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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

1330

The Chair (Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.))

1335

Mr. Chris Friesen (Member, Immigration and Integration Coordinating Committee, Affiliation of Multicultural Societies & Service Agencies of BC)

1345

The Chair

Ms. Lauren Johnson (Executive Coordinator, British Columbia Settlement and Integration Workers Association)

1350

Mr. Layne Kriwoken (Organizing Team Member, British Columbia Settlement and Integration Workers Association)

1355

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana (Member/Organizer, Filipino Nurses Support Group)

1400

The Chair

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial (Vice-Chair, National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC))

1410

The Chair

1415

Ms. Sophia Leung (Vancouver Kingsway, Lib.)

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung

The Chair

Mr. Chris Friesen

The Chair

Mr. Chris Friesen

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial

1420

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung

Mr. Chris Friesen

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

1425

The Chair

Mr. Layne Kriwoken

Mr. Chris Friesen

1430

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial

The Chair

Mr. Louis Plamondon

1435

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich (Blackstrap, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Chris Friesen

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Mr. Chris Friesen

1440

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Mr. Layne Kriwoken

The Chair

Mr. Chris Friesen

The Chair

Mr. Chris Friesen

The Chair

1445

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial

The Chair

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial

The Chair

Mr. Chris Friesen

The Chair

Mr. Chris Friesen

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans (Executive Director, BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association)

1515

1525

The Chair

Ms. Rachel Rosen (Coordinator, Grassroots Women)

1530

The Chair

Ms. Rachel Rosen

The Chair

Ms. Rachel Rosen

1535

The Chair

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial

1540

The Chair

Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, Lib.)

1545

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

Mr. David Price

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

1550

Mr. Darrell Evans

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Darrell Evans

1555

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Mr. Darrell Evans

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Mr. Darrell Evans

1600

The Chair

Ms. Rachel Rosen

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial

The Chair

1605

Ms. Rachel Rosen

The Chair

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

1610

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Mr. Darrell Evans

The Chair

1615

Mr. Darrell Evans

Ms. Rachel Rosen

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman (Lost Canadian Organization)

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

1630

The Chair

1635

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr (Lost Canadian Organization)

The Chair

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

1640

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Mr. Louis Plamondon (Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, BQ)

The Chair

1645

Mr. Don Chapman

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

1650

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Mr. Louis Plamondon

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr

Mr. Louis Plamondon

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr

Mr. Louis Plamondon

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr

1655

The Chair

Mr. Don Chapman

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

NUMBER 043

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

· (1330)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.)): Colleagues, we'll get started. I know a few others are just slow coming in.

This part of the session this afternoon will be spent talking about Canada's settlement integration programs, something this committee wanted to do post our new immigration policy to find out what new programs and funding would be available to take into account our new immigration policy, as well as the fact that we want to invite more people to come to this country. We wanted to talk to those people on the ground who were in fact delivering some of our settlement and integration programs to find out how they were working and what were some of the new ones.

We look forward to some new and creative ideas you might have with regard to how we can deliver our settlement and integration programs a lot better. We understand and know that sometimes it's just not a matter of immigration, but that there are other departments that very much have a part to play in terms of making sure there's labour training and so on.

We look forward to your comments and want to thank you in advance for all of your hard work in making people feel at home when they come to this country before they get citizenship.

This afternoon we have Chris Friesen, who is a member of the Immigration and Integration Coordinating Committee for the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Services Agencies. We have Lauren Johnson from the British Columbia Settlement and Integration Workers Association. We have Leah Diana from the Filipino Nurses Support Group. We also have Ning from the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada.

I welcome all. Let's start with Chris. In some cases we know we have your brief, so if you could take five to seven minutes to summarize what's in your brief, we can ask you some questions thereafter.

· (1335)

Mr. Chris Friesen (Member, Immigration and Integration Coordinating Committee, Affiliation of Multicultural Societies & Service Agencies of BC): Thank you.

Members of the committee, I make this presentation today on behalf of AMSSA. AMSSA is a coalition of over 80 organizations providing multiculturalism province of B.C. Most publicly funded immigrant-serving agencies in B.C. are AMSSA members.

My presentation today will focus on four areas: the national funding allocation for immigrant settlement programs; the lack of comparable immigrant settlement services across Canada; the B.C.-Canada agreement on immigration and its impact on immigrant settlement programs; and lastly, the comments related to the resettlement assistance program.

Based on the 2001 census data, Stats Canada has recently reiterated the need for effective immigrant settlement programs. Immigrants will need to access skilled trades and professions to meet both their own needs and the needs for Canada's labour market. Immigrant settlement programs, such as language services, must be offered at a higher level than currently available or Canada will face severe economic hardships.

The funding for immigrant settlement programs in Canada has remained static for the past five years at roughly $173.2 million, not including allocations to the Province of Quebec. However, during the same time period, the number of immigrants and refugees to Canada has steadily increased.

It's important to note that the Government of Canada, through the right of landing fee, currently collects over $170 million annually. In short, immigrants are, by and large, already paying for their settlement and language needs. If the federal government is committed to increasing the number of immigrants to 1% of Canada's population, AMSSA believes there must be adequate resources in place to ensure they are successfully settled and integrated.

Over the past three years many regions in Canada, notably B.C., parts of the prairies, and most of the Atlantic region, have seen substantial funding cuts for immigrant settlement and language programs. Without a minimal threshold of funding in regions and with existing contracted service providers, consistent and efficient service and standards of service will be very difficult to sustain over the long term.

AMSSA applauds the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's current review of the national funding formula. We believe it is extremely important to ensure that there is an appropriate baseline of funding available, in addition to the allocation derived from landing data, so that communities, both urban and rural, can maintain their capacity to welcome and support immigrants in their integration process.

Under the auspices of the now disbanded B.C. Coalition for Immigrant Integration, of which AMSSA was one of 77 members, the most comprehensive review to date was undertaken on settlement and language services across Canada. This document or report card, which is available as part of my submission, is not an exhaustive piece of research, but it does provide an invaluable starting point in the analysis of comparable services across Canada, one of the pillars of CIC's immigrant settlement policy framework.

The bottom line is the fact that comparable services do not exist in Canada. Language service provision, such as LINC, or ELSA in the case of B.C., ranges from level three in B.C., an upper beginner's level not sufficient for accessing the labour market, to no limit in Manitoba. Most provinces, including the Yukon Territories, offer up to and including LINC level six for permanent residents.

In 1997 the agreement for Canada-B.C. cooperation on immigration was signed. As part of the agreement, CIC transferred funding for LINC, the Host program, and ISAP to the province. During the initial years of the agreement, B.C. received $45.773 million annually for immigrant settlement programs. However, since the year 2000 the total transfer payment has dropped by approximately $7 million annually, but more important, half the transfer payment has remained in the consolidated general revenue account of the provincial government.

Immigrant and refugee-serving agencies in B.C. are stretched to their limit. The very survival of smaller immigrant-serving agencies, especially outside of the greater Vancouver area, is now in question as the B.C. government moves ahead with its commitment to balance the provincial budget by 2005. For example, over the past year, core funding grants to agencies for rent and other administrative elements were eliminated. These funds were transferred to direct service areas.

Although B.C. has seen a small increase in the number of immigrant landings over the past two years, AMSSA has been informed that the federal transfer payment for immigrant settlement will be reduced by 7% next year. AMSSA believes that more accountability is required for the federal transfer payment to B.C. for immigrant settlement programs. Further clarity is also required by the provincial government on how federal transfer funds are allocated from within the consolidated general revenue account to ensure funded programs are accessible and available to only eligible clients.

My last comments today will touch on the resettlement assistance program or RAP. As you are aware, RAP was introduced June 1, 1998, to provide federal financial support for selected refugees abroad. The Province of B.C. currently receives approximately 830 individuals from 20 different countries annually.

AMSSA believes the fundamentals of the program are sound; however, a comprehensive review is required. The allowable time allocated to deliver the orientation services as well as the current resources have not kept pace with the changing demographics and increased special needs of government-assisted refugees.

At the time the program was implemented, the majority of RAP clients originated from the Balkan regions and less than 25% were considered special needs cases. Five years later the majority of RAP clients are from the Middle East and Africa. The change in those countries and regions, in addition to the department's policy framework shift toward refugee protection and the recognition that successful settlement is a three- to five-year process rather than a one- to two-year process, has necessitated a comprehensive review.

The initial funding formula for RAP considered that 25% of all government-assisted refugees were special needs cases. However, with the change in source countries and the focus on refugee protection, special needs cases have jumped to 75% of the entire client population.

I would like to make a comment concerning RAP and the transportation loan program. Immigrant- and refugee-serving agencies in B.C. are becoming increasingly alarmed by the financial burden placed on RAP clients by the transportation loan program. Although we support the Government of Canada 's refugee resettlement program, the total debt load for refugee families has become staggering, in some cases. I recall a southern Sudanese refugee family with six members and a loan of over $14,000.

AMSSA recommends that the transportation loan program become a grant program for RAP clients.

My last comments concern the RAP income support rates. As you may be aware, RAP income support rates are reflective of each province's welfare rates. The B.C. government cut welfare rates in July 2002. This decision automatically affected RAP clients, with the biggest impact on families and single mothers. As a result, we are observing an increase in the number of refugee families using food banks, children going to school hungry, and more clients using their food-allocated moneys to cover shelter costs.

AMSSA believes it is time to discuss the establishment of a national income support rate for RAP clients. Although government-assisted refugees are grateful for the opportunity to rebuild their lives in Canada, subjecting them to abject poverty upon their arrival does not provide them with an adequate foundation to become contributing members of Canadian society.

Thank you for the opportunity today to share with you some of our thoughts concerning settlement programs in Canada and British Columbia.

· (1345)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Chris, for your presentation, your insight, and your on-the-ground experience, which will help us greatly as we discuss this issue. I'm sure we will have some questions for you.

Next we have Lauren Johnson with the British Columbia Settlement and Integration Workers Association.

Welcome, Lauren.

Ms. Lauren Johnson (Executive Coordinator, British Columbia Settlement and Integration Workers Association): Thank you very much. Thank you, committee members, for having us here today. I actually have a work colleague of mine as well, Layne Kriwoken.

Today I'm going to be talking about BCSIWA, otherwise known as British Columbia Settlement and Integration Workers Association, professionalization within the sector, key initiatives that BCSIWA has been engaged in over the past year, as well as the structure of BCSIWA and our ability to utilize volunteers, BCSIWA's sustainability.

I will start off by talking about the business of providing services to immigrants and refugees. It means accessing a wealth of resources. Practitioners providing this service must have a certain level of expertise, knowledge, skills, and professionalization. They must know everything from transportation, to housing, to education, cultural norms, community resources, employment, legal--the list is exhaustive.

If you can imagine, providing that service would mean having a lot of knowledge and expertise and having the support mechanisms in place for those settlement practitioners. So how does BCSIWA fit into all this in terms of helping practitioners with those adequate support resources?

BCSIWA started in 1989 as the British Columbia Settlement Workers Network. Now in existence for 14 years, in 2001 BCSIWA actually received funding for the first time to set up office space and to have employed staff. Prior to that it was contractual agreements.

Our key activities include identifying, coordinating, and conducting regionally and provincially relevant workshops. We are able to survey British Columbia and various regions and put together training workshops relevant to the practitioners. The topics are quite diverse and offer training bursaries, as well as travel subsidies to assist the traditionally disadvantaged and the underpaid workforce. We also produce a quarterly newsletter that is administered to the group, I believe.

We also link the front-line practitioners to government-led initiatives, and vice versa, in being that link and that bridge between what happens on the front lines and sharing that information with the government as well as bringing back the practitioners' concerns to the government. Most recently we've been involved in the performance measurement advisory group, and this requires an extensive amount of data collection by the front-line practitioners. Understanding the practical application of this tool is essential if it's going to be administered by the provincial government, so BCSIWA was able to go out to the practitioners and get that feedback and bring it back to the province.

One of our major upcoming projects at this point includes the development of a website, which would includes links to other resources. We have approximately 500 other resources the practitioner can access, and that includes government and mainstream as well as community resources. That network of sharing that practitioners have in the various regions is essential. This is going to help foster that type of communication.

BCSIWA also has provincial and national representation so is able to sit on provincial committees as well as national committees.

What I'd like to end with is identifying how this need for professionalism benefits the newcomers to Canadian society. BCSIWA sees supporting professionalism in the sector as akin to supporting the efficient and effective integration of newcomers. Every newcomer that benefits from the expertise of a settlement practitioner is benefiting from the work that BCSIWA work does in being able to support these practitioners.

Now I'd like to pass this presentation over to Layne Kriwoken. He's going to be covering the structure of BCSIWA and our ability to utilize volunteers, as well as BCSIWA's sustainability.

Thank you.

· (1350)

Mr. Layne Kriwoken (Organizing Team Member, British Columbia Settlement and Integration Workers Association): Thanks, Lauren.

Thank you for inviting me here and for listening.

I just want to briefly address those three issues in reference to your committee and to the aspects relating to integration of immigrants and refugees into our community.

As Lauren mentioned, I'll give you a bit about our association. It's a professional association for front-line practitioners who are directly involved with immigrant and refugee clients and the rest of the community. That is a reality. Our board of directors is actually called an organizing team, and this reflects our non-hierarchical structure. The team is nominated directly by our members at our AGM. The information and the direction are taken directly from the front-line practitioners. In turn, the organizing team then passes on direction to the executive coordinator, which in most associations is the executive director.

Again, our coordinator follows the lead of our team and our practitioners, so this has a strong, grassroots, front-line background. This is important because our mandate is to support the skills of practitioners, which leads to more enhanced services to our clients, which leads to a stronger community.

The talent is dispersed throughout our sector. We provide a support network for our practitioners. Over the years this has developed into providing information now, not only to the practitioners but to the other players who are increasingly involved, including other NGOs, the three levels of government, and educational institutes.

Looking at the sustainability of our association, Lauren mentioned that we started 14 years ago, but it was only two years ago that we received a modicum of funding, which has allowed us to have a more secure presence in the settlement community. Now we're involved in a major group of workshops for our practitioners throughout the regions of British Columbia, as well as sitting on various committees, which Lauren mentioned, and providing a website and newsletters for our practitioners. A key part of this is to facilitate the exchange and availability of information, which enhances our practitioners and directly influences our clients for the community.

We recognize the government's increased focus on the role of volunteers and agree that this is an integral part of working together. However, a stage is reached when an association like BCSIWA can no longer continue on the sweat and blood of volunteers at a professional level. We are in a position now where we're seeing that resource start to fall as our workers are facing cuts in hours and positions and have various other obligations. That decreases their involvement in our association.

In the opportunity in the last two years to sit with other players in the settlement area, we have also found that often the information is not always getting to the front-line workers who are then conveying that information to our clients. Conversely, sometimes the information from the practitioners is not getting to the committee directly, and again, our members are in direct contact with the clients in the community. Our role is increasingly one of addressing that issue.

Last, I would like to talk about the increased services of BCSIWA. As our role is to continually take information and issues to our practitioners as well as to relay it back to the other players, I would like to endorse our participation further, as we find the settlement sector is becoming less isolated and more involved in the mainstream community, which is a reality of our fabric.

We see support and involvement of BCSIWA as an investment in a crucial resource in the settlement picture. Our increased inclusion and involvement have been beneficial not only in British Columbia but throughout Canada. We're involved with the CCR and national settlement conferences, and we've been approached by associations throughout Canada asking us about our successes and the progress we've made in British Columbia. As Lauren said, we are the only settlement professional organization in North America.

Finally, I just want to mention a quote from Shirley Seward, who is with the Canadian Labour and Business Centre. She was commenting on the recent statistics in support of immigration and employment and said, “We can't just manufacture people overnight”. While we realize that's true, I think we can facilitate an environment that will attract the people who come here, while not forgetting the immigrants who are already here, and provide an environment for them to prosper in, which would benefit all of the community.

Thank you for your time.

· (1355)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Lauren and Layne, for your information and hard work with regard to settlement workers. I'm sure we have some questions for you.

Now we'll go back to Leah.

Welcome again.

Leah is from the Filipino Nurses Support Group, and we're going to talk about settlement issues.

Ms. Leah Diana (Member/Organizer, Filipino Nurses Support Group): I was here previously and I gave a brief background and profile of the Filipino Nurses Support Group, so now I'll talk about the accreditation process and how it is a barrier to settlement and integration.

The accreditation process enforced by the nursing regulatory bodies is lengthy, costly, and discriminatory. One of the major barriers is the high cost of accreditation, a process that can cost up to $13,000 when exams and refresher courses are accounted for. The high costs further marginalize the nurses working under the LCP, as they earn only minimal wages.

In many provinces, regulatory bodies require that nurses take a refresher course if they have not met the required practice hours within the last five years. Nurses under the LCP cannot access refresher and other upgrading programs, as they must obtain student visa status and pay international student tuition prices. The refresher courses become inaccessible due to expensive costs, lack of available spaces, and strict full-time hours.

Another major barrier to accreditation is the English exam. Not only is it costly, but the exams are also irrelevant since Filipino nurses complete an American-based curriculum that is provided in English from elementary school to post-secondary, and the modem of health care practice in the Philippines is English.

Many Filipino nurses in B.C. who have not met the required English scores but have tried to waive the English exam scores with the regulatory body were denied for discriminatory reasons. A clear example of this is that the waiving process discriminates against references whose first language is not English. The waiving process disregards the fact that English is not the first language of the growing majority of Canadian people. Thus, the English requirement, both the exams and the waiving process, keep foreign-trained nurses out of the profession and marginalized as cheap health care workers under the LCP, or they remain as care aides and home support workers.

When looking at the various barriers put up by the nursing institutions that prevent Filipino nurses from returning to the practice of nursing, systemic racism is clearly a factor. Even as Canada is experiencing the worst nursing shortage in Canadian history, regulatory bodies maintain costly and discriminatory barriers that prevent Filipino nurses already in Canada from becoming registered nurses. The anti-immigrant and racist policies facing Filipino and other foreign-trained nurses are, first, the lack of an anti-racism policy and education within regulatory bodies; second, the expensive and irrelevant English exams; and third, the lack of recognition and support for nurses working under the LCP.

Regulatory bodies have claimed that the accreditation process is for the protection of the public, yet their policies that bar foreign-trained nurses aggravate the nursing shortage and aggravate public safety. Despite the dire need for nurses in Canada, provincial and federal governments are also slow in regulating the regulatory bodies, thus Canada does not benefit from the pool of talent and skills of foreign trained nurses, especially the ones here.

Thus we recommend to the committee the following. First, in order to alleviate the nursing shortage, the federal government should recognize and value the education and skills of Filipino nurses by letting nurses into Canada as nurses, not under the LCP, and accelerating their entry into nursing practice through reciprocity agreements.

Second, the federal government should review regulations that govern the professional nursing associations and should look at the systemic barriers that prevent Filipino and other foreign-trained nurses from practising nursing. Efforts should be made towards eliminating racism in the policies and practices of accreditation.

Third, community-based initiatives like the work of FNSG, which I shared with you earlier, must be used as a model and be given resources, as this has proven to be concrete and genuine support for marginalized nurses and has given economic stability to them and their families. Just to reiterate what I mentioned earlier, the community-based initiatives of FNSG have supported over 115 nurses who are now registered with RNABC, but many are still stuck and trapped in the live-in caregiver program.

Thank you.

¸ (1400)

The Chair: We also have Ning with us, representing the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada.

Welcome, Ning.

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial (Vice-Chair, National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC)): Thank you for allowing us to appear before you. We would have liked to have joined you in Ottawa, but it's nice that you've come out to Vancouver.

I'm representing the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada, a newly formed national alliance. We were formed in March 2002, but our member organizations have over 15 years of experience in educating, organizing, and advocating for marginalized Filipino women in Canada. Our member organizations are spread throughout the major urban centres in Canada: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, and those in B.C.

We'd like to talk to you today to bring out the voice of the community in terms of what is really happening in the reality of the settlement integration programs, because we believe that settlement integration is key to advancing equality, human rights, and the development of immigrant and migrant communities in Canada.

I'd like to start by just giving you a bit of background on the Filipino community. In terms of the latest statistics from the 2001 census, there has really been a dramatic increase in the number of Filipinos in Canada. We're now the fourth largest visible minority population in the country. It's estimated that we number about 400,000.

In terms of analyzing statistics, we have grown by more than 31% since the last census. We are the third source country of immigrants arriving in Canada in the last 10 years. You can see our community is really a newcomer community. We continue to be concentrated in Canada's major urban centres, though--Toronto being the largest community, Vancouver the second, and then Winnipeg.

One important statistic to bring out is that the majority of our community, approximately 65%, is made up of women and that close to one-third of our community is also made up of domestic workers who have entered Canada under the live-in caregiver program or the LCP. This is really tied, again, to the background in terms of the Philippines, in that the Philippines is now the largest migrant nation in the entire world. Ten per cent of its population, or 8 million people, are working outside the country, and 65% of those leaving the country are women. There is a ready pool of cheap labour willing to be exported out of the Philippines, and Canada is one of the places where they end up.

We wanted to bring out what is the reality once we arrive here in Canada. Even CIC itself, in terms of analyzing its data, has said that immigrants from the Philippines are more likely than all immigrants and people born in Canada to have a university degree. We are a highly educated community, but CIC has also revealed that our incomes are lower than those of other groups. The average income of Filipino immigrants, not including domestic workers, is $21,700, compared to $23,700 for those who are Canadian born.

We also have an extreme degree of occupational segregation. A local academic who is working in the metropolis in B.C. found that Filipino men are disproportionally segregated into the janitorial and cleaning positions while Filipino women are being relegated to child care and household work. Through these statistics we hope to show you that the Filipino community is economically right now facing the reality of economic marginalization in Canada.

When we talk about settlement programs and settlement programs that are currently in place, we would like to also articulate some key principles. When we do this analysis, we need to look at it from the framework of human rights, equality, and development. As I said, settlement integration is key to actually promoting the human race and development of those communities.

When we critique government programs and practices, we also would like or hope that this committee looks at the community-based perspective. We need to really identify what are the social impacts of migration on the communities themselves, and we need to conduct gender analysis and anti-racism analysis of government programs and practices.

Since we appeared before this committee when you were considering the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, we would like to bring out one particular circumstance that we are facing as a community. The department is undertaking practices right now that were not clearly part of the last package of legislative amendments.

If you remember, there were very few changes to the LCP under the regulations or under the IRPA. Our experience now is that the department is actually forcing women to delay their applications for what we call the open visa, so they are being trapped in the LCP for longer than two years. Now they are being told to wait to file their applications for open visa for another six to eight months while the department processes them. We are not given any reason for it. We obviously were not given any advance notice because this isn't part of the regulations. But the women are being told this, and this is really delaying, again, their opportunity to be reunited with their families and to be quickly settled and integrated into Canada. We would like to raise that as a concern with this committee in terms of the department's practices.

Our main criticism of the current settlement programs is that we find that they fail to address the needs and perspectives of Filipino women, particularly Filipino domestic workers. We would like to echo what Mr. Friesen talked about on behalf of AMSSA in terms of restrictive criteria that are now being put in place for settlement programs. Domestic workers are no longer going to be eligible in B.C. for settlement services because they are defined as temporary migrants. We feel this is a really short-sighted policy because most of the domestic workers obtain their landed status and they sponsor their families here to Canada. It would be more efficient and more respectful of the presence of these domestic workers to provide them settlement services once they are already in Canada, rather than deny them eligibility for the programs.

We'd also like to echo the accreditation problem. Sometimes we feel the settlement programs are often detached or compartmentalized from the economic reality that Filipino women and their families face. For example, we know the accreditation problem exists. We have heard a particular example with the Filipino Nurses Support Group. We feel that often government and other institutional bodies are endlessly pondering the accreditation problem rather than really supporting the community-based efforts and concrete solutions that are being provided from the community to end the accreditation problem. The accreditation, as we know, is key to really the economic integration and successful settlement of immigrants.

In particular, for Filipino women, we know many nurses, doctors, teachers, midwives, accountants, and architects who are severely underemployed and de-skilled because of the accreditation problems and systemic racism they face.

We have some other criticisms of Canada's settlement programs. Again we'd like to say, in terms of the domestic workers, that they pay the right of landing fee. They have so-called paid for their settlement services, but they are again being denied eligibility.

We feel specialized services that are community-based and appropriate to the particular needs of Filipino women, including domestic workers, mail-order brides, and their families, are not available. It's not enough from our perspective to tell Filipino women to access just general information or referral services that are not necessarily sensitive to the women's particular needs. For example, some agencies don't have a very clear understanding of LCP and its impact upon Filipino women. What happens in the community, through our volunteer efforts, is that so many Filipino women and their families come to our member organizations for assistance across Canada.

We believe the community does have the skills and capabilities to assist and advocate for these women, but there seems to be some kind of unwritten policy of the department to support only large agencies in the settlement sector and not the smaller agencies or the smaller communities that need the support.

Again, we'd also like to echo the lack of national standards and definitions surrounding settlement integration. It's becoming more apparent as the provincial governments take on more responsibility in this area. We believe migrants and immigrants should be able to access the same level and the same types of services wherever they are in Canada.

Access to these services is becoming more difficult, as I said, as the government tightens eligibility criteria. We see there's a shift towards short-term interventions under the concept of adaptation rather than long-term solutions for integration. For example, in B.C., newcomer youth are no longer eligible for settlement services. We know from our community's experience that Filipino youth are experiencing and facing significant barriers in fully integrating into Canadian society in the areas of education and employment and in their social and cultural life. This really has long-term implications for Canadian society.

Finally, in terms of evaluating these settlement programs, we'd like to again assert that we need to hear from the communities and the community-based organizations. We would like to provide meaningful input. We would like to talk to the department about the experiences our community faces. We have provided and conducted community-based research, but too often we're really shut out of the evaluation process when it comes to the evaluation of not only settlement services but CIC's programs as a whole.

Those are my comments. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear.

¸ (1410)

The Chair: Thank you. I'm sure we have some questions for you.

Just to let people know, $41 million has been added in the budget just announced to facilitate the integration of skilled immigrants into Canadian market and society. I haven't had an opportunity of looking at it in further depth, but on the surface it would appear that some of that messaging has got through to some people anyway. Again, we're going to review not only what's been mentioned but our report to the minister with regard to settlement programs.

Sophia.

¸ (1415)

Ms. Sophia Leung (Vancouver Kingsway, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank all presenters for their very fine presentations.

A couple of you have touched on your concerns about funding. We understand that every year there's approximately a $45 million settlement fund transferred from the federal government to B.C. This is what I don't know, and it is a big question: how do you select who gets it? I'm really not clear on the basis and the criteria for selection. Are you or other organizations here getting a benefit for some of the funding?

The Chair: That is a very good question.

Ms. Sophia Leung: You mentioned your concern for the federal transfer payment.

The Chair: For the benefit of the committee, Sophia's question is, how much of the transfers from Ottawa to B.C. are being used? Perhaps you can give us some background as to where you get your money. Is it federal or provincial? You can give us a little overview as to what's happening in B.C. That might be helpful to all the committee members.

Mr. Chris Friesen: In B.C., because of the agreement that was signed in 1997, currently roughly $38 million is transferred by the federal government to the provincial government through the provincial Ministry of Community Aboriginal Women's Services.

Half the money goes into four program streams, the equivalent of ISAP, Host, and LINC, and half the funds have remained in the consolidated general revenue account. The concern with community groups is that there's not sufficient clarity as to where that money goes. We understand that $13 million of that is going to Vancouver Community College, King Edward campus.

We do not know which programs are being funded, and as community-based agencies, we do not have the ability because of the lack of clarity to provide referrals into those programs. We are also told that the remaining amount of money in the consolidated general revenue account goes toward employment programs in a possible transfer from the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services to the Ministry of Human Resources. Again, we don't know which employment programs are funded, and we have no ability to refer our clients to those programs.

The issue is not so much that community-based agencies want more funding necessarily. What we're looking for is increased clarity for us to better refer and support the clients who are accessing our agencies.

The Chair: Are you getting money directly from the federal government as opposed to transfers to the province?

Mr. Chris Friesen: I have to wear my other hat, and my other hat is as part of the senior management team of the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. Immigrant Services Society of B.C. receives funds from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration under the RAP program. We are the sole designated contract and service provider in British Columbia to deliver RAP.

AMSSA receives money from both the federal and provincial government for various projects, both as part of this MACWS settlement and multiculturalism branch, as well as other funding--Canadian Heritage. Because of the transfer to the provincial government, other than the RAP program and the airport reception program that is managed by success, no other federal CIC dollars go directly to community-based not-for-profit agencies. It all goes directly, channelled through the provincial government.

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial: I'd like to just comment, and I think Chris also mentioned this in his presentation, about the smaller agencies, or smaller communities or smaller organizations. The Filipino Women's Centre, and I'll wear my other hat as well, does not receive funding, but we have a partnership with ISS. There are only 1.5 staff people in the lower mainland to provide settlement services to the Filipino community. We have one staff person in partnership with ISS. This position was specifically devoted to or was created to look at the problems or needs of Filipino domestic workers. Now with the change in eligibility criteria, that position might be in jeopardy.

Also, with some of the changes in terms of the provincial criteria that you asked about, Sophia, Chris can provide more background on that. From our perspective, it's going to be even more difficult for a smaller agency such as ours to access funding if they go, for example, to a tender and bid process and move away from really the core multi-year funding model. It's going to be more and more difficult for smaller agencies to get the funding, and again, it will come back to the community to provide those kinds of services. That's going to be problematic.

¸ (1420)

The Chair: Do you have a question, Sophia?

Ms. Sophia Leung: When the federal government transfers the funding to the province, does it have an open process for you to apply, or a competition, or do you have to just go back? I understand that a few years back the NDP had its favour list. Is it open for competition, or can you apply for this?

Mr. Chris Friesen: At the time of the federal transfer to the province, the funds that were being allocated to the existing contracted service providers essentially shifted so that overnight we were reporting to the provincial government versus the federal government. The funding to those contracted service providers originating prior to 1997 has continued by and large.

However, it is unclear as to the future direction of the entire sector because of the provincial government's interest in moving toward a competitive request for proposal through what's called the B.C. bid office of the government. We have seen that in operation with one agency in Kelowna. There are a lot of concerns now around the long-term sustainability of not only smaller agencies but existing contracted service providers that have been doing this work, for some of them, for over 30 years.

The Chair: Libby.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): First, thank you very much for coming today. I think it is really important that we have a discussion about the settlement services.

My own experience is that it's a huge issue. Most groups that I know, and many of them are in east Vancouver, are completely overstretched. Every group is trying to keep up with an increasing demand for services. I'm not so familiar beyond that, but certainly I am for east Vancouver, where many of the groups are.

It sort of begs the question in terms of this agreement in 1997, which supposedly was on the basis of more accountability, and it was more locally based. It's really quite outrageous to hear that half the moneys are going into general consolidated revenue and that it's gone down to $7 million a year.

The question I have for all of you generally is, what is your experience with this agreement? Do you think things have improved over the last four or five years? Chris, you say in your brief that you are glad there's this national review going on and you welcome it. But it also sounds like only a couple of groups are even getting any of the federal funds. I don't even know what impact that review will have, unless somehow it also plays out in terms of whatever happens at a provincial level for any future transfers. Maybe you can answer that.

What I really want to get at is if this agreement took place and it was theoretically to improve accountability, transparency, services and all of that, is that your experience? If it isn't, where do you see the need, even at say the federal end, to address that, and what needs to be done? Do we need to go back to that agreement and say that this is just not working? Do we need to put some rules in place? I think it's a general complaint about a lot of these federal-provincial arrangements that there are virtually no strings attached. It's not just in immigrant settlement services, whether it's child care or whatever it is, like housing.

That's what I would really like to get at. What has been your experience? Then what would you like to see happen where there are problems in terms of the federal government bringing forward some kind of responsibility or accountability to ensure that the situation isn't deteriorating? This is meant to be an improvement, not something that's getting worse.

¸ (1425)

The Chair: Layne and Lauren.

Mr. Layne Kriwoken: I'm not sure what the federal government does.

Just some brief comments, speaking as part of a professional association, which, as we have mentioned, has grown over the last 12 years, for the first ten years strictly on volunteer efforts. Over the last few years we have received very minimal funding from the provincial government, but it's been very effective.

It is frustrating to be part of a ministry when our sector isn't even in the title--the Ministry of Community Aboriginal Women Services. That makes us very nervous about the priority of funding. However, to reiterate our mandate, settlement services is integral to the community.

As a professional association, we are concerned about the half of the money in the general revenue for services. What expertise and services are catered toward immigrants and refugees as opposed to general services, for example, employment, or even education, as Chris mentioned?

The third thing, as has been mentioned by Ning, is that the current provincial government's focus is on what they call assimilation as a first short-term step, adaptation as a second step, and the third step of integration they see as a federal role. However, then we are told that the federal government has given its money to the provincial government so we must go to the provincial government for integration of services. It puts us in a difficult spot.

Finally, I just want to say some positive things too in working with the provincial government and the current ministry. They have been very keen to work more with us and to invite us to the table, listen to our comments, ask us to go back to the front-line workers and bring back feedback. That has been very beneficial for all the players, so that's been good.

Mr. Chris Friesen: If you were to ask a community, the number one issue would be the need for further clarity on where that money in the consolidated revenue account is going. We need to know exactly which programs it's funding and which institutions so that we can make appropriate referrals into those programs. That would be the number one issue.

To provide clarification, in the presentation AMSSA applauds the fact that the federal government is reviewing the national funding formula, that $173 million or $172 million, of which $38 million plus or minus goes to B.C. We need to look at that again given the cuts.

That would be the initial start, and we would want to know exactly where that money is going.

You are very familiar with our history in B.C. Given the political realities and the extremities in this province, if you asked people if it was a good idea to sign it, I don't know if they would say it was a good idea in retrospect, because we've gone a certain journey with the previous government and now we're going in a totally different direction.

We're in the business of providing services to immigrants and refugees. However, around us are all these new directions that are being put in place by the new provincial government, like possibly competitive RFP processes for the first time ever for settlement and language programs.

¸ (1430)

The Chair: We never did transfer it, and boy, are we happy we didn't, because I understand all the experiences provincially have been a nightmare because the money never gets to where it's supposed to go.

Leah, did you have a comment?

Ms. Libby Davies: Mr. Chairman, could I just ask a question of the committee? Is that something we can follow up? As a result of this agreement, say, with B.C. or wherever else, if we don't know where half the money is going, is that something we can follow up as a committee in terms of the federal end of the arrangement?

The Chair: It might very well find its way into the report. Of course, if the money has been allocated from the federal government to the provincial government and our witnesses tell us they don't know where that money is or it's not getting to areas where it's supposed to, that would form part of our report that would go elsewhere.

Do you get any money at all, Leah?

Ms. Leah Diana: No money at all. We did get some short-term and one-time project funding, but we do not have any funding at all to carry out our community-based programs.

The Chair: Ning.

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial: We only have that one project in partnership with ISS. In terms of the deterioration, we can really feel that, because we had to struggle so long and hard for even that one position and now it's in jeopardy.

The irony is we see the increase in demand, and the stats confirm our presence here. We really feel, in terms of the agreement, that the federal government really needs to revisit that and look at national standards. This is just our experience in B.C., but across Canada we know there are very few or in some provinces no settlement workers devoted to the Filipino community. That's a situation that needs to--

Ms. Libby Davies: The caregivers don't get settlement. Is that a provincial or a federal arena?

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial: Provincial.

Ms. Libby Davies: That's another issue. Why are they being cut out?

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial: Because the focus is now on adaptation for newcomer arrivals for immigrants and refugees. Migrant populations like the foreign domestic workers and supposedly other temporary foreign workers are not going to be eligible. It doesn't make sense with CIC's objectives in formulating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, expanding the temporary foreign worker program and saying we want to bring skilled labour here on a temporary basis but allowing them to apply for permanent resident status. Why not provide them settlement services from the beginning when they're here? Their families are going to be coming here. It's not common sense, from our point of view and from our experience.

The Chair: I should tell you the budget talks a whole bunch about accountability, transparency, and so on and so forth. Maybe within the context that everybody wants to know where all of this money is going, not only in health care but in other areas, we'll get to it.

Louis, tell us how well Quebec does.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: [Note: Due to technical difficulties, the following is a translation derived from a simultaneous interpretation recording]

On the same subject, I would be reluctant to start talking about provinces. I have too much respect for provinces to say that the federal government will start verifying what the provinces are doing. I think the federal government has a tendancy to try to look at what the provinces are doing. It has done that in health and it did that in education as well. What we have to do, however, is ask provinces why they are doing this. We should ask the provinces to come and testify. We should ask the provincial governments to come and tell us how they spend these moneys, because they are getting money. Universities are also getting money from provinces for some services.

So I think the provinces should set their priorities. I don't think we should put the provinces on trial when the federal government is in a very bad position to put its feet in competencies that it has no place in going.

[Note: End of translation]

¸ (1435)

The Chair: Some haven't, but there is nothing wrong, as you suggested, perhaps in sending a letter asking for clarification as to how in fact they are spending those federal dollars. I would agree.

Lynne.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich (Blackstrap, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

Being that we are on this subject, I was wondering whether there was a difference with the government changing provincially, such as when it went from the NDP to the Liberal, or has it always been a longstanding problem in B.C., period? I mean, is that the way it started when the program was set up, or is it just--

Mr. Chris Friesen: On the question about half the money going into the general revenue account, the money has been there since the very beginning.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: In your comparisons in your little report, or your big report card here, Chris, you left Quebec out. I would have been interested to see the comparisons you could have had with those people because they definitely are supposed to have a superior program.

Is there anything I should read in this report card that I could take back home to Saskatchewan? You have given some statistics here, but what is the main message you are trying to tell us besides that we are not doing very well? Is it relative to how many immigrants we take in? I would say that the reason we are not doing so well is that we don't take in too many immigrants, and that's because of our economy.

What's the message in your report card?

Mr. Chris Friesen: There are a number of messages. One is the fact that we're concerned about the lack of comparable services across Canada. In B.C. you have subsidized English language training to a level three. In Manitoba immigrants can take English classes until they are fully functional in the English language. In the Atlantic region you can take classes to level six.

The one point to drive home is the fact that the federal government has stated that the necessity, as one of the pillars of the immigrant settlement policy framework, is the need for standards. Regardless of where you go in Canada you should be able to access the same programs and services, but that's not happening.

The other issue that needs to be addressed goes back to the national funding formula. The fact that we have immigrants and refugees, by and large, already paying for their services through the right of landing fee...we are not seeing an enhancement of programs and services to better attach them to the labour market, for example. We have a major concern on that point, again, the lack of adequate funding to ensure that immigrants and refugees are integrated into the community.

In the case of Saskatchewan, from our perspective, and going back to the national funding formula, it also means to us that the funding formula has to change. There has to be a threshold across Canada. In the case of Saskatchewan, contracted service providers in Saskatchewan have had a 30% cut in their funding over a three-year period, and this is unacceptable. If we are trying to increase the capacity in rural areas to destine immigrants to, there has to be the capacity in communities to properly settle and integrate them.

What we are saying is that there has to be a fundamental shift in how funding is allocated to regions and to provinces to ensure there is a baseline of sustainable funding to maintain current contract and service providers and services, and in addition to that, that there is additional funding allocated on the basis of actual landings. You can't fund just on the basis of landings or you're going to have the Yukon with $5,000 and maybe $1 million in Saskatchewan. It's not going to work when you go back to the whole argument of comparable services.

¸ (1440)

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: I would just like to ask each of you what you think of Denis Coderre's proposal to delegate immigrants to other parts of the country instead of to the three big centres, Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. What do each of you think of that proposal?

Mr. Layne Kriwoken: I'll try to be brief. Chris's comment about a standard of service throughout the nation is I think a point to really consider, and you can't put a cost per person on that. So, for example, it may be harder for a province like Saskatchewan, where costs may be substantially higher to provide that same standard of service, to attract people there as it would be to Toronto. So rather than try to force new Canadians to move to an area, if you provide the services and that standard there, they will be attracted.

When I go back to Saskatchewan to visit my family, I'm always surprised at how many new business people in these very small communities are new immigrants and there are no support services for them. I think as a professional association, rather than dictating where our new Canadians should live, if you provide the services across the country, they will be attracted.

The Chair: Can I just follow up with one question that's very important to us?

By the way, B.C. gets $50,503,000. Saskatchewan, by the way, gets $4,789,000. In B.C.--and this is all part of your package. This was 2001 to 2002, just to give you some background: $308,000 went to the ISAP program; Host got nothing; LINC got nothing; RAP got $5,871,000; and the transfers to the provinces and other agreements were $44,324,000.

Chris, even though that doesn't jibe, of the $38 million that you thought, or whatever, you said half was being allocated and the other half was stuck in consolidated revenue, as you understand it. Is that right?

Mr. Chris Friesen: Yes.

The Chair: Okay, so it's not the total half; it's half of the half that has not been allocated.

Mr. Chris Friesen: It's $38 million divided by two, and $19 million is in the general revenue account, without clarity as to where it's going, and the other $19 million is going toward the equivalent of ISAP, Host, and LINC.

The Chair: One of the things that this committee is trying to understand, because we've heard it elsewhere and some of you have talked about it, is the need for long-term sustainable funding and that you can't go on a year-to-year basis. In some cases, integration takes anywhere from not one to three, but three to five, and I understand that.

Everybody talks about this national holistic model. We need to understand this because we bring in $170 million from the landing fees, but we're spending a total of $333 million across the country in terms of various settlement programs. What we're trying to understand is what is that national model. Can you give us some idea, based on the input you've had, as to how we would determine what a national model might look like, recognizing that each immigrant is a little different, each place is a little different, and each province or community may, with the various organizations, play a different part? We're trying to get an idea, because if we're going to make recommendations, I do not want it just to be putting more money into these three programs, which I think you all said probably work really well, or how much is going to administration. I would like to understand and know what kind of a model would work well so that we can recommend not only money but how the program could work more effectively.

I'll give you an example. I find it incredible, Leah, that in your particular case there wouldn't be any funding available for including care workers on the basis that they come. They have a contract, and in two years most of them, I think, as you indicated, Ning, are going to stay here and move on--that there wouldn't be something within a program available to them. I don't know whether it's because you haven't tried to apply.

Is there something you can build into the contractual agreement with the employer that says live-in care workers should be able to go and get English as a second language, or some of these things, and you have worked that into the program? Or have you tried and you just haven't had any because, as you said, they're considered temporary workers and therefore don't qualify at all for any of those various programs that everybody else around the table is talking about?

¸ (1445)

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial: We have struggled, and currently we have one position that was created specifically to look at the needs of live in caregivers. However, because of the change in eligibility criteria here in B.C., that position is now in jeopardy because they want to focus only on immigrants and refugees and exclude all migrants. That includes the domestic workers.

It's not that we haven't tried to apply for funding or even demonstrate the services that we already provide on a volunteer basis. It's that they're deemed ineligible because of the whole context of cutbacks to services. From our perspective we seem to be a dispensable community.

The Chair: However, you know that the whole thrust of our immigration policy, and that which this committee recommended, was that we wanted people to come as temporary workers to see the country, to work here, to get the experience, and not have to leave in order to apply but to have an in-landing class.

It would seem to me, regardless of how we categorize you, that once you come here, even as a temporary worker, as a domestic worker or whatever, certain resettlement programs should be available to those people so that they can integrate and further themselves down the road.

Would you agree with that?

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial: Yes, I agree with that, but there's nothing being provided.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Chris Friesen: The vision you're looking for...by and large, AMSSA would say the funding streams...the equivalent of the ISAP, the Host, and the language services, are fundamentally sound programs. Where there is a huge issue and gap is around the level of ESL. That's huge. If we're trying to ensure that immigrants and refugees who are contributing to the labour market are successful, we need a higher-level ESL, and it needs to be across the country.

The other huge issue that's not being addressed consistently across the country is the employment programs, pre-employment and employment assistance programs to help immigrants and refugees obtain the necessary skills, opportunities, practical attachments, and wage subsidy programs to ensure that they obtain work experience at the earliest possible intervention.

What we're talking about is a seamless service delivery, a continuum of services from initial assessments, first language assessment to language services at a level that will allow someone to become functional in English or French, and then move from language services into what used to be called labour market language training, specific training related to the labour market, and then from there going into employment assistance programs or pre-employment programs, so that immigrants or refugees are properly assessed and case managed throughout their process, from the time they arrive to when they get their first decent job.

The Chair: Well, that's precisely what I'd like. This committee is not going to table its report for a little while yet, because, as I said, we really want to get the department in and talk to more people. But if you can develop that model, you may be able to put a dollar figure on it--I don't know--based on certain component parts of that integration, from the time you land to the time you're fully integrated into a job.

You've already said that national consultation is going on with CIC on a new national funding model. I'd like to know if you've given them some input, and if you have, I'd like to know what that is, or let us understand what that new model is.

Mr. Chris Friesen: In-house.

The Chair: In-house. Oh, no. Then provide us your input, if you could, over the next little while with your colleagues. I think this committee would very much appreciate it.

Are there any further questions?

If not, I'm going to thank you very much, not only for the hard work you do but for the insight you've given us and some good ideas that you've also put forward. It is much appreciated.

The committee is going to break for about 15 minutes, and we'll come back and talk a little about national identity cards in the next round.

¸ (1450)

¹ (1510)

The Chair: [Inaudible—Editor]

Mr. Darrell Evans (Executive Director, BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association): [Inaudible—Editor] ... My name, as you say, is Darrell Evans, and I am the executive director of FIPA.

FIPA is a non-profit society that was incorporated in 1991 in order to advance the principles of freedom of information and privacy protection in Canada. We're the only group of our kind in Canada devoted solely to freedom of information and privacy issues, although we're trying not to be. We're trying to get other groups started across the country. Our supporters include a wide variety of organizations and individuals, including people in the legal, business, labour, academic, media, and non-profit sectors.

Our activities include research, public education, law reform campaigns, and perhaps the most important thing we do is assisting the public with our questions and complaints on privacy and access to information matters.

I have already read some of the speeches and the presentations that have been made to you, so I know that you've heard a lot of compelling, rational arguments against the proposal for a national identity card from presenters such as B.C.'s information and privacy commissioner, who I believe you heard yesterday. I've read his speech and I'm not going to repeat a lot of these rational arguments.

Because of the shortness of my allotted time here, I'm going to mainly stick to what I feel most passionately about, which is the philosophical or principled objections to the national ID card idea. Our group will present a fuller submission at a later date.

The idea of a national identity card pops up regularly on the Canadian horizon, both federally and provincially. It always will because it's driven by the strong bureaucratic drive for knowledge, efficiency, and control. This is natural and inevitable because public officials who serve the public interest through mandated goals and objectives will always seek the knowledge and control to attain those goals as effectively and as efficiently as possible. Those are what I would call the bureaucratic dynamics behind the drive for an ID card.

Just as inevitably, privacy advocates and other advocates of civil liberties like myself will pop up to oppose programs like the national identity card on the basis that it's harmful to our privacy and freedom and inimical to the Canadian way of life.

The national ID card idea is proposed to solve problems of inefficiency, fraud, and security, but it's a classic example of a solution that is worse than the problem it proposes to solve. That is why it's so unpopular and has never succeeded in North America.

As you know, many countries in Europe and Asia have versions of such a card, but Europe is not North America. I state without any fear of contradiction that a national ID would be against the philosophical, political, and legal traditions of both Canada and the United States.

I'd like to quote a brief news item from the Netherlands to illustrate how different the North American is from the European tradition. This is in Statewatch magazine:

In future police will be authorized to require anyone in the Netherlands older than 12 to show proof of his or her identity. Failure to do so can result in a prison sentence of up to two months or a fine of up to 2,250 Euro. Police will be given powers to request proof of identity for the purpose of carrying out all their regular tasks, specifically the investigation of criminal offences, maintenance of public order, and providing assistance. Those responsible for carrying out administrative supervision will also be given the same powers, in order to improve law enforcement.

Now, I don't know about you, but this gives me a chill to read this kind of language, particularly that last sentence, “Those responsible for carrying out administrative supervision will also be given the same powers in order to improve law enforcement.” That sounds awfully close to a police state to me.

This is happening right now in the Netherlands, and of course that country is under the same pressures as we are here in North America after 9/11.

¹ (1515)

The Netherlands example is also an illustration of the function creep that inevitably occurs once a country starts down the road to a universal ID system, and the database that is usually behind it. I call it the “field of dreams” phenomenon of databases: if you build it, they will come. As you see from the Netherlands example, it now has government administrators lined up, just after the police, demanding more and more data about citizens.

It speaks volumes that the United States, as panicked and unbalanced as it is by events of 9/11, is so wary of the public reaction that it knows it would get if it suggested the creation of such a card that Congress inserted a line in its anti-terrorism legislation stating, “Nothing in this act should be construed to authorize the development of a national identification system or card.” In spite of their suspending civil liberties, arresting people without warrant and detaining them without charges, in spite of that, they insert a specific line to emphasize that it's not about an ID card.

Are we as Canadians less protective of our civil liberties or less wary of the potential for abuse of power by the state? Perhaps slightly, yes, but I submit that in any informed and broad public debate we would stand up to be counted as overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of a national ID card.

Minister Coderre has presented several arguments for a national ID card, and I will deal with a few of them here. First, he proposed it as a preventive action to satisfy the Americans, who are threatening to fingerprint everyone who enters their country at border crossings. Mr. Coderre stated, “If we can have the technology with our own scanners, we can say we will take care of our own people with our own scanners.” I believe he said that to this committee.

With respect, I find this attitude offensive. Rather than having Canadians subjected to increased surveillance and indignities at the border of a foreign country, Mr. Coderre would subject all Canadians to increased surveillance and indignity. I, for one, would rather leave Canada as a free citizen and be fingerprinted and monitored as a visitor entering the U.S. than be treated as a suspicious visitor in my own country.

By saying “treated as a suspicious visitor”, I mean being treated as one who exists at the sufferance and the tolerance of the state, not as a right but as a privilege, constantly aware of being under the state's watchful and critical eye. I'm okay as long as I watch my p's and q's and keep my papers in order for inspection. That, to me, is what a requirement to carry a national ID card states about the relationship of the citizens to the government. In effect, it would be a bar code stamped on each person, and we would move closer toward being viewed as subjects of the state rather than citizens who are its ultimate rulers.

Mr. Coderre stated, “The biggest threat to individual privacy is to have one's identity stolen and used by someone else.” This is a second point I'd like to deal with. As the Montreal Gazette stated, “It's an assertion only someone in government could make. As far as we're concerned, the biggest threat to individual privacy is a vast government register using a smart card to track our every movement, purchase and action.” I certainly agree with that.

The minister has not stated that an ID card would be used in this way, but in his public statements to date he hasn't shut the door firmly on such uses either. We see how the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency database on travellers expanded in its purposes and uses following government assurances to the contrary.

Second, Mr. Coderre advocated the ID card as a way to combat identity theft. I know you have heard many critiques about this point and I'm not going to repeat them here. Suffice it to say that I agree with the view that a national ID card would be hugely expensive, just as subject to fraud, privacy abuses, and security breaches as current systems of identification, and not likely to be more effective in preventing crime than better-managed and more secure systems like, for example, birth certificates, social insurance numbers, passports, and driver's licences. Incidentally, I believe that improving the last-mentioned ID systems should be a high priority in Canada.

Regarding the dangers of a national ID card, in my opinion, a national identity card would inevitably become the hub for a vast system of data gathering, data matching, and data mining about Canadians, as in the field of dreams theory I mentioned, and that would be the end of privacy in Canada.

We can all understand that such an elegantly efficient database would be not only a dream but the perfect picture of heaven for many bureaucrats. We should all reflect on the part that bureaucrats, oblivious to the bigger picture, have played in the great man-made disasters of history. They have made the trains run on time in many dictatorships and undoubtedly felt great professional pleasure for doing so.

Well-trained bureaucrats and accountants are absolutely essential to good government, but let's not all think like them. We also need to keep an eye on the big picture. I would advise politicians to remember that Canadians are not fans of huge databases or broad data matching of information about them by government. Witness the controversy over the so-called HRDC big brother database of a few years ago, which, as you know, was dismantled after what I'd call a spontaneous public uprising. They had 30,000 or 60,000 requests by citizens for their own information, and that basically brought the program to a halt. I think they have just recently stopped answering these requests--over two years later.

How should the ID card proposal be judged? In other words, what yardstick should we use to measure it? In analyzing proposals that intrude upon citizens' rights to privacy, we as Canadians must start with constitutional principles set out in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The right to privacy is important to our personal autonomy and the foundation of our democratic nation. I won't bore you with a lot of Supreme Court quotes, but I will give you one that I know the privacy commissioner has already stated to you. It's from a decision called Regina v. Dyment:

Grounded in man's physical and moral autonomy, privacy is essential for the well-being of the individual. For this reason alone, it is worthy of constitutional protection, but it also has profound significance for the public order. The restraints imposed on government to pry into the lives of the citizen go to the essence of a democratic state.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada also issued four points, which again I'm sure you've heard, that any proposal seeking to limit the right to privacy must meet to be acceptable. This is what I would call the real measure of any kind of legislation or proposal that would offend privacy. First, it must be demonstrably necessary in order to meet some specific need. Second, it must be demonstrably likely to be effective in achieving its intended purpose. In other words, it must be likely to actually make us significantly safer, not just make us feel safer. Third, the intrusion on privacy must be proportional to the security benefit to be derived. Fourth, it must be demonstrable that no other less privacy-intrusive measure would suffice to achieve the same purpose.

It is our view that the proposal as presented so far does not meet these tests. However, it's impossible to judge a proposal that is, at this stage, so vague. We're looking forward to the thorough national debate Mr. Coderre has promised. Canadians have not had an open and thorough debate about the possibility of creating a national identity card, and we believe it would be a serious mistake to proceed in the heat of the moment without such a debate, or, more accurately, in the current atmosphere of fear, anger, and hysteria, which has so unbalanced our neighbour to the south.

I couldn't put it any better than the Canadian Ethnocultural Council did. They appeared before you previously and ended their submission with these words:

Minister Coderre and the government owe it to Canadians to have a true debate before introducing a mandatory national identity card. There is a need for broader dissemination of background information on the purpose for the card, leading to meaningful public education and engagement.

The only better proposal I could make is to simply drop the idea as soon as possible and get on with improvements to current ID systems, without creating a universal identifier for all Canadians.

Thanks very much.

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The Chair: Thank you very much, Darrell.

Next is Rachel Rosen.

Welcome, again, Rachel, from Grassroots Women.

Ms. Rachel Rosen (Coordinator, Grassroots Women): Thanks. I'm sorry to have run out so quickly last time. As I said before, Grassroots Women is a Vancouver-based women's organization that was started in 1995 and works on different issues impacting on marginalized women, including issues of citizenship and immigration, human rights, and equality rights.

In preparing this brief today, we have relied on our work on education and advocacy with our membership, as well as an international conference we hosted in November 2002, which included a quite detailed discussion about the harmonization of international anti-terrorism legislation and the impact of national ID cards already implemented in various regions, and finally, a February consultation we hosted that was specifically about the citizenship bill that's being put forward and the national ID card.

We believe that in putting forward this national ID card we're responding to a climate of suspicion and anti-terrorism hysteria, not only with our neighbour to the south but also right here at home. Both real and manufactured fears of terrorism are pushing forward new policies and new proposals, like this national identity card, which will have an extremely detrimental impact on our Canadian values and on citizens here in Canada, as well as immigrants and migrants who are living in Canada, and really using the events of September 11 as a justification.

When I was speaking earlier, I explained that many people shared that they knew very little about what's being proposed. In terms of our discussions about the national ID card, and even our research about it, there was very little information available about what's actually being proposed within this national ID card. So, number one, how can we have a genuine debate or discussion, as the minister has called for, if we have so little information about what's actually being proposed?

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The Chair: What's being put forward.

Ms. Rachel Rosen: Or what's being discussed, what has been put forward--

The Chair: Then that means everything's on the table.

Ms. Rachel Rosen: So as Darrell said, there is this impact: once you open the door with a card like this, how much can be added on?

We have some specific comments on the national ID card. We have a number of points. The first is that when the national ID card was introduced by Minister Coderre, he spoke about it as a way to help avoid delays at the U.S. border, particularly for those who may be singled out based on their country of origin or the country of origin of their grandparents, people who've been in Canada for generations. At Grassroots Women we believe this type of racial profiling or racial harassment is both racist and unjust. To target people based on their country of origin or the country of origin of their ancestors--and that's really what's happening right now, particularly for people coming from the Middle East--violates all principles of equality and of human rights.

Instead of challenging the American policy to conduct racial profiling of Canadian citizens and people living in Canada, the manner in which the national ID card was introduced actually legitimizes and normalizes this type of racial profiling. This legitimatization of racial profiling could very likely lead to the same actions here in Canada as well. In terms of the anti-terrorism measures being proposed, I believe that racial profiling is also on the table. At Grassroots Women, we fundamentally oppose racial profiling and we believe it violates every aspect of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We believe the national identity card could be used to further this type of racial profiling.

As has been presented to you by many people, I know, the national ID card also violates our privacy rights. It would be a mandatory card for all citizens, containing personal, biometric, and other information used to track where we travel, what we eat, and more. This represents a major threat to our privacy. With the harmonization of anti-terrorism legislation internationally, we have particular concerns because the information contained in the card, on top of being shared with all provincial and federal agencies, would no doubt be shared with other agencies or internationally. Within the international climate of racial profiling and suspicion, of political activity in particular, as this private information is made available, there is little guarantee that it will not be misinterpreted, whether intentionally or not, to suit the political motivations of particular individuals, police, intelligence bodies, or nations.

We also see this proposal of a national ID card violating our charter rights. Having to carry and produce a card in order to travel, access public information, or even potentially walk down the street--these are all possibilities for the national ID card, and this contravenes all ideals of a free society.

We have received no assurances, in terms of the information about the national identity card, that the tracking and monitoring of our activities using the national ID card will be limited to the so-called terrorist threats. In this climate we have right now, there is no doubt that the national ID card could and would be used to track the activities of those who protest or challenge, among other things, the government's anti-terrorism activities and support for the war on Iraq.

As a side note, we call on all of you to join the millions of people who have marched around the world to oppose the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

To track this type of activity and criminalize people for voicing their dissent, we believe, is a real violation of our Charter of Rights.

We can see that there is a type of new McCarthyism, reminiscent of the 1950s, in the U.S. particularly but also here in Canada, when people were arrested, lost their jobs, and faced persecution, and prosecution simply for being accused of being a communist. Now, the label of being a terrorist or even of belonging to certain ethnic or racial groups and religious groups is enough to cause people to lose their jobs or not be hired, enough to cause people to be harassed at the border and to lose all their democratic rights. We condemn any act that would give the state more power to do this type of action.

Finally, many Canadians across the country have been speaking out against the national ID card. People have been saying it will do little to combat terrorism but a lot to invade our privacy and freedom. So if it's unlikely to fulfill its stated objective, we believe the cost of such an enterprise must be questioned.

Since the year 2000 at least $10 billion has already been spent on anti-terrorism measures in Canada, and while we don't know the exact amount needed to administer and monitor the national ID card system, this will add to the already burgeoning budget figure.

For our membership at Grassroots Women, there's a desperate need for child care, health, health care, and other social programs. So diverting money away from these desperately needed services into something that may or may not serve the purpose it's intended for is very questionable right now.

In terms of our recommendations, we recommend that a national ID card not be implemented. We call on you to condemn and end all racial profiling, to develop mechanisms to allow for genuine discussion of the national ID card beyond this first step, and to provide financial support to community organizations to allow us to continue to conduct research, education, advocacy, and support for people in terms of understanding what's being proposed and what the impact will be.

Thank you.

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The Chair: Thank you very much, Rachel.

Welcome back, Ning. You are wearing a lot of hats these days.

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial: Thank you. I am presenting again on behalf of the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada.

I would like to echo the comments I have heard from Darrell and Rachel and add our voices as Philippine women to the chorus of outcry and protest against this, whatever it is that's being proposed.

I don't have very many comments, but I wish to echo that it is a vague proposal. If we want a thorough debate on it, let's see what it actually is and continue the education work in our community. In terms of Philippine women, many responded that they already have to obtain the permanent resident card once they become citizens. They are wondering if they now have to get a national ID card.

The particular experience of Philippine women has been that the national identity card has already been proposed a number of times in the Philippines, but it has always been opposed, and the proposal for a national ID card has never actually been implemented in the Philippines.

So why are we going down that path here in Canada when, as we see, it's really going to intrude into our privacy and violate our fundamental human rights, dignity, further our racial profiling and discrimination, and intrude into our daily lives? We'd like to add our voice as migrants and immigrants to Canada, as Philippine women, that we're opposed to this discussion and proposal, whatever parameters it takes.

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The Chair: Thank you very much, Ning.

For what it's worth, again, Canadians were asked in November-December 2002, as part of a poll, to indicate their position. I guess this is the debate as to whether or not people feel that much more security and privacy and everything else is necessary. I should tell you that 59% of Canadians, if you believe polls, when asked about a national identity card indicated that a national identity card would probably be a positive thing.

Now, there hasn't been much debate, and that's why we started it, but on the surface Canadians appeared to be sort of in favour at this point in time.

David?

Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I find this all quite fascinating that so much has been taken out of the minister's presentation. In actual fact, what he was presenting was very much a blank sheet, because he knew we were going to be travelling across the country. He had nothing. The different things he mentioned were just maybe this, maybe that. There was nothing solid in there at all. What happens so often is that we get accused of not going out to consult the people before a bill comes out. This time he wanted to make sure he did what I call a pre-pre-pre-consultation, even before he went out for a pre-consultation. This is just to take a look at the idea and look at what people are thinking of.

Unfortunately, from what we've seen on the road, it's been very, very negative. What I've seen in my constituency, and other I've talked to, has been very positive. It seems to be a different spin that gets put on it.

Now, if I look at it in the sense of what I'm hearing in my own constituency, people are saying that's not a bad idea, but they're not thinking of what you've been describing as Big Brother really looking in. They're looking at something that guarantees--I shouldn't say guarantees, but makes a little more solid that the people in front of you are really the people they say they are.

Darrell, you mentioned the privacy commissioner, who, when we talked to him yesterday, agreed with that part. He said that's good, that's okay. And I think that's more what we're really looking at. We're not looking at putting tracers on people. We're looking at things like combining information on that identity card, like provincial information.

Take my case in Quebec right now. I have a driver's licence, a medicare card, and a birth certificate. There are three provincial documents all handled by the same organization. It's one picture taken that handles all three. Why couldn't that be combined into one card so I don't have to carry three different cards with me all the time? That's the type of thing I think we're really looking at, and it seems to have been blown into some kind of tracer. I don't think the minister really had anything like that in mind. As I say, it's a blank sheet out there. He's looking for a very, very pre-consultation type of card.

The other thing, and I agree with you, is that the information that's out there on myself right now just from my credit cards is absolutely incredible. The credit card companies are far worse than anybody out there. They sell that information. We know it. I know it just from what I receive in the mail. How would anybody have that information? They know it through the credit card: what types of things I do, what purchases I make, where I go, and where I might be interested in going. They can profile me better than anybody could ever even think of. It's quite incredible what they can do, and that bothers me more, really, than the direction that I feel we're going in. I definitely don't feel that what you're worried about is the type of card we're looking at at all.

Now, about the biometrics, yes, there's no question the Americans have asked for that, but we're not looking at it for a border card. We have passports for that. Granted, on a volunteer basis, we have some people, and you experience it right here in Vancouver, who run back and forth across the border on a very regular basis. They need a quick form of ID. Well, that's a whole different situation, and I don't believe that's the type of thing we're looking at.

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The Chair: Darrell?

Mr. Darrell Evans: I think I'm reassured that you wouldn't like that prospect I laid out, and of course that's the worst-case scenario--no, I could make some worse scenarios.

As you probably know, the government has noted very well that Canadians are concerned about just what you're concerned about with the massive gathering of personal information in the private sector. It passed an act, as you undoubtedly know, in January 1, 2001, that for the first time put rules down for what the private sector could do with your information.

The whole idea is to give individuals more control over what happens to their personal information, and to do that, basically, they have to ask your consent. I think we've had generations of privacy acts in Canada, and now the stakes have been raised for the private sector. Governments recognize the problems. We're hoping that more of that will come back to government now, so that when it considers uses of personal information, it will ask consent.

I don't see how the government couldn't get more consent from the Canadian people on how that information is used. Of course, I'm referring again to the HRDC database and its dismantling. That was to us a kind of watershed event because there was a reaction to that. We couldn't have created it. Privacy advocates were kind of a helpless bunch in a way. It's very hard to get publicity for issues, but that was totally spontaneous.

It did have some encouragement from talk show hosts, etc., but it was a real paroxysm of revolt against that kind of information gathering. Certainly, we need better ID. There's no question about that, and the government does need to collect some information about us. Everyone accepts that. The question is how much, how it's going to be controlled, who in government should get to see the information, and should it be matched with other information or not. All these questions need to be looked at very, very carefully. So I agree with you.

Mr. David Price: And those are the ones that were asked.

Mr. Darrell Evans: Good.

The Chair: David.

Mr. David Price: Just one other thing in passing. In fact, I did mention this when the minister was there.

I've had my credit card stolen twice and now I have a new credit card. It has a picture on it. It has my signature impregnated into the card, which is better than having the other one. It's too easy today to steal our identity, and, as you've said, we need to improve our methods of ID. It's how to do it that we're looking at--just at the very bottom line right now.

Mr. Darrell Evans: Well, you're right. It's a huge problem and it's going to be a growing problem. Identity theft can't be discounted. In a way I guess we're slaves to the technology we create and we're the effect of the technology we create. All these wonderful information systems seem to have such massive pitfalls, and the question is how to improve these systems.

But I always side with the systems that give more control to the individual because that's what our group is about. From both the freedom of information and the privacy angle, it is to put more power away from the powerful forces that tend to dominate our lives and put more power in the hands of citizens.

So the fact that you've got a card that you have more control over and makes you feel better is wonderful.

The Chair: Okay. Libby?

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you very much. Well, first of all, I wanted to let you know that the NDP has already taken a position on this issue. We're totally opposed to it on principle. We think there are lots of issues.

I guess one of the concerns I have is that a lot of stuff is getting wrapped up in the possibility of an national identity card. I would agree with the chair. There isn't yet a proposal. This is out there for debate, so in some ways it makes it a bit hard because we don't quite know what we're debating. Is it mandatory? Is it voluntary? What would be the specific purpose? What kind of information would be on there? It is open.

I'd rather we weren't having the debate actually. I'd rather we focus more on how we protect privacy issues around all the other stuff that's out there, but anyway....

In listening to the minister, and I don't know whether you had a chance to look at his remarks, the concern I have is that in some ways it's being put forward on the basis of convenience, and I know we just heard about Mr. Price's credit cards. It's being put forward on the basis that if you have this national identity card, it will do away with the need for all these other things and you will be able to establish who you truly are. I come back to one thing the federal privacy commissioner said. He said that one of the most fundamental human rights is the choice to remain anonymous in a society.

I think the national identity card is a problem because it confers enormous power on the state to basically control information and to take away people's feeling of either their own identity or the fact that they could be anonymous. I don't have a problem with cards for a specific purpose, whether it's a medical card for medical services or a driver's licence or a passport. It's this idea that it all gets rolled up and is being put forward on the basis of convenience. When you put a system in place, even if it's with the most honourable of intentions, and let's assume that's what the minister is thinking about, it seems to me it's the beginning of a slippery slope in terms of where it goes.

Just listening to the debate here today, one thing that has struck me, and maybe this is my cynical side coming out, is maybe the national identity card is not really where we are going to go anyway; it's just a trial balloon. The minister did talk about biometric information, and I personally felt he was really sold on the idea. I'm sitting here thinking, what's going on? Maybe this is about everybody getting all riled up about a national identity card and then the government comes out and says no, that it has listened to Canadians, but then, at some other level we begin to proceed with biometric information in other places.

I wanted to pick up on that because I don't feel I know enough about it. I have an instinctual aversion to the idea that I would be fingerprinted or my retina would be scanned. Even on a voluntary basis, I would never agree to that, but it could be mandated in some way.

Darrell, I don't know if you have more information on that, but what precedent do we have in Canada now for biometric stuff emerging? If you are in the criminal justice system, you get fingerprinted. Beyond that, do we have any other instances where biometric information is now used for the purposes of identification or entitlement to something?

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Mr. Darrell Evans: As far as I know there is nothing in the public sector. Private companies have those kinds of things.

Ms. Libby Davies: Should we worry about that, the issue of biometrics and if you go through an airport? Leaving aside the card, I am just beginning to wonder if that's really where the debate might end up going.

Mr. Darrell Evans: Privacy is such a complicated issue. Again, I think it really gets back to the question of who has control. If you could feel comfortable with a card that you control who gets the information on it, you might feel better with better ID, in other words a biometric method. When the state proposes these things, it's inevitable that human beings begin to look at history and think of what the state has done in the past. Of course, this is why we have constitutions and bills of rights to control the power of the state.

I emphasize the bureaucratic drive for efficiency and to achieve goals they are mandated to achieve for a reason. It's a very powerful impulse, and sometimes politicians will just pick up on that. It will just make so much sense to get really good identification on everybody, gather all the information in one place, gather every bit of information you can, monitor the entire population so we really can know who is in jail for fraud, or maybe we can just push their behaviour in a slightly different direction. I could give you lots of examples of that. I would rather keep the option away from the state for the ability to do those things.

Of course, the bigger picture is looking at a thing like the ID card in isolation from the other things that are happening, like the databases that are being gathered and the vast amounts of information the government has. It's really important to keep the big picture in mind and to realize that once a photo of you exists, perhaps in government ID...there are also video cameras that are being pushed for the streets now. As you know, England has something like three million.

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Ms. Libby Davies: Even in the downtown east side there's been a huge debate about the police wanting video cameras.

Mr. Darrell Evans: That's right. The systems are very imperfect right now, but there is a video identification, facial recognition, a software that can easily be matched to databases, and no one has a private life any more. It radically changes the psychology of individuals vis-à-vis the state.

The most dangerous thing of all is the idea of having someone constantly looking over your shoulder. It's not the same kind of citizenship or personhood that encourages creativity, freedom, freedom of expression, and these are the vital dynamics of our society. That's what I fear.

The Chair: Lynne.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: I was probably one of those Canadians who thought it was nothing to have an ID card, but I have taken a complete turnaround, mainly when I saw that the government couldn't do a gun registration, and this has gone way overboard. The SIN numbers out there as opposed to the population--that's another example of how poor the government manages things. Then there was the hard drive that was stolen from Saskatchewan. That information was out in the public somewhere for a few days.

I'm one of those Canadians who would probably—

The Chair: They're applauding you.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: Joe, I think it's getting to be the end of the day for you.

I couldn't agree with you more. I really find it interesting, Ning and Rachel in particular. I realize where you're coming from Darrell, but you're representing groups and you're talking to people. I am surprised you have a problem with it because the ID card is supposed to prevent racial profiling. Your presentations mean a lot on this subject.

I'm going to ask you about racial profiling and how you think Mr. Coderre thinks it could prevent racial profiling. Darrell, you have said that the Canada Customs and Revenue database for travellers has expanded in its purpose and uses following government assurances to the contrary. I'd like you to expand on that. I know HR, for instance, tracks people who are on unemployment and who cross the border. Are there other areas where you think they overstep their boundaries by using Canada Customs and Revenue to get information about Canadians? Do you see where else they overstep their limits? I think they do.

Mr. Darrell Evans: Are you familiar with the CCR database and the limitation they said they would put on it?

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: No.

Mr. Darrell Evans: Originally the idea was that they would just gather some information about travellers, all the standard information that the airline would have anyway, and that they would keep it for 24 hours so the police or our security people could, if necessary, put the spotlight on a given individual and quickly subpoena the information or bring a warrant and get the information on that individual.

Now they'll be retaining all the information for six months, and not for anti-terrorism purposes. It can be for any law enforcement purpose. They'll keep the information for six years. They'll match it against any other information in any other department of government for law enforcement, for security purposes, for tax fraud, for child abuse, for anything you name. Catching criminals for all those things is a good idea, but what happens is the government always looks for a place to start coalescing information and creating vast profiles. This just provides them the most convenient new place to start gathering information about each citizen.

It started with airline passengers, then it became anyone travelling by any means, and now of course we'll match it with whatever information anybody wants, like Revenue Canada. It becomes an expanding centralized database, like the HRDC database, where you start uniting all the files about people.

Where else in government does that happen? You asked what was outside the rules. The problem is the privacy acts are really outmoded now. They didn't contemplate the kinds of powerful information memory and capacity and other technologies that are all uniting to form this web of surveillance that we stand the danger of existing within.

Again, I get back to the idea of control. Canadians need more control of even what the government does with their information. The privacy acts at both the federal and provincial levels don't have any room for consent. They say they do, but really government doesn't need your consent to use it for any purpose as mandated by legislation or an administrative program.

I would like to point out that in the new Privacy Act for the private sector, which has passed and which is going to come into effect in the provinces in another year, the government left itself a back door. You really have to get consent and be very explicit about the purpose of collecting information if you're a private sector organization. But government has passed an exception that allows it to go to a private company or a non-profit group and ask for any information and the group may give it to them without any legal effect or anything. They have not tried to shut the door at all on government's own information gathering. You're faced again with this massive problem of government information gathering. Where do you draw the line? That's the question.

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The Chair: Rachel, could you answer the question that Lynne posed about it being racial profiling in reverse, I suppose?

Ms. Rachel Rosen: I can't speak for Minister Coderre, but when he introduced the card, one of the explanations was that it would help avoid delays at the United States border, and one of the reasons for those delays had to do specifically with racial profiling. We've had even the personal experience of some of our members who've been delayed, questioned, and even denied access into the U.S. These are people of Palestinian and Iraqi origin who are Canadian citizens and have faced the situation at the U.S. border.

When the card was introduced, it was to avoid delays. Why were the delays happening? Because of racial profiling by the American government at its borders.

Instead of us condemning them, we believe the Canadian government should speak out against this treatment of Canadian citizens and not legitimize it by saying they will introduce a card. As you said, instead of questioning or just allowing the people travelling to the U.S. to be fingerprinted, it's actually instituting this card or suggesting that this card be instituted for all Canadians.

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial: Libby was asking about biometric information. From the migrant and immigrant communities, we've already been conditioned to provide this type of information because we want to access the so-called privileges of residing here in Canada. For immigrants, you have to provide fingerprints already to get the criminal record check. That's for a very limited purpose.

We introduced to our membership the idea of a national ID card. It is a fundamental shift because this is supposed to be for Canadian citizens. As migrants and immigrants, we really are questioning whether we're going to be treated equally as Canadian citizens, or are we always going to be identified? We already wear the colour of our skin when we walk down the street, but in terms of the national ID, how are we going to be tracked from our very entry into Canada and into our process as becoming Canadian citizens?

We feel we should be treated equally as Canadian citizens, and I think that's the whole debate: how do we really see that shift and this national ID card? It's something we've never had to undertake as Canadian citizens. As somebody who has grown up here in Canada, a naturalized Canadian citizen, I've never had to provide my fingerprints to anyone, but migrants and immigrants are already conditioned to provide that. Is that just also laying the groundwork for further intrusions into our privacy?

The Chair: I can't let the comment go by. I don't want to give the impression that the Canadian government has not condemned the actions of the United States at the highest levels, from the Prime Minister, to the foreign affairs minister, to the parliamentary secretary, to the chairman of the committee, to members of Parliament who find it absolutely obnoxious and unacceptable that Americans would question the Canadian passport and even be able to question the difference between a citizen who was born here and one who came by choice. So you're absolutely right.

Could I ask you a question, though? Rachel, you said you had a report. You were at a conference in November 2002 where you started to talk about national ID, and you perhaps had some experiences from other countries. We know other countries have ID. We are trying to gather that information.

Do you have a report of that conference, or are you going to be tabling it? The committee might want to take a look at it, if there is some information there with regard to their experience. I think Ning told us a bit about the Philippines, but we are trying to gather not so much anecdotal evidence but information that would help us as a committee. Let's face it, a national ID card, no matter what it is, if it isn't going to be accepted by the international community...why would you want to get another card? At the end of the day, why would you need one? Therefore, we are trying to gather that information on other countries.

So if you have a report, that would be great.

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Ms. Rachel Rosen: If I could just make a comment, just before coming to present, one of our members, who is originally from Singapore, was sharing the impact of a similar type of national ID card, although we don't know exactly what's being proposed. The national ID card that exists in Singapore has really had an impact. The citizens there live in a state of insecurity, fear, and real concern. It has really silenced their ability to speak out for what they believe is meaningful in terms of human rights and social justice. Their experience in Singapore was directly tied to this national ID card.

We can also get you the conference report.

The Chair: Yes, thank you.

Ms. Luningning Alcuitas-Imperial: Just in terms of the Philippines experience, we do have a legal analysis of the proposed national ID card from a Philippines-based legal organization, which we can provide you.

The Chair: Thank you. That would be great.

Darrell, this is what gets us into these kinds of debates. You indicated you have a problem with the national identity card. As you said, it's a blank white paper. It's been studied in this country before and it's been studied in other countries before. It's been sort of put away and has been a non-starter, because there are other current identity cards of some sort that could essentially be used as national identity indicators, such as a passport.

What's the matter with a passport, other than that we want to make it tamper-proof, fraud-proof, and so on? Essentially, most Canadians who are citizens, at least those either born here or who have citizenship, have a passport, or should have a passport. Could that be the national identity document?

Could the citizenship card be a national identity card, along with the maple leaf card for those who are not citizens? Could it be the SIN card, whether it's a 900-series SIN card...because practically everyone has one? I know there are all kinds of problems with these cards, including the SIN cards.

You said we need a better ID. That's what gets us into trouble. You think we need a better identification system. I find that perplexing, because you think there is a failing in the system. Tell me where we have failed and how we can improve it, because then we get back to David's question as to what kind of a card we would like? You can have a card with an iris and a fingerprint, but without a scanner that wouldn't tell you anything. You're not going to be able to tell whether the iris on that picture on that card is my iris or if my fingerprint is my fingerprint. By the way, you can change your fingerprint, but you can't change your iris.

Mr. Darrell Evans: That's news to me.

The Chair: The other thing is that everyone is going to have to have a scanner, because if a policeman comes up to me and says, “Joe, I want you to present your national ID card”, whatever that is, unless he can put that card through a scanner, how he is going to know that's me on that card, unless you are looking for particular features? You can change anything and you can reproduce anything.

I am going to go back to the thing you said, that we need a better ID system. That really troubled me, because that's what starts this whole debate about what we should create if what we have is not good.

Mr. Darrell Evans: What I was saying is there are systems we use for ID for specific purposes that should be improved. The fact that there are millions of social security numbers just floating out there is bad. That should be improved. The passport should be improved. As you pointed out, we already have a program to do that.

What we don't want is a universal identifier. You're right, any of these systems could be made into a de facto national identity card. We don't want that. We don't want every citizen to have to carry one. We worry about what kinds of data are accessible through it. We are worried about who can demand it, all these things.

Those questions need to be asked. What exactly do we mean by an ID card?

º (1610)

The Chair: Then this is a philosophical debate and not a practical debate. I'm just trying to understand. You say you don't want an all-purpose card.

Mr. Darrell Evans: No.

The Chair: But you would subject people to having 15 cards that are specific in nature, which cumulated with databases that could tell you more.... They know more about you than you would care to know about yourself, just like they know about me. But it comes in various other points now. Your whole objection is to have a national identity card of one kind.

Mr. Darrell Evans: A national identifier. I think David Loukidelis made the point that you don't want every citizen to have to have a number. None of these things are required. If you don't drive, you don't need a driver's licence. If you don't travel, you don't need a passport. I don't have a passport.

The Chair: A national ID card with no number on it but with your iris and your fingerprint would be fine?

Mr. Darrell Evans: No, I'm not saying that. Again, it has to do with who can demand you produce it, what it is used for, how it is used, all these questions. Really, we can't have an informed debate until you get some specific proposals.

The Chair: Then I'll ask you again, because you're the one who said, on record, that we need a better identification system.

Mr. Darrell Evans: No.

The Chair: No, you said better ID. What did you mean by that?

Mr. Darrell Evans: I meant improved ID for all these uses we already have for them--in other words, a better social security number system so that there aren't excessive amounts of numbers out there.

The Chair: That's easily fixable. What else?

Mr. Darrell Evans: That should be fixed. If a driver's licence is really easy to copy, which seems almost inevitable now with the technology they have.... As you know, kids are able to use the net to produce them. That's certainly got to be improved too. If you said it was easy to counterfeit money, you'd need better bills.

The Chair: You're saying the integrity of our documents have to be improved so they can't be reproduced or bugged, but not to produce or have a new ID card or a system of any kind.

Mr. Darrell Evans: Yes, I certainly would agree with the idea of a multi-use card. I think the fact that these are discreet cards actually protects our privacy.

The Chair: David.

Mr. David Price: Just a couple of quick points. One thing, Rachel, in answer to the racial profiling thing. The minister, in answering a question, said very clearly that one of his ideas behind the card, because you have to have your place of birth on the passport, was the card would not have that, in order to say that you're a Canadian citizen and nothing else but. So that's just one point there.

The other point, Joe, is on what you were talking about as an ID. You know if you put your fingerprint on a card, it doesn't mean it has to be a database for that fingerprint. It can just need a reader that reads that that print is the same print that's on the card. There's no database or information that goes anywhere. It's just to prove that you're that person. That can be done with the iris scan or whatever. It doesn't have to go anywhere else.

Just one other little point, Darrell, that I find very interesting. It's the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. Is there a conflict there?

Mr. Darrell Evans: I just created some content for our website that answers that question. The bottom line is we want informed, active citizens. We feel that makes democracy healthy. Freedom of information is the tool that puts more power over information in the hands of the citizens. Privacy rights put more power in the hands of citizens. It's really about your and my ability as a citizen to have some control and access to information. With the government and private sector having such vast power to gather information, to store it, to relate it to each other, as individuals we're really at a huge disadvantage. It helps balance the power in democracy.

The Chair: One recommendation that you might want to think about is that the place of birth be eliminated from the passport. I don't know if that serves any useful purpose, but that recommendation has come from a number of different sources. Would that be helpful or hurtful?

º (1615)

Mr. Darrell Evans: It's a good patch. It's like a Microsoft system that has umpteen flaws and you get one little patch for one problem.

Ms. Rachel Rosen: As Ning said, when people of colour are walking down the street, they're walking in their skin. So it is that racial profiling.

The Chair: Thank you very much, both of you. As you started to say right from the beginning, we have a blank page. We're waiting and listening to what Canadians think about a card. The more you talk about it, the more detail and obviously the more questions it raises. I'm sure we'll have fun with it. Thank you so much.

We're going to immediately move to our next witness who's here. Mr. Chapman is with the Lost Canadian Organization. It is Don Chapman and Magali Castro-Gyr with respect to citizenship. Why don't you quickly move into that?

Welcome, Don.

Mr. Don Chapman (Lost Canadian Organization): Magali is just outside.

The Chair: I want you to know that Don is related to some good people in London, Ontario. He was telling me that--was it your great-grandfather who was the only victim or tragic victim of London's great flood of 120 years ago?

Mr. Don Chapman: It was my great-grandfather.

The Chair: Anyway, welcome, Don, and we look forward to both your presentations with regard to the Lost Canadian Organization and the whole issue of citizenship. It would be a great way to finish off a long day for all of us.

Mr. Don Chapman: Thank you. I testified in Halifax last week and on January 28 I testified in Ottawa, so you have a copy of my story.

Ms. Libby Davies: Have you appeared twice?

The Chair: Good question. There's a national awareness of this national issue.

Mr. Don Chapman: Actually, I appeared in Ottawa and another gentleman appeared in Halifax. I was there with him. They ended up asking a question, so before I knew it I was one of them, although I wasn't scheduled. I'm reading a story not so much of me but of some other people who are from Vancouver.

And welcome. This is my home town.

What I'm going to do is give the story of other people who are lost Canadian children. I will read it as though I was that person, and you have copies of it. This is Keith Menzie's story.

My name is Keith Menzie. I was born in Vancouver of Canadian born parents in 1956. Dad moved to California for graduate school when I was 2. He had intended to return to Canada after studies, but circumstances and jobs led to Montana and then to Arizona. I attended Kindergarten through college in Arizona with a break of 4 years in Brazil. Our family returned to Canada in 1975 when my Dad accepted a position at the University of Guelph.

In 1964, Dad had the opportunity to work in Brazil on a USAID project. To go, he had to be a U.S. citizen. My sister was born in Arizona and was a U.S. citizen, but I was naturalized with Mom and Dad at 8 years of age. Mom and Dad were assured when they took this action that it would in no way jeopardize my birthright Canadian citizenship. I do not know who or which institution gave these assurances. However I do know that my mother felt very strongly about this. She was born in Powell River, B.C. in 1926 and she grew up in Vancouver. She has always felt strongly about being Canadian. She has told the story many times in the spring of 1956, when she was nearing my birthdate, that despite the fact that my father's parents lived just across the border in Bellingham, Washington, she refused to go across the border for fear that her child (me) would accidentally be born in the U.S. rather than in Canada. I was amazed to discover that had she simply gone to visit my paternal grandparents on June 30, 1956, the very thing she feared would have forever been prevented. It's almost unbelievable that under the Benner vs. Canada Supreme Court decision, had I in fact been born outside of Canada--today I would be Canadian. Basically, Canada, instead of blessing me for my wanting to regain my birthright, is instead punishing me.

I often think about the fact that I am probably one of only a very few people on earth who had no say in relinquishing birthright citizenship. In 1975 we returned to Canada. I was a student at the University of Arizona by then, so only went with my family in the summer of 1975. I became a landed immigrant in my own country, and I returned each summer through college to work for Guelph Waterworks. Since then I have remained in the U.S., currently in Virginia. Career developments have led the way. Several things have happened over the years including the U.S. becoming more acceptable of dual citizens. As a result, my Arizona born sister and my parents have become Canadian citizens, now retaining dual citizenship. I on the other hand, born in Canada, remain a U.S. citizen only.

I have always thought it odd that my parents could give up my birth citizenship for me. My situation in this matter is not as life-affecting as the case for some of the people I have recently heard about in the same situation. But for a strange twist of rules, I find myself treated differently by the government of the country in which I was born than others who were simply born on a different day. The rules are arbitrary, as rules often are. But to be treated differently than others simply on account of a birthdate seems unfair.

I know one thing, I would be proud to regain the citizenship my father unknowingly gave away.

These are my footnotes. Both Keith and his wife have PhDs. One has a doctorate of economics and the other has a doctorate in chemistry. They have two children.

Canada wants and searches for immigrants, so, please, could somebody explain the logic of keeping the Menzie family out of Canada? For goodness' sake, Keith's parents and his sister are now Canadians. What public good is being served to keep this family split apart and away from Canada?

This is the story of Ron Nixon:

I was born Ronald George Nixon on October 12, 1946, in Lansing, Michigan to Canadian parents. Both my parents are from the London, Ontario, area and were from farming families. My mother went to secretarial school in London and eventually went to work for the RCMP. My father joined the Royal Canadian Navy and served during World War II. During World War II my uncle George, who was a Spitfire pilot, was escorting bombers over Germany for the Royal Canadian Air Force, and was shot down and killed in the service of Canada. My middle name is in his honour.

After World War II, my Canadian parents moved from Ontario to Lansing, Michigan, so that my father could get a degree in hotel and restaurant management from Michigan State University. My early years with my parents were filled with many, many trips to Canada to spend all holidays with relatives. To this date, all of my relatives still live in Canada with the exception of one cousin who lives in New Zealand. Aunts, uncles and cousins are scattered throughout Canada from Vancouver Island to Ontario and everywhere in between. I have said many times to my friends that know about my efforts to regain my Canadian citizenship that I have stood for God Save the Queen more than the Star Spangled Banner. I have deep roots in Canada going back to many generations.

On August 27, 1957, my mother and father acquired American citizenship. At that time my younger brother and I lost our dual citizenship status with Canada. As a minor child, the decision to lose my citizenship status was not my decision.

Because of a “transitional provision” in the Canadian Citizenship Act affecting those children born to Canadian citizens outside of Canada (after December 31, 1946 and before February 15, 1977), in June of 2000 I formally applied for resumption of Canadian citizenship. Even though I was born ten weeks prior to that December date, I asked for a “consideration” of my case. In a letter sent from the Citizenship and Immigration office (CPC Office in Sydney, NS) on December 28, 2000, it was explained to me that I “no longer have a claim to Canadian citizenship”. The letter further explained that subsection 20(1) of the Canadian Citizenship Act states that where a responsible parent of a minor child ceases to be a Canadian citizen, the child would cease, if the child were a dual citizen at that time. I was heartbroken by this decision. Again, I will state that as a minor child, the decision to lose my citizenship status with Canada was not my decision.

I have been following the development of the new, revised, proposed Citizenship Act change suggested in House Bills C-18 and C-343. I am encouraged by this effort because, if passed, I may again enjoy Canadian citizenship. This would mean a great deal to me at this time. My roots and relatives are Canadian and I would eventually like to live in Canada too.

The next story relates to a gentleman who's 75 years old. He did give up his citizenship as an adult, but it did have some interesting twists. Here is the story of George Kyle:

My concern is that Bill C-18 perpetuates the outright discrimination that exists in the Citizenship Act (1977) and is a shame to Canada, particularly when it wishes to be known as a kinder country. Bottom line, Canada should bring itself more into line with the other western democratic countries. To permit this discrimination to continue will contaminate Bill C-18.

I was born in Vancouver, B.C., in 1927. Both parents and all grandparents were born in Canada. I immigrated to the U.S. in 1950 as no jobs existed in my chosen profession west of Winnipeg. I found a job in Seattle and took out U.S. citizenship in 1954. It was only in the early 1980s that I learned that I had lost my Canadian citizenship because the law at the time revoked it. It was a surprise as I had not made any formal renunciation. It was a shock to learn that others who had done exactly the same thing as myself but had done it after 1977 would still have their Canadian citizenship and all its rights intact. This is just outright discrimination. Effectively, the 1977 act provides that Canadian citizenship is to be based not on what a person did but instead on when he did it.

Consider the following:

A person who took out citizenship in another country prior to 1977 did not personally renounce his Canadian citizenship. Instead, the Canadian Citizenship Act (1947) revoked the citizenship under the provisions of the act, in many cases without the knowledge of that person.

Also, the 1947 act did not outlaw dual citizenship, as Canadians could marry a foreigner and take the citizenship of their spouse without losing their Canadian citizenship. Foreigners could obtain Canadian citizenship without being required to give up their foreign citizenship. This not only means that dual citizenship was acceptable under the 1947 act, but that natural born Canadians (and children) enjoyed less rights than foreigners. To put it another way, a Nazi war criminal had more rights of Canadian citizenship than did natural born children and adults of Canada.

One wonders, why did parliament change the selective dual citizenship feature of the 1947 act when it enacted the 1977 act? Was it because it realized the 1947 act was wrong in this regard? Or that it was right in 1947 but wrong in 1977? Either way, the lack of retroactivity has created two classes of people who have taken out foreign citizenship. These people are all equal in that they all did the same thing. However, one class has retained all rights, while the other class has none. Is this not discrimination? It is a very serious consequence to be denied one's birthright merely because of the date the action took place. Is this not the type of discrimination that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted to prevent?

The present law gives rise to all kinds of anomalies and contradictions. While I was living in Europe in the late 1980s, I was often asked in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and other countries where I'm from or where I was born. I would say Vancouver, B.C., and they would respond -- oh, you're a Canadian. And I would say -- no, I'm not a Canadian. Then they would say -- but you must be, you were born there. And I would just respond -- you don't know how things work in Canada.

I might point out that Mexico recently repealed its similar 1947-type citizenship law and made dual citizenship a right. And remember, Mexico is not exactly considered a country that always respects citizens' rights.

Also, during the 1980s, I made an appointment at the Canadian embassy in Paris to discuss my situation. The consular told me that I was not Canadian and that I could apply for landed immigrant status. It begged the question, so I asked about the fairness of the continued treatment of those affected by the 1947 act under the provisions of the 1977 law. He stated, off the record, his displeasure with the situation. His comment was -- how can we morally refuse an applicant like yourself unless there is a criminal record or fraud involved. So I must ask, why not just restore our citizenship on application and without a waiting period?

In 1994 I contacted the Los Angeles Consular Office. The officer was quite knowledgeable, but confrontational, apparently because I had taken out U.S. citizenship. Her concern was that I wanted Canada's health plan and other social benefits, which is just not true. Besides, the matter of Canadian-borns returning to receive Canada's health benefits should not be a reason to refuse our return to Canada. The people who framed the 1977 law decided this was not a concern. Therefore, continued bringing this up in rejecting one's wishes to return is like giving different answers to the same question for no valid reason. To continue, the Los Angeles case officer also acquainted me with the new requirements that involved points for certain desirable attributes from the standpoint of Canada in order to qualify for landed immigrant status. Since I was over 65 and retired, I could only amass about 30 of the required 65 points. In the end, she recommended that I not apply as my application fee would not be returned if I were not accepted and she stated definitely that I would not be accepted.

So that put me in the situation whereby I couldn't even get residence in the country which I was born, which effectively put landed immigrant status out of reach. That made the one year's residence requirement impossible to achieve, and so there would be no restoration of citizenship ever.

How can this be possible? In a western democracy? In Canada? The discrimination created by the lack of retroactivity in the 1977 act is Canada's shame. Please put an end to it.

Now just for my quick comments. I've heard you talk today about the provincial nominee program. I know about it from a person who has been trying to get in that way. I know what it's like to be a landed immigrant and try to get that. I'm at the very last process where they're checking my criminal background, through the RCMP, so I know how that works.

I know this system backwards and forwards as a person who is trying to go through it, and it's really not fun.

I have to tell you about a story that happened to me this Sunday as I was coming into Vancouver. As I arrived, I went up to the immigration officer. I found it very interesting because she looked at me. Normally, when you go through immigration in my position the officers kind of have a funny crinkle on their forehead as they look at you, and they say, “I don't understand. You have a Canadian birth certificate and you're a member of the Canadian Legion. How are you not Canadian? You're Canadian.” And I'd say, “No, I'm sorry. You don't understand how Canada works.”

This lady looked at me quite differently and she said, “You know, I know you. I've seen your article in Mclean's magazine, and somebody else here saw you on the CBC with Magali.” Somebody else said, “We've seen several articles about you recently. We didn't know anything about this and we work in immigration. We had no idea this existed.” This gives rise to George Kyle's comment, which is very accurate, where he talks about misinformation.

My parents were told they could always come back to Canada. It's been incredible, because I deal with a lot of these people. It's just a standard thing. Everybody has been given the wrong answers. Even you people on the committee, when we spoke in Ottawa, several of you said, “We didn't even know this existed until two weeks ago”, and you write the laws.

So she looked at me and she said, “On behalf of the Canadian government, I want to apologize to you.” Then she got a tear in her eye, and she said, “Welcome home, Mr. Chapman.” I got a tear in my eye.

I'd like to finish by quoting some of you back to you. Mr. Telegdi says Canadian citizenship should not be revoked by politicians but only by the courts.

Mr. Chrétien says there is one thing key in the life of the nation, and it is to make sure the rights of the citizens are protected by the court in our land and not subjected to the caprices of the elected.

You started this meeting, Mr. Fontana, by saying citizenship is the greatest gift a country can bestow on an individual. We do not want two classes of citizens. I cannot agree more. This is really easy to fix. You want a law and you want it stated easily and simply.

Here it is. Children born in Canada, no matter when the birth occurred, are Canadian. Children born abroad to any Canadian parent, no matter when the birth occurred, are Canadian. That fixes it and it is simple. We could give a lot to Canada, if you let us.

Thank you.

º (1630)

The Chair: Those are pretty compelling arguments. I have all kinds of questions, as I'm sure some people do.

º (1635)

Mr. Don Chapman: Would you like Magali to talk?

The Chair: Yes, sure.

Magali.

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr (Lost Canadian Organization): As a teacher, I can certainly appreciate that this has been a long day for you to be paying full attention, so I really do appreciate you allowing me to address you today in Vancouver. A lot has been said about immigration today, so I find it very appropriate that we're finishing with citizenship.

I am fully bilingual and I do plan to speak to you in French and English. Is that a problem?

The Chair: Not at all.

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr: Okay.

Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing us this opportunity to address you today.

I urge you to reread our testimony presented in Ottawa on January 28, which I can give you a copy of, Ms. Davies.

The upshot is this: if CIC is allowed to deny me, Magali Castro-Gyr, a natural-born Canadian citizen, and other natural-born Canadians such as Don Chapman, Charles Bosdet, Ron Nixon, Keith Menzie, and George Kyle, whose testimonies you've just heard, our fundamental right and privilege to maintain our given birthright to Canadian citizenship, then all that has been presented to you today and at every other committee meeting across the country becomes moot, is invalidated, and holds no value.

If Canada allows its laws to continuously discriminate against its natural-born citizens despite the 1977 Citizenship Act, despite the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, yet all the while forever amending legislation to protect foreign-born Canadians and immigrants, then we should all seriously address a very simple question: what are we doing here?

[Note: Due to technical difficulties, the following is a translation derived from a simultaneous interpretation recording]

I am convinced that there are three stages to this. First of all, this would ridicule citizenship, and this is accepted as self-evident.

We're encouraging you to help us achieve our goals. I am a child born in Canada of Canadian parents. We strongly believe we are right. We are rising up against an injustice that is discriminatory and is imposed on us. We're determined to convince you to help us and to support us, because if Canada closes its doors to us, children born in Canada with strong attachments to Canada, who will have a greater right to enter? A simple change to the legislation to the effect that any children born in Canada are entitled to Canadian citizenship and have the right to keep that citizenship, immediately and retroactively to 1977, would solve the problem. It's a simple fix.

[Note: End of translation]

Why is it that we, natural-born Canadians of Canadian parents, have to go to such great lengths emotionally, psychologically, and financially to prove to you and to Canada what we believe is so obviously our fundamental right, that of having an identity, a Canadian one, and in my case also a Québécois one? Yet CIC civil servants and officials are not called upon before you, the committee, to be held accountable for such blatantly wrong decisions, challenging subsection 15(1) of our Charter of Rights, essentially raping us of our identity and our dignity.

Thank you very much for allowing us to speak to you today.

Mr. Don Chapman: May I say one thing?

The Chair: You're lucky you have roots in London, Ontario, and I'll accept you in London, Ontario.

Mr. Don Chapman: With the hockey playing, they go back--

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Don Chapman: Do you have your lawsuit, Magali?

I wanted to wish everybody a happy Valentine's day. I'd like to show you what Magali got on Valentine's day. It was a brief, a new thing on her court case. The Canadian government is taking her to court over this. Last year her legal bills were $20,000. That's a lot of money for a school teacher. So these are the--

º (1640)

The Chair: Why is the government taking her to court?

Mr. Don Chapman: Because Magali went to register her two foreign-born children and the government said...and by the way, Magali has a valid Canadian passport.

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr: And my mother is Canadian and has always retained Canadian citizenship.

Mr. Don Chapman: So she has a valid Canadian passport and a valid Canadian social insurance number, so she goes to register her two foreign-born children, and they came back and said, “We've made a mistake. You're not Canadian, and not only your children, but you aren't either.” Her husband is from Switzerland. She sponsored him. The Canadian government accepted it and now they're saying, “All of you can leave.” He's a school administrator. So happy Valentine's day, version three. Why is the Canadian government spending this kind of money to keep a Canadian out of Canada, a schoolteacher?

The Chair: That's why I'm sure we're going to have a lot more questions.

Louis?

Mr. Louis Plamondon (Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, BQ): [Note: Due to technical difficulties, the following is a translation derived from a simultaneous interpretation recording]

This is incredible, that officials could spend so much time building a case like this against someone when obviously there has been a mistake. In 1977 it was a mistake not to include retroactivity, and I think our committee should make this a high priority.

I was saying so this morning in my riding. I thought it was a unique case. A 77-year-old man, who has always paid his taxes in Canada, who is receiving his old age security and has always gotten a passport, is suddenly being told he is not Canadian because when he was 15 years old, his father, who was born in the United States, sought American citizenship for himself and for his children. He never used that citizenship.

I think the concept is quite clear. In 1947 it was the man who owned the children and the wife. They were his property. That is the way things were seen in those days. That's why, even if Magali's mother remained Canadian when her father decided to take out another citizenship--her mother managed to keep her citizenship, but the children, being the property of the father, lost their Canadian citizenship. It makes no sense whatsoever. We absolutely have to do something to correct this.

I like the text of the bill you have provided us. That would fix everything--that is to say, Bill C-343. Perhaps we should do something quickly here. It is urgent. We're studying Bill C-18, and that's fine, but this can be solved apart from Bill C-18, and it can be solved almost immediately with three readings on the same day in the House. That would fix the problem. I propose that we do something like that. We'll discuss it later.

Thank you very much for your evidence. I thought I had an isolated case, but I see now that it is not at all isolated. It is more serious than I realized.

[Note: End of translation]

The Chair: I think I understand and know sometimes how bureaucracies work. As for what may seem to be an easy solution, maybe you can answer this, because if it were as simple as changing it, and maybe we will have an opportunity when reviewing the bill and your testimony about making an amendment, but before I know this for a fact...how many such cases are there? You've just given us three, and I don't know whether or not such information exists. For citizenship, unless you were born here, naturalized, there's a process. If you're born here, everybody assumed it was automatic, and therefore there's a process to apply for that citizenship. It's a very personal thing. I think governments are always worried about setting precedents, that you could simply pass an amendment for everybody.

I believe your story, and I believe yours, Magali, and I believe those three people, but how many more are there?

Governments get really concerned about setting something that they have absolutely no control over, not knowing how many more there might be. I'm just wondering, within the context of what Louis said, what might appear to be an easy solution, because we find all of this stuff pretty incredible.

º (1645)

Mr. Don Chapman: There are no real answers. Nobody knows.

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr: We know that since we appeared in Ottawa, these three people, because of the television and radio coverage, contacted us in two weeks. I'm scared to see what numbers there are.

Mr. Don Chapman: I have a web page, www.lostcanadian.com. It's hard to tell. You don't know, but I can say this: how many people will come back? I would bet very few. They get lives. That happened to me 42 years ago. How many people have the desire to go home?

The Chair: I'm just wondering. That's why sometimes I worry about administration. Somebody must have started an application. Therefore, to force someone to go through asking to be a permanent resident. You have to become a permanent resident--

Mr. Don Chapman: Yes.

The Chair: That's absolutely ridiculous, and he may not even qualify. So my point is, at what point of the application process does it start to come apart?

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr: For me, it was when I applied for my first-born son's Canadian certificate of citizenship.

Mr. Don Chapman: Your question begs the answer: go read Charles Bosdet's testimony from Halifax. I think they were asking his great-grandfather to prove whether or not the great-grandfather was in fact a legitimate child in Canada. Bosdet Point in Nova Scotia is named after his family. It was incredible in regard to the paperwork. The case is incredible. Go read the testimony and that will answer part of it.

But here's an interesting point, and this really gets to what you said about how many people are involved. We were property. You're right. We were chattel of our fathers. That means, how many fathers came to Canada and were not Canadians but had children born in Canada? Therefore, the children who have lived all their lives in Canada and are currently in Canada are not Canadian. They might not have had a Canadian father, so when will they find out? When they go to collect their social insurance or old age pension?

The Chair: Libby, do you have a question?

Ms. Libby Davies: I actually don't have a question. I just want to make a comment, because it just seems so incredibly ridiculous. If only it weren't also so incredibly expensive, I'm sure, which I find really difficult to deal with because I think that on a number of issues individuals are forced to go through very expensive litigation when really they've done nothing wrong. So in terms of a precedent, I would actually look at it from the other way. It seems to me that we've created a precedent and we need to undo it.

The chair is saying maybe the Canadian government is worried about a precedent and they're going to do it case by case. They've created a precedent now in a negative way and we need to actually go back and redress it.

The only thing I can say is that I have no idea why the minister is sort of giving you the cold shoulder, which is what the Maclean's magazine article is saying. Hopefully as a committee we can get the officials to come in and we can take it up, because it is unbelievable and you shouldn't have to go through this. It shouldn't have to come to this.

The Chair: But that's the easy part, me getting the minister and officials coming before the committee to try to explain this. I guarantee you that's the least I'm going to do, because I need to know. We need to know how--

Ms. Libby Davies: But they can figure out how to correct--

The Chair: I'm saying that the easy part is getting the officials to come before this committee to ask them why such a thing is there, but this gets at the heart of what citizenship and this whole bill are about. It is this: the government wants to be able to annul and revoke your citizenship if you in fact made a mistake. The fact remains as to when the government makes a mistake, as I understand it, Magali, like what they did with you. You had and still have citizenship, and then all of a sudden when you went to apply for your kids, they turned around and said you never did or it was a mistake--

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr: Right.

The Chair: --and we probably shouldn't have given it to you because you weren't here. That's the problem. It's a two-way street when you have legislation. It's not only at the convenience of the government, but more important, it ought to be for the rights of the citizen or the person.

º (1650)

Mr. Don Chapman: There is one other aspect of Magali's case. Let's say they say she did not have citizenship. That means they've made a minor child stateless, and that's against international law. And Canada did do that.

My brother and sister, by the way, are Canadians under a quirk in this law. They were adopted, so they're Canadians today. Somebody mentioned that we could just put C-343 in there and correct it. Well, it really doesn't.

Ron Nixon's father wanted to return and live his last days as a Canadian. He was a veteran. The immigration people sent him a letter saying “No, you cannot come home. You're too old. You don't have the points.” They really need to address prior to 1977. George Kyle can't come back.

The Chair: The problem is obviously between that 1947 and 1977 period, and I think we need a lot more background information from the administration as to the intent of the 1947 law and how it was changed in 1977.

I would hope, because I'm not a cynic, that it probably was an administrative error that was never corrected, but two wrongs don't make a right. Was 1947 wrong or was 1977 wrong? However, the fact is that I think they're both wrong.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm a pragmatist. I'm trying to find a solution. I don't know whether there is a simple amendment for dealing with an amnesty on an individual basis and expediting the applications or getting you before some administrative people to clear it and not have to fight in courts at the rate of $20,000, $50,000, $60,000. That's ridiculous.

Mr. Don Chapman: I have been doing this for 30 years, so I know the process pretty well. By the way, Ron Nixon was born 10 weeks prior to the 1947 date, so he's not covered if you just go back. I mean, this man was born to Canadian parents.

It needs to be fixed. A lot of wasted hours have been spent on this. It's an historic wrong and it's really easy to fix. It makes an embarrassment of Canada around the world. I know because, as I said, I started doing this 30 years ago.

I was told a long time ago by an MP why this was written in 1947. I don't know if this is the truth, but I know that the MP, who was the immigration critic at the time, told me that what they had discovered was that Canada wrote this law not really because Canada even cared at the time about dual citizenship. The United States cared about dual citizenship and asked if we would please write our laws not allowing dual citizenship because it didn't want it. So in essence, if that is true, I'm being kept out of my own country due to the request of the United States.

The Chair: The irony is that the Americans are asking some pretty strange things of us now, post-September 11, about harmonizing this and harmonizing that. You will remember that 1947 was an interesting year.

Mr. Don Chapman: I do.

The Chair: It wasn't that long after 1945.

Louis?

Mr. Louis Plamondon: We have to understand that if the father of Magali asked the American citizenship office in 1978--

[Translation]

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr: It was in 1975.

[English]

Mr. Louis Plamondon: You are Canadian?

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr: As of 1977 it would have been fine.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Do you understand, Mr. Chairman? If her father had asked after 1978 there would have been no problem, she would have been Canadian, but he asked in 1975. The problem is that changing the law in 1975 didn't mean it was correct for the rest of the population.

The Chair: Maybe after we've looked at this we obviously can make a recommendation. It may very well be that we can fix a problem or a bad law or some mistakes. Earlier this morning we had another lawyer who was representing similar cases to Magali's in terms of rights.

Mr. Don Chapman: That was my attorney.

The Chair: I'm sorry. You were going to make one extra point.

Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr: I was just going to add to Mr. Plamondon's statement . Everyone seems to be talking about what my father did, which I understand because of the 1947 act. However, there is something else that all of you have addressed since then. My mother has always retained her Canadian citizenship. That has to have a value. It does now. I think it's really important to always remember that. My mother was born in Montreal. She has always maintained her Canadian citizenship. She was denied the right to pass this on to my brother and I. We've been discriminated against.

º (1655)

The Chair: The laws of the country now address this.

Anyway, leave it with us. I know my colleagues would have heard it in Nova Scotia and obviously in Ottawa, although I wasn't there. Obviously all of us are as dumbfounded as anybody else who hears this incredible story. We are going to start asking some very tough questions, and we'll get to the bottom of this.

Mr. Don Chapman: Thank you very much. I have to say that I got a kick out of Keith Menzie. When I was talking to him the other day he said something that reminded me of what Magali said about her mother. She said that her mother absolutely didn't want to leave Canada. I think the parents are in their eighties. She said “It doesn't matter. Anything that ever comes up between my parents, it always comes back to my mother saying 'that happened because you took me out of Canada'”.

The Chair: All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We will be returning tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. We're adjourned.