Evidence of meeting #57 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cases.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Oftentimes it's our courts, though. They decide if somebody is guilty of a crime. It goes through the courts. It's not necessarily decided by a bureaucrat in terms of guilt or innocence.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
On your point that if they've been here for 50 years and nobody told them that they should apply.... Come on. If you've been here for a long time, at some point you recognize that you should apply for Canadian citizenship.
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
You know, I have clients who had Immigration show up at their door and who did not know that they were not citizens because they never travelled. They just grew up here from the time they were little kids.
That doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
In the odd case, I can understand that, but broadly, most people do recognize that they should take out citizenship. I know that this government and others, and other agencies, do try to educate people on that as often as we can.
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
But what do you do with those people—
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
I actually have limited time, so excuse me; I want to move on to some other questions.
We often hear from the opposition that oftentimes somebody who's growing, for example, six marijuana plants will be deported without an appeal for their crime.
Well, first, they can always appeal that, as you know. Second, we had a witness recently who said, “Do you know how much marijuana comes from six plants?”
Do you know, by any chance?
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
No, but I don't have a problem with that.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Well, it's a lot.
Third, our law would like to take into consideration that six marijuana plants were in fact used for trafficking. The judge will decide, via the police, what the actual use of that was going to be.
Drug trafficking is a serious crime in this country. Would you agree with that?
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
Everybody has their own opinion. I myself don't think marijuana's a problem, sorry.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Okay, but that's not what I asked you. I asked you if you think drug trafficking is a serious crime in this country.
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
Trafficking in drugs is a serious crime, but I don't think it necessarily means it should lead to deportation of someone who came here at two years old.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
There's always a slippery slope with these things.
Would you agree that drug trafficking is often linked to organized crime?
3:50 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
Yes, but we're not saying that you shouldn't deport some of these people. We're saying to let someone look at their circumstances to make that decision. Don't automatically deport.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
That wasn't the question I asked, ma'am. I was asking if you believe that drug trafficking is often linked to organized crime.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Okay, and drug trafficking is one of many crimes committed by individuals within organized crime.
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
You know, people who are involved in drug trafficking and organized crime already don't get appeals to the immigration appeal division. They're already cut out through the two-year bar or the organized criminality bar. There are no appeals in those cases, so you're talking about the wrong kind of case.
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
There are a bunch of cases that get six months. I know you've raised the drug situation, but there are things like fraud under, theft under, threat to cause damage to property or injury to animals, mischief under. All those types of crimes can get a sentence of six months. We're even talking about conditional sentences. At a minimum, you don't want to include things like conditional sentences, for which there's no jail time.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
You guys have spoken about potential impacts of the bill on families, but in this case, you're talking about families of criminals who are deported from Canada. In your opinion, though, what are the impacts to the families of the victims of those criminals? Have you assessed those?
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
It would depend on the crime, wouldn't it? When you're talking about theft under—
3:55 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
If you're talking about theft under, you have to balance the impact to the person concerned and the seriousness of the crime versus the impact of the person being deported and the impact to their Canadian family. Surely there's enough compassion in our system to allow some objective body, like the immigration appeal division, to look at all the circumstances of the case.
As Barb mentioned, some people have schizophrenia. They have mental illness. It's a one-off. It's out of character. They've been here since they were a child. They are the sole supporter of their family. If they leave, their family will go on welfare. If they leave, their children won't have a father figure. Surely we have enough compassion in our system for someone, some objective board—and I've given you the cases where they go positive and negative—to take an objective look at that and say that they think this person should be given a second chance.
We're not saying all people get to stay, and many times they don't get to stay. The most serious cases don't get to stay. They already don't.
