Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 15th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon. This is meeting number 32 of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on Monday, November 15, 2010.

The orders of the day are pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In other words, we are into clause-by-clause consideration of this bill, having heard witnesses for some time.

I'd like to again introduce the two members of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration who are with us. If need be, they are available for, I suppose, technical questions. The policy questions, of course, can be asked of Mr. Dykstra. We have with us Brenna MacNeil, who is the director of social policy and programs, and Elaine Ménard, legal counsel, legal services.

Welcome to the committee again, both of you.

We will commence with the clause-by-clause debate on Bill C-35. As you know, the first clause will be postponed because of Standing Order 75(1). That will be dealt with at the end. I will therefore proceed to calling clause 2.

(On clause 2)

Ms. Chow, you have an amendment. I assume you're going to proceed with that. Before you do, I will advise the committee that if your amendment, Ms. Chow, is amended--and that is seeking to amend line 12 on page 1 in the French text, I believe--the committee will have taken the decision on the wording of that line, and the government amendment, G-1, then cannot be moved. I just draw that to everyone's attention.

You may proceed and move your proposal, Ms. Chow.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The proposal in front of you has a slight flaw, so I am going to move a very similar motion. I will read it. It amends line 10 on page 1 as follows: “Subject to this section, no person shall knowingly represent or advise”--and here I'm inserting three words “directly or indirectly”--“a person for consideration”, etc. Those three words would be sufficient in the clause in this amendment. It's really amending line 10 by adding three words after the word “advise”.

Here is the reason I'm doing this. If you look at my original motion, you'll see that it reads as follows: “shall knowingly represent or advise a person, or engage in any other activity, for direct or indirect”. The intention is the same. It's been pointed out to me that if I say “engage in any other activity”, it could mean anything under the sun, which is not what I intended to do.

Mr. Chair, as you may recall, some of the witnesses said that people who provide recruitment to potential immigrants.... They do a lot of it through looking for jobs for immigrants or looking for schools. These are occasionally the people who are unscrupulous and they end up charging a huge fee. So by tightening this wording, it wouldn't be as broad as “engage in any other activity”.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I don't want to interrupt the debate...but I just have.

I have a question. It's just to make sure I understand what the amendment is. You understand that you are therefore putting after the word “advise” the words “directly or indirectly”. Would the words “or engage in any other activity”...?

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

No. They're deleted--all of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

They would be deleted.

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

Yes. That's too broad, because it--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay.... I'm not clear. You can continue if you have anything else.

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

That's all. It's just because “engage in any other activity” could mean--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I understand.

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

--buying a house for you, for example.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Monsieur St-Cyr.

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

Mr. Chairman, I agree with this proposal. I do think additional clarification is in order, even though, as I see it, you cannot usually do something indirectly that you are able to do directly.

That said, I would like to comment on what you said a little earlier about this amendment. This amends line 10 of the English version and line 13 of the French version. My understanding is that this would not allow the Committee to reopen the wording of this passage. I'm wondering if we can agree that, even if we deal with part of line 10, we could potentially amend another part of the wording on the same line. Otherwise, it just won't work.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I did say that. As I understand it, if there is unanimous consent, we can do anything, and I did say.... I think I said G-1. I meant G-1.1. Everything depends....

So in answer to your question, that would be the end of it, unless there is unanimous consent.

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

I'm asking for unanimous consent.

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

To clarify that, basically what we're saying is that this would allow the Bloc amendment, the NDP amendment, and the government amendment to clause 2 not to be closed, based on either one of the first two passing or a third...?

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

That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Do we agree?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Monsieur St-Cyr, you still have the floor. You're finished?

Mr. Dykstra.

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

I need to get some clarification here. It's a question first to the mover of the amendment to respond to and then for clarification from ministry staff, because what person knowingly represents or advises indirectly? I think the two are against each other; they're contrary. Someone cannot knowingly make representation indirectly. If you're making representation, you're making it directly. You're not making it indirectly.

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

May I...?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. Chow.

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

That's not necessarily so. Let's say that I'm an employment recruiter. I can indirectly represent you. I don't really represent you on the immigration side, so how would I...? That's not covered here. In terms of “knowingly”, I know, but I can say that I know that I'm representing you, but it's not a proceeding. It's not an application under this act. I am representing you, but it has nothing to do with the act. It's not on immigration. It's really on human resources, right?

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

It says “Subject to this section”, not to any broad section. It says, “Subject to this section, no person shall knowingly represent or advise a person for consideration”, so it's according to this section of the act, not any other part of the act, not any other part of some other act, or not any other part of some representation that has nothing to do with this act. This is subject to this section of this specific act. Someone cannot knowingly and indirectly speak to this subject, this portion of the act, to a client. They'd be doing it directly.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. St-Cyr, can you clear all this up? You seem to be antsy there.