Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 5th, 2012

[Angus Grant]

No.

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

Do you want to say that with your microphone on?

[Angus Grant]

The answer is clearly no. The landscape would look incredibly different, if all of the factors you listed as being absent in the Canadian immigration regime were present. The pressures we see would not be present, and therefore, the clear answer to that is no.

[Lorne Waldman]

Could I add one point on that?

We've been given a lot of historical examples in terms of how it took years for this, and years for that. My friend cited the case of Mr. Mohammad. Let's be totally clear. Undoubtedly the immigration system has been dysfunctional for a long time. There have been huge delays, and all of these delays are the result of inadequate resourcing and some silly policies.

But to be honest with you, if the system....

To give you another anecdotal example, we're talking about spending millions of dollars to create a new refugee system. I'm seeing people come into my office today who have made refugee claims, who have had their hearings and have been rejected and are being removed within a year under this system. Once you've staffed the system and you get it working properly, it functions.

The bottom line is, if we staff the system and get sufficient resources, we can allow for all of the necessary safeguards to allow for fair hearings and still have people removed speedily.

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

Thank you.

A member opposite, Mr. Weston, is a lawyer as well. Our witness from the last panel, Ms. Robin Seligman, read the section from the Criminal Code itself. It wasn't her own personal testimony. She was reading the Criminal Code. It's interesting that it's clear in the Criminal Code, and it is up to the adjudicators to be the ones who make these decisions on people's admissibility into this country. It's not really for us politicians or even lawyers to make those decisions. It's really for the unbiased adjudicators. Is that not correct? Would any of you agree with my statement on that?

[Lorne Waldman]

If you're talking about who determines whether people are admissible or not, it's up to the member interpreting the law, and if it involves a foreign offence, interpreting the foreign offence and seeing if it's equivalent to an offence in Canada, comparing the Canadian and foreign offences. I think that's what the point of the evidence was. With someone convicted in the United States, you compare the American offence to the Canadian offence. That's the job of the member to do that at the immigration division.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Waldman.

Mr. Lamoureux, go ahead.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to pick up on Mr. Waldman and the member's question.

It's interesting. If you ask the minister, and he's had the press conference, as to the five reasons this bill is before us, he'll list off all those horrendous cases and say that's the reason for this legislation, that Canadians don't support these murderers. He'll come up with pedophiles and a whole litany of things as to why it is this legislation is absolutely critical. He'll label permanent residents as foreign criminals. Many take offence, including myself, to that fact in itself. The reality is that he is referring to a very small percentage of permanent residents and he's highlighting those in order to justify a flawed bill.

I want to go back to the example because I think it's worth looking at this. As members of Parliament we have constituents. I'll use the example of young adults who are graduating from high school. They decide to go down to the United States. Winnipeg is only an hour's drive from the United States. A 19-year-old person uses false documents because the drinking age there is 20 or 21. If that person is not a permanent resident of Canada—and we're not talking about a few; we're talking hundreds or thousands across Canada—that person could be in big trouble.

I'll refer to the example used. Using a false or fraudulent document is an offence under section 368 of the Criminal Code carrying a maximum potential penalty of 10 years. A 20-year-old permanent resident who is convicted of using fake identification to get into a bar while visiting the United States is inadmissible under IRPA for foreign conviction. It doesn't matter that the U.S. court punished him only with a $200 fine. IRPA section 36(1)(b) does not require any particular sentence, only a foreign conviction.

Imagine the profound impact this could have on a number of permanent residents. In the example I used, this could have been a student who came to Canada when they were two years old and went through the whole system in high school. The student's mom and dad, for whatever reason, didn't get their citizenship, and this individual now, without the right to appeal, could be deported back to a country that he or she would be nowhere near familiar with, and may not even speak the language.

This is the profound impact this bill, if it passes, will have in a very real and tangible way.

The minister can use the types of examples that he has chosen, but I would suggest that the types of examples I could come up with would be far greater in number. I'm wondering whether we are making a grave mistake.

There is a suggestion I would make at this stage, at the very least. Would you not agree that people who are brought to Canada as young children, whether they be 10 or 15, but let's define an age, should be exempt from this legislation, given that at an early age it's society, it's our community that in essence rears those children?

[Lorne Waldman]

I want to make one brief point with regard to your example. It's not even necessary that there be a conviction because the legislation, as drafted, encompasses subparagraphs 36(1)(b) and (c). It's also possible for a person in Canada to be ordered deported if the immigration authorities were told that he had used the false ID in the United States. He would have committed an offence in the United States, punishable by 10 or more years in Canada, and as a result would be ordered deported and would have no right to appeal. You don't even need a conviction. In terms of your comment, obviously any measures that would soften the impact of this legislation would be important.

You should know that in the history of immigration, there was something called domicile that existed up until 1978. If you had been in Canada for more than five years as a permanent resident, you could only be deported for treason and sedition. That was removed. Instead, permanent residents were given a right of appeal that was available to everyone. Over the course of the last 30-some years, that right of appeal has been restricted and restricted, and restricted even more.

The idea that people who have been in Canada from a certain age should be exempt from deportation is one I support. I think it's one that should be considered as an alternative.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Waldman.

Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for appearing before us today.

I found your testimony to be very interesting as I did the testimony of the previous witnesses, but I didn't have a chance to question them.

There seems to be one common theme coming out of the testimony and responses that we have heard from you and previous witnesses, which is that clearly, no one wants foreign criminals walking our streets. I think it was Ms. Seligman, a previous witness, who said that she's a mother too and she doesn't want a criminal in her neighbourhood. People don't want those folks in their area and around their children.

I was a little taken aback with my colleague, Ms. Sims, when she referred to using Clinton Gayle as an excuse. I believe the family of Todd Baylis would take some exception to that as well. Todd Baylis was a police officer, 24 years of age, who was gunned down in his prime by a serial criminal named Clinton Gayle, while he was trying to disrupt a crack cocaine drug deal. Gayle was still in Canada because he had appealed to the IAD. Let's focus a little on the victim's side of the equation. We're talking about a known criminal, not a two-year-old who's here at 30.

By the way, Mr. Lamoureux commented that the minister is labelling permanent residents as foreigners. Clearly, there is a difference between a permanent resident and a Canadian citizen. If you have lived here the better part of your life, and you're not a Canadian citizen, you're still a citizen of another nation. That makes you a foreigner by definition.

Let's just focus on criminals like Clinton Gayle. Do you agree with the ability of criminals like him to be able to appeal their deportation even though they have been convicted of serious crimes several times over?

I'll start with you, Mr. Collacott.

[Martin Collacott]

I like your description. The Clinton Gayle case that is being raised is called an excuse. It's not. These are real serious concrete problems. Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad is the poster boy, as someone described him, for refugee claimants. In his case, a convicted terrorist, it illustrates the fact that our system is highly dysfunctional.

I think there is solid public support for tightening it up. It might at some point take some fine-tuning, but I think virtually all the changes that have been recommended and all the features of this bill are quite clear, and some of them are rather broad. I think they're solidly justified in terms of what they're reacting to. They weren't just dreamed up to be nasty and tough. I think they are in response to some very concrete issues. Clinton Gayle and Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad maybe archetype problem cases, but they do reflect some real concrete issues and they have to be dealt with.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you. I would like to give Mr. Grant and Mr. Waldman an opportunity to comment.

[Angus Grant]

Obviously, the Clinton Gayle case is an extreme example.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

These are the cases I'm asking about.

[Angus Grant]

And I'm answering the question.

You would be right to respond to some other examples that have been brought up today as being examples of outliers in the other direction of extremely innocent appearing acts for which punishments of over six months can be provided. The problem in these matters is that context is everything. The outliers are the outliers because they are unusual. Most cases involving criminality are far more complex than these, as Mr. Collacott says, archetypal examples on either end of the polarity.

How do you deal with inherently more complicated situations? My submission would be that you don't do so by shutting out any conversation, any dialogue whatsoever.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I understand that, but it wasn't my question.

[Angus Grant]

That's my answer to the question.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes, but that was not my question.

My question was do you agree with the ability of criminals like Clinton Gayle to have an opportunity to appeal and tie themselves up in the system?

[Lorne Waldman]

The answer to that is Mr. Gayle under the current law, which denies people the right to an appeal with a two-year sentence, wouldn't have had an appeal anyway, if I'm not mistaken, because before he murdered Todd Baylis he had been convicted of other serious offences and received serious jail time. What happened, and I remember well the circumstances, is there was frustration because there were many people under deportation orders who weren't being deported. That was the failure of the CBSA because prior to Todd Baylis— it wasn't CBSA then, it was CIC—they weren't enforcing deportation orders.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association have come out strongly in favour of Bill C-43, saying that in their opinion, it will make Canadians, including the vast majority of immigrants in Canada, who are honest and law-abiding citizens, much safer.

Do you agree or disagree with the views of these police organizations?

[Lorne Waldman]

Is that for me?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

All three of you.

[Lorne Waldman]

I agree. That's why I agreed with them when they opposed the dismantling of the long rifle registry as well, which of course the government ignored. I agree, generally speaking—

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Do you agree with Bill C-43? I know you want to get a shot in on the long gun registry. That's already been passed.