Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, everyone.
As you heard, my name is Simon Coakeley and I am the Executive Director of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. I am the board's Chief Operating Officer and am responsible for the performance of the board's adjudicative support, registry and corporate support services. I report directly to the Chairperson, Mr. Brian Goodman.
I am joined today by Ms. Diane Lacelle, our Director General of Human Resources and Professional Development; Ms. Sylvia Cox-Duquette, our Senior General Counsel; and Mr. Serge Gascon, our Director General of Corporate Planning and Services and our Official Languages Champion.
We are pleased to have this opportunity to meet with the committee and to provide you with information about how the IRB meets its linguistic obligations under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Official Languages Act.
Like all federal institutions, the IRB is subject to Parts 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Official Languages Act, and I will discuss these parts in a few minutes. However, as an administrative tribunal, we are also subject to Part 3 of the act dealing with the administration of justice. In addition, the charter principles of access to justice also apply to our everyday work in terms of individuals' rights to use English or French in our proceedings, but also in terms of our obligation to ensure that the individuals and witnesses who do not speak either English or French are able to understand the proceedings in which they are participating. In the next few minutes, I would like to outline how we meet these obligations.
The Immigration and Refugee Board is Canada's largest administrative tribunal. The board is currently composed of three divisions: the Refugee Protection Division determines refugee claims made in Canada; the Immigration Appeal Division decides appeals of removal orders, sponsorship refusals and residency obligation appeals; the Immigration Division conducts reviews of immigration detentions and conducts hearings to determine if persons may lawfully enter or remain in Canada. When the Balanced Refugee Reform Act comes into force, a new Refugee Appeal Division will be created to hear appeals from the Refugee Protection Division.
Each of our three divisions conducts hearings across the country, primarily in our regional offices located in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. We also conduct some hearings in our facilities in Ottawa and Calgary, as well as at other locations across the country, including a number of provincial correctional institutions.
According to our departmental performance report, in the last fiscal year our divisions finalized more than 55,000 cases, broken down as follows: at the RPD, 28,500 refugee claims; at the lAD, 7,200 appeals; at the ID, 3,150 admissibility hearings and 16,500 detention reviews.
All of the people appearing before us as subjects of proceedings are asked to indicate to us at the earliest possible time whether they wish their proceeding to be conducted in English or French. In addition, if the subject does not speak either English or French, we ask them to indicate their need for interpretation into English or French. Once the subject has indicated their choice of the language of proceedings, all material submitted by CBSA, acting on behalf of the Minister of Public Safety or the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, must be filed in the language of proceedings; if the original documentation is in another language, it must be translated into the language of proceedings, in accordance with the applicable divisional rule. When the matter is ready, it is scheduled for a hearing before a board member who is able to understand the matter in the language chosen by the subject.
In practise, the majority of French proceedings are assigned to a member whose first language is French, just as the majority of English proceedings are assigned to a member whose first language is English. Prior to the beginning of a hearing, or even during the hearing itself, the subject may choose to change the language of the proceeding. If the minister's representative has any objections to changing the language once the hearing has started, the presiding member will provide the minister's representative with an opportunity to make submissions, prior to granting the request to change the language of proceedings. In the event that the minister's representative is not able to proceed immediately in the new language, the matter will be adjourned to allow the minister time to prepare. Any additional documentation will have to be filed in the new language of proceedings.
The minister will not be required to translate documents already filed in the original language of proceedings. This approach was recently endorsed by the Federal Court.
In some instances, the subject of proceedings before the board will be represented by counsel whose first language is different from the one selected by his or her client. In those circumstances, the board will ensure that interpretation is provided so that the subject of the proceedings is fully able to understand and participate in the proceedings. The language of the proceedings, though—in other words, the language in which the board member will render his or her decision—is the language chosen by the subjects themselves.
All of our divisions are able to conduct business across the country in both English and French. However, the demand for French-language hearings is concentrated in our eastern region, while the demand for English-language hearings is somewhat more evenly spread across the country.
As of December 14, two days ago, the linguistic breakdown of our decision-makers was the following. In the eastern region, we have 54 members, of whom 44 are bilingual, seven are unilingual French, and three are unilingual English. In the central region, we have 111 members, of whom nine are bilingual and 102 are unilingual English. In the western region, we have 38 members, of whom six are bilingual and 32 are unilingual English. A copy of this information was provided to the clerk prior to this morning's session.
As I've also already mentioned, once a case is ready to proceed, it is assigned to a member who is able to understand the language of the proceeding. In the event that no member from that region is available to hear the matter in the language selected, a member from another region can hear the case either by video conference or in person.
These obligations are enshrined in both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Official Languages Act, and they're reinforced in our own rules. As we are a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal, they also go to the very heart of the IRB's raison d'être and our strategic objective, which is to resolve immigration and refugee matters efficiently, fairly, and in accordance with the law.
This is an obligation we take very seriously. But in addition to this very specific obligation, as I mentioned earlier, we're also subject to parts IV through VII of the Official Languages Act, as are other federal institutions.
In terms of service to the public, in addition to our Ottawa headquarters, our offices in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver are able to provide service in both languages to the public, and our Ottawa headquarters and Montreal offices are designated as being bilingual for the purposes of language of work.
While we're proud of our successes and progress to date, we also recognize that we live in an ever-changing environment where the level of demand for our service in a specific language can vary over time, just as our capacity to deliver the required level of service. Consequently, we're very proud to have a very engaged group of employees on our official languages advisory committee, which is chaired by our champion, Serge Gascon. This committee has adopted a two-year action plan that highlights the need for us to continue to focus on specific issues under parts III, IV, V, and VII of the Official Languages Act. A copy of the plan was provided to the clerk ahead of this morning's meeting.
The action plan was adopted before Bill C-11 was introduced in Parliament, and as we implement the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the issue of structuring and staffing the new public servant-based refugee protection division and the new refugee appeal division in such a way that we continue to discharge our linguistic obligations to the people appearing before those divisions will be a significant priority. In that regard, I can indicate that when the new RPD positions are staffed sometime in the new year, we will be identifying the number of positions in each of our regions that will need to be staffed on a bilingual imperative basis, and these bilingual positions will be rated at the CCC level.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues and I will be very pleased to answer your questions.
