Citizenship and Immigration committee  Is that to me?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Clearly 10 years is excessive, but that often has to do with the abilities of the people judging the case. When you have civil servants who are dependent on their jobs, serving as the interviewers, we don't think that is going to speed things up. In fact, it will likely lead to more mistakes, which is the experience in other countries where civil servants have performed this function.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Again, it depends on the case. It can be very long for some people. On the other hand, if that is the time required to determine a complicated case, then it is fair.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We do need a system that processes people quickly, because people need to get on with the settlement process. In that sense, we agree that time is important to save. On the other hand, we do not want to sacrifice time for fairness, and we don't want to sacrifice the chance to present full evidence in the interests of, again, time and accelerating the removal process.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We applaud the refugee appeal division, as I said in the beginning of my presentation, but if everybody doesn't have access to that appeal division, then it doesn't serve the purpose it was mandated to serve in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Also, if the members of the division are politically appointed, then there again we lose the ability of that division to make high-quality decisions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That is why we think a merit-based selection process is key, and we wish that would be included in the bill as well.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we may need longer than that for those kinds of traumatic cases.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sometimes it can take an entire year. If the children are detained, which happened in one of our cases, we have to deal with their detention as well. There is safety within Canada, which is first and foremost. On top of that we need to compile the evidence to make the actual claims.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  These are not easy cases.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You're correct. We agree with you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We should absolutely do away with the safe third country. What we insist on for a fair process is a case-by-case determination for every claimant. The path of arrival to Canada will vary for different people, depending on their situations. And that same person will face different threats in a so-called third country.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Right, but if you have people who are persecuted on the basis of religion and racial profiling is increasing now in the U.S., for Muslims in particular as an example, is the U.S. safe for that person? It's unclear that it is.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You almost had it.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thanks very much. We really appreciate the opportunity to give a deputation regarding Bill C-11, on the changes to the refugee determination system. I work at the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. We are a clinic that serves about 3,000 clients a year. Immigration law figures at the top of the types of files we open.