Citizenship and Immigration committee  Good morning, and thank you very much. We're going to be making the presentation with all three of us taking part. I will begin by introducing you to the Canadian Council for Refugees, which is an umbrella organization of approximately 170 organizations across Canada committed

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Many members of this committee met on May 9 with the Lives on Hold delegation that came to draw attention to the very difficult situation of nationals of countries to which Canada does not deport because of a situation of generalized risks, generally called moratorium countries.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  One of the things to note is that the timelines vary enormously among visa offices. In some offices, it often happens within a matter of months, which is, of course, the way it should be, in our view. The disparity among these offices is in itself troubling, because people should

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It seems to partly be the problem. They also speak about the difficulties of communication. Obviously, refugee family members by definition are often in very difficult situations. They may be in countries that are torn apart by war. In some cases, we're also dealing with separa

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would just point out that the problems arising in Canada because of the lack of an appeal mechanism also exist abroad. Many applications sponsored by the private sector are denied, and in some cases, we find that negative decisions are not well founded. Errors can occur when a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, the operation of visa offices overseas is very expensive. You have to pay for the Canadian officials who are living overseas, as well as for the operation, locally, of the visa offices. If we do things in Canada, obviously, we don't have those extra expenses. So we imagine

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I don't think we have specific studies to rely upon, but logically, and from what we observe anecdotally, it is very costly when there are these long family separations. Some of that is because family members are living in desperately unhealthy circumstances. We have people-

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd like to pick up on the question of appointments to the IRB. We're very worried about the lack of reappointments of existing members. There have been some, but the general rule seems to be that there aren't reappointments. That is a concern from a couple of points of view. On

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We've been following this for some time, since the IRB came into existence in 1988. Our observation is that there have been problems with the appointments throughout that period, whatever the colour of the government in place, and there are various ways in which the system is pol

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. The information actually is available quite conveniently on the website of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. They have processing times by different categories. If we look at dependants of refugees, the family members of refugees in Canada, we gave you some of the statis

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Probably that is the case. If you look at the visa posts where you have the largest numbers of refugees coming from that region, they tend to be slower. They also tend to be places that are in a part of the world where things are more difficult, of course, because refugees don't

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The shortage of francophone members is a problem outside Quebec because obviously, there are many of them in Montreal.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, there are enough in Quebec. When an application for refugee status is filed elsewhere in Canada. applicants who speak French are entitled under the federal Official Languages Act to have a hearing in their first official language. The shortage of francophone members means

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would like to underline the whole issue of public opinion and public perceptions. The refugee name is so often dragged in in inappropriate contexts. The government and parliamentarians can play an important role in making sure that when we talk about refugees we understand what

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We haven't looked at that particular case, and we don't generally get involved in these. It's not the first time an IRB member has been accused of improper conduct. Of course it is a concern, but we would rely upon the IRB to have the proper processes in place and to make sure it