Citizenship and Immigration committee  To be honest, I'm very concerned about the timeframes proposed for the first hearing, the 60-day hearing. For example--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My issue is that the safe third country is what cuts out the right to an appeal. A lot of times you'll be at that first 60-day hearing and not presenting your full case, for a variety of reasons. For example, many of my clients would have just received an HIV diagnosis for the fi

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If there was oversight and accountability for that decision, then--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I personally am not categorically opposed to having designated countries, but the charter would most likely have something else to say about that. I fully understand that there is a need to streamline the system to get out bogus claims. The problem is throwing out legitimate cla

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, yes, if they were trained public servants looking at the same evidence I'm looking at.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the concern is around the criteria for establishing the list, and oversight as well. Those, to me, are the major issues, and there are no provisions in the bill for determining either of those. I think that's where the alarm is coming from, because we just don't have enou

Citizenship and Immigration committee  —system are really of much graver concern for me and for my clients.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Based on the experience I've had with those countries, they don't seem safe to me, absolutely not.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I know that other witnesses have raised the issue that, for example, claims based on domestic violence or homophobia would perhaps get short shrift because often countries that might be considered democratic do have problems with those issues. I would certainly say that discrimin

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I've been bringing the perspective of my office to other groups of lawyers—for example, the Refugee Lawyers' Association of Ontario and the Canadian Council for Refugees, among others—and absolutely informing them of our perspective. Since the energies are focused in those o

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would defer to Mr. Matas on that point.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I'm also very concerned about proposed subclause 25(1.3), which restricts the factors an immigration officer can consider in an H and C application. The section purports to eliminate consideration of factors related to refugee determination decisions or to risk to lif

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Perhaps what I can do, just in the interest of time, is--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Exactly, and I'll try to fit in what I have to say in my answers.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Toronto.