Evidence of meeting #106 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was decision-makers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Okay, I understand.
As we are seeing increasingly, the budget approach seems to favour hiring people for short periods of time.
Does that preference for shorter terms affect the training your members receive and the importance of the files they are assigned?
National Executive Vice-President, Canada Employment and Immigration Union
It absolutely does, and not just at the IRB, but also across the public sector. We've seen a decline in the mental health of employees as a result of being constantly asked to do more with less. Being underfunded at the IRB for years has affected the entire board. The amount of stress and the amount of pressure to produce is no doubt affecting people's health. It's affecting the quality of their work. We're being pressured to move toward making faster decisions and having more paper-based processes instead of giving the asylum process the respect it's due by properly resourcing it. We've been understaffed for years at all levels. Even with two-year funding it's going to take at least six months for a decision-maker to start feeling really confident in that boardroom, so between trying to recruit them and training them, the money is almost gone. There has to be longer-term funding.
Liberal
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming, Ms. Warner.
You asked at the outset why you were here, and I will say that the reason I voted in favour of doing this study is that the IRB had come into disrepute, or was seen to be coming into disrepute as a result of certain very high-profile media stories about the conduct of members. Hopefully our recommendations around appointments, training, and the complaints processes will help that. Your testimony today is very helpful, so thank you for coming.
Yours is as well, Ms. Jacobs, and I'll start with you. There seems to be a disconnect in some of the testimony we've been hearing from witnesses around what they perceive to be the motivations, or the primary role, of the chair. Ms. Jacobs, do you think that Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner is inherently there to protect the other judges, or do you think his role is more to protect the administration of justice?
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Are you saying that you believe the chief justice is there to protect the judges?
Prof. Laverne Jacobs
No, the role is both. If I understood, you asked whether it is to protect the public—
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
No. Is his role to protect the judges or to protect the administration of justice?
Prof. Laverne Jacobs
Okay, sorry. It's definitely to protect the administration of justice.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Then with respect to Mr. Aterman, why do you believe his role is to protect the IRB members and not to protect the administration of justice?
Prof. Laverne Jacobs
I don't think I said his role is to protect the tribunal members.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
You actually said in your answer to Ms. Alleslev's question that the public would perceive that he is inherently there to protect the members.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Is he there to protect the other decision-makers or to protect the administration of justice within his department?
Prof. Laverne Jacobs
I don't think it's that easy, right? He will always be perceived as being there to protect the integrity of the tribunal. This is not just the IRB; any tribunal chair will always be perceived as having an interest in making the tribunal look its best. That's what I was trying to say.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
I don't think that's the same as what you said earlier, and I'm glad you've been able to clarify. Protecting the integrity of the tribunal would mean getting rid of bad members, and I think he would also understand that to be his role, not to protect the members. Maybe you erringly said that earlier.
On a similar note, Ms. Warner, I'm trying to rationalize in my head the role of a potentially independent complaint process, which has been suggested by many of the witnesses before our committee, and whether that jibes with the potential for public servant decision-makers on the board. It seems to me that there's an inherent disconnect between what most of the witnesses have suggested and your testimony. Is it your view that the independent adjudicative process on complaints is inherently at odds with the labour management complaints regime that currently exists—
National Executive Vice-President, Canada Employment and Immigration Union
Yes.
Liberal
National Executive Vice-President, Canada Employment and Immigration Union
I have concerns about it, but without more information on what that process would look like, I couldn't really comment further.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Would it be easier to have members who are simply not public servants, and have more clerks, as you've suggested, who would be unionized and managed as labour by the the chair of the IRB? It just seems the previous system wouldn't run into these problems.
National Executive Vice-President, Canada Employment and Immigration Union
I wouldn't agree with that. I don't think that would be simpler. The way the board has been conducting its affairs is fair. Any system is going to have problems. There are always going to be individuals who are not suited for their positions.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Sure, but I wonder whether the regime is wrong, because you're referring to the relationship between the chair and the members of the panels as being an employer-employee relationship, or a manager-and-labour relationship. When I view the role of the chair in managing the administration of justice within the department, it's clearly not. The members are not the employees of the chair; they're independent adjudicators. Thus, it seems to me that it's completely at odds. The view you expressed of the relationship with the chair is not the same as my understanding.
Maybe we'll get to that with Mr. Aterman later, but do you have any comment on that? There seems to be a disconnect in the role.
National Executive Vice-President, Canada Employment and Immigration Union
No.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
With respect to staffing at the IRB, can you more broadly describe the role of the clerks? We've heard a lot about the role of the members. It seems to me that maybe one of the problems we're running into relates to staffing at the clerk level. You're the first person to have raised that before us, so if you could speak more broadly to that, it would be very helpful.
National Executive Vice-President, Canada Employment and Immigration Union
It goes back to being under-resourced. As I mentioned, we used to have different positions that no longer exist at the board, that provided an extra layer of support to our decision-makers. Those positions were eliminated in 2012 with the new legislation. As a result, as I mentioned, our decision-makers are spending too much time doing administrative work that could be done by registry support staff.
