Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2022

[Perla Abou-Jaoudé]

Yes. There will be less pressure on the Canada Border Services Agency and on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. We also think there will be a better distribution of the workload, and, most importantly, better capacity to support the people arriving.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Perfect. Thank you.

Mr. Reichhold, I listened to you carefully. You said there was a humanitarian problem. I would like you to tell me a bit more, because what we are focusing on in this study is the humanitarian crisis that migrants are currently experiencing.

[Stephan Reichhold]

I think my colleague Frantz André gave a good description of the situation he is experiencing as a helper.

As we speak, there are people outside with no coat, no clothing, who haven't eaten in three days. This phenomenon is very concentrated around the hotels leased by the federal government in Saint-Laurent, Ahuntsic or Bordeaux-Cartierville, and is now spilling over into La Petite-Patrie and Villeray. We are talking about thousands of people.

Last week, there were nearly 5,000 people in temporary accommodation, both federal and Quebec. They stay there for about three to four weeks. Then, once they leave the temporary accommodation, they are left on their own. So they go out and knock on every door. There are fewer and fewer doors to knock on.

With a cheque of $750 per adult, they can't find housing or feed a family. There are a lot of children among that number. We are also seeing a significant rise in the number of pregnant women, who are unable to see a doctor.

I call that a humanitarian emergency. Governments have to take responsibility and put resources in place, as they do in the case of natural disasters.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Silcoff, I am going to ask you a question that may seem like it comes out of the blue. At the committee's last meeting, a senior official from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada appeared. She is involved in the negotiations for modernizing the agreement, which have apparently been going on for four years. She told us she did not know what the process was for applying for refugee status from the United States before the safe third country agreement was put in place.

Do you think it is reasonable for a person involved in those negotiations not to know how things were done before the agreement was put in place?

[Maureen Silcoff]

I think what's important to note in this context is what has led up to the agreement. We know that there were concerns right from the beginning, because the agreement went into effect in 2004, but it was in 2002 that there were discussions—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. The time is up for Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

You have six minutes. Please begin.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for their presentations.

My question is for Ms. Silcoff. On the issue around the United States, whether or not it's a safe country for asylum seekers, many people will advance that it is a safe country. I'm very interested to know what has been presented in the legal case to indicate otherwise in the current situation as it stands. Why is it not safe for asylum seekers?

[Maureen Silcoff]

Here again, I think it's really useful to look at the very specific categories or classes of people who are experiencing lack of safety and serious deficiencies in the system. If the system doesn't function properly, people are at risk of refoulement, which means that they would be sent back to their country of origin to experience further persecution.

I was trying to speak before about the one-year bar. People who don't make an asylum claim right away can't enter into the asylum system. There are lots of reasons why people may not come forward—because they're traumatized, because they're ashamed, because of cultural reasons—so this particularly impacts gender-based claims.

We know that people may not come forward with their claim, and then if they turn up at the border and they're rejected because of the STCA, then they really have a problem in the U.S. because then they're in a system where they can't access the U.S. asylum system. So that's another category.

Also, there are people facing detention. We know that Canada treats detention very differently from the U.S. In Canada, detention is seen, both according to the case law and the policies, as a last resort. The UNHCR specifies that people seeking protection should only be detained as a last resort. The United States sees detention very differently. They see it as an immigration management tool. This was exacerbated during the Trump administration, but it pre-existed the Trump administration and it exists today. When somebody is in jail in the U.S., they're experiencing very serious difficulties, and that's very different from Canada, so that's another category of people who are vulnerable.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I want to get to gender violence asylum seekers, who are being rejected in the United States. In those instances, if people were to try to make a claim in Canada and Canada turns them away, they will be deported back to their country of origin to face the violence from which they are trying to flee. Is that not correct?

[Maureen Silcoff]

That's exactly correct. In the example I gave of the woman who hung on to the back of a freight train, that was her dilemma, because she knew that if she stayed in the United States, there was a strong likelihood that she would be deported to face renewed gender-based harm.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

On that basis, the safe third country agreement is actually putting people at further risk in terms of refoulement. For Canada to apply deportation to such individuals, Canada would be actually in violation of international law on refoulement. Is that not the case?

[Maureen Silcoff]

Right. Canada is responsible for turning people back at the border, so Canada is not an innocent party in this, but there are fixes that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. I've stopped the clock.

So many side conversations are going on. The witnesses are here, so please provide them the opportunity to answer the questions, and please avoid side conversations. Thank you.

Please continue.

[Maureen Silcoff]

I think when people are turned back from Canada, Canada does bear a responsibility, but we can do something about it. We can end the agreement or we can suspend it, but we can also look at the public policy discretionary exemptions, which this committee was concerned about in 2002 and UNHCR was concerned about in 2002. Now is the time to take these seriously and have a really serious look at what we can do with them.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Your first recommendation for this committee is for the Canadian government to suspend the safe third country agreement, at the very minimum, or to get rid of it altogether. Short of that, it's to bring back those exemptions, the public policy exemptions under article 6, to include gender-based claims, for example, and other vulnerable classes of people.

Is that your recommendation?

[Maureen Silcoff]

Exactly. We have only one exemption in place now, for people facing the death penalty. It's rarely used. There was one for people from countries that Canada doesn't deport to—that's gone. Gender-based claims are a perfect example. People who would return to face jail in the United States simply because they want protection, that's another great example. People who are barred from the asylum system because they've passed the one-year mark, that's another great example.

These are all discretionary public policy classes that Canada can put in place.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

On the issue around people arriving and the delay in the processing, we just heard from the previous panel that people were not able to access what they call the brown paper document in a timely fashion, and as a result they're living in poverty and they have to apply for income assistance.

What do you think the Canadian government should do in the processing? Should they be issuing the brown paper document on arrival for individuals so that they can access all the services that come with that very important document?

[Maureen Silcoff]

I think we have to look at the reality of the situation. We know that budget 2022 put in place $1.3 billion for the CBSA, the IRCC and the IRB. There are finances there, available for resources, and I think people shouldn't be suffering. People should be getting access to settlement resources as soon as possible.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I want to ask Mr. Desbiens the same question about the brown paper document. Should the government be issuing that on arrival so that people can actually seek the kind of support that they need to survive and to then look for employment?

[Perla Abou-Jaoudé]

Sorry, I'm going to take over.

Yes, we think it should be delivered as soon as possible. Another way of doing it is by having a point at IRCC where a claimant could go right away because—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. Time is up for Ms. Kwan.

With that, our panel comes to an end.

I want to thank all the witnesses for appearing before the committee today. Thanks a lot for your important testimonies. If there is something you would like to bring to the committee's attention, you can always send written submissions to the clerk of the committee. They will be circulated to all the members, and we will consider them when we come to the drafting stage.

With that, we will suspend this meeting. All those members of Parliament who are participating virtually will have to log off and then log in to the in camera meeting for our committee business.

All the witnesses can leave the meeting.

Members, please log off and then log in for the in camera portion of the meeting. We will have a few minutes for committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]