Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 29th, 2012

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Any time anyone, especially someone with professional credentials such as yours, Mr. Brouwer, says we're doing things unCanadian, it makes us pause.

It's important to make sure everyone is on the same page and understands that the provisions we're talking about are designed to apply to people who are not Canadian citizens, who are in fact from other countries and have sought to come here. They may be further along in their goal than the billion or two others who would like to be Canadians, but they are still somehow associated with another place of origin.

To put it into context, I was shocked to learn there is an average of some 850 serious criminals who appeal to the IAD every year to delay their deportation from Canada. To me, that's a significant number. To most Canadians who are not lawyers, like you and me, that would be a significant number.

Does that number concern you?

[Andrew Brouwer]

I don't know the details of the number. I have no idea what these offences are that the people have been convicted of.

Does the fact that there is a forum where people with these kinds of convictions have an opportunity, prior to removal, to have all the circumstances of their case considered before that deportation concern me? No. I think that's right; I think that's just.

I'm not saying—and certainly the IAD doesn't function that way—that every permanent resident with a serious conviction will go to the IAD and get a stay of removal. Certainly, they won't. I don't know what the success rates are, but they're certainly not a hundred per cent. The fact that there is a place to go to raise their mental health issues, their connection to Canada, the sixty years they've been in Canada....

There's a case that I heard about from a colleague of mine. It was an extreme case, but it shows you that extreme cases will also be caught up by this provision. A child was brought to Canada by her parents when she was four months old. The child is now in her fifties. She did end up with some addiction issues and she did commit some serious criminal activity, and she is now facing deportation to a country where literally she's never set foot. She wasn't even walking at the time she came to Canada.

I'm a lawyer. I understand what a citizen is and what a citizen isn't. I understand that citizenship is something that the executive grants to a person.

That being said, for the vast majority of Canadians, people who come to Canada at that age and live here all of their lives are Canadians.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Brouwer, to take it in the broad context, Canada is renowned for its generous immigration and refugee policies. Those generous policies rely upon continued goodwill from the general populace. For people who are elected to enact and preserve laws, we have to have some commitment to those things. To me, the most humanitarian and considerate thing we can do as lawmakers is to ensure that we continue a generous open door to refugees. We have people who have been admissible on the most serious grounds, war criminals, human rights violators, people whose examples we heard cited earlier before you started your testimony today. Some of them are organized criminals and they've been able to delay their deportation for years and years. We've heard it costs millions of dollars. My concern is that we'll lose the popular support of the whole refugee program if we allow such people. Furthermore, people who are parents, like me, average Canadians, want to know that serious criminals are being deported, especially if they're not Canadians.

I would have thought you would be coming here complimenting the government on Bill C-43, saying this is what we need to make sure that 10 years, 20 years, or 50 years hence, the people who follow in our footsteps are similarly defending a generous refugee system.

[Andrew Brouwer]

I'm surprised you thought I would be coming here to congratulate you on the bill. I will note that I don't disagree. Any human rights activist who takes himself seriously is against impunity. I don't believe in impunity. I believe that people should be held responsible for their crimes. Absolutely. That's not the issue. That's not the concern we're raising. We're not saying there should be no inadmissibility provisions. All we're saying is that there should be an opportunity, in exceptional circumstances, for an impartial, independent decision-maker to give one last shot to a permanent resident who, for example, in the case that I gave you, has been in Canada for the vast majority of their life prior to deportation.

There are a couple of issues in what you say. One thing I'd like to make clear is that I completely agree that it's necessary for the Canadian public to support the immigration and refugee program. That's crucial. Of course, the government, the executive, has a great deal of power in how the system is presented to have an impact on how the public actually views the system.

When the Conservative government...and I'm sorry, but it happens a lot. There's a great deal of talk of abusers, queue jumpers, and people who are not bona fide refugees. That kind of language, when it's coming from our political leaders, has a really negative impact on the system. It's far better, in my submission, to ensure that we have a system where those who are actually a danger to Canada are deported—no question. Well, one question: not if it's deportation to torture. Failing that, deportation to torture or deportation to death, absolutely, serious criminals who present a danger to the public should be deported. We can already do that. We already do that under the existing provisions of IRPA—

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Brouwer, sorry to interrupt, but—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have less than a minute, Mr. Weston.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Having visited Rwanda in recent years and witnessed the anxiety that still prevails there, I was astonished to hear the story of a Rwandan war criminal who still resides in Canada after being found a war criminal decades ago. He's able to avail himself of humanitarian and compassionate grounds that make no sense. It must leave the Rwandan Canadians in some sense of anguish here knowing that individual walks among them.

[Andrew Brouwer]

Of course. I find it—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Weston. We'll have to move on.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witness for being here.

I'd like to start off by saying that safety and security of residents in Canada is certainly a priority for the NDP. However, we believe that rather than portraying newcomers negatively, the majority of whom are law-abiding members of our society, we should be treating newcomers fairly.

Based on what I'm hearing from my constituents in Scarborough—Rouge River, this means shortening wait times for family reunification, making the visitor visa system more fair, and fixing the many flaws with our temporary foreign worker program. Instead, we see in this bill, which targets a small minority of people, that it can actually have negative consequences for law-abiding newcomers. As you mentioned briefly, it can catch and punish people who present no security threat to our community.

Can you please elaborate on how this may arise?

[Andrew Brouwer]

One of the problems with IRPA and its relationship to Bill C-43 is that IRPA right now, particularly in paragraph 34(1)(f), allows for a decision-maker to find a person inadmissible on security grounds on very vague and broad criteria.

I have many clients who've been found inadmissible because of membership in a terrorist group. For example, I refer to this report from the CCR on Eritreans. There was a brutal 30-year civil war for independence in Eritrea. Many members of various organizations fighting for independence for Eritrea from the bloody Ethiopian regime were members, supporters in one form or another, of the Eritrean Liberation Front or one of the other organizations engaged in that fight.

When they come to Canada, those individuals now make refugee claims. If they were indeed involved in some way in the liberation struggle, they are frequently recognized as convention refugees, in part because of the sad history of what happened in Eritrea after liberation in 1991, when one of the two liberation movements took power. Those who were part of the other liberation fighters, the ELF, were refugees. Those individuals come to Canada. They have given their entire lives to working for justice and independence and human rights. Under paragraph 34(1)(f), even if the extent of their involvement was teaching in a school, handing out pamphlets, or organizing meetings to provide updates on what was happening in the field, those individuals are inadmissible.

Under section 25 and subsection 34(2) of the current act, there was at least the possibility for relief from that very broad inadmissibility. There was a possibility that a decision-maker could say that, formerly, maybe some members of the Eritrean Liberation Front engaged in terrorism, and because you were somehow involved in supporting that organization, fine, it's broad enough that you are described. At least we have a relief valve that permitted the presence of those individuals who actually didn’t support terrorism, who didn't hold the gun and didn't engage in violence, to be found not to be detrimental to the national interest.

Bill C-43 takes that away. It denies any access to humanitarian and compassionate consideration, and it appears to dramatically limit the scope of the meaning of “not detrimental to the national interest”. By doing that, we expect to see many long-term members of the Canadian community who have been determined to be inadmissible on these very broad grounds facing removal.

That, from our perspective, is fundamentally unjust. These people, like Nelson Mandela, like my Dad, who was engaged in the resistance in Holland under the Nazis, are heroes, not terrorists.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I understand and agree with you.

I want to touch on a couple of examples on top of the ones you gave us in your brief that you sent us. Mrs. Joseph Pararajasingham is a 74-year-old widow of a former member of Parliament in Sri Lanka who fought for negotiations to happen between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE during the time of the conflict there. She is a widow because the member of Parliament was assassinated. She is here in Canada now. She came here to flee a situation where she too would have been killed had she stayed in the country. I have met her many times in the community, and she is a sweet, elderly woman who is there to give lots of love, who supports a lot of the community activities, and who contributes very positively to the Canadian community.

From your briefing, I'm learning that she also would be considered inadmissible in this country. She has actually been deemed inadmissible.

A 14-year-old Iranian girl who gave out fliers to fight for her rights, and who eventually was put in Evin Prison, is now in Canada. She is considered inadmissible—

[Andrew Brouwer]

That's correct.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Some of those examples you gave us, on top of the Eritrean cases, are very good to hear about—some of the good people in Canada who are now going to be wrongly accused of being terrorists or...I don't know exactly the wording.

[Andrew Brouwer]

Typically, members of a terrorist group. Thank you for that.

The young Iranian woman is a client of mine. She has been for years, and has become a dear friend over the years. She's one of many of these individuals.

Of course, there are terrorists out there. There are people who have engaged in violence and who should not be allowed to stay in Canada. But there are too many people—

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

A point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Stop the clock.

A point of order, Mr. Dykstra.

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

I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt here, but there has been a reference a couple of times now to a briefing that was submitted.

Through you, Chair, Rathika seems to be referring to a briefing note that she received or that we received from Mr. Brouwer. Are you referring to this?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

No. I'm referring to the submission that was made to the committee by the Canadian Council for Refugees. I'm not sure, but I think Mr. Brouwer mentioned it in his opening.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think you mentioned that you had submitted it in English and it's with the clerk of the committee.

[Andrew Brouwer]

That's my understanding of what happened, yes, on such short notice.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Simply for the record, Ms. Sitsabaiesan, no one else has that. The clerk has it, but it's not translated. I don't know how you got it, but I don't have it.

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

I would simply like to know how she got a copy of it.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I don't know about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm simply commenting that you're referring to something that no one else has—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I did not know that.