Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I have to say that I really like the idea that Mr. Allos spoke about earlier, which was to collapse the two programs together and make it a blend, so that you don't have a silo of PSRs and a silo of GARs anymore. What you would have is one refugee sponsorship program that is run consistently and uniformly across the board.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not an expert in that, but I would say that more information is never wrong. Certainly, tracking those outcomes would be your easiest way to find out what those outcomes actually are. I'm surprised to hear that information is not being kept now. If it isn't, it definitely should be.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay. Thank you. I think we should focus on the most vulnerable. Definitely I agree with the previous two speakers who talked about selecting the most vulnerable and not necessarily relying on UNHCR to pull people from camps, which are, after all, an extremely homogeneous community.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Honourable members, this is my sixth or seventh time appearing as a witness before this committee. I have to say that it's very nice to see so many new faces here today. I'm an immigration and refugee lawyer. I have been working with immigrants and refugees in one capacity or another for over 21 years.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I absolutely agree that those practices are barbaric and we shouldn't be afraid to call them that. I agree with what my colleague Ms. Marshall said earlier. Certainly when we're discussing matters, the language that we use is important. I don't think it has a place in the title of the bill, but I do think the language is appropriate generally.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I tend to agree that the word “culture” is nebulous. I don't think there is anything inherent in the word “cultural” that targets any specific culture. If people want to be offended, they're going to find a way to be offended, let's face it. What I find interesting is that with regard to the issue of polygamy in Canada, if you look at the one case that went forward in the criminal context, it was not talking about Muslims.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would, of course, support any measures that increase the ability of women to leave abusive relationships and to protect themselves and their children. I'm not an expert on resourcing of social services, but what you're saying sounds logical. If we're going to say to women that we're going to give them equality and we're going to give them these means to get out of these abusive relationships, or polygamous relationships or whatever, then of course they need the means to be able to do that, because economic security is of course a huge factor in these decisions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I didn't mean to say that there's some nefarious purpose to split up families or anything like that; it's just this concern in the back of my head.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The current provisions allow for an exception for people who are being abused. If they can demonstrate that they have been a victim of abuse—how to demonstrate that is a little bit problematic, but leave that alone for a minute—then they're exempted from the two-year condition. I do think that it probably would be a good idea to add coercion and forced marriage into an exemption from the condition.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They may very well have psychological inhibitions or real fears of physical violence in terms of coming forward, but I think you could say that about any criminal behaviour. I think you could also say that about spousal abuse. It's not a reason not to enforce, whether that be criminally or through the immigration system.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The reason I said that is that if you're in a polygamist relationship, one of the ways you can cure that is just by divorcing one of the spouses. I'm not sure if it's a serious concern, but it's a marginal concern in the back of my mind that maybe we might be encouraging people to split up their families and ditch a spouse in order to become compliant.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, as I've said publicly before, one thing is that within the immigration system, when it comes to forced marriage, for example, there are very few checks and balances to protect women within the spousal sponsorship process. Often when spouses are being sponsored to Canada, there is no interview.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can understand why some people might find some redundancy, because the Criminal Code already criminalizes polygamy. If you are criminally convicted, you can be deported from Canada on that basis. But I think what people are missing is the fact that having an immigration inadmissibility sanction, you can put people through an administrative process on a much lower standard of proof and make it easier to expel people from the country than it would be if you put them through a criminal court.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much. I've been practising as a lawyer for over 15 years, specializing only in immigration and refugee law. I'm a regular media commentator on immigration issues. Therefore, because my expertise lies solely in the area of immigration law, I will confine my remarks strictly to the immigration provision of this particular bill.