Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 3rd, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

A little over five minutes. It's fine. We're right on schedule.

[Maureen Silcoff]

Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee today. I am speaking as a representative of the Roma Community Centre, but I've been a lawyer in private practice since 1988. I'm also a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board, where I sat as a member for five years. I currently represent many Roma refugees.

I'll focus on Roma refugees from Hungary because these refugees seem to be of particular concern. I would like to begin by addressing a question. Hungary is an EU country, so why don't the Roma relocate to another EU country? There are misconceptions about this issue, and there are serious barriers to relocation.

The first barrier is that EU citizens cannot make asylum claims in EU countries, therefore Roma from Hungary cannot, for example, file refugee claims in Italy.

The second barrier is that there is a limitation on the right to relocate within the EU. A person can stay in a country for up to three months and then must either find a job or show enough money to support themselves. Owing to the high level of prejudice against Roma in the EU, finding a job is extremely difficult. When France deported Roma en masse in the summer of 2010, this sent a clear message that Roma cannot simply relocate within Europe.

What is the refugee board doing with these claims? The United Nations stated that the Roma community faces discrimination in all fields of life, and further, they face violence by extremists and prejudice by the police. They arrive in Canada missing teeth because neo-Nazis have kicked them out and with visible scars from being attacked by fascists. They are no different from refugees who come from Africa or Asia.

The board knows this. It accepts that hate crimes exist but refuses the claims on a technical point of law. The Federal Court has begun setting aside some of these decisions saying that the board has made mistakes.

Turning to the DCO list, there are concerns. The criteria for the DCO operates regardless of whether the country is safe. They use statistics of rejected, withdrawn, and abandoned cases to determine whether a country is designated instead of human rights records. This statistical analysis appears to be directed at Roma claims.

We hear a lot about the high number of refused Hungarian Roma cases. Of the cases that came before the refugee board in 2011, just under one in five were accepted as refugees. In other words, of the claimants who appeared before a board member, just under one in five were determined to be refugees. The overall acceptance rate of the board is about 39%. This is very important to consider.

We've also been hearing a lot about Roma criminals. This is a tiny drop in the bucket. In Canada we are surely above racial stereotyping.

The minister expressed concerns that claimants from EU countries don't need Canada's protection because they are bogus. People who work with Roma refugees are at a loss to figure out why this group is called bogus. Why has the minister not expressed concern about growing fascism and racism, instead of condemning Roma refugees?

The Prime Minister recently expressed support to fight anti-Semitism and racism on Holocaust Remembrance Day. We support this. The extremist party in Hungary with 20% of the vote is anti-Roma and also blatantly anti-Semitic and has even forged an alliance with Iran. Anti-Semitism in Hungary is rampant. We should condemn the human rights abuses in Hungary of both the Jews and the Roma.

The situation is Hungary is worsening. A new constitution took effect in January. The changes in the constitution reflect a move away from democratic principles, and the EU has begun legal action against Hungary because it is no longer a true democracy.

So how can we call the Roma claims bogus? Why was the DCO list created to discourage Roma claims? Are the Roma claims proving to be a problem in light of free trade negotiations with Europe? I urge you to consider the fact that refugee determination is a human rights issue and that we have an obligation to protect persecuted people and that this must not be trumped by political factors.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Valeriote, you have up to five minutes.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm curious. I think most of us appreciate the passion with which you've made your presentation. This hearing today is specifically about Bill C-31. In the next five minutes, could either one of you address specific changes that you think need to be made to the legislation that's before us? Having considered your plight, now we need to hear from you about the specifics of the bill that you'd like to be changed.

[Maureen Silcoff]

The primary concern, I think, is the DCO list. In an ideal world, we would remove it completely. We know this is not likely, so in terms of what's actually possible, we would much prefer to go back to the criteria in Bill C-11, where there was a human rights expert panel that would decide the criteria as to whether a country was safe, as opposed to the current system of statistics.

We also believe there's insufficient time, as other people have said, to file the BOC and to have the hearings. Important criteria, as well, are the restrictions that flow from the designated country list. There is the lack of a refugee appeal division, RAD, and the inability to stay in Canada while judicial review is pending. These two criteria are new to Bill C-31. We would ask that they be removed.

[Gina Csanyi-Robah]

I would like to add something, please.

What we see at the Roma Community Centre are people who are bruised, battered, and broken. They need time. I get calls and e-mails on a regular basis from school social workers and community social workers. They say that a lot of these students and families are going through post-traumatic stress disorder from the trauma they endured before coming here. They need time to acclimatize to our society.

Even the most educated Roma who come here and who I've been meeting in my life—for example, a former member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009—have a very difficult time getting in their applications in 30 days. If it is reduced to 15 days, it's going to be almost impossible, literally impossible, for someone to be prepared within that time.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Is it your concern that Hungary, specifically, is going to be designated as a safe country, and that you will be restricted in your rights as refugees if you seek refugee status in Canada?

[Gina Csanyi-Robah]

I think that most of the EU countries will end up on the designated safe country list, and it happens to be that Roma are the largest minority in Europe. There are 15 million of us in Europe and we're throughout European countries. Romania and Bulgaria are two countries that have huge concentrations of Roma. If anybody thinks that removing the visa from these countries and implementing a designated safe country list is going to stop people in such desperate situations from trying to come here, it's going to make our country even more of a mess.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I have no further questions, and I appreciate your gesture.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It's a pleasure having you here, sir.

Mr. Dykstra.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I do want to express my empathy for the passion with which you make your presentation and the work that you do on behalf of your community. I think we all come from backgrounds that suggest that we have cultures within Canada and those that we support. My parents both came here from the Netherlands and certainly I do find myself at times overly protective of the Dutch and want to stand up for them at every opportunity. So I want to emphasize that we understand what you're saying and appreciate what you've brought to the table both in terms of your suggestions and your passion.

I do want to ask a few questions about the issues that we face as a government. While we try to use as much empathy as we can when making decisions, we do have to make legislation and move that legislation forward, and that's done through words, not necessarily through emotion.

One of the issues we face with Hungary is that back prior to the year of 2008 when there were visa restrictions within Hungary, the applications we received for asylum seekers were in the neighbourhood of 20 to 30 people a year. In 2009 there were 2,500 and in 2010 there were 2,300. These numbers just went through the roof. When we see that 95% to 98% of those individuals come to Canada for a period of up to 10 to 12 months, and just prior to their hearings taking place at the IRB, they do not show up for those hearings—or we find they have returned to Hungary—that is an issue. I think you would agree with me that a number of those individuals didn't come here to seek refugee status. They came here for different reasons. I won't label what those reasons are but they weren't for reasons of seeking asylum.

How would you deal with that issue other than how we're dealing with it through Bill C-31? This isn't specific to Hungary. We face similar types of issues with all countries. Before we implemented the restriction with respect to the visa for Mexico, the numbers were just going through the roof. They were astronomical. We had over 10,000 applications in 2008, of which 400 were deemed to be successful refugee applications. All the rest were not.

So we need a fix. We need to solve this problem because it's clear that there is an opportunity for people to take advantage of the system here in Canada.

[Gina Csanyi-Robah]

I appreciate what you said. Let me just explain a little bit. The last large wave of Roma refugees with these same numbers came in the late 1990s, early 2000s, and it was the first time after the fall of communism that Canada had removed the visa restriction from these countries. Roma flooded in. There was a lead case decision to close the door. It was overturned eventually, and they've said they would never put a precedent of a lead case decision to decide on a large group of refugee claims from any ethnic or nationality group to come into Canada.

The visa requirement was reimposed. I was in Hungary working at the European Roma Rights Centre based in Budapest, Hungary, in 2006, when our Canadian government came and hosted a round table discussion at the Central European University. The honourable Robert Hage was there that day and the purpose of the discussion was to gauge the situation for Roma in Hungary. The Canadian government was trying to decide whether or not that was the time to perhaps remove the visa requirement. We heard from Hungarians and Roma. Academics, journalists, and a whole slew of people from civil society gave us a picture of the Roma. Robert Hage left with a very clear description that it's a dismal situation. Almost 50% of our Roma children do not graduate from primary school, and 10% are lucky if they're getting through high school. There is only 2% who have post-secondary education. There's an 85% unemployment rate and almost complete exclusion from society over there.

It took from September 2006 to 2009 to remove that visa requirement again, and you saw what happened. The Roma came flooding into the country. They're looking for safety. They're looking for someone to protect them. They're looking to live with dignity and integrity.

Now there are people coming, and I'm not saying that everybody is 100%—

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

But 95% of the applications filed are not being represented at the IRB hearing. Almost every single one of them is not participating at even the first level of having their refugee hearing.

[Gina Csanyi-Robah]

Let me just explain that.

In 2010 there absolutely was a 91% withdrawal rate of refugee applications. For those that made it through to the end there was a 26% acceptance rate. When the Roma come here they don't have the skills to navigate this complex refugee system. They come here in large numbers because their families are large. This is a communal community, just like the South Asian community, where it's normal for people to live with three or four generations in one house. They travel together in large numbers.

In October, when there was a huge alert in the media that Roma were coming here as a result of organized crime, there were five families, 91 people.... That night a family of 13 slept on the street on Kingston Road in Scarborough because they couldn't get beds in a refugee shelter.

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

Gina, I understand, but my issue isn't whether or not there is fair and equitable treatment in Hungary, and whether or not the government should do a better job in the treatment of its people. That shouldn't change.

But what we're talking about is what you're suggesting, and that's where we're moving with respect to immigration. But we are changing our immigration policies to allow permanent residents to come here under a different scheme. Achieving permanent residency for a better life is not done through seeking refugee status here in the country; it's done by seeking permanent residency. We can't have a system that allows people to make application for what they are seeking—a better life—if they don't qualify from an asylum perspective.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Sorry, Gina, my job is to keep the time and we've run out of time.

We have to move to Madam Groguhé.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our two witnesses for being here. I would just like to give…

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I just need to set the clock.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Are you ready?

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I would just like to give a brief personal testimony. I'm from France. So I lived and grew up in Europe, and I am particularly familiar with the situation of the Roma throughout Europe. It's a situation that has historically been extremely difficult. Furthermore, I remember having to do research on it when I was in college. Historically, the Roma have been marginalized, stigmatized and persecuted, and that continues into the XXI^st century.

Ms. Csanyi-Robah, my question is for you. You live in Scarborough-Centre. Based on your conversations with the people in your community, do you think that most of them are anxious and worried about the consequences of this bill? More specifically, do they fear the retroactive nature of the bill that will affect refugee claimants who have arrived since 2009, many of whom live in your community and risk being turned back to their country of origin?

[Gina Csanyi-Robah]

Yes, absolutely. The question is not about seeking a better place to live or finding a more comfortable place to live. The question is about human rights and persecution. The question is about people—the state protecting the citizens. That's what it's about.

It's not about Roma coming to Canada because there's better scenery, or it's a nicer place, or there's an immigration lineup.... They're coming as refugees. There's no lineup for refugees; it's not an immigration queue. The people are coming here believing that Canada is a country of human rights.

We just had a rally over the weekend, It was called “Rally for Roma, not Bill C-31”. We had people feeling empowered for the first time. They were coming out with signs saying, “Please, Canada, don't abandon us Roma”.

Don't believe the stereotypes about us that we're criminals. This is not a community of collective criminals. There was one case in Hamilton with 20 people involved. You've just heard that there are thousands of refugee applications each year. I've done my own research for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights for a report I did on forced migration. There were easily 9,000 refugee applications in the last few years. That was 20 people, while 9,000 applications can each represent a family of four. That's thousands of people—refugees who are coming here right now.

There have been Roma living in Canada for over 100 years. There are over 80,000 of us. You don't hear about us engaging in organized crime and criminal activity. One case cannot represent an entire family or an entire community of people. It's racism. It's prejudice. It's unacceptable in Canada.

People believe this country is a mecca for human rights. We need to uphold these values. As a teacher, I'm always talking to my students about human rights, the Canadian values of pluralism, and setting an example for the rest of the world.

Today, in Washington, D.C., they're holding a meeting with the U.S. Helsinki Commission and Hillary Clinton and trying to decide how they're going to be able to support the Roma in Europe. In Canada, we're still talking about bogus refugees, criminals, and people living off the welfare system.

When people legitimately need help in Canada, they are being doubly victimized. They're being told to get out of Hungary. They're being told that Hungary is for Hungarians—ethnic Magyars. After longer than Canada has been a country, they are told to get out.... They come here and people are, like, “You're criminals”. It's the same rhetoric, the same discourse, that's happening in these European societies, and we're allowing it to come here.

I teach that we don't allow hate to be imported into this country. People came here for a reason. We're all immigrants at one point or another. Often we came here because we didn't like what was happening in our own countries. We came here for a better life. That's why Roma are coming here, too. They want a better life. They have families. They want to integrate. They're going to school.

I have letters from the York Regional Police chief telling you about how Roma are coming to the police station in this project we did. I gave you these posters. It's called the Hate Can Kill project. It's a hate crime prevention project in partnership with the Toronto Police Service and the York Regional Police.

On March 31, 2012, for the first time in our Canadian history, we had over 40 Roma families go to the police headquarters at 40 College Street in Toronto. They were interacting with police officers and trying to rebuild trust. Even Chief Jolliffe from the York Regional Police said:

[While] our initiatives thus far have focused on addressing risk factors associated with intolerance, discrimination, hate crime and violence, while also attempting to deconstruct historical barriers, the community police engagement, while restoring community trust and confidence in policing.

We're trying to make sure that our Roma who are getting an opportunity to stay here know that this is a different society. We have police that will protect them. We have politicians who won't allow hate speech to continue or to affect them anymore. It's a different country they are in, and they believe that with all their heart. When they withdraw their refugee applications and go home believing they are not wanted over here, because they don't have the language skills and they don't have the navigational skills, they've been marginalized—not for decades but for centuries. They don't have the skills—

Sorry.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I still have one minute, Gina. Could you describe for us the situations presenting a risk of death and persecution that the Roma are confronted with in those countries?

[Gina Csanyi-Robah]

I'm sorry. Can you repeat that one more time?

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Could you describe for us the persecution and the situations presenting…