Evidence of meeting #40 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 c-31.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
They are people whose identities are not established. Would that be fair?
Prof. Catherine Dauvergne
Well, you can have an identity document and still be detained in Australia.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
If you walk into the country and they don't know who you are and you're not really cooperative, you would expect to be detained, right? Is that fair?
Prof. Catherine Dauvergne
Yes. You wouldn't have a visa unless your identity was proven. Australia doesn't issue visas without it.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
I'm going to move fairly quickly, because I want to share my time with Mr. Dykstra.
What's the percentage of Canadian refugee claimants you anticipate—
Conservative
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Do you know the percentage who will be detained under the current plan? Do you have an estimate?
Prof. Catherine Dauvergne
If we only talked about boat arrivals, we would be looking at 20% or 10%. It would vary, as some years it would be nobody. There's actually very little detail in the bill to suggest who will be designated. The capacity to designate foreign nationals is enormous. So the question is impossible to answer. Possibly you have information about how this designation power will be fleshed out that we don't have yet.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
I'm just going to make a quick statement, and then I'll turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Dykstra.
Human smugglers, mass arrival events, are dangerous things. I know you're talking about the LTTE and others, but it's a mixed bag of people who arrive in these things.
I know something about war zones. They're not black and white. A lot of the people who come aboard those ships are ones who have pioneered suicide bombers, the use of child soldiers, and all kinds of things. So when all these people come here and we don't know who they are...Canada has a right to defend its integrity, and it has a right to defend Canadian families. If we don't know exactly who those individuals are, it's in Canadians' best interests.... I'm sure that if these guys get off the boat, you're not going to be inviting them into your home until you know who they are.
I'm not asking for an answer. That's what I think you would probably do. That's something you need to consider.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Thanks.
Sharryn, you mentioned what I thought was an interesting perspective. If you are an individual who is seeking asylum in a country, the UN queue is actually one that is going to take a long time to satisfy you. In fact, you could end up being of university age before you actually come.
In your words, you mentioned that the queue is a long line, and therefore it is a lot more advantageous to people to get into Canada by taking, although dangerous, the route of coming across in a boat.
Conservative
Prof. Sharryn Aiken
Okay. The very reason countries around the world have refugee status determination procedures is that they recognize that globally we don't have a program of refugee resettlement that's adequate to the demands of the numbers. We have way more refugees worldwide than we have resettlement spots.
In any particular year, Canada, along with a handful of other countries, accepts resettled refugees. Because the spots are so few, the queue is so long. The very reason asylum procedures are set up is to allow people who are desperate to, in effect, self-select and say, “I'm in danger, I'm at risk, and I can't wait in the queue for 12 years.”
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
She's just the first person opposed to the bill who has actually acknowledged that there's a queue.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Well, unless there's unanimous consent, the time has come to an end.
That clock is wrong, incidentally. The chairman's clock is always—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Professor Aiken, Professor Dauvergne, thank you very much for your comments. The committee appreciated your taking the time to speak to us. Thank you very much.
We will suspend.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you. We will reconvene. Our second panel is here before us.
We have with us two witnesses from B. Refuge at McGill University. The two spokespersons are Karina Fortier and Kelsey Angeley.
Good morning.
We have Amnesty International here, with Alex Neve, the secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, and Béatrice Vaugrante, the executive director of Amnistie internationale Canada francophone.
Thank you for coming. Each group has up to 10 minutes.
Ms. Angeley, you can start.
Kelsey Angeley Student, B. Refuge, McGill University
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and honourable members.
Thank you very much for hearing our testimony today. We are honoured to speak before you on behalf of a group on the McGill campus called B. Refuge. For the past four years, B. Refuge has worked to facilitate interactions between refugee claimants and students, with the purpose of sharing language and culture and helping to orient refugee claimants to the city.
The work we do is premised on the belief that refugee claimants are valuable members of our community and potential Canadians. By asking Canadians to view refugee claimants as frauds and criminals, Bill C-31 undermines this premise.
Accordingly, this past year we have turned our attention to raising awareness among our peers about Bill C-31 and educating them on the dangers we believe it presents to refugees and to the larger Canadian community.
Karina Fortier Student, B. Refuge, McGill University
We therefore undertook an awareness campaign with the objective not of persuading people to our position, but simply of informing them about the content of Bill C-31. And what happened was that a majority of the students we approached were opposed to the proposed changes. In the space of just four hours, we collected over 150 signatures to stop Bill C-31 from being passed. I would also like to ask the committee's permission to send it a copy of the petition.
Ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, why do you think that young students like us are wary of this bill being enacted? The reason is that we make up a demographic group that takes an interest in the news and in Canadian politics, but that actually will not hold any seats in the House of Commons for another 10 or 15 years.
In the meantime, we are apprehensive as we follow the enactment of new laws like this one, which proposes to put entire groups of newcomers, including minors, in detention for one year. We are shocked by the fact that families will be separated for at least five years. We are shocked that entire countries might be considered to be safe, when to obtain refugee status, a person has to prove that they have been persecuted in their country, as an individual.
We consider it to be anti-democratic that the responsibility for drawing up that safe country list will be assigned to just one person, the minister. We wonder why the government considers the distinction between real refugees and bogus refugees to be so important, and penalizes the latter group. Even if they do not meet all the criteria in the official definition of a refugee in the Geneva Convention, a large majority of those refugee protection claimants are in need of help.
We are also disappointed that the minister would deny that the proposed changes will in fact punish these so-called bogus refugees.
Student, B. Refuge, McGill University
When our generation assumes the political positions that you now occupy, we do not want the burden of correcting past mistakes. While we are welcome participants in Canada's democracy, and our testimony at this hearing is proof of that, it is you who are its current caretakers. We ask you to consider the long-term consequences of this bill and how it will shape the country we will inherit.
By disregarding Canada's international obligations, Bill C-31 threatens Canada's moral integrity on the international stage and the soft power that comes with being a humanitarian state.
When Australia implemented similar legislation, its image and reputation as a humanitarian state were called into question. We do not want to see that happen with our country.
Furthermore, infringing on the rights and dignity of asylum seekers—as are guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—puts everybody's rights at risk. When one person loses their rights and dignity on Canadian soil, everyone's rights and dignity are put at risk.
Moreover, our peers are in consensus with us that Bill C-31 represents a misuse of finances. As the Auditor General's May 2008 report notes, it costs $70,000 a year, on average, to detain a refugee claimant. Had Bill C-31 been law at the time of the MV Sun Sea arrival off the coast of British Columbia, Canadian taxpayers would have spent $34,440,000 on detaining people who had done nothing but exercise a right guaranteed to them by international and domestic law.
As there currently exist provisions under the IRPA for detaining individuals who are deemed a threat to Canada or who cannot be identified, generalized detention is unnecessary and expensive. We believe it would be more responsible and productive to use taxpayer money to perhaps hire more legal aid workers and lawyers to help refugee claimants navigate the determination process, or to create more positions on the Immigration and Refugee Board, which would not only ensure a fair hearing for refugee claimants but would help to expedite the process.
Bill C-31 is not a political or a financial legacy that we wish to inherit. Rather than leaving it to us to correct this mistake in 10 years, we ask you, the honourable members of Parliament, to make sure we avoid it altogether.
Student, B. Refuge, McGill University
Once again, we sincerely thank you for inviting us to share our comments on this bill with you. As my colleague said, this is a good illustration of the enormous potential of our democratic system. That potential will become a true asset if, and only if, you truly take the opinions of all the witnesses who appear before this committee into consideration.
It is all very well to say that the future belongs to youth. For the moment, however, you are the ones who are building the future of this country, where we are only just beginning to carve out a place for ourselves. We want to avoid the stereotype of the overly optimistic and emotional student. Nonetheless, we call on you to be guided by your heart as well as by your sense of justice when it comes time to make a final decision. Let us remember that these are human beings who will be affected by this bill. It is their lives and well-being that are at stake.
Thank you.