Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I just want to say that I hadn't discussed this with Mr. Sharma, but you'll be surprised to hear that our positions are very similar. I'm going to build on what Mr. Sharma just told you as I agree completely with him. The problem with the immigrant consultant situati

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I agree with everything the co-witnesses have said. Access to information is vital. Women are extremely vulnerable, especially when they come from certain societies where they're in a position of complete dependence, and ensuring they get access to the information from my—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I understand what you're saying, of course, but the first difficulty with that is that the woman isn't aware of the exceptions. But she's definitely aware, because she's told when the visa is issued and she's told when she comes into the country, that she has a conditional visa a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think it would help if we were sure that in every case the woman was made aware in advance that if she's the victim of abuse she has recourse. I think that would be an improvement over what I think is the general rule now, where most women are aware they have this condition and

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Very briefly, it could be implemented through a public policy that the minister would promulgate and that would indicate, in the case of an abused woman who is in a marriage, that before officials take any enforcement action, they be required to interview the woman and determine

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, well, the problem here is that there's no clear policy. The biggest issue is that we have the enforcement, the CBSA, working completely independently from CIC.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There's no coordination between the two, so....

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. Of course, we're talking here about two different issues, because some of the women who come are victims of abuse and they flee their country and come here and make claims for refugee protection based on abuse. Those women have to go through the refugee process and th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There's no question. This woman was traumatized by the whole situation. She'd been abused. She was in a shelter. She went to immigration to tell her story, was arrested, and was retraumatized when she was detained with her children in the detention facility and threatened with de

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They were briefly, but then they were allowed to go when we found someone to care for them.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Marriages of convenience have been combatted before the visa through two different procedures. The first was the careful scrutiny by visa officers, who have the power to refuse the issuing of a visa if they believe that the marriage is non-genuine. That has been happening as lo

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for inviting me. It's an honour to appear before this committee, studying this extremely important topic. I see far too frequently in my practice women who have suffered abuse. Unfortunately, our experience has been that in many cases the immigration system compels the

Finance committee  Anyway, I'm just telling you—

Finance committee  I'll make two points. First of all, I don't disagree that things need to be done and I don't disagree with the idea of reform. I have two concerns. First of all, I think what we're doing is wrong.