Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 15th, 2012

[Debbie Douglas]

Yes, with all due respect, yes—

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay, I'll give you another minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Did I see a point of order? Stop the clock on a point of order.

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

Mr. Chair, I find this very painful. We should at least let the witnesses finish their sentences before we react. I think it is important, and it is the minimum amount of respect we should show them.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, given the limited amount of time I have, if I feel the witness is not fully answering the question I've asked, then I think I do have a right, politely and respectfully, to redirect that witness.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I agree. We've all done that, but she was in the middle of an answer.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I did tell her to carry on and finish her answer to see if it met my--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Let's let her finish her answer.

Go ahead, Ms. Douglas.

[Debbie Douglas]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't presume to know who is innocent or guilty of whatever, but that is why we believe it's important to build a formal program that is an alternative to detention and that will set out the conditions by which we measure those who are at minimum risk, those who belong to vulnerable populations, those who will be compliant with whatever conditions we as a country believe need to be in place for our security.

I don't think—and you've heard it from many witnesses—that detention is necessarily the place for everyone who comes into our country. We've talked about children, about women with vulnerabilities, and we've talked to the obvious. We've talked about pregnant women and whether they should be kept in detention for 20 days or 10 days.

If we have these limits that we've set, if we have testing processes in place to ensure that folks meet those conditions, and if we have a program that's set up, including the bail programs in our various cities across the country and including NGOs that are willing to work with CBSA and other security forces to ensure that those released into their care are complying with the conditions put in place, then I think that's the better way to go.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

You're making my point, because you need to establish the identity of the individual before you can actually apply any of those conditions. If you don't know who they are, you can't let them out in the general public and you can't do all these other things.

[Debbie Douglas]

We're not arguing that with you.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Yes, but madam—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm going to have to argue with both of you. Your time has expired. I'm very sorry.

Go ahead, Mr. Chisholm.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to start with Mr. Grant. I was very interested in your testimony as it related to the application of the security provisions.

Your first point was the whole issue of discretion and the problems there, particularly in relation to the issue of the determination of a class of people. You mentioned that in the U.S. a class waiver was in fact introduced this year. Would you please expand a bit more on that?

[Angus Grant]

Sure. Thank you very much.

This actually continues on with the questions from Mr. Opitz that I didn't get to finish my answer to, which is that, in fact, as you, Mr. Chisholm, have referred to, it is possible to identify individuals who are of concern and who are not of concern. This is precisely what the Department of Homeland Security has done in the United States.

In the United States they have tiers of organizations: tier I organizations, tier II organizations, and tier III organizations. Loosely speaking, they relate to the level of threat that they may pose. A tier I organization would be al-Qaeda. Tier III organizations would be a very different variety.

The waiver that has been provided across the board is to tier III organizations, and there are some exceptions to it. Some of the exceptions are, for instance, where there is evidence specifically that someone has turned to violence as a means of furthering their goals or where someone who belonged to a tier III organization also may have potentially, in a different capacity, targeted a U.S. interest or an American person.

There are exceptions to it, but generally speaking and across the board, it's for people who belong to these organizations. The Department of Homeland Security has done its homework and in interaction with various stakeholders has created this list of organizations that generally relate to the example I gave. They are people who belonged to organizations that were supporting contained, regional, domestic, or internal conflicts that did not in any way touch upon the security of the United States.

At a minimum, this is what I am suggesting the committee look at seriously, because frankly, it's a waste of resources to deal with these individuals. An across-the-board waiver of people who simply are not any concern to us is a first good step to bring us in line with the United States, which is not generally known as being less concerned about security than Canada.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Grant.

You mentioned an example of someone who was identified as not being a threat and yet fell within one of these classes that you referred to. You said that everybody—counsel for the minister, the defence, the officials with the government—agreed that the person wasn't going to be a threat, but they had to follow the provisions of the legislation. How was that resolved? Would the person have been deported?

[Angus Grant]

I didn't quite understand the question. Are you talking about people who would belong to one of these tier III organizations but who ran afoul of the other provisions?

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

No, you referred to the ANC being classed as a terrorist organization, and yet everybody agreed, and this was an example you gave, that the person wasn't a threat to Canada or to Canadians and yet there was no opportunity to use discretion within that setting. What was the outcome in that situation?

[Angus Grant]

Until 2008 Nelson Mandela required a specific waiver to go to the United States. It was an absurd situation.

We had precisely the same situation in Canada. In fact, I think Minister Kenney spoke to this issue quite recently, and Mr. Cotler introduced a motion in Parliament to create a specific regulation to provide a waiver essentially to ANC members. What I'm saying is the ANC provides a very helpful window of analysis into the problem, because everybody knows the ANC, everybody knows its noble aspirations, and everybody knows that ANC members don't pose a threat to Canada. The exact same situation with no differences is replicated in many different countries around the world, and historically in many different conflicts that have arisen. What I'm suggesting is that we come up with some kind of process to identify this systematically and strategically. This can be done. As I said, we have a precedent to do it.

I'm not sure that answers your question, but in the United States the ANC would have been a tier III organization.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

That's helpful. Thank you.

How much time do I have, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have a minute.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

This is for both of you.

The issue of biometrics has come up. I understand, in reviewing the minutes from the last meeting, that Dr. Benjamin Muller, in his presentation, noted that a five-year study released in September by the National Research Council in Washington labelled biometrics as “'inherently fallible': they only provide probabilistic results and not yes and no answers.”

We've had other witnesses talk to the committee about inherent flaws in profiling.

Ms. Douglas, you've been asked this question. Would you share with the committee your views on the direction of the government as it relates to profiling and biometrics?

[Debbie Douglas]

I don't pretend to have expertise in biometrics, but with every new tool that our government explores, I often give a caution to pay attention that particular groups not be profiled unnecessarily, that we have systems in place. This is something someone asked me the other day. For example, if immigrants or asylum seekers, regardless of which immigration class they are coming in under, had to go through a biometric system and eventually they became Canadian citizens, would we not be creating two-tier citizenship? After all, those of us who were born in Canada would not have gone through a biometric system and that information wouldn't exist.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We have to move on, Ms. Douglas. Thank you.

Mr. Andrews.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

As both of our witnesses would realize, under the current system, people can be detained if they can't establish their identify, if they constitute danger, or if they are a flight risk. I am just curious. Could both of our witnesses tell us if they would suggest any changes to these? Ms. Douglas, you mentioned youth in your testimony. How would they apply to children?