Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have more than 200 agency members of OCASI across Ontario. They work with refugees and immigrants. We are the people who deal with the refugees and immigrants who stay here for more than a thousand days. They go to different refugee hearings and find a lawyer and whatever. We

Citizenship and Immigration committee  —using the criteria of economic integration, social ties to Canada, etc. That's one of the things that we want you to consider.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You have to check the percentage of refugee claimants in our criminal system. It's very low. The bill is not going to catch these people. Mr. Skarica is very passionate about it. Why? Because the refugee hearing will be in 30 days. There won't be enough time to do a criminal chec

Citizenship and Immigration committee  And on the other hand, one of the main problems we have with the modification of the designated country of origin is the process with which that country will be determined. In the original Bill C-11, when it was passed, they were talking about refugee rights, the standards of rig

Citizenship and Immigration committee  What I am saying is that we have Bill C-11, which addresses very similar issues in a more holistic way, and was approved by Parliament. We don't understand why we have to review this issue when there was an agreement among political parties. It was approved and it was a decent ag

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, refugees are seen as a threat. But refugees are not a threat; refugees are threatened. That's when we open the door of our office. We receive families and single people from everywhere. The people who are more traumatized are sometimes the ones who don't understand even why

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We are basically focusing on youth and racialized youth because these are the people we serve in the different community-based organizations, and this has been an issue identified by our members. A 2010 Toronto Star investigative series on Toronto police data for the period 2003

Citizenship and Immigration committee  First, it is not my opinion. I was quoting the studies from which we took this information. Even though we are not experts in the penitentiary system, the over-population, all the situations there, we did our research to show you that the population we serve in our agencies, comm

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We are here to talk about the specific situation of no access to appeals for persons who make a mistake, and we are talking about youth. You can make an exception for youth, and you can indicate an age or whatever, but the person has to have access. We are not asking for a pardon

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We are focusing on the amendment in clause 24. We are asking to remove it in order that persons have access to an appeal before the Immigration and Refugee Board. The second thing we're asking is if there can be a campaign to explain the consequences of the implementation of th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Exactly.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Even if the bill is passed with the amendment on the appeal, I think the campaign and the changes to the curriculum have to be suggested so that youth and children know about the implications of this bill.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is, particularly because that affects many people who are now obligated to make a mistake. Let me give you an example. Some women are in very abusive or violent relationships. The husband fills out all of the applications and forces the woman to leave children behind, for in

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Those are exactly the examples we are thinking of. You can go on and on with the examples we consider. We understand that the person was at fault. It's prescribed in the law. On the other hand, we understand that it was a mistake. That person is going to learn very quickly that

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's one of the possibilities that you can have, particularly for young people. We have many cases in our agencies where the young start having problems during their adolescence. They have depression, mental issues, many things. They run away from home. They become a problem. T