Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 11th, 2018

[Ramez Ayoub]

I have barely a minute left.

Mr. Cohen, as you mentioned, there is a labour shortage. Not enough emphasis is placed on the cost of that lack of resources. The emphasis is put instead on the cost of receiving refugees or people who could eventually contribute to the Canadian economy. Accelerating their integration and their arrival would offset the shortfall in the Canadian economy.

That is important for the economy. It would develop much faster. What is your opinion on that, Mr. Cohen?

[Bruce Cohen]

I believe you are accurate in your assessment.

[Ramez Ayoub]

Thank you.

[Dana Wagner, Canadian Partnerships Advisor, Talent Beyond Boundaries]

It's our hypothesis that some of the skilled refugees we're working with upon entry into, again, meaningful, well-paid, full-time jobs will see a lot of success in really early days in Canada. It's also really worth pointing out that a big part of what we're trying to do is open up complementary pathways to Canada's existing resettlement and refugee stream. We know that even within the refugee stream, when people are not arriving with employment, it still doesn't say anything about their success, even in the near term.

For example, we know that five years, I think, after arrival, income for refugees in Canada is almost on par in terms of middle-class income with Canadians and with other immigrants. It's worth reminding ourselves that there is a lot of success for those arriving.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Ms. Wagner.

Thank you to the panel.

We'll suspend for just a moment while we bring in our second panel. Two are by video conference and one is in person.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I will call the meeting back to order for our second hour.

We have two witnesses via video conference. They happen to be together, although they are from different organizations. They will each have seven minutes, as will Ms. Mina, who is here in person.

Let's begin with Ms. Abuzgaya from the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic. Then we will go to Mr. Hussan, and then Ms. Mina.

Take it away.

[Yasmine Abuzgaya, Staff Lawyer, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic]

Honourable Chair and committee members, We are honoured and grateful to have the opportunity to speak to you today about the gaps and challenges in Canada's refugee and immigration policies.

First, I will provide you with some background on the clinic. The Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic is unique in Canada. It is the only clinic that provides specialized services for women who have experienced violence. Since 1985, the clinic has provided legal representation, counselling and language interpretation services to over 65,000 women. Over the years, we have experienced a steady increase in the number of women seeking our assistance. In 2017, we assisted 4,700 women. This year, we saw an 84% increase in service requests, assisting over 7,000 women.

Today the clinic submits that the official Canadian migration policy remains problematic, unresponsive and insensitive to the needs of vulnerable survivors of gender-based violence. Canada's refugee and immigration policies fall short of the government's international obligations and public stance in favour of gender recognition and equality.

We will focus our submissions on two broad areas. First, Canada's strict border control policies, including the safe third country agreement with the United States, impose severe barriers to entry on vulnerable women and expose women to a higher risk of being trafficked. Second, Canada's migration system perpetuates gender-based violence through its procedural aspects as well as through its impacts.

Starting with our first area of concern, female migrants fleeing gender-based violence face a number of barriers in seeking asylum in Canada.

The safe third country agreement with the U.S. is based on a presumption of safety, namely, that the U.S. is capable of resolving refugee and asylum claims. Thus, any incoming asylum seekers to Canada, subject to certain narrow exceptions, are presumed to already be safe. Given the current conduct of officials in the U.S., it may no longer be accurate to say that women fleeing gender-based violence are safe upon arrival there.

Canada is experiencing a dramatic increase in irregular border crossings from asylum seekers who are unable to enter Canada through official channels because of the safe third country agreement. This exposes women who are fleeing gender-based violence to a higher risk of being trafficked.

We recommend the measures that serve to restrict access to Canada's borders, especially the safe third country agreement, should be abandoned effective immediately.

Next, we'll briefly highlight some of the concerns surrounding Canada's immigration system and how it perpetuates gender-based violence through its procedure and impact.

One of the most blatant forms of violence faced by migrants who enter the country irregularly is immigration detention. Female migrants fleeing gender-based violence face an increased risk of detention, as they are unlikely to be carrying identification documents, particularly when they are fleeing domestic violence.

Detention is traumatizing for survivors of gender-based violence, because detention replicates the experiences of confinement, abduction and sexual assault that led them to flee in the first place. Additionally, children are routinely detained by immigration authorities or separated from their parents, which exacerbates the powerlessness and trauma experienced by survivors and causes grave mental health consequences for children.

Another way in which Canada's refugee system unwittingly perpetuates violence against women is through the designated country of origin provisions. Under section 109 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the minister of immigration may designate a country as one which meets the basic requirements of a democracy, also known as a DCO.

The issue with the DCO provisions is that a presumption of safety fails to account for how gender-based violence operates. Violence against women remains widespread in many countries that appear stable and democratic. Often in cases of gender-based violence, the state plays an indirect role in facilitating the violence. For example, the police may systemically fail to respond to allegations of domestic abuse or rape, or there may be excellent black letter laws in place on the books, but authorities just don't enforce them. Therefore, we submit that the presumption of safety should not apply in cases involving gender-based violence.

Another problematic provision is paragraph 117(9)(d) of the immigration and refugee protection regulations which requires that applicants for permanent residency disclose all relatives on their initial application. Any undisclosed relatives are ineligible to be sponsored in the future.

In the clinic's experience, non-disclosure is often incidental to or the result of either miscommunication, a failure to understand expectations and consequences, or pressure from external forces. Non-disclosure can jeopardize a woman's ability to sponsor her relatives in the future. To prevent these women from sponsoring their family members at a later point in their lives runs contrary to key fundamental objectives of Canadian immigration law, including family reunification, and unduly punishes women facing gender-based violence.

The clinic submits that the federal government should repeal paragraph 117(9)(d).

The next problematic piece of Canada's current immigration policies relates to how the caregiver program enables employers to exploit survivors of gender-based violence. Canada has had labour migration programs for live-in or home-based caregivers since the 1950s. The program was most recently restructured in November 2014. However, the restructuring maintained most of the elements of the earlier live-in caregiver program, which marginalizes migrant caregivers and introduces new challenges that create further risks of exploitation.

Migrant caregivers are able to work in Canada only on what are called tied work permits, which allow them to work only for a specific employer, doing a specific job at a specific location and for a limited time period. Any work that's done outside of those parameters is called undocumented work, which can render a migrant worker deportable or make them ineligible for future work or permanent residency.

The caregiver program enables employers to exploit migrant caregivers through wage theft, extremely long work hours and excessive work demands. Migrant caregivers are also often subject to sexual harassment or assault. The frequency of this issue has actually led the clinic to develop a specialized clinical program in advice for precarious workers who face economic coercion and sexual violence.

In February 2018 the government announced that it would be changing the current caregiver program, and it would end in November 2019. However, there have been no details as of yet regarding what that looks like.

Since 2017 the clinic has also seen a rise in the number of cases in which sponsored spouses and partners who leave relationships due to abuse and violence are investigated for marriage fraud. To penalize women for leaving abusive relationships is antithetical to Canada's continued claim to gender equality. Additionally, fraud investigations discourage women from leaving abusive situations and relationships, out of fear that that they will erroneously be found guilty of fraud and deported. Sensitivity toward and an awareness of gender-based violence are necessary. Once it's determined that the spouse left the relationship because of gender-based violence, fraud investigations should cease. For these reasons, we urge Parliament to conduct a comprehensive gender-based analysis of the impact of Canada's immigration policies and procedures.

Changes to Canada's immigration regime must include a commitment to a gendered analysis, recognizing the unique pathways and drivers of migration for women, in a system that was designed with the migration patterns of men in mind.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Mr. Hussan.

[Syed Hussan, Coordinator, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change]

Good afternoon.

My name is Syed Hussan, and I am the co-founder and coordinator of the Migrant Workers Alliance, Canada's largest migrant worker rights coalition. Our members represent almost all the self-organized migrant worker groups in Ontario. I also help steer the Migrants' Rights Network, a Canada-wide national body that aims to represent all self-organized migrant and refugee groups in the country.

On behalf of our organizations, we want to make four key recommendations that we believe this committee has not heard yet.

First, Canada must create permanent immigration programs for workers in low-wage streams. Specifically, care workers, farm workers and other temporary foreign workers in low-wage streams deemed low skilled must be allowed to come to Canada with permanent immigration status. Migrant and undocumented people already in the country must be given permanent immigration status. Levels and mixes of immigration must be revamped to ensure this change.

Second, Canada must immediately halt all deportations to Haiti and place a moratorium on deportations to countries that Canada has a travel advisory for.

Third, Canadian immigration and refugee policy must account for Canada's and its corporations' role in forced displacement, including the impact of Canadian mining companies, Canadian arms exports, and Canadian emissions on creating the conditions for migration.

Finally, we urge all political parties to not criminalize or politicize migration. We specifically call for an end to divisiveness and pitting migrants, refugees and citizens against each other.

Let me elaborate on these four recommendations.

First, it is important to note that there is nothing temporary about the temporary foreign worker program. The seasonal agricultural worker program is over half a century old. Women have been coming to perform care work in Canadian homes since Canada's very inception. So-called low-skilled work is a permanent need and part of our economy, particularly in the absence of a national care strategy. To deny permanent residency status to workers performing the essential work of raising our families, taking care of our sick and feeding our communities, and to assert simultaneously that they are temporary, is both inhumane and factually incorrect.

The caregiver program is expiring. It is a program where a pathway to permanent residency exists but is largely inaccessible. According to a study conducted by care worker organization members, which I'm submitting to the committee, the vast majority of migrant care workers are facing wage theft, labour exploitation, human rights violations, lack of dignified living arrangements, and physical and mental health deterioration due to family suppression.

A pathway is not available to many of the other migrant worker streams. This is not the case of a few bad employers. The structure of the program is such that abuse takes place. This is why care workers are calling for a federal care worker program.

A few weeks ago, director general Philippe Massé of ESDC presented to you an outline of steps taken by them to expand migrant worker rights. In my last meeting with the director general, I received information about a group of migrant Jamaican women who had been working for three straight months without a single day off, for over 12 hours a day, without full meals, working toilet facilities, breaks or livable sleeping arrangements. Upon asking for their basic rights, the employer drove them to the airport, handed them tickets, and watched them cross into customs.

Despite my sharing this information directly with the director general and his support staff, something almost no migrant worker can do, ESDC was not able to provide us with any basic guarantees or assist the workers, most of whom left. This is because the very principle aligning the temporary foreign worker program is to provide workers, deemed commodities, to employers, rather than to uphold worker rights.

The temporary foreign worker program cannot be fixed by minor tweaks or rights education. We need a fundamental restructuring away from temporariness towards permanent resident status upon arrival.

Second, Canada currently has a travel advisory issued for Haiti due to civil unrest, yet deportations to Haiti continue. This has put tremendous numbers of people at great risk. The federal government halted removals in November, but has since reinstated them. The same is true for removals to Somalia and other countries facing unrest. Canada's deportation policies must be brought into alignment with actual geopolitics. No one should be deported to places where their lives will be at risk.

Third, the global compact on migration, as you know, is a toothless, unenforceable document. After years of meetings and tremendous amounts of money spent, we deserve a global agreement that works to end displacement and ensures rights for migrants in receiving countries. The GCM fails to do both.

It is essential that immigration and refugee policies be closely linked to questions of accountability and responsibility. We cannot separate the question of Haitian refugees from that of Canada's complicity in the removal of the democratically elected President Aristide in 2004. We cannot separate the question of Filipino migrant workers from the well-documented and oft-criticized record of human rights abuses carried out by Canadian companies like OceanaGold and TVI Pacific. Neither can we separate the question of Yemeni refugees from that of Canada's arms sales or Canadian support for the Honduran government, which has impelled the migrant exodus.

Decisions about migration and refugees must be situated in this regard, and Canada must do more to end displacement and educate its officials and the general public about Canadian responsibility to migrant refugees' rights.

Last, we've seen political parties pit inland and overseas refugees against each other. The Conservative Party, whose actions in regard to migrant workers are a matter of public record, issued a statement in August 2018 suddenly calling for a path to permanent residency for foreign workers but insisting that we deserve status more than the Roxham Road border crossers.

We want to be absolutely clear. As a group of organizations that actually represent migrant refugees, we reject this division. As people in precarious work, we understand the ways in which poor and low-wage workers in Canada feel stretched in living from paycheque to paycheque. People are suffering economically. They need real change, and not to be riled up with xenophobia. Immigrants and refugees are not to blame for low wages, job loss or precarity. Such politics are neither responsible nor welcome.

We strongly urge all political parties to assert unity, not division, particularly as we enter the election year in 2019.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Mina.

[La Trinidad Mina, Coordinator and Instructor, Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada, Cowichan Intercultural Society, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's a privilege to be part of this meeting today. Thank you very much for your invitation.

Today I'm going to share my own immigration journey to Canada and talk about the results and recommendations of my graduate student research.

My name is La Trinidad. I'm a Philippine national currently residing in Duncan, British Columbia. I hold a Master of Education in teaching English to speakers of other languages, and am currently completing my Master of Arts in language and literacy education at the University of British Columbia.

I teach immigrants and refugees in a rural setting. As a 35-year-old woman I am employed, I am advancing my education, and I am giving back to my community. I have two teenage children. My son is learning to play the violin and the flute, and my daughter has made it to her school's volleyball and basketball teams. They have been volunteering at the society and teaching new immigrant and refugee children.

My Canadian partner of almost seven years is a retired assistant school superintendent and a very loving house husband. Who do you think is taking care of the kids today? We pay our taxes. We get child care benefits. I could go on and on about how my life seems to be as mundane as everyone else's. I might as well complain about the weather, but the thing is, I wish my life had always been this boring.

Growing up in the Philippines was tough. My memories of school not only include understanding concepts and memorizing prayers, but also mastering wading through floodwaters while keeping my books dry. When I went to university, my daily 16-kilometre commute took almost two hours every day because of traffic. I dared not complain to my mother about all these things since she had survived Marcos's martial law.

My father was working in Hong Kong then so I didn't want to worry him either. We had everything we needed until somebody got sick. In the Philippines I was fighting natural, political and economic elements on a daily basis. The search for a better life outside the country seemed to come intuitively.

A few years after I finished university, I thought it was time to move out of the Philippines. I was married then. The children were still very young and the bills were piling up. We considered moving to the U.S. but the complexity and costs associated with the application process turned us off. After that we visited a Canadian immigration consultancy firm, but after we were assessed, they determined that we did not have enough points to get to Canada.

In December 2006, my husband at that time responded to a job ad to work in the United Arab Emirates, and after six weeks, he was gone. Nine months later, we arrived in Dubai as permanent residents. As you can imagine, it was extremely hot in the Emirates, but for six years, I had lots of tax-free income as a college instructor.

When my marriage ended and I found my partner, I left the U.A.E. In 2012 my partner and I moved to Thailand, and I studied Thai for a year on a student visa and then my work visa allowed me to teach English at Chiang Mai University. We had no firm plans to come to Canada until my partner was offered a job in Vancouver. I applied as an international student at UBC and then had to apply for a visa at a processing centre in Bangkok. After spending three months putting together the application, I was accepted in a diploma program at UBC, and my visa was approved in two and a half weeks. I arrived in YVR in June 2014.

I enjoyed the academic rigour at UBC and desired to stay permanently, so five months after my arrival, I lodged my PR application as a common-law partner living in Canada. Before going to classes, and between assignment submissions, I filled out more forms, collected documents, sought the help of our MP, Alistair MacGregor, and phoned the IRCC. The whole application process was a full-time job.

Finally, on May 19 of this year, I became a permanent resident and my children were able to join me in July.

In my master's thesis, I documented the home literacy practices of a Philippine child whose mother worked as a caregiver worker in Canada. I observed the child at home, collected artifacts and conducted some structured interviews for a period of six months.

My study aims to contribute to the literature and literacy practices of adolescent immigrants in Canada. It has a potential to provide information to parents, settlement workers in schools and classroom teachers about who these adolescents are and how to best support their needs.

The results of my study revealed a lot about the identity and community of this immigrant child. For the purposes of this meeting, let's call her Maria. She spends a lot of time studying alone at home. She's an award-winning artist and works part time to help her parents pay the bills. Her immediate community consists of Philippine friends and family living in Canada, followed by Philippine friends and family living in the Philippines, and finally, teachers and school counsellors in her school here in Canada.

It took her a while to realize what she really wanted to take at university as there was pressure to continue the path her mother had taken to become a caregiver worker just like her mother. In spring this year, she finally decided to take a degree related to medicine, but she had to delay her application to go to university because she didn't have the two prerequisite courses needed to get into the program. She had to miss a year of school, so for now she works full time at a fast-food chain.

In this study, one of my recommendations includes the strengthening of settlement programs for youth. This means giving guaranteed sufficient funding for the kind of work that settlement workers in schools do. These immigrant children are the future citizens of Canada. They should get all the support they need, including career planning, after-school and summer programs, and navigating the school and university systems in Canada.

Maria has a chance to become a very successful individual given the qualities that she already possesses. However, she's encountering setbacks that could have been avoided if she had been given timely support by settlement workers.

In summary, people's immigration to Canada can be long, painful and confusing. When they get here they need all the support to become part of the fabric of Canadian society. As I mentioned in my research, some youth need special supports so they can get reacquainted with their parents and get to know Canada.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, witnesses, for your presentations.

We now turn to the members who will be asking you some questions.

Mr. Sarai, you have seven minutes.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I'll start with you, Ms. Mina.

Your story seems to be an almost perfect immigrant story. You followed all the rules. Your process time seemed to be very efficient in terms of getting your student visa and getting processed here. You learned here. You moved to a town that needs people. You teach. Your family seems to be doing very well.

What advice would you have for a potential student who would want to come to study in Canada? What would be the smart things to do: hire a consultant or not hire a consultant, move in a big city versus a small city, or study in a big city versus a small city? At the end of the day, where should one settle—again big city versus small town—where one might need and appreciate you more and the cost of living is less?

I think it's imperative for people to see that. I see a lot of times that the first and only thing a student is looking at is how they can get into any place or college in Canada. Then afterwards they have to deal with the consequences of either taking electives or courses that weren't important for them or weren't helpful in finding a job.

What advice would you have?

[La Trinidad Mina]

I think as a researcher and as a graduate student, I would find a university that would support the research or the interests I would like to pursue. I think that's what pushes the research, that's what affects policy and that's what makes changes to the society.

It's also important to know where these universities are, and, of course, know their reputation in academia.

It's quite hard to make a decision on that aspect because most of the universities that are reputable are in big cities and it's hard to find affordable accommodation there. However, the communities are already settled in those places, so if a person would like to find the Chinese community in Vancouver, it's quite easy to navigate. It's quite easy to find a community, although one has to pay the consequences. You have to be able to afford to live in a place like Vancouver.

As far as immigration is concerned, I think it's important to know how to navigate the system and what the end goal is. Is the person really trying to get educated and stay, or get educated and go back to their home country? How do we navigate all those choices?

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

My second question is for Yasmine.

Yasmine, we come across a lot of cases in my constituency office, particularly with regard to marriage fraud, as well as spousal abuse. Getting that balance is very hard.

I recall that Mr. McCallum, the former immigration minister, made a choice to reverse a decision that was made by the minister of immigration prior to him, who was a Conservative, but there was a stepped process for PRs for spouses. The person would have to wait two years and then do a post interview. That was to see if that person was still around. It was to prevent marriage fraud. We saw that a lot of spouses stayed in abusive relationships in order to avoid being deported or sent back, so they were really taking a lot of abuse. For that reason, the previous minister and the department changed that.

Now you're saying that in cases of fraud investigations there are concerns. I agree with you in terms of where abuse is determined. I think that's hard for an officer to determine until a court makes a decision on whether an assault took place or not versus arbitrary evidence of he-said-she-said.

How do you balance marital fraud with abuse until you get a court decision? I would like your advice because I sincerely would like to know. We get those cases, and it's a very tough option to deal with. I also see a lot of people, men and women, duped by people who pretend to want to marry them, but as soon as they land, they leave them. We want to make sure that those people aren't abusing the system.

Do you have any ideas on that?

[Yasmine Abuzgaya]

I can't really speak to that, but I can tell you what we see often in the clinic. At least in our experience there, we often see that since the conditional permanent residence scheme that required, like you said, the spouses to live together for two years before permanent residency would be finalized.... That was removed, and that was a good move forward.

However, when the spouse who was experiencing violence leaves the abusive situation, what we've often seen is that the abuser will send what we call a poison pen letter to the IRCC stating that this woman—in our case, because we serve women at the clinic, it's always a woman—left him and that she was using him to get status in Canada. What they don't understand is the abuse that she took throughout the course of their marriage and the fact that she left as a result of abuse.

She won't even know that this letter went out from her spouse, her ex-partner, asserting fraud until she's called in to an admissibility hearing or a misrepresentation hearing. At that point, she's standing in front of an officer and trying to prove that, yes, her marriage was genuine and, yes, she left because of abuse.

Again, because she was in an abusive situation, she doesn't have all the documentation. She was an immigrant woman. She might have been afraid to approach the police. There are so many factors surrounding—

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Sorry, because of time, I'm trying to get to a quicker answer.

Have you seen cases where women have been abused or have claimed abuse and been deported based on that? You're saying that the hearing process is a tougher process, and it needs to be better. I have not seen too many cases where, as a result of a claim of fraud, somebody has been removed. Are you saying that women have been removed?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Please be very brief.

[Yasmine Abuzgaya]

Yes, we have seen cases where poison pen letters have had severe consequences on our clients. They come to us looking—

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Were they consequences that were removals?

[Yasmine Abuzgaya]

No. There were threats of removals or, at least, hearings. At that point we try to find another stream, or we assist with the misrepresentation.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Mr. Maguire.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses today for all of their presentations here. It's most important to deal with these issues as we develop our package for migration challenges.

Before I get into it, the last set of witnesses were dealing with both skilled workers—self-sufficient persons—and those who are basically refugees and don't have the skills, so high skills and low skills. Can I just ask each of you what your thoughts are in this regard? The question of how compassionate Canada should be came up in the questions. We're all compassionate. We all believe that we need migration into Canada. We're short of labour in many areas, as each of you pointed out.

What would you suggest would be the best means of dealing with the types of people we bring into the country? Should they be those who are self-sufficient, have the resources and can be self-sustaining, and virtually—if I could put it this way—be no burden to the government or the taxpayers? Or should we be bringing in people who may be able to be that way as well, but are more likely to be low-skilled and are coming in because they are being persecuted in their countries that they're leaving? I guess that doesn't really depend on the skill level. They could be persecuted at both high and low levels. Which type of person should we be bringing in, if there's a limited number that you can bring in and relocate in the world, regarding the 64 million refugees who are presently out there?

[Syed Hussan]

Why don't I try.

I think there are so many different things you're talking about, and you're mixing them all up.

First of all, we don't have to talk about compassion; we have to talk about responsibility and accountability. Canada profits from displacement. Canadian corporations are responsible for creating the conditions that force migration, so that has to be part of the equation: it's about taking responsibility.

Second, the idea that low-skilled workers are a burden on the government is completely, factually incorrect. We know for a fact that many, many people.... Who's deemed low-skilled in this country? They are care workers and people who grow our food. They are not burdens. Without them, our entire economy would collapse. We don't have national child care. We are a growing services-based economy with an aging population. There are low-skilled—