Thank you.
I also agree with the other recommendations that are set out in the One Free World International brief. One of them that I'll mention specifically is that I think the board needs to use some discretion when they're deciding which board members and which interpreters they're going to use in different refugee cases, because what often ends up happening is that you get an interpreter or a board members who is from the ethnic or religious group that persecuted the claimant in the first place. While I would never suggest there is an actual bias on the part of these people, it's the perception to the claimant. If you can imagine that you've been tortured in your country by a person of a specific religious or ethnic group, and then you show up in court on the day of your hearing and the person who is staring you down is actually a member of that group, it's a very serious problem. It really inhibits people from being able to remember details accurately and to be comfortable enough to tell their story.
I would also advocate that the board rely increasingly on using real experts in the determination of religious claims. At the refugee board, they rely heavily on general human rights documents, such as briefs prepared by organizations like Amnesty International or the United States Department of State. While those can be interesting background information, there is a strong argument that almost any organization that writes these briefs tends to have their own inherent biases, particularly the United States Department of State, which obviously is a political organ of the United States. When they write their international human rights reports, they tend to be harder on the people who are not on their list of political favourites at that moment and easier on the countries they want to foster good relationships with. I've noticed that particularly with the country of Egypt.
Now, leaving the refugee board, I also want to make some comments on refugee determination that occurs outside Canada at our Canadian embassies. I do a lot of these types of cases, that is, for refugees who are outside Canada and are applying to our embassies for protection to be able to come here.
I am regularly shocked by the apparent complete lack of understanding of refugee law exhibited by a lot of visa officers. They appear not to understand even the most basic legal tenets of our refugee system—which I find really, really appalling. What ends up happening is that the people who apply for refugee status outside Canada don't get half of the kind of good assessment that they would get if they were inside Canada. Why in the world should a person who is persecuted face the luck of the draw? Whether they're actually able to make it to our border and make a claim, they should have the same treatment.
Let me just give you a couple of examples of real-life situations that I've seen at our embassies. I saw an Iraqi Christian family who was refused on credibility grounds because the officer could not believe that the nasty terrorist would write a death threat on flowered paper. I'm not joking—I don't have to make this up. Another family was rejected because even though all of the other Christians in Iraq were being exterminated, they were told, “Nothing has actually happened to you yet.”
These are mistakes of the most juvenile order, something that you would never get away with at the board in Canada, and which the court would easily overturn. However, a lot of these people don't have the resources to litigate their cases in the court.
There was a time a couple of years ago when there was such an enormous disparity between the acceptance of Iraqi Christian cases inside Canada, compared with outside Canada, that a committee of concerned Iraqi Christians was convened around this issue. It asked for a meeting with the minister, which did happen in March.
Numerous recommendations were made by the Iraqi Christian committee to the Minister of Immigration. One, they wanted some kind of recognition that the Christians of Iraq are a particularly vulnerable subgroup, and there was a lot of evidence brought to bear to prove that this is actually the case. I should also note that the countries of France and Germany have made public statements to this effect lately, just within the past few months.
A second recommendation was to increase the number of Iraqi Christian refugees who are admitted, because the government has what they call “targets”, which are actually more like quotas for the numbers of people from various regions they can accept. We felt the target was too low.
Third, we wanted them to allow people who had previously been refused to reopen their cases and to have them get a second look.
Fourth, again, was the need to deal with the problem of using interpreters who are from the persecuting group, whether ethnically or religiously.
I am very happy to say that the minister, within several weeks of the meeting, did make an announcement that she was increasing the number of refugees who would be admitted from Iraq, but she failed to implement any of the other recommendations of the committee, including making specific provisions for the Iraqi Christian minority. Incidentally, she didn't increase overall the number of refugees. All she did was to subtract from the Middle East quota and allocate more of those positions to Iraqis, which, in my opinion, is just robbing Peter to pay Paul. It doesn't really solve the overall problem.
The minister's press secretary was later consulted about this problem, and he said there was no plan to recognize any specific religious group in Iraq as being particularly vulnerable and that Canada would take its direction on the matter from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This is despite all the evidence that was submitted about this minority.
Honourable committee members, the last time I checked, the UNHCR is not the democratically elected Government of Canada. We need to make our own decisions and our own policies when it comes to refugee protection. Germany and France are taking the lead on this issue. Why it is that we are so afraid to say what is actually a fact, that the Iraqi Christians are more at risk than any other group existing inside Iraq? Why are we afraid to say this? It's not right.
Another problem for the Iraqi Christian cases, which most of you probably wouldn't know about, but which I believe is going to get some media attention soon, is the subgroup of Iraqi Christians who are of Armenian ethnicity—of which there are quite a few in Iraq. There is a new trend at our Canadian embassy in Damascus to reject Armenian cases and to tell those people, who are clearly qualified for refugee status here and have been sponsored: “No. Why do you need to come to Canada? Why don't you apply for status in Armenia?” It's a country they have never been to, whose language they don't speak, and from which they don't know anyone. It's something like telling Jews from the former U.S.S.R.: “Well, why do you need to come to Canada? Why should you be a refugee here? You could just apply to and go to Israel.” It absolutely makes no sense as a logical point.
My last point is extremely important and I think extremely timely right now. There are many members of religious minorities abroad who are being persecuted, but for a variety of different technical legal reasons, they don't fit within the definition of a refugee and they don't fit with any other recognized immigration program. These people need to have access to an alternative method of applying for status in Canada, and one of the most important ways they currently can do that is by requesting humanitarian and compassionate consideration of their cases. Basically what they are saying is, look, I know I don't qualify under any particular program, but this is my sympathetic situation and I want you to at least consider it and let me know whether you could consider making an exception for me.
However, as you all know, Bill C-50 was voted on last week, and one of the powers the minister has given herself is to have increased discretion over the use of humanitarian and compassionate discretion abroad at our visa posts for overseas humanitarian cases, which is exactly what I'm talking about now. Nobody knows how the minister intends to use this power, but it's obviously an issue of very great concern for people in this type of situation.
Let me give you two concrete examples of people who would be affected if this provision were changed. First of all, this is a real case of an Iraqi Christian family, all of whom are medical doctors, living here in Canada and doing very well. They sponsored their parents, who are living in Iraq at the present time. Fine, they qualified to sponsor them; there's no issue there. The problem is that they have an elderly aunt who has lived with them since they were born, who never got married and never had any children of her own. She's an old woman, a Christian, who will be left completely alone if the rest of the family comes to Canada. Her only option is to ask for humanitarian and compassionate discretion--and thankfully, she's recently been approved. But if this provision of the act is tampered with in any way, I fear that someone in her situation might not be accepted in the coming times.
Another example I have is a young Catholic lady who is living in Sri Lanka and is of Tamil ethnicity. Because of her religion and her ethnicity, she is suffering serious persecution right now. She has a friend in Canada who is willing to provide for her. There is no immigration program under which she can qualify, because you cannot be a refugee while you're still living inside your own country. That's part of the refugee definition. Again, the only option for her is humanitarian and compassionate consideration.
In my view, the minister should be urged not to affect the scope of discretion in these kinds of cases.
Those are my submissions, honourable members. I thank you for your time. I'd be happy to field questions at the end.