I promise not to. Well, I'll try not to.
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, colleagues for your study of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Marine Transportation Security Act and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act.
Canadians should take great pride in the fact that we are recognized around the world as a compassionate and generous country. Polls consistently demonstrate that a majority of Canadians, both those born in Canada as well as immigrants, view immigration as a positive contribution to our country.
Canadians recognize the many benefits that immigration brings to our country, but they have no tolerance for those who seek to take advantage of that generosity. People who abuse our generous immigration and refugee programs undermine the integrity of the entire system and public confidence in it.
It's clear that some people have taken notice of our country's generosity, and they have learned that they can use the immigration system to their advantage. The fact that Canada now receives more refugee claims from the European Union than it does from Africa or Asia is, I think, evidence of that, particularly given that virtually none of those European asylum claimants are found to be in need of our protection.
The simple fact of the matter is that we spend far too many tax dollars on applicants who are not in need of our protection, but who come here to access our social benefits because we do nothing to stop them or even dissuade them from doing so.
In introducing Bill C-31, our rationale is simple. By focusing the resources of our system on providing protection to those who genuinely need it, we will improve our ability to help those people. But we can only focus our resources on genuine refugees by fixing the system to make it clear that abuse will not be tolerated.
With Parliament's passing of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act in June 2010, we made some progress towards this goal, but gaps remain in the new system.
The arrival of the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea confirmed that Canada has also become a target for the lucrative criminal enterprise of human smuggling. Human smuggling is also suspected in the most recent tragedy, which involved the deaths of four passengers on board the SV Tabasco 2 off the coast of Nova Scotia.
The crime of human smuggling is conducted by individuals whose only concern is their profits; they have no regard for human life or the safety of their passengers. As the Prime Minister has said, human smugglers are some of the world's worst criminals—people who profit from exploiting the miseries and aspirations of some of the world's most vulnerable people.
Bill C-31 will enable us to punish human smugglers and make it easy to prosecute them. It will create disincentives that will reduce the attraction of coming to Canada via a human smuggling operation, which will save lives.
Finally, it will ensure the government can fulfill its responsibility to ensure that foreign nationals who are inadmissible, or who may pose a threat to Canadians, can be properly identified and assessed for risk so that we can take appropriate action.
Let's be clear that Bill C-31 would allow Canada to maintain the most generous refugee system in the world. Right now we are a world leader in the number of convention refugees we resettle. Canada welcomes one of the highest numbers of refugees per capita, and this legislation will not change that. In fact, concurrent with these reforms to our asylum system, we are increasing our targeted number of resettled refugees by 20% so that we will be the number one recipient of resettled refugees worldwide. Of course, we're also increasing their integration support through the refugee assistance program.
Essentially this bill will make Canada's refugee system faster and fairer. It will speed up the process for deciding refugee claims. This will allow us to provide better protection more quickly to those who are truly in need of it.
Under the UN convention on refugees, our legal and moral obligation is clear. We have an obligation not to return people to a country where they have a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, national religion, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Under Bill C-31 we will continue to meet and exceed these obligations.
Let me quickly run through the major components of the legislation.
First, claimants from designated countries—those that reality and experience show do not normally produce genuine refugees—would have limited access to the recourse mechanisms that currently enable them to delay their removal from Canada for years. They would all continue to have access to full, fact-based hearings before independent decision-makers at the Immigration and Refugee Board on the unique merits of their claims, with no negative prejudice associated with their claims because they may come from designated countries.
This means that a claimant from a designated country who receives a negative decision from the IRB will not have access to the new refugee appeal division we are creating as a result of Bill C-11 in the last Parliament. They would continue to be able to ask the Federal Court to review a negative decision, but they would not benefit from an automatic stay of their removal during that time.
The United Nations has long praised Canada for the generosity of our current refugee system. The UNHCR has also recognized the validity of expedited processing for claimants from safe countries of origin. In fact, the former UNHCR representative to Canada, Abraham Abraham, said:
UNHCR does not oppose the introduction of a “designated” or “safe country or origin” list as...a procedural tool to prioritize or accelerate examination of applications
I would note that my department's data suggest that over that past three years the majority of failed EU claimants have not asked the Federal Court to review the IRB's negative decisions on their claims, because the vast majority have abandoned or withdrawn their own claims, indicating of their own volition that they do not need our protection.
This suggests that failed claimants would not even attempt to access the additional level of appeal provided under the RAD, even if they had access. And don't forget, should any EU country become a designated country, failed claimants could still seek relief from the federal court to appeal a negative decision.
On the topic of irregular arrivals and human smuggling, Bill C-31 maintains all of the measures contained in the former Bill C-4. Importantly, however, we have proposed a new measure that would exempt minors under the age of 16 from the mandatory detention provision.
I should also note that foreign nationals who arrive as part of an irregular arrival with the documents required for entry to Canada will not be subject to the mandatory detention provision, as long as they are not found to be otherwise inadmissible under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
While detention could last as long as one year, designated foreign nationals would be released sooner should they receive a positive determination on their refugee claim by the IRB or if they apply for and receive release from the Minister of Public Safety based on exceptional circumstances. For individuals who are held up for up to 12 months, the IRB will review their detention at that point and regularly afterwards at six-month intervals.
Mr. Chairman, the protection of our borders and of Canadians is our highest obligation, and we are making these changes because they are necessary. The current detention review periods under IRPA were not designed to deal with mass arrivals or the sorts of cases involving complex human smuggling operations of the scale that have recently targeted Canada.
Sophisticated transnational human smuggling ventures are frequently launched from areas of the world where terrorist and criminal organizations are known to be active. Passengers on board these ventures often arrive without proper documentation. In these circumstances, the task of distinguishing legitimate refugees from those who may pose a public safety threat creates a serious challenge. The processing of irregular mass arrivals, therefore, takes a lot of time. Put into very simple terms, human smuggling operations are difficult to investigate.
I wish to underline that detention will allow for a full and proper investigation of a migrant's identity and a determination of whether an individual is indeed admissible to Canada, as well as any risks they may pose to Canadians. After all, it is the government's duty to assess whether those who seek entry to Canada are inadmissible for reasons of serious criminality, security, health, or other grounds.
The alternative is to release everyone into Canadian communities before we have identified them, conducted security assessments, or determined whether they are genuine refugees, and then hope that the bad guys, who are not admissible to Canada, show up for their hearings and don't simply disappear underground. That would be irresponsible.
The government's duty to protect the safety and security of Canadians has been recognized by the Federal Court, by the Supreme Court. In fact, in one of the cases following the arrival of the Ocean Lady, the Federal Court said:While the importance of not unduly detaining such persons cannot be forgotten, the protection of Canadians and Canada’s pressing interest in securing its borders are also worthy considerations.... In cases of mass arrivals from some parts of the world it may well take several months for the Minister to complete an investigation, particularly where the identity of the individuals is in issue.
The proposed amendments respond to a harmful practice that has numerous negative consequences. Large-scale organized smuggling ventures like the ones that have targeted Canada in recent years threaten the integrity of our system. Smuggling ventures also jeopardize the health and lives of those smuggled into Canada.
First, smugglers make unfair and untruthful promises to those who are smuggled. In many cases, passengers hand over all of their life savings to their smuggler on the false promise that when they arrive in Canada their affairs will be in order. The smuggling journey itself can result in the death of some passengers. Every year thousands of people die in smuggling operations around the world.
I should be clear that in the case of the two large marine arrivals that have been the focus of public attention, we believe that in most cases people paid around $5,000 Canadian as a down payment, with an obligation to pay up to $40,000 upon arrival, over time—essentially in an indentured context—to the smuggling syndicate's representatives in Canada. To me that is where smuggling can actually turn into a form of trafficking.
Essentially, there are three principal challenges contained in this bill to address human smuggling. First, we would broaden the offence of human smuggling in two specific ways. We would further expand the offence to capture the various ways it can be committed. We also add the element of recklessness to the offence.
Under section 117 of IRPA, the offence currently states:No person shall knowingly organize, induce, aid or abet the coming into Canada of one or more persons who are not in possession of a visa, passport or other document required by this Act.
I underline this because sometimes in debate we've heard people say that coming as a prospective asylum claimant through a smuggling operation is just a normal form of migration and not a problem.
No. It violates multiple laws, including IRPA in several respects, such as in section 117.
With our proposed changes, the offence would read that no person shall commit this offence either “knowing that, or being reckless as to whether, their coming into Canada is or would be in contravention of this Act”. Broadening the offence of human smuggling will give police and prosecutors the flexibility they require to respond to all forms of human smuggling.
Secondly, this legislation would create mandatory minimum penalties that target the most egregious forms of human smuggling and that reflect the objectives I have already discussed. These mandatory minimum penalties send an unequivocal message that such conduct will not be tolerated.
Finally, we're taking steps to hold shipowners accountable by increasing the penalties for offences under the Marine Transportation Security Act.
These criminal law improvements are a critical component of our overall response to human smuggling, but they should not be considered in isolation. In order to be effective and adequately address the crime of smuggling, each of these amendments is designed to work together with the others.
With this bill, we also seek to discourage passengers from using the services of a human smuggler by introducing several disincentives. First, we would also impose a five-year ban on applications for permanent resident status for persons who are part of a designated irregular arrival. Without the ability to become a permanent resident for five years, these individuals would also be unable to sponsor their family members to come to Canada during that period.
I think this is probably the single most important element of the bill in deterring smuggling. It will change the economic calculation for prospective clients of smuggling syndicates if they realize they will not be able to have family members in Canada assisting them and paying off their debts to the syndicate.
We believe these changes are fair and are necessary to deter passengers from using this dangerous form of travel to Canada. I also wish to remind you once again that all eligible claimants would continue to be entitled to a fair and independent hearing before the IRB, without a negative prejudice associated with their claim.
At the same time I recognize that there have been some criticisms of this legislation and some of the provisions I've just described. As I indicated, as we move forward with this legislation I am open to considering all reasonable suggestions from the committee as to how we can improve the integrity of our system and focus it on legitimate refugees.
On that I want to say that in the last Parliament we demonstrated openness to reasonable amendments, but in my view those amendments have to achieve the objective of discouraging smuggling and false asylum claims.
Finally, as you know, the bill includes provisions for legal authorization for the government to collect biometric data from applicants for temporary residency status. I can address that at greater length during the question period, but we believe it will facilitate an improvement by orders of magnitude in our immigration security screening. It constitutes an essential element of the beyond the borders agreement signed between President Obama and our government.
Mr. Chair, I'm happy to take your questions.
In closing, I believe this bill strikes the appropriate balance between reinforcing the integrity of our system, dissuading those who seek to abuse it, but also ensuring protection for those who are bona fide victims of persecution, in the best traditions of Canada's humanitarian instincts.
Thank you very much.