Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm pleased to be here with you this afternoon and to have this opportunity to share Amnesty International's concerns and recommendations with respect to Bill C-43.
Amnesty, for well over 25 years now, has been actively commenting upon and making representations to Parliament regularly with respect to reforms to Canada's immigration and refugee laws. Our focus, of course, has always been to ensure that those laws conform with Canada's international human rights obligations, be that with respect to refugee protection, the ban on torture, the rights of children, equality and non-discrimination, fair trials and due process, and other fundamental rights that are enshrined in international law.
We certainly recognize there are always challenges and tensions that arise in ensuring human rights are fully protected in law, in policy, and in practice when it comes to immigration and refugee matters, be it the tension between speed and efficiency versus fairness and justice, or as arises with Bill C-43, by responding to concerns about criminality and security, but doing so in full compliance with important human rights norms.
Amnesty International is of course a human rights watchdog. We're not an organization with a particular mandate with regard to immigration or refugee policy or law enforcement and criminal justice. Our role is to remind governments, including the Canadian government, of those binding human rights obligations and the absolutely essential need to ensure they are upheld.
Amnesty International certainly accepts that it is not only permissible but often essential for the Canadian government to use immigration law to exclude and remove from Canada individuals who pose threats to the country's public security or national security, including when there are concerns about serious criminality, terrorism, and related threats.
Today I would like to share with you our concern that the approach to this that we see reflected in Bill C-43, some of which builds on or adds to provisions that are already part of Canadian immigration law, raises a number of real and pressing human rights concerns in three principal areas: accountability, protection, and access to justice. Let me turn briefly to each.
With respect, first, to accountability, Amnesty International has frequently, for well over a decade now, raised concern that when Canada is faced with the attempted entry or the presence of an individual in Canada against whom there are credible allegations of potential responsibility for serious crimes under international law, such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, terrorism, overwhelmingly, immigration remedies such as denial of entry or deportation are used to deal with the case.
The end result very often, therefore, is the serious human rights accusations against the individual are not dealt with in a way that will ensure justice, namely, that the person would be perhaps turned over to an appropriate international tribunal, extradited to face justice in another country, or investigated and prosecuted within Canada. That runs counter to numerous international obligations that require Canada to ensure that such individuals do in fact face justice, including under the UN convention against torture and the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court.
We are concerned that the provisions in Bill C-43, be that clause 8 significantly broadening ministerial discretion to keep people out of Canada, or the restrictions of humanitarian and ministerial relief and appeal rights in clauses 9, 10, 18, and 24, will serve only to increase dramatically the propensity for immigration remedies to dominate. If it is even easier and faster to deport, the chances of a case being properly considered from an international criminal law perspective will be that much less.
There is nothing in Canadian law at this time that operationalizes and formalizes the legal obligation to pursue extradition and prosecution over such possibilities as barred entry and deportation. We strongly believe it is time to do so. It is too important to be left to policy and budgetary decisions. Our brief, which we'll be providing to the committee after the hearing—it's not yet available in French—proposes an addition to the bill establishing a clear obligation to pursue extradition or prosecution in appropriate cases, in compliance with international legal requirements.
Let me turn to our concerns about protection. Bill C-43 restricts or removes a number of appeal and relief mechanisms which, at present, serve as a final opportunity or last resort to address concerns about human rights violations that may be associated with an individual's removal from Canada. These may be concerns that the individual will experience torture or other serious human rights violations in the country to which he or she is being deported. They may be concerns about the best interests of children left behind or about the disruption and separation of families that will arise because of the deportation.
All of these are fundamental human rights obligations, not just policy aspirations or social matters. These are human rights obligations found in such important international treaties as the refugee convention, the convention against torture, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, all of which are binding on Canada.
Canadian court decisions have affirmed that Canada must take account of these international obligations in its immigration laws and practices. Restricting or taking away these appeal and relief options significantly increases the likelihood that these sorts of concerns will not be addressed.
The importance of keeping open these appeal and other relief avenues is all the more important when we consider the wide sweep of these exclusionary provisions. The elimination of humanitarian relief, in clauses 9 and 10, for terrorism, violating human rights, or organized crime may well apply to individuals who have never even been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime, and may extend to individuals who do not themselves pose a danger or security threat.
The Canadian Council for Refugees, in some of its past research, has highlighted ways in which these kinds of provisions have impacted on past members of the African National Congress and on individuals who are members of groups that opposed repressive governments, such as the Gadhafi regime in Libya and the Pinochet administration in Chile.
The appeal right restrictions in clause 24 extend to permanent residents who have been sentenced to six or more months in prison in Canada or who have been convicted of an act outside Canada that could be punishable within Canada by a maximum term of at least 10 years. It is a very low threshold. As such, this extends to such crimes in Canada as growing as few as six marijuana plants for trafficking, making a recording in a movie theatre, or injuring cattle. When considering crimes committed abroad, it, of course, gives rise to concerns about unfair and politically motivated charges and trials, the use of torture, and other serious shortcomings that are endemic in the justice systems of many countries.
An appeal hearing is the avenue that can consider all of these dimensions: the nature of the accusations; the seriousness, or lack thereof, of the crime; the unfairness of foreign convictions; and human rights violations that will occur if the deportation goes ahead.
Amnesty International's strong recommendation, therefore, is that clauses 9, 10, 18, and 24, which propose restrictions on and removal of humanitarian relief, ministerial relief, and appeal rights, all be withdrawn. They are an indispensable means of ensuring that human rights are protected, but they also ensure and leave open the possibility that serious concerns about criminality and security will be addressed.
The last point I would briefly like to raise is the issue of access to justice. Removing these avenues for appealing or seeking relief from a deportation order are essential in that they are a means of protecting individuals from human rights violations, as I've just laid out. What they represent, which is access to justice, is also a human rights concern in and of itself. International law has long recognized that deportation is no casual matter. While it may not be tantamount to criminal sentencing, it certainly carries a similarly strong message of punishment and societal disapproval, with tremendous consequences for the individual.
As such, internationally and nationally, it has long been recognized that there must be sound procedural protections associated with deportation. The UN Human Rights Committee, which is the expert UN body charged with overseeing and implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, has stressed that this means that anyone facing deportation should have an opportunity to appeal the deportation order, unless there are “compelling reasons” of national security.
The wide sweep of the clause's restricting relief and appeal opportunities in Bill C-43 go far beyond compelling reasons of national security.
