Public Safety committee  And to underline in particular in relation to the Canada Border Services Agency, which is not subject to any kind of external review, although it has the power of arrest and detention.

Public Safety committee  The second point is to do with the introduction of section 115 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act as a process that can happen in parallel to the security certificate process. Section 115 is not a process at all; it is the statement of the non-refoulement principle. It

Public Safety committee  It's not clear in the legislation as it stands. It's far from clear, and one of the things that the government has done in Bill C-3 is to take out the automatic judicial review that occurs currently in the legislation. A PRA decision in the security certificate process is autom

Public Safety committee  They're now parallel, and there's no automatic opportunity for the judge to review.

Public Safety committee  Sure. The protection issue arises in a different way in the security certificate, so I sympathize with your lack of understanding of it, and you're not alone in that. I've talked to lawyers who deal with these things, and they are also confused. I think that speaks to the way i

Public Safety committee  Thank you. My name is Janet Dench, and I am the Director of the Canadian Council for Refugees. I will be making this presentation with my colleague Sharryn Aiken, the former President of the Canadian Council for Refugees. The CCR, an umbrella organization with more than 170 memb

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I said, we welcomed the 2004 reforms as a step in the right direction. There was created a more methodical, transparent process to evaluate the competencies of candidates. However, the experience proved that when names would go forward to the minister in the cabinet at the tim

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Certainly that's a concern. As I said, we'd be very happy to discuss ways in which the process could be revised so that it is in the future, and guaranteed to be, completely independent and merit-based. That is our objective.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I wouldn't say we're afraid of revision. In fact, as I've said, we have some problems with the previously existing system, so we would like revisions. Our concern is with re-politicizing the process. In our view, we need to go in the opposite direction, which is depoliticizing.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I want to emphasize. You talk about the appearance of a problem. We're not talking about the appearance of a problem. We're talking about a real problem that has dogged the Immigration and Refugee Board since its inception. There has been no time in the life of the Immigration an

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The future is the opinion of all of us. Nobody can speak about the historical fact of the future. But I want to get to your question about the political interest in it and refer you to the conclusion of the Harrison report, where he says the proposed changes would also better r

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have a copy of the paper here that was presented by François Crépeau, professor of law then at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and Professor Houle, professor of law, Université de Montréal. This was on October 2, 2000. This is directed to the minister, but I believe at th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would point out that it's not the IRB that extends the terms of Board members. It's the minister or Cabinet that does it. We've observed that term renewals did not depend solely on the members' competencies. If they had useful political contacts that could further their appoint

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's a good question, but we can't find an answer. We know that a lot of names have been put forward.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  A lot of names have been put forward to the minister for the selection process. Names had previously been put forward in the spring of last year, when the government was elected. Then a number of other names were proposed in response to the call made last year. So we know there a