Citizenship and Immigration committee  To be fair, though, if three groups are invited, I think it would be fair to give each of the three groups an equal amount of time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I am going to split the time I am allowed with my colleague Mr. Rico-Martinez. The Canadian Council for Refugees is an umbrella organization with about 170 member organizations across Canada. This year, we are celebrating 30 years of work on behalf of refugees and im

Public Safety committee  As parliamentarians, you must assume your responsibility and make choices that respect with the Charter. However, you are not limited by what the Supreme Court said. We, as members of a democratic society, encourage you to respect the rights of every member of our society as much

Public Safety committee  Isn't that the same quandary you find yourself in if the person affected is a Canadian citizen? What do you do if the person is a Canadian citizen?

Public Safety committee  Thank you for that opportunity. I would like to come back to the issue of section 86, because there is a tendency always to talk about security certificates. I understand that they are the most serious issue in the bill in terms of the rights at stake, but section 86 is an impo

Public Safety committee  We have in our brief outlined a number of specific areas in which the special advocate model is, as we call it, a minimalist model, like the worst possible. We believe you're off on the wrong track from the beginning, because we do not think this is the way to minimally impair th

Public Safety committee  If I can just give an example, when we deal with murder, we don't distinguish between citizens and non-citizens. If a murder is committed, then whether the person is a citizen or non-citizen, they will be brought to justice. We're saying that terrorism issues should be dealt with

Public Safety committee  You mentioned the Canada Evidence Act. From our perspective, we feel that it may give some useful clues, because the Canada Evidence Act recognizes that there may be sensitive information in certain circumstances, but it has a much more flexible mechanism for dealing with how you

Public Safety committee  Can I ask, though, whether we are talking about this sort of situation? When you say “organized crime”, as I understand it, the Supreme Court said that use of secret evidence is a violation of section 7, but that it might be justified under section 1 where there are issues of nat

Public Safety committee  It is obviously astonishing that we give so few rights to a person who is facing a long detention and possible deportation towards persecution, torture and even death.

Public Safety committee  You are referring to a problem that exists in immigration law that affects not only those named in security certificates, but all of those who are covered by immigration decisions. The appeal is limited to a judicial review, and an appeal of the decision of the trial division of

Public Safety committee  Yes, absolutely.

Public Safety committee  Let us remember that these provisions only apply to non-citizens. We have no reason for thinking that only non-citizens represent a risk to Canada. So if you collectively think we in Canada are safe with not having similar provisions for citizens, why are we not safe if we don't

Public Safety committee  No.

Public Safety committee  We mention this in our brief, and I just want to highlight the concern we have about the differential treatment of citizens and non-citizens. Bearing in mind that immigrants and refugees are often subject to scapegoating, prejudices, and stereotyping, it is important that we try