Thank you to the committee for inviting me here today.
I'm speaking on behalf of the Canadian Council for Refugees. It's a pan-Canadian umbrella organization of over 200 organizations that work in direct contact with refugees and migrants. Many of our members have lived experience of forced migration and intersecting oppressions. I work for one of those members, Action Réfugiés Montréal, where I support people detained for immigration reasons at the Laval Immigration Holding Centre.
The CCR has been calling for independent oversight of the CBSA since before it even existed. While we hope to see this legislation passed to fill such a long-standing gap, we are concerned about certain aspects of the bill and recommend a series of changes.
I'd like to share two experiences with you. One was of a young man in detention who faced imminent removal to his country of origin, where he faced persecution. He told me, in sheer terror and limited English, that the removal officer warned him that if he did not co-operate, he would be removed in a bag. I believed this to mean a spit guard, an enforcement tool used by the CBSA. A few days later he was removed. The CCR raised the concern about the use of spit guards with senior CBSA management, but we did not have evidence about intimidation or any possible use of force, as we did not have the individual's consent or testimony.
Another case is of a single mother of a young Canadian child, whom I also met in detention. A few days before they were to return to the mother's country of origin, widespread violence broke out. She met a removal officer to see if a delay was possible due to the rapidly deteriorating situation. Instead, she was detained, accompanied by her young child, and the removal officer refused a deferral request, disregarding ample evidence about the risks.
Her situation raised a variety of intersecting concerns. Some concerns were systemic and others related to officer conduct. Had it not been for an emergency intervention by the Federal Court, she would have been deported just two days after I met her.
In both of these cases the person involved was a Black African. Black Africans and other racialized communities are disproportionately affected by immigration detention and other enforcement measures. Racism is a particularly urgent concern in immigration enforcement because of the immense power imbalance that exists between officials and people without secure status.
Those incidents occurred a few days before a deportation, and the individuals were at the mercy of the removal officers' discretionary powers. Canada Border Services Agency officers have considerable powers to detain and deport, but they also have access to protection measures or status. All of these dynamics create barriers to filing complaints.
For the commission to be effective, there has to be a mechanism to ensure that complaints can be filed by third parties without the need to obtain consent or appoint anyone. We recommend that formal channels be created for non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, and other third parties to file complaints about tendencies and practices, particularly to raise systemic issues.
The bill focuses too narrowly on the officers' individual conduct. NGOs should not only be able to bring forward complaints about systemic issues, but they should also have a formal mechanism to request a review of specific activities. The commission must be free to accept requests for review of specific activities, since the issues at stake are too important. Furthermore, too many years have passed without independent oversight, leaving a wide range of critical systemic issues unresolved. The commission must therefore have sufficient resources.
We're also very concerned that deportation is a barrier to pursuing a complaint or obtaining appropriate redress. In some cases, the removal must be suspended while the complaint is being investigated. Clause 84 of the bill must be deleted and a mechanism must be put in place to allow for suspension of removal as needed.
We recommend further amendments to broaden the range of remedies. One of our recommendations is to ensure that detainees have significant access to complaint mechanisms, and that the time to file a complaint be increased to two years, since many people will only feel empowered to file a complaint once the issue of their status has been resolved.
You will find other recommendations in our summary, as well as a more detailed analysis and context in our brief, which is being translated.
Thank you very much.