CIMM Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA CITOYENNETÉ ET DE L'IMMIGRATION

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, May 2, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.)): Good morning, colleagues, witnesses, ladies and gentlemen. The committee is studying Bill C-11, an act respecting immigration to Canada and the granting of refugee protection to persons who are displaced, persecuted, or in danger.

It's a pleasure to be here in, I guess, the immigration capital of Canada, Toronto. The committee has so far been in Vancouver and Winnipeg, and we're going to be here in Toronto for today and tomorrow, and we go then to Montreal. So I want to thank all the witnesses in advance, and all the people from the Toronto area who have given us their submission.

It's a very important bill. It's the first time in 20 or 25 years that the country is looking at putting forward a new immigration bill. We'd like to think we're taking the time to listen, to hear, to make sure we get this bill right. We want to make sure that not only Canadians, but people of the world know that Canada has been most appreciative of and has been built by immigrants and that we have a rich culture and history with regard to our refugee protection.

We look forward to your submissions. We have copies of your submissions. I know the groups are represented by more than one person. We ask that you take five to seven minutes to give us a summary of what's in your submission, allowing us the time to ask you some questions. So we'll work on that basis.

Between nine and ten o'clock we have the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees, Elsa Musa and Tom Clark; Mamann & Associates, Guidy Mamann; Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Alan Borovoy, general counsel, and Stephen McCammon, associate counsel; Canadian Immigration Policy Council, Howard Greenberg and Carter Hoppe.

Welcome all. We can start with the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees. Before we start, I also want to welcome the honourable member from Eglinton-Lawrence, Joe Volpe, who's joined the committee this morning.

Elsa.

Ms. Elsa Musa (Inter-Church Committee for Refugees): Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

The Inter-Church Committee for Refugees is a coalition of ten national church bodies. We sent you an introductory package of information on a range of topical issues, such as trafficking and human rights obligations, in mid-February this year.

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Concerns we have raised previously in the long process towards this legislation remain. As we said in 1997, when possible legislation was under discussion, legislation is needed that is more just, with international standards, with new evidence allowed in an appeal, with effective “protection”; equal treatment for people in similar situations; expeditious, avoiding the limbo of indefinitely delayed decisions; and open, with public statistics and impartial investigation of complaints.

For this submission we have chosen to focus on two main concerns with Bill C-11. One is a fair hearing on the international refugee definition. The second focus will be a meaningful appeal to a court. Many of our concerns on these issues are echoed in submissions by Amnesty International, the UNHCR, and the Canadian Council for Refugees. We offer our particular insight.

I understand you have our brief. The top of page 3 of our brief summarizes our concern about the refugee hearing. A fair process that applies the convention refugee definition without other Canadian factors should be the basis for protection of persons, whether in Canada or overseas. It acts against the convention to create new factors by way of admissibility that have the effect of allowing Canada to refuse refugees who need our protection. The refugee definition should be the bottom line for protection. It contains provisions to exclude agreed small groups of persons, such as serious criminals. The exclusion standard is an international one. We do not need to create another one.

At the penultimate paragraph of our brief, on page 2, we note that the admissibility factors of criminality, war crimes, etc., are intended to be dealt with in paragraph 1(f) of article 1, the definition of refugee in accordance with international standards. The refugee status decision-maker should apply the whole convention refugee definition.

Overseas, our sources tell us that Canada frequently turns down refugees for resettlement on the basis of its own exclusion standard, which is not in line with the international one. For instance, Canada is virtually unique in frequently turning down for resettlement Sudanese refugees on account of membership in the SPLM, yet other states are accepting these persons.

Within Canada, Bill C-11 allows officials to deny status on account of membership, in the same way it now seeks to deport refugees such as Mr. Suresh for membership in an organization. That is not the current international standard. We refer you to the special supplementary issue 2000—my colleague Tom Clark and his staff will show you—of the International Journal of Refugee Law and to the newly released 2001 paper, “Current issues in the application of the exclusion clauses”. This was written by Geoff Gilbert, extradition expert, Professor of Law and head of the Department of Law, University of Essex.

A fair process that applies the whole convention refugee definition without other Canadian factors should be the basis for protection of persons, whether in Canada or overseas. We make a suggestion for doing this in our recommendation.

Meaningful appeal is our second concern area. From among our ongoing concerns about appeals we focus on the need for effective court protection at page 4, paragraph 4, of our brief:

Bill C-11 must allow access to court protection for the person whose life or freedom is at risk or who is at risk of torture.

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The need for effective court protection was raised by the report released last year on the Canadian system by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The report says:

The right of access to judicial protection to ensure respect for a legal right requires available and effective recourse for the violation of a right protected under the Declaration [that is the American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man] or the Constitution of the country concerned.

Again the report notes:

The effect of this right is to require the provision of a domestic remedy which enables the relevant judicial authority to deal with the substance of the complaint and grant appropriate relief where required.

As our brief explains in the ultimate paragraph on page 3, the present court process is not set up to protect a person's rights. It is set up to identify legal issues and pronounce on these issues. Court protection is presently limited by “leave”, by the form of “judicial review”, and by the need for a trial court judge to “certify” an issue before the appeal level of the court will hear an appeal.

In our brief, on page 4, paragraph 2, we note that present judicial review does not allow the court to intervene to protect the person's right. The Supreme Court deliberated and advised extensively on issues in the case of Mavis Baker. But Mavis Baker's case then went back to the original pool of administrative decision-makers to be decided.

In paragraph 3, on page four, we note that the leave provision is used to identify issues, not to identify persons whose rights are at risk. The fact that a few stalwart individuals like Mavis Baker or Suresh have managed to create pathways to the highest court against the odds does not mean there is no problem.

Our second proposal, therefore, is that this committee recommend changes to ensure effective court protection for important rights. Our brief suggests a way of changing Bill C-11 to do this.

Thank you very much. My colleague Tom Clark and I will be willing to answer questions.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Elsa and Tom.

Next is Mamann & Associates, Guidy Mamann.

Mr. Guidy Mamann (Mamann & Associates): Thank you very much for having us here this morning.

Today I have accompanying me, Mr. Kevin Beigel, who is a lawyer in our office and who is licensed to practise in the states of New York and Massachusetts. I have asked him to join me today because the topic I will be dealing with deals somewhat with the experiences of our neighbour to the south in immigration.

The focus of my presentation today will not be on specific aspects of Bill C-11, but rather what I consider to be serious omissions from Bill C-11. I will leave the CBA and my friends in the refugee community to deal with the specific sections that may need some adjustment.

In the package of material we presented this morning, you will see an article from the Toronto Star indicating that Canada has slipped to nine on the competitive nation list. Again, the United States is number one, and Canada is sliding.

One of the passages in that article is as follows:

The U.S. is very aggressive in facilitating the immigration of talent—between 1994 and 1999, it `imported' 124,000 Indians, 68,000 Chinese, 57,000 Filipinos, 49,000 Canadians, and 42,000 British holders of higher education degrees.

The battlefield for world competitiveness is thus moving to bytes and brains.

Canada has grown increasingly concerned about the “brain drain”, and in an effort to keep top students from heading to the U.S., Ottawa announced in March it would invest $73 million in four new research networks meant to speed up Canada's expertise in four key areas: the auto industry, language and literacy, clean water initiatives, and genomics research.

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I've also reproduced for you a two-page summary of the last couple of years of Canada Immigration's report card. In essence, what Canada is relying on, in terms of immigration for economic benefit to Canada, lies in the business immigrant program in an independent category.

You will see from the figures that have been provided to you that under the business immigration program, for example, in 1999, the immigration department reports that 13,010 people came to Canada. That is down from 13,776 in 1998, and 19,927 in 1997.

While those figures may appear somewhat encouraging or impressive, you can notice a strong decline in business persons coming to Canada. In fact, if you take a close look at the numbers, it's not exactly as it appears. You'll notice that the 13,000 includes dependants. So if you eliminate the dependants of business people, in 1997 we had 5,584 business people come to Canada. In 1998, that dropped to 3,818, and then in 1999, a further drop to 3,638.

If Canada is to remain competitive with the United States, with any other country, I believe we can do better in terms of our immigration policy. We need to find ways to attract business people.

I've been practising in this field for 14 years now. I'm a former immigration officer, and I've seen all kinds of immigration. The problem that I foresee in the business immigration area is, first, there is simply not sufficient inducement to come to Canada. Processing now takes anywhere from two to three years in some cases. I know some of the department statistics suggest something different, but the facts on the ground are such that it can take two to three years. Furthermore, there is the growing uncertainty about the success of these applications. It used to be that people filed applications in the business category thinking they were relatively assured of success. Now even experienced business people can be refused for reasons that don't appear to be connected to the benefit they would attract to Canada.

The other category that is relied upon for the economic growth of Canada is the independent category, the skilled worker. The skilled workers are persons who are selected on the grounds of their work experience, education, and the demand for their experience in Canada. Again we see a drop in those numbers. In 1999, we saw 92,394 people coming to Canada in that category. That's down from 105,538 in 1997. Again, those numbers are misleading, because that includes dependants. If you take a look at the actual professionals coming to Canada in 1999, there were 41,482 principal applicants.

That gives me, personally, as a Canadian, a great deal of worry, because the economic strength of this country is going to depend on, in 1999, 3,600 business people and 40,000 professionals. If you take away from those figures those numbers of Canadians who, I dare say, leave the country for greener pastures, or so-called greener pastures, you'll see that those numbers become even more startling.

We're recommending a couple of things. In our office in the last three years, we've seen a growing percentage—in fact, our greatest percentage now—of clients in our office being Canadians. About 30% of our clients are Canadians heading south under NAFTA, and that is an alarming increase for us, in our business.

Mr. Beigel, who is seated beside me, handles the U.S. immigration, and I thought it would be important for him to be here if any of you had questions that might pertain. Maybe, by anecdotal evidence, we can provide you some of the reasons the clients we serve are heading south.

I think we can learn something from our American friends in two respects. I've provided to you in the material some information about how the United States has dealt with the shortfall of talent in the last couple of years in the information technology industry.

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I'm sure some of you know what the H-1B is. It's a mechanism in the United States to bring in people who are professionals to contribute to the economy where there's a shortage. From 1992 until 1998, the Americans allowed 65,000 H-1B visas to be issued. That was the cap that was set. In 1999 they increased that from 65,000 to 115,000 and, in the year 2000, 195,000. They tripled the number of H-1Bs that they would issue in one year.

What this suggests is an American propensity to be more aggressive and to be more responsive to short-term changes in the economy. They've used the immigration tool as a powerful one to deal with international competitiveness.

We have tried to assemble here figures for you to take a look at how many people are coming in under the H-1B and how many people are coming in under the TN visas, etc. It's a remarkable number when you look across the 1998 figures to see how many professional-type people the Americans are bringing in.

I say that because these numbers are for temporary admission to the United States. Canada does not in any way compete even on a 1:10 basis with the United States with those numbers.

We're proposing that Canada adopt a visa similar to the EEZs in the United States to attract foreign dollars. People who want to come and invest in Canada generally have to go through the entrepreneur program, which could take one to two years.

We're constantly asked by Canadians for foreign investors to invest in Canadian projects. By the time we're able to get them here the project is over and done with. It's a year or two later, and we simply cannot serve them.

With the EEZs in the United States, our experience has been in Toronto that in about four weeks...if any one of you were to tell us that you wanted to set up a business in the United States, in about four to five weeks we could have a visa for you to allow you to invest in the United States, and then you could stay there for about five years; it's renewable every five years. It's not permanent residence, but it allows for an immediate and powerful injection of foreign capital into the country with very little fanfare. It works extremely well for the Americans, and I suggest that we take a look at that experience to benefit our Canadian economy.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Guidy.

From the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, I'd like to welcome Alan Borovoy and Stephen McCammon.

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy (General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association): Usually people have more trouble with my name than with his.

The Chair: I've heard your name many times, Alan, and I know you've appeared before this committee on a number of occasions.

Mr. Alan Borovoy: Well, it's nice to be back.

Our comments today—the comments of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association—will address exclusively the handling of permanent residents, since they are the ones who have uprooted themselves on the strength of being allowed to live here indefinitely. They are the ones who attract some of the most serious civil liberties issues, which is not to deny those of others, but it is to focus, at least as a priority matter, on the situation facing permanent residents.

And since Bill C-11 is not only a few amendments of existing law but an attempt to re-enact—to give us a brand-new Immigration Act—we will deal not only with some of the new problems, but also with some of the persisting problems in our immigration law. And in that we'll probably focus primarily on the area of suspected criminal or security problems.

I start with the section around clause 37 of Bill C-11, which would render permanent residents deportable if they are members—undefined; we don't know what a member is—of an organization that is or has been engaged in a pattern of criminal activity, planned by a number of people, in concert, in furtherance of the commission of an indictable offence. This is so wide; let me invite you to consider.

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Suppose you had a permanent resident who felt obliged to join a particular union in order to avoid unemployment, in order to be sure of a job. If that union went on strike and during the course of the strike planned some acts of obstruction or mischief on the picket line—I hate to use trade unions as an example because this is a rather rare event with unions, but it does happen—but if they were to do this, the permanent resident who joined the union under those conditions, even though that person did not participate in any of the impugned acts, did not know of them, and objected to them, would nevertheless be rendered deportable by the language of that section.

Moreover, it also talks about committing analogous offences in other countries. Suppose you had here an American, a permanent resident here, who was involved in Martin Luther King's organization where they planned to defy some court orders to enforce segregation in the United States. That person also would be rendered deportable because of his previous involvement in Martin Luther King's organization.

I add one more for comic relief. This section is so broad that if a permanent resident had worked at some point for the RCMP, he, too, would be rendered deportable because the RCMP fits that description. At one point, you will recall, they planned a number of law-breaking acts including illegal mail opening, burglary, theft, and a number of others. So you have that too. I point this out to you because of the fatuous over-breadth of this clause.

In an earlier clause it talks about being a member of an organization that not only has committed certain acts such as espionage—I think this is found in clause 34—but also an organization that will commit these acts. This I like to call deportation by clairvoyance. Now it is our view that a necessary ingredient for the deportation of a permanent resident should be what is demonstrated about their activities, their demonstrated activities. They should not be deported simply for their or anyone else's anticipated proclivity. That should be the test.

We go on from there. It uses the word “subversion”. Now this has been inherited from the existing Immigration Act; they talk about subversion against democratic governments. I think there's something to be said for rendering deportable people who may have participated in acts that would undermine the viability of democracy in other countries. I don't have any particular objection to that. The objection is to the word “subversion” because we honestly don't know what it means. So we say, either define the word or remove the word. Use something else to convey what you have in mind.

In any event, why should we want to deport a permanent resident for being involved in subversion against any government, not simply democratic ones? Do we really want to deport someone who may have been involved somewhat in the efforts of the Kurds, for example, to overthrow the tyranny of Saddam Hussein? Would we want to deport such a person from this country? It fits within the definition. Those are some of the persisting problems.

As far as some of the new problems are concerned, we believe it is improper in the case of security-related deportations to eliminate the role of the Security Intelligence Review Committee—SIRC. I know that much is made of the fact that permanent residents might still have recourse to Federal Court review. The problem with Federal Court review is that it's much too narrow for these purposes. It is a very narrowly restricted review power, but what SIRC is able to bring is investigative facilities. It can go out, dig out the facts, and make some judgment on the merits of the deportation order.

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Now this is a situation where the permanent resident to be deported is often deported on the basis of material that he can't even look at because it's security-related. Without particularly arguing with the need to withhold some of these documents from the permanent resident, that all the more shores up the need for an independent look at it, such as SIRC can give and the Federal Court cannot. So we say, please keep in the recourse to the involvement of SIRC.

We also suggest that, insofar as serious criminality is concerned, you ought not to eliminate recourse to the independent Immigration Appeal Division. The problem is that, there again, the Federal Court review is quite limited. It's usually going to be only on procedural grounds; even at that, it requires leave. The problem is that the Immigration Appeal Division is the one place where there can be an attempt to balance both the interests of the country and any compassionate considerations. That is not the role of the court, and that, for permanent residents, we suggest to you, is a necessary thing for them to do.

Finally, on the issue of compelled examinations, the requirement that people answer questions during examinations.... Now if I read this correctly, an examination is analogous to an investigation. This is not an inquiry with right to counsel guaranteed. This is an examination or investigation. A person can be called into the immigration officer's office and required to answer questions. We suggest that this can make permanent residents into targets for fishing expeditions, and that is far too harsh a procedure for them. We're not particularly objecting to the need to answer questions at a properly constituted inquiry with a right to counsel and some of these procedural guarantees there, but without that we suggest it ought not to occur.

I'd like to just summarize these things if I can. First, a necessary ingredient for deportation of a permanent resident should be a finding that this permanent resident has committed the requisite criminal offence in this country or has been found on a balance of probabilities to have committed it in another country and that the permanent resident—not an organization he belongs to, not somebody he's associated with, but he—has done it.

The word “subversion” should be removed, and in any event we should not immunize foreign dictatorships from some of this action.

Then we ask that you retain the role of SIRC, that you retain the Immigration Appeal Division where it concerns the deportation of permanent residents, and that you eliminate the obligation to answer questions at these examinations.

I will just say one other thing. I've been told...Messrs. Hoppe and Greenberg gave me an idea of what is in their submission, and, if they say to you what they said to me, we warmly endorse it. If they depart from it, you'll hear from us again—all of which is, as always, respectfully submitted.

The Chair: Thank you, Alan. There are two of you, but that's why we have you at the same table.

Mr. Alan Borovoy: Good thinking.

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The Chair: Next is the Canadian Immigration Policy Council. Welcome back, Howard, and Mr. Hoppe.

Mr. Howard D. Greenberg (Founding Member, Canadian Immigration Policy Council): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the council.

The council is a think-tank of sorts. We don't just wear lawyers' hats or economists' hats; we wear a lot of different hats at the same time. Members include Professor Don DeVoretz, at Simon Fraser University, and Professor Jeffrey Reitz, who is now at the University of Toronto and at Harvard.

We attempt to address troubling issues, issues where sometimes we don't have answers but we think the questions are important ones to raise. We're here today to raise a narrow set of issues for you to consider.

The committee has been given a monumental task to be given a piece of legislation that's a significant rewrite of a serious area of law and policy, and to advise the minister and Parliament on the appropriateness of the provisions and the recommendations they would make.

There is a tendency, when you're faced with a bill such as this, to jump right in. When we were at the first department sessions when it was introduced, both Mr. Hoppe and I jumped right in. We started reading it from clause 1, trying to figure out what they were going to change and why they were going to do it.

You tend not to stand back and take a look at this legislation, five or ten feet away from it, and ask what this government is to do first. After we had finished going through every section, commenting amongst ourselves, something unusual started. A trend started appearing in this legislation that was very disturbing. That's why we're here today to talk to you.

A legislation is the will of Parliament. It's why members are elected. They exercise their free will in a democratic environment. You embody that principle by being here today. Parliament decides what issues it takes upon itself in a legislative environment and carves it into stone, subject to revisiting by Parliament.

Regulations are a creature of legislation. A regulation-making power flows down to a minister to implement procedures, to dot “i's” and cross “t's”, and to put procedures in place that otherwise Parliament should not address at that level. There is a defined relationship between legislation and regulations historically, both in this country and in most democratic countries worldwide.

This legislation departs from those principles in a very serious way. Clause 5, enabling authority, says:

Except as otherwise provided, the Governor in Council may make any regulation that is referred to in this Act, that prescribes any matter whose prescription is referred to in this Act,

—this is the offensive part—

or that it considers necessary to carry out the objectives of this Act.

I submit to you, without being facetious, that you probably don't need many more powers after that section to legislate immigration law in this country by regulation.

There is virtually no parliamentary control over immigration any more if clause 5 stands the way it is. Probably there's no need for many of the sections that follow.

This is a very serious matter. In fact, after having read all the briefs of the Canadian Bar Association and other organizations, I would suggest this is probably the number one issue that's facing you. Powers are distributed to the minister of the day to be exercised. It's certainly not this minister or any particular minister that I'm concerned about. It's the fact that regulations can move through a process of 60 days, be enacted, be in law, and Parliament hasn't seen anything.

In other words, the minister of the day can pass any regulation he or she considers necessary to carry out the objectives of this act outside of Parliament.

We recommend clause 5 be amended by putting a period after the word “Act” and deleting the phrase “or that it considers necessary to carry out the objectives of this Act”. It's not needed.

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Thank you.

Mr. Carter C. Hoppe (Founding Member, Canadian Immigration Policy Council): I don't know if we're going to make the record for the shortest brief. I don't know if you can see this paper. I've tried to draw a circle and filled it in. It's a big period, a big full stop, and that's our brief.

Put that period before the concluding phrase of clause 5 and you'll have done a great service to the country. It means every time the Minister of Immigration wants to come back and change something that's of serious portent in the immigration law of appeal, they have to come back to Parliament. If you don't make that amendment, I suggest you should consider making another amendment.

I think you should change the name of the legislation in clause 1. I think you should change the name of the legislation to “The Last Immigration and Refugee Protection Act”, because it's the last one you're ever going to see.

This goes too far. This power is giving the government of the day the right to do whatever it considers necessary; not what you consider necessary, not what your successors consider necessary, but what it considers necessary. That's our submission.

The Chair: Thank you.

I think we might have made you very happy. When this committee travels and you're not in Ottawa, which is the centre of the universe, a lot of people don't know that in fact we do some very good work. One of my colleagues will probably tell you that in Winnipeg we addressed this very issue. In fact we're looking at proposing the very point you just made.

We'll leave that for a question round.

On that basis, we'll now move to questions from the committee.

Inky.

Mr. Inky Mark (Dauphin—Swan River, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to witnesses. I'd like to thank all of our distinguished witnesses for being here.

There's no doubt that immigration is about our history. In fact there's evidence of it right at this table. Mr. Volpe, Mr. Fontana, and I are immigrants. My God, if immigration policies of the last 30 or 40 years hadn't changed, we wouldn't be here.

The Chair: Especially with the organization I belong to. I'm not talking about the Liberal Party.

Mr. Alan Borovoy: I was hoping we could nail that down, too.

The Chair: Yes, I'm sure.

Mr. Inky Mark: Having heard many witnesses, and certainly hearing what I'm hearing this morning, I wonder whether we've learned anything over the last 100 years of our history. I know whether we like it or not, Bill C-11 will certainly set the direction for our future in this country. We know the path has been built by immigrants to this country.

One concern that was brought up frequently over the last three days was the statement that this legislation lacked vision. I think they're very correct. But other points were brought up as well on the lack of due process, the whole issue of permanent residence, and how it refers to them as foreign nationals.

We always have a time restraint problem throughout these hearings. I will ask a couple of short questions.

The first one I'll keep very general. Do you consider Bill C-11 a pro-immigration bill? Maybe we could have brief answers from each of the witnesses.

The Chair: Elsa, in thirty seconds or less, what do you think?

Ms. Elsa Musa: I would rephrase the question to apply to where we've made our focus. We consider Bill C-11 to be a pro-refugee bill, because that's where we're focusing.

I would say there is one positive change, although I think it is a halfway change. At least there is now a process for appeal on the merits of a case, but it doesn't go far enough.

Our other concern is particularly in terms of overseas sponsorship and resettlement. So much of it is left in regulations, at this point we're not able to address the refugee issues that we would like to bring to you. I think a lot is left out and we're not able to deal with it right now. I don't consider it to be a pro-refugee bill.

The Chair: Alan.

Mr. Alan Borovoy: We're not generally in the business of giving report cards of that kind. Forgive me if I decline to answer in those terms.

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Mr. Inky Mark: You're the expert.

Mr. Alan Borovoy: We'll say we would prefer to focus on what needs to be done to bring this bill into line with proper civil liberties principles. In that respect it is badly lacking.

The Chair: Howard.

Mr. Howard Greenberg: An issue arises to some extent from my previous comments, and it is that without seeing the regulations, which is the real substance of this legislation, the framework is rather thin. But what we do see is a theme here of controlling, of exercising power, and probably targeting too widely. So from that perspective I would say it's not.

The Chair: Guidy.

Mr. Guidy Mamann: It's hard to see something that is overall positive in the bill. There's a lot of good little things in there, such as the recognition of same-sex partnerships, common-law partnerships, etc., that's fine. But I don't think it's going to make Canada more competitive. I don't think there's anything in here that screams out to the international community, we want your talented, we want your hard-working. I don't see anything in here that improves our civil liberties where it comes to immigration.

The civil liberties of prospective immigrants, people under this act, are in my view sorely diminished. I don't see vision. I don't see anybody really coming up with a great idea saying this is how we can improve Canada.

Finally, the status of the permanent residents is further diminished. We call them now “foreign nationals”. This is senseless. There are people who have been living here for a decade or two, or more, and to call them foreign nationals is not appropriate. I don't see how you can consider that pro-immigrant.

The Chair: Do you have a question, Inky?

Mr. Inky Mark: Yes. Again, I need your help, we all need your help, to improve this bill. One of the problem areas is this whole definition, the reference to permanent residents as foreign nationals. How do we get around that? Do we redefine what permanent resident is? Mr. Mahoney, who is on this committee, suggested that we refer to permanent residents as landed. That's a fairly simple concept. If we stop referring to permanent residents as foreign nationals we'd probably avoid clause 37, because it wouldn't apply to them. What would your solution be in terms of that whole issue of permanent residency?

The Chair: Alan, did you want to take that on as well as Howard?

Mr. Alan Borovoy: Go ahead.

Mr. Howard Greenberg: Right now what the act has done is it has taken permanent resident and made it a subclass of foreign national. All you have to do is reverse that, have a separate class for the permanent resident, whether you call it a landed immigrant or whether you call it a permanent resident. The point is it should have a separate status somewhere in between a citizen and the other foreign nationals who have a lesser subset of rights. I think it's pretty easy to do.

The Chair: I think you'd be happy about that too. We've heard it loud and clear. Before I go to the next question from John McCallum, I want to say in regard to regulations that this committee has also heard the message loud and clear, and what we've done is unique. I want to point this out for people who are bothering to listen to this debate.

We knew the devil was always going to be in the details; regulations are always like that. That's why the minister was forthcoming in giving us the discussion paper with regard to regulations, which in fact is open to the public to see.

The committee also intends to be fully involved in the final development of the regulations. As you know, regulations can't be developed until such time as you have an act, or legislation, that has been passed by both Houses in Parliament. So we are going to be very involved in the final making of those regulatory powers because we agree with you that we want to make sure Parliament is very involved and they're not just left to the administration and gazetted to the public.

I wanted to let you know that we intend to be...regardless of what the final framework legislation is; and we're learning, and we're listening, and we intend to improve this legislation. I want to tell you that at the end of the day you'll always have regulations, but we want to be fully involved. In fact, some members of our committee have even indicated that perhaps this committee and Parliament ought to review how the new legislation will be working. That was Madeleine's suggestion, to ensure that Parliament is fully involved in making sure we get it right.

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John McCallum, please.

Mr. John McCallum (Markham, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to make a couple of points and then ask one question. The points relate to the work we've done prior to today in Vancouver and Winnipeg where I suggested—a number of us suggested—possible amendments. I wanted to bring you up to date on those. And I'm particularly happy to do that because the first one is precisely what Mr. Greenberg recommended. We are going to recommend that a full stop, a period, come after the word “act”, which is precisely what you recommended. So I guess great minds think alike or fools seldom differ. But we came up with precisely the same idea as you did.

The second point I'd make is that I think we are unanimous as a committee in not liking the term “foreign national” being applied to permanent residents. I think it's a very elegant and simple solution to the problem Mr. Hoppe just suggested, but I think we all agree on that.

Third, there have been quite a few concerns expressed about the potentially arbitrary power of immigration officials in this act, and we've suggested a couple of ways in which those would be limited.

First, on examination, some of the lawyers accused us of being draconian, or Stalinist or un-Canadian, in the sense of waking people up in the middle of the night with no good reason, etc. Clearly that was not the intent, but the idea is that examinations be limited to cases where people have made an application to the department and not in a blanket fashion. And with regard to the deportation of permanent residents, the intent was never to allow that to happen on the whim of one individual official but always to make it subject to a proper hearing, and that we are suggesting might go into the bill as well.

So those ideas don't go all the way in meeting all of the points we've heard by any means, but I think they do go part of the way. So that's a statement.

I would like to now ask one question, or make one comment, directed to Mr. Mamann. I'm totally on side with you as a matter of principle. I wrote an article that was in the Toronto Star on April 27 saying Canada needs more immigrants, and the logic of it was consistent with what you said. I think we have to compete with the U.S. We have to do better than the U.S., at least in certain niche areas, if we're to prosper and thrive in this country.

But I have a somewhat more positive spin than you, because I would argue that, flawed as it is in many ways, our immigration system is superior to that of the U.S. from an economic point of view, in that we have our points system. Approximately 60% of our immigrants are economic immigrants chosen for their skills and 40% family, whereas in the U.S. I think it's about 90% family and they don't have a points system. They do have these temporary immigrants, and that's a positive for the U.S. and maybe we should go the route you suggest. But I'm suggesting we might build on our strengths, because we already have this points system and we're trying to improve it by changing the structure of that points system. We're trying to be more competitive by allowing more people, such as students, to apply from within Canada to become landed immigrants. I agree we have to speed up processing time, but I don't think we're quite as bad as you make us out to be.

My question is, should we really make our fast-track entry cash based, which is what you suggest—I'm not sure our entrepreneur and investor class is the greatest success in the world—or should we make it human capital based, which is what I would be more inclined to do?

Mr. Guidy Mamann: Those are two good models to talk about. I've always felt that the human capital of my father, who immigrated to this country in 1965 and raised five children in this country, was excellent. He would never qualify under our selection system today, but his human capital, I think, strengthened Canada in many ways, economically, multiculturally, etc.

Unfortunately, we've moved away from that model. Now you need a high level of education, language skills, all sorts of things, before you even get an interview. So it looks like we've moved away from that model.

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Mr. John McCallum: I thought human capital was education.

Mr. Guidy Mamann: The way I look at it, human capital is people who come to Canada and are willing to work hard for this country, raise a family, observe our laws, and respect our traditions. We've moved away from that by imposing standards that many people in the world cannot achieve.

In terms of the cash capital, I should say we have people all the time who call our office looking for foreign investors, people to bring money into this country, and we can't bring them in quickly enough because of the processing. When a person wishes to relocate himself in today's economy, bring his family and his capital, he needs to make that decision quickly and he needs to move on it. If we tell him to wait a year or two or three, we cannot expect him to feel welcome.

With respect to the comparison with the United States, I believe immigration is Canada's strength, both in its past and for its future. But I would disagree with the 60% figure you've thrown out, because I've heard this figure. We allow in roughly 200,000 immigrants per year. The economic immigrants, as I indicated before, in 1999 were 3,600 businessmen and 41,000 independent principal applicants. That's a total of about 45,000 out of 200,000. By my math, it's less than 25%. Their children do not count for me as economic immigrants, nor do the spouses. The economic immigrants to this country, according to my way of thinking, total 45,000. When you subtract people who are leaving Canada, you're left with something that I just don't think is appropriate for our level.

Mr. John McCallum: I would just comment that we won't get these smart, economic immigrants if you don't let in their spouses and their children, so you might as well lump them all together.

Mr. Guidy Mamann: But their economic benefit to Canada would not be the same as the direct benefit their principal-applicant partners would have.

The Chair: The answer might be just to build a bigger pie and do exactly as Guidy and John have suggested: more families, more independence. That might do it.

[Translation]

Madeleine.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is Wednesday morning and the weather is beautiful. It is a good thing too, because it will help raise our spirits.

The Chair: Sorry about that, Madeleine.

[English]

I'll give everybody a chance to put on their contraptions. I think it's channel 1 for the translation, including the chair. Hang on a second.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Mr. Chairman, that is why I always like to start off on a light note.

The Chair: Yes.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: But, let me start over. We are in Toronto and the weather is beautiful. That is a very good thing. It will boost our spirits, seeing the evidence we have been listening to is rather depressing. We can deal with it, however. We will not let ourselves be brought down, bearing in mind what you said to us. I have two questions. The first is for Mr. Mamann and the other for whoever wishes to answer.

My first question is this. You suggest that on a number of points we follow the example of the United States. I must admit that I find that a little troubling at the outset. I would like to know whether the United States has been able to significantly shorten waiting times. In this country, we are told that security investigations and health enquiries take time. Have they managed to do without some of this? That is my first question.

I'll ask my second question right away as this will give us more time to think about it. In the course of the last few weeks, many people have voiced concern about the fact that certain things have not been put into the act but, rather, included in regulations.

It seems obvious, as the Chairman has said, that the minister intends that the committee be consulted on the contents of regulations. Would you feel better if we included in the act itself a section providing for the committee's involvement in this matter?

[English]

The Chair: First, Guidy, with regard to processing time.

[Translation]

Mr. Guidy Mamann: Thank you. When we request U.S. visas for investors, we find that the procedure takes four to five weeks. They can do a computer search to see if people have a criminal record or not. All I know is that four or five weeks later people get the visa and start work right away. But this requires that are irreversible investment of US$100,000.

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I don't know, frankly, what they do behind closed doors but with the technology we have it does not take a year to find out whether a person has a criminal record or if there is a problem somewhere. It only takes a few minutes. Sometimes it might take a little longer.

I know that the U.S. has never really had any big problems with investors. A person who is brave and hard working is not going to suddenly find himself surrounded by criminals. It means, of course, that if they are out there, we persist in our investigations and try to identify them. I do not see any problem with that.

[English]

The Chair: Merci, Guidy.

On the second question, with regard to a built-in legislative review, are there any comments? Tom, Elsa?

They're very sensitive mikes. You can leave them there, they'll pick it up.

Ms. Elsa Musa: I was trying to use my limited French to understand because this thing wasn't working on the second question. The question was would we be satisfied if within the act it stated that regulations be discussed? Did I...?

The Chair: It was that the act be reviewed on an annual basis, on an ongoing basis, that legislative review be built into the act.

Ms. Elsa Musa: I think one thing we have asked and have been asking for a couple of years is for Canada to have a national conference to look at our own immigration and refugee act on a regular basis with a view of seeing whether we are true to the various international conventions we have signed and to see whether our act meets all these various international conventions. This is a suggestion we've made that would allow further discussion than this, and would allow input from many other Canadians.

Mr. Alan Borovoy: When you were earlier indicating what arrangements might have been made between this minister and the committee, it wasn't clear to me how far you were going. Suffice it to say this: all of these steps in the direction of some kind of parliamentary review of the regulation-making system are welcome. So by all means, go in that direction.

We do have to be careful, though, that we not look at any of those things as a substitute for limiting the scope of the regulation-making power as it exists now in section 5. That has to be limited very much, and whatever other arrangements might be made...you have to bear in mind that might be between this minister and this committee. Unless it somehow appears in the legislation, you can't guarantee how your successors and the minister's successor are going to behave.

The Chair: Howard.

Mr. Howard Greenberg: Mr. Chairman, as I was listening to your initial comments on the views you had as to how future regulations would be introduced, I was thinking to myself, well, I've been doing this for 20 years. I've seen ministers come and I've seen ministers go. I've seen them come and go really quickly. And I've seen some stay too long.

The Chair: You're not going to name them, are you?

Mr. Howard Greenberg: Not in the time allowed. That'll be in our brief, sir.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Howard Greenberg: I'm thinking there always is a lot of goodwill before legislation is enacted. There's a lot of backslapping and things will work out okay. I'm particularly concerned, because the ambit of regulation-making power in this legislation is tremendous. I was wondering as you were speaking whether you were suggesting that the committee would be visited for all regulations made under this act or only those regulations that the minister deemed necessary or advisable to bring to your attention. What would happen with the others? They would go through the normal gazetting process, a 30-day commentary period, and move through to enactment. So if we rely on the goodwill of the minister of the day, we leave too much in doubt, and I would therefore vote in favour of a much stronger bill.

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If the midpoint between enunciating all the provisions we'd like to see done in legislation as opposed to a full regulation-making power is a supervisory process by a committee such as this, inside the legislation, I think that's a really good midpoint. I'm embarrassed that we didn't think of it ourselves, quite frankly. I think that's an excellent midpoint.

The Chair: Sometimes committee members on all sides do work well together and come up with some great ideas, as Madeleine has suggested.

Mr. Howard Greenberg: Well, sir, if you can actually get that in the legislation....

The Chair: Talk to us next week and we'll let you know whether or not that spirit of cooperation is still in existence.

Mr. Carter Hoppe: Mr. Chairman, might I suggest that you mandate Joan Atkinson or her successor to appear before you quarterly and give you a report card on how the department's doing, how that great program they enunciated is being carried out, and whether they are bringing down those processing timeframes, as Mr. Mamann has suggested.

The Chair: Thank you.

Guidy, do you have any comments?

Mr. Guidy Mamann: Yes. There are only two ways we grow this country—by natural birth and by immigration. We need to be much more competitive today. We need to monitor things more closely and carefully. Everything today happens a lot more quickly than it did ten years ago. The regular process—the parliamentary process, the committee process and all that—is all fine and good, but it has to keep up with the times. We have to be more responsive. So instead of reacting, maybe we should be in the picture more regularly. Let's see exactly, as Carter was suggesting, what's happening every three or four months. We gave you a target. We asked you to get these business people through. Why is Mr. Mamann saying two to three years to get somebody landed when the department is saying something else? Why don't you hold people accountable for that? Ask them those tough questions.

The Chair: Thank you.

Judy, and then Joe Volpe.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP): Let me just first of all pick up on the issue about regulations. I think there are some different options for us to pursue if we can't make substantial amendments to the act, which I still think is the goal for many of us around this committee table.

One way that has been done in the health committee is to make sure that by law all regulations have to go to the standing committee and must be vetted and approved by Parliament before you go any further. So that's an option we can consider.

I think though that this is still going for second best. I think what you're saying this morning, and what just about every witness has said before this committee, is that there are serious flaws with the bill itself, and that we would be doing a great disservice to the history of this country around immigration and to our battles around human rights to not pursue some major changes.

The question I have to ask all of you is, again, assuming we can only get so many changes, what would they be? I'm going to group them quickly and see what you think can go or not.

In terms of refugees, we've heard that we're not in line with the UN convention on refugees or the UN convention on torture. Then our bottom line should be—we heard this yesterday in Winnipeg—actually ensuring in this law that there is no removal to torture.

We have heard from others that we absolutely have to deal with the fact that refugees are still in limbo and that we still don't deal with the question of identity documents. This will have to be changed to bring us in line with that important convention.

In terms of the rights of permanent residents, we've heard time and time again how we are not applying the charter. We're taking away basic rights of appeal and review for permanent residents. I think clause 64 probably comes most to mind in terms of the phrasing “serious criminality” and the denial of any kind of an appeal if convicted of a charge that supposedly falls in that category of serious criminality.

The other area we've heard a lot about—and I think to deal with this issue of being competitive in terms of immigrants—is how we encourage families to be reunited in this country. I think it's one thing to focus on economic classes and skill sets, but unless we're prepared to broaden this bill in terms of family and open the doors a little wider, we won't have really done much in terms of being competitive internationally.

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So those are my four groupings in terms of things we've heard so far, and I'd like to hear from you about priorities. You've heard the three amendments that John McCallum has suggested. That's a good step. But what else will be your next bottom line?

The Chair: Judy, we don't have an hour for an answer for that question, unfortunately. Thank you very much for reviewing what in fact has been said and what is here. I thought some of the questions on competitiveness had already been dealt with. Some of the questions have been done with regard to permanent residents. If someone wants to augment what has already been said based on what Judy has asked, please go ahead.

Perhaps I could also ask Elsa about the torture and limbo scenarios that we haven't spent much time on this morning, as yet.

Tom.

Mr. Tom Clark (Coordinator, Inter-Church Committee for Refugees): Thanks.

I'm trying to reduce to a few simple things that would have a big impact. We've named one of them: empowering the courts to deal with rights of persons. That would impact not only the refugees that we're concerned about, but also the permanent residents, to make sure the courts in fact address the individual's rights rather than try to identify Canadian issues.

I would like to suggest one thing that relates to that, namely to reference in some manner—and we could suggest some—in the aims of this legislation that it intends to implement Canada's international human rights obligations, as they refer to refugees and non-citizens. That would hook into empowering the courts. Then you would have the other part of the protection process—the court process—kicking in where the legislation had remaining defects.

Thank you.

The Chair: Alan.

Mr. Alan Borovoy: When you asked your question, I was reminded of a mentor of mine years ago who said, “Don't put me on the horns of a non-existent dilemma”. This quest for priorities could invite these groups here to quarrel among themselves—a political strategy, which would not be advisable. And I would suggest therefore that our answer to you is all of it. There is no reason for us to feel constrained by any such artificial limits on the ability to make the changes.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I think that all things considered, Alan, we're trying to build a bigger tent than a lot of people can fit underneath. That's the task of this committee.

Joe Volpe.

[Translation]

Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton—Lawrence, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wish to welcome members who are not from Toronto. I am the only one who is. As far as the number of members is concerned, it is obvious that we would like to have the numbers, but quality is also an important factor.

[English]

The Chair: You know you're not from Toronto.

[Translation]

Mr. Joseph Volpe: I would like to speak on behalf of all the members from Toronto since we are speaking here of the importance of immigration. As recently as yesterday, a Parliamentary researcher informed me that 75% of Toronto's growth is due to immigration. In discussing a bill such as this one, we are therefore discussing Toronto's future. I would like to remind members as well as our witnesses that Toronto's economy accounts for nearly 25% of the Canadian economy.

I would now like to go back to some of the comments made by my colleague John McCallum, who comes from

[English]

greater Toronto area when he said that fools rarely disagree, and he's right. I don't think the parliamentary process allows for fools to sit on the same side of the table or in fact across from each other. The process is one where we expect to have divergent opinions, and if we don't have them, we get bad legislation.

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I'm one of those people who, thanks to Mr. Inky Mark, was identified as not originally from this place. I wear that badge of courage with great pride, but I think it carries with it an obligation to recall that so many others fit into the same category, and maybe so many more will fit into the same category with even greater merit.

I've been reading the briefs that have been coming across my desk, and I've listened to the ones that you have given. I disagree with some of the views about the efficiencies in other places and the way some of those other places deal with immigration—the growth of the economy and the human capital, to use your language, Mr. Mamann.

My focus is mostly on intent. As I've been reading this, Mr. Greenberg, I've been trying with all of my faculties to step back into the legislation. To the people who have come before me, I've asked the singular question, the one that you, Mr. Hoppe, have tried to point out by saying put the period here.

My question to you really is, if I present a piece of legislation that requires you to put a period some place in order to eliminate all the rest of what appear to be very negative impacts, should I be focusing on correcting—if that's the appropriate term—sections and subsections, or should I put the period after the very first word in this legislation, because the problem is the intent and not the measures?

The Chair: Guidy or Howard.

Mr. Carter Hoppe: Can I answer that point about where to put the period?

I think you do put it on the first page, on whatever page it is, clause 5 for sure, and then you make sure that the rest of the things you can't live with—deportation to a situation of torture, a permanent resident without a full appeal—are taken care of as well. Then you look at the explanation of the proposed regulations. We've made a lot of negative comments here today, but if you look at the regulatory scheme they have proposed.... It's on the website. They put it up there for the world to see. And I don't know about you folks, but I like a lot of the stuff I see in those regulations. I just want to make sure the framework—I mean, this is framework legislation—is strong enough, that it's durable, that it'll keep that system in place.

The Chair: Let me interrupt you, Mr. Hoppe.

I'm encouraged by the way that many interveners—this isn't my first committee—in the committee are always happy about the expectant outcome of frameworks. On this committee are wonderful individuals. I've worked with Ms. Wasylycia-Leis for years. She probably hated me more than most other people could possibly hate me, but we established a really good working relationship, and we're not even with the same party.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: You're looking pretty good.

The Chair: However, part of the parliamentary process is that this committee will disappear in September in its composition, and whatever replaces it will disappear the following September. Many of the individuals here who are committed to the work of this committee and build up the institutional memories and the institutional perceptions will all be working diligently in other committees, as Ms. Wasylycia-Leis and I did.

We took our intellectual capital and our political capital and brought it to other places—hers more productively. I know I have your habits.

I'm just wondering whether—

Mr. Joe Volpe: That's why they try to keep me quiet.

The Chair: It didn't work.

I'm just wondering whether, when you come forward and make a suggestion such as the one you've just made, Mr. Hoppe—that you like this, and you like that, and then you sprinkle your negative observations—the message you're giving me is that you really like everything that's there. You just want to be part of the process and you are hoping we will understand that you're really only objecting about this little item right here. Is your faith in this place?

Mr. Carter Hoppe: Do I think the system overall is populated by mean-spirited people who are trying to hurt our country? No.

The Chair: No, I'm just asking you about this legislation. I'm not asking you to indict everybody.

Mr. Carter Hoppe: Okay.

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I think this legislation probably has at its base a deep reservoir of goodwill, but we can't—

Mr. Joseph Volpe: Is that okay?

The Chair: Excuse me, Mr. Volpe. Would you allow the witness to answer, please?

Mr. Joseph Volpe: I'm just trying to get an answer.

The Chair: I know.

Mr. Joseph Volpe: That's all we try to do in committee.

The Chair: The other thing, too, is that the debate should go through the chair. So, Mr. Hoppe, if you can answer Mr. Volpe's question so the rest of us can hear and understand the answer, it will be appreciated.

Mr. Carter Hoppe: Mr. Chair, if I could respond to Mr. Volpe through you—

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Carter Hoppe: —I would like to tell him that the only problem I see with the legislation is that it's too open-ended. That is the whole problem. You are entrusting the government of the day—and I think it is well intentioned—to be the same in perpetuity, and you can't do that unless you are prepared to abandon your own role in parliamentary oversight.

The Chair: Is there anybody else here? Anita? Yolande?

You have time for one final question or short comment.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: [Inaudible—Editor]...how we amend this bill, and I appreciate Mr. Borovoy's comment where he said to try everything. However, the minister is on record as saying she's only prepared to accept technical amendments. The minister, when asked why we need to get this through quickly this session, said, you've had ample opportunity; it's a rehash of Bill C-31, so let's get on with it. I'm a little leery about the prospects for amendments. I appreciate the fact that there's been some movement and that there are three possibilities on the table now.

We are going to get down to some pretty difficult work in the next couple of weeks. Among us we will probably try amendments on every possible front. We are going to have to find majority support in some of the key areas, and I'm just looking for guidance in terms of where we put our emphasis. I've heard some of the suggestions this morning. I'd just like some last comments as we begin that process.

Mr. Alan Borovoy: You make the amendments you think are appropriate. If the minister tries in any way to artificially reduce the options, she has to be accountable for that, not you. You've got to make the amendments you think are right.

The Chair: We'll have Guidy Mamann and then Howard.

Mr. Guidy Mamann: I wanted to say before that some of these clauses in here dealing with the enabling authority, the power of the Governor in Council, would never be found in any other piece of legislation. Can you imagine this section in the Criminal Code?

We specify with great precision what it is to steal a chocolate bar from a store and what penalties flow from that. We define it, and the terms are subject to a judge's review and constitutional protection. We can't just say the Attorney General or the Solicitor General will pass any rules or regulations that seem to be within the ambit of the Criminal Code. We just don't see that. The Immigration Act, as far as I'm concerned, deserves the same respect and attention.

What I see before you is a skeleton, a skeleton with headings. It says that for the substance, we're going to take care of that behind closed doors. I don't think that's an appropriate way of dealing with such an important piece of legislation.

As far as the minister is concerned, I think her concern would be very well taken if what had been tabled previously had been a comprehensive bill with regulations attached and if we could take a look at the whole thing and have a year or two to go over it. I'd have no problem with that, but in fact that's not the case. The case is that we have a skeleton in front of us.

The Chair: Thank you.

Howard.

Mr. Howard Greenberg: I stand by my initial comments before the committee in that I think it's the role of these members to stand back and not become immersed in the clause-by-clause detail, thereby losing sight of the whole legislation.

At the end of the day it's a balancing act. You understand what your role is in terms of meeting the expectations of Parliament. I think mid-points are probably the key. The recommendation to have every regulation package go over to a committee to look at is not my first choice. Are we going to go back into the regulation-making powers at the end of each division, and will we have this minister rewrite every regulation-making power? No, it's not going to happen.

The Chair: Let me just thank you all for your fantastic input, your being able to dialogue with us and tell us where we can improve it.

• 1030

Let me just say this as I invite the others over. This legislation has been four years in the making.

Colleagues and ladies and gentlemen, we'll have the next witnesses.

First of all, you have my apologies for going a little overtime. As you have probably witnessed, the committee has a tendency to ask an awful lot of questions of our witnesses.

There'll be the same ground rules. We would ask you to take five to seven minutes to give us an overview of what is in your submission.

For those of you who have done so, thank you very much for giving us your submission in advance so we can ask you some questions.

Welcome, and thank you for taking the time to help us build better legislation.

We'll move to the African Canadian Legal Clinic, and we have Erica Lawson and Marie Chen. Welcome.

Ms. Erica Lawson (Policy and Research Analyst, African Canadian Legal Clinic): Good morning, Mr. Chairman and all other members of the committee. My name is Erica Lawson, and I am the policy and research analyst at the African Canadian Legal Clinic.

Immigration is actually a huge issue for our clinic and the members we serve. The clinic is mandated to deal specifically with anti-black racism in Canada. We do that through test-case litigation and advocacy.

The bill is an ongoing concern. You'll see in the brief that we have talked about the context, about specific issues with respect to the rights of the child, about specific issues of permanent residence, and about deportation. There are a number of other concerns we have, but in the interest of saving time, those are the things we have limited ourselves to.

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Since we have given you a copy of the brief, which I hope you will take the time to read, and since, in looking at the list, I know a number of groups will be addressing permanent residence issues in detail, I would like to take the time to focus more on the context and the history, what brings us to be concerned about this bill. I want to speak about racism in this bill, because I suspect that given the nature of the way our society is organized, it is one of the issues that will be overlooked in trying to go through and figure out specifically what people are concerned about.

One of the concerns we have is that this bill does not reflect an anti-racist perspective in the sense that it doesn't take into account how the proposed legislation perpetuates racism in Canada. I say that because a number of things have led us to this point. This bill didn't just come out of nowhere. In fact, from our perspective, Immigration has played a very crucial role in limiting the type of people who get into Canada. We know people of African descent have never really been considered to be the appropriate or the right type of immigrants who would fit into Canadian society easily or who would reflect Canadian values. So in this proposed legislation, we see elements of that still happening.

I also see a continuation between this bill and Bill C-44 with respect to danger to the public and the whole situation around that where African-Canadians were criminalized.

I don't know whether you're familiar with the Just Desserts incident that happened in Toronto a few years ago that really sped up the deportation process because at least one of the people involved was under a deportation order. That is of great concern to us. I note that in the proposed legislation there isn't such an emphasis on danger to the public, but certainly the issue of serious criminality is a reflection of that way of thinking.

If you turn to page 14 of the brief, under “Serious Criminality”, you will note that we feel that this particular proposal serves to criminalize African-Canadians, and African-Canadian men in particular. Again I would urge you to look at the social context, and there are a couple of things that you need to consider when you think about this proposal. There's a context here. There is the experience of African-Canadians being overpoliced. We have lots of evidence that supports that. We know, for example, that the Stephen Lewis report that came out a couple of years ago really spoke to the variance and the existence of racism in Canada, and anti-black racism in particular.

When I say we need to think about these types of proposals from an anti-racist perspective, my suggestion is that we have to think about these particular experiences that people have, and I would ask you to consider that when you look at that experience and you make a proposal that suggests certain people are more likely to commit crimes, and you take measures against them, taking away their rights to appeal, and so on, these things are all connected.

So I would suggest that when we look at this picture, we have to take not just the objective factors into account, but the subjective experiences of people's lives. When we consider that there has been a history of proposing things to keep out African-Canadians, to criminalize African-Canadians, and enacting legislation that reflects that, we need to think about how the bill continues to do that.

We also need to look at people's lives in a holistic way, I would suggest, rather than seeing people as economic possibilities. Consider that when African-Canadian men are stopped by the police, they may have been in this country since they were children and have no connection or family ties with their communities. Canada is in fact their home. It's quite unreasonable to suggest that somebody who comes here at six months old should be sent back to a country with which they have no connection after 30 years.

• 1040

So it's commendable for all of us to look at the specific and objective elements in the bill, but I think we will miss the point if we're not considering the whole lives that people bring, the contributions they make, and it's not good enough to say that Canada bears no responsibility for the criminal path that people might take in their lives. We need to look at that honestly and within the context of how people experience racism in this country. I really don't want us to miss the point as we go through this process.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Erica.

To the Maytree Foundation, Andrew Brouwer.

Welcome, Andrew.

Mr. Andrew Brouwer (Manager, Research and Policy, Maytree Foundation): Thank you, Mr. Chair, honourable members.

My name is Andrew Brouwer. I'm with the Maytree Foundation, which is a charitable foundation based here in Toronto. The objectives of our refugee and immigrant program are twofold. One is improving access to professions and trades for newcomers; the other is reducing unnecessary delays in the landing process for refugees in legal limbo. I'm going to focus my comments today on those two areas.

However, before I do that, I'd like to make one thing really clear. The Maytree Foundation does not support the bill as it stands right now. We don't believe this bill is good enough. While we recognize that there are some very good things in the bill and that it is an improvement over Bill C-31 in some ways, these changes don't redeem it. Like its predecessor, Bill C-11 lacks a coherent vision, and it fails to demonstrate what we think is really necessary: an underlying commitment to justice and to democracy. This bill represents, in our eyes, a lost opportunity.

With respect to Maytree's specific areas of interest and expertise, we find that Bill C-11 fails to improve the lot of both foreign-trained professionals and tradespeople and of refugees in legal limbo.

On the issue of recognition of foreign credentials and access to professions and trades, I don't think I need to go into the extent of the problem. It's pretty well known, and it's discussed in our brief.

While we recognize that an immigration bill is not the best place to be looking for a solution to such a multi-faceted and multi-jurisdictional problem, we do believe there is a role for the federal government, and in particular the Minister of Immigration playing a leading role in developing solutions. This means going beyond the passive measures that have been announced to date, both in the bill and in the context of the announcement of the bill, which are really more about managing expectations than changing the results.

In the January 30 throne speech, Ottawa promised to work with the provinces and the territories to secure better recognition of the foreign credentials of newcomers to Canada. We call on the Minister of Immigration to concretize this commitment through a national action plan on access to professions and trades, in collaboration with the Ministers of Human Resources Development, Labour, and Canadian Heritage. Again, some of that is laid out in the brief we've presented.

Unlike the issue of qualification recognition, the problem of legal limbo for refugees seeking landing certainly could have been solved in the bill. It wasn't. A number of witnesses appeared before this committee earlier to talk about the delays facing them when they were seeking landed status in Canada.

As you know, the problem is very real. Without landed status, refugees are unable to travel outside of Canada. They're barred from sponsoring family members to come to Canada. They're denied loans for post-secondary education. It's often very difficult to get a decent job, and they're denied a voice in the democratic process. As you know, the most common cause of extended landing delays is the identity document requirement in the current Immigration Act. This requirement has been roundly criticized and shown to be contrary to both the charter and the international law, yet Bill C-11 fails to rectify this problem.

Maytree recommends that lack of documentation no longer be a bar to landing. We recommend that, at a minimum, all refugees be granted both travel documents and identity papers upon determination by the IRB, as we're required to do by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The proposed status documents in Bill C-11, and the possibility for the provision of a travel document, are fully inadequate in this regard because the department has made it very clear to us that those documents will not be available for those who need them most—undocumented refugees.

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Before moving on, I'd like to mention just briefly the question of how many people are in limbo. I don't want to get into a big debate about numbers. I don't think it's worthwhile; the issue is important whether it's 1,000 or 6,000. However, I'd like to mention that, when the department appeared before you a couple of weeks ago, they told you that the number of refugees in limbo is under 1,000. That number is wildly out of whack with the research that Maytree has done over the past few years. Our research is based entirely on statistics presented to us by CIC and by the IRB. I hope the department is right, but I would really give that some second thought and ask for some explanation from them.

We've also made recommendations for accountability and transparency in the security screening process for refugees—some of that was dealt with by members of the previous panel; I'm not going to go into it here. Again, it's covered in our brief, but I'd be happy to talk about it—as well as the elimination of unjust fees for refugees. Both of those issues do impede landing.

In addition to addressing the causes of legal limbo, there are also changes that this committee can recommend to existing legislation to minimize the impact of living in legal limbo. One of these is to eliminate the barrier to college and university student loans for convention refugees. Specifically, we'd like to ask this committee to join its voice to the call for amendment to the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to include convention refugees alongside citizens and permanent residents for eligibility for student loans.

Let me close off with one last suggestion that this committee make a clear call for the establishment of a public complaints or an ombudsman's office to hear complaints and make recommendations with respect to immigration matters. I've no doubt that, over the course of your hearings so far, you've heard numerous stories and very serious complaints about problems in the existing system.

You may have read yesterday's article in the Globe and Mail, which follows one on Saturday about forgery by immigration officers. Some of these problems can be addressed through legislative and regulatory reform, which is your mandate here. Others of these problems are administrative in nature, and there is no way right now for those to be dealt with in any systemic way.

While we believe that this committee has a critically important role to play in making sure that new legislation meets basic standards of fundamental justice, equity, and human rights, we need an independent body that can watch over the administration of the law. There must be a structural shift with accountability in the department, and Maytree, as well as the Canadian Council for Refugees and others, believes that an ombudsman's office or a public complaints department or something along those lines would be a really important step in that direction. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Andrew. Now we have Parkdale Community Legal Services and Geraldine Sadoway.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway (Staff Lawyer, Parkdale Community Legal Services Inc.): Good morning. I'm happy to be here for you. I'd like to mention that our presentation today is very short, but we're part of the Coalition for a Just Immigration and Refugee Policy. You have received our brief, which is amended from our Bill C-31 brief, and which includes 51 recommendations. I am going to deal with just one of those today, and that's set out at pages 8 and 9 of the Coalition for a Just Immigration and Refugee Policy brief.

Let me just say that we're one of the founding members of that coalition and that Parkdale has been involved in working with issues around immigration since it was founded back in 1972. We're very close to the issues of immigration and refugee law because we have consistently represented the most vulnerable groups within Canadian society in our almost 30 years of history.

As I said, we're one of the founding members of the Coalition for a Just Immigration and Refugee Policy, which began working as a coalition prior to the 1989 bill and was reconfigured or reunited around this bill. So this is a coalition with long roots, and many of our members are actually appearing before you representing their organizations. We've actually tried to focus on different aspects of our brief for your benefit.

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The reason why I'm going to talk to you about education is because I don't think anyone else is going to do that, and because I'm dealing with perhaps a very simple amendment that you can make to the act, which I think will protect the most vulnerable group of people in Canada—children of undocumented parents, or people living without legal status in Canada.

This is something that's been a campaign for Parkdale Community Legal Services for the past four years, as we've discovered that many children in Canada are now being denied entry into school. I'm talking about five- and six-year-olds, or ten-year-olds, being denied entry into school, and not for short periods of time. We hear from the school boards that there are some children who have missed three and four years of school.

Now at pages 8 and 9 of the brief you will see in section IV.3 our position set out under the heading of “The Right of Minor Children to Attend School”.

Under section 10 of the present Immigration Act, student authorizations are required for non-permanent residents and non-citizens to attend university or college and take any academic, professional, or vocational courses in Canada. The wording of that section clearly indicates an intention to deal with persons who are seeking to study in Canada at the post-secondary level—persons whom we usually think of as foreign students.

However, in recent years—and it happens to coincide with the institution of processing fees for every immigration transaction that can be imagined—policy directives have been sent out from the immigration department making it clear to school authorities that, according to the immigration department, student authorizations from immigration are required not only for post-secondary foreign students but also for anyone who is not a landed immigrant who is seeking to attend primary and secondary school.

In our view, this is an intrusion by the federal immigration department into the jurisdiction of the provinces to control education of children in the province and to use it as an enforcement tool of the Immigration Act on the backs of these children.

For children, education is a basic human right. It's as important as food, clothing, and shelter. It is essential to their development and to their futures, and to deny education even for a short period of time can result in irreparable harm to those children, many of whom will in fact remain in Canada.

Our current Minister of Immigration, Ms. Caplan, agrees with us. I would like to quote her statement in the House last spring when questioned by our representative from Parkdale, Sarmite Bulte, about the denial of entry to schools in Ontario to children because of their immigration status, despite the fact that the Ontario Education Act clearly stipulates that no child shall be refused admission to school because that child, or their parent or guardian, is illegally in Canada.

We have the Education Act of Ontario, which clearly recognizes that children should be admitted to the schools, and then we have the Immigration Act that says, no, not unless they have student authorization from immigration. This is not the current law; I'm saying that this is the policy that has developed over the past number of years from the department.

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What Ms. Caplan said was:

Mr. Speaker, this issue is very dear to my heart. I firmly believe that no child should be denied an education.

I have reviewed the regulations which require school authorization for post-secondary and vocational schools. I am convinced that there is no barrier there to any child in Canada whether they have been here for 10 minutes, 10 months or 10 years.

If that is not clear enough, I want to say again that I do not think any kid should be denied an education.

So this is your minister speaking in the House a year ago.

Now the minister has written to us at Parkdale about the changes they've proposed. I'm now referring you to subclause 30(2) of Bill C-11, which states:

A minor child in Canada, other than a child of a temporary resident not authorized to work or study, is authorized to study at the pre-school, primary or secondary level.

This appears to be an attempt by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to reduce the involvement of several immigration authorities in the matter of the education of minor children in the provinces, and to leave this jurisdiction to the provinces, where it belongs. However—and it's a big “however”—the exclusion of children of temporary residents not authorized to work or study is very problematic.

As long as that limitation is there, school authorities in the provinces will feel they are obliged to ask for proof of immigration status of children before the children are permitted to attend school. Some children who may have valid visitor status but who are actually being processed for permanent residence will be refused admission, and are being refused admission, for this reason.

The parents of children who are without any status...and I know that some of the members here are very concerned about that population and have expressed to people appearing before the committee a concern that perhaps there should be some regularization of immigration status. The parents of those children who are without status may be afraid to proceed with an attempt to enroll their children in school if asked to produce immigration documents.

Thus, even though we have legislation in some provinces such as Ontario that specifically allows them to attend school, they are being refused admission because of this seemingly apparent contradiction with the immigration legislation.

This whole issue was settled in the United States back in 1982. The Supreme Court of the United States, which has many, many more undocumented children living in its midst than Canada does, decided it was illegal and unjustified discrimination to deny such children a free education in the United States. That has continued to be the case. Yes, it's debated, but it continues to be the case.

In fact, the major program in the U.S. now is to require that school officials do not ask. They ask for proof of the child's age; they get their medical records if necessary, and they enroll them in school. They do not ask about immigration status. That is very, very important because as soon as you ask, and if there is a problem with the immigration status, you send a chill. You basically cut off...the people turn away, and they're afraid. Then they might look for other alternatives, but they won't.

We believe that Canada's charter is just as strong as the U.S. Constitution. We've also ratified the international Convention on the Rights of the Child, which makes it very clear that we are not to discriminate in these basic core rights, such as education for children, on grounds of status.

Canada has to report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child next year, in 2002. I think it will be a very important issue if we see that one of the richest countries of the world is actually denying children entry into school because of their status. It's simply more important, from a human rights perspective and from a long-term social justice perspective, that all children in Canada have access to school without delay.

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Our recommendation is simple, that subclause 30(2) be amended to read as follows:

A minor child in Canada is authorized to study at the pre-school, primary or secondary level.

Take out the exclusion and that's it.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Geraldine.

Global Relocation Consultants, David Lesperance.

Mr. David S. Lesperance (Global Relocation Consultants S.A.): Yes. My name is David Lesperance. This is my brief, if you want to look at it. I've also done an executive summary for you.

I'm going to be talking again just about one aspect of the immigration and citizenship legislation, and that relates to maintaining residence. And it may be helpful for you to understand where I'm coming from. Prior to either seeing the light or going to the dark side and becoming an immigration lawyer, I worked on the front lines as a port of entry immigration and customs officer at both the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel and terminal 1 and terminal 2—that's prior to terminal 3 being build. So I've also got a lot of front-line experience on how these laws are enforced or are not enforced in Canada.

My clients are highly skilled individuals, high net worth individuals, investment capitalists, computer analysts, those types of people. They're highly sought by many countries. They bring badly needed skills, investment capital, international contacts. Furthermore, Canada has a progressive tax system, and they will tend to be at the top 10% or even 1% of taxpayers in Canada, which means they'll have more than $60,000 in taxable income in a year, whether that's salary or not. And that group of people, according to Statistics Canada, contributes 40% of the federal tax revenue.

This is our Immigration Act. These proposals are constantly talking about trying to get the best and the brightest, and that's exactly what I'm going to try to focus on, this particular element.

These groups of people have a number of different countries they are looking at in order to relocate. Canada is very attractive to them in many ways. However, there is one stumbling block that is very important to these people and is still a part of Canada's regulations, and that relates to the Immigration Act and the Citizenship Act rules on maintaining residence. The current proposed rules focus on physical presence and intentions. These tests are used by border officials to try to determine if somebody has lost their permanent residence when they're re-entering Canada and by citizenship officials to determine if somebody has met the residence qualification for citizenship.

It's worth remembering that the overwhelming number of people who come to Canada, 95% of them, move to Canada, stay here, are employed by Canadian employers, and rarely, if ever, take personal or business travel. This whole regime is aimed at that probably less than 5% of people who do travel. That's my client.

In the years I worked as a border official and a lawyer I found that the practical applications, both on the immigration side and on the citizenship side, not only for my clients, but for other clients, are, quite frankly, arbitrary and inconsistent. It's a horribly expensive mechanism, and it results in enormous backlogs, particularly in the citizenship element. And despite the fact that we're spending a huge amount of money on trying to enforce this system, it's very easy to get around. For the committee's benefit—I don't know if anybody's ever done this for them—I actually created something called “The Scoundrel's Guide: Circumventing the Existing Immigration and Citizenship Act”. And I also went on to do act two of the “Scoundrel's Guide”, which is how they're going to circumvent the new proposals.

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Along with having a test that's expensive, arbitrary, and easily circumvented, I contend that the whole emphasis on physical presence is fundamentally unfair. When somebody comes to Canada as an immigrant, when somebody wants to join Canada as a citizen, one of the primary elements of being a citizen in this country is filing tax returns and paying any taxes you owe to this country. That's a fundamental obligation for a citizen. Canada taxes these individuals on a world-wide basis, so whether they are making money while they're on an overseas trip closing a business deal or on a training seminar, no matter where they make their money, Canada taxes them exactly the same. These types of individuals—I'll call them the junior members of Club Canada, i.e. permanent residents—pay enormously high dues, but they are at risk of losing this junior membership on the arbitrary application of this test, and they, frankly, can't qualify for senior membership under the current regime.

I give an example in my paper and in the executive summary of a client I had. He was an investment capitalist. He moved to Canada. He paid, over the three-year period, a little shy of $250,000 in taxes—that's the cheque he wrote to Canada. His wife paid about the same. It took a year for his citizenship application to be processed. After that year, it was denied. The reason it was denied was, they said, that he spent over three years, a total of 219 days outside Canada. That comes out to 73 days a year, less than three months—a little over two months of the year he was on business trips. For that reason he was denied his citizenship in Canada. It took them a year to process that. He told me it was one of the most gruelling exercises he'd ever been through.

At the end of the day, what we're doing is setting up a system that is noted by the best and the brightest to be fundamentally unfair. In our global economy they need to interact with customers and clients and competitors on an international level, being able to get on a plane and go on a trip, having 30 years' worth of business contacts prior to coming to Canada and trying to maintain those contacts, because they're trying to expand Canada's business. The unfairness of that system is not lost on these immigrants. Quite frankly, Canada is losing them to countries like New Zealand and the United Kingdom, which do not have this physical presence requirement.

The whole premise of a physical presence requirement is based on the conception—or, I would contend, the misconception—that obligating somebody to be physically present in Canada will make them rub elbows with Canadians and make them more Canadianized. I think we all know people who have been here most of their adult lives and have made the mental decision to relate on a cultural, personal, and business level with the small local ethnic community of their homeland, and who are no more Canadianized today than they were when they arrived.

I had a sobering experience, and it's a typical one. I had a client family—it was a husband, wife, a 12-year-old son—that moved to Canada. I met them at the airport. It was the first time they'd ever been in Canada. The husband was an investment analyst. He told me about four weeks before Nortel crashed what he thought was going to happen to the stock. His wife had watched on satellite television the CBC series on the history of Canada, and the son gave me a very eloquent argument as to why the Maple Leafs shouldn't draft Eric Lindros, because he'd been watching hockey since he was eight years old, and in fact had learned how to play in Dubai.

These people have the skills, the resource, and the motivation to become Canadianized. That's what you need to become Canadianized. You can test that Canadianization on a citizenship test. Continuing to hold on to this physical presence test is just not going to work. When you look at the “Scoundrel's Guide”, you see these are very easy things to figure out. So you're not going to be able to stop people who are just going to arbitrarily come here, have no connection, have no contribution to Canada, and you're going to hurt the exact type of people who we are trying to bring here in an increasingly competitive global economy.

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Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, David.

As you know, this committee did the Citizenship Act last year. It didn't pass Parliament; in fact, it's still stuck in limbo as to whether or not it gets resurrected by the Senate. I know some of what you've said has absolutely nothing to do with this bill; it's more citizenship than it is immigration.

We're going to move to questions.

Inky.

Mr. Inky Mark: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here this morning.

I'm just going to make a comment and then I'll turn over the question to my colleague from Saskatchewan.

I want to make these comments to Erica. Your comments are really a reality check on the society we live in at present. In our visit to the west coast, we heard comments that perhaps immigration is a negative to Canadian society. I guess some of these people want to turn the clock back to the fifties.

We've come a long way. There's no doubt about it. As an immigrant myself who came here in the fifties, I know we have come a long way. In fact, it's shocking to me how far we've come, considering, as young child, while assimilating into this society...I still think we have a long way to go.

As you know, the history of this country is about exclusion, and that's a reality, not only exclusion of the immigrants who come to this country, but also the exclusion of the aboriginal community in this country that we live in. I would say we have a lot more to do.

So the key to this legislation, as I've said at other meetings, is, what is the balance? Is the balance to promote the concept of good immigration policy, which this country needs, because I would say 99.9% of this country believes that our future rests in immigration, as our past has, or is it to penalize those who want to be here and the people we want to have come to this country?

Those are my brief comments, and I'll ask my colleague to ask the questions.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich (Blackstrap, Canadian Alliance): I want to welcome you.

I thought your presentations were really very well done. I'm a very new MP, as my counterpart has said. I still think with my heart instead of my head, so I'm really almost insulted by your remarks, Ms. Lawson, that you think Canadians are so racist. I found in your presentation you remarked often that we are against black people, and you even referred to the bill as being particularly...[Inaudible—Editor]. I find that almost a little offensive, because that's not what we are.

When I look at you, I look at you because I think you were very articulate, and I think if you came to my home province you'd be one of the most popular girls in school. So I'm not really too sure.... I'd like to know where you see in the bill...and I find myself defending the bill almost. I know you have backup as far as statistics go, but I don't see that it's in the bill as criminalities.

I would like a comment on that.

Ms. Erica Lawson: Thank you.

I appreciate the comment that you think with your heart more than your head. I have a tendency to do that also. But it also touches on the fundamental problem I see within Canadian society that there's a denial element around racism, and I think when I speak about Jamaicans in particular, I'm speaking about something systemic as opposed to how we feel.

If you look just at the way the society is organized, people like me are in fact missing in very important spaces and places. It's nice to think that I'd be popular in your school; that's good, but it's a bit more complicated than that. It's about who is absent and it's about who doesn't have access to resources in Canada, and that's a very organized and systemic issue.

Absolutely, I think Mr. Mark is correct in saying we have made a lot of progress. But it seems to me the bill does two things. It represents a kind of fundamental conflict that Canada has with its own identity. You let people in, but only the right type of people and only under very restrictive circumstances. We want them to come in, but we want to make sure we can monitor them in some way. We want to make sure that if they don't fit in, or if they break our laws, even though they've been here for a long time we have an out to get rid of them.

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That's the kind of context I'm asking the committee to consider when you look at this bill.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: I think your reference to colour was made often, though, right?

Ms. Erica Lawson: Yes.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: That's what I'm getting at. I think you're asking us to look at colour as well.

The other thing is that in regard to the criminality, you did make the statement that you thought we were targeting Jamaicans, and you said it's quite blatant in the bill. I don't think that. It just says “serious criminality”. So I'm not sure if I agree with you on that.

I also would like to say that I think both Geraldine and David will find comfort that all of the members have been listening to your comments, or those of other people who have made those arguments, and I'm sure they're going to be brought up—also Andrew.

The Chair: Thank you.

John, just one question, because I have a number of questions.

Mr. John McCallum: I'll be very fast.

On recommendation one from Andrew on arbitrary power in immigration offices, I don't know if you were here at the last session when I made the comment that we are suggesting amendments that would reduce this by a significant degree in the case of examinations and deportations. It doesn't necessarily go all the way that you suggest, but it's progress.

The subject of student loans for refugees came up in Vancouver, I think it was, and first of all a police representative talked about crime committed by refugees because they had nothing to do. Then it came up after that. So I think that's a great idea. I think it's coming up in a private member's bill that I think has the support of the government, so I think you might see action on that.

I won't take up more time except to say I agree 1,000% if that's possible with the point about children in schools.

The Chair: Madeleine.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to comment briefly on the behavior of certain foes of racism. I believe that no society escapes this kind of behavior entirely and that Parliament's job is to set out a certain number of basic values. I believe that bill C-11 should very clearly state that the fundamental value is respect for others. And when I say respect, I also mean to say that any discrimination on the basis of sex, complexion or religion is totally unacceptable. These issues have to be recognized if we want to overcome them. We have to admit that they are there instead of denying that they exist.

One of the presenters spoke of refugees being left in limbo. That is indeed a concern. I do not know whether we will manage to obtain that, under the act, any person granted refugee status by the department will at the same time be granted permanent resident status. We shall, in any case, do our utmost to obtain that.

One last comment—which includes a question—naturally concerns what you said in your brief on the right to education. The present act refers to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and to the Convention on the status of refugees. Considering that Canada is a signatory to the International Convention on the Rights of Children, do you believe that including a clear reference to that in the act would prevent isolated cases of this from happening, where children are deprived of the very basic things they need for their development?

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[English]

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: I was listening to your comments very carefully, but I'm not quite sure I got the last one. You asked me about the education and whether the current act with respect to international treaties is enough. Is that what you were asking?

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Yes, and I am asking whether we should also include a reference to compliance with the International Convention on the Rights of Children.

[English]

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Oh, sorry.

I think if we incorporated the convention on the rights of the child into the legislation, it would make it much stronger than the suggestions in the current bill that the best interests of the child be a consideration. First of all, it's not even going as far as the minimal standard in the convention, which is that the best interests of the child be a primary consideration, which is one of our concerns that we put in our brief. I don't think it's enough.

Because of the attitudes in the country about somehow education being just a privilege that only members can have, and not a human right for children, if the federal government does not clearly say that children are authorized to attend school, then you will get at the individual school board level.... And that's what's happening now in Ontario: the Province of Ontario isn't even enforcing the Education Act, but the school boards are saying they can't do anything because the federal government is requiring some kind of permission from the federal government for the children to attend school, even though our act says they can attend school, no matter what their status is.

I don't know if I've answered your question.

The Chair: Thank you.

Anita.

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Very briefly, picking up on the education of children, I'm interested to know the numbers of children who are living like this. Do you have any sense of that?

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Well, I know that at Parkdale, in the past year, we've dealt with about 40 to 50 cases. I know that on the CBC news program that aired this problem a year ago, the Peel Board of Education spoke about turning away hundreds of kids. So I don't think we're talking in the kinds of numbers you have in the United States, but we are talking about a potentially large number of children, maybe in the thousands. It's very hard to determine.

Our work has to be one of going out to communities, working through people in the networks in the communities who are trusted. We're not going to be approached directly very often about getting the children into school. Often the health centres bring the cases to our attention.

Ms. Anita Neville: Okay, thank you.

The Chair: Judy.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Just for the record, let me respond to Erica's opening remarks, which I think were very useful for the committee. It's something we've heard from other presenters, particularly the Canadian Council for Refugees, who point to the systemic issues this legislation may be perpetuating. They list in very clear terms the areas where there is a differential and negative impact on women through this bill and where there's a differential and negative impact on people of colour through this bill. I thank you very much for drawing that to our attention this morning.

I have three short questions. With respect to Erica's point about the increased scope of offences under this bill, and specifically clause 24, I would just like a clarification on whether the appropriate amendment would be the deletion of clause 64, which would deal with the question of no appeal in the cases of security, violating human or international rights, serious criminality, or organized criminality.

Ms. Erica Lawson: [Inaudible—Editor].

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Okay, thank you very much.

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Geraldine, the issue you've raised has also been raised by some others, particularly a woman yesterday in Winnipeg. I just want to get the exact clarification for the amendment. It's subclause 30(2)—

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: That's right.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: —deleting the words “other than a child of a temporary resident not authorized to work or study”.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Yes.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: That would do the job.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Yes.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Okay, thank you.

To Andrew, you've given us a number of recommendations. Hypothetically, if you had to focus on a few, where are we most in violation of the UN Convention on Refugees, which sections, and where would you put your emphasis for amendments?

Mr. Andrew Brouwer: One of the proposals I had in the brief referred to the objective for the bill, recommendation three of our brief. I think if you were to amend subclause 3(3) to say that the act is to be construed and applied in a manner that complies with Canada's international human rights obligations, including the conventions on refugees, against torture, and on the rights of the child, that would provide a really solid basis for interpretation down the road. I think that would be a really simple change but absolutely critical.

With respect to a Maytree-specific area, which is refugees in limbo, an amendment to the provision in the bill—and I don't have it in front of me, I'm sorry—where they discuss the provision of identities or status documents—

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Yes, okay.

Mr. Andrew Brouwer: Right now it says it may be given to refugees and shall be given to permanent residents and others. It should be “shall” in both cases. I think that is again very simple, but that would make a big difference.

I have heard that this committee is considering proposing automatic landed status upon determination. I don't know if that's true, but Maytree would certainly very strongly and warmly support that.

The Chair: We've been testing the idea and obviously have asked the administration whether or not that might be one way of being able to move those people out of limbo and right into having the right documentation so they can get the schooling, the education, the loans, all those sorts of things. So we're obviously looking at that.

Joe.

Mr. Joseph Volpe: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just a couple of brief observations and a couple of very short questions, if you don't mind.

I think the very first observation is that some of the committee members are kind of staggered at some of the numbers that have been thrown out. Let me just frame some of the interventions in this population figure.

Toronto and GTA in population is the equivalent of the entire francophone population of Quebec. So whenever we think of numbers we have to think in terms of those kinds of numbers. Would it make sense, for example, if you are a francophone in Quebec, a Québécois...? What does the number 100 mean? What does the number 1,000 mean?

So if you think in terms of that large number, then when someone says that maybe the number of kids who were denied access to school is in the thousands, it's not such a fabulous figure when you consider that better than one half of the population in the entire GTA wasn't here in 1985. So you're going to have a lot of very new people.

The question I wanted to ask Andrew, because he said that some of the figures we're getting are shocking in divergence.... The department says that there are about 1,000 people who are without status, and I think you have a much larger number. I'd like to hear that number. When you get a chance to, would you tell me?

The other issue is with respect to kids, and maybe you can address this, if you will. I thought that the main issue with respect to keeping kids out of school had everything to do with the politics associated with grants that follow kids into a classroom. So if the average amount of money that follows a child into a classroom is $6,800—I think that might be off by a couple of hundred dollars—the principal at the school that receives this child says okay, if I can't verify that this person exists legally, and the person does not exist legally unless somebody has given him an identity card or whatever, then I can't get the $6,800 in here. The collective agreement and my school board policies don't allow me to accommodate this entity, whatever it is, into this environment.

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Both the school boards and the provinces have said there hasn't been any money. In Ontario we don't have the same kind of resettlement program that the federal government has with Quebec. Therefore, those funds don't necessarily flow. I'd like to get your comment on that.

Finally, this is a very sore issue for me personally, Erica, and for a lot of people in the Toronto area. It's the issue of criminality, residence, citizenship, and so on. I thought you made a very good point when you said there's a double penalty.

The fact of life in the greater Toronto area has been that the Caucasian population, specifically Italian, Portuguese, and Greek, which are the ones who have suffered the most, has a tendency not to take out citizenship. When they became young men—it's never the women—and fell afoul of the law, the first person they saw when they got out of jail was an RCMP officer, who sent them home even though they had been here for a long time, as Mr. Fontana has been since he was two years old. They had no recollection of another place. There are people who didn't come here with a lot of money, Mr. Lesperance, so they probably never went back to their place of origin. There were huge numbers of those people.

You pointed out that about 47% of such deportees today are Jamaican or African-Canadian.

I sympathize with the concept of not having people pay twice for a crime. There's a very quick solution. This is the one that's always thrown at me, and I'm playing the role of the devil's advocate here. If the kids had become citizens, they wouldn't be facing that problem. That doesn't mean they wouldn't be criminals, but they wouldn't face that second double jeopardy.

Erica, one of the first things all my friends in the Chinese community and the Indo-Canadian community do when they need that three-year cutoff is put their signature down for an application for citizenship. They don't fall into this category. It doesn't mean they're more law-abiding. It's just that this is one of the easiest things to do.

I was faced with a situation just in the last week when a mother came to me, and I said, why didn't you get your kids to become citizens? They've been here for 30 years. Whose fault is it?

Thank you, Joe.

The Chair: Andrew and Geraldine, on the first question on the school kids.

Mr. Andrew Brouwer: Again, I think we should avoid getting into a big debate about numbers.

We know that when the UCRCC program, which is the undocumented convention refugee in Canada class, was implemented in 1996, the department estimated that there were 7,500 Somali and Afghan refugees, and no attempt was made to count anybody else.

I know that by August of the past year, 2,000 had been landed under that program. In addition, by August of that year another 4,600 Somali and Afghan refugees were granted convention refugee status. So the number went down by 2,000. The total number of Somali and Afghan refugees increased again by 4,600. During the period between 1996 and 2000, 3,000 Somali and Afghans were landed under the regular landing procedure. They had some sort of identity document or a document that was good enough for the departmental official who was hearing their claim. I think 6,000 was the number I came to.

The Chair: Next is Geraldine with regard to the schools.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Actually, that was my first question when I started seeing that children were being denied entry into school. I called the Ministry of Education, and I was told that if the school board admits the child, they are immediately registered. It's not that they don't have any identity. They have a name, and they often have a birth certificate or a passport. If they're registered, then there's no issue of where they're coming from or whether they have the permission of Immigration. If they're registered, the money follows the child. It's not in the immediate sense directly about schools saying, we can't afford to have these kids in, because as soon as they put them in, they get the money allocated for that child.

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I do believe, and this is what I've been told by people who work in the area, that the particular problem in the Mississauga, Peel, and Dufferin boards is that they are heavily overcrowded, and they don't want to respond to that by building schools. They have more portables, whereas in Toronto we're closing schools down because we don't have enough students. In the Mississauga and Peel area, rather than respond to getting the children into school, they're basically saying, we're going to use this Immigration directive to get a permit to keep those kids out of school rather than get into building the schools we need.

The Chair: Thank you.

Erica, do you have any particular comment on Mr. Volpe's question with regard to citizenship?

Ms. Erica Lawson: Thank you for the question.

I do not think that people who have participated in Canadian society and are in fact proud of their Canadian society should be punished because they don't take out Canadian citizenship

There are a number of reasons people don't take out citizenship. It could be that they still have ties to their country of origin or that their country doesn't have dual citizenship arrangements with Canada.

Your point is taken, but I don't think that should be the focus of the discussion. I think you need to take a look at why people's whole lives have been spent in Canada and whether there should be a clear objective whereby we say, you didn't get citizenship, so we're going to doubly punish you.

I know my colleague has something she wants to add.

Ms. Marie Chen (Staff Lawyer, African Canadian Legal Clinic): All we're asking for is an appeal right for such permanent residents, and in this bill it has been taken away. Everyone else has that right, but if you're convicted of a serious crime, that's taken away from you. All we're asking for is that such people get an appeal right.

The Chair: Thank you.

Those were two different questions. We dealt a little bit with the appeal rights.

I'd like to make a final comment as chair. Erica, I also was a little troubled. I agree about perception and reality. Maybe I have a nicer picture. I also talk from my heart, I'd like to think, about what Canada is. We are perhaps the most generous country in the world on a per capita basis in terms of immigration and attracting refugees. Very few countries in the world take refugees. There are only about four or five, and we're at the top of the heap.

I understand that we have challenges, especially as it relates to racism. I looked for colour in this particular bill, and I don't see it there. I'm sorry you feel that this bill is race based. I think we've gone out of our way to ensure that it has the right gender balance. We've heard an awful lot from women saying that perhaps the balance is not right. We want to make sure it is not coloured in any way, shape, or form.

There has been an awful lot of discussion about the value of being Canadian. I believe that being Canadian doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a Canadian citizen. In fact, there are only three things that differentiate between a Canadian citizen and a permanent resident. We've had a lot of discussion about the value of that permanent residency. You can't hold public office and you can't vote. I can't remember what the other one is. But that's it.

Mr. John McCallum: You can get thrown out.

The Chair: Well, no. But that's it.

For those people who think that if you're a Canadian citizen you can't be deported, there have been some court cases that would also test that scenario.

At the end of the day, if we have law-abiding citizens regardless of race, sex, and beliefs and we're all living in harmony, then no one should have to worry about anything other than staying in the greatest country in the world.

Thank you all very much for giving us your input.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have to move on. We're running a little late.

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We're going to move to witness panels 11 and 12: the Canadian Chinese Congress; the Family Service Association of Toronto; the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants; the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario; and the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians.

I'll ask you to come to the table, please, and we'll begin as soon as possible.

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The Chair: Colleagues and guests, I wonder if we could now proceed to the next panel of witnesses. On behalf of the Canadian Chinese Congress, we have Mr. Hughes Eng. Is he here? With him is Mr. Frank Chui. Is David Lam here also? Thank you.

Go ahead, Frank. You're good for five or seven minutes. Take us through an executive summary of your brief.

Mr. Frank Chui (Director, Canadian Chinese Congress): Yes. Chairperson and members of the committee, I don't want to spend too long reading the brief in detail, but first of all, I would like to say a few words and take a moment to tell the members who we are and what we represent.

I wish to say a few words about our organization. The National Congress of Chinese-Canadians is a national body supported by over 280 Chinese-Canadian organizations from coast to coast, I mean from Halifax to Victoria, but not in the Arctic.

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The Chair: Not quite yet.

Mr. Frank Chui: Not yet.

The Chair: We need people there too, you know, Frank.

Mr. Frank Chui: It was launched in May 1991 in Toronto during the National Conference of the National Congress of Chinese-Canadians, which was held to discuss a redress of the head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1933. Even though the Chinese Exclusion Act was abolished in 1947, its negative impact still lingers, while the head tax issue remains unresolved despite the repeated efforts of the Chinese-Canadian communities to seek a fair and reasonable redress package from the federal government.

That is our background. We have looked at Bill C-31 and Bill C-11, and we found something good and something about which we would like to make a comment.

We support the initiative of the federal government to include parents as part of the family class. But according to the Chinese tradition we have three generations living in the same house. So we would like to have grandparents entered into that family class. Somebody will ask me, how can you have a grandparent coming in? How old is the applicant or the guy who supports it?

Take, for instance, a young fellow who will graduate at the age of 21 from university. He may be at the top of the class and he gets hired by a Canadian organization. His father will be 20 years older than he is. That would be 45. And his grandfather would be 65. So if you bar them, the grandfather won't be able to come to Canada.

This is a kind of tradition the Chinese people hold very true to their hearts. That's why we would like the committee to consider including grandparents as family class members. We also see that there are a number of expansions of the family class, which includes common-law wives and husbands, and gay people and all this. We have no objection to that.

We would like to see that the security of the Canadian system be upheld. We have no objection to detaining anybody who comes in without a security clearance or a medical check. Because we have so very many different people, we have to do anything we can to cure diseases like tuberculosis.

One of the major things we would like to add to this is the theme that Canada is supposed to be built on a multicultural, multiracial basis. I think somewhere in the act we should put something in to say that we welcome everybody from anywhere in the world, irrespective of their origin, and we welcome them if they meet all the criteria of our immigration laws. That's our first point.

The second point I have mentioned already is the grandparent one. The third one, which is very dear to our hearts, is about the English and French languages. This is that at the moment immigration officers are empowered to, by means of a brief interview, determine what an immigrant's knowledge of the language is.

What I would like to be clearly defined is the question of the powers of the immigration officers. It would be better if we could have testing of these official languages conducted through a written, internationally recognized language test, because the immigration officers, by all means, are not language experts. Correct? So I don't think giving these special new powers to the immigration officers is fair to everybody.

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Fourth, every year in the past we set a goal for the number of immigrants to this country as 1% of the population. Can we achieve that? In the past we didn't. Why? Because the countries with the most people who want to immigrate to Canada do not have enough immigration officers stationed in their country to do interviews and all these kinds of things.

I'm correct that the Minister of Immigration has a look it and says there's.... I would say let him look at the number of applicants and assign enough people to that particular country to do the interviews, rather than lagging behind our goal. Everybody in this room knows Canada's view on immigration. That's why our first point is that we would like to have a Canada that is a multi-racial, multi-faith country that would become the model of the whole world, as Mr. Trudeau has said, and we should.

So that is briefly what I have to say. I hope I cut it short enough that everybody has their chance and we can leave early for lunch. Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you. You didn't bring some good Chinese food with you, did you, Frank?

Mr. Frank Chui: Not at the moment, but if anybody wants Chinese food, I'll give the invitation.

The Chair: Thank you, Frank.

Next is the Family Service Association of Toronto, Laurel Rothman or Catherine Chalin.

Ms. Catherine Chalin (Member of the Board, Family Service Association of Toronto): I'll start and introduce our staff and our agency, and then Laurel will take over and add what I forget to put in.

I'm very pleased to be here, as we are at the Family Service Association, and we have brought staff and some board members with us.

I am on the board of the Family Service Association, and Laurel is the director of social action. We have Raksha Bhayana, another board member, with us, as well as Naga Ramalingam, and Adirham Sabriye, who are community workers in the community action unit. We also have Richard Wazana, who is a social work student placed with the Family Service Association, who has done intensive work on the bill. So we do rely on his information, and we're very grateful for it.

We can say that we see some positive aspects of the bill, but we have some concerns that have been addressed by other speakers, and so we are probably restating or reinforcing what they are saying.

The Family Service Association of Toronto serves about 20,000 families of all ages and stages in more than 34 languages in Toronto, so it probably has the largest extended network of service to families in this city. We strive to achieve public policy goals that are framed in social justice terms. We're looking at that value, and that is our mission, to reinforce that value, to strengthen individuals, families, and communities in just and fair societies. So we read the bill with that lens, let's say.

There are three areas on which we will focus entirely. The first area is family reunification; the second is the detention of children; and the third is children's access to social services, including education, health, legal aid, and so on.

We've picked children as the focus for us, because of Campaign 2000 and because of our interest, but read behind “children” the fact that we're talking about families; we're talking about all people who are coming in as refugees and immigrants.

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Under family reunification, Bill C-11 impedes family reunification for refugee claimants who are unable to provide identification documents. We've heard a lot about the documenting. I have had personal experience with refugee families who are landed here without the appropriate papers because they've fled from persecution, and so on. Undocumented refugees are a major problem for the agency as well.

We have recommendations based on reducing the lengthy waiting period they have to achieve status until they can sponsor family members abroad. I believe you have our briefing summary, so I'll go over them quickly.

We have said that it's not just good enough to have the best interests of the child, we want the bill framed to give primary consideration to the best interests of the child when making decisions that clearly have impacts on children and their families.

We want to see the bill put an end to the discrimination of undocumented refugees by allowing them to travel, by allowing them to go and visit family members, by allowing them to be able to move freely and yet still retain their ability to come back and be returned to their homes in Canada.

We recommend that refugees awaiting landed status be permitted travel out of the country to see their family and to allow their dependants and spouses to visit them in Canada.

We recommend that the Federal Court of Canada decision of November 22, 2000, enabling undocumented refugees to apply for landed status after providing a sworn declaration, be incorporated into the bill. They can swear to their status.

Finally, we recommend that the decision to expand the category of family to include same-sex couples be incorporated into the bill. Those are our recommendations under family reunification.

Under the detention of children, I think it's horrific that children are detained, particularly very young children, and as I say, we strongly believe no child should be detained upon entry to Canada, and if they are detained, they should be treated in an age-appropriate manner. Under no circumstances should they be denied access to education, health care, and culturally appropriate services—that is, services that are familiar to them.

So we recommend that children under the age of 18 not be detained, and that if they are detained, it should be done in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; that the provisions around the detention of children be incorporated into Bill C-11 and not left to the regulations; that unaccompanied refugees and migrant youth be accorded the same rights and respect as are children who are wards of the state; and that Canada withdraw its reservation to article 37, which is on the detention of children, of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

A third area of concern is children's access to social services. Again, with other agencies that have presented before this committee, FSA believes all children should be in school, regardless of their status in Canada. It's not just a privilege, it's a requirement. Children need to be in school. It should be mandated. They should be in school. Furthermore, they should have access to health care services, mental health services, and culturally appropriate community services.

So our recommendations are that the federal government establish an ongoing process to work with the provinces and territories to assure that publicly funded education is available and free to all children; that all children entering Canada, regardless of their status, whether they are accompanied or not, have access to health care services and access to culturally appropriate services; that Citizenship and Immigration Canada work with Health Canada and the provinces and territories in order to eliminate the three-month delay in receiving health care coverage; that all families with children who have special needs be exempt from the clause that denies entry into Canada based on the excessive demand on health and social services—I have personally worked with families who have had this clause in their face when they have a handicapped member being denied family reunification; and that the federal government finally renew its commitment to continued funding, either alone or in cooperation with the Province of Ontario, for free legal services for immigrants and refugees.

I'll pass it to Laurel Rothman now to make some further comments.

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The Chair: Yes, but you only have about a minute and a half.

Ms. Laurel Rothman (Campaign 2000, Family Service Association of Toronto): I don't have a lot of comments. I want to underline one very important thing.

The Chair: Sure.

Ms. Laurel Rothman: It's the issue of primary consideration. I just want to remind the committee, who may already know, of our recommendation that the principle whereby primary consideration shall be given to the best interests of the child should be explicitly embodied in the bill. In fact, this is the same language that was adopted by the Immigration and Refugee Board in its 1996 guidelines on child refugee claimants, but it's not happening to our knowledge.

I just wanted to add that, and I also wanted to read a quote from the minister, one you're probably familiar with. I think it really frames our approach.

Countries that accept new arrivals—be they needed workers or refugees fleeing persecution—yet who deny them the possibility of citizenship, in effect offer a tentative form of welcome that has consequences for social cohesion—

—this is something we talk about quite a bit and need to move forward on—

—and for the commitment that those new arrivals will feel for their new country and for other members of their community.

The minister said that on October 20, 2000.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Catherine and Laurel.

From the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, we have Debbie Douglas, the executive director.

Ms. Debbie Douglas (Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You should have my brief in front of you. I won't take you through the brief, but I did want to just give an overview of some of the areas of concern we have about Bill C-11.

I should let you know that the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, OCASI, is the province-wide umbrella organization for immigrant- and refugee-serving agencies here in Ontario. We have over 150 community-based agencies within the membership.

Canada is at a critical juncture in its history. Throughout our history we have needed immigrants to build this country. We have the opportunity to continue building a country that defines what we stand for and who we are as a nation. Changes must be made to Bill C-11 before it can reflect the Canadian values of justice and commitment to human rights.

OCASI is pleased with a number of proposals that will strengthen family reunification, the shift to in-land sponsorship for spouses and children being an example. However, we're very concerned about items in the bill that will separate family members and keep them apart, for example the elimination of the right to appeal a deportation before the Immigration Appeal Board. I'm sure you're not surprised to hear me raising this issue again. I'm sure you'll be hearing this across the country.

Long-term permanent residents raised in Canada from a very young age, products of Canadian systems and culture who are no different from individuals born in this country other than by their immigration status, could be deported without recourse to review. This is not justice.

The right to appeal a deportation before the IAD must be included in legislation to allow a person to present information that was perhaps not considered at trial and other factors that could affect whether deportation is carried out or not.

I want to reinforce here one of the points the African Canadian Legal Clinic made through Erica Lawson. We're asking for an appeal process, and what we want to ask the minister for is an anti-racist analysis of the bill. This is because we strongly believe that what appears to be an objective proposal will have a differential impact on particular communities here in Canada, in particular communities from the south: Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This is not because those communities commit more crime but because those communities are overly policed. Study after study after study has shown that, and I just wanted to reinforce that.

Another example in terms of the concerns we have over family reunification is the status card, the status document. I'm not sure what we will end up calling it, perhaps the permanent resident card. Concerning the proposal to replace the IM 1000, we're concerned that if a permanent resident is outside the country and this card expires, is lost, or is stolen, their status can be questioned. If the person is unable to convince an immigration officer that they're a permanent resident under the bill, they would be presumed to not have permanent resident status, wouldn't be allowed to board transportation back to Canada, and could be denied re-entry into the country.

Permanent residents, irrespective of how long they've been in Canada, would be unable to return to their homes, families, businesses, and communities. There is too much room for error. Too many people can be denied entry. Permanent residents must have a right to return and re-enter the country that is their home. I know that as you have been doing your consultations, you have been talking about facilitated re-entry, but until we see what the regulation says and means, this remains a huge concern for us.

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The language of the bill itself creates separation at the highest levels. Building welcoming communities starts at the top. The bill sets the tone by considering permanent residents to be foreign nationals. The language does not recognize permanent residents' attachment to Canada. Why has the separation been introduced? Permanent residents create jobs, teach our children, pay taxes, and contribute and build the society we all enjoy. Permanent residents should not be categorized or considered as foreign nationals and should continue to have their defined status.

Children are Canada's most precious asset. OCASI's position is that each and every child should be able to attend school irrespective of their parents' or their old immigration status. Bureaucratic requirements don't matter to a child. Whether in this country illegally or without legal status and whether going through the refugee determination process or here for a limited period of time, each and every child must have access to school. OCASI agencies in all regions of this province have reported cases of children who have been denied access to education, and you've heard Geraldine Sadoway from Parkdale speak in much greater detail on this. This bill, we believe, must clearly state that all minor children without exception are authorized to study at the pre-school, primary, or secondary levels. The alternative is totally unacceptable.

Bill C-11 cannot be viewed in a vacuum, however. We realize that settlement services aren't a consideration of Bill C-11, but I think that as you take a look at some of the recommendations that are coming to you, you need to think about the new immigration law in the context of the settlement and integration of immigrants to Canada.

With immigration being so important to this country it is essential that the services and programs provided by community-based immigrant- and refugee-serving agencies receive ongoing and adequate levels of federal funding. As part of a Canadian framework for immigration, Canada must also have a national settlement strategy that will ensure that Canada benefits from the human capital that immigrants bring to this country.

In conclusion, I would like to thank you for your attention to the few issues I've raised before you today, and as I said at the beginning, a fuller outline of our concerns can be found in our position paper before you. We believe we're shaping this country with new legislation. We urge the committee to take the necessary time to construct a good piece of legislation. It is time for us to be courageous and to show the world that we are committed to the protection of human rights and to building a better Canada in the 21st century.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Debbie.

Now we'll move to the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Elizabeth McIsaac.

Ms. Uzma Shakir (Executive Director, Council of Agencies Serving South Asians): Actually, can I just add that we are a duet? I'm not a solo performer, and we do it together. We have split up our presentations into two and a half minutes each.

The Chair: That's fine, but you're with the Council—

Ms. Uzma Shakir: Yes. Let me introduce myself. I'm Uzma Shakir, and I'm the executive director of the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians.

The reason the two of us are doing this is that our submission is a joint submission that has been made on behalf of several organizations. One is the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, and as you said, Elizabeth McIsaac is the executive director. It is also on behalf of the Coalition for Access to Professional Engineering; the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians; the Chinese Canadian National Council, Toronto Chapter; and the Hispanic Development Council.

I'd like to thank you for inviting us today to make a submission. The reason we are splitting this up is that we are talking about something that is not in this bill at all, so you would want to know why are we raising the issue. I'll give the rationale, and she'll give the meat to it.

The rationale for our submission is based on the fact that some of the major goals of any immigration bill are facilitating the framework for (a) creating suitable selection criteria and (b) facilitating the settlement process of new immigrants within society.

Our Canadian selection criteria are based on attracting skilled and qualified immigrants who can enhance the economic capacity of Canada and who have the ability to settle in Canada expeditiously. Our settlement programs are aimed at providing the requisite services to make the settlement process effective. However, by leaving the issue of access to professions and trades out of the rationale for formulating immigration policy, we are in fact rendering both the above stated goals null and void.

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Employment is the key indicator of settlement. If immigrants cannot gain access to employment that is commensurate with their skills and qualifications, in fact our Canadian rationale for granting them the immigration status in the first place, then in one shot we have negated our premise for their selection. Not being able to utilize their skills and qualifications makes them unproductive economically, thus eliminating their economic contribution to Canadian society.

At the same time, we have delayed, if not permanently impaired, their ability to settle into the new society and become committed citizens. This renders our settlement services ineffective and inefficient.

Furthermore, in the same breath, we have in the process created social, psychological, and economic issues that cannot be addressed by the settlement sector and are in fact going to burden other sectors of society. Immigration is a two-way street. We allow only those immigrants into the country who can benefit us as a society. Erica has pointed out even this premise may be questionable.

However, immigrants also choose to migrate because they see migration as a positive change for themselves and their families. They're willing to suffer the consequences of migration in terms of uprooting themselves, having to re-establish themselves in a totally different society, and having to struggle. But they do so in the hope of one day integrating into the Canadian society in a meaningful way.

A major benchmark for this day to arrive in their lives is their ability to make a living. They hope their existing skills and qualifications make them good candidates for resettlement, because we chose them for those very qualities. Thus, access to professions and trades is an issue that is integral to our rationale for encouraging the best and the brightest immigrants to come to Canada, as well as in the interest of the immigrants to make Canada the country of choice.

Deskilling immigrants, underemploying them, or leaving them unemployed has no benefit to either. If the ultimate goal of immigration is to replenish the aging and diminishing population to produce a skilled labour force for the economy at no or little cost to us, and to create a healthy society of enfranchised citizenry, then access to professions and trade is not only logical but is also a necessary goal that must be integrated into our very philosophical premise for formulating any immigration legislation.

The Chair: Thank you.

Elizabeth.

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac (Project Coordinator, Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario): I'm going to speak about some of the context for access to professions and trades, without assuming that people know the ins and outs of it so well. Most of my comments will be based on the experience of engineers and physicians, although I do believe that these experiences are generalized both to other professions and trades.

To begin, I believe it's very important to state very clearly and unequivocally that the groups we represent are very committed to protecting and maintaining the standards that have been set by the various professional regulatory bodies in Canada. It is not the standards themselves that are a barrier to international professionals seeking licensure, but rather it is access to and fairness of requirements for that licensure.

First is the question of access. International engineers, physicians, and many other professionals face the requirements of Canadian work experience as a criteria for licensure. However, acceptable Canadian work experience is also not available without a licence. The situation becomes a very frustrating and defeating catch-22. Although individuals are sometimes able to secure employment without licensure, there has not been a system-based attempt to work with employers to facilitate this process.

Successes are ad hoc, while unemployment and severe underemployment are commonplace. For physicians, several examinations are required. Access to all exams and certification is not generally available without Canadian residency experience. Access to those residencies is extremely limited. It's extremely limited for international physicians.

The licensing process is very complex. The stakeholders are many and include national colleges and councils, as well as regulatory bodies with provincial jurisdiction. The responsibility for access shifts constantly from stakeholder to stakeholder and the issue becomes a frustrating round of jurisdictional football.

All of this is happening at a time when we are experiencing a crisis in physician resources right across Canada. In Ontario alone, we are experiencing a shortage of 1,000 physicians. The association I am here representing currently has over 875 foreign trained doctors who can't get a licence because of the restrictions. They're letting in 36 each year.

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Secondly, to ensure fairness, the first step for all licensing bodies is credential assessment. Engineers are currently required to complete this step twice, effectively creating a hidden tax in their settlement process.

What happens is that they are initially referred to the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, the national body representing the provincial regulatory bodies, for an informal assessment at a cost of $175. This assessment is closely tied to their selection process and the evaluation of their application for immigration.

Immigrants paying for this assessment have the reasonable expectation that it will have meaning and currency once they arrive in Canada. However, this assessment has absolutely no bearing on the licensing process, and they must begin the credential assessment once they arrive in Canada again with the provincial regulatory body.

The recent Professional Engineers of Ontario initiative that allows potential immigrants intending to practise in Ontario to apply for licensure directly to them is a step in the right direction.

As new regulations are developed, the ministry must be careful to distinguish between regulatory bodies and national councils, as they do not have the same authority to grant licensure. We would also be very cautious about having national councils for professional associations having any determination in the selection process.

In summary, we have a few recommendations. Because of the jurisdictional gaps, because it's a multi-stakeholder dilemma, and because there are so many...it's a very complex issue. I haven't given it justice in describing it to you because, after working on this issue for two years, I still can't describe it in a snapshot. The problem therefore requires leadership, and we sincerely would like to see this committee recommend that a national policy on this issue be developed and that Citizenship and Immigration take leadership, partnering with HRDC and Canadian Heritage, to see that happen.

As part of that national policy there should be a strategic action plan, and, as a means of accountability, we would like to see clause 94 of the act build in reference that this be included as part of the report to Parliament.

In addition, regarding the stated objectives to promote the successful integration of permanent residents in Canada, we believe that it is imperative that Citizenship and Immigration take leadership on the issue and extend this objective in the bill to express its commitment to this critical factor in immigrant settlement. That would be paragraph 3(1)(e), where there is reference to a responsibility to settlement. Being the key indicator for settlement, we would like to see this as a priority expressed within that context.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much to all of you for some very, very good submissions and for the work that you do day-to-day in helping immigrants and refugees with their lives, their careers, and their hopes and aspirations. Thank you very much.

We'll go to Inky.

Mr. Inky Mark: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank you for taking time out to come here.

I said to the last group of presenters that as a society we have come a long way. In fact, I'll use myself as an example because Frank is here. As a grandson of a Chinese railway worker, I'm sure that not in his wildest dreams would my grandfather have ever thought that some day his grandson would become a member of Parliament, and on top of that a vice-chair of an immigration committee.

The reason I say that is because, for the record, I just want to say that it was the Liberal government of 1923 that passed the Immigration Act of 1923. That's what it was called—not the Chinese Exclusion Act. It was called the Immigration Act of 1923 and essentially excluded the Asians from coming to this country for 24 years; and it was the Liberal government of 1947 that repealed the act, to be fair to our Liberal colleagues. I don't blame them. I don't point any fingers. I just want to make that point.

I say that because we want to learn from history. And now, to play the devil's advocate, I know that many parts of this bill were precipitated because of what you saw or read in the media about the boat people coming to this country, the illegal migrants, the asylum seekers that jump queue while people have to wait an extra six months to a year to do it legally, the criminals that you've read about in the front pages who enter our borders, even people with contagious diseases that become a threat to the health of this country. So how do you answer these kind of concerns? I'd like to hear your responses to that.

The Chair: Okay. Who wants to take...?

Catherine, do you want to take that, or Frank?

If you want to give hell to the media, that'll be good, too.

• 1225

Mr. Frank Chui: You know what happens? The first detention in months of Chinese immigrants is the boat people from Vancouver. According to our information, they are not really refugees. They are economic immigrants and they are crooks in China or somewhere around the world, who come over here. We do not know these people, whether they are criminal elements in China or not, and evidence shows that a lot of the people in the first boat load ran away and disappeared without appearing at the hearings. They eventually find their way into the United States and become sex slaves and work in sweat shops.

Detaining these people, as a number of Chinese people see it, is to protect them rather than to deprive them of their human rights. So a lot of our people have no objection to detaining these boat people until it is confirmed that their health is in good condition, before they allow them to mix with the Canadian general public. Because you understand that there are a number with incurable tuberculosis.

The Chair: Thank you, Frank.

Catherine.

Ms. Catherine Chalin: I guess I have a different perspective on it, because I think it eats at the heart of who we are as human beings. And as Canadians, we are still human beings and humanitarian and we believe in social justice, and so we say our borders are open. Maybe we will make some mistakes, but I would rather err on the side of making those kinds of mistakes than err on the side of denying someone access to a life that is free from persecution and torture.

The Chair: Uzma.

Ms. Uzma Shakir: I'd also like to say that Canada is not a bubble. We can't shut ourselves off. We can't talk about globalization and all this great impact of free movement of capital and goods, but not people.

As far as contagious diseases are concerned, my God, if TB is such a contagious disease and Canada has no TB, why the hell aren't we going out to the world and trying to eliminate it somewhere else? The cure is not to stop people from coming here. The issue is taking our international responsibility and giving our medical expertise to eliminate TB from anywhere in the world. AIDS is an issue in Africa, but it's an issue here too. Does it mean that we don't let anybody else come in, just let's have the people who have AIDS over here? It's our international responsibility.

In the matter of refugees, we are lucky we are so far away. Pakistan has 3 million refugees. It's a piddly little developing country that doesn't have any money. It has 3 million Iranian refugees. It's handling it. So my point is, Canada, yes, great country to live in—we should consider ourselves really lucky that we're so far away, not having 3 million people show up on our door step every day. If 30 people show up in a container, hey, they had a rough ride. If we are such a great people, we should just say, you had a rough ride, let me give you a welcoming home. It's not going to kill us.

The Chair: Yes. Debbie, any comments?

Ms. Debbie Douglas: I think Uzma covered basically what I was going to say, but I did want to comment that I don't think the problem of claimants showing up at our door is out of control. I think it has been hyped in the press, and unfortunately, with all due respect to the Alliance members around the table, I also think your party has had a responsibility in putting out this bogeyman that somehow immigration is out of control. As Uzma said, there are other countries in the world who take in many more refugees than we do, and we never hear about the claimants.

The Chair: It's officially on a per capita basis. Let's set the record straight. On a per capita basis, Canada is the most generous in the world with regard to refugees. So if we're going to stick to facts, represent the facts right.

Ms. Debbie Douglas: Maybe in terms of selection, but in terms of people showing up at your borders, I don't think that is correct.

The Chair: That's an entirely different question, though.

Frank, I don't usually allow the same person—

Mr. Frank Chui: I'd like to add something to it, if you're talking about human rights. We have families that have to wait for years before they can get a chance of seeing the immigration officers. If you say the people coming in in the container should be allowed to jump the queue, then how about the human rights of those legitimate immigrants who are waiting for years and years? They suffer all the consequences.

• 1230

The Chair: Thank you.

Yolande.

[Translation]

Ms. Yolande Thibeault (Saint-Lambert, Lib.): Good morning, everyone. I wish to thank you all for being with us this morning and for participating in this important discussion.

What I have to say is more particularly intended for Ms. Rothman and Ms. Chalin who are here as representatives of the Family Service Association of Toronto. You mentioned, in your brief, the need to include, in the family category, same-sex couples. You are aware, no doubt, that this has been done. Are we in agreement?

You mentioned the need for services consistent with the various culture of the people we welcome to this country. Would you tell us please about the sorts of services you would like these children to have? Can you give me an example of this type of service? I'm aware that you are here today, representing quite a number of communities.

[English]

The Chair: Laurel.

Ms. Laurel Rothman: We work with a wide range of newcomer communities in Toronto, and I would say what we hear—and I don't know if my colleagues who are with me want to add anything—is about child care and access to training—those serve both children and families—as well as children's mental health services. I recognize the jurisdictional issues implied in what I just said, but we also know that support for ensuring that services are delivered in third languages as needed is very hard to come by. It used to be much more supported than it is now, so we're looking at those kinds of things.

The Chair: And respect for religion.

Ms. Laurel Rothman: And respect for the wide range of religions, creeds, and practices that people bring.

I did want to just comment on same sex. What we're saying is we understand there is, as I understand it, a recommendation that will be part of the regulations. We want to see it in the bill. You might have recognized that our definition of family is a very broad one. We've been pleased to amalgamate with what was formerly the Toronto Counselling Centre for Lesbians and Gays, which is a major specialized service that we work on through the David Kelly Services.

Ms. Yolande Thibeault: [Inaudible—Editor]...in the legislation, I believe.

Ms. Laurel Rothman: Perhaps. That's not my understanding. Perhaps I'm not correct.

The Chair: There was an omnibus bill passed by the federal Parliament, I think it was Bill C-23, that talked about the definition of common-law and same-sex benefits. This legislation and a number of bills that have come since 1999 incorporate what this omnibus bill already covers, even though some people have indicated to us that they would like to say same-sex benefits in brackets after common law to better articulate not only to Canadians but perhaps to our people from abroad that in Canada, common law would mean both opposite sex and same sex.

Ms. Laurel Rothman: I would say we would strongly support that.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Madeleine.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: You will no doubt have noticed that most of your concerns have been articulated here. I will not refer again to those that are particularly important; it would take too much time. There is, however, a question I would like to ask of the person representing physicians and surgeons.

In your recommendations, you mentioned a dedicated ombudsman. I must admit that I have a bit of trouble with that because among all the people who come to Canada, whether they come here as immigrants or as refugees, there are some who might feel they have been unfairly treated and there might be, in that number, professionals who feel that their proficiency has not been recognized. I am all in favor of having someone, an ombudsman say, evaluate some of the difficult cases of new arrivals, but I have reservations concerning the idea of a dedicated ombudsman. I have trouble with that idea. I'm hoping that you will be able to reassure me on that point.

• 1235

[English]

The Chair: I believe, Elizabeth, the question was directed to you.

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac: I'm not sure I'm clear on why you had reservations about having...it could be contained within a larger ombudsman's office, which Maytree had recommended for broader immigration concerns. We're not saying that it can't be contained within that. It's just that at this point there is no objective, arm's-length course of appeal or complaints procedure or appointed person to mediate some of these very complex problems.

So we're not saying that it would have to be solely for the issue of professions. It could be contained within a larger ombudsman's office of immigration concerns. I don't know if that....

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I feel so much better.

[English]

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac: Okay.

The Chair: Okay. Judy. Then I have John, Anita, and Joe. Everybody wants to get in on this.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. I've got so many questions which I'd like to raise in just a few minutes.

The first thing I wanted to touch on, thinking that Debbie and others have mentioned around...I think any notion that this bill may smack of racism has to be dealt with. I think that's the chairperson's concern as well. I think we do need probably a good analysis of the bill in terms of racism.

I'm not, and it's...my question would be, do you know of anyone who could do this in a few days for us? Or how do you recommend that we proceed? There has been a suggestion throughout the hearings that this bill, not by design or deliberate intention, actually does pander to prejudice by its emphasis on enforcement and by the things that it leaves out. I think I need to get your sense of whether or not that's the case.

I'll give all my questions at once. With respect to family reunification and children, I agree with everything that you've mentioned in your paper, but there's one area you didn't touch on, and that is the question of family class. I'd just like your opinions on several recommendations that we have received. Should we eliminate the...should we increase the age limit from...what are we up to now?

The Chair: It's 22.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Yes, it was made from 22 to 25 yesterday. Should we eliminate entirely the age restriction? Should we include brothers and sisters? Should we move towards a system of sponsorship of any relative or friend as long as there is some sort of financial responsibility on the part of the sponsoring agent or the family?

My third question has to do with training and credentials, because we're getting some really different views here at the committee. The regulatory bodies have come before us suggesting in fact that we should take a much more hardline approach to this bill and not give any false hopes to people who might be trained as professionals—doctors, engineers, nurses—but whose credentials aren't recognized here. We shouldn't let them in until we know that they can be licensed, because they're not going to be happy doing anything else. They don't address the issue of access to licensing, as you've done. So I wondered if you could give us some advice on how to handle that because in fact the minister has said, this is a provincial responsibility; it's up to the regulatory licensing bodies, and we really can't do much federally.

The Chair: Hang on a second. Judy keeps doing this to me—she asks four questions and wants to ask all of our guests the answers, which means that we would be here till 5 o'clock. As much as I'd love to have you here till 5 o'clock in the debate, unfortunately I don't have enough allotted time for that. So I wonder if I could deal with your questions, Judy, but....

I know that, in terms of family class, you heard Frank talk about grandfathers and grandmothers.

Does anybody have any comments whether or not brothers, sisters, and...with that family? Quickly, though—30 seconds or less.

Ms. Catherine Chalin: I'll go very quickly. Because many of the refugees and the immigrants that we deal with come from countries that have a great AIDS problem, the parents are dead. Some of the brothers and sisters are dead. Sometimes the only relative who can bring over children are aunts, or even friends of the family, almost.

The Chair: So for you, it's the more expanded, the better.

Ms. Catherine Chalin: I think it has to be more expanded.

The Chair: Do you want to nod if that seems to be the case? Debbie? Elizabeth? Uzma? The broader the family—

• 1240

Ms. Debbie Douglas: Yes. But I did want to address the question in terms of the anti-racist analysis. I think organizations like OCASI and the Canadian Council for Refugees have called on the minister to do an anti-racist and gender analysis of the bill. I think this is a good opportunity for departments to work together. I think the Department of Canadian Heritage should take the lead in working with communities to do an anti-racist analysis of the bill and to have that analysis then come forward to this committee and to CIC.

The Chair: As much as I'd like...to tell you the truth, if we could find the person that could walk on water and give us that analysis...I thought that, at the end of the day, we're the elected people of the country. It falls upon our responsibility to determine whether or not legislation is good legislation, whether or not it has a racist....

It's gone through the land of racism. It's gone through the gender analysis and everything else. If we start asking everybody to give us an analysis, we'll still be here in 2010 talking about a particular bill. But your comments are fine. Okay?

Okay. With regard to Judy's question on the professionals, because there is conflicting information with regards to the accreditation, what are some of the steps that you think we can take in a very positive way that could make it possible to recognize the great worth and education of these people in Canada?

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac: I think that's part of what we were referring to in the context of the national policy. I think there is a need to bring together these stakeholders and to move that agenda forward. Right now there is not.

There is a concerted effort so far as there is a provincial-territorial-federal working group on this. However, they haven't really moved beyond the issues of information dissemination and that type of thing. And even that is not happening effectively at overseas visa posts. We did a survey among our membership, and 40% said that they had fair to poor information about licensing prior to arrival in Canada.

So ensuring that we don't create false hopes...I certainly would agree with—I believe it's the Coalition of Regulatory-related Agencies—that presented to you. I think that is critical. I think that is a concern.

However, on the other hand, I think that it flies in the face of the logic that you're creating and the regulations around this bill to talk about ensuring that someone is going to be licensed upon arrival when you're looking at transferability of skills as a premise for your selection criteria.

I think that what we need to focus on instead is making sure that Canada's capacity to do qualifications recognition effectively and fairly comes up to speed. Also, there needs to be a caution around the vested interest of some of the national licensing bodies because, with the engineering assessment that I made reference to, the $175 first assessment—which has no bearing on licensure once they get here—generates about $4 million a year for that association. So there is a vested interest. I think that this has to be looked at very carefully in terms of protection, and who's protecting what.

So I think, yes, that a focus on managing hopes and expectations is part of it. But I think a more substantial and important piece is that we focus on increasing our capacity to do qualifications recognition and integrating the skills and competencies that are arising in Canada.

The Chair: We'll go to Anita. Do you have a question?

Ms. Anita Neville: I thought you were going to John McCallum.

The Chair: It's the prerogative of the chair to recognize.

Ms. Anita Neville: Okay. Thank you.

The Chair: Everybody will get a chance.

Ms. Anita Neville: I have a couple of comments, and then I want to follow up with Elizabeth McIsaac.

Some here mentioned the issue of health coverage. You know that some jurisdictions have imposed a three-month waiting list that the federal government has no control over, and it is a provincial jurisdictional issue.

The other point...I asked the question with the previous presenter on the number of children not in school. My understanding, on rereading clause 30, is that, when it says “A minor child in Canada, other than a child of a temporary resident not authorized to work or study”, this means simply a visitor—that all other children should have access to the school system. It is something that I certainly will make a commitment to follow up on and determine. But that was my understanding of it, and I will follow up on it.

I want to ask Elizabeth...I looked at your recommendations, and I guess I have some concerns about the role of the federal government in this issue. I was very involved with it, probably 12 years ago, and not a lot of progress has been made, for the most part, in the intervening years. It strikes me—well, I was going to say what I probably shouldn't, but some of the protectionism of the professions is really a guild mentality that doesn't allow others, who are a little different, to come into it.

• 1245

But I also see a lack, at a provincial level, of a will to assign dollars to it. I'm not sure whether I picked up here what you said correctly or not—something about 36 spaces. Now we have an increasing shortage of doctors in this country. At one time in the province of Manitoba there were dollars assigned for internships for overseas doctors. It was not inexpensive, but it was assigned; it was done. If there was a political will to do some of this, would it make a difference? And have you got the experience? My final question is whether it is possible to have the results of the survey you did. I would be most interested in seeing it.

The Chair: Elizabeth.

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac: I'll start with the easiest. Yes, you can have the results of the survey. In terms of the question of whether or not there is the political will, I think if the political will were there and you could actually bring people to the table and begin the discussion, that would make all the difference in the world. I think there is a need for federal leadership. They obviously have certain built-in restrictions in terms of the Canada Health Act and some of the other professions, in terms of how much pressure they can apply, but they can provide leadership and get the ball rolling.

There's also the social union agreement and the internal agreement on trade that has already set the framework for what could easily be moved further to include international professionals. As of July 5 here, there is supposed to be a harmonization of standards among all the professional bodies from province to province. So given the fact that benchmarks have already been set for harmonization across provinces, it's not a huge step further to say these are the benchmarks that we require international professionals to meet, and these are the assessment tools through which we can do that.

The Chair: I have one further question, if I could, in terms of resources and capacity. Who in fact should provide the capacity for upgrading and recognition and the resources? Is it the federal government or the provincial government? Is it the associations themselves? Who in fact should pay the piper, recognizing that we will have the political will and want the political will to go forward?

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac: I'm hesitant to tell you who should pay the bill. I think Citizenship and Immigration does have a responsibility, though. They take on settlement, and this is a piece of settlement. I think a number of different levels will have to foot the bill.

The Chair: John.

Mr. John McCallum: Thank you. I certainly agree with the point Elizabeth McIsaac has just made in that the federal government doesn't have much jurisdiction in this area, and if we refuse to pay a penny, I'm not sure we'll be listened to very much, so that would be one argument for at least some financial contribution.

My points are mainly directed to Frank Chui. I, personally, have a lot of sympathy for this idea about grandparents, partly I guess because my wife is Chinese and we happened to live with my parents and our children for five years, and I think it was very positive for them. Quite apart from my own case, and I know it's very important in the Chinese community, there might be some concerns if the numbers were very large. From an economic point of view, I guess one wants people younger who would work more. But I certainly think it's an excellent point, which I will follow up on.

I agree with you entirely that we want to get up at least to the 1% target, and we haven't yet. Just by way of historical footnote, we once had immigrants equal to 4% of the population, but you have to go back to 1911 for that. The main constraint on numbers is financial, not enough people out there in the field. But my argument would be that this cost would quickly more than pay for itself, because if we get hard-working, productive immigrants into the country, they will pay way more in taxes than that cost. But it's not an immediate help.

Finally, my colleague Anita Neville, the other day when we were in Vancouver, proposed an amendment, which goes to one of your other points that when we define Canada as being both federal and bilingual—clause 3—one would add the word “multicultural”, which speaks to a broader vision of Canada encompassing the federal and the bilingual and the multicultural nature of Canada. So I think we will succeed in making that amendment.

• 1250

Thank you.

The Chair: I heard a lot of comment. I didn't hear a question. That's fine. Then I'll go to Joe.

Mr. Frank Chui: I'm very pleased that you noticed our concern. One thing is that we talk about economics. If a grandfather comes into the family, it helps to ease the day care problem, because most of them are retired, and they love to spend time with their grandkids and teach them family values. In that case, it gives a lot of economic benefit to the country as well. It's not only to the Chinese population. It covers all races. All grandparents love their grandkids, right?

The Chair: Right.

I love my grandfather and grandmother, too, and I'm sure that most Italians, Greeks, and Portuguese all think the same thing. I agree.

Mr. Frank Chui: I hope our chairperson recognizes my feelings as well in talking about the accessibility of foreign-trained professionals. In this country, the main crux is in the...[Inaudible—Editor]...which leapt over into our Constitution, the jurisdiction dispute, which resulted in constant arguments between the federal government and the provincial government.

Now, I have had dealings with these before. In the engineering profession in the eighties, a number of recognized engineering school professors visited China to look at the various academic curricula in all the institutions to see what kinds of subjects could be recognized. Of course, there are Canadian laws, Canadian practices, and also the language. We can have the foreign-trained professionals recognized. Like the medical people, they are very well-trained in their respective countries. So if we can evaluate that, it doesn't jeopardize the jurisdiction of the provinces.

The Chair: Thank you.

One final question, Joe.

Mr. Joseph Volpe: Mr. Chairman, I'm rather loathe to engage in the debate, because I think we've moved away a little bit from the main issue of the legislation. I guess the main issue for me is what someone said a little earlier as to whether this piece of legislation, if it is an immigration act, opens the doors more widely, or does it in fact have the impact of restricting?

The reason I ask myself that question, Mr. Chairman, is that as I was listening to colleagues on both sides deliberate on the philosophical merit of certain aspects of the legislation, I found myself wandering into the issue of whether in fact we want to improve our standing with respect to immigration or not.

You engaged, Mr. Chairman, in a mini-debate about the definition of refugees at orders. That's an example of one of the sidelines that addresses the issue of whether you want to open the doors and to whom. I thought the discussion was starting to emerge on yes, you must be 6'1", you have to have curly hair, you have to be of Italian origin, you have to walk fast, and you have to do this sort of thing—and we lost track of the discussion. As I say, for those reasons I am loathe.

• 1255

I want to ask the question, though: in the areas you think you've addressed, does this bill open the door wider? Or does it narrow the aperture?

The Chair: Right across the table, Elizabeth, yes or no?

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac: From our perspective, it's not a question of how wide the door is open; it's a question of how fair it is on the other side of the door.

Ms. Uzma Shakir: As far as I'm concerned, that door isn't there yet. It would nice to have one, so that people coming in one door actually have some way out at the end of the corridor. What's happening is that immigrants are coming in, but they don't have the employment to get settled.

So how many or what type is really quite irrelevant, because no matter what they would like to be, they just can't go on to be what they want. I would like to actually create a new door.

The Chair: Debbie.

Ms. Debbie Douglas: I think this is a missed opportunity in terms of making family reunification the cornerstone of Canadian immigration policy. We raised some other issues, such as detention and deportation, when the real focus should in fact be on issues of human rights and social justice.

The Chair: Laurel.

Ms. Laurel Rothman: I too think it's a missed opportunity in terms of strengthening the aspect of family reunification—particularly as it affects child poverty, which of course is much higher among immigrant children.

Ms. Catherine Chalin: That was exactly my point. It's one thing to open the door—and I do think the door should be opened as wide as possible—but I think then there should a welcome, and services, and an attempt to introduce new members of our family to each other, and to settle them.

The Chair: Frank.

Mr. Frank Chui: I would say that any immigration law has to have an optimum balance. I believe this Bill C-11 has opened the door wide enough.

We have to balance the best interests of a country to accept new immigrants as future citizens. Again, this might open a door for undesirables to come in—which may or may not happen, and I'm not saying it would. But we should scrutinize everybody, to find out what it is.

I believe this bill is very good because of the many years of labour that went into these many amendments. Nobody seems to know what exactly the law says, so we give these things to immigration lawyers and consultants to fool around with.

The Chair: Thank you, Frank.

Thank you all. I'm sure the bill will be a better bill because of your input. As to whether or not it's a missed opportunity, maybe you should wait and tell us that after we've passed it.

I know you've all spoken to the question from the heart as well as the mind. What we want to do, obviously, is to build the best bill possible. Whether or not it's a missed opportunity, stay tuned. I guess you'll find out in about three or four weeks.

Thank you all very much for your input.

I should tell the committee members, as you know, we have one witness from the Canadian Hearing Society. So I'd like Garry Malkowski to come forward for his presentation.

• 1300

We have with us Garry Malkowski, who represents the Canadian Hearing Society. He will give his presentation. Thank you. Welcome, Garry.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (The Canadian Hearing Society) (Interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I begin my presentation, I want to ask you for some guidance. Do Rogers Cable TV and CPAC provide captioning when airing a presentation such as this on television?

The Chair: That's something you'd have to ask Rogers. I know they're doing it for us, but I don't know whether CPAC has captioning. We'll find that out for you, and we'll try our best to put it in place.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): If you find that no captioning is provided, could I make a complaint to make sure it is provided in the future?

The Chair: Yes. Thank you.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): Thank you.

What has happened to all the Liberal members who were on the side here? Are they not interested in my presentation?

The Chair: No, Garry, there are two, and the other one is coming. You have to understand that we got here last night and started very early this morning. They're all here.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): I'm sorry. That's not acceptable to me.

The Chair: Well, they're all here, Garry. Could you please just start your presentation? We're all here, and we're listening.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I represent the Canadian Hearing Society, and I'm the director of external affairs and employment services. One in every ten Canadians experiences hearing loss.

I would like to clarify my presentation for Bill C-31, and the focus of my comments today will be Bill C-11. Really, to me, everything included in Bill C-31 is pretty much the same as Bill C-11.

I've made copies of a letter I sent to the ministry of citizenship and distributed them to everyone here—as well as copies of our Vibes magazine from the Canadian Hearing Society.

I'd like to begin with three short stories. One is about a family in which one sister became a Canadian citizen and applied for her parents and a brother and sister to come to Canada too. All the family was accepted—except for the deaf brother, who was denied access to Canada. The rest of the family came and left the one child without his family. That situation, obviously, is not acceptable.

The second story I would like to share is of a mother with a deaf son. Her husband is Canadian, and the mother was eligible as a landed immigrant—but status wasn't given to her son, who was six. He was given a special visitation permit, for which he has to reapply annually. Again, that's inappropriate and not acceptable.

Another example: two parents applied for landed immigrant status and were approved. Most of their children were also approved as landed immigrants; however, their son—who was nine and deaf—was not granted status because of his deafness.

• 1305

Those three scenarios are commonplace for us, and they are not acceptable. We hope this legislation will prevent those situations from becoming an epidemic in Canada.

I'd like to talk about the issue of accessibility and accommodation. None of the Canadian embassy or high commission offices, or the immigration offices, provide any accommodation for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. They do not provide applicants access to interpreters for interviews—they are not accommodated.

That's in violation of the Supreme Court of Canada's Eldridge decision, as well as the Canadian human rights code. Where accommodation is to be provided, it should be standardized. Immigration should seriously consider providing such accommodation for all applicants.

If I were a traveller and had problems with my visa, I would need to communicate with people at the Canadian embassy, but they would not provide me with an interpreter or any other form of accommodation to allow them to hear my concern. We want accessibility for all Canadians, not just immigrants. But accommodation is our broad-based issue.

I'd like to raise four concerns. The legislation speaks of “excessive demands on health and social services”. That definition is unclear. If people are disabled or deaf, they are considered an “excessive burden”. I wonder what the difference is between heavy smokers—who might really pose excessive demands on health care systems in the future—and deaf people, who pose no health risk at all. I really don't see them as a risk to our Canadian society.

I'm not sure why there's a punitive consideration of them as excessive demands on health care services—why they, as persons with disabilities, should be punished because they have special needs. At the same time, it's okay for us to spend our health care dollars on people who are heavy smokers, who may need medical advice or services in the future. I don't see that as fair.

I would ask, what is a clear definition of an “excessive” demand on health and social services? One example I can think of would be if a deaf person wanted to go to a social services agency. A deaf person would use social services just like a hearing person would use a library. Anybody can use public services at no cost to anyone else; it's not defined as being an excessive social burden. Social services are free to the people using them. I'm not sure how deaf persons came to be considered excessive demands on those services.

Another issue I'm concerned about is the medical assessment and application interviews administered by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The staff there very often don't provide accommodation. Again, you need to accept accountability. You have a legal duty to provide accommodation, to keep up to the standard required by the Supreme Court decision.

That's one area that needs further consideration, accommodation as an accessibility issue—not because of a language issue, but because of a disability issue. It's a requirement that accommodation be provided.

The other area of concern I would like to focus on is the requirement for leave to the Federal Court of judicial review. I recommend that the requirement of leave be removed. I understand there are two separate areas. The court can make the decision on behalf of the applicant, and if deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing people require accommodation for hearings, those hearings are not providing accommodation.

They can decide that a person is not allowed to enter the country, and the person has no source of appeal after that. If you could apply to go to the other area, where they just go to court, they would be provided with accommodation, and, as well, have the resource of appeal if they weren't happy with the decision.

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For example, if a medical officer was performing an applicant's medical assessment without accommodation, the officer might determine that the person was maybe mentally retarded or developmentally delayed. How would a doctor know the person's medical status when the person hasn't spoken, or the doctor hasn't heard anything that could help make a determination or a diagnosis?

People have the right to appeal, and you must have the right to appeal. It cannot just depend on a hearing. There are other skills and qualifications that people are able to offer. You can't base decisions just on their hearing status. The thinking seems to be that nobody wants to open the doors to challenging opinions on determining the mental or capability status of deaf people.

For Bill C-11, the CHS recommends that Citizenship and Immigration Canada must ensure that new regulations, and the proposed Bill C-31, permit the ministry to grant landed immigrant status to deaf applicants when their families have been granted this status.

I think that would be good, and I'm sure you would consider making sure that's included in the bill. I have heard that the minister has made a commitment on that issue.

As well, Citizenship and Immigration Canada must clearly demonstrate a commitment to include equity in multicultural issues. Efforts must be made to include the hearing-loss and deafness perspective in pre-screening training, as hearing status does not confer the requisite knowledge for working in professional capacities with non-traditional populations.

Thirdly, medical officers employed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada must be trained to better understand the implications of psychological testing procedures for deaf children and adults, as well as the legal implications of the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Supreme Court of Canada's Eldridge decision.

The fourth recommendation is that Citizenship and Immigration Canada must produce a clearer definition of what condition of mental and physical disability constitutes “excessive” demands on health and social services. This should not automatically result in an assessment of “medically inadmissible”.

Number five is that permanent residents and refugee claimants should be removed only after a judicial review of the removal determination is completed.

I have all the material, including our recommendations, for your consideration.

Speaking specifically on accommodation issues, I am only asking for fair and just policies to be implemented, not just for different races, but also for people with disabilities. I'm asking for your serious consideration in reflecting the diversity of all Canadians. I think that's important for all contributing members of Canada.

The Chair: Garry, on behalf of the committee, thank you for your presentation and for your recommendations.

In fact, when we were in Vancouver, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities talked to us about the bill, including the issues you've brought forward. I'm very impressed with the three stories you told us at the beginning. They were troubling to me, and I'm sure they were equally so to the committee members. That's why we will try to improve the bill, particularly as it relates to the area of health assessment.

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Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): Sorry, could I just ask one question for clarification?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): Specifically, are you speaking of children with parents, or are you speaking of disabled adults? Because both are—

The Chair: We were talking about both, and that's what's been brought to our attention—not only disabled children, but also disabled adults who want to come to this country. It should not be only the economic measurement, but the value of the total human being in assessing their worth to Canada and their admission.

I want to see if there are any members...Inky has some very short questions.

Inky, Anita, and then Judy.

Inky.

Mr. Inky Mark: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Garry, for coming before the committee. As a former teacher who spent over 20 years in special education, I agree 100% with all your concerns on this bill. Bill C-11 has no business discriminating against any Canadian based on race, religion, handicap...across the board. I'm surprised to hear that at our embassies there is no accessibility to service, because many of the members here do travel abroad and do speak to our consulates overseas.

What I'd like to ask you is what kind of numbers we're looking at in our overseas branch when it comes to the demand for service to handicapped applicants.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): In Europe, you may be talking about 100 to 200 annually. Applicants generally are not serviced for any of the accommodation needs they have. Disabled travellers like myself have problems with their passports or visas. They can experience discrimination and would want to report that to the Canadian embassy. However, the embassy doesn't provide accommodation either.

There have been many terrible experiences of people experiencing double barriers, double discrimination, at home and abroad. If you're speaking about numbers, in Canada there is really no statistical review of any action that's been done.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Inky.

Anita.

Ms. Anita Neville: Very briefly, I want to thank you for your presentation and tell you how important it is to remind us of the issues you are facing and dealing with. I understand the Department of Immigration has asked your organization to assist with the development of regulations that would provide the input into how individuals who are hearing impaired can have access to Canada. I'm wondering whether that process has begun already.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): My understanding is that nothing has happened. I have sent a copy of this letter and have copied it to all of you. This was October 10. The recommendations are outlined throughout it. I've heard nothing from them. I've copied with a fifth or sixth letter to them. They said we have to wait until the legislation is passed.

Ms. Anita Neville: Once the legislation has passed, I'm assuming there is still a willingness on the part of the Canadian Hearing Society to participate.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): We're more than willing to participate and develop sensitivity training or accommodation requirements. We're ready to provide and willing to offer any information, as well as brochures or magazines. As I said, I distributed copies of these to the members. You could pass on any of that information that you'd like to the Canadian immigration ministry's office. We would be more than willing to develop anything.

Ms. Anita Neville: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Anita.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): We have this package. You can investigate further if they've received it or what they're doing at this time.

The Chair: Your letter, Garry, as you know, was responded to by the minister on November 23, but I also would like to extend an invitation for you to work with the Department of Immigration with regard to the regulations to ensure that they do meet the test. I would hope we all agree on access to all of the services.

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I would welcome your input, Garry.

Final question, Judy.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): I have one further question. I wanted to ask Anita if I could ask for some guidance.

As you know, we will be having the World Federation of the Deaf games. We will be hosting them in Montreal in the year 2003. Our biggest concern is immigration offices creating barriers for our visitors to come to that conference. I'm thinking of preventative measures to reduce as much as possible the discrimination they may be experiencing.

The Chair: Thank you for bringing that to our attention. I can assure you, Garry, now that you mentioned it to us as a committee, to the audience listening, and also to the ministers represented, we will try to assist in whatever way possible so that those games are as successful as possible.

Judy.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: I have a quick question about how to amend the bill to deal with the excessive demand issue you and others have raised. I think we had two different recommendations from presenters.

As I understand it, paragraph 38(1)(c) is the clause in question. One suggestion is to delete it entirely. Another suggestion is to add words so paragraph 38(1)(c) would read, “might reasonably be expected to cause excessive demand on health or social services”—

The Chair: Judy, slow down a bit for everybody.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: The suggestion is that we add words to paragraph 38(1)(c) so that it would read:

might reasonably be expected to cause excessive demand on health or social services, taking into account all the circumstances of the individual's situation and their contribution.

Something like that has been suggested. I'm wondering if you have an opinion on what we should do with this clause.

Mr. Garry Malkowski (Interpretation): Looking at the first page of the October 10 letter I wrote speaking to excessive demands, the recommendation is a determination of the appeals division of the Immigration and Refugee Board. They have already made the decision to overthrow that legislation for excessive health demands. It was their determination, so maybe look at that determination. I would support that view.

Secondly, take a look at the Supreme Court of Canada's Eldridge decision. Once again, that's another Supreme Court decision speaking specifically to disability issues. Look at that to make sure this legislation is not in contravening status or would override the Supreme Court decision.

We would recommend on the point system that you count English and French as a spoken language. We would recommend American sign language or LSQ, Langue des signes au Québec, should be included in the point system. That would make it fair. If you're speaking of accommodation, that would be a fair accommodation.

When you were talking about repealing or taking out the clause, look at the Supreme Court decision, as well as the other decision to make sure this legislation is not above that.

The Chair: Thank you, Garry, very much for your insight, your recommendations, and bringing this important matter to our attention.

I want to thank Tammy and those who have assisted you and the committee so we could truly hear your presentation. We appreciate it very much.

This committee is adjourned for at least a half hour.

My apologies to those who wanted to appear at 1:30. Unfortunately we're running an hour over time. We will be with you in about a half hour or 40 minutes.

Thank you.