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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

0805

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

0815

Mr. Samuel Hyman (As Individual)

0825

The Chair

Ms. Rachel Rosen (Coordinator, Grassroots Women)

0830

The Chair

0835

Ms. Kate Manvell (Director, Western Canada, Organization of Professional Immigration Consultants Inc.)

0845

The Chair

Ms. Lilian To (Chief Executive Officer, SUCCESS)

The Chair

Mr. Kenneth Tung (Vice-Chairman, SUCCESS)

0850

Ms. Lilian To

0855

Mr. Kenneth Tung

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong (Executive Director, Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians)

0905

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung (Vancouver Kingsway, Lib.)

0910

The Chair

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

Mr. Kenneth Tung

The Chair

Mr. Kenneth Tung

Ms. Lilian To

The Chair

Ms. Rachel Rosen

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Mr. Samuel Hyman

The Chair

Ms. Kate Manvell

Ms. Sophia Leung

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

0915

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

Ms. Lilian To

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Mr. Samuel Hyman

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung

Mr. Samuel Hyman

0920

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

0925

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Rachel Rosen

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Ms. Rachel Rosen

The Chair

Ms. Lilian To

The Chair

Ms. Kate Manvell

0930

The Chair

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

Mr. Samuel Hyman

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich (Blackstrap, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Mr. Samuel Hyman

The Chair

0935

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Ms. Lilian To

The Chair

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Telegdi (Kitchener—Waterloo, Lib.)

0940

The Chair

Mr. Samuel Hyman

The Chair

Mr. Samuel Hyman

The Chair

Ms. Rachel Rosen

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Mr. Louis Plamondon

0950

The Chair

Ms. Lilian To

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Mr. Kenneth Tung

0955

The Chair

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

Mr. Samuel Hyman

1000

The Chair

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

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

Ms. Lilian To

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Mr. Samuel Hyman

The Chair

1005

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Ms. Lilian To

The Chair

Mr. Samuel Hyman

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

1010

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Mr. Victor Wong

The Chair

Ms. Lilian To

The Chair

Ms. Kate Manvell

The Chair

Mr. Samuel Hyman

The Chair

Mr. Eyob Naizghi (Executive Director, MOSAIC)

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng (Past President, MOSAIC Board of Directors, MOSAIC)

1035

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw (President, Ukrainian Canadian Congress, B.C. Provincial Council)

1050

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

1055

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

Ms. Libby Davies

1100

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung

1105

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Telegdi

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Telegdi

1110

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw

Mr. Andrew Telegdi

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

1115

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Chilwin Cheng

The Chair

Mr. Myron Petriw

The Chair

1120

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

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

1125

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

1130

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

1135

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

1140

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung

1145

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Mr. Louis Plamondon

Ms. Leah Diana

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Leah Diana

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Ms. Leah Diana

1150

Mr. David Price

Ms. Leah Diana

Mr. David Price

Ms. Leah Diana

Mr. David Price

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

NUMBER 041

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¾ (0805)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.)) I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Good morning, colleagues. Bonjour à tout le monde. It's a pleasure to be here in Vancouver again. I know that our immigration committee has been here on many occasions, and we were very impressed with not only the presentations but also the work a lot of the organizations in Vancouver were doing with regard to our immigration policies.

As you know, this committee is travelling the country. Half of our committee is down east and half of it is out here, out west. We started in Toronto and we have moved west for a number of purposes.

The first, of course, is with regard to Bill C-18, our citizenship bill. As you know, this is the third time around on this bill. It's gotten as far as the Senate, and then for election purposes or whatever, it's never been passed. We're definitely interested in wanting to hear what your opinions are on our citizenship bill.

What we've heard so far is that citizenship is perhaps the greatest gift that can be conferred on a citizen. The committee is prepared to take the time necessary to ensure that by birth or by choice there's only one class of Canadian citizen. We want to make sure we get it absolutely right.

Our Citizenship Act, as you know, has served our country well for the past 20 or 30 years, so hopefully the one we're going to enact this time is going to have to meet the test of time. With the input of a lot of people such as yourselves, we're determined to make sure we get it right.

So we want you to be forthright. We want you to give us an opportunity. We have your briefs. If you would take the time to summarize them in five or seven minutes...and if you have some recommendations for us, that's even better. We appreciate the fact that you are here.

We are also going to be talking later today and tomorrow on a couple of other issues that are very important to immigration, and one is our provincial nominee agreements that we have specifically with B.C., to find out whether they are working, whether we can do a lot better job of them.

You know that the Government of Canada's policy and the committee's recommendation is that we want more immigrants to this country. We want to make sure we are attracting all the skill sets that this country is going to need in the next 20 or 30 years. So we want to know and understand how the provincial nominee agreement is working or not working so that we can make recommendations to our respective counterparts.

I know that all the provincial ministers of immigration have met and they are dealing with an awful lot of issues, some of which the committee has dealt with over the past two or three years.

We also want to talk a little about settlement issues and how it's possible when people come here as landed immigrants, before they become citizens, and what we can do as a community and as a government to make sure they feel comfortable here, that they have all the programs they need in order to fully settle into our country and achieve their own personal objectives.

Lastly, we're going to talk about whether or not this country should embark on a national identity card. I don't know if you are appearing on that section in which we have some people talking to us about a national ID card, but if that's something you also want to talk to us about during your session today, I wouldn't mind.

We don't know much about it either. We're doing a complete study on whether or not our country, like some countries, should embark on a national identity card. What's the purpose? How would it function? The issues between privacy and security are very much at the forefront, so we look forward to your input.

I want to introduce our members who are here with us today.

Lynne Yelich is from the Alliance Party, from Saskatchewan. Andrew Telegdi is from the riding of Kitchener--Waterloo. David Price is from the great province of Quebec. Sophia Leung is from your own city of Vancouver. She's an absolutely fantastic member who has participated in our committee over the years. And Louis Plamondon from Quebec is from the Bloc Québécois. Libby Davies, I understand, was supposed to be here. She'll probably be coming in at any time.

So welcome.

For the first session we have with us this morning Samuel Hyman, representing himself as an individual; from Grassroots Women is Rachel Rosen, who is the coordinator; from the Organization of Professional Immigration Consultants, Kate Manvell; from Success we have Lillian To; and from the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians we have Victor Wong.

Why don't we start with Samuel? Welcome.

¾ (0815)

Mr. Samuel Hyman (As Individual): Thank you.

For my allotted time I wish to focus my remarks on clauses 4 and 19 of Bill C-18 and in doing so address the ongoing problem of discrimination on grounds of gender and national origin. This may not readily be apparent from the language of clause 4, which states:

A person is a citizen if the person was a citizen immediately before the coming into force of this section or acquires citizenship in accordance with this Act.

Clause 19 of Bill C-18 imposes immigration and residency requirements on persons seeking to resume Canadian citizenship.

When I read the Parliamentary Research Branch legislative summary of Bill C-18 published on November 1, 2002, I was struck by the following passage on page 2:

In 1977, the current Citizenship Act came into force, making extensive changes to the law. Citizenship became more widely available, because the Act, for example, reduced the required period of residency from five to three years as well as removed the special treatment for British nationals and the remaining discrimination between men and women. The 1977 Act also provided that Canadians could hold dual citizenship, reversing the previous situation in which Canadian citizenship was lost upon the acquisition of the citizenship of another country.

While the legislative summary referred to the 1977 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Benner, which settled the question of unconstitutional, discriminatory treatment of children born abroad of women who are Canadian citizens, the legislative summary ignores the fact that the language of the proposed legislation continues to discriminate against a specific group: children who (a) are children who are born in Canada prior to February 15, 1977; (b) are born in wedlock to a Canadian-born mother married to a naturalized Canadian father; and (c) involuntarily acquired a foreign nationality at birth through their fathers and who ceased to be Canadians as a result of their fathers having ceased to be Canadian citizens and, I would parenthetically add, even while their mothers retained Canadian citizenship.

Now, under the Canadian Citizenship Act, 1946, women were deemed incapable of maintaining the Canadian citizenship of their minor children, and this is something I'm aware that this committee has been apprised of through Ms. Castro-Gyr.

Paragraph 3(1)(d) of the current act is essentially reproduced in clause 4 of Bill C-18. Paragraph 3(1)(d) and sections 11 and 12 of the current act carry forward the discrimination of paragraph 2(n) and subsection 21 of the 1946 act. The definition of “responsible parent”, which you can read as “father” unless a woman is widowed or has a sole custody order granting her custody of her children, as set out in paragraph 2(n) of the 1946 act and the automatic loss of citizenship in the case of minor children born in Canada to a naturalized Canadian father with dual nationality and a Canadian mother upon the father ceasing to be a Canadian citizen pursuant to subsection 21 of the 1946 act, embodies precisely the unconstitutional discrimination found by the Supreme Court of Canada in Benner, where by legislation women were deemed incapable of passing their citizenship to their children born in wedlock.

Further, where access to Canadian citizenship is restrictive on the basis of such immutable characteristics as a person's mother's gender and/or the national origin of the naturalized father, such legislation continues to create two classes of Canadian-born children who were born prior to February 15, 1977: those born of naturalized Canadians versus native-born Canadians.

The insidious secondary effects of clauses 4 and 19 of Bill C-18 are that they suggest that for children born in Canada before February 15, 1977, to naturalized Canadian fathers--imposed on the child, I would add, by an overreaching foreign law--it makes these people, on the basis of their national origin, somehow less worthy of retaining their Canadian citizenship than children born of native-born Canadian parents. This is even where the automatic loss is incurred involuntarily while the individual is under legal disability and solely because of an expatriating act committed by a male parent. The effects of clauses 4 and 19 are to impose a greater burden on the class of Canadian-born children I have identified. These individuals must qualify as immigrants to resume residency as permanent residents under clause 19 for two years and remain in Canada for 365 days before being eligible for Canadian citizenship.

You've asked for suggestions as to how that can be improved. Well, I was privy to and provided with a copy of Bill C-43, and with respect to that bill, clause 2 is conditional upon Bill C-18 being introduced in the second session of the 37th parliament and entitled the Citizenship of Canada Act. With respect to the proposal, I believe this is certainly a good start, but it is problematic for one reason. It creates a vacuum in terms of, well, okay, this clause does not apply, but then what do we do when it says with respect to requirements set out in 1(a) and (b) of the legislation referred to?

My thought is that you are going to have to insert into the act specific language that squarely addresses the issue of people who have been regarded by the registrar as having automatically lost their citizenship. That can be done by a clear language declaration that says there shall no longer be considered an automatic loss.

But I think the pragmatic thing to do would be to have inserted into the legislation a clause that entitles individuals within the class I identified to an automatic issuance of a citizenship card or a certificate on application to reaffirm that principle that these individuals are not asking for a grant of citizenship but are entitled to the issuance of a certificate of Canadian citizenship on demand. That would ideally be an absolute entitlement, with no time limit prescribed in the act.

There would be on the Canadian government side perhaps a concern regarding unrestricted access to health and social benefits by individuals who may decide to lay their claim to Canadian citizenship very late in their lives.

But I would submit that first we shouldn't be looking at that in any event, but in the alternative, if you're going to do that, have regard to the fact that people may very well have ordered their lives quite differently after having lost their citizenship so many years ago. I believe it would be important to provide in the alternative a time period within which such an application could be made--something in the order of--pick a number--three, five, or ten years from the coming into force of the act.

A lot of people aren't even aware of the fact that citizenship has been lost and don't become aware until making application to register the births of their foreign-born children, as you have already heard in Ottawa. Having been issued Canadian passports from time to time, having established ties to Canada, and having returned on numerous occasions, it comes as a shock that they find themselves not Canadian citizens. This is something you have an opportunity to correct legislatively; you can fix this within five minutes via a carefully considered amendment.

In my discussion, I haven't addressed the issue of another group of individuals: children who, while under legal disability or minority, lost their citizenship upon their parents taking out foreign citizenship for the child. I submit that it goes a little bit beyond the scope of what I want to do, but it's another injustice that clearly needs to be addressed, by allowing these individuals to acquire again citizenship, on making an application for a certificate, which should be issued as a mandatory course of practice.

Those are my submissions.

¾ (0825)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Sam, and if you have the time to draft some good legal language that the committee can consider, that would be very much appreciated.

From Grassroots Women, we have Rachel Rosen.

Welcome, Rachel.

Ms. Rachel Rosen (Coordinator, Grassroots Women): Hi! Thanks to the standing committee for having us here today.

I represent Grassroots Women, which is a Vancouver-based women's group that was formed in 1995. The founding members saw the need for a women's group that would support the genuine empowerment, development, and participation of marginalized women, and advocating for their human rights and equality rights. Since 1995, a diverse group of women have joined in our discussions, forums, workshops, marches, and international conferences.

In terms of preparing to address the standing committee today, we've done a number of different things to solicit the participation of our membership. We have a long history of education and advocacy about immigration, citizenship, and human rights issues. Based on that work, we held a series of public events.

This brief represents a synthesis of discussions held at an international women's conference that we hosted in November 2002, where our central focus of discussion was the internationalization of anti-terrorism legislation.

Secondly, in February of this year, we held a public consultative forum specifically about the Citizenship Act and the national ID card.

And finally, this brief is based on experiences shared by our membership during our education and advocacy work.

So one of the key things that has come out during our discussions is that we're responding to the proposed Citizenship Act and the national ID card in a climate of what can only be called suspicion, racial profiling, and anti-terrorism hysteria.

Based on both real and manufactured fears of terrorism, there are new policies, including aspects of the Citizenship Act that we feel are being pushed through, that are unrestrained in their attacks on purported Canadian values, including our charter rights and freedoms, that are really using the events of September 11, 2001, as a justification.

In the last year and a half, there has been such a rapid implementation of anti-terrorism measures that it's often difficult for the majority of Canadians to stay informed of proposed changes, let alone really engage in public debate.

Just to share with you, through the public events that we've been having, and talking to people, most of those we've talked to have no idea about what is being suggested in the Citizenship Act and with the national ID card; they have very little idea about the extent of the proposed measures; and finally, they have no idea about what recourse they have in terms of presenting their opinions. Very few people knew about this consultative process that was happening. So one of our recommendations is that there needs to be a more open and democratic way for people to engage in public policy dialogue.

In terms of our specific comments on the Citizenship Act, based on these discussions, I'd like to address, first of all, clauses 17, 18, 21, and 22, and what we see as a lack of democratic principles that are contained in these sections.

For example, in clause 17, Federal Court judges would have the power to revoke a former immigrant's citizenship without this Canadian citizen being permitted to see the evidence.

Clause 18 gives the minister the power to annul citizenship if the minister is satisfied that the citizenship was illegally obtained, with only a summary of the grounds of the proposed order.

Clauses 21 and 22 give cabinet the power to refuse citizenship on the basis that a person has demonstrated a flagrant and serious disregard for the principles and values underlying a free and democratic society. In the bill, there is little definition of what this actually means. It's up to the cabinet to decide.

From the experiences that have been shared through our discussions, we've already seen that in the climate we have right now, there's targeting and unjust treatment of people of colour within Canada, particularly people who come from the Middle East and people of Muslim background, as well as people who are politically active.

Some of the experiences people have shared include losing their jobs or not being hired, facing harassment at the border, and facing discrimination and the refusal of certain rights such as admittance to educational programs based on their backgrounds.

The power that's granted within the Citizenship Act to people with clear political interest, such as the minister and cabinet, has the potential to intensify this situation for marginalized women and marginalized communities in general. With the international harmonization of anti-terrorism legislation, the possibility of levelling attacks on political dissidents who really have exercised their democratic rights to voice their opinion gains new international proportions.

For example, in clause 18, information may be obtained about the illegal obtainment of certificates. This information could potentially come from regimes interested in silencing or persecuting someone who has spoken out against their regime.

In clause 21, again, because there is no definition of a flagrant and serious disregard for the principles and values underlying a free and democratic society, the interpretation of this statement is left to members of cabinet, and there is little guarantee in the bill that interpretations will not be politically motivated.

Finally, we see that there's a lack of democratic process because of the secrecy of evidence that is used to revoke, annul, or deny citizenship, coupled with the power granted to very particular individuals to make decisions about citizenship. It violates principles of impartiality, due process, and equality before the law.

Finally, I'd like to deal with denying citizenship to those with charges or convictions in other countries. This would have a significant impact on political refugees. Many convention refugees have had trumped up criminal charges laid against them and have spent time in prison for their legitimate political activities. This is an experience that has been shared over and over again, that people who do dare speak out in protest of regimes where they are living are often charged with petty crimes.

To use this as a way to deny citizenship would have a major impact. For people who are criminalized for voicing their commitment to social justice, peace, and human rights against repressive dictatorships and state forces, which is the precise reason they are fleeing state persecution and are seeking--and qualify for--refugee status in Canada, this would be the reason used to deny them citizenship in Canada.

So just in terms of our recommendations, going back to clauses 17, 18, 21, and 22, we believe they do violate democratic principles and process and we would suggest deleting them.

We suggest having a transparent and democratic process for reviewing evidence and appealing decisions regarding denial, revocation, and annulment of citizenship.

We would suggest the committee look at the bill to recognize how political activists in other countries are criminalized or charged with petty crimes and not make this a basis for denying them citizenship in Canada, as well as develop mechanisms to allow for genuine debate and discussion of proposed bills.

And finally, we suggest providing financial support to community organizations to allow us to continue to conduct research, advocate, and raise public awareness about the impact of both proposed and adopted policies of Citizenship and Immigration Canada to really allow for a genuine public policy dialogue.

¾ (0830)

The Chair: Thank you. What you have done so far is good. I don't know how much money you have spent, but this is a fantastic brief with an awful lot of darned good recommendations, and I think you have addressed some of the points we obviously had some questions about.

With regard to the national ID card, there isn't a bill before us. In fact, this is the beginning of the debate and there are no time lines or time limits. In fact, we are asking Canadians to get engaged. Part of the process started last Thursday, a week ago. So, hopefully, more and more Canadians will get engaged.

With this particular bill, it's been three years in the making, and the fact is that an awful lot of people are coming forward. We agree with you; obviously we want as many Canadians to know the bill, understand it and know the ramifications and/or the potential benefits and problems with it. That's why we have engaged in.... So far, you have obviously done your homework and have made some very, very good recommendations, and I'm sure we will have some questions for you.

Thank you, Rachel.

We will now go to the Organization of Professional Immigration Consultants Inc., Kate Manvell.

Your organization has helped us an awful lot over a number of years and not only in Ottawa and Toronto. Welcome, Kate.

¾ (0835)

Ms. Kate Manvell (Director, Western Canada, Organization of Professional Immigration Consultants Inc.): Thank you very much, and welcome to all the members.

I have given you a brief, and perhaps rather than speaking from my brief, I'll touch on the two points I would like to talk about today that are different from those of our first two speakers.

First I would quickly tell you that I am Kate Manvell, and for the past nine years I have been operating my own private business as an immigration and citizenship practitioner. I have been a national director for the Organization of Professional Immigration Consultants for the past seven years, as well as the western chair. I have recently resigned because I am now enrolled in the 18-month UBC course for my notary public certification, so I am juggling a few balls. But immigration is still my passion.

As a third-generation Canadian, I feel that our country is built on immigration. Many of the changes I have seen in immigration and citizenship in the past 10 to 15 years are not changes that I necessarily feel are in the best interests of Canadians and of the economy of Canada.

Prior to starting my own business in 1994, I was a full-time citizenship court judge here in Vancouver. I swore in approximately 30,000 Canadians in the five years that I had the honour of being with the citizenship court. I travelled throughout British Columbia on circuit about one week a month. I did not go into the Yukon, which is unfortunate, but I did cover a lot of British Columbia as a citizenship court judge.

I feel that where I speak from is as a result of about 15 years of working. I hate to use the overused term of ground zero, but I have for 15 years been working with that client, that person, that all of these laws eventually affect, and in the various stages from the moment they decide to emigrate to Canada through to becoming Canadian citizens.

This will be the third time I have been before a standing committee on citizenship to address the proposed new Citizenship Act, which has not yet gone through, as you mentioned, Chairman Fontana. There are two points I would like to talk about today, and the first one I will touch on briefly. It is the fact of eliminating the citizenship court judge role and changing it to a not even necessary position, as far as I'm concerned. If you go ahead with the act and you remove the citizenship court judge, you may as well remove that commissionaire as well, because it's simply one more step of downsizing that Immigration is doing with citizenship.

In the ten years since I have left the court, the citizenship court has changed drastically through regulation. At one point when I was a citizenship court judge we interviewed every applicant. We did 25 to 30 hearings a day. Prior to that an officer interviewed those people hands on. Now it is all sent in the mail. It's being done on a huge amount of trust. Passports are not even asked for.

Lying has been flagrant in getting citizenship. It's very easy to lie to get your citizenship now if your passport is not stamped, and, as you know, we do not stamp coming into Canada, and many countries don't stamp.

On the other hand, in those countries that do stamp their passports--I will be specific; Taiwan and Hong Kong both have records of movement--those people are discriminated against because they don't have the opportunity to lie about their residency. I'll come back to that in a minute.

But back to the actual citizenship. Now that there are very few hands-on people the applicant meets, there has been more opportunity in the past years to lie to get your citizenship. And of course, the idea of the citizenship judge, as I mention in my brief, brings with it the whole court aspect. If you do away with the quasi-judicial role of the judge, you do away with the court. The RCMP officer is there to protect the judge. You don't have a court. You don't have a judge. You have no RCMP officer. You may as well just start stamping people's passports with a citizenship stamp. Let them go through a criminal check. Let them pass a knowledge test and that's it.

So you can basically eliminate the citizenship department with this new act if it goes through in this form.

Of course, the whole citizenship court judge position does bring to it a certain level of dignity and seriousness for the new citizen that it is now losing.

I was just last week in Victoria to attend a citizenship swearing-in for friends who have retired from England. I was rather saddened to see that even though the Order of Canada wore robes--which I thought was sort of silly--he was not referred to as the judge, because he is not a judge; he is an Order of Canada. But he's wearing the robes. It made no sense to me, and it did lose a lot of the protocol.

The second point I'd like to talk about, which is where I went off on a tangent about people travelling, is the residency requirement. We are now into a very international world where international business people, men and women, travel the world. The current citizenship act is not in step with that, and this new one certainly is even more out of step with it.

What we are seeing is that families are coming to Canada and establishing themselves. The children are here in school. Generally, one of the spouses will stay with the family, while the other spouse, who has to earn an income, continues to travel. The families go ahead and get their citizenship after three years because they have fulfilled the requirements of the residency. This leaves the poor spouse who's been travelling the world making money to keep the family here with no status. He or she remains a permanent resident now, with a permanent resident card. It's going to be very interesting to see if they will actually remain a permanent resident. Under the Charter of Rights they have no rights. Their family can vote. Their family can travel with a Canadian passport. They cannot. So the current act and the proposed act, in many cases, discriminate against a spouse in the family.

The residency requirement with the permanent resident act is two out of five. The new citizenship act is three out of six. You can imagine my clients. We're all going absolutely mad trying to figure out, first of all, if we must have a residency requirement, which we must have in some form, why it wouldn't be the two out of five. Why is it different from three out of six?

I would go even further, though, to suggest that permanent residents who can prove to a citizenship court that they have established and maintained a home in Canada by providing school records for their child, a bank account, ownership or rental of a home, and all the other criteria should not be denied being able to become Canadian citizens. Once again, they are the wage earner. It's their money that paid the taxes, but they can't go and vote.

There is no logic to it and it is very discriminatory. I would really like to see this committee do something about that, because the end result is that many hundreds of thousands of those people are saying to me and to my colleagues in the industry across Canada and around the world that if they are stripped of their status, if they're not given a new PR card and not able to become citizens, they will choose another country. They'll either go back to their country of origin or...a lot of people are looking at New Zealand or Australia. And I know the committee is very aware of that.

So I would really love to see Canadian laws in place that do not encourage people to lie to gain status and laws that accommodate and are up to date with the 21st century, and that our international travel would continue. You know, 99.9% of the people wishing to become Canadian citizens would make wonderful citizens of the world. As a third-generation Canadian, I don't care if my Korean neighbour is sitting in his house all day long. I just want to know he's a good neighbour, he's going to vote at election time, and he's paying his taxes and obeying the law. Whether he sits there 365 days of the year is not a concern of mine, and I'm sure it's not a concern of most Canadians either in terms of residency.

So I would like the committee to really seriously take a look at the residency requirement of the act, and also at not removing the citizenship court judge.

Thank you.

¾ (0845)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Kate, for both of those points. I'm sure we'll have some questions for you, especially based on your experience as a former judge. We haven't had too many judges step forward, but we are engaging them so we can find out on the ground exactly the purpose and the role of the judge, how they work, and so on.

I know my colleagues attend many citizenship court functions, which is probably one of the highlights of our job. I can still remember mine back in 1963, when I went to get my citizenship card from a judge. It is still etched in my mind as a great event, which I have treasured for a long time.

Welcome, Lillian To from SUCCESS.

Ms. Lilian To (Chief Executive Officer, SUCCESS): Hi. Thank you.

I would like to ask the vice-chair of our board to start.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Please go ahead, Ken.

Mr. Kenneth Tung (Vice-Chairman, SUCCESS): Thank you.

Honourable members, good morning. My name is Kenneth Tung, board member of SUCCESS, and Lillian To is chief executive officer.

On behalf of SUCCESS, I would like to thank the parliamentary standing committee for this opportunity to present our views on the proposed Citizenship of Canada Act.

SUCCESS is an acronym for United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society. It's a non-profit social service agency, incorporated in 1973, whose only objective is to build bridges between newcomers and Canadian society. We wish to help Canadians and immigrants overcome language and cultural barriers and to become participating and contributing members of the community.

Since our inauguration 30 years ago, SUCCESS has become a community-based multi-service organization. We deliver a range of services and programs, from settlement services, employment and language training, and health programs, to group and community development, and services for women, seniors, families, and youths.

With a budget of $9.7 million in 2002, we have served over 420,000 clients through 12 offices in the lower mainland, with 8,600 volunteers and 350 staff. In addition to being the largest B.C. agency serving Canadians of Chinese descent, SUCCESS has served an increasing number of multicultural clientele and offers services in over a dozen languages.

In 1994, SUCCESS was granted the Citation of Citizenship Award from the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in recognition of the organization's outstanding achievements, exemplifying Canadian values and the principles of Canadian citizenship and contributing greatly to the richness and strength of this country.

It is with this wealth of experience in serving the needs of new immigrants that we respond to the proposed changes to citizenship and immigration policy.

In overview, I would like to present to the committee the fact that we are indeed encouraged by the government's determination to reform and improve Canadian citizenship legislation and policies. However, we wish to submit concerns regarding provisions for obtaining citizenship and loss of citizenship in four major areas: one, residency requirements in clause 7; two, power to refuse and prohibitions for granting of citizenship in clauses 21 and 22; three, revocation of citizenship in clause 17; and four, ministry's authority to annul citizenship in clause 18.

On the first one, residency requirements in clause 7, the proposal for a permanent resident to have accumulated at least three years of physical presence in Canada for a total of three out of six years, without any discretion or flexibility, is impractical and unfair. In a global environment where mobility and travel are becoming more important to business people and students, the ability to travel is becoming a necessity in order to function competitively in the world market. This proposal, in effect, would penalize business immigrants, immigrants who are employed overseas, and students studying abroad. The proposed changes would limit and restrict employment, business, and educational opportunities for the qualified and talented immigrants.

Our recommendation is that clause 7 of the proposed act be amended to provide for discretionary recognition of residency for employees and spouses of Canadian companies abroad. We also recommend that the minister be authorized to exempt citizenship applicants, such as students and business immigrants in compelling cases, from compliance with strict residency requirements.

On the second point, I would like to ask Lillian to continue.

¾ (0850)

Ms. Lilian To: On our second point, about power to refuse and prohibitions for granting of citizenship, as outlined in clauses 21 and 22 of Bill C-18, the government will have the power to refuse citizenship on the basis that:

a person has demonstrated a flagrant and serious disregard for the principles and values underlying a free and democratic society.

While the government has the right to refuse citizenship if granting citizenship would threaten the security of the country, the inconsistencies and possible abuse that may arise from this undefined and broad power is troublesome. With a lack of definition of the “principles and values” stated in clause 21, the decisions based on this section of the act would be inconsistent. In addition, with a lack of due process and right of appeal, this section is unfair and would be subject to abuse, given the state of uncertainty the world is now in.

While the applicant has 30 days to submit “written representations to the Minister” to appeal the decision, this still does not allow for procedural fairness, as the decision is made final by the minister and without an appeal process.

Our recommendation is to amend clauses 21 and 22 to include an expanded list of prohibitions against granting of citizenship, instead of providing such a broad and undefined power to cabinet, as well as to amend the section so that a person who has been denied citizenship will have access to due process and will be treated fairly under the law.

The third point is about revocation of citizenship under clause 17. Clause 17, which is a new provision of the bill, introduces the use of secret evidence to determine misrepresentation and inadmissibility in revocation proceedings. There is also no role for a review committee to investigate the sources of evidence. The court decision is final, not appealable, and not subject to judicial review.

We support the Canadian Bar Association's position that citizens are entitled to a transparent and fair hearing for a revocation of citizenship, as well as to know the case against them.

We support the CBA's recommendation that the review committee be given the mandate to investigate evidence of inadmissibility against citizens.

We also recommend that citizens alleged to be inadmissible be granted entitlement to appeal with leave by the Federal Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Another point is about the minister's authority to annul citizenship in clause 18, the new provision in the bill whereby the minister or a delegated officer may order the citizenship to be annulled without an independent hearing or judicial determination if the minister or officer believes it was acquired by false representation or under prohibited grounds. The minister may exercise this annulment within five years of the granting of citizenship.

The minister or a delegated officer's new power to annul citizenship may be abused and it may be deployed without regard to the principles of justice and procedural fairness. Individuals wrongly accused of acquiring citizenship through illegitimate means may be caught by this particular provision because of political reasons. They will have no opportunity to prove their innocence or confront their accuser.

So our recommendation is that clause 18 be amended to provide for an independent hearing and procedural fairness. Persons whose citizenship has been annulled should be entitled to the right of appeal and judicial review by the Federal Court.

Ken will provide the conclusion.

¾ (0855)

Mr. Kenneth Tung: Thank you, Lillian.

In conclusion, the community generally perceives some improvements in Bill C-18, but there are real concerns over the issues we raised. We hope the committee will carefully consider our observations and help modify the draft legislation.

We sincerely believe that good citizenship legislation is vital to the interest of Canada.

This concludes our opening remarks, and we shall be pleased to answer questions from the committee.

Thank you.

The Chair: Well, thank you very much, Ken and Lillian. That's a pretty impressive track record your group has, especially in helping new Canadians as you have. Congratulations on some very good recommendations. I'm sure we'll have some questions for you also.

Next is Victor Wong, representing the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians.

Mr. Victor Wong (Executive Director, Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians): Thank you, Mr. Fontana and honourable members. Welcome to Vancouver.

My name is Victor Wong. I am the executive director of the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians. We're an anti-racism and human rights organization, a member chapter of the Chinese Canadian National Council. We're also a member of the National Anti-Racism Council of Canada.

Our mission is to advocate for racial equality and the full participation of everyone in all aspects of Canadian society. I just want to begin by acknowledging the Coast Salish peoples and the aboriginal claim to the land on which we are meeting today.

We would like to urge all parliamentarians, all of you and all of your colleagues in Ottawa, to take a strong stand against the U.S. and U.K. lurch toward war against Iraq. Just this past weekend some 30,000 Vancouverites were on the streets, and we would urge you to take a strong stand.

We were formed in 1992. We have made numerous submissions on immigration and refugee issues. In 2000, we actually went to the Senate to oppose Bill C-16, the precursor to this current proposed bill. The Senate took their time looking at that bill, and fortunately, in our view, an election was called and the bill died on the Order Paper. So we're back at the start again.

There are some minor improvements in this bill, but there are still a lot of problems. A lot of other groups you've heard from have pointed out these problems, and we concur with a lot of their observations.

Now, with regard to Canadian values, Canada likes to project this image of being a very accepting, respectful society with humanitarian and compassionate values. Quite frankly, in my view this is a false image.

Too many people are suffering because of some of the policies and practices of this government. We continue to detain asylum seekers when they arrive at the airport, with over 400 people in detention right now. We also have started to direct back to the U.S. people who come to our border in Quebec, so they end up in detention in the U.S. There are stories every day about racial profiling of African Canadians, Muslims, and other visible minority groups.

Two weeks from now I'll be in Ottawa as part of a consultation on policing in a multicultural society. This is being held by the federal government, because there is obviously a problem here.

Canada has failed to recognize and apologize for its racist past. Parliament enacted the Chinese head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act and didn't recognize Chinese Canadians' rights to citizenship until 1947, and other groups were singled out as well.

Today, you propose a new citizenship act that again unnecessarily divides residents into categories of those who are deserving and those who are undeserving of Canadian citizenship.

I think you need to go back and take a more holistic approach, and also offer an effective mechanism for people to regularize their citizenship status.

Unfortunately, what you have is a very unresponsive administrative approach to citizenship. There are tens of thousands of people living in Canada who are either under the impression they are citizens and they are not, or who do not wish to take out citizenship for various reasons, or who are unable to do so because they don't have legal status in Canada.

So the question comes back to what citizenship means. We need some kind of statement of values. I'll just give you one very quick example. In 2001 we assisted a young man who was bedridden with cancer and whose last wish was to become a Canadian citizen. He'd been a long-term permanent resident of Canada and had tried for over a year to get his citizenship. With the help of MP Ted White, a citizenship court judge came to his bedside and swore him in as a citizen. His father told me this was his final wish before passing away. He passed away the following week, but he died knowing he was a Canadian citizen and was accepted in this society. He wanted so much to be part of the Canadian family, and we were luckily able to deliver on this.

So what does citizenship bring? Well, it brings more than connectedness; it brings dignity and acceptance to the individual and their family. It's a foundation of the society you want to build. Without citizenship, you don't have society and you don't have a country.

So then why are so many people unable to access citizenship in this country? I just want to review a few of our concerns. They have to do with our residency requirements. For example, refugee claimants would be further disadvantaged under this new bill, because they are here for a period of time before they get their permanent residency status. Right? So under the new bill you're proposing counting half a day for every day the person has resided in Canada as a protected person, up to a maximum of 365 days, until they become a landed immigrant. So it's different from the existing situation, where the days count from the time they entered this country.

What's the point of introducing this? You just make the person wait even longer before they're eligible for citizenship. So we recommend that you amend subparagraph 7(1)(a)(ii) by dropping the last part of the line, “as a protected person or a temporary resident under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act”.

With regard to subparagraph 7(1)(b), we recommend that you maintain the current wording, “accumulated at least three years of residence in Canada”, and we also support your increase of the relevant time period from four to six years.

With regard to automatic loss of citizenship, I recommend that you delete this section entirely. On revocation and annulment, I again recommend that you delete clauses 17 and 18. I recommend that you delete clauses 21 and 22 as well. Clause 28 contains a long list of prohibitions against granting of citizenship, and I think we need a lengthier discussion on why this list needs to be there and also some kind of process.

Finally, I want to talk a bit about regularization of citizenship because under clause 58 in the bill you are proposing to allow people who are born outside this country, who for various reasons are not Canadian citizens, to get Canadian citizenship--people who were born between 1947 and 1977 to foreign-born Canadian parents.

So the basis of your citizenship is that you're either a citizen by birth or by choice. By birth, you're born in Canada or you're born to Canadian parents. By choice, it is based on residency, based on your connectedness to this country. But there is a bunch of people here, and some of them are sitting behind me in the audience, who've been here for a long period of time. They would meet the residency requirements, but they don't have legal status in this country. There are 50,000 to 100,000 people in that situation in this country. They would meet the residency requirement, but they don't have legal status in this country.

¿ (0905)

The Chair: I don't understand what you mean when you say they don't have legal status. How are they here?

Mr. Victor Wong: Well, they are refused refugee claimants, primarily.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Victor Wong: So you have people here who would otherwise qualify. They don't have the legal status. So what I'm proposing is that as you're reviewing this you look at a holistic approach and try to bring as many people under the tent as you can, as you bring in a new bill. In clause 58 you are trying to let some more people in. Try to let as many people in as you can. In fact, this helps your security agenda; you have fewer people to be concerned about because they have in fact regularized their status and you know who they are.

In conclusion, I want to ask honourable members to strike a balance between this current security and enforcement climate and the fact that we want so much for everyone here to succeed. We should try to find a place for everyone who's living here in our society.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Victor, for your presentation. We're determined as a committee, one, not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Second, I'll be darned if this committee is going to pass a bill that serves the purposes of the administration as opposed to the values of this country.

Administrative legislation sometimes is to serve nothing but the bureaucrats. Well, I'll be darned if we're going to do that, because there's a lot more to passing bills than serving the purposes of administration as opposed to values.

All the presentations were great, and I'm sure we all have some questions. I'm going to go to our local members of Parliament first, obviously, to ask some questions, Sophia and Libby. And I've got you, Louis, a visiting member. We all have questions and we've got some time. Let's keep the questions short. Andrew's not here so we won't get any speeches. That's good. He'll be back.

Sophia.

Ms. Sophia Leung (Vancouver Kingsway, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm very pleased to see so many presenters here with their very thoughtful presentations. As a local MP, I really know how much you work so hard for our community and your involvement. It shows in your concern to be here.

I have a few general questions.

Many of you expressed some concern about the sections in regard to revocation of citizenship, clauses 16 to 22. I'd really like to hear more precisely specific recommendations on your many concerns. Even in Parliament we have expressed our concerns. I would like to hear some of your recommendations, and I will go around.

I also appreciate Kate's comment on the citizenship judge, your concern about the quality. I follow this a little bit because I'm involved in some of the process, and I have to say, there's a great deal of change. Here, the same, I'd like to hear something more specific.

I appreciate, Ms. Rosen, that you expressed that we really need an open dialogue policy. I cannot agree with you more. I think Vancouver actually is pretty open and free. We're safer, we think. That's why I'm proud to be here and to be part of it.

Also, I think, Mr. Hyman, you touched on something very interesting about discrimination between men and women regarding the children, offspring, in clause 4.

There are so many, as you can see.

Also, Victor pointed out some concern about non-residents not being able to become citizens.

Mr. Chair, I would like to start with Lillian and pose the first question about revocation.

¿ (0910)

The Chair: I know in your briefs you've given us some pretty concise language as to what you want done with clause 17, which is about revocation. Maybe we can quickly go through your preferred recommendation with regard to the revocation provisions, starting with Kate.

Anything...?

Ms. Kate Manvell: I'm not going to address that.

The Chair: Okay. Ken or Lillian?

I'll get to you on the judges--in fact, from all of you, I want your opinion on the judges.

Mr. Kenneth Tung: I'll do part of it and Lillian can supplement it.

I think our paper has been distributed to everyone--

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Kenneth Tung: --but regarding the first one, residency requirement--

The Chair: No, she asked about revocation.

Mr. Kenneth Tung: Okay, you go ahead.

Ms. Lilian To: I think we stated in our paper that we actually support the Canadian Bar Association's position, the recommendation that the review committee be given the mandate to investigate evidence of inadmissibility against citizens, and also that citizens alleged inadmissible be granted entitlement to appeal, with leave by the Federal Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada. We basically support what the Canadian Bar Association is recommending.

The Chair: Okay. Rachel?

Ms. Rachel Rosen: Our concern had to do with due process and the secrecy of evidence. We suggest that if you're maintaining this section, you address those issues.

The Chair: Okay. Victor?

Mr. Victor Wong: Our comments would be similar to what Rachel said, but our recommendation is to delete clauses 17 and 18.

The Chair: The preference is to delete, but if we can't delete, then it's to build due process into the system, right?

Mr. Victor Wong: Yes.

The Chair: Samuel, do you have any comments on that one?

Mr. Samuel Hyman: No.

The Chair: Okay. I would like to hear your comments with regard to judges, your experience with the quality of judges or the value of having a judge as opposed to an administrative bureaucrat issuing citizenship.

I know, Kate, you started it. Perhaps you can reiterate what your experience has been.

Ms. Kate Manvell: I do not want to see the citizenship court judges removed from the process. I think it is very important that the committee maintain that, for many reasons, because as you say, yes, it's the bureaucracy and the paper processing.

Ms. Sophia Leung: I know right now the government is trying to encourage the recipients of the Order of Canada to take part. Do you have any comments on that?

Ms. Kate Manvell: They're not doing that full time, so at the ceremonies I've attended there isn't the same compassion as there is when it's a citizenship court judge.

Again, the Order of Canada person should not be wearing robes with the pink on them if they're not a judge; they should be in day clothes, and again, that takes totally away from the court. You no longer have the judge, so you no longer have a podium and the RCMP and the other aspects that go along with the court.

The Chair: If I can just add a little additional dimension, the fact is, this person, other than wearing the robe and swearing people in, has a quasi-judicial thing.

What we understand is that the administration gets a little ticked off about some of the decisions judges make with regard to the granting of citizenship based on the interview, based on residency, and so on and so forth. There is a discretionary power given to those judges that in fact would be taken away by virtue of putting it in the hands of the administration.

I just want to know about your experience and those of our guests.

¿ (0915)

Ms. Kate Manvell: It in fact has already been taken away because the granter now is playing a huge role. When I was a judge, the granter was there, just as the Senate is, for cold, sober thought--the watchdog, as it were. But in the last few years the granter in Ottawa now reviews all the judges' decisions when they are positive in regard to residency. Nine out of ten times they will appeal a judge's decision, so the judges really have been stripped of a lot of their powers in the last four to five years.

The Chair: Ken and Lillian, what are your experiences with citizenship court judges, and should we retain them?

Ms. Lilian To: We consider citizenship a very serious position for Canadians. I also think we should be serious about the court proceedings in terms of the appointment of judges. I'd agree with Kate that it should be a full-time commitment and that it has to be an independent body that provides the judging process.

The Chair: Victor?

Mr. Victor Wong: I gave you an example where a Citizenship Court judge went to the bedside of a person, and that kind of flexibility is what we want to see. I don't know whether replacing them with an administrative process would give that same kind of flexibility. I think a judge would be a little bit more independent in making those types of decisions.

The Chair: Now, Sophia, you had one additional question, and that was with regard to women and discriminatory aspects in this bill.

If you could address that, Sam, I would appreciate it.

Mr. Samuel Hyman: I just wanted to pick up on this one last remark, although it's not an area I specifically addressed. There is a very different standard applied to quasi-judicial decisions on review by a Federal Court judge than to those that are routinely done in the case of, say, bureaucrats who essentially issue licences. And if the process of issuance of a citizenship certificate tends more towards the administrative practice of issuing a licence, the standard of judicial review is going to be much lower in terms of a threshold of procedural fairness that's going to be allowed. I think you should be aware of that.

The Chair: Could you comment on the question of discrimination against women, please? Just explain it a little further for Sophia.

Ms. Sophia Leung: It's about the section on discrimination.

Mr. Samuel Hyman: Well, I know that this tribunal is particularly aware of the case of Ms. Castro-Gyr, who gave testimony before you in Ottawa some weeks ago, I understand. That case is certainly a paradigm example of the situation of children who were born prior to February 15, 1977, and both of whose parents were Canadian citizens at the time of their birth. In Ms. Castro-Gyr's case, her mother was born in Canada and was a third-generation Québécoise, a third-generation Quebecker. Her father immigrated to Canada in the early 1950s and naturalized as a Canadian the year before she was born.

Now, France has a very overreaching nationality law, and unlike with the Canadian nationality law, which requires a very specific act of renunciation, it's very difficult to renounce your French nationality. This can exist in other foreign countries' nationality laws as well.

In her specific case, what happened was that she emigrated to the United States with her parents because her father worked for, as I understand it, a multinational corporation. Prior to 1977, while Ms. Castro-Gyr was still a minor, her mother had acted in the belief, in speaking with Canadian consular officials, that she would retain her Canadian citizenship for herself and her children and that it was okay if the father decided to naturalize.

Ms. Castro-Gyr's father decided to naturalize as an American, and as a child Ms. Castro-Gyr did nothing herself to acquire French nationality; she just happened to be born in wedlock to a French national father who was also a Canadian citizen. Just because her dad decided to take out U.S. citizenship, she, who by operation of French law was a French national even though she had been born in Canada and had done nothing to be attributed French nationality at that point, lost her Canadian citizenship as a Canadian child.

There are, as I understand it from the registrar's office, thousands of these cases. This is just completely contrary to the principle that in order to lose your citizenship you should first of all not be under a legal disability. It is contrary to the notion that an act of renunciation should be made voluntarily and intentionally.

Here these children did nothing to lose their Canadian citizenship, and in fact many of them continue to have passports issued to them by Canadian offices abroad. It has only emerged relatively recently, when some of these predominantly baby boomers started bearing children outside Canada and said, gee, I'm a Canadian, and I'm going to go and make sure I get a certificate for my child through a Canadian embassy or a consular office abroad. But when they go to apply, they find out, lo and behold, that there was this automatic loss provision nobody told them about.

In some cases these Canadian children did become aware they had lost their citizenship, and these are the people whose parents took out citizenship for them in another country. There are some cases where--and this is a separate issue--these Canadian children went to Canadian citizenship offices in Canada and were told, “There's nothing we can do”--even when they were 21. Under the old act you could apply to have your citizenship restored on application.

¿ (0920)

The Chair: Libby.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I'd like to thank all the witnesses. You made excellent presentations, and I think you've all really touched on some of the core concerns we're hearing about this proposed bill right across the country.

I was very glad to hear the chair say that the committee is not going to be beholden to anyone who wants an administrative take on this bill. That's certainly one concern, that this is so mired in technocratic and administrative processes it will defeat the very values of what citizenship is about. The other huge concern is that a lot of this bill is coming forward under the cover of the security issue, which is really undermining, again, some of the values I think Canadians hold.

The questions I have--through the chair--are these. First, I was very interested in the presentation from Grassroots Women. I wonder if you think it would be important--because you do represent women who are often very marginalized, so they sort of end up being double losers under this kind of bill--to have some sort of gender analysis on the bill. How would it actually impact women, in particular women who are coming from other situations that may have presented enormous difficulties? I don't see that in the bill right now, so that would be one question, and others of you may want to comment on that.

Second, all of you touched on this question of the need to have due and fair process, saying that this whole lack of transparency with secret hearings, arbitrary decisions by political representatives, and so on is just not on. If we move in that direction, I just wanted to know, do you see that in that way we should be relying more on the Federal Court in terms of appeals and so on, or should there be other steps in terms of hearings or tribunals that are open and transparent and where evidence is provided? A number of you talked about appeals to the Federal Court and so on, but prior to that, do you want to put forward other things we could suggest that would improve the bill by creating the transparency, creating the requirement for evidence so people are able to defend their position?

I totally agree with you on citizenship judges. I've been to many hearings, and I don't see the value in removing that and just making it an administrative, paper exercise. I won't ask a question about it, but I just wanted to tell you I agree with that.

¿ (0925)

The Chair: Libby, as you would know, this committee firmly believes in gender-based analysis, and we in fact made sure that our new immigration bill and act was put through the prism of a gender-based analysis.

We agree. There is no such thing here, so the question is a good one to Rachel and everybody else.

Ms. Libby Davies: And how should that be done? How would you look at that?

Ms. Rachel Rosen: Well, definitely, there's a gender impact of the bill. I think one of the things we brought out in the brief is that women who have been politically active in the struggle for human rights and social justice in their country of origin may be discriminated against by this bill. Women often form a big part of any movement for social justice or are often leading those movements, so we see that this could really impact on women's right to citizenship here in Canada.

We definitely believe it should be put through a gender-based analysis, and further to that, we really believe it should come from community organizations who are directly working with women.

This is a really important way to involve community organizations and to hear from the women themselves as to how they will be impacted. Often we're studied, as opposed to actually being able to bring forward our own experiences and positions. We think that should come from a community perspective.

The Chair: Are there any further comments by anybody else on the gender-based analysis issue?

If not, then we'll go to the due process--Federal Court--to what other mechanisms you might suggest we use to ensure there is due process in all of the denial, revocation, and annulment provisions.

Victor.

Mr. Victor Wong: We know in the immigration process you have the Immigration Appeal Board for decisions that are negative. You could look at some kind of a tribunal like that. Again we're suggesting you delete some of these clauses and not bring in more processes. But if you have to have a process, the more transparent it is, the more rights the person has in finding out what is the evidence against them, is best.

The Chair: Rachel.

Ms. Rachel Rosen: Again, for us as well, we're recommending deleting these sections. We think it's creating a situation of us and them, where Canadian-born citizens of Canada have different rights than Canadian citizens who are born in other countries. We believe that's unjust and against Canadian principles, so we would also recommend deleting the sections.

The Chair: Okay.

Lilian.

Ms. Lilian To: We believe in due process being carried out. As to whether there's a tribunal, we recognize how difficult it is in the Federal Court--indeed, there's a long line-up and all of that--so maybe some kind of immigration appeal board process or some kind of tribunal process, looking for a fair hearing and due process....

The Chair: Okay.

Kate.

Ms. Kate Manvell: First of all, I would say the Federal Court cannot even handle what it has already, so to enact another act that would only put more burdens on them to me is extremely foolish. We are talking about citizenship, for God's sake. We are not talking about criminals.

Again, the process should be to put in place an act that welcomes people to Canada, instills in them their rights and their responsibilities, and makes them proud to be a Canadian.

We talk in my field about the percentage of people who are criminals that are in this country. First of all, I would say to the committee, which you probably already know, the majority of criminals have already entered Canada on a false Canadian passport they picked up in Malaysia for $10,000.

You're looking at an act, as Libby Davies said, that's just like the elephant stomping on the poor little fly.

Why is this act so enforcement-minded under the pretence of security when 99.9% of the people who will use this act, who will go through this process, have nothing to do with criminal activity or anything of the sort? Again, the whole administration is way into administration and into security and into enforcement. How much does it have left to do with citizenship?

¿ (0930)

The Chair: But how do you achieve due process? Are you suggesting we just get rid of the sections and don't--

Ms. Kate Manvell: Yes, and you retain the citizenship court and the judges and the clerks. You don't turn it into paper processing. This act will turn it into paper processing.

The Chair: The process would be the court system--

Ms. Kate Manvell: Exactly.

The Chair: --within the judge's stuff. Okay.

Sam.

Mr. Samuel Hyman: Just to be clear, I don't know whether the committee is fully aware of the distinction between judicial review and the full right of appeal. There's a very big difference. With judicial review, the standard is not one of correctness and it's not a full appeal. Judicial review is merely a review by a superior court of an inferior tribunal's decision, and the test on that is just one of reasonableness--whether it was open to the tribunal or decision-maker to reach the decision he or she did based on the evidence that was before that decision-maker, even if there could have been a different conclusion on that evidence.

When you talk about full rights of appeal versus judicial review, you should be mindful of that distinction.

The Chair: Believe me, I think this committee is well versed in that legalese stuff, having gone through IRPA on the same sorts of principles. Good.

Lynne.

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

I really enjoyed your presentations, and if we're hearing one thing loud and clear, it is to delete the clauses you have talked about today.

I found your presentation, Kate, very interesting. I wish more judges would have come forward and spoken, because people don't understand what we're losing when we lose our citizenship judges, I'm certain.

I have one question, and then I just want to make a point of notification to Samuel. The question is on residency. What about tying it to the income tax--Revenue Canada? I would like all of your comments on that, because I have to agree, it is difficult to tie 1,095 days out of six years to residency and to attachment.

I was wondering, Samuel, if you were aware of John Reynolds' Bill C-343. The first reading was December 12. It said:

This enactment is designed to remedy the situation where a person has, as a child, been deprived of their Canadian citizenship as a result of the operation of section 18 of the Canadian Citizenship Act, chapter 15 of the Statutes of Canada, 1946. That provision, which was in force until February 14, 1977, provided that a minor child ceased to be a Canadian citizen upon their responsible parent becoming the citizen of another country. This enactment makes it easier for such a person to regain their Canadian citizenship as they will no longer have to be established as a permanent resident in order to do so.

Therefore, he made an act to amend the Citizenship Act, section 11, and section 18. I wondered if you--

The Chair: Lynne, he referred to it. He just said it didn't go quite far enough.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: Oh, it didn't go.... I'm sorry. I didn't....

Mr. Samuel Hyman: In the summary and in the body of the language of the provision you should probably make reference to subsection 20(1), because the children lose by subsection 20(1). The loss provisions that deal with adults are dealt with in sections 15, 16, 17, and 18 of the 1946 act. So it doesn't quite go that far.

I would say to avoid any further argument from the registrar and the minister as to whether there's a gap created because.... It depends. If you look at this as a matter of ongoing status for these children--that's a very loaded constitutional issue, I would add, if you read Benner--versus a distinct event that creates the situation, there should be a provision in there that specifically provides that on application for a certificate of citizenship the registrar or minister shall issue a certificate of citizenship to the applicant.

The Chair: Well, who knows, Lynne might do better than John Reynolds and draft that particular amendment for us in this bill. That would be great.

On the question of physical residence--because that's the term we've been hearing, “physical residence”--we've had a lot of discussion as to how you show attachment to one country. Does it have to be actually physical presence as opposed to paying your taxes, having your children here, owning property, and so on and so forth?

I know some of you have addressed this residency question again. How can one show attachment to one's country without this term “physically present” in a way that might alleviate some of your concerns?

Victor.

¿ (0935)

Mr. Victor Wong: I think we have to try to be more flexible about this concept of residency. To strictly demand physical residency would require all sorts of enforcement, all sorts of review, and all sorts of documentation. If you go to a more flexible approach, looking at, for example, the income tax process...what is residency, right? If you are a resident, then you must pay taxes. If you are filing your tax return, even though you may be working for a period of time overseas in Saudi Arabia or in China, you are still a resident of this country.

The Chair: Lilian, I know you addressed it.

Ms. Lilian To: I think, again, you can send in the papers with many immigrant families who are residents because they have to work. Actually, the immigration legislation does provide for employees who are working for Canadian companies abroad and their spouses to deem their residency even though they may not be physically present. That's not put in; that is not included in the new citizenship bill. It's in the immigration one but not in this bill.

Then of course there are many people who have legitimate businesses and who have to be away overseas constantly, so they are not able to accumulate three years of physical presence, physical residency. We're discounting these people, and then of course there are students as well.

I think we are recognizing the global climate as it is now. I do not think it is fair to deny these people citizenship.

The Chair: Kate, you addressed it too.

Ms. Kate Manvell: Again, just from the documentation, it's very easy to prove if someone has maintained a home and a presence here, very easy to prove it from what we have said about income tax.

I just have to add something for Member Davies.

In regard to the PR card, the act states that if you are the spouse of a Canadian employee, this astronaut working in Hong Kong or Taiwan is not qualified under the PR provisions. It is only if he is a spouse, only if he or she is married to a Canadian citizen. In the million and a quarter cases that are looming out there, to be qualified for the PR card those people are...it's reversed. A lot of people have not yet understood this act properly, and it really hasn't been reported properly in many of the ethnic newspapers and media. There are a million and a half permanent residents who have not gained citizenship by the calculations of immigration, who do not meet the PR card criteria.

The Chair: Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

We are going to go to Andrew. Questions?

Mr. Andrew Telegdi (Kitchener—Waterloo, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Your testimony--thank you very much--reflects much of what we heard in Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, and Victoria.

Canadians are quite aware of the history of the discrimination that has happened in this country. I think in large part that is why on the 17th of April, 1982, we enacted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to acknowledge past injustices, to say what's wrong, and to say we are not going to go there again. Pierre Trudeau must be smiling down on these hearings because he sees people who have been disenfranchised coming back and fighting for his legacy, which is the charter.

In terms of citizenship rights, there is a very simple question in all this: do Canadians believe that citizenship rights should be included in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? If the answer is yes, then we already have a process in place if we are going to go so far as to revoke citizenship, and the process is the best decision-making process we have in the land.

That is the same process we afforded to Clifford Olson and the same process we afforded to Paul Bernardo. Why is it that a citizen doesn't have that same process? That means beyond a reasonable doubt, not a mere balance of probabilities, which can be 49% or 51%.

So the question is very simple. Do Canadians believe...number one, do we want to revoke citizenship? We don't deal with very many cases; we deal with very few. I've been watching this thing and I've been watching the cases we've dealt with. It's not prosecution; it's persecution. But number one, do you believe that the Charter of Rights should apply to something as important as Canadian citizenship?

As we heard from the last Canadians today, it's not just we Canadians by choice who are at risk. Seeing what happened to them, everybody's at risk. It's a simple question, and I think it's in section 7 of the charter. It talks about security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. Why are we creating a piece of legislation or continuing a piece of legislation that was done in the dark days of our immigration history, and why don't we apply the charter, which should be applied to all pieces of all federal legislation?

That's the question. Do you believe the...

¿ (0940)

The Chair: Through the chair, Samuel.

Mr. Samuel Hyman: Basically, with respect to the application of the charter, the Supreme Court of Canada has made it very clear in Benner that you cannot have a retrospective or retroactive application of the charter. Now, for many of these individuals, and Ms. Castro-Gyr is one of them, the loss of their citizenship didn't come to their attention and was not decided upon by the registrar until well after the charter came into force in April 1985.

But if she had engaged the process earlier, prior to the coming into force of section 15 of the charter, for example, the equality provisions, the law is very clear. For those Canadians who engaged their rights prior to the coming into force of the charter, they unfortunately are caught by what the court would call a retroactive or retrospective application, and the court won't go there. For those who have not engaged their rights until recently, or even become aware of the problem until recently, that is very much a live issue before the courts.

The Chair: It ought to be subject to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That's what you're saying. Forget about the past for now, but at least from here on in, this piece of legislation--

Mr. Samuel Hyman: Absolutely, and to the extent that there is something discriminatory in effect carried forward, that too should be corrected.

The Chair: Rachel?

Ms. Rachel Rosen: ...[Inaudible—Editor] ...of security or anti-terrorism, we believe the Citizenship Act should be about our rights and freedoms.

The Chair: Victor?

Mr. Victor Wong: Yes, it should be part of the Charter of Rights.

The Chair: And if there was just an addendum or supplement--just because John Bryden isn't here--if the oath also mentioned respect for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, nobody would have an objection to that either, I don't think.

Louis.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I prefer to speak in French, because if I spoke English you would still need interpretation.

What I would like to say is that what I've heard so far from all witnesses is what I've heard from every other witness before the committee, and I would like to thank you for this effort, for your testimony and for your arguments, which are very much relevant.

Further to what Mr. Hyman said, I would say that in my riding, Mr. Courchesne was born in Quebec, in Canada. He is a francophone. He has always filed his income tax return, ever since he was 18 years old, and when he turned 65 he asked for his Canada Pension Plan and was granted it. He asked for his Canadian passport last June, and on the new form you have to indicate if you have another citizenship. This man, who has always filed his income tax return, who has always lived in Canada, last June asked for a new passport, and on the new passport application form he was asked if he had another citizenship. He remembers that when he was 15 he got his American citizenship in the mail because his father was an American. He was an American and he didn't have Canadian citizenship.

Since then, the Halifax office has been investigating to find out if he is indeed a Canadian citizen. This has been going on for four months. He was told that they are investigating, but they are convinced, 99%, that he is not a Canadian citizen because he received his American citizenship prior to 1977. The investigation will probably, in all likelihood, conclude that he is not a Canadian citizen, but he has always lived here. He was born here. He has always paid his taxes here.

So I am quite pleased, sir, that you have pointed out this situation. I am pleased that you talked about this point, and I hope we will do something to correct this situation.

For my second point I would like to talk about consultants. I think you are a director of a consultant association. I've heard all kinds of things about consultants--good things, but also very bad things. That is to say that some consultants have taken advantage of some immigrants, more particularly of Chinese immigrants.

When I went to the CIC office I was present during interviews, and at the end of the interviews I asked people if they happened to be consultants. They all said yes. They all answered yes, and I didn't understand why, so I asked the Canadian director of this CIC office what percentage of Chinese immigrants use consultants. The answer was 100%. I asked why. Why is there such an organized system? I realized that consultants do not have to declare themselves anywhere on a list. Anybody can say they are a consultant. So we can exploit people who want to become Canadian--engineers. You can get up to $50,000 from these people.

What I would like to know is whether you, from the association representing Chinese Canadians, have done anything to inform future immigrants that they do not have to go through a consultant firm like that. I know the minister intends to make sure that consultants have to register so that they can prove they are honest and qualified as consultants.

I'm under the impression that not a lot of information is being given to future immigrants by Chinese associations, but they shouldn't get caught in such a situation. Some consultant firms have done a very good job in recruiting very high-calibre immigrants. I would like to know what you think about this.

[Translation's Note: End of translation]

¿ (0950)

The Chair: Thank you, Louis, for your excellent question. This committee on two or three occasions has recommended the licensing and registration of immigration consultants, because, Louis, we agree with you totally.

Overseas, and sometimes inside here, potential immigrants to Canada have been fleeced, have been abused, by these unscrupulous people who we've met or have yet to meet. But in April or May the minister and this committee hopefully will be looking at the new regulation as it relates to immigration consultants.

If we could have your comments, Victor, Lillian, Sam, and Kate, with regard to that, it would be appreciated.

Ms. Lilian To: We work with many immigrants from China, and it is true that many of them do use consulting services. I don't know if it is 100%, but we know that many of them do.

I think the problem is that we don't have the so-called pre-settlement information... [Technical difficulty--Editor] ...before the immigrants actually immigrate. I think that information at the source country is not sufficient to help them. They don't really know where to access information about applying for immigration and all of that.

I think that's something we need to consider; it's pre-settlement information at the source country.

The Chair: Victor, go ahead.

Mr. Victor Wong: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The regulation of consultants I think is going to be very difficult to do, especially if they are practising outside our borders.

But they have a role in the process because we have immigration criteria that are very high right now. We require 75 points as opposed to 70 points before, and the department is trying to introduce some plain-language documents, but still, there's so much stuff to read and to try to understand.

Overseas, you have a high rejection rate of applicants in all classes. These are just basic cases of spouses trying to get over here or students coming over to study. So they have to hire somebody to help them go through this process. And also, the process is very long. It's a long wait.

So one of the things that has to be done is you have to make the system a lot easier. People will hire consultants because the process is too difficult and lawyers are sometimes too expensive.

For example, we're going through the PRRA process where now, under the new IRPA, many failed refugee claimants are going to a lawyer and the lawyer quotes them $2,500 or $3,000, whereas a consultant might do it for $1,000 or $1,500. We obviously try to encourage everyone to hire a lawyer because at least a lawyer has the credentials under the law society, and there's no credentialling process for the consultants. But when people are struggling and they're earning only minimum wages, and a consultant is willing to help for a lot less, that's why they get the business.

The Chair: But you know, Victor, you can get a member of Parliament, who doesn't charge you a thing and will do ten times a better job than those consultants and/or lawyers. I should tell you that 50% of our casework is on immigration matters, even in London, Ontario.

Yes, Ken.

Mr. Kenneth Tung: I would like to add to it.

Right now, the immigrant applicants are already paying a fee for the process. However, if you look at the system, there are a lot of unknowns for the applicants; that's why they have to hire someone to do it. I think the process should be a validation on their credentials rather than a barrier. I think it is important to make it transparent so it is free for good immigrants to apply and we can provide a validation. So I think the process should not be costly. I think this is an important part that we have to look into.

¿ (0955)

The Chair: Good points. You have to have a lot of patience to wait five years in Beijing or seven years in Delhi to become a permanent resident.

Kate.

Ms. Kate Manvell: I want to qualify a couple of things. First of all, let's call us practitioners, Monsieur, because both consultants and lawyers are immigration practitioners and there are highly sleazy ones in both professions. As well, in the law society, as we say, how much do they study immigration? So hiring a lawyer is not necessarily your answer, versus a person who has dealt in immigration and citizenship for 10 or 15 years who knows the law.

My organization has spent over $100,000 in legal fees over the past two years retaining our lawyers here in Vancouver, either fighting through Mangat or trying to get us regulated. This is something that I have worked on for 10 to 12 years about regulating immigration consultants, and until that happens this will continue. People are being bilked of tens of thousands of dollars from the beginning through to even when they land in the entrepreneur program. Here in Vancouver some law firms have taken $40,000, $50,000, and $60,000 from people setting up bogus companies. Some of these people are now being removed from Canada because they did not fulfill their terms and conditions as entrepreneurs.

So it's a mess. It really is. And until someone takes charge and passes a bill that regulates Canadian consultants, it will continue to be.

Overseas it may be hard to regulate, but sooner or later the word gets around. I am always amazed how quickly the word gets to Beijing or Hong Kong from Vancouver or Toronto. So if word got around that you could only deal with a person who was qualified and registered as a Canadian immigration practitioner, within a year or two you would probably clean it up.

The Chair: We are determined to do that, Kate.

Ms. Kate Manvell: Thank you.

The Chair: We have been trying for three or four or five years.

Finally, Sam, would you like to comment with regard to the--even though this is not supposed to be the subject matter--regulation of consultants? But I think Louis did point out his particular case with regard to automatic, I suppose, non-citizenship. So if you could address both quickly, I would appreciate it.

Mr. Samuel Hyman: I will deal with the last point first.

With respect to Mr. Wong, I've seen situations where the fees charged by some of the more unscrupulous consultants.... We can't paint everybody with the same brush. There are some very competent consultants and they do have a place.

But with respect to unscrupulous consultants charging far greater sums of money than a legal counsel would for a pre-removal risk assessment and not even having done the work, the problem is individuals like that, and even those so found to have not filed the applications when taken to Federal Court, are still in business. Parliament and the minister have to do something about that, clearly, in the interest of consumer protection issues.

The first issue, as I understand it, dealt with a fellow who was born in Canada, born in Quebec, lived here all of his life, and for whatever reason had acquired by birth, I presume through his father, U.S. citizenship. And I suppose an adult, his father, made application for this individual's citizenship to the United States authorities and it was issued. It wasn't acquired citizenship on the same day as his father acquired his citizenship.

It just underscores how vague the whole process can be. I would submit that the greatest incidence of these cases probably lies within Quebec given--and I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I would suggest that a lot of Canadian-born children in Quebec have been disenfranchised or been victimized by the automatic loss provisions because of the overreaching effect of French nationality law on the cases of Canadian-born women who married husbands who were French nationals by origin. I would think that this would be of particular concern to certainly Quebec, because my gut feeling is that the largest number of cases don't necessarily involve America, although that's possibly an issue

Within Quebec, I would say, given the demographic makeup of the province and the age group of the people we're talking about, the greater number could very well lay within the parameters of the problems created by the French nationality law that the Canadian government has refused to address.

À (1000)

The Chair: Okay. We're going to go with David for one final question because we're running a half an hour over time, and we'll make it up on the next group.

Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm limited to one question?

The Chair: So was everybody else, but it doesn't matter. Go ahead.

Mr. David Price: Thank you very much for being here, and thank you for your presentations. I find it interesting, the uniformity right across the country in the criticisms of the bill. They are all fairly well the same. I guess what bothers me the most is that here we are on another bill that is very similar to what we went through before and I wonder where the pre-consultations came from, because we seem to be back into the same problems we've had right along. Hopefully we're going to make some changes to this.

My other comment is, as Lynne has brought up several times, on the fact of citizenship judges. I believe very strongly that they should be there too. As I say all the time, it's a solemn and happy ceremony at the same time. Usually those two words don't go together, but in this case they do, and I find that it's very important.

Strangely enough, we heard very little talk about that. That's one thing that hasn't been uniform across the country. In fact, as I said, Lynne has tried to bring it up a couple of times and it doesn't seem to ring very much. That's unfortunate, because we need that input.

My question, then, I'll direct to you, Kate, to see what your thoughts would be. We have an awful lot of landed immigrants out there who never apply for Canadian citizenship for all kinds of different reasons, and it's really unfortunate. They're sitting there in limbo. I'm wondering if perhaps as a government we should invite these people to become citizens after a certain amount of time. Granted, we know there's always that fear there. They're afraid they're going to be refused for one reason or another. Do you think it would be an idea to invite people to become citizens?

Ms. Kate Manvell: That seven-year waiver--you've been here for seven years--yes, definitely, within limits, again. Once again, if you have an act in place that encourages people to apply and to get approved, then there would be no need to do that.

I would predict that 90% of that million and a quarter persons who the immigration department has calculated are out there waiting to apply very soon, by May, for the PR card haven't applied because they either haven't met the residency requirements, your biggest bulk, or they don't have the language ability, which is a small percentage of that.

The Chair: Good question. Proactive.

Ken, do you have any comments? Should we actively be inviting people as opposed to waiting for them to come to us after three years, five years, or whatever?

Ms. Lilian To: Well, I think there are some people who choose not to become citizens. Sometimes it's a lack of understanding of their rights and responsibilities as a citizen, and I think it helps to have these people become committed citizens of our country.

The Chair: Thank you.

Victor.

Mr. Victor Wong: I think if people choose not to become citizens, there has to be some extraordinary reason, and that's up to them, but there are many people who really want to be citizens. In clause 58 you've tried to open up a door to regularize the citizenship status of some people who should be eligible.

In my presentation I'm suggesting that you've come this far, so try to go a little further and bring as many people under the tent as you can. As you bring in this new legislation, also bring in a program that will be flexible and welcoming for the people who are already here and who have already spent so many days resident in this country and who have been working here all this time.

The Chair: Sam, you think we ought to make it automatic for some people. Right?

Mr. Samuel Hyman: Well, for people born in this country, at least, who have probably the strongest tie of anyone and who have been dispossessed of that citizenship through no intentional act of their own.... There should definitely be one law for everybody, and equality of citizenship is as fundamental as a bedrock.

The Chair: We agree.

I have two questions that I need answered, just to round this out. I think you all spoke about the flagrant and serious disregard for principles of democratic society. Our administration has told us, on the denial of citizenship, those people who are permanent residents but not yet citizens can be denied citizenship under clauses 21 and 22. That's really to get rid of the people who are hate-mongers, very specifically. But we have a very broad definition. Other people have said that perhaps we ought to use the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

So do you think we ought to adopt very specific prescribed prohibitions as opposed to this broad thing, the Charter of Rights, or this particular... Should we have some very specific language for clause 21, get rid of it altogether, or use the charter at the midpoint, as opposed to this demonstrated flagrant and serious disregard for the principles of a democratic society, which we all hope for and espouse to?

What's your point, Victor?

À (1005)

Mr. Victor Wong: We propose that you delete clauses 21 and 22.

We haven't really given much thought to this issue of hate-mongers. It's interesting that Mr. Zundel has been moved to a detention centre in New York State and may be deported back to Canada. What are we going to do there? Maybe that's something that comes under the Immigration Act as opposed to the Citizenship Act.

You might have to go to an act of Parliament in specific cases if they're that serious. I just don't think that having clause 21 or clause 22 gives you the protection you're seeking. They're just other security measures.

The Chair: Okay.

Lilian.

Ms. Lilian To: We really need to protect this country, especially from hate-mongers and so on, but the definition is definitely too broad and has to be more specific. I think applying the charter could be a middle way.

The Chair: Are there any comments on that one?

Sam.

Mr. Samuel Hyman: Very simply, you cannot import into the citizenship legislation a test for citizenship that is really part of the criminal law process. If an individual seeks to become a Canadian citizen and their actions are in violation of Canadian law, that's a matter for the criminal law process to deal with. I don't think you should start going down that slippery slope. You should leave it out.

Obviously, there are prohibitions to the acquisition of citizenship for people who are convicted of certain types of offences. Let it rest there.

The Chair: Victor, I have to clarify something you asked. I think this committee has been very supportive of refugees. In fact, we're the ones who said that once you become a refugee you ought to become a permanent resident right away; enough of this going through the rigmarole again for another year and a half or two years.

With this bill there are some improvements. You get credit from the time you first arrive as a refugee. You don't have to wait until you're a permanent resident to accumulate those half days. Once you get status and legal status, you start accumulating the half days, because we want refugees to become permanent residents as quickly as possible. But that's not my question.

I don't know what you expect us to do about failed refugee claimants. As you know, appeal mechanisms are built into the system--humanitarian and compassionate grounds. We're not going to send failed refugee claimants back to places where their lives will be at risk. We've signed the convention against torture.

I'm not sure I understand what you expect this committee to recommend for people who don't have legal status while they're still going through the system. I thought I heard you say we should make them citizens right away. How can we make them citizens until we at least establish that they're permanent residents?

I sympathize with where you're coming from. The appeal mechanisms for refugees are there, but I'm trying to understand what you expect us to do for those people who don't have legal status yet. How can we make them citizens if they're not yet permanent residents?

Mr. Victor Wong: The reality is that in our estimation, at least 50,000 to 100,000 people are living in Canada without status. Most of them are failed refugee claimants who have lived here for a long time.

In our analysis, based on our work with Chinese refugee claimants, one-third of them have lived in Canada for more than three years, and the other two-thirds, who are still going through the process, for less than three years.

We're talking about the people who have been in this country for a long time. In effect, they have resided here for a long time. They have been participating here, paying taxes here. They pay their CPP. They pay their EI here. They don't have legal status.

You mentioned the PRRA process, the agency process. Yes, after you fail your refugee claim, maybe 3% of those people might eventually get legal status in Canada under our current legal processes. That leaves the other 97%. They may go home. They may go to the United States.

Some of them stay here. Some of them have been here for years and they're working. When you go to Chinatown and you're having dim sum, they're making it for you. When you're at the bakery in the morning, they're baking bread for you every morning.

All I'm saying is, as you're bringing in this new Citizenship Act, look for some processes and programs so you can regularize--

À (1010)

The Chair: I'm not sure we can do it under the Citizenship Act, but we're not unsympathetic.

In fact, without calling it an amnesty, this committee had pointed to the need for humanitarian and compassionate grounds for special cases of people who have been here for a lot of years and are contributing, even though without status.

But that's outside the scope of this citizenship bill per se. If you could write me specifically, as the chair of the committee, I wouldn't mind again revisiting this whole issue with the committee, if we could.

Mr. Victor Wong: Just briefly, in the United States, people who don't have status can petition the government to--

The Chair: But we have to make them permanent residents first or else the whole system will come crashing down. It can't immediately make people without legal status citizens while there are other people who have been waiting for three years or have been denied citizenship on the basis of birth. How you get to citizenship eventually is...we can discuss it. I do appreciate it.

Finally, I just want one quick comment on the national ID card because we're just developing our thought process on it. This is just starting and we haven't yet determined...but just give us your gut instinct for now, and then you can write us with regard to what you're feeling about it later.

What do you think of a national ID card, Victor?

Mr. Victor Wong: I'm against a national ID card. It's part of the U.S. agenda to have us all carry around biometric ID cards. Why would you need a biometric ID card? It's only so people know where you are travelling, so there is some kind of review of where you are moving.

I was at a conference in Santiago, Chile, on the issue of trafficking and migration. I spoke with the U.S. representative there. She said that all these countries are bringing in ID cards. I asked her if the U.S. was bringing in a national ID card with biometric information and she said no, because the people would oppose that. And I said, well, that's why I'm opposed to it.

The Chair: Okay.

Lilian.

Ms. Lilian To: We are still studying the whole situation and I don't think we want to comment at this point.

The Chair: Let us know, though, when you come up with a position.

Kate.

Ms. Kate Manvell: As a third-generation Canadian, I'm telling you, I'm really against this one. It will be my new passion, I guess.

The Chair: Samuel.

Mr. Samuel Hyman: I'm ambivalent.

The Chair: Okay, that's fair, but let us know when you decide to get off the fence one way or the other.

We're going to take a five-minute break. Then we'll come back with our second set of witnesses.

Thank you so much for all of your input.

À (1012)

À (1027)

The Chair: We are continuing our discussions on Bill C-18, An Act respecting Canadian citizenship. We now have Eyob from MOSAIC, who is executive director, and Myron from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress—B.C. Provincial Council.

Welcome to both of you, and I would ask Eyob, Myron, and Bohdan to take about five to seven minutes. I know we have your briefs, so we can ask you some questions.

So welcome again...for your hard work and dedication to our country, and we look forward to your comments with regard to our new citizenship bill.

Eyob.

Mr. Eyob Naizghi (Executive Director, MOSAIC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I will pass the presentation of our submission to Mr. Chilwin Cheng, our past president.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Chilwin.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng (Past President, MOSAIC Board of Directors, MOSAIC): Chair, thank you very much for having us. We have the pleasure of being here once again, after having made submissions on Bill C-11 the last time this committee was in Vancouver.

MOSAIC is the largest and oldest multilingual organization providing settlement and orientation services to immigrants and refugees west of Ontario. With over 400 staff and volunteers, we serve approximately 20,000 clients per year, helping them since 1976 to learn English, find jobs, learn job skills, and learn to appreciate our Canadian values and customs.

We have provided a written submission to the committee. I don't propose to go through each point in detail, but I do submit the recommendations we made in paragraph 4 of page 2 of our written submission. Specifically, we have concerns about the residency requirements contained in the bill; the arbitrary removal of citizenship from citizens born of parents who acquired citizenship after naturalization; the change of citizenship judges to commissioners; the vague definitions of the circumstances under which the minister may revoke a person's membership and citizenship; and the practical consequences of government cutbacks on immigrants' and refugees' ability to achieve the level of language and social knowledge proficiency required by the act.

I will be focusing basically on one aspect of our submission, which is the residency requirement, and if I have time I will touch on one other. To put things into context, according to Statistics Canada, in its recent report, since 1978 the flow of refugees and people coming here due to humanitarian factors has grown from 1.7% of those coming into Canada to 15.9%. This is an incredible increase in just over 20 years. The stock of those people, the people eligible to remain in Canada due to humanitarian considerations, has gone up from 2.5% to 28% of those living in Canada. Again, this is an astounding increase, and B.C. has approximately 10% of those people.

Many of these people and many of the clients of MOSAIC come from African and Eastern European nations whose states have basically collapsed. They have come from Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Zaire, Nigeria, and Iran. According to Statistics Canada, these are among the top ten countries from which many of these refugees come. Therefore, we have grave concerns about the residency requirements imposed by the act.

The legislation contemplates that a person must reside as a permanent resident for 1,095 days of the previous six years, and I submit that there are some unintended consequences as a result of that requirement, in addition to the one-year cap that a person has and the half-day credit one gets once they're found to be a temporary resident or a refugee. I submit that this is an unfair result for many of our clients.

Let me use an example of one of our clients. We have a client from a former African nation who was required to wait up to two years for his refugee claim. He was a refugee claimant for two years, let alone being found to be a convention refugee by the Immigration and Refugee Board. This person, once he received status as a refugee, had to wait up to three years to get his permanent resident status. This person has therefore resided for five years in Canada. Under the current bill, this person would have to wait at least another two years as a permanent resident before even becoming eligible for citizenship. This person would now face the prospect, had he claimed under the current bill, of seven years of living in Canada before becoming even eligible for citizenship.

Now, if you take the average life span of 75 years for an adult male and you count that person's adult life, this person has spent about 12% of his entire adult life without any form of citizenship or such status in Canada. That, I submit, is an untenable position for any person in society.

Interestingly, a person who applies as an overseas refugee and comes to Canada as a permanent resident, or has that status, can immediately start the clock ticking at three years. That's an absurd result, that a person who applies overseas comes to Canada and doesn't have to spend the same kind of time in Canada to prove their loyalty to Her Majesty and the state. Again, this demonstrates the unfairness of that provision.

Now, Mr. Chair, the primary submission of MOSAIC addresses a question you posed to one of the previous witnesses, and that is, what are the criteria by which we can remedy this problem? I submit that just counting the days is only one factor that demonstrates citizenship.

Also, Mr. Chair, your question raises a bigger question of what citizenship is. I submit it is a demonstration to the community in which you live. It could mean work. It could mean family. It could mean community participation. Many of our clients don't have jobs. They won't be able to claim attachment to Canada through the Income Tax Act or paying EI premiums or anything like that. But many of them are volunteers full-time at MOSAIC. They're contributing in the best way they can to Canadian society.

So I submit that the bill should reflect this, or at least some form of government policy should be enacted to ensure that those who assess citizenship applications consider the panoply of factors that demonstrate a commitment to the community. That is MOSAIC's primary submission.

The other submission it makes, of course, is to address another question you raised, Mr. Chair, which was our solution to the residency problem and whether the committee should recommend keeping that factor as the primary factor. Once a person obtains their refugee status, that is the point when they should be given full credit for residency, and there should not be the one-year cap. Ultimately, it's that one-year cap that really causes the most hardship, because you have the absurd situations where a person lives in Canada for five to seven years but gets credit for one year of residency in Canada. I submit there's no principled reason that one-year cap should be in place. A person should receive full credit for the time they've served, the time they've been in Canada, once they've been found to be a legitimate refugee in Canada.

It's not administratively difficult. We have numerous civil servants in the parole service, in corrections, in human resources who make those kinds of assessments. The people are there. The ability is there in that policy or regulation to make that happen. It's not a stretch, from the perspective of administering this kind of system, to implement it.

I have about three minutes left, Mr. Chair. If I could, I'll just quickly deal with two other issues.

One is clause 14, dealing with the children of some non-naturalized Canadian citizens, if I could use this term for a moment. It doesn't affect many of our clients today, but it will affect their children born after 1977. Many of them at age 28 are going abroad for post-graduate degrees and could be seeking jobs elsewhere, particularly as many young professionals are told to get international experience. Many of these children are going to face the prospect of losing their citizenship and not know about it. I submit this is a completely arbitrary measure.

Finally, MOSAIC highlights an issue we raise in our submission, the requirement that a person has proficient language and social knowledge of Canada before acquiring citizenship. This is not an unreasonable requirement, but we do want to highlight some of the structural changes to funding that have taken place, the downloading from the federal government to the provincial government of funding and training. We have an inequality across the country, and even within regions within British Columbia, of the resources available to immigrants and refugees to acquire those skills. So while, formally speaking, everyone has an equal opportunity to prove their knowledge of an official language or their social knowledge, substantively not everyone has an equal opportunity. Again, I submit this is an unfair, and perhaps unintended, consequence of some government policy.

In conclusion, Mr. Chair, when they come here, many of our clients can't believe the police are not allowed to barge down your door at their whim; they can't believe they have a say about who gets to lead them; and they can't believe that civil service positions are based primarily or in most cases on merit. This is a dream for many of them, and it is why they came to Canada. It's the Canadian dream, a dream that many of our citizens take for granted.

I submit that our citizens, and our clients who want to become citizens, are entitled to be part of this fundamental social contract, not because they spent 1,095 days of the previous six years here, but because they want to be part of the Canadian dream. They have worked very hard to demonstrate this.

These are my submissions.

À (1035)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Chilwin. I know you made some other recommendations in your brief, which we appreciate very much because you put some very, very good stuff in it. Thank you for your hard work.

Myron and Bohdan, welcome.

Mr. Myron Petriw (President, Ukrainian Canadian Congress, B.C. Provincial Council): Thank you.

I have a brief preamble, which I hope you will indulge and allow me to read. I have also offered a submission on Bill C-18. I'm not sure enough copies were made of it. I wasn't sure how many I would need and I don't know whether additional copies were made here, but I brought three copies.

As a Ukrainian Canadian, it is my turn today as president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, British Columbia Provincial Council, to stand before you and defend the citizenship of all naturalized Canadians from the flaws of this document and the vagaries embodied in clauses 16, 17, and 18 of proposed Bill C-18.

Canadian citizenship is something taken for granted by most Canadians. Few of us realize the value placed on Canadian citizenship until we face the prospect of losing it. It is sadly ironic that the prospect of losing it can be experienced only by those who are Canadians by choice rather than by those who are Canadian by accident of birth.

One cannot begin to appreciate the full value of Canadian citizenship until one sees the ferocity with which those faced with this revocation defend their citizenship. Consuming their life's earnings, homes, savings, and the goodwill of friends and family, they pay a high price indeed for what most Canadians take for granted. Because the value of a commodity is determined by the price someone is willing to pay for it, the victims of some of the sloppiest jurisprudence in any democratic country have elevated the worth of Canadian citizenship to lofty levels indeed. I can only hope this government and this country of ours can live up to this high evaluation.

Today we have before us the proposed Citizenship of Canada Act, Bill C-18. We have a badly flawed document, written in a fit of post-September 11 xenophobia, which in the future would terrorize Canadians long after the risk of alien assault is forgotten.

This bill provides naturalized Canadians with no shield against political whimsy or foreign fabrication. By chopping down the protection of legal rules of evidence, by allowing anonymous allegations, by accepting innuendo from those who have donned the mantle of self-righteousness, it has clear-cut the thicket of legal protection that has grown over the centuries in western jurisprudence. In this legal wasteland, the void of old-growth wisdom, this bill uproots that last shrub of protection, the right of appeal.

There's no capital punishment in Canada. There is but one way left to legally reduce the world's population of Canadians and that is through revocation of citizenship.

To this country's shame, both the current law dealing with such revocation and its proposed replacement, Bill C-18, suspend the strictest standards of legal evidence and replace it with that gambler's cop-out, the idea of a balance of probability.

Judging by the number of us who play Lotto 6/49, I say our sense of balance of probability is a defective instrument indeed.

This clear-cut of legal protection has created a playground for foreign squabbles, alien allegation, innuendo, half-truths, and calumny, all blown by winds of political expediency and whimsy.

The victims of the resultant public witch hunts face a no-win proposition: to drown in legal debts while betting on an outcome based on balance of probability. Thus, Canadian citizenship is reduced to the value of a poker chip in a gamblers' den.

The UCC-BC is a provincial coordinating body of the Ukrainian Canadian community in British Columbia. We welcome the decision of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to allow the standing committee to conduct consultations and to listen to various stakeholders prior to making any final decisions.

The UCC-BC believes that stakeholders need to be involved in the formulation of policy and that the legislation be reflective of such policy.

We submit that the proposed changes to the Citizenship Act will have an adverse effect on Canadian identity because immigrants will never have the same rights and privileges as citizens born in Canada, essentially creating a two-tiered citizenship system.

The UCC-BC submits that the standing committee should categorically reject any legislation or policy recommendation that utilizes revocation of citizenship and removal from Canada, also referred to as “de-naturalization and deportation”, of individuals alleged to have committed or to have been complicit in war crimes or crimes against humanity some 50 years ago.

It is only when there is sufficient evidence that such a crime was committed that an individual should be tried in a Canadian court of criminal jurisdiction.

In this submission, the UCC-BC recommends that either clause 16, clause 17, and clause 18 should be struck from Bill C-18, or, in the alternative, should any or all of these clauses be kept, we recommend the following changes.

Replace subclause 16(1) with the following:

The Minister may not commence an action in the Federal Court for a declaration that a person has acquired, retained, renounced or resumed citizenship by false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances more than five years after the day on which this citizenship was granted, retained, renounced or resumed, as the case may be.

Add the following subclause to clause 16:

The judge shall, on the basis of the information and evidence available, determine whether, beyond a reasonable doubt, the person named in the certificate has acquired or resumed citizenship by false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances.

Add the following subclause to clause 16:

A determination under subsection (1) may be appealed or judicially reviewed based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Strike out the words in subclause 16(2):

A judgment declaring that a person has so acquired, retained, renounced or resumed citizenship has the effect of revoking their citizenship or renunciation of citizenship.

Replace them with the words:

A judgment declaring that a person has so acquired, retained, renounced or resumed citizenship has the effect of revoking their citizenship or renunciation of citizenship and shall be determined in the context of humanitarian and compassionate circumstances.

Strike out the words in item 16(6)(b)(ii):

with respect to any additional evidence, is not bound by any legal or technical rules of evidence and may receive and base a decision on any evidence adduced in the proceedings that it considers credible or trustworthy in the circumstances.

Replace them with the words “with respect to any evidence, is not bound by the rules of evidence”.

Add to paragraph 16(6)(a):

and shall take into account any humanitarian and compassionate circumstances relating to the declaration requested under subsection (1).

Strike out the words “on the balance of probabilities” in paragraph 17(5)(a) and replace them with the words “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

In subclause 17(9), strike out the words “A determination under subsection (5) is final and may not be appealed or judicially reviewed” and replace them with “A determination under subsection (5) may be appealed or judicially reviewed”.

In subclause 17(6) strike out the words:

A determination under paragraph 5(a) that a person has so acquired or resumed citizenship has the effect of revoking the citizenship of the person.

That means we delete this subclause altogether.

And finally, strike the words “or by using false identity” in subclause 18(1).

I would like to deal with some of the reasons behind this.

Revocation and annulment of citizenship are among the most serious penalties that any state may invoke against its citizens. The consequence for the citizen is immediate loss of all rights of citizenship and can include direct or indirect loss of any status whatsoever and removal from Canada. These consequences are obviously severe and require strict adherence to due process, procedural fairness, appropriate appeal rights, and a limitation period.

Canada must not allow for a system that creates two classes of citizens: those born in Canada and naturalized Canadians.

Furthermore, naturalized Canadians must not live in fear that one day, be it 10 years or 50 years after coming to Canada, they may have to defend themselves against allegations of misrepresentation.

We are concerned with the inherent procedural flaws in the citizenship revocation proceedings, and the loss of citizenship provisions of Bill C-18 have been considerably expanded rather than refined to protect against the abuse of process as encountered under the current act.

We strongly recommend the standing committee categorically reject any legislation or policy recommendation that allows for the revocation of citizenship, also referred to as denaturalization and deportation, to be used as a remedy to deal with the possibility that World-War-II-era war criminals may be resident in Canada.

Unlike extradition, deportation and denaturalization are remedies that do not contemplate a full trial being held on the issue of the guilt or innocence of the accused. Unless a virtual criminal standard of proof is applied, this solution runs a serious risk of unjustly destroying the life of a presumably innocent person without providing him or her with an adequate means of defending themselves. An order of deportation and denaturalization is made in a non-criminal context. A deported person would be barred from returning to Canada and would not be provided with a full trial of the issue of his guilt or innocence of the crime alleged. The UCC-BC submits that this is an unacceptable option.

There are numerous problems with the application of immigration law to the specific situation of alleged World War II criminals.

First, there is insufficient evidence in Canadian immigration records, which were destroyed by the government, to permit proof of such misrepresentations. To those who have propounded a differing view, this is not an obstacle that can be overcome by the presumption of regularity in the execution of official tasks.

The maxim is a presumption of validity of official tasks until the contrary is proven. A landed immigrant or citizen need not prove the validity of official acts that granted him that status. It is another thing entirely to state that a citizen who is suspected of being a war criminal is presumed to have entered irregularly. This would place an impossible burden on a defendant.

Second, even assuming that evidence of misleading or false declarations could be found or assumed, there remains the problem of innocent, and in some cases desperately necessary, misrepresentations. At the end of World War II, between one million and two million Ukrainian people were in displaced persons camps throughout Europe. As a result of the Yalta accords, hundreds of thousands of these were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union, only to be liquidated or deported to Siberia. The only hope of those designated for repatriation was to prove their origin from outside the borders of pre-1939 Soviet Union. For many Ukrainians this meant assuming new identities as either Poles or ethnic Ukrainians from the former Polish territory of Galicia. The alternative chosen by many that could not was suicide.

It would be simply monstrous to institute deportation proceedings against such persons merely because of such misrepresentation before tribunals in DP camps in Europe, and thus in subsequent documentation.

Third, deportation and denaturalization proceedings are clumsy and involve administrative proceedings ill-suited to the determination of a person's guilt or innocence as a criminal.

Fourth, any deportation and denaturalization proceedings involving Ukrainians would likely involve a consideration of Soviet evidence. The same problems that have been referred to elsewhere in accepting Soviet evidence would arise in such proceedings. However, unlike in criminal proceedings, the evidence would be considered an essentially administrative proceeding with a lower standard of proof and fewer procedural safeguards than afforded under criminal law.

À (1050)

The Chair: Please wrap up. I know we have some questions for you.

Mr. Myron Petriw: The summary of our recommendations is on page 12 in the brief before you. There are four basic items there. I'll be more than glad to participate in a discussion.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Myron.

I want to thank you and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress throughout the country, which has participated. I know how passionate and deeply you feel about this particular issue, based on some pretty significant historical consequences. So we appreciate it very much, Myron and Bohdan. Thank you very much.

We'll go to questions.

Libby.

Ms. Libby Davies: First of all, thank you very much for coming. We have a lot of subjects before us today, so there are a lot of issues for people to take up.

I actually want to begin with Mr. Cheng. I think your point about getting full credit, from when the clock starts ticking, for someone who has gone through the claim process as a refugee is very important.

I hope the committee will be able to take this up. Basically what you are saying is that someone should get the full credit for the time they have been here once they become a convention refugee and have gone through that process.

In terms of the residency requirement, which other people you have heard this morning have also taken issue with in terms of exactly what it means--how much will rely on a physical requirement, which is the way I think many people are interpreting it, that kind of criteria.... Once we have established the length of time, what would you propose as a reasonable ground, in terms of the actual criteria, that would not discriminate against...? You use the case of the income tax.

Could you spell out what you think are the criteria for attachment that could be used so we don't get into this area? Is it strictly a physical residency, or are there other measures that could be used?

À (1055)

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: Thank you.

If I may just take this opportunity to address the first part of your statement, I would advise the committee that Bill C-11 creates an even greater ability for the government to scrutinize refugee applicants to determine their suitability. Most of the security checks and country backgrounds and identity verification have been done already for the refugee claimants before they get status under Bill C-11--and that changed after Bill C-11. Most of those checks occurred after the person had landed and made his or her claim.

We submit that a person should get full credit for residency because those checks have already been made; the person therefore is no threat to Canada on security grounds and is already starting to participate in Canadian society.

Ms. Libby Davies: Before you go on, I am new to this committee. What is the requirement now? What do refugee claimants get credit for now, in terms of whenever the clock starts ticking?

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: At the moment, until they get their status, the old regime applies--three years, however vaguely defined, in the previous six.

Ms. Libby Davies: So this could just make it a lot worse. But that principle--unfair as it is--is already there. Is that what you are saying?

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: That's right, and the proposed bill aggravates the situation.

But let's assume that Bill C-11 is the right regime because that's what we have decided. I'm saying that if there are any security concerns about people applying for citizenship, they have already been dealt with at the front end when those refugees came to Canada.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I just want to take this opportunity.

In terms of residency requirement, as I outlined in the previous submission, I would be hesitant to say that income tax would be another proxy for attachment to Canada. I mean, there are Canadian corporations operating overseas that report income, and I am not saying those entities should become citizens of Canada.

MOSAIC's submission states that community participation, and the indicia of community participation--that includes, for example, volunteering--should be a factor one can consider. Others are employment, attending school, taking care of family in Canada. The factors that should be considered should not be tied to residency but to what they are actually doing in their community.

Now, I recognize that this is difficult to legislate in terms of how you define those kinds of factors. But perhaps there is some way for staff at CIC to try to word this principle of recognizing community participation, or to establish it as a policy so that CIC officials can look at these various factors in determining suitability for citizenship. It's difficult to develop specific, case-by-case factors when really what we are talking about is a multitude of factors related to the way a person participates in the community.

Ms. Libby Davies: I realize it is a difficult issue. I know, for example, there is a huge issue around discretionary issues under the immigration system. It becomes a matter of which side you fall on, whether you want to have more of a prescribed criteria, and people either meet it or they don't through some sort of numbering system or something, or whether you allow more discretion.

As a follow-up, who do you think should make that determination?

We heard earlier about the loss of the citizenship judges. If you could create the system you want, is MOSAIC more inclined to say that should rest through a citizenship process that finally goes through a citizenship judge who makes that determination, that has some discretion, or do you prefer to see something that is more spelled out, that would be more administratively applied? There are arguments either way, right?

Á (1100)

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: Certainly. MOSAIC is on record, in our written submissions, that we are not happy about the move to commissioners. We would prefer to keep the citizenship judges.

I guess it's our recognition that it's difficult to spell out in specific terms in legislation all the factors that we would like CIC to consider, but, for example, we would like to see, if we had our wishes, in the bill or by regulation, perhaps community involvement, working in the community, raising a family, or attending an educational institution as factors in the bill, and then staff can flesh that out through policies. But at least there's some kind of public accountability at the political level for recognition that these are factors, and the primary reason is it's not about physical residency.

The Chair: Myron, do you have any comments with regard to citizenship judges or the residency provisions?

Mr. Myron Petriw: None, other than that we would prefer citizenship judges.

The Chair: Okay. Sophia.

Ms. Sophia Leung: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank both groups for your fine representations.

First, to Mr. Cheng, with MOSAIC, I know you have done a terrific job for our community and provide so many social services.

You raised a question on the residency requirement. We thought the three-out-of-six-years residence was trying to be very flexible, to provide for people who have to be in and out of the country--it could be a businessman, a student, or a family, many things. You still feel this is not flexible enough, or maybe the requirement of three years is too long.

In your presentation paper, page 5, number 9, there is an interesting part. You submit that crediting refugees and other people with only half a day for every day they are in Canada unfairly penalizes.

I'm not very clear. Have we ever counted half days? We always say you're three years--

The Chair: It's 365 divided by two.

Ms. Sophia Leung: Yes, I agree that it's very unfair, but which part would you recommend? We certainly credit each day you are here in Canada, right? The whole thing is trying to establish your commitment, your adjustment as a potential resident, as a citizen, what you think about the country.

I think you still more or less feel that this residency requirement is too hard.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: We're on record as saying we support the government's position to move to 1,095 days in terms of residency requirements. We think that's more flexible than the previous regime, which is three years--and there has been a lot of talk about what that really means--under the current system.

I guess you've answered your own question as to why half a day. We don't see a reason. As far as we're concerned, it's just an unprincipled distinction.

The Chair: It's government calculus.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: I've tried to go back through parliamentary hansards and figure out from the committees why half a day, and I can't find the reason. There's just no principled reason for it. Once a person has cleared security, has cleared identity and is a legitimate “refugee”, what's the problem?

The Chair: It must have been on the direction and the amount of sunlight and moonshine.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: It could be.

The Chair: Okay, Sophia, one more question.

Ms. Sophia Leung: To Mr. Petriw and the Ukrainian group, certainly we have a lot of concern. We also heard a lot of concern about the revocation of citizenship, and you certainly presented that very clearly and technically. You asked for the removal of clauses 16, 17, and 18 completely. In the meantime, we do know there are naturalized citizens perhaps involved in criminal offences, so what kinds of safeguards or potential measures do we have to protect the concerns of society?

Á (1105)

Mr. Myron Petriw: I expect the safeguard would be the same one we would have with regard to any criminals. If there is an accusation of criminal wrongdoing, we try it in criminal court.

By having a very loose system on the citizenship side, we are risking having cases that wouldn't have any merit in criminal court being tried as citizenship cases. I don't think we want this to happen.

The Chair: Thank you.

Lynne.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: I agree with a lot of people who have highlighted the unfairness of losing one's citizenship on a balance of probabilities. It should be beyond a reasonable doubt, which should be the legal standard for revocation of citizenship.

The only question I have for Mr. Cheng is on his comment that a lot of people couldn't be tied to income tax. But I think they could, because people get GST refunds without paying income tax. There is a tie-in there, if there were going to be some sort of criterion for residency other than days of residence.

I agree with a lot of what you have said, including that when they land the clock should start then, because they have indeed or are going to become good Canadians.

These are the only comments I have.

Thanks, Joe.

The Chair: Thank you.

Andrew.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of issues to address.

If they are going to have something like 1,095 days, which I've been asking the department about for a long time, who cares if you're here three out of six, seven, or eight years in satisfying this requirement? Once you meet whatever number we set, then you should have the right to apply for citizenship, which would take away the necessity of some people misinforming or lying. The way things stand is that some people are hired by Canadian companies as international businesspeople and are going around the world doing business for Canada, yet they can never qualify for citizenship.

So if you're hung up on 1,095 days, then as soon as a person reaches those numbers of days, and if he has family in Canada, he should have residence in Canada, and this should be it. I just don't see why we're putting some people in the position where they can never qualify legally. On top of it, we're encouraging other people to bend their numbers a little bit, for which we might come back and revoke their citizenship 50 years down the road.

The Chair: Let me ask a question then.

Do you believe there ought to be the requirement of the three years in six, or should it be that once you qualify by at least having spent the 1,095 days here—however you calculate them, including half-days, or whatever the case may be—that it shouldn't matter whether it's five, six, eight, or ten years?

Chilwin, what are your comments on something like this?

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: MOSAIC is not opposed to the 1,095 days, but simply opposes it being the only factor.

The Chair: The question wasn't about the 1,095 days, but about whether they should be out of the six years. This was Andrew's question as well. Once you achieve 1,095 days, does it matter whether or not you have done it six or ten years—or even three years, for that matter?

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: I don't think the board or staff of MOSAIC have addressed that issue. I don't have a position on it.

The Chair: Okay. Could you get back to us on this?

Myron.

Mr. Myron Petriw: I agree with Andrew on this. If we leave the 1,095 days as is, it should not matter whether you achieve them in three, six, or twenty years.

The Chair: Okay.

One further question.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: I have a second question, Mr. Petriw.

You mentioned that the citizenship revocation process as it exists presently falls entirely outside of section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. One of the questions I asked was whether citizenship rights should be under the charter. The way I read section 7 is that it talks about the “right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice”.

To me, as a Canadian by choice, few things are more important for the security of my person than my citizenship.

If you look at the present process on what we have dealt with, we have been dealing with persecution versus prosecution. We have been harassing people on the simple test. Did you lie or tell the truth on a question that might or might not have been asked 50 years ago?

It's totally ridiculous. It reduces the citizenship rights of all Canadians. It doesn't become a country like Canada. That's not our image to the world.

Á (1110)

The Chair: Okay. The question is about the Charter of Rights in Bill C-18.

Myron.

Mr. Myron Petriw: Andrew, obviously I'm in total agreement with that. We have more protection in the case where you get a traffic violation. You have a right of appeal. Here the right of appeal is very much proscribed.

As to how one would word it in the Charter of Rights, obviously it's a right that you acquire at some point. Once you acquire it, the charter would then have to defend it for you.

I think that's probably what you're thinking of here, is it?

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: You have the legal rights, as Clifford Olson has. He's served with a notice or he's put under arrest because he's a dangerous individual. The Crown makes its case. The defence makes their case. Then there's the right to appeal on either side all the way to the Supreme Court.

We're dealing with very few cases on this revocation. I don't see a big deal in letting the criminal court that is protected by the charter....

Clifford Olson is protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Nearly six million Canadians are not protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it comes to defending citizenship. I say if it's good enough for Clifford Olson, it should be good enough for Canadians by choice.

Mr. Myron Petriw: I totally agree with that.

The Chair: Okay.

Chilwin.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: As a lawyer, I have to say that I appreciate the sentiment. My submission would be that this bill, when it comes into being, will be subject to the charter in any event. I have no doubt that once a certain revocation procedure has taken place, the judicial review will happen. We'll see whether the courts will agree that this needs charter scrutiny.

I appreciate the sentiment. I also think it would be difficult to get eight out of ten provinces, comprising 75% of the population of Canada, to agree to amend the charter to include citizenship rights in the charter.

The Chair: No, I'm not sure that's what Andrew was suggesting.

We've been told that this meets the charter test. Within section 7, the preamble, you can talk about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet when you talk about section 16, section 17, section 18, section 20, and section 21, it doesn't give due process.

Does that really fit within the definition and the spirit of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? That's the question.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: It is the spirit.

The Chair: In the spirit, or even in the words, if we were to mention in either the oath or in section 7 that it refers to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or even on the denial of section 18, as opposed to this free and democratic society bit....

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: It's interesting. My understanding of the charter jurisprudence around section 1 of the charter, which deals with principles of a free and democratic society, is that even the courts have had difficulty really defining what it means.

We use the example of Nelson Mandela. He was arguably found by another country to have had represented a terrorist, to some people, organization and was put in jail. He comes to Canada and is given an honorary citizenship.

The Chair: One of the questions in fact is that if we had this bill in place with such a thing, then he might not have qualified.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: That's correct.

The Chair: Okay. All right.

Can I ask two quick questions?

I would agree with you, Chilwin, that the Canadian dream is about citizenship or achieving that dream. I've asked this question before. Do you believe that citizenship is a right or a privilege?

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: It is neither. It is the basis on which one acquires rights and responsibilities.

The Chair: You've spoken like a real darn good lawyer, for God's sake.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: Quite honestly, these are questions that Plato himself raised.

The Chair: Who? Was he a Canadian?

He couldn't get in.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng This is why I submit that citizenship, while symbolic in some respects, is still fundamental to the personhood of a human being. I submit that you have to accept that communities form and then together create common ties of principles and values, and it is only at that point that you can establish rights and privileges and responsibilities. Citizenship is bigger than rights and privileges.

Á (1115)

The Chair: Bigger; I like that even better.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: That's why it is so important. It's bigger and better.

The Chair: Myron, do you wish to comment?

Mr. Myron Petriw: I think I have to.

The Chair: Do you want to refer to some great Ukrainian thinker?

Mr. Myron Petriw: I'm not going to refer to that.

I would just say that it can't be a privilege, certainly not in the form it is right now, because that would mean every Canadian born in Canada would have to apply for citizenship, right? So it's not that.

At the same time, it's not a right because not everybody in the world is going to be a Canadian citizen, as far as I know.

The Chair: Well, believe it or not, other peoples have talked about citizenship.

But I meant to tell you, Myron, you said something about the accident of birth....

Mr. Myron Petriw: The accident of birth, yes....

The Chair: Yes. Well, hopefully you didn't mean all births were caused by accidents.

Mr. Myron Petriw: Some are accidents, but not all.

The Chair: Believe it or not, the Supreme Court in the United States--I hate referring to them but they were right, at least in this--talked about citizenship being greater than the value of property within that context. That's why I asked in terms of making sure we get it right.

I think, Myron, you addressed the five-year probation period and said you would have absolutely no problem with it, and then there would be a statute of limitation as to where, after the five years.... I must tell you, most people have spoken against the five-year probationary period because all of a sudden we are talking about another class of citizen--a probationary Canadian for a five-year period.

I think the point was that if you can't find out whether or not someone has a problem within three years or six years or nine years, what makes you think that once you give him a piece of paper saying he is a citizen...? The administration wants another five years to find out what's going on in this person's life. I think you addressed it, and I don't know if you had any comments with regard to this five-year probation.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: MOSAIC opposes that as well.

May I just take this opportunity to address a point that has come up several times in these committee hearings--this issue of turning the citizenship process into a criminal one, with deportation based on a balance of probabilities or reasonable doubts.

I cite the very notable example of Air India, an international crime of terrorism, where the trial is being conducted on domestic soil. So Canadians have demonstrated that they are able to deal with international terrorism on its own turf, treating Canadian citizens as if they were under Canadian law. There is no reason to deport them to India or to revoke their citizenship. They are being dealt with here in Canada. There is a prime example of why these other provisions are unnecessary.

The Chair: I think the sentiment of a lot of people was that if you catch terrorists and confine them, the last thing you want to do is deport them and let them loose so they can do their business someplace else--as opposed to putting them where they belong.

Any last comments on the national ID card? What's your gut instinct for now? We are still developing the whole thing.

Mr. Chilwin Cheng: I am completely opposed.

The Chair: Okay.

Myron.

Mr. Myron Petriw: I am also completely opposed.

The Chair: Okay. Thanks a million again for Bill C-11, Bill C-18, Bill C-63, Bill C-41, and all of those other things. Hopefully, we will get it right.

Thank you very much.

We are going to move right into our next panel, which is to deal with the provincial nominee agreement with B.C.

We have the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, B.C and Yukon; the Filipino Nurses Support Group; and the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada.

We will see who is here and we will move quickly to that panel.

Colleagues, we're going to switch gears. The B.C. Federation of Independent Business was supposed to be here, but it is not here yet. They may be preoccupied, because we're going to be competing of course today with the federal budget, but not as of yet, and the provincial budget that is also meant to be tabled today.

We're going to talk a little about the provincial-territorial nominee agreement as well as the settlement programs.

Leah, you're with the Filipino Nurses Support Group. So you're going to be talking about the provincial nominee program, are you?

Á (1120)

Ms. Leah Diana (Member/Organizer, Filipino Nurses Support Group): Yes. Right now I'll just be speaking on the provincial nominee program.

The Chair: Great. Welcome, Leah.

I appreciate your comments to find out what we're doing right or not doing right with regard to some of the settlement programs or the provincial nominee agreements you have here in B.C.

Ms. Leah Diana: As clarification, I will be speaking again this afternoon on integration and settlement, but right now I will be focusing on the provincial nominee program. But the brief speaks on both issues.

On behalf of the Filipino Nurses Support Group, I'd like to thank you all for having us here to speak on the issue of the provincial nominee program. To give you a background or profile of the Filipino Nurses Support Group, in 1995 a group of Filipino women who were connected with the Philippine Women's Centre of B.C. and SIKLAB began to come together as registered nurses from the Philippines who worked in Canada as low-income domestic workers under the live-in caregiver program of CIC.

They hoped to gain a deeper understanding of their situation and the status of the growing numbers of Filipino nurses doing domestic work and 24-hour home support work. So from a desire to advance a community's struggle for social justice, the Filipino Nurses Support Group was organized.

The presence of Filipino nurses in Canada must be understood as part of the overall migration of Filipinos from conditions of poverty, unemployment, and chronic political and economic crisis in their homeland. And Filipino nurses are part of this mass out-migration.

I would like to give some statistics. The Philippine government data puts the number of Filipino registered nurses working abroad at 300,000 and rising. From January to August 2002 alone, 7,855 professional nurses left for abroad according to statistics from the Philippine overseas employment administration. Many of these nurses are now in Canada.

The Filipino nurses are still left with little option but to come to Canada under the live-in caregiver program, which I will refer to as the LCP. They come not as nurses but as domestic and 24-hour home support workers earning less than $2 an hour.

Since its beginnings in 1995, the FNSG, the Filipino Nurses Support Group, has grown to over 500 members and contacts. We have organized various public forums, press conferences, and workshops at international conferences. And we've developed a very concrete and effective community-based program that includes bi-weekly nursing review classes, English support classes, peer counselling, trainers' training programs, and leadership and skills-building workshops.

These initiatives have supported over 115 Filipino nurses who are now registered nurses but who still face barriers to practising the profession, and one of them being the PNP, which I will go into discussion on now.

In the midst of a critical and nationwide nursing shortage, where the Canadian Nurses Association estimates a shortage of 57,000 to 110,000 nurses by the year 2010, thousands of Filipino nurses are trapped doing domestic and 24-hour home support work, because of a host of irrelevant and discriminatory immigration and accreditation barriers. As mentioned earlier, the main structural barrier to their return to the profession is directly linked to the LCP, which is the live-in domestic work requirement and the temporary worker status. Many of the FNSG members, and surely other Filipino nurses across Canada, have been able to complete the RN accreditation and are registered nurses with the provincial nursing regulatory body. But these nurses remain trapped under the LCP until their visa changes from temporary worker to open visa, a process that can take another year after completing the two-year LCP requirement. In rectifying this situation we submit that Canada must take a leadership role in removing this structural barrier.

Several provinces across Canada have implemented the PNP to help fill their labour shortages. However, from the experience of the Filipino Nurses Support Group, the current PNP is inefficient and not cost-effective because it does not support foreign-trained nurses already in Canada. For example, although it is progressive that Manitoba has recruited foreign-trained nurses into their province through the PNP, Filipino nurses already in the province working under the LCP remain barred from accessing the PNP.

In B.C. it was a fight for the Filipino nurses under the LCP to be recognized as qualified applicants for the B.C. PNP. Prior to January 2002, CIC policy stated that foreign-trained nurses under the LCP could not break from their LCP contract and work as nurses under the B.C. PNP. CIC policy maintained that if they broke their contract, they would jeopardize their application for permanent residency. But through the lobbying and advocacy efforts of the FNSG, the CIC changed their policy, and it now recognizes nurses under the LCP as qualified applicants without penalty. However, this change did not solve the inaccessibility of the program for foreign-trained nurses already in Canada. Several nurses working under the LCP completed the requirements for the B.C. PNP within the first year of the LCP contract. However, they were met with a lack of will and support to integrate these nurses into the program. These nurses then remained trapped doing domestic work despite the need for registered nurses.

The PNP, one, is bureaucratic, particularly the lengthy process and the program's inefficiency in providing support and information to applicants and employers, and, two, it lacks implementation by the provincial and federal governments to ensure it is functioning properly.

To fulfill the government's commitment as stated in the Speech from the Throne in cooperating with the provinces and territories to secure better recognition of the foreign credentials of new Canadians and their more rapid integration into society, FNSG recommends to the CIC, one, collaboration with the Filipino Nurses Support Group and other community-based organizations to help support foreign-trained nurses already in Canada in their integration process into Canadian society, and, two, that the federal government take a primary and active role in enforcing and implementing the PNP to ensure its efficiency.

Á (1125)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

As you know, this committee worked long and hard on the live-in caregiver program, and in fact has made recommendations to ensure that people who came under that particular program would be able to move to permanent residency fairly quickly and to have a much more flexible agreement, as well as making sure that for the abuses we had heard about on the employer's side, there was greater transparency and so on. So slowly but surely we're getting there. I'm sure we have some questions as to how that's not working within the provincial nominee program and where we can go from there. Accreditation is one of our biggest concerns and one that hopefully will be addressed.

Libby.

Ms. Libby Davies: Thank you very much for coming today. I know that you and others have really stayed on top of this issue and have drawn attention to the real barriers that exist.

I just want to be very clear about where we're at now. From your brief and from what you've said, it sounds like there was some progress made, in that the provincial nominee program finally recognized that you could come out of the LCP program. That was, theoretically anyway, a change for the better. But now you're saying that even though that's happened, there are still significant barriers in the accreditation and the English requirement.

Á (1130)

Ms. Leah Diana: And the PNP itself.

Ms. Libby Davies: Okay.

The Chair: You have to clarify that because I'm a little confused, just like Libby, as to what exactly you're saying.

Ms. Leah Diana: There are barriers to accreditation, but a number of our nurses have overcome them and are qualified to apply under the B.C. PNP.

For example, one of the requirements is that you must qualify with a regulatory body for an interim permit or be a registered nurse with the RNABC. They are registered already, so they've met the accreditation requirements.

Ms. Libby Davies: Where is the hold-up now then?

Ms. Leah Diana: It's the PNP process itself.

Ms. Libby Davies: In what way?

Ms. Leah Diana: It's the bureaucratic red tape they have to go through. There are a lot of forms, and one is employer-driven. The actual process is very daunting for employers, so there's no willingness to hire foreign-trained nurses.

As well, there has not been any kind of will or support to recognize those nurses who are already here. There's an effort to recognize nurses abroad, in New Zealand and Singapore, but there's no effort to recognize those who are already here.

Ms. Libby Davies: Let's just come back to the steps you have to go through. If it's an employer-driven process, do you have to have a commitment from an employer that they will hire you before you can engage in this process?

Ms. Leah Diana: Yes.

Ms. Libby Davies: So that is a problem, from your point of view.

Ms. Leah Diana: Yes, it is a problem.

Ms. Libby Davies: You don't want it to be employer-driven?

Ms. Leah Diana: We want to have a process that is efficient and recognizes the nurses here. I think a key is that there are thousands of nurses here and there is a nursing shortage. There has to be some sort of way--

Ms. Libby Davies: Once you get into the process, what is the average length of time it takes to go through all of the applications, and so on?

Ms. Leah Diana: On paper it says six months, but when our members have tried to apply it's been longer than that.

Ms. Libby Davies: Can you give us an idea of how much longer?

Ms. Leah Diana: It's taken two years. We have not had a member who has been able to find an employer who was willing to hire them through the B.C. nominee program.

Ms. Libby Davies: Can you give an estimation of how many people this is affecting now? What is the potential, in terms of nurses who want to go through this or are trying to go through this but are being held up because of these various barriers?

Ms. Leah Diana: I can speak on behalf of the Filipino Nurses Support Group. I want to emphasize that this is just a group on the lower mainland. We have national contacts where the numbers are much larger. But for the Filipino Nurses Support Group there are over 500.

We've supported 120 nurses through the accreditation process, and 14 have just recently passed the January sitting of the RN exam. Out of the 14, 8 or 9 are under the live-in caregiver program and will have to complete the live-in caregiver program until they change their status to open visa and acquire nursing employment.

Ms. Libby Davies: But I thought you said there was finally an agreement that they could break out of the contract with the live-in caregiver program.

Ms. Leah Diana: There is an agreement, but when our nurses have tried to access the B.C. PNP there has not been an employer willing to go through the process of the PNP.

The Chair I'm totally confused. Let's just get this right. I think Libby started to ask the right questions.

The provincial nominee program is an arrangement by the federal and provincial governments to allow them to pre-select or select certain skills they want.

You said the British Columbia provincial nominee program accepted the live-in caregiver program under its provincial nominee program, and that a lot of Filipinos came into B.C. under this provision—

Á (1135)

Ms. Leah Diana: Yes.

The Chair: —even though they may have been nurses with nursing qualifications and accreditation, but couldn't get in under that. Instead, they got in under the live-in caregiver programs.

The provincial nominee program has accepted the nurses, their accreditations and so on, but you're trying to say the people who came here under the live-in caregiver program now want to get out of that arrangement and become nurses, because they've been accredited, right? But I'm not sure why the provincial nominee program is at all important at this point in time, because you've already arrived here in B.C. In fact, we've made it possible under the live-in caregiver program that you can be given landed status after two years and then move on.... If your credentials are accepted and you have an employer, or hospital doctors or other nurses are prepared to take you on, I'm not sure where the problem is.

Ms. Leah Diana: We believe they don't have to complete the live-in caregiver program, because it is not an act or law.

The Chair: It's a contract, though, which you are trying to get out of. I am just trying to understand this.

You came into B.C. under a live-in caregiver program, which is usually a two-year program. While I understand and agree with what you're saying, that you should move on to become nurses as quickly as possible once you are here, I'm not sure where the problem is. Is the provincial nominee program the problem, or is it a Canadian immigration problem, or an accreditation problem, or an employer problem?

I still don't understand where the bureaucratic problem is.

Ms. Leah Diana: It's actually a problem in all of the different areas. I don't think the federal government should try to wash its hands of responsibility—

The Chair: I'm not going to wash my hands; I am just trying to understand the issue.

Ms. Leah Diana: Well, I have a feeling you do understand the issue.

The Chair: No, I don't. Excuse me, but my members are all confused about what you're telling us. So why don't you tell us exactly what the problem is.

Ms. Leah Diana: First of all, the problem is the live-in caregiver program, where they come in as domestic workers and not as nurses.

The Chair: Right.

Ms. Leah Diana: That is a problem.

Another problem is the fact that even though the CIC recognizes nurses applying to the provincial nominee program and that they will not be penalized if they break the contract, the bureaucratic process of the PNP is not effective or efficient. So I believe the federal government should play an active role in trying to make this PNP efficient, so that the nurses who are already here can contribute to the Canadian economy. So it's closely interlinked.

The Chair: I would agree with you. You're telling me all the impediments have been taken away, which has allowed the Filipino people who came in under the live-in caregiver program, but who were really nurses, to break the contract and move into nursing, which is perfectly fine.

You're saying some bureaucrats are holding that system up. I don't know exactly which bureaucrats you're talking about, though you seem to think it's the provincial nominee program bureaucrats, and you think the federal government ought to do something about them.

Ms. Leah Diana: I very much agree.

The Chair: We will obviously have to ask the British Columbia government where the impediments and problems are, because I don't think there's anybody around here who disagrees this should happen.

Ms. Libby Davies: Can I maybe try to refine this? As I understand it, theoretically the system changed and removed the barriers to breaking a contract. But you're saying that in practice the process is still creating a lot of difficulty despite those changes.

Ms. Leah Diana: Yes.

Ms. Libby Davies: I think we would like to better understand the cause of this delay in the processing. They say it's meant to be only six months, but it's really one to two years. Is it the accreditation that they are still requiring?

Á (1140)

Ms. Leah Diana: No, it's not the accreditation.

Ms. Libby Davies: Okay. Is it just the length of time they are taking?

Ms. Leah Diana: It is the process of the provincial nominee program. Perhaps I can provide an example.

Ms. Libby Davies: That would be good.

Ms. Leah Diana: We have one, a member. Before the provincial nominee program recognized live-in caregivers, she was still under the live-in caregiver program and applied to work as a nurse in a facility. The facility supported her and wrote to both the federal and provincial governments to support this particular nurse leaving the live-in caregiver program to be hired as a nurse under this program. That was denied.

Once the change was made in January 2002 so that caregivers can now work under the PNP, the employer decided not to hire her because of all the documents and the process that is required, one of which is the requirement to offer full-time permanent employment.

Another barrier is the use of the B.C. Nurses' Union by the HRDC as the body that assesses whether this foreign-trained nurse can qualify for full-time employment. The B.C. Nurses' Union has just passed a policy instructing all employers not to hire foreign-trained nurses and to delay employment--

The Chair: I guess the accreditation situation has not been cleared up and the fact is that the B.C. government probably hires the nurses and they don't want to do that. You might even have some employers that want to get out of the contractual agreement they had with someone who came in under the live-in caregiver....

We will ask the question of the administration to find out exactly what's happening with regard to this particular issue, because I must admit it sounds a lot more complicated than we thought.

Ms. Leah Diana: Yes. I think the federal government has to put more enforcement in, because it's not working.

The Chair: Very good.

Are there any further questions? Sophia.

Ms. Sophia Leung: We all know there is a shortage of nurses. We certainly would like to see more from the Philippines or any other place.

If you entered the live-in caregiver program, you committed to two years as a caretaker, not as a nurse. That was clear, wasn't it? So if you are in a two-year contractual program and you are a nurse, perhaps that's another thing you want to enter instead. You came in under one title, one job description, and then you want to enter into another job. I can see the difficulty.

My question is, do we offer the opportunity to come here as nurses from the Philippines? I saw your paper. If you break the contract, then CIC will not consider your application for permanent residence, because I guess you made a commitment. It's difficult when you break that. The same thing would apply if I came in as a student. I couldn't very well say I am going to become a nurse.

I'm trying to see in what way the federal government can help you. I think it really goes back to the foreign credentials question.

The Chair: Provincial nominee programs are meant to attract people from outside the country into their respective province. You are already here, so the PNP can't really function with people who are already here. That's why I suggested the CIC. Canada Immigration have a part to play in this, and that's why we want to try to solve it, because the PNP is meant to attract people.

Well, you are already here; your members are already here. They have been here for six months, a year, a year and a half, two years, and now you want to move on; you want to become nurses because you have the accreditation. That was why the PNP was never designed...that once you got here to essentially take over. That becomes an entirely different function. That's why I want to find out where those barriers are, and that's what I think Sophia is talking about, the contractual agreements that are in place.

Ms. Sophia Leung: Yes, that's right.

Last week I was talking to Minister Coderre and.... Actually, last August we already started a meeting--we're all aware of that--in Winnipeg, trying to look into connecting with each province.

There is another follow-up meeting. It's going to be in B.C. I don't know exactly when.

So we are working on trying to sort out some of the barriers for all the foreign-trained professionals, but to me, you cannot switch one commitment to another.

My question is, why not have them come in as nurses?

Á (1145)

Ms. Leah Diana: Well, that's a question, first of all, I would like to ask. Why is it that the only option that nurses now have is to still come in under the live-in caregiver program? To me, they should not come in under the live-in caregiver program. Yes, I agree, they should come in as nurses.

For the PNP to be attracting foreign-trained nurses from abroad, outside Canada, and to be recruiting them into the province is not cost-effective. That's what we're saying. It's not cost-effective and efficient when there's already a pool of nurses who qualify for the PNP in the country. Why not have them work as nurses?

The Chair: You have a good point, but have you discussed this with your provincial government people? They're the ones who set the guidelines for the PNP.

Ms. Leah Diana: Yes, but then, at the same time, the CIC also plays a role. They must nominate this employee, the nominee, through the CIC to qualify for landed immigrant status. So the CIC and the federal government do have a role in ensuring that this PNP is in place and in ensuring that immigrants here contribute efficiently and that they are not segregated or marginalized as cheap labour.

The Chair: The rules for the PNP are set by the province, not by CIC. We interview people. We put them in the provincial nominee agreement grid, but we're not the ones who make the rules for the PNP. That is something the province does.

We've had previous ministers show up before this committee to talk a little about it. I know that all of the immigration ministers throughout Canada are talking a lot about accreditation and how provincial nominee agreements can work a heck of a lot better.

I would totally agree with you that if the B.C. government decides that it wants to attract nurses from abroad, it should attract nurses from abroad and not use them under the pretext of a live-in caregiver program.

Ms. Leah Diana: Thank you for that agreement, and I encourage the CIC to push for and show will to the provincial government and other institutions to recognize those nurses who are already here.

The Chair: Okay. I can't disagree with you, but the federal government can't tell provinces what to do, unfortunately.

Go ahead, Louis.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Is it the same problem in each province, or is it a specific problem of British Columbia?

Ms. Leah Diana: No, the PNP is implemented in several provinces. I know it's implemented in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland.

Saskatchewan and I believe Newfoundland are actually not recruiting nurses. Manitoba has been actively recruiting nurses, but foreign-trained nurses from abroad, Filipino nurses from the Philippines, not the nurses who are already in the province.

In B.C. we have not heard of any Filipino nurses who have been recruited through this process. The last we heard was that last year they only recruited five to ten. They have promised to recruit 400 nurses by April of this year. We have not had any access to its current status.

Ms. Libby Davies: Would that be 400 internally or from outside the country?

Ms. Leah Diana: Well, from our discussions with the provincial government, they said both internally and externally, but in action and concrete examples, we haven't seen any results.

The Chair: Quebec has the best model for a whole bunch of things, and Louis and David could attest to that.

David.

Mr. David Price: Thank you, Joe. I'll follow on what Louis started, but in a little different direction.

As they finish the live-in caregiver program, their contract, and they're not getting into the nursing programs in B.C., where do they go? Which province do they go to, or do they go to the States? Who is accepting them, I guess, on a more flexible basis?

Ms. Leah Diana: Well, those who have met the requirements, those who are registered nurses, do find employment here in B.C., once they've received the open visa and once they've completed the live-in caregiver program.

Á (1150)

Mr. David Price: Therefore, the unions and the employers seem to be accepting them after they've completed the program, because they don't have to contract them at that point. They're not stuck with them, shall we say? There's an open employment at that point.

Ms. Leah Diana: Exactly. They apply to work in a facility or a hospital.

Mr. David Price: You mentioned the $2 per hour. I know where you're coming from on it, but I'd like to be clear about it.

Ms. Leah Diana: The majority of our members who are nurses care not only for children but also for the elderly and people with disabilities. And because of the live-in care requirement, they are on call 24 hours a day. So they do the domestic work and personal care during the day, and then at night they sleep there, but they are on call, whether they need to toilet the person or attend to any other personal care.

They also provide unregulated nursing care, giving medications and physiotherapy. This works out to be 24-hour home support work. Divide that in terms of wages and it becomes less than $2 an hour.

Mr. David Price: Thank you very much.

The Chair: This afternoon we'll talk to you about the fact that it costs $13,000 to get that accreditation, which is a barrier to settlement and so on.

Thank you so much, Leah.

We're going to ask the questions to find out a little more about why this thing is not working bureaucratically, so thank you so much for bringing it to our attention.

We're going to break for lunch and we'll be back here at 1:30 p.m.

The meeting is adjourned.