Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2022

[Frantz André]

No, the United States is not a safe country. Every day, I hear about people who, like in Canada, are afraid of getting caught, of getting lost in the black hole, or being victims of abuse. So I think we have to put an end to the safe third country agreement.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, but time is up.

With that, on behalf of all the members, I really want to thank all the witnesses for appearing before the committee. Thank you for your time and important testimony. Some of you are coming for the second time. Last time, we were not able to accommodate you because of the votes. I really want to thank you for taking the time once again and appearing before the committee.

With that, this panel comes to an end. We will suspend the meeting for a few meetings so that sound checks can be done for the second panel.

The meeting is suspended.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call the meeting to order.

On behalf of all the members of this committee, I would like to welcome our witnesses for this panel.

Today in this panel we are joined by Ms. Maureen Silcoff, lawyer and past president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. We are also joined by Ms. Perla Abou-Jaoudé, lawyer, and Mr. Vincent Desbiens, lawyer, from the Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association. Finally, we have Stephan Reichhold, director general, Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes.

You will have five minutes for your opening remarks.

Ms. Silcoff, please begin.

[Maureen Silcoff, Lawyer and Past President, Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers]

Thank you for the invitation to appear.

The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers is a national organization engaged in advocacy, litigation and education regarding the rights of refugees and migrants.

As Minister Fraser noted last week, no one chooses to be a refugee, and people who cross into Canada between ports of entry are desperate to find safety. One crossing haunts me. A woman traumatized by gender-based violence in her home country, barred from seeking refugee protection in the U.S. and desperate not to be deported to further harm crossed into Canada with her two minor children by hanging on to the back of a freight train. She was later accepted as a refugee.

When this committee looked at the agreement back in 2002, it anticipated that if irregular entry became an issue and if the numbers did not decrease, the agreement should be suspended or ended.

I'll explain why it's time to revisit the STCA based on five lessons learned, and then I'll offer a recommendation.

Lesson one is that the mode of entry to Canada says nothing about the merits of a refugee claim. Acceptance rates are very similar regardless of how you arrive. The acceptance rates for refugee cases decided on their merits generally is 66%, and the acceptance rate for irregular crossers is 61%.

Lesson two is that the STCA is the cause of Roxham Road, and ending the agreement or creating more exceptions to it will disperse people from coast to coast and eliminate the funnel to Quebec. Cities and provinces throughout Canada can then provide settlement services.

Lesson three is that the number of border entries may not increase, as people may simply be rerouted. In fact, Althia Raj recently reported a senior IRCC official noting that an end to the STCA means that the situation “might not change that much, because what would happen is you wouldn’t have a Roxham Road, the people could cross at the ports of entry and they might therefore go to different ports of entry”.

The federal court thought the same thing. In its 2020 decision, it indicated that there was actually no evidence that numbers would increase if the STCA ended and, further, that the departments have always managed ebbs and flows. Recall of course that our geographic location means that Canada will always welcome only a very small drop in the global bucket of refugees.

Lesson four is that although there's talk of modernization, expansion will drive more people to enter irregularly, undetected and without any kind of screening, and of course it will put more lives at risk.

Lesson five is that people who enter through Roxham Road contribute to Canada in meaningful ways. This includes a significant number of guardian angels, those who risked their lives during the height of the pandemic working in long-term care homes and elsewhere.

The conclusion we can draw is that the deleterious effects of the STCA at this point clearly outweigh its benefits.

One option, of course, is to end or suspend the STCA, but there's an alternative. Article 6 of the STCA allows Canada to exempt classes of people or individuals on public policy grounds. It states the following: “either Party may at its own discretion examine any refugee status claim made to that Party where it determines that it is in its public interest to do so.” This provides the much-needed flexibility to address current issues.

Canada now uses only one public policy exemption. That's for individuals facing the death penalty. There used to be a second one, as mentioned earlier, for people who are on Canada's list of countries to which we don't deport. That was ended in 2009.

Options at this point could include expanding exemptions and allowing for gender-based claims, which, despite the repeal of the matter of A-B-, remain subject to highly problematic restrictions. In fact, the UNHCR recommended using public policy exemptions when it commented on Canada's draft regulations back in 2002, and this included for gender-based claims.

As well, exemptions could be created for vulnerable people who are turned around at the border and put into U.S. jails. Of course, the images of kids in cages offer a horrific window into the system that jails vulnerable people when they're simply seeking safety.

Public policy exemptions have been a mainstay of our immigration system. It makes sense to put them to use at this point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to Ms. Abou-Jaoudé or Mr. Desbiens, whoever will take the lead.

You will have five minutes for your opening remarks. You can begin, please.

[Vincent Desbiens, Lawyer, Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association]

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for your invitation.

The Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association, the QILA, was founded over 30 years ago and has more than 460 member lawyers who work in the specific field of immigration and refugee protection.

The QILA submits that the only solution for protecting the health, safety and security of refugee claimants is to abolish the safe third country agreement. Without that agreement, there would be a better distribution of the number of refugee claimants in Canada. As well, it would offer them better access to the social and legal services they need, all without resulting in any increase in refugee claims.

However, because of that agreement, a majority of refugee claimants enter in Quebec and make a claim at the time of entry, and this has significant repercussions for people who have already suffered too much. Refugee claimants are arriving in Quebec, but the system is already overloaded. We have to keep in mind that these human beings who arrive at our border do so in the hope of obtaining Canada's protection, since their lives are in danger. Their quest can be successful only if we offer them the tools they need for making their claims in the proper way, and obviously that calls for access to justice.

Some people are not able to find a lawyer, and that interferes with making their claims, and so prevents them from obtaining the security they are seeking, in the long term. Obviously, the inability to gain access to justice causes great psychological and emotional distress for these newcomers, in the short and medium terms. As lawyers on the ground, we see this every day. Not only do refugee claimants have trouble finding a lawyer, but they also have trouble finding help from organizations that provide housing assistance, for example.

Some people will say that while refugee claimants arrive in Quebec, they can quickly move elsewhere in Canada. In reality, the situation are quite different.

First, their mobility is limited, because they have to wait for their work permit in the mail, to be able to support themselves as soon as possible. They are living in a financially precarious state, when it is already difficult to access housing and the price of food is constantly going up. During this time, all of the social services available to help them integrate start in Quebec, in both legal and social terms. Once claimants have found a lawyer, rented a place to live and enrolled their children in school, it becomes a lot more difficult for them to go and live somewhere else. Obviously, we need to come up with a faster system for issuing work permits.

At the same time, we can't ignore the fact that when they arrive in Canada, these migrants can't be the given humane, calm guidance they deserve by border personnel. Because of the huge volume of claims, border personnel do not have the time needed to make sure the claimants properly understand the information that is essential to their case, and this causes major anxiety. Their psychological and emotional security suffers enormously, particularly in a system where the process is increasingly complex and calls for access to technology, something these newcomers only very rarely have. Everything happens within very short regulatory time frames.

In some cases, families are separated and it is hard for family members to access information about the others, for example if one of the family members is detained or hospitalized. That causes stress and panic for every family member who doesn't know the fate of the other one. Too often, they arrive at our offices in a state of disorientation and in extremely insecure circumstances. The lawyer then has to make up for the government officials by informing these people properly about their claim process.

To conclude, some resources have been put in place to try to spread claimants more evenly across Canada, which the safe third country agreement prevents. On that point, some people have been transferred from Quebec to Ontario. Unfortunately, some of them did not understand what was happening or did not want to change provinces. They really had no desire to go and live in Ontario and go through another migratory journey, having already suffered enough to get to Canada.

Some people detained in Quebec have been transferred to a detention centre in Ontario, while their entire family was living in Quebec, not in detention. Once a person was released, they had to make their own way back to Quebec. We can't imagine the anxiety experienced by the families at the thought of that kind of separation. We respectfully submit that these attempts to mitigate the situations that result from this agreement simply exacerbate the situation, in addition to being unsuccessful and counterproductive.

As well, simply closing Roxham Road would be even more devastating than the status quo if we kept the safe third country agreement. Keep in mind the many migrants who put their lives and security in danger by trying to cross our border in the middle of winter or by going through dangerous areas. Closing Roxham Road would not stop refugee claimants from coming to Canada, but if they crossed the border just anywhere, that would reduce the government's capacity to identify them quickly, as it can now do using their fingerprints and identity papers.

Ultimately, we respectfully submit that because of the safe third country agreement, the safety, security and health of migrant individuals and families are endangered not just in the short term, but also in the long term.

The repercussions extend over several years and can even ultimately strip our refugee claim system of its meaning: that people who deserve safety will be given Canada's protection.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to Mr. Reichhold.

You will have five minutes for your opening remarks. You can begin, please.

[Stephan Reichhold, Director General, Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good evening, everyone.

I am the director of the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes, whose members are 160 intake and settlement support organizations dedicated to assisting newcomers, whether they be refugees, immigrants, or persons without status.

My considerations will be focused more on the social and health aspects, given that the legal aspects have been dealt with well by all the lawyers who are here today. I am going to talk more about the current views of these organizations. As was said just now, there is a humanitarian health emergency in Quebec at the moment. Everyone is aware of it, but action still needs to be taken.

I don't know whether the support system in Quebec that has existed for several decades and is unique in Canada is familiar to you. If a refugee claimant, whether regular or irregular, arrives in Canada and needs help with housing, it will be provided by Quebec's social services, more specifically by PRAIDA, the Programme régional d'accueil et d'intégration des demandeurs d'asile. That organization will provide temporary accommodation for three or four weeks, on average, until they receive their first social assistance cheque. After that, they are politely asked to leave the temporary accommodation facility and make their own arrangements.

That worked well over recent years, but because of the current volume of refugee claims, the system is no longer functioning. In fact, the Quebec government has informed the federal government that it was capping its housing capacity. I think it is 1,200 beds, more or less. The federal government also places people in hotels, 14 at the moment, in the Montreal region. That accommodation is temporary, but it does not include any services; medical and social services are provided by Quebec's social services.

That puts enormous pressure on the organizations that ordinarily try to help refugee claimants, as my colleague Frantz André explained when he talked about his work. As is the case in the rest of Canada, those organizations, which are mostly charitable groups, do not receive money and so have to self-finance with support from foundations or by fund-raising.

It also has to be said that the services are very limited. In Quebec as elsewhere in Canada, refugee claimants are entitled to very little, which really can be summarized as essential services, such as basic medical coverage. It is estimated that since January, Quebec has taken in nearly 45,000 people out of the 72,000 refugee claimants who have arrived in Canada, whether regular or irregular, a distinction that no one makes when it comes to services or housing, in fact.

Settlement aid organizations are saturated and have no more capacity. As well, as was said earlier, the caseload is increasingly disturbing, and this causes overflow into the community networks that are responsible for non-immigrants, such as organizations working for families, youth, homeless people and women. Those organizations do their best to lend these individuals a hand and help them survive.

With winter now on its way, we are very worried. We really are at a breaking point in the Montreal region because of the volume of refugee claims. While that volume does not compare with what is happening in Europe or at the Mexican border, it still puts a lot of pressure on volunteer organizations.

We are proposing, and we are asking the federal government to establish, a system of longer-term accommodation, perhaps with Quebec's ministère de la Sécurité publique and the Red Cross, at least during the winter and especially for the most vulnerable families. Given the housing crisis, it is virtually impossible to find a place to live. The occupancy rate at shelters for homeless people is therefore rising, something we absolutely want to avoid. That is one of our recommendations for the federal government.

The situation that prevails between Canada and Quebec brings to mind a divorced couple who can't agree on custody of the kids. Each one volleys the ball back to the other and they both argue all the time, so the children are left on their own. That is kind of what the current situation for refugee claimants looks like.

It is important for the federal government and Quebec to agree on implementing emergency measures...

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. Your time is up. You can talk further when we go into the rounds of questioning.

With that, we will begin our first round of questioning with Mr. Redekopp.

You will have six minutes. You can please begin.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for appearing today. Your testimony is helpful.

Ms. Silcoff, I wanted to ask you this. We've heard different testimony that if we were to scrap the safe third country agreement, there would likely be an increase in migrants coming to Canada. You said in your third point, I think, that that number may not increase, and then you quoted a reporter who wrote a story.

Do you have actual evidence beyond that to suggest why that would be true?

[Maureen Silcoff]

I think it's interesting, because there's concern about the increase in numbers, but I think we have to separate what we know from what we're just fearing. What we know is that there has been no evidence to show there will in fact be an increase.

There was evidence provided through CBSA to the Federal Court in the safe third country agreement challenge, but there was no evidence. The court found that there was actually no evidence that there would be an increase, that there had not been statistics provided about that. I know that case is on appeal, but actually that point itself has not been appealed.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

I have a very limited time. We just heard in the previous panel that there are great numbers of Haitians coming into the United States. You haven't given me any evidence to suggest that the number won't increase.

With all of the Haitians, for example, coming to the United States, there's going to be an increase of migrants in the U.S. To me, common sense would say that this will put increased pressure, especially if we were to eliminate the agreement. Do you not agree with that?

[Maureen Silcoff]

I don't necessarily, because if there are adequate programs in the United States that would give people protection, and we just talked about temporary protected status.... I think we have to look at the situation. We know there are times when there are fewer people, and there are times when there are more people. We know there are always going to be limitations, because of our geographic location.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

I have another question. You mentioned that you think the negatives outweigh the benefits. I'm curious. From your perspective, what are the benefits of the safe third country agreement?

[Maureen Silcoff]

I think it was put in place because it was seen that the United States was a reliable partner for sharing responsibilities regarding refugees. That was the objective and raison d'être for the agreement itself. But we know now that the problems associated with it outweigh any benefits.

In fact, this committee itself, in 2002, was concerned. It said that if there were problems, it would have to be revisited and we might even suspend it unilaterally, or perhaps it should end. I think it was anticipated that there could be problems, and now we see how they've come to fruition, really. We've seen them—

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

Mr. Desbiens, I'm just curious to know approximately how many clients you have dealt with through Roxham Road.

[Perla Abou-Jaoudé, Lawyer, Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to take over the questions for AQAADI.

I've been practising for 10 years. We deal with them every day.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Can you give an approximate...? Are we talking about 10, 100, 1,000?

[Perla Abou-Jaoudé]

It's in the hundreds, I would say.

I can't give a number, because we don't make a distinction between someone coming from Roxham Road and someone coming regularly.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Do the clients from Roxham Road typically stay in government-sponsored hotels?

[Perla Abou-Jaoudé]

Yes, they do, but not all of them.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Typically, how long do they stay in the hotels?

[Perla Abou-Jaoudé]

I'm not in a position to be able to tell you that. I don't have the numbers.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

In terms of timing, we heard testimony that the wait times have been increasing. What are you seeing on the ground for wait times, specifically on the IRB?

[Perla Abou-Jaoudé]

Are you talking about when they're transferred to the IRB, or before that?