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Citizenship and Immigration committee Actually, Madame Vaugrante will begin for us. Thank you.
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee Thank you, and good morning, committee members. The right to liberty is a cornerstone human right grounded in the innate human yearning for freedom. Human rights norms universally, therefore, make it clear that the state's power to take away liberty through arrest and imprisonme
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee Okay. The last point I want to make is a point about appeals. For years the lack of an appeal on merits has been the notable shortcoming in Canada's refugee system. We welcomed, therefore, the inclusion in Bill C-31 of establishing the Refugee Appeal Division. What is deeply tro
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee Thank you very much. I certainly appreciate learning of your support for Amnesty International. Absolutely, we agree that speedy, expeditious processing of refugee claims is not just an important government objective, it's an important objective for refugees themselves. Obvious
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee We already do have provisions in Canadian law that allow for detention for the purposes of verifying identity. This new approach of imprisoning an entire group simply on the basis of their group identify and their means of arrival is something very different, with respect.
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee I think there's a big difference between a notion of expediting claims on the basis of country of origin and denying access to something as fundamental as an appeal hearing in something as consequential as a refugee claim. I think the high commissioner's comments were dealing wit
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee Thank you. There are many international legal provisions at stake when we look at the detention regime here. It starts with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees against arbitrary arrest and detention, and the need for regular, timely access to an ability t
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee We're very clearly of the view that these detention provisions do not conform to our international legal obligations. I think we're already starting to see that signalled. As I said, earlier this year, in February, Canada was reviewed by a UN-level human rights body, the UN Commi
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee That is another deeply troubling piece of the legislation, the fact that there will essentially be a five-year bar because of the inability to get permanent residence for five years for the individuals you've described, and with that, therefore, an inability to sponsor family mem
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee I think the sense of discrimination that lies at the heart of this bill, treating refugees differently based on how they've arrived in Canada, based on their country of nationality, and therefore being denied equal protection of some key human rights issues—access to appeal provi
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee I don't have an authoritative or statistical answer to that question. I think we should pride ourselves, yes, on being generous. I would argue that in our generosity what we are doing, though, is complying with our international human rights obligations. It's not a question of ch
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee It does indeed. For many, many years, advocates, and I think government officials, have recognized that the humanitarian and compassionate process offers a valuable avenue to ensure that a whole variety of concerns, often involving serious human rights issues that don't necessari
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
Citizenship and Immigration committee I'm sure you will probably have already heard, and will probably continue to hear, from individuals who do refugee work on a daily basis—refugee lawyers, people working with front-line organizations—who I'm sure can tell you very powerfully that speed is so valuable, absolutely.
May 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
International Trade committee Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, and good afternoon, committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. Let me begin by succinctly capturing what Amnesty International's overarching message will be. It is a message about the crucial importance of due dil
June 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve
International Trade committee We have regular contact both with the embassy in Bogota and officials here. And we certainly make sure that any time Amnesty International has a new report or press release or an urgent action, it is brought to the attention of government officials. We've not been in a position,
June 7th, 2012Committee meeting
Alex Neve