Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think there are things that we've spoken about that would call for changes. For example, on the way the initial determination body is selected, the process should be depoliticized. We have a process of appointments that takes a long time and to fill vacancies takes longer than

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, but I'm not defending the existing system. This is the point you've made. I just want to clarify that we think the Immigration and Refugee Board's jurisdiction can be expanded modestly to deal with humanitarian and compassionate grounds and also with pre-removal risk assessm

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, quite frankly, we believe that the designation will be politicized. We've seen examples of that with the present government, where the preferences or the prejudices of the government of the day have a profound impact on such designations. So ultimately, people will fall v

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I will try to slow it down a little bit. I was conscious of the time limits.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I will slow it down a little bit.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Such determinations also violate international law by discriminating on the basis of country of origin. In addition, they carry with them the real spectre of endangering legitimate refugees by leaving undefined the terms of “safe countries of origin” and “safe” itself . Indeed,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My name is James Kafieh. I'm legal counsel for the Canadian Arab Federation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The Canadian Arab Federation is the national organization serving Arab Canadians. Since 1967, we've advocated on a wide range of topics. However, our 500,000 Arab Canadians have a special interest in Bill C-11. We come from a part of the world that is generating a lot of refuge

Public Safety committee  You have to change the culture within these organizations. What the Iacobucci report indicated is that they didn't really care how the information was gotten and where it was gotten. All they cared about was that the information was useful to them somehow. When it comes to the

Public Safety committee  I'd like to answer that. The point is that I recently had experience with SIRC. I went through it, and the reason, in part, was because a person, during a security screening interview, was asked personal opinion questions. The person was an Arab Canadian, an airport worker, and

Public Safety committee  If you have resources wasted because you're following people without a foundation for doing so, then you're not doing your job properly; you're not protecting Canadians. If you're not tailing people without some substantial reason to be tailing them, you are wasting the intellige

Public Safety committee  In principle, we are absolutely dedicated to the security of this country. We are the first people who are likely to be targeted by a terrorist attack. We're going to get it in terms of one end or the other. When the Oklahoma Murrah Building was blown up, within minutes commentat

Public Safety committee  My name is James Kafieh. I'm legal counsel for three intervenors in the Iacobucci inquiry. I'm representing the three of them here today. They include the Canadian Arab Federation, the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association, and the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relat

Public Safety committee  Our security services--RCMP and CSIS--are famous for overclaiming in terms of national security confidentiality issues; the idea that the person is going to get sufficient information isn't supported by the facts. I sense some people think that since you must be a terrorist, you