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

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 inadmis

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, th

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

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 cri

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 t

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  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

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

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

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

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 c

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 commu

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I would target groups who are victims of genocide, although I know that word might not be popular in this room. There is a very serious situation happening with religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East. It's not only religious and ethnic minorities; it's also sexua

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