Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm just wondering if everybody got my brief, bio, and background information.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't want to dwell on that. Suffice it to say that I am a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board, and an immigration and refugee lawyer in Ottawa exclusively since 2001. Previous to that, I was on the refugee board. I think it's important to refer very briefly to

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay. The one exception I have to supporting the Minister is that he is expecting faster decisions to accelerate the overall processing times on refugee claims. However, he is cutting 1,500 CBSA positions. This is counterproductive to an accelerated refugee processing time, beca

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I am not one of the drafters of the current Bill C-31. Had I been, I would have suggested a third category: safe countries of origin, where no claims would be considered. I would have included all the European Union countries; the United States; New Zealand; Australia; Switzerlan

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They're obviously not genuine refugees. There's this whole issue of people—including some of my clients, which I've been quite distressed to learn afterwards—who after being granted refugee status, get a travel document to return to their home countries from whence they fled in f

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I've had a few calls from abroad, mostly from young men from some Middle East countries. They ask me about refugee claims. They say that they'll be arriving next month and can I take their case. I tell them that they can't just come in but that they need a visa. They'll say, “Oh,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Oh, absolutely. There's the Canadian experience class, skilled workers if there's a certain profession, and then there are the low-skilled workers. There are many ways to immigrate to Canada legitimately. I feel that too many people are using the refugee process as a parallel imm

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I've never missed a deadline among the hundreds and hundreds I've had—and we're not looking at 28 days here. When somebody is leaving their country, they have that intention. They're leaving, they're fearing for their lives. If they come from certain countries, such as Rwa

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Regarding the mandatory detentions and designated groups, I think there was confusion created, because people coming from designated countries are not the same as people coming through irregular arrival, that is, through smuggling. So if someone didn't know the bill in detail the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I had a women from Djibouti whose claim was from the fall of 2009. We just had her claim heard in February and she was accepted. But she called me regularly and I kept sending requests to Montreal to please schedule her claim from 2009. I kept assuring her, “No one will deport yo

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, I don't know. I know that if they want to go and live and work in another EU country, that's exactly what they have to do—live and work. They are not entitled to welfare when they arrive in one of the 26 other countries, whereas when they arrive in Canada they are not obl

Citizenship and Immigration committee  —and get subsidized housing and social assistance.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I have.