Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's always a pleasure to appear before the committee.
I've had a lot of experience in immigration and refugee issues, almost 36 years. The most difficult area of immigration management has always been enforcing laws relating to the apprehension and removal of those who enter the country illegally, or remain here after their legal status has expired, or they have been convicted of serious crimes.
I believe the measures in Bill C-43 should receive full support. It's a long overdue and modest first step, I would say, toward reform of a system of removal that has proven to be quite ineffective. I have many examples of this, but perhaps the most recent one has been the Rwandan who was removed from Canada just this week, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. We first found out about him in 2002, and it has taken since that time to finally remove him after many reviews of his case and many appeals.
The most glaring example of abuse of our system is the case of Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad. I think I've mentioned him before in front of this committee. He was an assassin and a terrorist for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He attacked an Israeli aircraft that was on the tarmac in Athens and used a machine gun and threw grenades. He killed a Jewish businessman and wounded a stewardess before he was overtaken. He came to Canada in 1987. When we found out he was here, we ordered his deportation. He is still here. His case is still before the courts.
A Globe and Mail report a couple of years ago indicated that so far his case had cost Canadian taxpayers $3 million. I doubt very much if we'll ever get rid of this guy. This is not a suspected terrorist.This is a convicted terrorist.
We should put Bill C-43 in the context of an immigration system that currently is undermined by the difficulty to remove people who have been ordered deported, and indeed to keep out some of the really bad guys who get into the country. There are a number of reasons for this, and I'll mention a few of them in the time I have.
Part of the problem, unfortunately, relates to section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which indicates that everyone is entitled to due process. It makes no distinction between Canadian citizens and legal residents. Anyone who arrives in the country or even in our international waters gets charter protection.
Charter obligations however well meaning they might be, certainly inhibit the fast removal of foreign criminals and security risks ordered deported, since all of these people have a recourse to a variety of reviews and appeals. They can keep their cases going not only for months, but for years, in most, if not all, cases at taxpayers' expense.
As Mr. Neve mentioned previously, we have obligations under the UN convention with regard to removing people to countries where they might be mistreated or tortured. This is another instrument that prevents us from removing some of the very bad people in the country who should be removed. Germany and the United Kingdom have overcome that by entering into an agreement with the source country to ensure that consular officers from Germany or England can visit the jails and ensure that these people are not being mistreated.
Another factor is the high volume of immigration that we've been receiving in the last 10 or 15 years. It means that very few immigrants are even seen or interviewed now by these officers overseas. It's all done on paper. Many of the immigrants who are coming here are coming from countries where fraud, deception and forgery are almost endemic, so we're letting in a lot of people who probably shouldn't be here.
We also have an asylum system that's unique in the world, that allows anyone from any country in the world to simply walk into the country and claim persecution. All they have to do is claim it and they are automatically admitted. They are then entitled to a quasi-judicial tribunal that sometimes might take two to three years to take place. If, by chance, they are refused—they have to be real refugees—the difficulty of removing them is really immense.
The last report of the Auditor General indicated that there were over 40,000 failed asylum seekers, their whereabouts unknown.
Under-resourced enforcement personnel is another factor. There simply aren't enough enforcement officers in the Canada Border Services Agency to track down some of these very serious cases. They do their best, but there are few resources devoted to that. In the past, the enforcement of immigration has not been something that has been vigorously pursued in the country.
In the last few years, we've also had a very high volume of foreign temporary workers entering Canada. Most of them are not given a criminal check. They simply come in. Most are not interviewed. There simply are too many of them. On December 31 last year, there were over 300,000 temporary foreign workers in the country. If they leave their employment, nobody knows their whereabouts or what they're doing. That's another weakness in our system. We have no exit system, no exit control, and no system to track people who come into the country as temporary workers or visitors, as many countries do. That makes the enforcement of immigration laws very problematic.
I'm going to end by saying that immigration, in my view, is one of the most important issues Canada has to face. It's one of the great and important issues of our time, not only for Canada but for many other countries in the world. There are mass migration movements taking place. Millions of people are on the move, and they are going to keep moving. Indeed, that whole migration movement will increase if climate change and violence continue in many parts of the world. We have to be in a position to deal with that and to manage the numbers effectively.
It's an iron rule of migration that people will move if they want to improve their standard of living, flee violence, or have a better future for their children. But if it's done in a chaotic manner, and the wrong people are let into the country, the whole system can be undermined.
In my view, if we can't determine who should get in, who should be kept out, and who should be removed, in effect, we have lost our sovereignty. That's why Bill C-43, despite its failure to address many of the issues I have raised, is, I hope, a first step in a basic reform of the system so that we can let in the people we want, keep out the people we don't want, and remove the people who have committed crimes or security violations in our country.
Thank you.