Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 7th, 2017

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Correct. From that leadership committee.

[Frank McKenna]

Yes, it's an interesting point.

I just know because I've been a part of it. The Minister of Immigration in previous iterations has been at the meetings of the Atlantic premiers and Atlantic ministers on a regular basis. They believe, I believe, we all believe that the cornerstone of our progress is going to be on that immigration file.

Whether or not they're sitting formally at the table, they are present at the meetings.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

With that, Mr. Chair, I would like to raise another issue.

I would like to move a motion if I may.

Mr. Chair, to the committee, and to the witnesses, there are many critical issues before us. There are some issues that people have died from. I have not been able to move this committee to even have a debate about the following issue, let alone study it. I mean no disrespect to what's going on here. This is really important work. I want to do this work. But I also want to move this motion:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee immediately undertake a study on the current situation regarding the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), given its current funding constraints; its increasing case backlog of 1,000 cases per month; its current situation of over 60 board member vacancies; and the significant increase in asylum claims to Canada in 2017. That this study should be comprised of no less than three meetings; that the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship be in attendance for at least one meeting; that the Chair of the IRB be in attendance for at least one meeting; that the study be concluded and that the Committee report its findings to the House; and that due to the urgency of this situation, that these meetings take place prior to June 23, 2017.

Mr. Chair, this motion has been tabled in my name. To that end, I would really like it if we could get the committee members to vote on it. The reason I raise this is that we were just talking about immigration. We just heard from Mr. McKenna about the importance of it and his citing, for example, the refugee community and their contributions to strengthening the economy of the communities as well.

Yet, we have a situation in which the IRB is really stuck. They're unable to process cases. They don't have the resources to do so. We have a bit of a challenge on our hands. Also, with the situation that we have in the broader community, we recently had a death occur when people were trying to cross over to Canada.

This motion, in my view, is very important. We need to get on with a study on it in a timely fashion. That's not to say that the study that we're engaging in right now is not important. Of course it is important. Because of the urgency of this in terms of life and death issues, I think it's something that we should be taking a look at in this committee.

I do apologize to the witnesses who are here with respect to this work that's being done today.

The committee in my view has a responsibility to examine pressing issues in a timely fashion. As we have seen now, and as I was mentioning, lives are at stake when it comes to these issues as the government side continues to refuse to resume debate on my motion to study irregular border crossings.

Mr. Chair, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UNHCR, has noted that by the end of 2015 an average of 24 people a minute were being forced to flee their homes due to war and persecution. A total of 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015. That is compared to 59.5 million just a year earlier. This was the first time in the organization's history—

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

On a point of order, to the distractors, don't attack this Atlantic Canada study in your attempt to glorify your position or politicize your future. We have a study here. We have witnesses who have travelled very far. I think this is very undemocratic of you. I think it's very impolite and very rude.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Sarai, unfortunately, that is not a point of order.

Ms. Kwan, the floor is yours.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We welcome the debate by committee members, although I would really welcome approval of this motion. I would love to hear from committee members who say there is no urgency to the motion that I'm putting forward. I would love to hear that debate.

[An. hon. member]

The motion in the House was not unanimous.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

This was important and must be done.

This is ridiculous.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Order.

Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

On a point of order of decorum, I believe you have ruled that my colleague has the floor and should be able to speak unimpeded.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Yes.

Ms. Kwan, the floor is yours.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This was the first time in the organization's history that some 60 million people have been displaced, and it marks the highest number of displaced persons since World War II. Of the 7.4 billion people in the world, one in every 113 globally is now either an asylum seeker, an internally displaced person, or a refugee. It is because of this unprecedented level of forced displacement that we must examine our systems.

In May of this year I had the pleasure of meeting with the chair of the IRB, Mario Dion. Mr. Dion was proud of the work being undertaken by the IRB, but was also aware of its limitations. During the incredibly informative meeting, the chair explained to me several new efficiency-increasing measures. They include the creation of a new process referred to as a short hearing process. Under this new process, claims by individuals from a country of origin with a claim acceptance rate of 80% or higher will be considered for inclusion by the refugee protection division.

The rationale behind this process is that following a 90-minute hearing, an IRB member can, in the majority of cases, determine that the claim is genuine and should be accepted. This shorter hearing will allow the obvious cases to be cleared through the system faster. Should the IRB member have any doubt in the claim, the claim will move back into the standard hearing process. This ensures the integrity of the system is maintained. This is what I've been advised by the chair of the IRB.

I was also informed of the expansion of countries eligible for the IRB's expedited process. Established in its current form a couple of years ago, the expedited process allows for claims from select countries of origin to be processed without a hearing and only based on the paper submission. Originally, only claims from Syria, Iraq, and Eritrea were eligible for this process. As of June 2017, Afghanistan, Burundi, Egypt, and Yemen were added as eligible countries of origin to qualify for an expedited claim. Just like the short hearing process, if there is any doubt expressed by the IRB member regarding the submission, it will move to a full hearing to determine the authenticity of the claim.

These measures will allow for the clearest cases of individuals needing access to Canada's asylum system to be processed more quickly, as well as for more time and resources to be dedicated to less clear cases to ensure the system's integrity remains intact.

Unfortunately, due to the government's unjustifiable silence on increasing asylum claims to Canada, especially inland claims stemming from irregular crossings from the U.S. into Canada, the growing trend of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rhetoric has been allowed to grow and flourish unchecked.

When the IRB announced these efficiency measures, mainstream editorial titles included “Liberals planning to rubber-stamp potentially dangerous asylum seekers”. I have been disappointed on far too many occasions by the government's grandiose words on the international stage that are not backed up by action at home. This allows this misinformation to go unchallenged.

Here we have two clear examples of the IRB increasing its efficiency levels. Mr. Dion also shared with me a graph showing the RPD's new system intake from 2013 to December 2016. I cannot table the graph here at the committee. Perhaps we can ask Mr. Dion to bring a bilingual version of the graph to this committee, so we can actually examine that work and understand what it means, what the IRB is faced with, and why we must resource the IRB in order to get this work done.

If they are not successful in reducing the claims and dealing with the cases, and they are creating a backlog of 1,000 a month, we have a problem with the integrity of our system, and that needs to be addressed.

If we want to talk about immigration as it impacts the Atlantic provinces, and how we need to move forward on that, we need to make sure the IRB is resourced appropriately so they can do their job.

The graph was striking for two reasons, Mr. Chair. The first is the significant steady increase in the number of cases finalized on a month-by-month basis by the RPD. In December of 2013, the RPD finalized about 700 cases. In December 2016, they finalized about 1,200 cases. The trend line is clear, and even before these new initiatives, the IRB was been working hard to improve its case processing.

Unfortunately, the second striking feature undercuts these increases in efficiency. As I alluded to in my opening, we're currently seeing an unprecedented number of forced displacements around the world. The result of this is a serious increase in claim intake at the RPD. For example, in December 2013, the RPD had a new claim intake of about 900 cases. In December 2016, there were 2,200 new cases.

Mr. Dion made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that no number of efficiencies could be undertaken by the IRB...for the lack of funding and over 60 board member vacancies. They need more board members and additional resources to deal with the current global trends in forced displacement.

The persistent and unjustifiable situation regarding legacy claims creates an additional series of problems for the IRB. Claims that were not finalized before the refugee determination system overhaul of 2012 are considered legacy claims. Since they are not subject to the statutory timelines for hearing dates that claims made after the overhaul are subject to, these claims are constantly put off in order to increase the likelihood of meeting the statutory time frames for new claims.

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

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, I believe that we're here for the Atlantic Canada study. We have guests here. We have a very important former premier here. I believe it's disrespectful for us to bring in a motion. I would be more than willing to discuss it at a future point, but I think it's really a waste of enormous time. I don't know if we'll ever get a chance to speak to the premier again. I think it's important that we hear from the witnesses. This is a very important study for Atlantic Canada, and it's important that we recognize that we can't disrespect every witness who comes in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Anandasangaree, you're getting into debate there. Unless you can reference the standing order that you are using for your particular point of order, I will rule you out of order and will pass the floor back to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to take a moment to address this issue. I get it that we have guests here. I get it that there is important work done, and it is being done. We have set aside 10 meetings for this study. There are other pressing issues as well.

Mr. Chair, I know the committee members don't want to acknowledge this, but the fact is that if the IRB is not functioning properly, it undermines our entire system. It undermines the integrity of our immigration system, and right now, in my view, we have a major problem. The IRB has 1,000 new backlogged cases in their processing time—1,000 cases a month—so we're wanting people to get to the Atlantic provinces to support the economy, and we want to do all of that work.

I don't know how we can actually facilitate that if the IRB is stuck in this situation. We just heard Mr. McKenna talking about the value of the refugee community going to the Atlantic provinces and refugees are welcome there. If we want to make sure that this process is well in place, we need to make sure that the IRB is able to manage these issues effectively and efficiently, and right now it is not. There is urgency to this motion and we need to deal with it, otherwise everything else falls apart. That's why I'm doing this, Mr. Chair.

I want to get back to my point about the situation the IRB is faced with. They actually are dealing with legacy claims. The minister told the IRB to say, “deal with the legacy claims”, and then they didn't give them many resources to do it. There are approximately 5,500 legacy claims left, and that means there are roughly 5,500 claimants who have been waiting in limbo since 2012, not knowing what their life is going to be like, where they're supposed to go, where they're supposed to fit. They do not know right now and they have been stuck in the situation since 2012.

I think we can all agree in no way is this somehow acceptable, but that is the reality right now for these individuals, and the government has chosen not to give any resources to the IRB to process these claims. A lack of political will has led to these individuals' claims for asylum here to be treated, at best, as a second-class request. Mr. Dion was clear in the 2016-17 report on plans and priorities when he stated:

The IRB has reallocated available internal funding to reduce the backlog of legacy cases from 32,000 to 6,500 since the coming into force of the new refugee determination system. In 2016-17 the board's ability to reallocate funding internally will be severely limited, particularly, if the board is faced with sustained increases in intake at the RPD. As a result, commitments made by the board in relation to refugee protection claims that are not subject to statutory time frames, such as the remaining 6,500 legacy claims will have to be revisited unless additional temporary funding is made available.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chair, that request was ignored. Instead, the IRB has once again been forced to reallocate money internally, further straining their budget. Recently, the IRB announced the creation of the legacy task force for claims. By dedicating $3 million per year for two years and 25 FTE board members, the IRB hopes to finally eliminate this ongoing injustice. That means $3 million is taken out of the area that the IRB is trying to deal with, because there were no new moneys allocated to them under budget 2017.

Mr. Dion explained that the 25 board members would be some of the most experienced members he had. While it would be great to eliminate the legacy cases, this will also undoubtedly impact the operations of the IRB moving forward—

[TJ Harvey, Liberal, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Chair, on a quick point of order, I would like to raise my disappointment at this committee's inability to function in a proper manner. I happen to sit on two standing committees myself—

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Who are those people interrupting our meeting? There's a whole table over here. You shouldn't be here—

[TJ Harvey, Liberal, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

For me, having the opportunity to sit on two high-functioning committees, it's very unfortunate that we're going to disregard all the relevant testimony that we could potentially hear today—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Harvey—

[TJ Harvey, Liberal, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

—due to this intervention by my honourable colleague. I recognize her passion for the subject matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Harvey—

[TJ Harvey, Liberal, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Ultimately, this is not the time and place to raise this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Harvey, you have entered into debate. As I said previously—

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

He's interrupting our meeting.