Thank you.
I have decided to limit my remarks to five clauses that are in the bill. I'd like to draw your attention to clause 10, the clause that talks about designating foreign nationals.
I'd like to move on from there to talk about the mandatory detention clauses, and I'd like to try to clarify some of the arguments from the earlier session about the constitutional issues. I'll try to be as simple as possible, although time is not on my side in that regard.
Thirdly, given that I'm a law professor, I would like to deal with something a little bit more arcane, but which I think is quite important. That is clause 16 of the bill, which deals with the refusal to grant travel documents to refugee claimants until they have gained permanent residence or some sort of status within the country.
Let me address the clauses dealing with designated foreign nationals and mandatory detention—clause 10 as I said, and clauses 23 to 25. The issue I want to raise is the constitutionality of the provisions dealing with mandatory detention. Let me try to explain why the constitutionality issue is so important to the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and why we find it so puzzling that the constitutional issues have not been addressed in these clauses.
The puzzlement, the mystery of this, relates to the fact that the issue of detention has been dealt with exceptionally clearly by the Supreme Court of Canada in the last five years. Normally when you mount a constitutional challenge, you identify that you've got an uphill battle. The issue may require analogies to be drawn to other areas of law. It may require complicated arguments. But here we have a record from the Supreme Court of Canada in the Charkaoui case that has made certain matters explicitly clear.
First, they say that detention is an extreme measure. That's their language.
Second, the issue is not the constitutionality of detention per se but the constitutionality of detention without prompt and independent review. That is our concern, that we institute and maintain a system with review of decision-making. We are not promoting having no detention; it's the unconstitutionality of detention.
I think that's the briefest way in which I can refer to the issue of constitutionality. I'll take up the issue should you have questions for me.
Let me go to the issue about the travel document.