CIMM Committee Report

APPENDIX D
LETTER OF RESIGNATION FROM
ADVISORY PANEL MEMBERS

February 27, 2007

We write to advise you of our resignation from the Advisory Panel to the Chairperson of the Immigration and Refugee Board with respect to Board Appointments, effective immediately.  We do this following the release of the Report to the Minister Governor in Council Appointments Process: Immigration and Refugee Board (the “Harrison Report”), together with statements made to the press by the office of Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley indicating that she is accepting all the recommendations in the Report.  We take this action also in the knowledge of the announcement of your resignation as Chairperson of the Board effective March 16, 2007.

Although we find the Harrison Report’s recommendations generally acceptable, and are pleased to see that they adopt many aspects of the process established in 2004 which included the Panel, we wish to express our concern with the proposed change to a Selection Board several members of which are to be appointed by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

Each of the undersigned joined the Advisory Panel in 2004 at your invitation.  We are a disparate group, with a range of backgrounds and connections to the immigration field.  Our discussions were lively, reflecting the variety of perspectives we brought to the task.  Nevertheless, we came together on the basic goal of making a merit-based appointment process work for the IRB.  We believe that we largely succeeded.

The Panel’s advice on candidates for appointment to the Board responded solely to the need to find qualified individuals with the range of competencies identified by you and your staff.  Candidates’ political views, backgrounds or associations played no part in our discussions or recommendations.

We understand that the ultimate role in the selection process is played by executive government.  However, Panel members strongly believe that in a true merit-based system, the screening process should be insulated from actual or apparent political interference.  We urge the Minister to reconsider the idea of replacing an independent advisory body with one that has significant government involvement.  It is this change which is the focus of our collective decision to submit our resignations.

As you may know, several of the members of the Advisory Panel expressed doubts about the Government’s commitment to merit-based appointments at the IRB in mid-2006, when for unspecified reasons the selection of candidates we had screened was suspended, and renewals of the terms of experienced and well-regarded Board members were rejected.  We correctly foresaw that these actions would damage the productivity of the Board and harm its hard-won reputation for placing merit ahead of all other considerations.  In fact, one of our members, a respected Ontario administrative lawyer, resigned over that issue.

The undersigned continued on in order to complete the selection process following from the first ever public advertising for IRB Members in September 2006.  That has now been done.  We are confident that as a result of this process and the ones which preceded it, you are in a position to provide to the Minister with the names of many highly qualified individuals from across Canada.  We encourage the Minister to move forward with appointments from these names in order to assist the Board to return to a full complement of Members so that it can properly perform its important role in Canadian society.

The Harrison Report questions why the Advisory Panel initially forwarded for interview the names of a few candidates who received below average scores on the written examination.  As you will recall, when the Panel commenced its activity the examination was a new instrument.  We were concerned that it might overvalue the aptitude for legal analysis in relation to other essential competencies such as the ability to take into account the social and cultural conditions, norms and beliefs prevailing in claimants’ countries of origin, mindful of Canada’s international humanitarian obligations.  Panel members agreed that it would be appropriate to consider individuals with otherwise impressive backgrounds and qualifications who had received lower test scores until we developed confidence in the instrument’s ability to accurately measure the full range of desired competencies.  We believe the fact that several of these candidates succeeded at the interview stage vindicated this approach.

In closing, we wish to thank you for allowing us to participate in this challenging period in the IRB’s history.  We appreciate the dedication that you and your senior staff have demonstrated with respect to instituting a merit-based selection process at the IRB.

We wish you well in all your future endeavours.

Yours sincerely,