Thank you very much. I'll try to be brief. I'm going to pick up on a few topics that Ms. Des Rosiers touched on.
First and foremost, I would like to address the issue of the accountability regime. In the Arar report, Commissioner O'Connor recommended many years ago, in 2005 or 2006, that there be oversight of the activities of the Canada Border Services Agency, especially in relation to national security operations. Unfortunately, those recommendations, although government initially said they supported them, haven't been implemented. It highlights a broader problem that my colleague just mentioned. The Border Services Agency has very broad enforcement powers. They have very broad powers of arrest, search and seizure, and detention, and these powers are not subject to any independent oversight by any oversight body.
We often get complaints from clients about the conduct of CBSA officers. The complaints may or may not be well founded, but if there is a serious complaint of misconduct, it's important that there be a mechanism for verifying. In our democracy, where we have the rule of law, that's the only way we can ensure accountability. Really, there is no independent accountability regime vis-à-vis the Canada Border Services Agency, and this is a very serious problem.
I'm now involved in a dispute with the Border Services Agency over their authority to force one of my clients to attend an interview. They insisted, and I'm now going to court. It's the only way I can resolve this dispute, because there is no independent mechanism for arbitrating. It seems an expensive way of trying to determine the limits and scope of authority of the Border Services Agency.
In terms of my friend's comments on war crimes, I'll just pick up on one point.
I agree with the idea that the immigration act has to be enforced, and I also agree with the idea that it's the duty of our government to ensure that people who are wanted and who failed to appear for deportation should be apprehended, but sometimes the methodologies used are counterproductive.
I should say that in the case of the most wanted list for war criminals, that really has produced situations such that people who could have been deported now may not be able to be deported. That's because we live in an age when the publicity that occurs when governments like Canada's make statements is huge, and the Internet makes this information accessible. I'm involved in a case now with one of the persons who was on the list, who is now in a situation in which we have asserted, and an immigration official has agreed, that he would be at risk if he were deported. The idea of a most wanted list publishing the names of people who are wanted for war crimes was ill-conceived. I don't have the same concerns about other types of most wanted lists.
The third issue that I want to speak about briefly, and then I'll stop and leave it open for questions, is the question of detention. I thought that was one of the focuses of today's meeting. I've been doing immigration law longer than I would care to admit—it's been over 25 years—and I've seen the incredible increase in the use of detention by immigration authorities.
Some of that is necessary because we're in a world today where many people are coming to Canada, and it's more difficult to find out who they are. The prevalence of false documentation is higher. Certainly it may be necessary to detain people until we know who they are, because if we don't know who they are, we can't really ascertain whether or not they pose a danger to society.
It may be necessary to detain people who pose a danger to society, but we're seeing detention used in a lot of other circumstances in which people don't pose a danger and we know who they are. This is of particular concern first because of the impact of detention on the individuals.
You visited the Rexdale facility, which is a minimum security facility. I don't know if you had an opportunity of going to the Toronto West Detention Centre, which is a maximum security facility where a lot of the immigration detainees are held. I can tell you it's a very demoralizing, depressing place for a person to be detained, because it's a holding facility for people awaiting pretrial. There are no facilities for any kinds of activities there, and immigration detainees don't get any access to any of the facilities. We have people who are being held in immigration detention for one or two years in conditions like that.
Of even more concern to me is the issue of detention of children. There are children who are being detained, and if you went to Rexdale, I'm sure you saw children there. It's completely unacceptable that children are being detained, and they're not getting any kind of access to services that should be made available to them. I'm very concerned about the impact that detention is having on children who find themselves in detention because their parents are being detained.
I'll stop here. There is a lot more we could say about detention. The one other point I want to make is that detention is extremely expensive, and the government should be considering all of the different alternatives to detention. I've used electronic monitoring as an alternative to detention. We have a bail project in Toronto, an alternative to detention, but it's not being used enough, and it should be used more.
We have to creatively look at different ways to ensure that people who should be under some kind of monitoring are kept under monitoring, but in ways that don't require them to be detained in the immigration facilities because of the expense and because of the impact on the individuals.
That's all I'll say for now. Thank you.