Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, thank you. We agree that there is a problem and that there sometimes needs to be a way of dealing with certain cases when most or all of them are unfounded. At the same time, there must be an equitable system that treats everyone equally and gives everyone a fair hearing. T

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Nationals of designated countries will not have a right of appeal. We are very concerned about having civil servants handle the first level, because they will have sole decision-making authority in these cases.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have certain reservations and concerns about the fact that these are civil servants. We are also not happy with the current system, because of partisanship. The government has to find another solution. We have concerns about civil servants' independence and about recruitment.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The CCR believes there are more effective ways to address the real problems of patterns of unfounded claims. The principal problem in addressing these claims lies not with the refugee determination system, but rather with the lack of coherent enforcement action. Such claimants ar

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. We're very much interested in looking at how the system can be more efficient. There are many things that don't work very well in the system. One of the problems that has arisen is that there has been this development of more and more categories of people who are ineligible

Citizenship and Immigration committee  From the point of view of the Canadian Council for Refugees, we would not support all those recommendations, and there are other things that we think are critical. I would highlight that the implementation of the refugee appeal division has been an urgent call from the refugee

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The current Act has been in force since 2002. One of the reasons the government cites when it talks about it being impossible to create an appeal division is that it is planning to amend the Act. We have been hearing this argument for seven years, since 2002. It is not a new one.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would underline your point by remarking that the decision before the Immigration and Refugee Board, when a claimant appears before them, is quite possibly the only decision that is made by a Canadian tribunal where you are potentially deciding on the death or life of the person

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation to speak to you this morning about Bill C-291, compelling implementation of the refugee appeal division. The Canadian Council for Refugees urges the Committee to complete its study very quickly, given that the bill has already

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In fact, the power the government is giving itself is not so much to refuse visas than to not issue them. Presently, if a person meets all the criteria set out in the act, the visa officer must issue a visa. But under the changes proposed, it only says that the visa may be issued

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. St-Cyr. Your understanding that applications controlled by the government of Quebec are not directly impacted by the instructions is correct. However, the language of these amendments is far from clear. There is a huge lack of explanatory notes to provide real ans

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I am here today representing the Canadian Council for Refugees. We thank you for this opportunity to comment on the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in Bill C-50. As many of you already know, CCR is a coalition of over 170 organizations throug

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would just clarify that we are against this bill, not that we don't want to take any steps. We have a global proposal we are urging you to consider separately. In the meantime, we are urging you to reject this particular step, because we think it is going in the wrong direction

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, in fact, this is something that concerns us because it is up to Parliament to establish the legal framework and then to be able to make sure that the officials are working within that framework. When you give enormous powers without any supervision, who knows what might happ

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Ms. Beaumier. Yes, I'd like to comment on your question about how people can be trafficked into Canada. From what we have seen, there is a variety of different means used, and that is one of the reasons we say this bill doesn't necessarily help, because it focuses on