Evidence of meeting #24 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was person.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Kellway NDP Beaches—East York, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you, thank you to our witnesses for appearing here today.
Dr. Dauvergne, you had discussed very briefly the issue of mass arrivals. I found your point interesting, that there tends to be no difference in security outcomes or incidence of security concerns in those arrivals. The issue seems to come down to an administrative issue. The government, certainly in the context of Bill C-4, has talked about and justified the detention of so-called irregular arrivals on administrative grounds.
I'm wondering if you have any recommendations, and can perhaps point to other examples around the world, with regard to how other countries handle mass arrivals administratively so that people don't have to be put into detention.
4:20 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Migration Law, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law, As an Individual
I think the clearest example here is probably what happens in Australia. In Australia there are quite a lot of irregular arrivals, and in much greater numbers than in Canada because of the structure of the Australian immigration system. There are two primary devices used, even in the context of the Australian system, to ensure that people are detained for the minimal amount of time required.
The first of those devices is that there is a massive system for legal support and representation for people who are detained, and there are extensive government contracts for lawyers to work in Australian migration detention centres—that's a little-known feature of the Australian mandatory detention system.
There's also a priority, for anybody who is detained, for those people to be processed first, before anybody else. One of the problems encountered by the refugee bar in British Columbia, where a number of these boat arrivals have occurred—the most recent boat arrivals have all been out here—is that the refugee bar just doesn't have the resources to give people the proper legal representation to allow these things to move quickly.
So thinking about how to resource that will really ensure that detention is at a minimum, as will also looking at some other alternatives to detention, such as the kinds of conditions on which individuals get bailed into the community in the United States. There's also a significant detention scheme there that's not as blanket as Australia's and involves alternatives to detention, such as having people regularly report into an immigration office, having some monitoring, and accommodating people in designated areas at state expense. Often in a mass arrival situation, people don't have anywhere to live, and they don't know where to live. One way to keep tabs on them is to provide them with a place to live, for example.
So there are a few ideas that will address the same kind of issue that the government is chasing in Bill C-4.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Kellway NDP Beaches—East York, ON
Okay.
Very briefly, Dr. Dauvergne—I think I have a minute left, or you have a minute left—on the issue of the detention of children, you mentioned that there were about 500 kids in detention last year through refugee claims. I'm wondering if there are any studies or if there is any evidence about the impacts of detention on families and on children themselves. Is there any useful information in advance of the potential passage of Bill C-31 and this extended period of detention it contemplates?
4:20 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Migration Law, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law, As an Individual
The best and most detailed study is by the Australian Human Rights Commission, which has demonstrated that there are devastating effects on children held long term in migration detention. One of the changes between Bill C-4 and Bill C-31 is that the new legislation does not call for mandatory detention of children. But it does not address the question of what will happen to children whose parents are mandatorily detained.
Currently, much detention of children is considered to be optional or is detention that is chosen by their parents. I think this is an issue that really needs to be tackled head-on. It's simply unreasonable to say that we're only going to allow people to be detained when their parents make that choice for them. We know that detention is very detrimental to children, and we also know that parents who have arrived in a foreign country and who have no family, no resources, and no connections are not going to choose to have their children separated from them.
So this is an inevitable consequence of that legislation, on which we've made some progress, but not enough.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to our guests. I hope you're able to see and hear us well.
I was intrigued, Dr. Dauvergne, by your comment that the information we have is not granular. You then proceeded to show some great mastery over the information that was available, so let me put my first question to you.
You commented that the detentions of people who arrive by ship tend to be 15 times longer than the average detention. Better pre-screening was one of the recommendations made by another witness who we heard from. Pre-screening would enable the government to identify everyone on a ship or plane destined for Canada before they reached Canadian soil. What's your opinion on Canada's current pre-screening measures and how they can be improved?
4:25 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Migration Law, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law, As an Individual
This is a good example of how information working in one category flows over into another category. We currently have reasonable capacity to pre-screen individuals who are coming to Canada in some acceptable category of immigration. However, we don't grant visas to people to come to Canada to seek refugee status. You can possibly be a resettled refugee and you can be extensively pre-screened in that way. Those people who are government-assisted refugees are probably subject to the highest screening of any group at all. Mass arrivals on boats—to come back to where your question started—are the groups of people about which we're going to know absolutely nothing before we start. One way we could think about gathering information about those individuals would be to create a visa category that allowed people to come to Canada to seek refugee status. That would be something.... I've only ever heard of one other country in the world—I think there are limited opportunities in the Swiss system for this capacity. That would allow pre-screening of people who were going to seek asylum in Canada.
Aside from that, it's not a question of the kind of information we seek in advance but rather that we don't provide any way for people to get into an immigration category. Those people we are most concerned about are the ones who existing pre-screening is least likely ever to get to.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
I'm sorry. We've come to the end.
Dr. Dauvergne and Mr. Petryshyn, we appreciate your taking the time. Your answers to our questions have been outstanding, and we thank you very much for your time.
March 1st, 2012 / 4:25 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Migration Law, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law, As an Individual
Thank you for your time and attention. It's been a privilege.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
We will suspend.
We will call this meeting to order. We have two witnesses.
The first witness is before us here in downtown Ottawa. Rajesh Randev is an immigration consultant.
Welcome to the committee, sir.
By teleconference from British Columbia, we have Dr. Joe Greenholtz, who is an immigration consultant and adjunct professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. He has also served at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo.
Welcome to both of you. Thank you for coming to the committee.
Mr. Randev, we'll give you up to 10 minutes to make a presentation to the committee.
4:30 p.m.
Rajesh Randev Immigration Consultant, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me today.
My name is Rajesh Randev. I am a regulated Canadian immigration consultant and a member of ICCRC.
Today I would like to shed light on some of the emerging immigration issues that need to be addressed on a priority basis to improve our current immigration system. The discussion topics concern the challenges faced by the applicants for temporary resident visas, in particular the case of visitor visas, and the functioning of overseas visa posts. Later I would like to put forth some practical solutions to the problems faced by the applicants, which will improve our current system.
First of all, I would like to discuss the opening remark that appears on the CIC website:
Visitor visas allow people to stay in Canada temporarily. For tourists, whether you are looking for nightlife in a large cosmopolitan city or vast natural park land, the country offers something for everyone!
True indeed: our beautiful Canada has a lot to offer, with amazing landscapes, national parks, and great tourist attractions. Our people share diverse cultures, and their roots stretch far across the globe. People want to visit Canada for weddings, tourism, ceremonies, funerals, and to connect with families, but they face high visa rejections. This has discouraged people from applying for similar sorts of visas for Canada, and they prefer other countries over Canada for travel and pleasure.
The recent report in BC Business this year shows a sharp decline in international tourism from the period of 2000 to 2010. According to a report from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the contribution of international travellers to Canada’s total tourism revenue has dropped from 35% in 2000 to only 20% in 2010. One of the primary reasons for this decline in tourism is the high refusal rate in visitor visa applications overseas.
The CIC website further says the following:
Visitor visas also allow people to connect with family who have immigrated to Canada.
I am not fully convinced by this statement, since eligible families often face refusals even in the case of funerals or emergency situations. For example, the majority of immigrants of Indian origin in Canada are from Punjab, and the visa post is in Chandigarh. From Chandigarh, the refusal rate is 53%. The situation is quite similar in other visa posts. The actual figures for visitor visas alone are quite shocking; rejection rates go as high as 80%.
I doubt that families can stay connected if the majority of the applications are refused with pre-set refusal grounds. The applicants are frustrated not only because of the rejection but also because of the unclear refusal grounds, which sound generic for several rejections. Although every case is unique, the cases processed in such visa posts are treated with a generalized opinion rather than with a case-by-case analysis.
I will brief you on two of the numerous cases that reflect the anomalies of our existing system. Three years back, Mrs. Kaur was suffering from cancer. Her last wish was to see her mother from India. Unfortunately, her mother's visitor visa was refused. Mrs. Kaur died before seeing her mother in Canada. In another case, Mr. Enbo Cui, an only child and an accounting student in Australia, was twice refused a visitor visa to attend his mother’s funeral. His mother was stabbed to death while she worked in a restaurant in Toronto. Cui was not granted a visa until this was published in the Toronto Star and other media, when it caught the attention of immigration authorities in Canada. Unfortunately, there are several other unpublished cases that suffer from the same kind of problem, where those at visa posts make cold decisions.
I'd now like to discuss some irregularities happening in visa post operations overseas. If a person is paying $150 Canadian for a TRV application and the application is refused, I think the applicant has a right to know, and it is the visa officer’s duty to give, the detailed reason for their refusal.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Randev, I apologize. I truly didn't want to interrupt you, but this is on a point of order.
I know you are certainly making the presentation on behalf of those who have not gotten visas to come to Canada. I just wondered if you could clarify how this will lead to getting advice on the purpose of what we're discussing and trying to do with respect to security in this report.
4:35 p.m.
Immigration Consultant, As an Individual
After this I am going to offer some practical solutions to these problems, and I hope Mr. Chair and the members of the committee will like my solutions.
First of all, I would like to present—
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Just remember we're talking about security, sir, but we appreciate your coming and giving us your words of wisdom.
4:35 p.m.
Immigration Consultant, As an Individual
Yes.
There are a lot of irregularities happening in the visa posts. For example, in the case of work visas, even if the applicant has strong ties with India and he is financially well to do in that country, the visa is refused because the person will not come back.
In cases where the applicants have already applied for permanent residency for Canada, such as for family class, the applicants are denied visitor visas and told, “You have dual intent and you will not leave Canada”.
Why would a person who has applied for permanent residency jeopardize their chances of permanent residency for the sake of temporary status? Maybe the reason for their temporary visit is to explore Canada and to develop social ties and finally settle in Canada.
The visa officers, whether in Canada or overseas, do have some guidelines from the government, but these guidelines must be reviewed from time to time. Between the time I became an immigration consultant and now, I can distinguish what I have learned from experience and client interactions. The same applies to all professions, including that of visa officers overseas, who must be trained and be given proper experience in order to make decisions on something as important as uniting a mother with her child.
Now I am going to present solutions to these problems.
My first solution to this problem is that there should be a good faith bond. Let's say there is a scenario involving an overseas applicant who has weak or strong ties but is financially sound. An optional good faith bond for applicants would assure compliance with the terms and conditions of their temporary stay in Canada. If asked by the visa officer, the applicant could enter into a contracted bond for a certain amount with the visa issuing authority. The good faith bond's value could be determined based on the applicant's financial grounds. The applicant could explore, learn about, and visit Canada and the bond would remain collateral for his or her lawful visit.
During the 41st parliamentary session, Mr. Sabourin, vice-president, operations branch, CBSA, mentioned in his testimony that the average cost to remove a person varies, starting from $1,500 and, in the worst case, going up to $15,000.
If we had a good faith bond from the overseas applicant in case that applicant tried to violate the terms and conditions in Canada, that good faith bond could be used to remove that person from Canada. This kind of provision is already being practised in provincial nominee programs and in the case of detainees. If a detainee leaves here, then he is released on certain conditions by putting up a bond. In certain provincial nominee programs, such as the Saskatchewan provincial nominee program, applicants are asked for a $75,000 good faith bond, and if the applicant doesn't comply with the conditions, the $75,000 bond is forfeited.
My main concern is, if that kind of provision exists in those kinds of programs, why does it not in visitor's visa cases where we are losing a lot of revenue that we could raise from this industry?
The second scenario is humanitarian grounds. As I mentioned earlier with regard to the two cases in which family unification is important, in such cases visa posts must make a decision based on their actual circumstances, as in the case of Mrs. Kaur and Mr. Cui. The decision-makers must empathize with the applicant and thoroughly investigate with due diligence the reasons for the visit. Doing so would help avoid erroneous decision-making and unnecessary embarrassment for the authorities. In exceptional cases where a visa officer is still not satisfied with the humanitarian grounds, then the visa officer may ask for a good faith bond at the applicant's disposal.
When the visitor arrives in Canada, there is another option, which is CBSA monthly monitoring. Under this provision, if an applicant arrives in Canada, at the port of entry a visa officer may impose conditions such as monthly monitoring or attendance at the visa office if they find it is a necessity for a particular case. A condition may be imposed upon an applicant such that he would have to inform and update CBSA about their stay and/or intentions. In exceptional cases, CBSA may hold the passport of the foreign national.
I have another practical solution for refused cases. The solution is an appeal process. A person, when he is denied overseas—
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
4:40 p.m.
Immigration Consultant, As an Individual
There must be an appeal process to challenge the decision of a visa officer at the designated visa post. This would be an appeal procedure similar to the one available at the visa post level for the U.K. and Australia. The current system allows an applicant to appeal to the Federal Court of Canada, which is an expensive and tedious process and is not in the best interests of all the applicants.
The appeal process will make the system more transparent and will avoid lineups of rejected applications at the Federal Court. The new appeal process must be posted on CIC’s website to educate the applicant and will reflect the fairness in the Canadian immigration system. The CIC may charge a nominal fee for this service for applicants who wish to appeal.
I would like to conclude with the following. The integrity of our immigration system can be maintained if the proposed changes are implemented so that every person is treated fairly and equally in the immigration process. The implementations will help develop an efficient system that would prove to be a win-win situation for Canada and the applicant. This will help in the growth of our economy by promoting a multi-billion dollar tourism industry and will allow applicants to recognize the natural justice in the system.
If we don't act now, it will be too late to save our tourism industry, which can hamper our growth as a nation. For the visa posts overseas, I would request that they analyze each application exclusively with an open mindset and provide a proper explanation for every rejected case.
Since the visa officer has the ultimate authority in decision-making, I would suggest that they would be wise to use the authority with great responsibility and control.
I thank you all for giving me the opportunity today.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
4:40 p.m.
Dr. Joe Greenholtz As an Individual
With no further ado, I hadn't fully appreciated the extent to which the focus was on security, so I'd like to read you—
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
We're pretty loose here. We let anything go, but we try to keep fairly close to security.
4:40 p.m.
As an Individual
Okay. I'm very happy to hear that.
All right. I will do my best. The point I wanted to raise and the reason that I think I ended up here—through conversations with Don Davies—is a problem with TRV processing. It has practical aspects and it has social policy aspects.
The processing of TRVs is something that is done quite quickly and without attention to the details that one would consider important in terms of security, i.e., public safety, health considerations, or criminality. The TRV processing at post is a fairly cursory examination of the application.
I recall that when I was serving in Tokyo in the early nineties, the visa post in Taiwan made a unilateral decision to issue a visa to everyone who applied, because they were publicly—well, at least within the departments—throwing up their hands and saying that they had neither the resources, nor the staff, nor the time, to do any justice to the vetting of the applications, so there seemed to be no point in making arbitrary decisions about which ones to accept and which ones to reject.
We held our collective breaths. This was not long before the visa requirement was removed from Taiwan, so I imagine that the decision was already imminent and made the decision to stop actually vetting these applications in Taiwan much less scary, at the very least.
But it does speak to the value we get as taxpayers from having visa applications looked at by foreign service immigration officers overseas. Much as I hate to begrudge my colleagues those postings, given the various backlogs that exist within the immigration system and given the shallowness of the processing of TRVs, one wonders whether that's the best use of resources.
On the policy issues, while these applications are getting a fairly cursory treatment, they are violating standards of procedural fairness, and I think bringing discredit to the immigration system. Similarly, the reason that I arrived here was a couple of cases that came to me via an MP's office, via Don Davies' office.
The reason given for refusals is basically that you've failed to convince the officer that you have sufficient ties to your home country. It becomes a process of trying to guess what's in the visa officer's mind and how one could possibly satisfy unknown criteria as to what constitutes sufficient ties to one's home country. On top of that, you have the supporting family in Canada, and, in this one instance, Canadian taxpayers: six Canadian taxpayers who submitted their notices of assessment and letters of financial support for a single applicant that they were trying to have come to Canada for a wedding.
If six Canadian taxpayers submitting financial documents is not sufficient to convince a visa officer that the visitor will financially be taken care of, then what is the point of asking? Or what are the clear guidelines on an aggregate amount of income—I mean, we couldn't be LICO, I don't think—that would satisfy a visa officer? Financials aside, the considerations that go into sufficient ties to one's home country are entirely opaque.
In my submission.... I don't know if I submitted it early enough for you to have received it translated...? I've lost my train of thought...where was I?