Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 29th, 2012

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sytcheva, you said you feel the net is being cast too wide with this bill, that you agree in general with the intent of the bill, particularly in terms of serious criminality, but in less serious cases you think that people with mental illness may be affected.

Would you like to tell us if you have thoughts and what they are...? First of all, would you like to give us examples of the kinds of people you have seen who you think would be caught by this?

[Irina Sytcheva]

An example that I raised is that some of the youth are crown wards. Another example is somebody who comes here with a family when they're very young. Sometimes we have cases in which somebody has come here at the age of a few months or a few years. They tend to experience mental health issues that go undiagnosed for years and years. They come in contact with the criminal justice system. Immigration picks them up down the line when they've already been here sometimes for 40 or 50 years. This is the only country they've known. They do not have any family. Oftentimes they don't speak the language and have no idea about the life in the other country.

What we know about mental health is that in order for people to keep doing well, they need continuity of support. They need the familiarity of the situation. Throwing somebody out into such an unknown situation, somebody who is already not doing well mentally, is often causing people to commit suicide. Unfortunately, we've had to deal with cases where folks took their own lives because they could not cope.

Again, I would like to say that while we support the idea of the immigration system being fair and responsive and not catering to individuals who are horrible people out there, at the same time we feel that the majority of permanent residents, the majority of foreign nationals, are not horrible people. They're people and they have needs, and for us, those with mental health issues require special consideration.

We cannot, on the one hand, have a mental health strategy, and go out there as a leader in mental health care, and at the same time completely disregard this population in our immigration process. We are really hanging them out to dry when we send them to countries they don't know, where they do not have any supports or systems in place to help them stay well.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Do you have recommendations in terms of amendments that you feel should be made to deal with the issues you've raised?

[Irina Sytcheva]

Essentially, our major recommendation is to leave section 64 as is, without changing it down to the six months provision.

Another recommendation that we always put forward is one to actually study the implications of these changes on our population. What we know right now is that the immigration department doesn't actually track mental health. We do not have statistics about how many individuals who come in front of the IRB, the IAD, and the CBSA officers actually have mental health issues, and even if those questions are asked, nobody is tracking the data.

I can speak anecdotally. We've seen a lot of those cases at our organization. We've seen a lot of those cases from the lawyers we deal with who assist on cases, but the immigration department does not have a clue—not to put it out there, but they really don't know because they don't keep track.

There's another thing we'd like to study: the implications of Bill C-10, which was passed just recently, and the mandatory minimum sentences and how those are going to impact on the number of six-month convictions, I guess, that would essentially cause individuals to spend six months in jail. At this stage, it's hard to deduce how wide the net will be cast, but because we're increasing criminal provisions on one side and really casting a net wider in the criminal justice system, we cannot make a rational judgment around how immigration is going to be impacted by it.

Another recommendation I'd like to put forth is actual training on mental health and mental illnesses for the policy-makers who are dealing with immigration cases, for the adjudicators—such as the judges—and for the CBSA officers as well. We're doing that on the correctional side and we've seen some progress with the training. We'd like to continue doing that within the immigration department.

Another thing that we'd also suggest—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you. We'll have to move on. Maybe on another round you can get to your further recommendations.

Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to both of you for appearing before us today.

We are here to discuss an act that's going to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In fact, we are calling it the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act. As you know, we are a very welcoming country, perhaps one of the most welcoming countries in the world—if not the most welcoming. Over the last five years, we've averaged about 253,000 new Canadians coming here from countries all over the world. In fact, last year the number was 265,000.

We have a responsibility to our citizens, which is that the people who we allow to walk our streets, shop in our communities, be around our children, and be in our schools are safe—that it is safe for our citizens. We do not have a responsibility to another country to take on those who would perpetrate criminal activity.

I have a question. I'm going to start with you, Ms. Taub, if I may. Do you think it is fair or unfair for us to require that in order to retain their permanent resident status—and potentially become Canadian citizens—permanent residents not commit a serious crime?

[Julie Taub]

That is a bar to citizenship. Having a criminal record is currently a bar to acquiring citizenship.

I don't want to correct you, but I have to correct you. That was 265 permanent residents, people who became permanent residents. There were another 100,000 foreign international students, 100,000 foreign workers, so we're closer to almost a half a million each year, when you take temporary residents and permanent residents into consideration.

I just want to take two seconds to counter what she has said about people who come from war-torn regions, suffering from stress and possibly committing more crime. I have first-hand knowledge of a group of people, thousands upon thousands—Holocaust survivors—and that includes my late parents, and my sister, who's still alive. We came to Canada and there was no assistance in place. There was no welfare. There was no such thing as post-traumatic stress syndrome. There was no psychologist waiting for us. There was nothing. I was a baby. We had free English classes and you had five years to make it. If you didn't work and you couldn't make it, you had to leave.

No great crimes were committed by the Holocaust survivors, as there were no great crimes committed by those who were expelled by Idi Amin in the 1960s from Uganda when he decided that all East Indians must leave. They were given, what, a month to get out of country?

So I'm sorry, but there have been lots and lots of examples of those who have come from the most horrendous conditions and have arrived in Canada as temporary residents, permanent residents, and they didn't enter into a criminal sphere, committing crimes.

It's not an acceptable excuse, because I know from personal experience, it did not happen. And it doesn't have to happen. For those who do have a mental illness, again there was some inaccuracy here about a judge. I do not understand. What judge? There's no judge in the immigration system. The judge is a criminal judge. That was a completely mistaken fact, talking about a judge in the immigration system. A judge is a criminal judge. He must take into consideration mental health questions, and he is trained to do so. There is no judge. There is a member of the Refugee Protection Division. There is a member of the Immigration Appeal Division. They're not judges.

I had to correct that because I couldn't let that mistake stand. And the criminal justice system does take mental illness into consideration. They always have and they always do, and it is a full defence. The criminally insane—you must have all heard that they are innocent because of criminal insanity.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Let me ask this. We know of many cases in which individuals who promote violence against women, violence against homosexuals, who glorify and promote terrorism against Canadians...they are not inadmissible to Canada because they do not have any previous criminal convictions or violations. This is not surprising, because in many countries in the world, spewing this kind of venomous hatred is not illegal.

The minister has been asked on numerous occasions by many people, including opposition MPs, to keep individuals out. For example, in 2011 the Quebec legislature passed a unanimous motion to bar extremists Abdur Raheem Green and Hamza Tzortzis from coming to Canada. This is what Abdur Raheem Green said, and it's a direct quote:

...Muslims and westerners cannot live peaceably together.

And that:

Dying while fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise and Allah's good pleasure.

Do you agree that the minister should have the ability to bar individuals such as these two, who are not inadmissible in Canada, under any other grounds?

[Julie Taub]

Absolutely, without question, and it's long overdue. And this isn't a question of mental illness either. This is just a question of hate-mongers who are promoting jihad and promoting killing—I don't need to get into it. Anybody wanting to promote hatred in Canada, be it against homosexuals, Jews, women, Muslims, etc.—they should all be barred.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Very quickly—I only have 30 seconds, Ms. Sytcheva—are you aware that in many other countries, such as the U.K., the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia, they already have provisions in place to bar individuals who would harm the public interest but who are otherwise not inadmissible? In fact, the provision in these countries is much broader and discretionary than under this proposed bill C-43.

[Irina Sytcheva]

And the question to me would be...am I aware?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

That's my question: are you aware?

[Irina Sytcheva]

I am aware. I don't see why that should affect how we as Canadians do our business here. I think we can use other countries as models, but we also have sometimes a much better approach—

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

We want to keep criminals out, as they do. We have that same common goal.

[Irina Sytcheva]

I understand that.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

That's irrelevant—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We have to move on.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

That concludes the first round.

Ms. Freeman.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Sytcheva, I'd like you to continue on with the recommendations you'd started earlier, if you could.

[Irina Sytcheva]

Okay.

Before I go there, I just want to correct something. I want to address the comments that my friend here made around the Holocaust survivors.

I think having the blanket understanding that everybody who came, fleeing the Holocaust, never committed a crime, and that everybody who comes from other war-torn regions commits a crime, is quite—

[Julie Taub]

I did not say that. Sorry, I did not say that.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Excuse me.

A point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Stop the clock.

Ms. James, on a point of order.

[Julie Taub]

I did not say that, and I don't want to have—