Madam Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to stand and speak about Bill C-11, which if approved, would make important changes to Canada's refugee determination system.
I think everybody agrees that there are problems with the current system and that the goal we all share is to have a system that, both fairly and quickly, determines who needs refugee protection. I also want to say that I do appreciate the minister's hard work and willingness to listen to all sides of this debate, and I want to commend him on that. It typifies his usual approach to making legislation in this country.
Having said that, I do think Bill C-11 has serious flaws that would put refugees, particularly the most vulnerable, at risk of being deported and subject to persecution. I want to highlight some of the key concerns I have with this bill.
The first is the designated countries of origin. This bill would empower the minister to designate countries whose nationals would not have access to a refugee appeal. Although the minister refers publicly to "safe countries of origin", neither the word “safe” nor any criteria are included in Bill C-11. I believe this is unfair and structurally unsound. It would treat claimants differently based on the country of origin, and that is discriminatory.
Refugee determination requires individual assessment of each case, not group judgments. Claimants who would be particularly hurt, for example, include women making gender-based claims and persons claiming on the basis of sexual orientation. In many countries that otherwise may seem peaceful and “safe”, there could be serious problems of persecution on these grounds.
Claimants from designated countries would face a bias against them even at the first level under such a scheme, since decision-makers would be aware of the government's judgment on the country at first instance. Moreover, claims from countries that generally seem not to be refugee-producing are among those that often most need appeal, due to difficult issues of fact and law, such as the availability of state protection.
Finally, denial of fair process to these claimants might lead to their forced return to persecution, once again in violation of human rights law and international covenants of which Canada is a signatory.
Other concerns about this designated country of origin concept is that having a list of safe countries of origin would politicize the refugee system. There is just no doubt about it. If any minister of the crown can make a list of countries that he or she feels are safe, that cannot help but interject a degree of politicization into a judicial process that cannot help but be flawed, unfair and wrong. In addition, there might be new diplomatic pressures from countries that might be unhappy about not being considered safe, and there could be ramifications internationally for Canada's reputation abroad as well.
As currently drafted, this amendment would give the minister a blank cheque to designate any country, part of country or group within a country without reference to the principles of refugee protection. Let me give just a couple of illustrations about this.
I mentioned earlier that Australia has adopted a system similar to this, and just recently it has listed Afghanistan and Sri Lanka as countries it claims are safe, which would bar certain privileges to refugees from those countries making claims.
We have also heard the minister, on repeated occasions, talk about the Roma in Hungary as not having legitimate claims because, in his opinion, Hungary is a safe country. We all know that gypsies and Roma were rounded up along with Jews and communists during World War II and sent to the gas chamber for one reason only, that they were Roma. Historic discrimination persists in central European countries against Roma to this day. Whether or not that amounts of oppression, there is no question about the fact that they experience systematic discrimination. My grandparents were born in Hungary, and I have a fair bit of knowledge about the Hungarian culture and the situation of Roma in that country.
We can tell in advance of this test even being adopted that there would be serious disagreements about what is or is not a safe country.
The eight-day interview and hearing after sixty days is problematic. The government proposes that claimants be interviewed by the Immigration and Refugee Board after eight days and that the hearing take place sixty days later.
This presents procedural and substantive unfairness. Eight days after arrival is often too soon for a formal interview. If the interview were used to take claimants' detailed statements about their claims, it might be unfair to the most vulnerable claimants, such as those traumatized by experiences of torture or women unaccustomed to speaking to authority figures.
I will give a real example. A woman came to Canada with little formal education, unable to speak English or French. At her refugee hearing she was confused by the questions and gave unsatisfactory answers, in the official's opinion. She was found not credible and her claim was denied.
After the hearing, the full story came out. This woman had been gang-raped for three days in police detention in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The experience left her quite understandably traumatized and terrified of people in authority. Her feelings of shame made her reluctant to discuss her experience of sexual violence.
She was able to talk freely about this experience only much later, after her lawyer spent many hours gaining her trust. She had also by then obtained some counselling and had the support of her community. She has now applied for humanitarian and compassionate consideration and is waiting for a decision. This is the kind of situation that can occur when we rush to judgment.
Some claimants are ready for a hearing after 60 days, of course, but others are not, including refugees who need to build that kind of trust and gather the evidence they require. Many refugees need more than 60 days to gather relevant documentation to support their claims, particularly when many are fleeing a newly-emerging pattern of persecution or have come from detention. It is also an inefficient method, because holding a hearing before a claimant is ready, on an arbitrary timeline, could lead to inaccurate and incomplete decisions and the consideration of cases that are not based on the full facts.
Another flawed part of this bill concerns the decision makers. First-instance decision makers under this proposed bill would be civil servants rather than cabinet appointees. Members of the refugee appeal division under this bill would be appointed by cabinet.
There is something positive to this. In the first instance, the proposal would avoid the current problematic political appointments, which are frequently tainted by partisan and political considerations and not made in a timely way. To that extent I think it is a positive.
Why this is wrong and unfair is that assigning refugee determination to civil servants is fundamentally problematic because they lack the necessary independence. Any kind of quasi-judicial process must, as a fundamental question of natural law, include decision makers who are untainted by any political considerations and are truly independent.
Limiting appointments to civil servants would also exclude some of the most highly qualified potential decision makers from a diverse range of backgrounds, such as academia, human rights and social services. This would affect the quality of decision making.
The question of appointments to the RAD remains unresolved. Under this bill, they still would be political appointees, and the problems with that are self-evident.
I want to chat about the appeal and pre-removal risk assessment as well. The refugee appeal division would finally be implemented, and I want to congratulate the minister for that. That is a positive step. Thanks to his persistent work on this, that would help our system. There are some positives because an appeal on the merits is necessary to correct the inevitable errors at the first instance.
The PRRA is inefficient and ineffective at the moment. It makes better sense to look at new evidence at the RAD. In some sense it is inefficient also because the bill leaves in place the highly inefficient PRRA process, which routinely takes months or years for a decision, the average in 2006 being 202 days.
What we all need to do in the House is focus on the essence of refugees and a proper system. Wherever they are in the world, refugees have the same needs. They need protection and a durable solution. Canada has specific legal obligations toward refugees who are in Canada, so it is wrong to suggest that trading off refugees here in favour of refugees abroad is any kind of real answer.
We have a moral responsibility toward refugees elsewhere in the world and here in Canada. We could and should do more to resettle refugees, including addressing the huge delays and low quality of decision making at some visa offices.
I look forward to considering the bill at committee. The minister has expressed that he is open to amendments. I think we can improve the bill and make the kind of refugee system which will serve Canada and refugees from around the world well.
