Thank you very much.
I'm glad to hear that Mr. Whalen is eager to support my motion. That would be fantastic. I will be done shortly, and then a vote will be called. I would love to see the government support my motion, so that we can get on with the study and, in fact, overturn the decision of the finance committee. Mr. Chair, that moment is coming up, and I'll be watching to see whether or not the Liberal members will support my motion.
This Liberal government is apparently saying that what is happening in Australia is just fine, too. We can trust that the Australian system for asylum seekers is good enough, too. On what basis? There doesn't even appear to be a review mechanism on this. What if Australia is found guilty of crimes against humanity for its treatment of refugees? We still have an information-sharing agreement with them. Does that mean that we still trust their asylum system?
This is why you can't ram these changes into a budget bill. These are serious questions that need to be studied at length. Frankly, the actions of this government are unacceptable.
The changes in Bill C-97 would also make asylum claims ineligible if they are pending in one of these countries. That is, the Liberals would like to reject a claim before any other jurisdiction has even heard it. What is the justification for that?
Let's not just take my word for this. How about the opinions of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and Amnesty International? It appears that on Friday, April 26, they launched an email speak-out campaign, which I assume everyone around this table is aware of. The email reads:
I am emailing the Standing Committee on Finance and my member of Parliament to join the voices of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL), the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and Amnesty International Canada in calling on the finance committee to request the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM) to study all amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) proposed in Bill C-97.
Changes to refugee rights should not be rushed through an omnibus budget bill, particularly not changes such as these which will have significant impacts on refugee rights.
The organizations above have warned that these amendments could mean that thousands of refugees may be denied an impartial hearing at the Immigration and Refugee Board, and that a proposed oral hearing before an officer instead of an independent tribunal member will not sufficiently protect the right of refugee claimants to a full and fair hearing.
The finance committee, while well-positioned to debate matters of finance, does not possess the subject matter expertise to consider the far-reaching rights impacts of the proposed IRPA amendments tucked inside C-97.
I ask that the finance committee request that the CIMM [committee] study these amendments thoroughly, without rushing them through, in order to allow a full, fair and public debate on the important implications these amendments will have on refugee rights in Canada.
The reason I know that everyone around this table is aware of this is that every single individual who has signed on to this campaign has had their email sent to all members of the finance committee, the chair and vice-chairs of this committee, the Minister of Immigration, the Minister for Border Security, the Prime Minister, and their local MP. As of Monday morning, I have received over 2,600 emails. I can't be sure of the exact count at this time because the emails are coming in so fast that my office's general inbox has been continually crashing since last Friday morning.
Recently, the UNHCR representative in Canada wrote an op-ed in which he stated that because the PRRA still exists, Canada is still meeting the bar of not breaking international law.
Oh, how we have fallen, if this is the bar. We've gone from a Liberal government that claims it provides the gold standard, to “Hey, we're not breaking international laws”.
Canadians expect better. We're supposed to be setting the standard that other countries strive to live up to. It is not what the PRRA is even meant for. According to the most recent government review of PRRA in 2016, “one of the key findings from the previous evaluation was that the program had evolved from its original intent of providing a safety net for migrants requiring removal to providing failed asylum seekers one more step in the asylum system, evolving into a de facto appeal mechanism.”
Thus, PRRA is supposed to be a final safety net to ensure that Canada is not putting a person at imminent risk of persecution or death by removing them. It was not intended to be just another appeal stage. It's absolutely not intended to become a parallel refugee hearing system, yet this is what the Liberal government is attempting to do as a “fix” for the increase in inland asylum claims.
In his op-ed, the UNHCR representative speaks of a successful irregular asylum seeker originally from Haiti. He notes that the budget 2019 changes would bar people like him from appearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board to have their claim heard, but in his next breath he suggests that it's okay because the pre-removal risk assessment process exists.
However, his example highlights a serious flaw in this approach. PRRA is provided “pre-removal”. Haiti is one of the 14 countries for which Canada has administrative deferral removal or temporary suspension of removal. Those countries are currently deemed too unsafe to deport an individual to. With no removal, there is no pre-removal risk assessment. Individuals like Pierre will be left in limbo, unable to have their claim heard by anyone, and unable to formalize their status in Canada one way or another, unless the government changes how the PRRA works.
PRRA currently also does not guarantee a claim hearing. In his op-ed, the UNHCR representative states that he was informed by the government that no one will be deported without a hearing. Does this mean that the government has acknowledged that the pre-removal risk assessment is insufficient and that it is planning to add more to that process? Why add more procedures and mechanisms to the PRRA when they already exist at the IRB? This is the definition of duplication and inefficiency. Who will be trained to hear these claims? Where will the claims be heard? How quickly will they be decided? What capacity will IRCC have to hear these expanded PRRAs so that a backlog similar to that at the IRB doesn't occur?
To further highlight this needless duplication and inefficiency, when the Conservatives overhauled the refugee determination system, PRRAs were supposed to be moved over to IRB. The IRB has been waiting for cabinet authorization for this move since 2013. The Conservatives never got around to it and the Liberals haven't either. Instead, the PRRA is staying with the IRCC and is being expanded. Now it will be a de facto additional refugee determination hearing stream. Is this what it's meant to be under Bill C-97?
This is what happens when you ignore an issue for years. The failure to provide leadership leaves a vacuum that's filled with anti-refugee rhetoric and misinformation. Then, in a last-ditch effort for re-election, the government caves to those voices and comes up with a scheme to look tough on border security.
The IRB already does what the Liberals seem to envision the PRRA becoming, and that's not what the PRRA is for. This way, they think they can avoid standing up to the President of the United States and calling out his anti-refugee policies for what they are. They can pretend they are tough, and they can claim they still believe in the #WelcomeToCanada ideals.
The reality is that none of this is accomplished. It makes the system more complex and more costly, and it increases the risk of a person in genuine need of protection being put in danger. This is why we need to be studying this provision of Bill C-97 at this committee. This is why these changes should be included in a stand-alone bill. This is why these changes have deep flaws, create more questions than answers, and could put people's lives at risk. Frankly, I would suspect that if this passes, it would be challenged in the courts. I firmly believe that.
Why is the government doing this? Is it all in an effort for re-election? Is it to look tough on borders?
I implore the members of this committee to vote in favour of my motion. It literally is the very least we can do about these provisions.
Mr. Chair, I heard from the eagerness of Mr. Whalen that perhaps he and all the Liberal members will support my motion, and then we can get on with doing the work this committee is charged to do.
I would also suggest that a key difference with my motion is that there is no timeline tied to it, as opposed to the finance committee, which has tied the other section of the immigration bill to its study. This cannot be rushed. We can't jam it through a budget bill and make it into a confidence vote and think that it's okay. To rush through the study of this would be a disservice not only to asylum seekers and to Canadians, but to all of us across the international stage.
Canada remains and can remain a beacon of hope. That's what we started to work on after the 2015 election. We were that beacon of hope, and where are we now with this kind of provision?
I truly hope that members will look at the provisions within Bill C-97 and think for themselves what this means—not just taking orders from someone, not just reading the messages being given to them, but thinking about it and what it means for the people on the other side.
Effectively, if those provisions pass, individuals who want to claim asylum in Canada, if they've made a claim in those Five Eyes countries, will be ineligible to make a claim. If those individuals have a pending claim, they would be ineligible. I hear Ms. Bendayan saying that I'm incorrect. Well, I hope that I am, except that I'm not. If I'm incorrect, that means that CARL is incorrect. That means that Amnesty International is incorrect. That means that the BC Civil Liberties Association is incorrect. That means that the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is incorrect. That means that everyone in this field, who are experts, are incorrect. It's funny how that is.
I know the government will fall back and say that the UNHCR is the saviour, because according to them, PRRA is the way to go. The evidence has already shown, and the government's own internal report actually says, that PRRA should never be the de facto appeal process for asylum seekers. That's what it is becoming. It's becoming the de facto appeal process.
If members on the Liberal side think that is the way to go, to use the last resort as the mechanism to determine whether or not a person is eligible to seek asylum here as a regular stream, I guess this is the ticket. However, if you believe in better than that, if you believe in an independent judicial process to make asylum claims, then you need to keep intact the process that we have in place and to honour it. Honour it for the asylum seekers, honour it for Canada's reputation and honour it for humanity. That's what is required.
I look forward to members voting on my motion. If the government members truly support shining a light on this section of the omnibus bill, they will support my motion. If they want a thorough study of this, they will support my motion, because anything less will only reinforce the very fact that they do not want thorough debate and study on this bill, that they don't want Canadians to really know the fact that they're talking out of both sides of their mouths and that they don't really want Canadians to know they are bringing through this horrific bill at the expense of humanity for political gain.