Citizenship and Immigration committee  I appreciate your bringing forward the mental health strategy and the great work your government did with the contributions and investments you made in this area. However, in the context of Bill C-43, we are not seeing any special provisions to accommodate individuals with mental illnesses or even to study the impact on this population with the proposed changes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Actually, I mentioned that we applaud the release of the first national mental health strategy as a step forward. It's a first step. It would be great to see some of the recommendations they are putting forward, particularly around the criminal justice system and how that may leak into being implemented in the immigration—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We do applaud the research strategy. It's a huge step forward. However, we are not seeing what is proposed in the strategy leaking into Bill C-43. There are no specific mental health provisions under this particular legislation. This is what I have been asked here to comment on—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Another accommodation I would...[Inaudible—Editor]...counsel in the criminal justice system. I think it may be helpful to have that in the immigration system as well, helping individuals, particularly those with mental health issues, figure out how to file their applications, how to navigate the system, and how to present evidence that would ensure that their mental health needs are put forward.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's not even so much an issue of somebody coming from a war-torn country or not; it's more about undiagnosed mental illness. It's an episodic illness. People may experience psychosis, which is a complete disconnect with reality; they may think and truly believe that something is happening and that they have to do something.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay. Before I go there, I just want to correct something. I want to address the comments that my friend here made around the Holocaust survivors. I think having the blanket understanding that everybody who came, fleeing the Holocaust, never committed a crime, and that everybody who comes from other war-torn regions commits a crime, is quite—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  And the question to me would be...am I aware?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I am aware. I don't see why that should affect how we as Canadians do our business here. I think we can use other countries as models, but we also have sometimes a much better approach—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I understand that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Essentially, our major recommendation is to leave section 64 as is, without changing it down to the six months provision. Another recommendation that we always put forward is one to actually study the implications of these changes on our population. What we know right now is that the immigration department doesn't actually track mental health.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Within the war itself, the trauma is huge. I think people experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder years down the line. You can have flashbacks and it can be really incapacitating. At the same time, it's something that doesn't come through. You may have an individual who locks him or herself in a room for a number of days, sometimes months, and then they snap.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  An example that I raised is that some of the youth are crown wards. Another example is somebody who comes here with a family when they're very young. Sometimes we have cases in which somebody has come here at the age of a few months or a few years. They tend to experience mental health issues that go undiagnosed for years and years.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, actually, we see it all the time, particularly in certain immigrant groups. It's just an assumption that if you come into the country, and you live here a certain period of time, then you automatically become a citizen. What we try to do is educate people on the difference between permanent residency and citizenship, but even with that, I don't think there's enough awareness.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's not exactly what I said. I said the immigration process itself has a detrimental impact on people's mental health, particularly those who may come from war-torn regions.