Evidence of meeting #33 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was province.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Davenport, NDP
Right, but do we know that this is true?
Is there a report out there that shows that this measure is going to do what the government is saying it's going to do?
4:50 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I haven't seen a study directly on social benefits. Obviously, the provinces might have those kinds of studies.
4:50 p.m.
Davenport, NDP
In response to my colleague, Ms. Sitsabaiesan, about whether these changes are charter-compliant, I believe you said that the provinces should consider this if they decide to make some changes, that they should seek legal advice.
Are you telling this committee that the government doesn't know whether this is charter-compliant? Is that what you're saying?
4:50 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No, that wouldn't be what I'm saying. In the course of developing policy, bringing forward legislation, or measures that would be in a budget, there would be legal advice that the government receives. Obviously, it wouldn't be putting forward legislation that runs counter to legal principles or the charter.
4:50 p.m.
Davenport, NDP
When the Province of Ontario raised concerns about those exact things, what did the department or the government say to the province to allay their concerns about subsequent charter challenges?
4:50 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I wouldn't be in a position to disclose the precise nature of conversations between two governments. In general terms, if a province were to choose to go down this route, it would have to do its own policy analysis and get its own advice about the legal implications of moving in any sort of direction in terms of its policy design.
4:50 p.m.
Davenport, NDP
Is this measure, if taken up by the provinces, charter-compliant?
4:50 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I wouldn't be in a position to be a legal counsel to the provincial governments that might be considering any number of—
4:50 p.m.
Davenport, NDP
Let me ask it a different way. Did the department get a legal opinion on this?
4:50 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The department would always get legal advice about any policy measure.
4:50 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
If the measure is coming forward, it's because the legal advice we received—
4:50 p.m.
Davenport, NDP
But we have seen the government wrapped up in the courts on a number of different pieces of legislation and lose, in fact. What you're saying is, “Well, if it's coming forward, then it has obviously met the charter requirements”.
4:50 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
That's right. I can say two things. I can say that I can't disclose the legal advice we've received because that's privileged. The second thing I can say is that, as a general matter of principle, all government measures are subjected to legal advice.
We operate on the basis—
4:50 p.m.
Davenport, NDP
Just as an aside, Canadians pay for those legal challenges when they happen. It would be nice for Canadians to know what the legal advice and legal opinions are for legislation that comes forward.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Devinder Shory
Thank you, Mr. Cash.
Mr. Menegakis, you have seven minutes.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Costas Menegakis Conservative Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you.
I'm going to touch a bit on Mr. Cash's line of questioning, specifically with charter compliance.
I think what Mr. de Vlieger has been saying is that, as with all legislation or changes we bring forth, it is vetted through the legal process before the government brings it forward. Now whether it is subject to challenge in the court or not.... The vast majority of legislation that our government has put through certainly has been charter-compliant and has not even been challenged
Having said that, I would say to my friend and colleague Mr. Cash that the Canadian people do know that the government does not behave irresponsibly when it comes up with legislation. It comes up with legislation that is vetted through the legal process and gets that legal opinion. It was a positive legal opinion, which is why this measure is in this bill. Moving forward, should someone decide to challenge that, we will see how the courts will decide down the road. However, we're very confident in the legislation that we put through. In fact, in 100% of the cases, we have positive legal opinions from Justice and from the legal people within the department.
Now, I want to talk a bit about social assistance itself. One of the points that some members in the House have tried to bring up is that this will somehow impede the ability of asylum claimants to receive the social assistance they should be getting.
I want to hear from our officials on whether this legislative change, or this “facilitative change”, as you put it, is binding on the provinces. Do they have to put up specific timeframes for someone to be in their province before they are offered social assistance, or not?
4:55 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The provinces have sole responsibility for designing their social benefit regimes in terms of rates and eligibility.
The only federal condition that was applied was in relation to the Canada social transfer, and that was about minimum residency. That's the condition that's now being narrowed.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Costas Menegakis Conservative Richmond Hill, ON
Other than the ready access to social assistance, were there other government programs that created a pull factor for what we would call non-genuine refugee claimants?
4:55 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Again, I'm not aware of a specific study.
However, certainly in the process of looking at the refugee reforms that were brought forward in 2012, as a government, we were looking at irregular patterns of migration. There were some countries that seemed to generate a large number of unfounded or abandoned claims. The reforms that were brought in during 2012 looked to address some of the issues, for instance, around the length of time that it took to process an Immigration and Refugee Board process.
A lot of those things were looked at, and as a result there has been a dramatic change in some of those categories. The numbers of claims are down overall, and the acceptance rates are up. We were looking as a government from a policy perspective at some of those considerations around pull factors, as you called them, things that might incentivize some of these unfounded claims. Those were some of the things we looked at.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Costas Menegakis Conservative Richmond Hill, ON
With respect to asylum claimants and refugees, Canadians are very compassionate, very understanding people. We want to be of assistance to those who need that particular attention. However, what we hear from Canadians is that if you're not a genuine refugee claimant and want to avail yourself of social assistance that is not due to you, that is not a good thing. That is not something that Canadians want to do. Programs are there for people who need the assistance. That point needs to be made repeatedly. What we hear from Canadians is that any assistance that refugees get should not be different than the assistance that Canadians get. It should not be more than what Canadians get, nor do we want it to be any less.
Can you compare this to any other acts in the government? For example, the Canada Health Act was established in 1985, and it provides provinces and territories in Canada with the ability to impose a minimum residency period. Do any provinces impose a minimum residency period for that?
4:55 p.m.
Acting Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, the Canada health transfer is not as much my field. My colleague might have something to say about it, but my understanding is the same as yours, that it doesn't have the same condition that the Canada social transfer does in terms of minimum residency.
Then, in fact, some provinces.... My colleague might have the full facts, but certainly the Province of Ontario has, I believe, a 90-day period before you can access OHIP benefits, but I'm not sure...across the country. But you're right that the Canada health transfer doesn't have the same condition in terms of minimum residency requirements.
5 p.m.
Conservative
5 p.m.
Chief, Canada Health Transfer (CHT)/Canada Social Transfer (CST) and Northern Policy , Department of Finance
I can just add the citation from the Canada Health Act, Section 11. It's called portability. Under 11. (1) (a) of the Canada Health Act:
(1) In order to satisfy the criterion respecting portability, the health care insurance plan of a province (a) must not impose any minimum period of residence in the province, or waiting period, in excess of three months before residents of the province are eligible for or entitled to insured health services.
Just going through the Canada Health Act annual report, which is tabled each year—I just went through the 2012-13 report for today—in terms of insured persons who are moving between provinces and territories, what the portability provision requires is that if an insured person moves from one province to another, there is a waiting period in the province they're moving to, but they're still covered by the province they left. The periods in which that occurs will vary—the first day of the third month, for example. Other than that it's as I described, which is that the portability requirement must not impose a minimum period in excess of three months.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Devinder Shory
Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.
Now we are back to Ms. Sitsabaiesan.