Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 26th, 2012

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I'm okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay.

Madam Groguhé.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Chair, that means that we are forgetting what Ms. Clarke just said?

Fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm just the chairman.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Quite obviously, I would like to support this amendment because it is extremely important.

I would like to respond to Mr. Dykstra, who thinks the amendment will dilute the minister's powers. I think it will only define them. We heard testimonies that alerted us and that made reference to concerns about the minister's discretionary power.

I think it is important to consider all these testimonies. We want to limit and define the concept of public interest more specifically. We would also like to define the minister's discretionary powers.

This is just to clarify. I think we wanted to be clear from the beginning. We spoke about improvements and clarifications to be made to Bill C-43. I think we still have that same perspective. It's important that the government can follow our lead with this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Madam Groguhé.

Ms. Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

This is an instance when you may wish you had read out the amendment, because it helps to keep us all on the same page.

When you look at this amendment, what we've done is we have taken what the minister said was going to be in regulations and moved it into the legislation. It does not change any of the exclusions with respect to: “has promoted or glorified terrorist violence; has promoted or glorified a Iisted entity under...; has counselled, encouraged or incited others to commit terrorist activities; has incited hatred that is Iikely to lead to violence...; has promoted, counselled, encouraged or incited serious criminal activity; is a foreign national of a country against which Canada has imposed sanctions under the United Nations Act or the Special Economic Measures Act; is a former or current senior official of the government of that country, or is an associate or a relative of an official...; or is a foreign national who is a politically exposed foreign person listed in regulations made under the Freezing Assets of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act".

We took what the minister presented to us and moved it here. It was not to score points or to make political hay out of this. I wanted to condense these down to two or three, but we thought that no, we came here to make this legislation work. I'm hoping my colleagues across the way will see how far we have gone with this. We took up the invitation of the minister, who didn't see a problem with this being in the legislation. I hope that members will give it some serious thought before we move to the recorded vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chairperson, when Bill C-43 first came out, it was one of those hot issues which not only members of Parliament but many different stakeholders interested in this whole file jumped on. The issue is one of public policy considerations and how wide open that was. There was a great deal of concern. Then the minister, quite a bit later, indicated, “Well, you know, this is kind of like what I mean”. I'm happy that he has something now listed on the Internet, but those are all things that can change quite easily also. People need to be aware of and concerned about that.

The issue before us now is not whether the government will vote down this amendment. I will be voting against the amendment. However, there's got to be concerns in terms of where this particular list comes from. Is it all-encompassing? Is it possible that something might have been missed? We don't know. To what degree did we afford presenters the opportunity to come to the committee and say, “You're missing this” or “Why would you include this?”, in terms of the amendment?

That's why I think it's premature for us to support the amendment, but I do believe it highlights the importance, in terms of the whole public policy consideration, which is a huge flaw in the legislation itself. If we really want to deal with this, I would suggest that we defeat the amendment and then defeat the clause itself, and send it back to the drawing board. That's what I would recommend to all committee members.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Shall NDP-3 carry?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Recorded vote, please, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It's a recorded vote, Madam Clerk.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Chair, I don't think I have the words to express my great disappointment that our leap to make this legislation work was defeated.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're on amendment NDP-4.

Unless we hear from the committee, I will assume these amendments don't need to be read. Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Proceed.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

We also believe in maximum accountability and transparency when it comes to the exercise of ministerial powers. It doesn't really matter which political party is in power. We're talking about ministerial powers and it is not directed against one individual or one minister.

To that end, we are proposing an amendment to create a reporting mechanism to ensure greater oversight by parliamentarians, like ourselves. Specifically, the intent of this amendment is to promote transparency and accountability in the minister's exercise of the prescribed ministerial power by requiring that the minister include statistics on it in the annual report to Parliament on immigration, including information on: one, the total number of declarations made; two, the period of time for which the declarations were made; three, the number of declarations that were revoked or shortened; and four, the reasons the declarations were made.

Again, we think this is a reasonable amendment—so far we have failed to convince the other side—and hope that the committee members will vote in favour of greater transparency and accountability. After all, that is what we all want.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Chair, to reinforce the point, at the end of the day, whether it's amendment 3 or amendment 4, the fact is the minister is accountable to Parliament. Not being able to defer to ministry officials, not being able to defer to a court, not being able to defer to the IRB, he or she will be responsible fully to Parliament, because, on an annual basis, a report is going to be submitted. In fact, it happens already. It will include all of the issues of both negative and positive discretion.

I actually understand Ms. Sims' point here. I do think it is relevant. It is actually going to be addressed in the annual report that the minister must submit. He will include within that report the decisions made with respect to both negative and positive discretion.

Perhaps we could have Ms. Clarke or Ms. Sadek comment on the annual report, and how both the negative and positive discretion decisions will, in fact, make up part of that report.

[Karen Clarke]

Mr. Chair, I would like to add to some of my previous comments. There is flexibility. We may include information in the report on the instances when it was used.

I would like to highlight one point about the privacy of the individual. It would need to be respected in accordance with the Privacy Act. The information included in such a report could be similar to what we include today in terms of statistics that outline the uses of authorities.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Shall amendment NDP-4 carry?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I would like a recorded vote, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're doing well here.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 See [Minutes of Proceedings])

We are on amendment LIB-4. Go ahead, Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chairperson, I am going to read it so that people are aware of it.

I move that Bill C-43, in clause 8, be amended by adding after line 2 on page 3 the following:

(4) The Minister must, within 30 days of the coming into force of this section, table in each House of Parliament a list containing the criteria of public interest that will be used to determine the policy considerations to be taken into account for the purposes of subsection (1).

Mr. Chairperson, ultimately this would require that the minister table in Parliament the criteria used to determine denials, based on public policy considerations, 30 days following the coming into force of the bill. I think it takes it another step forward. That's as opposed to putting it on the Internet and having the minister decide one day to make a change. There would be no real accountability to the House.

I would encourage members to give it serious consideration.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Is there debate?

Go ahead, Mr. Dykstra.