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.
4 p.m.
NDP
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
Thanks. We have a very limited time, so I want to be able to ask at least one more question.
Do you have any idea of amendments that could be made to this bill in order to achieve more balance between the principle of due process and the protection of Canadians?
4 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
I would like to say first of all, 100%, get rid of conditional sentences being included. Make it very explicit that a sentence of six months would exclude a conditional sentence.
I think that leaving the two-year bar is appropriate, and I'll tell you why. In the criminal justice system, two years is the time that delineates serious crimes, the point at which you get federal time versus provincial time, two years less a day. The criminal justice system has more expertise in this area and has said that anything greater than two years represents serious criminality. I would stick with that. That's why IRPA has the two-year provision to allow the right of appeal. Leave it to the experts in criminality.
4 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
You need to carve out people who are mentally ill and people who've come here as children. If you're going to leave in this kind of provision, there should be exceptions for the board to look at cases in which someone is suffering from a mental illness or someone came as a child.
The other thing is that if you're going to leave in the misrepresentation five-year bar, it should be specifically for a significant misrepresentation, because once they put in the two-year bar, all of a sudden everybody who filled their forms out a little bit wrong was being refused for misrepresenting on the two-year bar. It has to be a significant misrepresentation.
4:05 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
Innocent misrepresentation should also be excluded. That's in cases where you don't even know you made the mistake.
November 5th, 2012 / 4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have two quick questions, and then the witnesses can provide comment on them.
The first one is to pick up on the idea of examples for misrepresentation and increasing it from two years to five years. Hearing some tangible examples would be of benefit to this committee.
Second, I suspect we have at least one and a half million permanent residents living in Canada, those who call Canada their home. I'm wondering if you can also comment on this whole “under 15” or “under 10” situation and why those individuals should not be deported.
4:05 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
I'll give you one example of a misrepresentation, and in fact it is quite a common example. People don't fill forms out carefully, so they will put on their form that they studied until April 2006 and their educational certificate will show that they studied until September 2006. That's a misrepresentation that results in a two-year bar. Now it will result in the five-year bar. It's not intentional.
In fact, in one case I pulled out all this old contract case law where the court absolved CEOs for not reading the contract properly at the time. People don't read things carefully, so people are now being caught by these provisions, since the two-year bar went in, for doing silly little things like that. It's being used for literally anything that doesn't match up.
4:05 p.m.
As an Individual
It's even worse than that, because you can be barred for misrepresentation even if you didn't know what you were saying was false. For instance, you could father a child and not disclose the child, and you might not even know you have a child, because you haven't been in touch with the woman since that started. That's a misrepresentation that can lead to a bar.
4:05 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
I have another example. I can tell you about one that's going on right now.
A Canadian citizen sponsored her husband from Bangladesh. They went to the interview in Singapore, and the officer asked the husband, “How did your wife meet your sister?” His sister was in Canada. He said, “I think they worked at a place called the Bay. They met when they were working.” The officer called in the Canadian wife who happened to be there and said, “Have you ever worked?” She said, “No.” He said, “You're refused for misrepresentation.” They asked why. He said, “Because you didn't say you worked, or you didn't tell me you worked.” She said, “I did work when I was in university. I worked at the Bay part-time, but I didn't think I had to put that down.”
The Canadian citizen made the error, and they're barring her husband for two years. She's living in Bangladesh now, waiting for him to come over, because she didn't know to mention that she worked when she was a teenager.
These examples are not made up. They are not far-fetched. This is what's happening. Officers are going after everybody for any minor mistake. Now that bar would go from two years to five years. It has to be intentional. It has to be significant. The two years should be left alone. It's a very serious consequence.
4:05 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
With respect to the ones who came as children, I know that the European court's premise was that it's essentially like exile or banishment. If your home, your community, your family is in one country and that's the only life you know, then to send you away as an adult when everything you know is in France or England is harsh. It's too harsh.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Just to be clear on that particular point, every year thousands of minors would be coming to Canada as immigrants. What you are saying is that because they have called Canada their home for, in many cases, 10-plus years, they should be allowed to remain in Canada.
4:05 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
No, at a minimum, if it's not....
I mean, I think they should be allowed to remain. I have seen too many cases of people who came at six months, two years, or five years, and who don't know the country they came from. I don't think those people should ever be deported. I think they should be treated as quasi-citizens or the old concept of denizens, in that they have a status in Canada because of being here so long.
If you are going to include them in the deportation class, for heaven's sake at least get someone to look at their case before you deport them. Leave the appeal.
4:05 p.m.
As an Individual
As I mentioned, for people who come here before 18 and who've been here at least 10 years before the crime, those cases all go to headquarters now if there is no appeal. You're not going to be saving any time by cutting those people out of appeals. Headquarters processing takes a lot more time, frankly, than appeal board processing, so this population will not be removed more quickly.
4:10 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
Perhaps I could make one final comment on that.
I know that members feel there's a lot of support for this bill, but I honestly feel that when you call it the faster removal of foreign criminals act, people don't understand that you're talking about their brother or their sister who never became a Canadian citizen. They don't think you're talking about permanent residents of Canada. They don't know the difference. I think if you put it out there and said that you're talking about permanent residents of Canada, people's next-door neighbour, their nanny, their friend, people would feel very differently about it.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you as well to our guests today.
I want to touch base on the six months versus the two years less a day. You do recognize that throughout IRPA, some serious criminality is defined already as six months, and we're making changes to the one section with regard to the IAD. I've heard you mention many times that you think it's better to have the two-year requirement as opposed to six months.
I'm going to give you a couple of examples.
Jackie Tran is the first one I'm going to speak of. A permanent resident, in his late teens he was involved in crime in Calgary. His first conviction was at 19, for cocaine trafficking, in 2001. CBSA tried to deport him for six years. Despite having a long criminal record as a gangster and a major drug trafficker, he never received a single sentence of more than two years less a day. Therein lies the problem.
I have to ask you whether you think Jackie Tran was a serious criminal. That's the first question.
4:10 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
Well, I don't know about his particular circumstances, but it sounds like he—
4:10 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
I'm an immigration lawyer, not a criminal lawyer.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
No, I don't know his particular circumstances.
4:10 p.m.
Immigration Lawyer, As an Individual
These people aren't infamous throughout the country.
