Citizenship and Immigration committee It is clear that a lawyer should be present at every stage of the process. Currently, a lawyer is not always present at the airport interview, which takes place with an immigration official. It is clear that a lawyer should be present.
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee I'll let my colleague, Ms. Williams, answer this question.
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee Perhaps my colleague could answer.
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee I think that according to documents that are currently on Citizenship and Immigration Canada's website, including a grid, it replaces it. That is at least what I understand.
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee Precisely. You are talking about a specialist responsible for assisting claimants. In my opinion, this is the lawyer's role. He is the one who is a specialist in refugees' rights. There is a kind of void. We do not know in what context the interview will be held, and what questio
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee I work primarily with refugee claimants who are in detention. Often I meet them after eight days. I visit the centre once a week. They haven't found a lawyer. They do not know how to contact a lawyer. We are there to give them the first tools to initiate the refugee claim process
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee Actually, there's a distinction to make. Right now, the process is 28 days to fill out the personal information form. That's done with the help of legal counsel. Obviously, people have the right to access a lawyer to do that, but what we're concerned about is the fact that within
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee That's our understanding.
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee I'm not sure if one of my colleagues wants to answer.
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee In conclusion, we would like to present the five following recommendations: first, we recommend deleting subsection 100(4) concerning the interviews within a week of the person's arrival in Canada. Second, we recommend allowing the IRB Refugee Protection Division to set the date
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté
Citizenship and Immigration committee Thank you. I am the Program Coordinator for Action Réfugiés Montréal. As Ms. Williams mentioned, our organization visits the Immigration Detention Centre every week in order to provide legal information and moral support to the detainees. The centre is one of three immigration de
May 25th, 2010Committee meeting
Maude Côté