Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 19th, 2014

[Martin Collacott]

My eight minutes start from now I hope.

I support the amendments to the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act. They give the provinces more flexibility without them losing funding. I think it's important to note that the proposed amendments will be another vital step in ensuring that there is not another pull factor for non-genuine refugee claimants in Canada.

The issue that we are talking about today is largely health care coverage. When Justice Mactavish made her decision in June to overturn the reductions that the government had made, she was praised by refugee advocacy groups, refugee lawyers, some medical practitioners, as well as prominent journalists.

What received almost no attention following the release of her judgment, however, was the fact that the reductions in services were not made in a vacuum. They were made because of concrete reasons involving widespread use of the refugee determination system.

Prior to the introduction of special treatment for claimants coming from DCOs, designated countries of origin, or safe countries of origin as they are generally called outside Canada, we were receiving thousands of claims from nationals of Hungary to the point where they constituted the largest number of claimants in Canada from any individual country. Since other countries did not consider them to be genuine refugees, almost none of their claims were accepted elsewhere. In 2010 Canada received 23 times as many claims from Hungarian nationals as did all other countries in the world combined. That is, out of 2,400 claims made worldwide, 2,300 were made in Canada. Then the number almost doubled to 4,400 in 2011.

Canada is by no means the only country that has had to deal with large numbers of questionable claims. Not long ago, for example, European member states received more than 19,000 applications from Serbian nationals in a two-year period, apparently because of the wide availability of information about benefits from asylum seekers. Of these, only 15 were successful in their claims. That is less than 1 in 1,000.

One of the means used in Europe to discourage people from designated countries of origin from applying for refugee status has been to accelerate the process into their claims and remove as quickly as possible the manifestly unfounded claims. Such rapid removal has no doubt deterred many from making such claims because, apart from the fact that they knew their applications were highly likely to be rejected in any event, they would be able to claim benefits only for a short period of time, which meant that the cost of getting to countries where they could make a claim would not be worth the time and effort.

Canada has accelerated the processing of such applications and this, probably in combination with the reduction of health care benefits, has resulted in a dramatic drop in such claims being made in the first place. I think Mr. Bissett mentioned this. By 2014, for example, claims by people from safe countries had fallen by 87% in Canada. In the case of Hungarian nationals, the decrease has been 97%, and with U.S. nationals it has been 80%.

Among other things, the dramatic reduction in the number of claims that are highly unlikely to have any merit will free up funds and staff time that will enable the refugee determination system to concentrate on the processing of claims of individuals who are much more likely to be in need of our protection.

The conclusion reached by Justice Mactavish that the measures taken by Canada were cruel and unusual, therefore, ignores the context in which the measures were taken and the fact that other countries faced with similar problems have taken firm steps to discourage claims by asylum seekers whose cases are highly likely to be without merit and slow down the processing of those more likely to be genuine. It's very similar.

Justice Mactavish also invoked section 15 of the Charter of Rights to say that it's discrimination to treat claimants differently.

The implication is that treating asylum seekers from designated countries such as Australia and the United States differently from those from non-DCOs such as Iran and Cuba, for example, is inconsistent with the charter. Therefore in her view the creation of the DCO list cannot be justified.

It is doubtful however whether the drafters of the charter ever had in mind that it be interpreted in this way.

Nor do questions relating to health care from asylum seekers apply only to those coming from DCOs. For example in 2013 Canada was finally able to remove convicted terrorist Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad who succeeded in entering the country in 1989 under a false identity. He avoided removal for more than two decades by using a multitude of available appeals and reviews and was provided throughout with a wide range of medical care for his health problems.

One of his later appeals was based on the argument he would suffer cruel and unusual punishment being sent back to his native Lebanon since the health care system there was not as good as in Canada.

Similar imbalances were seen in—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John McCallum]

Excuse me, Mr. Collacott, I have to interrupt you. The bells have gone, and you have two and a half minutes left. If there is unanimous consent we'll let you finish. Does anyone object?

Please finish.

[Martin Collacott]

Also in 2003 Canada accepted more claims from Sri Lanka, a non-DCO country, than all the rest of the world put together. So clearly something needed to be corrected in our refugee determination, not just for DCO nationals but for non-DCOs. There is a high level of public support in Canada for bringing in a reasonable number of genuine refugees. Even with the changes to health care provisions we continue to be one of the most generous countries in the world both in the support we provide as well as the numbers we take relative to the size of our population. Canadians in general however are justifiably concerned about widespread abuse of the refugee system and are no doubt strongly supportive of the more realistic levels of health care and the accelerated processing of some refugee claimants and asylum seekers that the government has introduced.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John McCallum]

Thank you very much.

My apologies to the witnesses that we have to cut this short. It's what one might call an act of God, a vote that we have no control over. We will go to vote and then we will come back to hear the remaining witnesses. We will not have a full session but if you wish to wait until after the other witnesses have spoken then we will have all the witnesses together to answer questions in the time that remains.

We will suspend now and hope to be back by ten minutes to five, if we're lucky, in any event as soon as possible after the vote and then we'll have as much time as we can for presentations and answering questions.

Thank you all very much. We'll be back as soon as we can.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John McCallum]

Ladies and gentlemen, since we don't have much time, I suggest we start. We have only until 5:30, so I would ask that the witnesses limit themselves to six minutes each or else we'll have no time for any questions, and certainly no time for questions from the third party. We have three witnesses, so that's six minutes each. That will take us to about 13 minutes past and then we have about 17 minutes left.

I'd ask Aaron Wudrick from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to speak for six minutes. Thank you.

[Aaron Wudrick, Federal Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here today and to speak on the subject matter of certain clauses within Bill C-43 and I thank the committee for the invitation.

Just quickly, my name is Aaron Wudrick and I'm the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Our advocacy is centred around three key principles: lower taxes, less waste, and accountable government. It's largely on this third principle of accountable government that I appear today to speak to these provisions. My remarks are fairly limited in scope. We support the changes proposed in these provisions for the simple reason that, from our standpoint, they are purely jurisdictional in nature. We, of course, are not experts in refugee or immigration policy and we take no position at all as to whether or not provinces should actually set minimum residency requirements. We merely believe that, as the level of government responsible for the delivery of social services, the provinces are also the appropriate level of government to retain the power to make such a decision without the risk of fiscal penalty from Ottawa.

In short, if it is objectionable for the provinces to have this power, surely it must also be objectionable that the provinces already have the same power with respect to determining eligibility for health care services. As committee members are likely aware, many provinces already set a minimum residency requirement for access to health care services.

In our view, most opponents of these provisions are conflating two very separate debates. The first is whether or not foreign refugee claimants should be subject to a minimum residency requirement. The second is whether provinces should be able to make this decision without being penalized by Ottawa. It is, of course, entirely appropriate to debate whether or not there should be minimum residency requirements, but, again, this is not the area I'm here to comment on. The only contribution to the debate made by these proposed changes, however, is ensuring that this debate takes place in the provincial legislatures, and we view that as a positive change.

In our view, the real principle underlying these proposed changes is respect for provincial jurisdiction. When different levels of government overstep their constitutionally defined areas of jurisdiction, accountability suffers because Canadians are left unclear as to who bears responsibility for what. Only when each level of government takes proper responsibility can Canadians pass judgment at election time as to whether or not they approve of these policy decisions. Indeed, the inappropriate use of the federal spending power by federal governments to encroach upon areas of provincial jurisdiction has long been an unfortunate source of federal-provincial tension. These proposed changes would be one small step towards reducing that tension.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John McCallum]

Well, thank you. That was very economical with regard to time. I appreciate that.

Our next witness is Loly Rico of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Welcome to you.

[Loly Rico, President, Canadian Council for Refugees]

Good afternoon. First of all, we want to say thank you to the chair and the committee members for allowing the Canadian Council for Refugees to present our position on clauses 172 and 173 of Bill C-43.

I am not going to read the whole submission, because it will take longer than the six minutes. I am going to focus on one of the points.

Just to let the members know, if they don't know, the Canadian Council for Refugees is a national umbrella organization that is made up of 170 members that work for refugees and immigrants. We are firmly opposed to the proposed amendments. As you see in our written submission, we have several concerns.

One point we want to share with the members is that we are not the only ones. We presented an open letter to the Minister of Finance, Joe Oliver, where 160 organizations were opposed to the amendments. These organizations represent not only refugees but also health, poverty, and human rights sectors, faith communities, women, and legal advocates. Among them are national, local, and provincial organizations. The main reason why we oppose these amendments is that refugee claimants are the most vulnerable population.

I want to give you a specific case, because in all the presentations we talk about refugee claimants in very broad terms. I work specifically with women and children. This is the experience of one refugee claimant whom I welcomed in my daily work. She is from the Congo. She fled persecution and even jail. Her family sold everything to protect her life. She arrived at Pearson airport and claimed refugee status. She didn't have money. She got to one of our refugee houses.

She has 15 days to present her basis of claim and to get a legal aid certificate. She also needs to have her medical exams. Once she has completed the BOC and the medical exams, she is allowed to apply for a work permit. That will take between three and four months. At the same time, she has to prepare herself to present her refugee case at the refugee hearing two months after she has arrived.

Imagine that she is living... I am talking about a case that is in a major city, but imagine that this woman went from Pearson to a refugee house in Windsor. She has to go and see her lawyer in Toronto. She has to go and do her refugee hearing in Toronto without money. Just put yourself in her shoes. At the same time, she doesn't have money to pay rent. She will be in a homeless shelter with other people, and one of the challenges she will face is that she won't have the right support.

With this example and this situation I'm presenting you with, these amendments are clearly targeting refugee claimants. Even though refugee claimants are not mentioned in the amendments, all the criteria and all the categories are there. That means this is a clear violation of the principle of human rights, because it is treating refugee claimants in a different and discriminatory way.

We need to remember, as some of the presenters expressed before, that Canada is a signatory to human rights international treaties, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in which we recognize the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance.

In addition, you need to take into consideration that refugee claimants are not only adults, but there are also children among them. Canada is a signatory country to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and has an obligation to protect children and provide basic services to them, including refugee claimants' children.

They were talking about the settlement organizations that serve immigrants and refugees. I want to clarify that the settlement organizations funded by the federal government are not giving services to refugee claimants, because they do not fit the eligibility criteria.

The eligibility criteria for immigrants and settlement organizations covers only immigrants and government-assisted refugees, and some of the sponsorship. That's a clarification of what happened at the beginning of the afternoon.

We are very sorry to see that the Canadian government is applying changes and amendments. They are considered in other countries.... Looking at the U.K., Peter Showler explained to you that they provide social services. But in 2003 the U.K. removed social assistance to asylum seekers, and in 2005 the House of Lords ruled that this provision was inhuman and degrading treatment. That means the court found that the cuts didn't deter the asylum seekers from going to the U.K. This is not going to stop refugee claimants from coming to Canada. These provisions of the House of Lords were used by the court when they told the Canadian government to re-institute the interim federal health program.

One of the things that I want to bring is that in my—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John McCallum]

Sorry, Ms. Rico, your—

[Loly Rico]

I just want to suggest to the committee to review the amendments and consider that you are reducing and taking away services to future Canadians. They will come to this country and they will give enrichment to this country.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John McCallum]

Well, thank you very much.

Our next witness is Ms. Avvy Go of Colour of Poverty - Colour of Change Network. Welcome to you.

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go, Member, Steering Committee, Colour of Poverty - Colour of Change Network]

Thank you.

The network is actually a provincial network, based in Ontario, of individuals and organizations that are working to address the growing racialization of poverty in Ontario. I'm also the clinic director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, which is also a member of the network.

I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to you today about the amendments. We've also signed the letter that Ms. Rico mentioned earlier. We believe that the amendments as proposed are discriminatory and illogical and contradict the federal government's stated commitment to poverty reduction.

The proposed amendments purport to give provinces the power to impose minimum residency requirements on certain groups of individuals based on refugee or immigration status. While on its face these sections are silent as to which groups of individuals will be excluded from receiving social assistance, the combined effect of the residency requirement and the enumerated groups of individuals who are exempt makes it abundantly clear that the only and real targets of these provisions are refugee claimants.

As many speakers have talked about before, refugees are among the most vulnerable in our society. They often arrive in Canada with nothing, just the shirt on their back, so these provisions, if implemented, will effectively render them ineligible for even the bare minimal amount of support they need for food and shelter. These sections are clearly discriminatory towards refugees, the vast majority of whom are racialized, so they face additional barriers not simply because they're refugees, but also because they are people of colour.

Further, the bill will have a disproportionate impact on refugees who are the most vulnerable, namely women, children, and people with mental health issues or post-traumatic stress disorder. They are also the ones who are most likely to rely on social assistance when they first arrive in Canada.

As many have mentioned, the bill violates international human rights laws that prohibit discrimination. It's contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including section 15, the equality rights, and section 12, the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

I also want to say that there are other problems with the bill apart from it's being discriminatory. First, it draws an artificial distinction between refugees and refugee claimants while denying assistance to all refugees, including those who will eventually be accepted as protected persons under our refugee determination system.

Second, the provisions are actually self-contradictory; for instance, by exempting only victims of human trafficking who hold a temporary residency permit but not those who apply for a refugee claim when they first arrive in Canada.

The provisions actually purport to give provinces the powers that they say they do not want and will likely not exercise due to the serious concerns about the human rights breach resulting from the provisions. The provinces, by the way, already have rules that will disentitle visitors if someone is concerned that visitors will get assistance. They already have rules around that, so they don't need any new power.

The proposal is touted as a cost-cutting measure without considering the real cost that would be borne by Canadian taxpayers in the form of increased use of homeless shelters, food banks, emergency care, and hospitals when refugees become ill after they become homeless and hungry.

Besides, if the goal is to discourage individuals who don't need protection from coming to Canada, there is actually no evidence that in fact it will do so. Meanwhile, refugees, all refugees, will be painted with the same brush and be affected in the same way.

But at a more fundamental level, we're also opposed to these provisions because they undermine the role of the federal government in poverty reduction. The passage of these sections will signal to Canadians that the Government of Canada does not believe in reducing poverty. It suggests that the government is wanting to download its responsibility onto provinces, territories, and municipalities by eroding the national standard that sets the bare minimum baseline security for all Canadians and by downloading the costs of caring for the most vulnerable among us. While the government's immediate goal might be to deny refugee claimants access to social assistance, this very blunt instrument it has chosen to achieve that goal will, in the long run, hurt all Canadians.

Therefore, we think it's a good idea for this committee to call on the government to remove these sections from Bill C-43.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John McCallum]

Thank you very much.

We have only enough time for one full round, which means seven minutes for the Conservatives, seven minutes for the NDP, and five minutes for the Liberals. I ask the Conservatives to go first.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me start off by thanking our witnesses for appearing before us today. I listened very carefully to all of the testimony that took place.

To start my questions I'd like to direct my first question to Mr. Wudrick.

Mr. Wudrick, this bill gives the power to the provinces and territories to establish minimum periods of residence to qualify for welfare. This clearly does not exist at this time and, in fact, there will be no change in what social welfare services are given to asylum claimants or refugees.

Jurisdictionally speaking, how would it make sense to keep the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act the way it is? Doesn't it make sense to give the provinces complete power to do what they please?

[Aaron Wudrick]

If by complete power you mean the power to do....I believe they have the power right now. They simply will have a fiscal penalty if they choose to exercise it, and that's exactly why we feel this is a completely jurisdictional issue.

Many other folks have made excellent arguments in favour of not introducing a minimum residency requirement. We take no position at all on that issue. We think if that argument is so powerful, it will also resonate in the provincial capitals and this will effectively lead to no change whatsoever on refugee claimants.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

With respect to what we have heard about this particular facilitative change that has been implemented in the budget implementation act 2, we believe the provincial jurisdiction should be respected by the federal government. This will allow the provinces and territories to decide about the social services that are under their purview already.

I wanted to make that point because it seems to me that with different things I've heard today, plus before today, we're going off on a little bit of a tangent as if there's some kind of a hidden motive somewhere. That, indeed, is not the case. It is not the government's objective to take away social assistance from those who need it. In fact, government-assisted refugees and privately sponsored refugees are exempt from this provision anyhow.

Mr. Bissett, sir, thank you for appearing before us again. I think you have been before us before.

On Monday, we heard from Department of Citizenship and Immigration officials and they reiterated seven times that this is merely a facilitative amendment, and that this is a federal act of Parliament. It was recently brought to the attention of the federal government, by the Province of Ontario, that there was a component of the act that could serve as a barrier to some provinces, and the government is therefore removing this barrier.

Can you comment on this?

[James Bissett]

I wasn't sure what the Ontario government's concern was, but it seems to me that what we have been discussing here today is at two levels. One is a jurisdictional change, or a housekeeping change. Other than that, it's a dire threat to the whole asylum system and the refugee program.

I prefer to think, as has been indicated by the officials, that it really puts the responsibility in the hands of the provincial governments where it should rest.

That may not answer your question, but I'm not aware of what the Ontario government was driving at.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

That actually answers my question. This change is not binding. It's their choice as to whether or not they do it in the first place, if the provinces and territories avail themselves of this.

[James Bissett]

Quite frankly, I'd be very surprised if any province would take this as an opportunity to cut off asylum seekers or make them face a residency period of time. I think it's a straw man.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

As you know, there will be no change in what social services are given—

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Point of order. I think when you ask questions, I don't kick in, so I'd appreciate it if you would let me ask my questions, please. Thank you very much.

As you know, there will be no change in what social welfare services are given to asylum claimants or refugees but rather it's just giving the provinces the option to do as they please. We've said that already. I want to ask Mr. Wudrick, does the Canadian Taxpayers Federation believe that the federal government should be involved in provincial business at all?

[Aaron Wudrick]

No, you probably would be unsurprised to know that the Taxpayers Federation is quite firm on respecting provincial jurisdiction. In fact, there are probably other pieces of legislation we could get into if we had the time or if we feel that provincial jurisdiction is not being respected. But in this case we think that this change would simply put the power back into the hands of the right level of government.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

We also learned on Monday from the officials who appeared before us that the reason the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, as it stands now with the penalty in place, was established in the first place was just to give the provinces flexibility. Currently under the Canada Health Act it allows for a minimum wait period from province to province. The government did not want this to be the same for social assistance. Now the government is making it clear with this amendment to this bill in the BIA that Canadian citizens and permanent residents must stay exempt from any minimum wait time in order to align with the original intentions. That gives power, if you will, to equal the provision to what Canadians and permanent residents get today.

How do you feel about this?

[Aaron Wudrick]

I'm not sure what exactly the question is.