister's Office and with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and we offered our full collaboration. So it's not a partisan issue. It was a non-partisan issue and everybody contributed to the success. Saying that,

I think that you were right to talk about adoption, but I must say, Ms. Deschênes, that there no longer appears to be a sense of urgency concerning the processing of cases. Some 168 permanent visas were issued. As for the way in which the other cases will be processed, you spoke of there being a level exercise.

I clearly sense that Haiti is currently facing a domestic crisis. Indeed, a great number of people cannot afford to wait. By April, 60% of the million displaced persons will not even have a roof over their heads. And that is when the rainy season begins. The situation begs for humanitarian assistance. I know that you are aware of that because you have heard from our officials on the ground.

You say that you are trying out a series of measures. I do not think this is a time for experiments. I do not sense as much urgency any more, and we should be investing more effort for want of staff there. An additional $4.8 million was released in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. CIDA ponied up part of that amount. National Defence also contributed. I think that the role of Citizenship and Immigration Canada is to ensure that families are reunited.

I would like to point out another issue of great concern. The federal government has left the Government of Quebec find its own way out of the quagmire because it did not want to get involved in family reunification. I will sidestep the political question, but what concerns me at present is the fact that there are two measures. There will be one way of doing things for people living in Ottawa, and another for those living in Gatineau. That is according to the agreement between Quebec and Canada. Minister Yolande James has stated what she intends to do. You yourselves already have 250 cases to process.

How can we make sure that this very tight-knit community, which shares the French language with us and does not see any boundaries between the provinces and the two countries, given the very close ties, will not have to wait another four years before seeing its cases processed? There is an envelope stamped "Haiti", but how can we speed up the processing of those cases? I think that it will be extremely difficult.

My friend Karygiannis will be asking a question following your response.

[Claudette Deschênes]

Frankly, I can tell you that we are still scrambling in order to do more. I think that we will achieve a number of outcomes over the next few weeks and months. Let me assure you that we are continuing to invest much time and effort. The fact of the matter is that permanent residency applications cannot be processed in two days. Nevertheless, if we were to appear before you again, we would be able to demonstrate that cases today are being processed much faster than they were in the past.

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

Thank you.

I heard you say something about levels. Am I to understand that these cases are going to be viewed as levels, in terms of the people we let in? I thought the minister was saying we're going to expedite family class--parents, grandparents, spouses, and children under the age of 22--and then I heard you say the word “levels”. Am I to understand we're applying levels to Haiti?

[Claudette Deschênes]

What I'm saying is that every year we submit a levels plan, but certainly I also said that in the case of Haiti we're moving all the cases that have been identified as being affected into active processing immediately.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have seconds, so be quick, sir.

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

I will give my time to Ms.--