moved that Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171) be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to begin this debate today on Bill C-291, which I tabled in this House a little earlier in this session and which proposes to establish the refugee appeal division. It would be useful to start with a short history to indicate the need for and the pertinence of this bill.
In 2002, this Parliament adopted the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Before this act was adopted, two board members examined refugee claims. Approval by one of the two members was sufficient to grant refugee status. When the IRPA was adopted, this Parliament decided to reduce the number of members examining refugee claims from two to one. However, in their wisdom, parliamentarians decided to provide for an appeal section. Although included in the legislation, it has never been implemented because the successive Liberal and Conservative governments have never issued the cabinet orders required to bring it into force.
The purpose of the bill before us today is simply to respect the will of Parliament and begin that process. It is important that this appeal section be established for three basic reasons: first, it will prevent arbitrary decisions in refugee status cases; second, it will ensure that decisions made by members are consistent; third, it will prevent decisions from being too costly and ensure that the cost of the system for handling these applications is not too high, as I will explain later in my presentation.
Let us start at the beginning, with the issue of arbitrary decisions. There are quite a few board members at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB), many of whom are undoubtedly competent. However, the problem is that many of these people are not well-suited to this work.
I will give a very topical example, one that I revealed in the House this week and for which the minister had a chance to defend himself—the case of Pharès Pierre. This board member, appointed by the current minister, has a very questionable past. He was the chief of staff to former Prime Minister of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That controversial regime committed atrocities and was complicit in major crimes.
Some people were only underlings within this regime. Police officers and civil servants have been refused the right to ask for asylum in Canada because they worked for the regime. Yet we learn that this board member was at the top of the pyramid. And, from now on, he will be the one to receive and study refugee requests coming from everywhere, including Haiti. We would all agree that there is an obvious ethical issue there. Some of the people claiming refugee status, who say they were persecuted by the Aristide regime, will find themselves being judged by a person who was at the top of this regime. That makes no sense.
This candidate managed to slip through all the cracks in security.
The IRB selected him. Then he underwent Privy Council security checks—the Privy Council being the Prime Minister's Office, which looked into the matter and declared that there was no security problem. These are, of course, the same people who investigated the Couillard affair. Then the minister appointed him. When I asked the minister in the House why he appointed that individual, he candidly admitted that the man was obviously not the right guy for the job. Yes, he has a B.A. in mathematics, and I have a lot of respect for people who have a B.A. in mathematics, but that does not mean they have the skills it takes to be commissioners any more than if they have a minor in administration or are on the board of the Lions Club of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
This appointment is glaringly partisan, because Pharès Pierre was the vice-president of the Conservative riding association in Saint-Jean and vice-president of the Quebec wing of the Conservative Party. This is clearly unacceptable. He managed to slip through the net and become a commissioner. Now he is the one who will be making extremely important decisions that could have life-or-death consequences for people. This is the person who will be making these decisions. It makes no sense.
And then there is Laurier Thibault, who handled Abdelkader Belaouni's case. Mr. Belaouni, who lives in my riding, is an Algerian refugee who, despite being blind, wants to get involved in the community. At the time Mr. Belaouni appeared before him, this judge, this commissioner, Laurier Thibault, was rejecting 98% of the cases he dealt with. Imagine appearing before a judge who finds 98% of the people he tries guilty. Would anyone think that justice was being done? Surely not.
There is an obvious problem here: some commissioners do not have what it takes to do the job. We need an appeals division to overturn these decisions. Even if they were all very competent, we would still have a natural justice issue on our hands. Even though we have very competent judges in our other courts, we still have an appeals division. Why do citizens and permanent residents have access to appeals in the regular system, but refugees do not?
In the past, the Liberals have often told us that appeals to superior courts and judicial reviews were possible. However, these are not appeals on the merits; they are simply appeals based on technicalities or for procedural reasons. However, if the IRB member followed all procedures, but simply does not believe the refugee claimant's version, the claimant has no opportunity to appeal.
The second reason I gave was the lack of consistency in the decisions. When there is no appeal division, each IRB member can decide one way or the other. As all immigration lawyers will agree, this makes it impossible to tell someone whether they are eligible or not by simply looking at their file. In the end, the decision will depend on which member of the IRB gets assigned to the file. We sometimes refer to this as “the board member lottery” and it is inconceivable that people's lives are being decided on so arbitrarily. With a real appeal division in place, board members will have case law that they can refer to when deciding a case, in order to ensure greater consistency.
Lastly, I think we could even save money in our justice system, since the appeal division, as it is defined in the legislation, is an administrative tribunal. But since this administrative tribunal does not yet exist, claimants who have been refused by the board tend to avail themselves of all kinds of procedures before superior courts to try to obtain justice. In the end, this is more expensive for the system, since those proceedings tend to be much more costly.
In my opinion, it is important to move forward on this. In committee this week, the minister told me he was afraid that, among other things, the possibility of appeal would snowball and the appeals would drag on forever.
I invite the Conservatives to support the principle of my bill and to send it to a committee that will determine if measures can be implemented to prevent this from happening. We cannot wait for the entire system to be reformed before taking action. Critical decisions are being made about people. I therefore invite all members to support this bill.
It is a matter of respect for the Parliament that voted for a law. Although seven years have passed, this measure should be implemented. It is a matter of natural justice. It is the way things are done in all western democracies. Every judicial system provides for appeals in order to eliminate arbitrary decisions, which do occur at present, and also to preserve the honour of Quebeckers and Canadians by respecting the dignity of those human beings who seek refuge in our country.
I would like to close on a more poetic note in this House by quoting Gilles Vigneault, a great Quebec singer. I am sorry, but I will not be singing. I would just like to read his lyrics for all my colleagues:
About my solitary country
I cry out before I am silenced
To everyone on earth
My house is your house
Inside my four walls of ice
I take my time and my space
To prepare the fire, the place
For the people of the horizon
And the people are of my race
