Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't think it's a good idea to turn off the taps that feed the pipeline entirely.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, absolutely. I think they not only need to work towards celebrating meeting targets, but they also need to give some thought to making sure that whoever has been waiting longer is processed first: not a “last in, first out”, but a “first in, first out” system.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. This is the whole thing I was saying about transparency. There is no fault in admitting that we have an issue here. Everybody just wants to fix it. It's not about pointing fingers or blaming or trying to suggest that people are incompetent. It's nothing like that. It's just that we need to acknowledge that there is an issue and start tackling it by whatever means we possibly have.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have forgotten what the question was.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I think Canada over-relies...almost fetters its own discretion with respect to refugee selection. I don't think it's a good idea to completely abdicate our responsibility for choosing the refugees we want in Canada to an external organization with a different agenda and possibly different motives and expectations.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's often the flavour of the day. I remember in past governments as well, there were accusations of cherry-picking this group or that group. Depending on your predilections, I think that's probably always going to happen to a certain extent. The thing with the UNHCR is that they're largely selecting from camps.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I haven't noticed a lot of difference, to be honest. I've handled government-assisted cases. I've handled privately sponsored cases. I don't think it makes a particular amount of difference. There is a bit less paperwork on the government-assisted side, because you don't have a sponsor who has to go through the headache of dealing....

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think, particularly when they're privately sponsored, it's the sponsors who bring forward the candidates. This is the way it always was years ago, by the way. I'm not proposing something new. I'm proposing going back to the way it was before this UNHCR requirement was imposed.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. This is not without precedent, by the way. Years ago, back when I was very junior, there was something called the “deferred removal orders class”. That was a situation where the government recognized that there were a lot of failed refugees in Canada who had been sitting around in limbo for quite a long time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It would be pretty easy. All they would have to do is use section 25 of the act, the H and C provision, to make a policy and just say we're going to waive certain things for a specific period of time; we're going to give them a bit of a pass on certain requirements. It's not hard to do.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I wouldn't recommend that, to be honest, because the procedure to remove someone who is a security risk after their feet have already hit Canadian soil is much more difficult than screening them beforehand. I don't think I would recommend that as a course of action unless you're in a case of a really serious local emergency.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. You're right. It has almost become a joke among lawyers. It just seems to be an excuse after a while. It's like, right now, they're doing everything about Afghanistan; right now, everything is about Ukraine; right now, it's about Syria. It's like a never-ending line of excuses as to why cases can't be processed in time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I absolutely do. I am in favour of taping them. What possible reason could there be not to do it? If everything is being done according to the way it should be, why would anyone want to hide behind a wall of secrecy with respect to taping? Many of us record our meetings. When you have a court proceeding, everything is recorded.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's a great backup solution, but what I would really love to see is the creation of a culture where we don't need one—a culture where your questions would be answered clearly and on time. I'm not opposed to the idea of an ombudsman. It is probably a good thing. It creates a buffer zone between all of these members of the public who are very anxious about their cases and the bureaucracy, which is also stressed.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. I am absolutely in favour of any tool that allows Canada to be more nimble in terms of selecting immigrants who are better for our economy, based on economic need. I think any innovations or any efforts in that direction are definitely a positive thing, 100%, so—