Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 24th, 2018

[Peter Edelmann]

Even aside from the reasons with respect to the recognition of the United States as a safe third country, I think there are some very good practical reasons for suspending the agreement so that people can just come to the ports of entry, where the resources are, and make claims in an orderly fashion.

What we've done now is essentially create a de facto unofficial port of entry to allow for orderly claims, but they all come through Quebec. We see the same process happen in B.C., but it's through a park and it is not the most orderly process. It would be much more orderly if they could just come to the Peace Arch and make their claims, rather than walking through the park.

From a practical perspective, I think it's worthwhile to suspend the agreement.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

What the government needs to do is to create a plan. That plan needs to incorporate a suspension of the safe third country agreement. In my view, we need to increase the levels plan—not to set a quota, but to set the upper targets to adjust to the reality of what we are faced with today—and then to resource the IRB so they can process the claims adequately and expeditiously. We also need to resource the local communities and the provinces so they can provide the supports necessary for the asylum seekers.

Do I have this correct by way of a plan that the government needs to have in place?

I'm going to start with Professor Liew.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Very briefly.

[Jamie Liew]

Yes. Essentially yes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Edelmann.

[Peter Edelmann]

I agree with most of what you said, so yes, I would....

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Mr. Anandasangaree for seven minutes.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing some of my time with my colleague Greg Fergus.

First of all, thank you to the panel for joining us. I'd like to focus many of my questions on Jean-Nicolas Beuze. Can you just give us a sense of the situation globally with refugees and forcibly displaced people? I know it is often now referred to as a crisis. Can you tell us what similar countries to Canada—I know you mentioned Germany—and other European countries and Australia for example are going through? And for countries not as economically strong as Canada, what kinds of situations are they facing with asylum seekers?

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

We are saying there are several crises with refugees, but none in the western world. None of these are in Europe or North America as we speak. However, it is certainly a crisis for a country like Bangladesh, which over a period of six weeks received 700,000 people. At the peak of the Bangladeshi crisis, in the first week of September, Cox's Bazar, an impoverished part of the country where you have had the honour of going, received 50,000 people in one day. That is the equivalent of one year in Canada, a G7 country, with all of its resources and a functioning state. The Bangladeshi authorities have kept the border open. The Bangladeshi communities have opened their homes and shared their meagre meals.

We see this mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, in the Middle East, and in Asia. In comparison, as I was able to flag earlier on, Canada is only receiving a very small fraction of what has become a series of crises throughout the world, where people are more and more on the move. I repeat, last year, in 2017, we had the largest increase in refugees my organization has witnessed since its creation.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

In that context, when we look at Canada and what's happened here, we had just over 20,000 people cross last year. I think we're just under 10,000 so far this year. Can you maybe describe the situation? Would you consider this to be a crisis? Would you consider this to be irregular but managed?

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

It's definitely not a crisis. I think it's very well-managed. It's being done in an orderly and, I want to repeat, very humane manner. People are being temporarily arrested before they actually claim asylum and are processed through CBSA and then IRCC. It's done in a very smooth manner.

We have interviewed scores of people, both at the border and later in shelters, or in their own homes, or at those NGOs I was mentioning, and all have been praising.... It is not only the UNHCR that has said Canada has done well; all have been praising the way they have been received and handled by the different authorities in Canada.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Can you maybe comment on the situation in Toronto. I know there have been a number of questions about shelter and housing. How does the housing situation in Toronto compare with that in other major cities where there have been influxes of asylum seekers?

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

I don't have the actual numbers. Out of the 10,000 who crossed irregularly in Quebec, 3,000 may have arrived in Toronto, a city of 10 million inhabitants. In comparison, when I was posted in Lebanon, we had 1.2 million crossing in a few months into a country of 4 million inhabitants, where at least half of them didn't have running water or electricity. I won't go further than that.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

I think it's important to recognize. I know the issue of language training and other settlement services has been brought up. I think it's important that any host country extend those supports, but how essential are those to someone who, in their mind, is fleeing persecution?

[Jean-Nicolas Beuze]

It's essential that people can find a safe space where the family can be together and have some sense of privacy. After so many travels, often there is a sense that the dynamics within the family have been perturbed. That's why it's very important for them to get access to a shelter, but we know that a large number of them will very rapidly, within three, six, or nine months, be able to get out of those temporary shelters—they are temporary—and be able to rent affordable accommodation, whether in an urban or rural centre. We know that Quebec provides incentives to people to go to rural areas, where they can get additional support from the communities. Here again I need to praise the Canadian people. They have been extremely supportive in helping people find shelter, helping them to find jobs, helping them with language—

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Beuze. I do have to yield my time to Mr. Fergus.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You have one and a half minutes left.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

My questions, which will be very short, are for Mr. Beuze or Mr. Edelmann.

In your opening statement, at the top of our second half, you talked about the difference between irregular and illegal crossings. I think that's a very important distinction to make. I'd like to give you an opportunity to shed some more light on that for us.

[Peter Edelmann]

When you call something illegal, you have to be very specific about what you are referring to. You get into illegality on two fronts. The first involves the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In those cases, a conditional removal order has been issued to claimants. All refugee claimants are inadmissible by virtue of the fact that they lack the necessary documentation. They do not have a permanent resident visa when they arrive in Canada and make their claim. Whether they make their claim in an airport, at a port of entry, or elsewhere, all refugee claimants are inadmissible on that basis. Since the act allows for and deals extensively with refugee claims, as a lawyer, I find it hard to qualify someone as illegal when they have initiated a refugee claim. Doing so is not illegal because the act provides for exactly that.

The second arena is the criminal sphere. The so-called illegal crossings at Roxham Road raise two issues.

First, entering the country at a location that is not a port of entry is not against the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which states that a claimant can enter Canada anywhere they choose as long as they proceed to a port of entry as quickly as possible.

Second, the Customs Act requires a person to enter only at a customs office, but the act is meant to regulate goods, not people. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act sets out the regime governing people. Very few people make a refugee claim with the intention of violating the Customs Act, in my view. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is really the overriding factor here. As I already said, the problem could easily be fixed by having claimants cross by waterways and lakes and arrive at customs offices. I think that....

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. Edelmann. I'm sorry, but we have to end the meeting there.

We will now take a half-hour for lunch and then come back for the second meeting of the day.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.