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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

0910

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

Ms. Mary Lawson (Secretary, Canadian Home Builders' Association)

0915

0920

The Chair

Mr. David Davis (Lawyer, National Indo-Canadian Council)

0925

0930

0935

The Chair

Mr. Harry Kits (Executive Director, Getting Landed Project)

0940

0945

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster--Coquitlam--Burnaby, CA)

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

The Chair

Mr. Harry Kits

0950

The Chair

Mr. Harry Kits

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Mary Lawson

Mr. Paul Forseth

The Chair

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham--Kent Essex, Lib.)

0955

Ms. Mary Lawson

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Ms. Mary Lawson

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Mr. David Davis

1000

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Ms. Mary Lawson

Mr. Jerry Pickard

The Chair

Mr. John Kenward (Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Home Builders' Association)

1005

The Chair

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre)

1010

The Chair

Mr. David Davis

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

The Chair

Mr. Harry Kits

The Chair

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

1015

The Chair

Mr. David Davis

The Chair

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

The Chair

Voices

Mr. David Price

Ms. Mary Lawson

1020

Mr. David Price

Ms. Mary Lawson

The Chair

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP)

Ms. Mary Lawson

1025

Mr. David Davis

The Chair

Mr. Harry Kits

The Chair

Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau, Lib.)

Ms. Mary Lawson

Mr. Mark Assad

Ms. Mary Lawson

1030

Mr. Mark Assad

The Chair

Ms. Mary Lawson

The Chair

Mr. David Davis

1035

The Chair

Ms. Caroline Lindberg (Barrister and Solicitor, Community Legal Education, Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group)

1045

Mr. Michael Bossin (Barrister and Solicitor, Community Legal Services (Ottawa-Carleton), Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group)

1050

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway (Staff Lawyer and Supervisor of Immigration and Refugee Law Group, Parkdale Community Legal Services Inc.)

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

1055

1100

1105

The Chair

Ms. Erica Lawson (Policy and Research Analyst, African Canadian Legal Clinic)

The Chair

Ms. Erica Lawson

1110

1115

The Chair

Mr. Paul Forseth

1120

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

Mr. Paul Forseth

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

Mr. Paul Forseth

Mr. Michael Bossin

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

1125

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

Ms. Anita Neville

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

1130

The Chair

Mrs Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

1135

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

1140

The Chair

Ms. Caroline Lindberg

The Chair

Ms. Caroline Lindberg

The Chair

Ms. Caroline Lindberg

1145

The Chair

Ms. Caroline Lindberg

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

The Chair

Mr. Michael Bossin

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

The Chair

Ms. Erica Lawson

1150

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou--Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.)

Mr. Michael Bossin

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau

Mr. Michael Bossin

The Chair

Mr. Michael Bossin

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau

1155

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau

The Chair

Mr. Price

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

Mr. David Price

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

Mr. Price

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

Mr. David Price

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

Mr. David Price

The Chair

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway

1200

The Chair

Mr. Michael Bossin

Ms. Caroline Lindberg

The Chair

Ms. Caroline Lindberg

The Chair

Ms. Caroline Lindberg

The Chair

Ms. Caroline Lindberg

1205

The Chair

Mr. Michael Bossin

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

NUMBER 047

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0910)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.)): Good morning, colleagues and ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the committee after a week at our constituencies. My apologies for the change in rooms, but obviously, people wanted to listen to the Minister of Defence on television, as opposed to the most important committee in the country, and that's immigration--far more important than who said what, when they said it, and so on.

We continue our discussions in review of the proposed regulations for Bill C-11. This morning we have from the Canadian Home Builders' Association a very good friend of mine, John Kenward, and Mary Lawson; from the National Indo-Canadian Council David Davis; from the Getting Landed Project Harry Kits. Thank you for attending. Let me thank you also for your input on Bill C-11, the immigration bill. I look forward to your comments and input, and more importantly, your proposed suggestions with regard to changes to the regulations.

What I'd like you to do is take about seven to eight minutes to summarize what's in the briefs we have, so that we can then ask you a lot of questions.

Perhaps we can start with Mary Lawson.

Ms. Mary Lawson (Secretary, Canadian Home Builders' Association): I would first like to introduce myself and the colleagues who are with me here this morning. I'm Mary Lawson, and I'm a builder with a company called Dalerose Homes based in Orangeville. We're a small company now, a custom builder, but come from a production housing background, mostly based in the Greater Toronto area originally. My own involvement has been very active within the Canadian Home Builders' Association. I'm a past president of the Calgary Home Builders' Association, as well as the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association. Presently, I hold a seat on the executive of the Canadian Home Builders' Association. I have a huge interest in our industry, education, and encouragement of people into our industry, which is a big part of the reason I'm here this morning. I also sit on the board of governors of George Brown College presently, and that too, of course, ties to what I'm doing.

With me here today is John Kenward, the chief operating officer for the Canadian Home Builders' Association, and Paul Gravelle, who is the national coordinator of education and training.

The Canadian Home Builders' Association--CHBA, as I'll refer to it from time to time--is pleased to have this opportunity to present the views of the new home building industry and the residential renovation industry on the published regulations for the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Before I start my comments, let me draw your attention to several documents that are in front of you or available here in the room. First, there's Skills Shortages in the Residential Construction Sector, which was prepared collectively by CMHC and the Canadian Home Builders' Association. There's the Gunderson report, which again was CMHC and CHBA, prepared by Morley Gunderson. Then we have Potential Elements of a Strategic Human Resource Plan for Residential Construction. Also here today, on the back table or through Paul, is what's called a pulse survey, which is done through the builders right across the country by the CHBA. It tells us what our builders are thinking, and I will be referring to that from time to time. So those documents are available for you.

CHBA is a national organization representing Canada's housing industry. It was established in 1943, and it represents about 80 local and provincial associations across the country. Membership includes new home builders, renovators, developers, trades contractors, rental building owners, and managers, in other words, a very broad cross section of all those in any way involved in providing housing for Canadians.

Housing is one of Canada's most important industries. Residential construction expenditures amount to almost 6% of the gross domestic product. New housing and renovation activity generates a substantial volume of employment; an estimated 2.8 person-years of employment result from each new housing unit. About 960,000 jobs were generated by new residential construction and renovation work in the year 2000, including the substantial spinoffs in employment in other sectors of our economy.

As well as being an important generator of jobs for Canadians, housing has a significant effect on Canada's competitiveness internationally. The quality and cost of housing and the quality of life in Canadian cities are key factors in attracting immigrants and new investors to Canada. The techniques, the products, the skills involved in building and renovating housing also provide an important platform for launching Canadian experts. Building high quality new housing and maintaining our existing housing stock are essential in achieving the objectives of Canada's innovation strategy.

Why are we here today? There's a huge skilled worker shortage in the housing industry. In the industry's most recent pulse survey of our new home builders and renovators 316 of our builder companies from across the country identified shortages and the costs of skilled trades as their most urgent concern. Builders' concern about this issue has increased since last year, when they identified the same problem at the very top of the list. The most common trade shortages are with framers, carpenters, bricklayers, and drywallers. You can't build a house or any sort of building without those players.

Skilled construction labour shortages are not related to a temporary construction boom. Although the cyclical housing markets make it difficult to match construction labour demand and supply, the shortages of skilled labour currently experienced in the housing industry are persistent and structural. These shortages are the result of several factors, including an aging workforce, competition from both non-residential construction and the underground economy, and the shortcomings in provincial apprenticeship training systems.

Skilled labour shortages and related cost increases have a very direct impact on housing affordability. Labour shortages are related directly to the cost of housing and housing affordability. The costs for skilled labour have increased as demand has outpaced supply for key housing construction services. The consumer ultimately pays these higher costs.

In addition to affordability problems, industry economists have identified other risks associated with skilled labour shortages, including the negative impacts on housing quality, worker health and safety problems, and increased use of the underground economy. I'll refer at this point to Skills Shortages in the Residential Construction Sector, CMHC Research Highlights, July 2001. Skilled labour shortages are also contributing to the closing dates in some of our Canadian cities, sometimes as much as 24 months from the point where the customer makes the commitment to buy a new home.

Immigration remains an important potential source of skilled workers. However, immigration is not currently a major source of skilled construction labour. In the past immigration worked very well to provide skilled workers for the housing industry. However, the traditional sources somewhat dried up when the immigration policy shifted its focus away from skills and the source countries for those immigrants changed to ones that historically have not provided skilled construction workers.

The regulations for Bill C-11 should increase Canada's supply of skilled labour. That's basically what we're feeling. CHBA supports an immigration policy that increases the supply of skilled workers. The housing industry supports the Government of Canada's emphasis on skilled and experienced workers in a new immigration policy, but we're concerned that the proposed regulations will restrict immigration from skilled trades. The regulations proposed for Bill C-11 will make it more difficult for workers in skilled trades to be accepted as permanent residents in Canada, for the following reasons.

The 80 points are difficult to achieve. Given the way the points are scored, the change to an 80-point threshold will make it very difficult for skilled workers to meet the required total.

Then there's the language issue. Applicants with moderate proficiency in either English or French and none in a second language would achieve only 8 of the 20 points.

CHBA has three concerns in the area of education: that all the time spent in the apprenticeship training qualifies as post-secondary education; that some highly skilled and experienced trades workers may not have three years of post-secondary training; that issues related to recognition of certification or skills equivalency from other countries need to be resolved.

What about adaptability? Applicants without a highly educated spouse or who have not worked or studied in Canada for at least one year are at a disadvantage with the new point scheme. These are very important points to make that 80 point total.

On arranged employment, most of our new home builders and residential renovators engage trades contractors, but they're very small companies, they're not set up to pre-arrange employment for immigrant workers.

¿ (0915)

The Canadian Home Builders' Association supports the proposed changes to the temporary foreign worker program. The current program has not helped to increase the supply of workers for the new home building industry and the residential renovation industry. For example, the current guide for eligible occupations for temporary workers does not include construction occupations.

The proposed regulatory changes to allow temporary workers to apply for immigration could be positive for the housing industry. We understand that the new rules are designed to encourage and facilitate the entry of people with skills. In our case, the residential construction industry, we believe the new rules do not accomplish this purpose, but they will discourage individuals. Indeed, they will make it more difficult for skilled trades to be accepted as permanent residents in this country.

We are asking that the rules be revised very carefully before implementation, and we are looking for consultation with our industry. This is extremely important, given the critical shortage of skilled people for one of Canada's most important domestic industries. We're encouraged that Canada's innovation strategy, released in February, indicates that the Government of Canada is committed to modernizing the Canadian immigration system and that a redesigned temporary foreign workers program and expanded provincial nominee program should be used to facilitate the entry of skilled workers. We are also encouraged that the minister has expressed concern about the potential impact of the proposed new regulations on skilled immigrants.

In closing, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you, and I look forward to the question period following.

¿ (0920)

The Chair: Thank you, Mary and John, and for all of your background information too. I think it's very helpful to the committee. I know the Canadian Home Builders' Association has been very instrumental and constructive in an awful lot of government policies, and I want to thank you in advance for this.

Now we'll go to the National Indo-Canadian Council and David Davis. Welcome, David.

Mr. David Davis (Lawyer, National Indo-Canadian Council): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the National Indo-Canadian Council, I thank the committee for inviting us to appear before you and to share some of our comments with you.

The National Indo-Canadian Council is national, right across Canada, and I'm representing the Manitoba chapter, because that's where I reside. The council in Winnipeg is very active, and their main concerns with the regulations are to ensure family reunification and, in accordance with what you just heard, ensuring that proper skilled labour arrives in Canada. I've outlined in a very short brief some of the highlights of the concerns, and just let me review them briefly with you. We look at this as solutions to problems. We don't want to just identify problems without providing something of a solution. Let me begin with the permanent resident cards.

The idea of a permanent resident card is certainly good. Of course, there is a lot of fraud with the use of the current permanent resident document, which has been duplicated in various countries around the world. You can buy them on the streets. So obviously, we're moving in the right direction, at least that's the way we feel. However, one of the problems with the system that's been created in the regulations is that it benefits persons from visa-exempt countries, who can come to Canada and renew their cards if they happen to expire while they're abroad on business or for pleasure trips. If you're from a country like India, which is not a visa-exempt country, if you happen to be abroad and your five-year card suddenly expires without your having thought about it before you left on your trip, the only way you're going to be able to renew that card is by attending the Canadian consulate in New Delhi. You might think that's a very easy thing to do, but if you visit that consulate, you will see that the lines to attend and create any appointments is extremely long, and the process that's been created in the regulations to renew that card could take several weeks. You could have a person who's on a business trip to travel to Mombi, India, and that person wakes up one morning during their, say, week-long trip and realizes their card has expired--what are they to do? They're basically stuck, because you're not going to be allowed to get on an airplane unless you have a valid and renewed permanent resident card.

It would be a very simple solution to allow persons from visa-exempt countries to at least arrive in Canada and renew the card at that time. They are a landed immigrant, they should be given the privilege of at least renewing that card at home in Canada instead of abroad.

Bonds for visitor visas mark another concern the National Indo-Canadian Council has. Let me share with you an example. If a family member passes away in Canada and there's to be a funeral, that individual family would want certain relatives from India to come and share their condolences with each other and their family. Of course, being an emergent situation, as a funeral is, there's not a lot of time to get a visa. As I've indicated in my first point, people of Indian descent do need visas to come to Canada.

I've spoken with the manager of our local immigration office, who is very involved and quite aware of the concerns of the National Indo-Canadian Council. He has agreed that he's willing to participate in a pilot project. A community like the National Indo-Canadian Council comes forward and provides a bond, say $500 or $1,000, with an affidavit attesting that this individual is coming for the sole purpose of attending the funeral, and they promise that individual will go back to India right after that event takes place. If that individual doesn't go back, never again will that council be trusted as vouching for that family member.

That's what it's all about. The reason for certain countries being designated as countries that require visas is that there has been a history of people who come here subsequently making a refugee claim or disappearing, nowhere to be found again. So we offer that as a solution, starting with emergent situations such as funerals.

¿ (0925)

You've heard from my colleague about some aspects of the selection criteria. I think in order to properly deal with this area, you have to first decide who you want to come to Canada. Do you want persons with doctorate degrees only? Do you want people who are from the skilled trades, such as the construction industry or the mechanics industry? Do you want people with a spouse who has a doctoral degree?

You have to look back at recent immigration, you have to look at the likes of what I brought with me today. I've picked up some newspapers from Western Canada in the last few days. I have the Vancouver Sun, I have the Calgary Herald, I have the Saskatoon paper, Brandon, Winnipeg. All demonstrate that in three areas there is a huge demand. There's a huge demand in health. There are not enough nurses; we have a lot of Canadian nurses travelling south of the border. There's a huge demand for engineers, and there's a huge demand in the trades. As I see it, the way the regulations have set up the selection criteria really benefits people from certain backgrounds, such as a spouse who's married to someone who also has a university education. It'll benefit somebody who has a doctorate.

So yes, you are going for bright individuals, but is it going to benefit Canada in the long run? These regulations are most likely here to stay for some 25 or 30 years. That is a very long period of time. Demographics indicate that our skilled labour force is going to be in huge demand, if it's not already--and I'm hearing it is. In the next five years it's going to be in even greater demand. We need to target huge numbers of people, and we have competition from other western democratic countries, such as Australia, England, United States, and France. In order to properly compete, we have to send out the proper message to the people around the world that Canada wants immigrants. Unfortunately, the way we see the selection criteria currently created, the message is, we want immigrants, but it's very tough to meet the criteria. The 80 points, as you've already heard, is very high. I know you've heard many submissions in that regard as well.

Our solution is to lower the threshold from 80 to 70, and when you're addressing the points criteria, give some benefit to single individuals and individuals who do not necessarily have a post-secondary education. You have to look at their skill set.

On settlement funds, right now the process is actually okay. It is based on LICO, the Low Income Cut-Off, but it's based on a six-month period. What the regulations are saying in 64(1)(b) is, we want to look at LICO over twelve months. That means you're jumping from a $10,000 threshold for the primary permanent resident applicant to a $24,000 threshold. That is very significant, especially for persons from India; compare the dollar to their note, and it's a huge difference. They're not able to make that kind of money, and the way regulation 64(1)(b) is worded, it's mandatory that they meet that threshold, or they can't arrive at the border.

On habitual residence in regulation 9(1), the way the current regulations operate, you're not necessarily restricted to applying for a permanent resident visa from your home country; you can submit it at another visa post you have access to, in case there's an interview. Regulation 9(1) mandates that you apply from the country you're habitually a resident of. So somebody from India will have to apply through the New Delhi visa post. What's wrong with that is the very long lines. If you want business people to come to Canada, they will have to wait some 2 to 4 years. In order to run a proper business, you have to close down your business, and you want to start a business Canada. It's not a process you can do over a four-year period, there has to be a much quicker and much smoother transition. We ask the committee to take a look at regulation 9(1) and make it permissive, rather than mandatory.

¿ (0930)

Expanding the sponsorship category is something new; you may have heard it from other groups. It does not currently exist in the regulations. Let's take a look for a moment at what is going to probably end up in the selection criteria. Even if you lower it to a 70 threshold, you are still going to have a system where there will be some people who won't be able to make the points criteria. India is a very large country. You know that people from certain countries, such as India, pride themselves on extended family. Why not allow a Canadian citizen or a Canadian permanent resident to sponsor one individual, regardless of their relationship, whether they are a friend or a distant relative, who otherwise doesn't meet the criteria? As long as that person is willing to financially sponsor that individual and make sure they look after their interests and they don't go on welfare, I wouldn't think there would be a concern from Immigration Canada or this committee about allowing that person to join their family.

The family business job offer category currently exists. The new regulations are basically extinguishing it. Why is that important? The family business job category helps persons who are running that family restaurant, that family corner store, the small business. This is something the business immigration category is not interested in, because of the low revenues it creates, but it is good to assist families to reunify with their relatives abroad. They want to hire somebody they trust. They want to hire somebody they are related to. Once again, they are willing to give a bond to ensure that they are going to look after that individual. It has been successful in the past, there is no reason to get rid of it today.

I know you have heard enough about retroactivity, but I will leave with you our solution. There is no question that it is going to be unfair to take people's money and say to them, well, thank you very much for applying, but based on the new criteria, you don't succeed. I think it is important that you return that money to those individuals. However, you also want to make sure you are not necessarily returning money to people who wouldn't even make the criteria that currently exist. You are going to have to ensure that you assess those individuals and give the money back to the right persons. Obviously, with the great deal of notice that was created in December, any case that is past December 15 could perhaps be subject to the new criteria, but cases before December 15, 2001, should not be subject to the new criteria, they should be subject to the old criteria.

Finally, my understanding of the procedures at this stage of the committee with the regulations is that there is not necessarily mandated a clause-by-clause review. We ask the committee to take a look at the way the process happened with Bill C-11, the act. There was a clause-by-clause analysis. I stress that it would be very important, and I think very significant, for this committee to take a look at briefs, such as those provided by the CCR and the CBA, that look at each provision and can guide you when you do a review of the regulations. I think it would be very important, because, as I have said, these regulations are here to stay for a very long period of time.

In conclusion, I thank you once again for allowing us to appear here today. Thank you very much.

¿ (0935)

The Chair: Thank you very much, David--very good stuff.

Now we'll go to Mr. Harry Kits from the Getting Landed Project. Welcome, Harry.

Mr. Harry Kits (Executive Director, Getting Landed Project): Thank you, it's good to be here. My apologies for my colleague Hamdi Mohamed, who ended up in the emergency room last night with her young son. She was hoping to be here, but after that experience felt maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to come and join me.

I'm Harry Kits. I'm executive director of Citizens for Public Justice, which is a faith-based public policy organization. We manage the Getting Landed Project, which focuses on refugees in limbo, and that's what we'd like to focus on in our presentation today.

Those refugees who are in legal limbo are those who have been determined to be convention refugees, but are unable to get landed, so to speak, or to achieve permanent resident status. They don't have the right to reunite with family members, to travel outside Canada, to apply for student loans, to enter colleges, universities, and certain training programs, and to effectively become citizens over time. They're also frequently overlooked by employers, because they're not seen to have a permanent status in Canada, so they can't even be addressed in some of the skills concerns that have been raised here. So we're happy that this committee is looking at the regulations and to have the opportunity to speak to them. We're going to focus on the regulations that continue to leave refugees in limbo in Canada, in particular, the regulations regarding identity documents for convention refugees.

As we understand it, the main purpose of the regulations is to operationalize the act. From our point of view, the re-imposition of the identity document is, in fact, in contradiction with one of the main objectives of the act, which is to fulfil Canada's international obligations with respect to refugees. Articles 27 and 28 of the Geneva Convention oblige states to issue identity papers and travel documents to any refugees residing in their territories. A paper by Oxford professor Guy Goodwin-Gill, and Judith Kumin, who I understand appeared before the committee earlier, of the UNHCR lays down the straightforward, unequivocal obligation on contracting states, “making it clear that every refugee was intended to benefit from this provision.” We believe Canada is, therefore, not only prohibited from demanding identity documents before landing, but is, in fact, obliged to issue Canadian identity documents to convention refugees in order to remain in compliance with its obligations under the Geneva Convention.

So we believe Canada must dispense with this proposed piece of the regulation. If it refuses to do so at this time or needs to take some time to do that, we propose a number of recommendations to ameliorate the effects of the requirement.

Option one is eliminating the requirement, not including it in the regulations. We have a window of opportunity to do this, we believe. The front-end security screening process, which is parallel to the refugee determination process at the Immigration and Refugee Board, makes this possible. The regulations can put the promise made by the new act into practice and make Canada compliant with its international obligations under the convention by allowing for the identification process at the IRB level to be qualification enough for identity. We've argued that the vigorous examination of the claimant's identity at the IRB should be sufficient and conclusive proof of the identity of refugees. There's no need for duplication.

The IRB impresses on refugee claimants the importance of giving accurate information with regard to identity, and it has put in place procedures for the determination of identity. The genuineness of the claimant's identity plays a major role in the outcome. In fact, a refugee claim is rejected if the IRB is not satisfied with the veracity of the identity of the claimant. Moreover, the Immigration and Refugee Board is known to have reversed positive determination found to have been based on false information about identity.

So we have three initial recommendations. One is to allow the IRB determination to be recognized as valid for landing purposes with those convention refugees who are unable to provide other identity documents. Second, we urge the committee to recommend that both identity documents and status documents be issued to undocumented protected persons, in keeping with Canada's international obligations. Third, we urge the committee to recommend that regulations be amended to state that all persons who receive refugee protection in Canada be automatically entitled to a travel document, which is also part of the Geneva Convention.

¿ (0940)

We know this committee has considered these proposals in the past. You've raised that issue and considered it in Bill C-11 itself, and also a couple of weeks ago in these hearings on the regulations. We believe it will take some political pressure from MPs and the minister himself to address what's going to happen within the department and the getting together of the CIC side of things and the IRB side of things on this issue. So we would urge this committee to address that issue again and see what opportunities are there for addressing it.

But--and there's always a but, of course--if that doesn't happen right away or it takes some time, we propose a couple of specific things for ameliorating the requirement. We talk about regulation 171, which is essentially turning the Aden agreement regarding affidavit submission from undocumented refugees into a permanent piece of the regulations. There are some particular wording problems in there that we address in our recommendations. The current regulations suggest that not only do refugees need an identity document, but they also need to have affidavits. The Aden agreement said it was “or” rather than “and”, so that's a wording change that I think should be possible. Also, if we don't end the identity document regulation, then we think the Aden-like mechanism could be sufficient for addressing those who are undocumented, and in fact, we don't need to have the undocumented protected persons class now there.

We've addressed some specific ways of looking at that in our brief, the wording changes under recommendation 4, and addressed the undocumented persons in Canada class. More and more, the research seems to show that the class had no significant effect in respect of its purposes. Many people did not get landed. There are still thousands of people who should have qualified under that class who did not get landed. As for the other objective, addressing security issues with those people who are undocumented, of those who did get landed under the class there was only one person, out of several thousand, who turned out to have a criminal record. So thousands of people are left in limbo because of the potential of one person who is possibly a criminal. We think it should go the other way. Let people in, deal with their identity through the IRB. Once they're in, if problems arise, they can be addressed, and their refugee status can be removed. Their citizenship can be removed at a certain point if it is clearly seen that they came in under false pretenses.

The final piece we address is the issue of accountability. We have some significant concerns about how these various regulations will apply. Already, under the Aden agreement, we've seen very mixed results. We've done a fairly informal survey. It's very difficult to get statistics on any of this as to how those who've tried to use the affidavit route have been able to do it. So we basically did an e-mail survey through the Canadian Council of Refugees e-mail list of those who are helping refugees get their status and get landed, and we see pretty mixed results. Even a number of those were applying through this process before September 11 were not getting landed. Officers don't necessarily know about the memorandum that informed them about this agreement. So we have some real concerns about accountability and the ability to get information about who's getting landed, who's not getting landed, and for what reasons in respect of documentation and implementation through the officers.

So we recommend, as others have done, that there be some kind of ombudsperson put in place who could function like the Auditor General or something like that, reporting to Parliament, not just to seize on picky little things, but over time to begin to see patterns of problems that can be addressed through the minister or through a committee like this, to see what ways there might be for ameliorating the problem. We believe refugees who are coming in legitimately in many situations cannot bring identity documents, don't have identity documents. They are often stuck in Canada for many years, and are unable to operate as full participants in society here, which is what they want to do. So we would encourage you to address this issue with the minister and the department, to see whether that piece of the regulations could be changed.

Thank you.

¿ (0945)

The Chair: Thank you, all, for some very good suggestions, and also for your good briefs. Now we look forward to questions.

Paul.

Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster--Coquitlam--Burnaby, CA): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We do have a great concern about the practical application of the regulations. I was at a meeting of SUCCESS, a Chinese organization, in downtown Vancouver on Saturday. It was interesting. They had a computer program through which they ran independent applicants: here's an individual, here's their resumé, work it through, clicking on the computer, to see what the score would be. The current Prime Minister would not be allowed into the country, the previous immigration minister, Ms. Caplan, would not be allowed into this country under that system. We took a number of other scenarios. Then we thought of an ideal person who Canada should perhaps be recruiting, say in the British Isles: a young lady, 30 years old, from Wales, an economist--

The Chair: Not a former Canadian teacher, I hope.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Paul Forseth: This person, with a masters degree, would not make the point system. That is the kind of person we would be recruiting at universities in the British Isles. Those issues are before us.

Now we have this other issue that I hear of today, refugees in limbo. I would like some comments about that, to have Mr. Kits explain a little more fully just why we have this problem. Do they have some data about how many people are actually in this category? What seems to be the real block, so that this separate group continues to exist? Are the new bill and the regulations going to fix this, or is it just going to continue in perpetuity? He touched on some of those things, but I would like him to explain clearly what the problem is and give us a solution.

The Chair: Harry.

Mr. Harry Kits: Numbers are very difficult. Probably those who would be included under the old undocumented refugees class would still be somewhere in the 5,000 range, those who are in Canada under that class, and those would be Somalis and Afghanis only. They were listed as a set of countries that would fit under that. For a time they had to wait five years, and then would get landed, and after that it was three years, as was announced about two years ago, and then they would get landed. But there are still all kinds of questions about the process through which they're going to end up getting landed.

What the Somali community, particularly that here in Ottawa, did was take the CIC to court to address the question of discrimination and to see whether there might be a different process through which they could get landed. The solution they came up with in negotiations and the agreement, the Aden agreement, as it was called, was that they could sign a personal affidavit and, in addition, have an affidavit from another individual who knew them or from an organization of their ethnic background that could swear to their identity.

The solution is simple--a number of us have talked about it that way--to say that at the IRB, when people are identified as being refugees, they are being identified as who they are. It's a certain person who is in trouble that is being identified, it's not just a person from Somalia who perhaps happens to be this person. It's this person from Somalia who's in trouble. We would suggest that like those refugees who are assessed overseas, they're automatically given permanent resident status. We would suggest that in the case of those who are refugees landing in Canada and asking for refugee status, and then to become permanent residents, to give it to them at that point would be the simplest solution. In the paper that Guy Goodwin-Gill and Judith Kumin wrote there's identification of a number of cases in which the identity of the person was the reason their refugee status was removed from them. So there is identity determination happening at that process, and we think that should be the route to go.

The problem, as we understand it, is that the department does not want to recognize that identity determination process as sufficient for permanent resident status. So they have to go through a whole other process, and that's where the affidavits come in. We think there should be a way of getting those two processes together--solve the problem, get it done on time.

¿ (0950)

The Chair: Take their fingerprints and say, this person is the one in need of protection, and give him or her a name, if you don't believe their name.

Mr. Harry Kits: That's right. And the security process now which is going to happen at the same time should resolve the questions of security, which were part of the problem that was presumably being addressed through UCRCC, saying that over five years we should be able to figure out if these people have any kind of criminal past. Well, basically, they were just left and abandoned, living in society here without access to a number of resources and opportunities and possibilities of work and reunification with their family, still not being addressed.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Thank you very much.

I'll switch over to Mary Lawson. You spelled out quite eloquently your concerns about the skilled worker program. Can you just clearly explain why the provincial nomination program isn't going to fix the special trades issue. I take it that's the solution envisaged by Bill C-11, that we're not going to be entertaining skilled trades people through the independent class, they're going to be taken care of by the provincial nomination program. Can you tell me why that isn't going to work?

Ms. Mary Lawson: I think one of the problems--and we identified it--is that the provincial nominee program needs to be part of the arranged employment category. If there were a closer tie there, perhaps it would assist the process quite a bit. We have an example that comes out of the Toronto market. The program is called CREWS, and it's dealing with temporary workers, but it's a pilot program and it's identifying skills.

So one of the suggestions that we would like to make is this. Under the national occupation classification there are many lists of skills, jobs essentially, things that people do. If those were all given a value in the points program, we would have more luck in, for instance, bringing in a framer. A framer we would need to build a house may not, in fact, be a certified carpenter with all of the appropriate apprenticeship behind him. If you start to look at these skills as a separate list and give some value to those things, we would be more successful in bringing in the kinds of people we need. In the CREWS program, for example,the list of what they're looking for identifies the clear elements of building a house: bricklayers, cement finishers, form workers, framers, labourers. Those are not necessarily certified apprenticed areas as people apply to immigrate to this country as a skilled worker.

So if we could in fact--and I think it applies to a broad range of trade or worker types--give a value to what they've been doing as a skill, we've gone a long way towards accomplishing what we want. And there is this working agreement, this pilot program, in place with the CREWS program. Of course, it's directly tied to the housing industry, but maybe it's a good example to suggest in other areas of needed work.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Paul.

Jerry.

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham--Kent Essex, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to add to the chairman's comment that all of you have brought forth some pretty important issues for us, issues we're going to have to deal with.

Mary, getting into bringing skilled workers in, what I'm hearing is this--and correct me if I'm wrong. We identify in Toronto that we're short of bricklayers, we're short of framers, and so on. If HRDC and Immigration got together and put the demand out for this type of worker to fill that gap, that would satisfy a lot of your concern.

¿ (0955)

Ms. Mary Lawson: It would clearly help a great deal.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: And the barrier is certification and apprenticeship programs.

Ms. Mary Lawson: We feel that the new 80-point program, as it's being suggested, is not going to recognize clearly enough some of the skills that are actually there and could be applied to our needs, because there's more of an education and language package that--

Mr. Jerry Pickard: I think you put it very well when you said it tilts it toward a certain group in society. I think this committee has looked at that and has some feelings similar to yours. So I do appreciate that.

David, the one area you raised that concerned me a bit was opening the door to any one person sponsoring anybody else. At present, if you're in Canada and you do not have another relative in Canada, you can sponsor another member of your family from abroad to come to Canada, but you're suggesting we broaden that to allow any person to sponsor anybody. What it puts in my mind is a huge number of applications coming forward. Certain people may encourage others to sponsor somebody else, and we could have backlogs that would be phenomenally high, not dealing with the skills, the professionals, the whole raft of people we need.

Would you restrict numbers in that recommendation? And how would you respond to my suspicion that it would open the doors very wide to give an individual or a set of individuals rights to sponsor people from all over the world, while we would restrict all other areas of our immigration policy?

Mr. David Davis: I think you have to look at the regulations as an all-encompassing feature, where you want to balance all interests involved. I agree with you, you don't want to have one part of the regulations restricting one group of people, while in another part you're opening the door too much. Obviously, you have to balance all the interests.

On your first point, I wouldn't restrict numbers, but you have an opportunity now to make the regulations accessible to those many family members who, because they're not directly related.... For instance, we once had a retiree category. We got rid of that in 1991, I think. Why did we get rid of that? Why not allow that senior family member to be with their family? The fact is that you have a low-income cut-off, and sometimes, even if you're a dollar short of that, you can't sponsor that family member, it won't be allowed. You then have to go through this appeal process. So speaking of backlogs, you have then a backlog of appeals in Canada.

You have to look at the global picture. Why not allow one person to sponsor another individual, regardless of that connection, but at the same time, through documentation from that individual, show that the person who is going to come here will not be living off welfare, but is going to get a job. They may even have a job. You might make it a condition to demonstrate that you're going to provide a job for them or show that you have a job offer waiting for that person. Why not allow that to get in there? No matter how you're going to create the selection criteria, there's always going to be that compassionate case. There are going to be examples where a person doesn't quite make the selection criteria, but at the end of the day, you're going to say to yourself, they may not be related, but they're a very close friend and they've been involved with this person for many years; why not allow that person to come?

If you don't have that category and you leave it just to “humanitarian and compassionate” grounds, I've seen that being interpreted in the last ten years very narrowly. You have to demonstrate that there is almost a strong chance of harm coming to that individual in order to make it in that category. I don't think backlogs are going to be the end result, because you have an opportunity to add conditions to it to ensure that doesn't happen.

À (1000)

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Everybody on this committee will fall under a Canada-first policy when we're talking about skill sets people have, and obviously we have to satisfy those skill sets. Immigration may be one way to do it. Does the industry see a way that they can increase those skill sets, with our unemployment rates at 7% or whatever they're at? Are there ways to get those skill sets developed here in Canada over a longer period? I know we haven't done it successfully, but why haven't we done it? Maybe it would help us to look at these directions as well.

Ms. Mary Lawson: Clearly, the industry recognizes that we need to do a much better job of that. In the existing unemployment situation, some of those people would be suitable for work on job sites, being installers of a product, a cabinet installer, a roofing installer, or whatever. There are training programs being developed to assist in getting some of those people onto our job sites. There are some problems with that. Some of the largest areas of unemployment are downtown core issues, and job sites have a tendency to be out in the suburbs a fair distance. So you get into issues of transportation and accessibility to the actual place of work.

As for encouraging young people to come into our industry, this is something we clearly have to address and take much more seriously. I think our school systems have not encouraged--nor have the parents for that matter--young people into skills, as opposed to academics. Try to find a high school that still has a trades program in it, so that the young people at least get a chance to try these things and see if there's an aptitude or an interest. As I mentioned earlier, I'm very directly involved with George Brown College and the expansion of their programs as they relate not only to the trades of our industry, but to trades in general for our English-speaking Canadian children. Also, their international programs are expanding in a huge way. Their support of the health-related trades, nursing, as mentioned earlier, is growing in leaps and bounds, but it's not fast enough to deal with our immediate problem. In time, hopefully, we will start to see more people coming back into apprenticeship programs, more young people choosing trade-related situations, people changing careers and going back into the colleges or whatever for trade-related training. The unions are bringing people back in to retrain or train in a slightly different direction, so that there's a broader skill base.

We have a real shortage in Canada of people with skills. We need a lot more of them.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Kenward.

Mr. John Kenward (Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Home Builders' Association): To follow Mary's comments, we're having to rebuild the education and training system in Canada in relation to our industry. We first alerted the federal government to the fact that we expected a crisis in skilled trades to emerge in 1985. We renewed that alert in 1990. We got hit by the crisis we anticipated.

Right now we are working with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Human Resources Development Canada on a proposal for the funding for a human resource development action plan for the residential construction industry. We're hoping this plan will be funded by Human Resources Development Canada, to put Canadians first by rebuilding our education system. The Morley Gunderson report we have circulated to you explains how far that system has actually deteriorated in its ability to provide opportunities to young Canadians to pursue careers in our industry. This rebuilding exercise is going to take many years, and we want to get it moving as quickly as we can. We believe we've got the system in place. It's a matter of being able to deploy it once again. In the meantime immigration can have a positive effect on the problem, but there's a much larger problem out there in respect of this rebuilding.

À (1005)

The Chair: Thank you.

Madeleine.

[Translation]

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

I would like to thank our three witnesses for having taken the time to meet with us this morning. First, I would like to address a comment to the people from the construction business in particular.

It is obvious that with the selection criteria, not only will this lead to a lack of useful workers—I think we've all had plumbing problems and know what it's like to wait for the plumber to arrive—but in addition we will not be able to meet the immigration quotas set by the minister. That's obvious. Therefore, if this committee fails to prove that we need to change the criteria, we will hit a wall. It may take a year, but we will hit it; that much is clear.

Since you spoke a little earlier about the temporary workers program, I will not address that matter.

I have a question for Mr. Davis. You said that when the permanent residency card expires, it creates a problem because the conditions imposed are so difficult to meet. You probably know that, as it now stands, if you want to get a new 8½ by 11 form because you lost the old ones, it takes four months to get them. We regularly receive phone calls to our offices from people who are outraged by this. That's understandable. It takes time because inquiries have to be carried out. You also mentioned that it was easy to falsify the forms.

I just want to share some facts with you. We live in a developed country. There is a deadline to renew one's driver's licence. There is a deadline to renew one's health insurance card, as well as one's passport. You are not allowed to leave the country if it is too close to the expiry date on your passport. I think that's the case if it's less than six months. So why shouldn't a permanent resident be just as able to use his judgment and foresight, as does any other Canadian citizen? Can you explain that to me... I think it would be extremely hard to implement what you are suggesting. It would not be that easy. I will let you think about it and ask another question of Mr. Kits.

In the course of the hearings we held when we studied Bill C-11, committee members were unanimous in their belief that it was unacceptable for refugees to be in limbo. We really hoped that the regulations would help solve the problems from a human point of view, because we can't just coldly ignore them.

I would like a clarification regarding some of the suggestions you made. Under the Aden Agreement, where a person's identity is attested by a permanent resident, by a Canadian citizen, by someone reliable, you ask that we add “or any other person deemed acceptable...” Does “any other person” include someone who is neither a Canadian citizen nor a permanent resident? For instance, could a person living in India, Pakistan, Africa or Europe vouch for another person's identity? Is that what you mean? If so, I imagine that there would be an inquiry not only into the background of the first person, but of the second one, too.

À (1010)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Davis, I wonder if you could start with the permanent resident card question Madeleine had for you, expiry dates and so forth.

Mr. David Davis: The fact of the matter is that permanent residents enjoy rights to come into and leave our country right now. Under the current system, with the one document, you don't have to be concerned about renewing it. I've already acknowledged on behalf of NICC that there's good reason to have a new card, we welcome that, but the comparison with the Canadian passport is problematic. I can't travel abroad unless I have a passport. I know that before I leave Canada. If somebody who is a permanent resident has this card, they know they can go to their home country, because they're a citizen of that country. So it's not something that you have to prepare to get to that country, it becomes an issue when you're coming back into Canada.

You say, why don't you just prepare for it? You've already acknowledged in your question that there's this lengthy process in getting the card renewed. Suppose I know that my five-year card is about to expire, but I have an important business trip that I must make for the company I'm acting for, say a computer company in India. They need me for an important meeting, but my card is about to expire in five days, and I know from speaking to my friends that it is going to take two months to get it renewed. I can't miss that meeting, it's a very important meeting, I have to go. Why should I have such huge difficulty coming back into Canada if I'm only going to go away for a week and it's going to overlap that five-year expiry period? Persons who are British, German, French are from visa-exempt countries. They can simply get on a plane, arrive at Pearson International Airport, and be allowed in, because they don't need a visa to come back in. That person who has the PR card that expires from a non-visa-exempt country is a landed immigrant, and yet they're required to get a visa to come back into the country to renew their card. It's idiotic.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: May I respond?

[English]

The Chair: The second question, Madeleine, is on the limbo of refugees.

Mr. Harry Kits: What we indicated there was any person deemed acceptable, at the discretion of the officer, to attest to the identity. It's not just any person whom the applicant thinks is good enough. The officer needs to judge that the person is acceptable. There's that level of determination by the officer, and the officer will need to have some reason for assuming that this will work. I suspect that most officers wouldn't just accept some affidavit that came from another country, that there would be some other way of figuring it out. It could be another person who's in the same position within Canada. So it's not just anybody.

The Chair: Is there any final comment?

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Yes, I would like to say something, but I think I've lost my train of thought, Mr. Chairman. But my comment was related to what you said: take someone who is from France or Germany. They don't need a visa, they can return to Canada even if their card is expired. I don't think so. If I understood the explanations provided by the minister at the time and that of the officials, the permanent residency card will be a travel document which any permanent resident would have to carry to return to Canada. So, it would have nothing to do with whether they needed a visa to return to their own country.

À (1015)

[English]

The Chair: Well, we're going to have an opportunity of making sure that permanent resident card really does what it's supposed to do when we finally start making recommendations.

Mr. David Davis: If I may, the simple point is that the person would be treated like any visitor from Germany or France if their card expired. Right now, if you have a relative who is in Germany and wants to come and visit Canada, all they have to do is purchase a plane ticket and come. The examination occurs at Pearson International Airport, so they're in Canada. If there's some question about that person's status, they'll be directed to appear before an immigration adjudicator, but in Canada. That's the difference.

The Chair: Thank you.

David.

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

I'm very sorry for being late. I missed part of your presentation, and the questions I was going to aim at--

The Chair: In that case, thank you very much, David.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. David Price: Thank you for your presentations. They were very interesting and gave us more information, and that's what we're here for.

I come out of the construction industry, with 35 years as an electrical contractor, and therein is the problem I have, having dealt with some overseas contracts and finding good skilled labour over there that in some cases we couldn't bring back. In other cases we could bring them back, but because of our different rules in the provinces, we were not able to have these skills recognized, quite often having these people end up working in the black market, which is a huge problem. We have more problems with our interprovincial barriers than we have with our national barriers. I live right on the American border, and I have the same problem with skilled American workers coming back and forth. You realize the problem we have in interprovincial matters, but it goes a lot further than that. Look at our military who are trained. We had trained electricians coming out of the military who couldn't be recognized.

How do we solve this problem? That's a nice short question, but the answer....

Ms. Mary Lawson: Clearly, there's a lot of work to be done internally, and it has to do with improving our own apprenticeship programs, improving a recognition of the skills as they are. The military should be an area we can draw from to provide people who have the skills already, but there isn't a direct link with our industry.

The interprovincial issue is huge, and it's being discussed at our tables within the Canadian Home Builders' Association as a direction we want to be talking to governments about. As Mr. Kenward has already noted, we're talking about the need, we're talking with Human Resources to identify exactly what we need and how we can direct people from one part of the country to another as those needs are there. But we haven't got direct, clear paths into our industry for young people coming in, for people who might like to come from abroad, or for people who just want to make a career change.

À (1020)

Mr. David Price: One of the problems I saw is that people who would look at Canada, skilled people who wanted to come here, would said, okay, there's a big project going on, I can get a job in this province, but if I come in, I know the next big project.... Let's face it, some skilled workers like to work on major projects, so they'll go from place to place in these projects. That's what we ended up doing, using these people all over the rest of the world, because they can move around easily in the rest of the world, but when they came into Canada they couldn't move from province to province, and that's what turned them off. A lot of them would say, no, we won't go to Canada, we'll go to the States.

Ms. Mary Lawson: One of the other areas we talked about it in preparation for this meeting is the cross-over between the industrial construction sector and the residential sector, and those don't cross over very smoothly at all. So people who are working on major projects, industrial perhaps, can't then just come over and be involved in a residential project. We don't have that opportunity, but we should have. Whatever skill they have should be transferable around the country and from one type of project to another. So it's the next step we clearly have to work on.

The Chair: Thank you.

Judy.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP): Thank you. Thanks to all the presenters.

I am going to get cut off soon, because we are almost out of time, so I am going to put three questions, all very broad, one to each of you. If you feel like jumping in on each area, please do.

First, Mary, you are recommending something we have heard from other presenters, pretty significant changes to the point system and the whole way in which we try to attract skilled workers. We have a problem here. We are under this deadline, I would say an unreasonable deadline--I am not sure if you would agree--of June 28 for proclamation. Some before us have suggested we should actually take our time and recommend to the minister that we put off this deadline of June 28 and do it right. My question to you is, should we do that, or do we have enough time between now and the 28th? Does the department have enough time to actually change this point system and the other provisions that relate to our need to attract skilled labourers to Canada, keeping in mind that we've not only got to get through these regulations, the department has got to draft the guidelines, and we've got to make it operational?

Second, David Davis comes from Winnipeg and knows very well how much Winnipeg desperately needs immigrants, knows also, from representing the Indo-Canadian population, how many obstacles families of East Indian background have within our province to bring in relatives, to sponsor family members, or even to get a visa for a family function. Does this bill, with all the draft regulations, make it any easier for us to attract immigrants to Winnipeg? If it doesn't, would the recommendations you've presented today actually go some distance to making that possible?

Finally, Harry, you're absolutely right when you mention that we've tried before and failed. What makes you think we're going to have any more luck this time getting the changes I would agree are absolutely essential for a compassionate refugee policy? What makes you think we can do it now? Even though the minister has changed, we are still dealing with this need to respond to U.S. demands, given what happened on September 11. Those pressures are probably still very much alive within the whole system. I am not sure we're any further ahead in rethinking some of these very regressive measures.

Ms. Mary Lawson: Perhaps I will start off. Certainly, the time is short, but if the decision is that it is what needs to be worked with, the Canadian Home Builders' Association would be very pleased to help. We have the people, we have a fair bit of research to contribute, we have a network of builders, trades, suppliers, and so on right across the country that we can use to contribute to this process. We would be very interested in doing that.

I think there is an example in the temporary worker program based in Toronto that maybe could be looked at a little harder, dealing with the skills. If you look at things from that point of view, some answers may come forward for adjusting that point structure somewhat to be more suitable.

The other thing we did note was adaptability. I cite the example of a young carpenter who has all his credentials and all his paperwork from Europe. He's 30 years old, but he only speaks one language, and it isn't English or French, and he's not married. He wouldn't get here, but he is exactly what we need. So maybe that area of adaptability could fall over into more of a bonus area, as opposed to the core area of consideration.

I think the real point I would like to make is that we, the Canadian Home Builders' Association, are prepared to be at the table in any way we can to assist in the process.

À (1025)

Mr. David Davis: If this committee puts into practice in the regulations each point I have raised this morning, it definitely will benefit bringing relatives, skilled workers from India to Canada. There is no question.

The Chair: They'll have to name the regulation after you.

Thank you, David.

Harry.

Mr. Harry Kits: Why do we keep bringing this? I am a person of faith, and faith always demands hope, so I hope the possibilities are there. We are called to address this injustice, we have to figure out a way to do it, and we need to keep calling to account those who are resisting. Where that is exactly is still not fully clear to me. It may, in fact, be partially the IRB itself. It may also be the department officials. I don't where this minister stands on this issue, and that's a piece of the pie we are going to be continuing to prod as well towards a political solution.

I think it's a political solution. Somebody needs to say, look, guys, get together on this, and figure out what we're going to do about it. It's a simple solution. It's doing what's done overseas. It's addressing people who are deemed to be refugees. These are not people who are coming in as terrorists, these are people who are deemed to be refugees fleeing from their country. IRB is determining that. Why should we leave them in limbo? It isn't fair, it's unjust, and we have to find a way of doing it.

We are very happy to continue to talk with you about what the possibilities are and to draw on the resources of a whole range of communities who would be ready to rally around this one.

The Chair: Thank you, Harry.

Because I think I said it two weeks ago and Judy asks a very good question, I don't think I would be talking out of turn by suggesting that in our review of Bill C-11, with regard to the limbo refugees and the very compelling testimony we heard from the very people who are in the system.... I think the spirit of Bill C-11 was to recognize those people as quickly as possible, once our quasi-judicial system, the IRB, said they were convention refugees. I believe our department, our minister at the time, and this minister also want to do that. You're right, the barrier is political. That's what we are around this table, politicians. So instead of hope, start believing. Who knows whether or not we'll do it in two or three weeks.

Thank you.

Mark, I think you had one little question, and then we have to get going.

Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau, Lib.): Thank you.

Ms. Lawson, I'm sure you have statistics. I wonder if you have an idea what percentage of the people in the home building industry are new Canadians?

Ms. Mary Lawson: I don't think we have a number. If we looked at particular markets, we probably could put a number on them. For instance, in big markets like Toronto, where you have a lot of organized labour, you probably have a fair number of people who are relatively new to Canada. But across the country, no, we don't have a specific number.

Mr. Mark Assad: In your area, however, is the number of people coming in growing?

Ms. Mary Lawson: I would say not nearly as quickly as we would like it to. Certainly, in the secondary markets where I build, there are definitely not immigrants coming into the industry. If I think of other markets I'm familiar with, perhaps the B.C. market might have a few, but it's been so flat that I don't think it has been growing as much as it can. As for the prairies, definitely not. So other than the major centres, no, we haven't had many new Canadians.

À (1030)

Mr. Mark Assad: Thank you.

The Chair: That's what the next part of our job is after we do the regulations. We're going to go and market Canada to the world and find those skilled workers we need, the sort of people who helped build this country and those houses over the past decades.

If I could, I would ask one final question, and it too revolves around skilled workers and the retroactivity question. How important are the provincial nominee programs in achieving your objectives? Anita and others will tell you that if Manitoba had their wish, they would ask for more, and in fact, they are asking for more of all kinds of people, and I don't know why we wouldn't accede to that request. In Ontario we can't even get a provincial nomination agreement, and we haven't had one for eight years, which is causing us all kinds of problems. We have leadership hopefuls out there talking about how Ontario wants immigrants and special kinds of immigrants, and yet we don't have a provincial nominee agreement, which causes us all kinds of difficulties.

Is that really part of the solution? When you do have provincial nominee agreements, you can, depending on the province and the geography, deal with specific issues of resettlement and the intake in a very specific way. Is that the thing, or is it essentially what you've indicated, that because of the demographics and because of the average age in your industry, we're talking about a holistic requirement for all of Canada, not necessarily earmarking for specific provinces?

Ms. Mary Lawson: I think we have both issues, but clearly, the provincial agreements are very important to the equation. I don't think there's any question about that. I think, as an industry, we need to put a little more pressure on Ontario to get those agreements in place. But the other issue is clearly there too, that people are just aging out of our industry, and they haven't been replenished for a long time. So both issues have to be addressed, very clearly.

The Chair: David, you talked about how difficult it is for some people. I know you talked about people coming from India, and I think all of us have experienced that frustration, because we all have people from India in our constituencies. We've been very frustrated when they haven't been able to even come over for marriages and funerals. It's incredible sometimes. I believe our bureaucracy or those people who make decisions lose their hearts somewhere in the equation.

I thought Bill C-11 talked about taking away this dual intent, so that in fact, if a person wanted to come and visit Canada and see what Canada is all about, and then decide sometime in the future that they might want to come and stay here, that wouldn't be held against them. As you know, the present system is that if you dare say you might be thinking of living in Canada in applying for a visitor's visa, you know very well you're not going to get a visitor's visa to come to this country at all, not only from India, but from any other country in the world, because we don't believe you'll ever return. I thought Bill C-11 would allow people to come and visit Canada, for whatever reason, and that would not be held against them if they should say, I might want to stay here some day.

I'm thinking about your example, and whether or not Bill C-11 and the regulations can, in fact, do what you say without holding it against those people who are coming from non-visa-exempt countries.

Mr. David Davis: Your point is well-taken. Dual intent is a policy we've had problems with. You're right, even though dual intent exists, there are certain countries--Philippines is another good example, as well as India--you're not going to get that visitor visa if you suggest it. At the same time, you don't want to get rid of dual intent, thinking that's going to benefit these communities in getting their visitor visa. It's probably just part of the problem. I think you need to keep dual intent there, because it's also beneficial to those students who are coming here on student visas, say for a two- or three-year program. This also would benefit the builders here, if they were coming to get retrained on a student visa, when, down the road, once they graduate, they're going to get a job in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary in the construction industry. So you need to keep that there.

You need to make sure the dual-intent policy isn't just restricted to certain countries or certain occupations, because that's, in effect, what's happening. It needs to be more broadly based. I hope that answers your question.

À (1035)

The Chair: Yes.

Again, thank you, all, on behalf of the committee, for excellent presentations and excellent answers to our questions. I think it's been very helpful. Thank you again.

We'll move quickly, if we could, after a two-minute break, to our next witnesses.

À (1036)

À (1043)

The Chair: Colleagues, the next round of witnesses has the Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group, Caroline Lindberg and Michael Bossin, and the Parkdale Community Legal Services, Geraldine Sadoway. It's nice to see you again, Geraldine. I participated in an immigration seminar over there, and there were very good people and very good suggestions. Also, from the African Canadian Legal Clinic, we have Erica Lawson joining us.

Thank you very much for attending and for giving us your submissions, as well as for your hard work on Bill C-11, which was the bill on immigration. We look forward to 7 or 8 minutes of comments on your briefs, so that we can be given the opportunity to ask you some questions.

Perhaps we could start with the Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group and Caroline.

Ms. Caroline Lindberg (Barrister and Solicitor, Community Legal Education, Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group): We have chosen to address just two topics in our submission on the proposed regulations, the question of applications on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and the issues relating to social assistance and family reunification. I will speak briefly on the humanitarian and compassionate applications, and then my colleague Michael will speak briefly on issues of social assistance and family reunification.

I note also that the Canadian Bar Association raised the same issue with respect to the inconsistencies between the proposed regulations and what's in the IRPA on the agency applications. Under the current Immigration Act the process for humanitarian and compassionate applications involves subsection 114(2), and this has been interpreted by CIC to mean that an unsuccessful applicant who is inadmissible spends five years on a minister's permit before being eligible for permanent residence status. We were pleased when we saw the IRPA and section 25, which states quite clearly and plainly that a favourable exercise of discretion on a humanitarian and compassionate application could lead directly to a grant of permanent residence status. We were dismayed when we saw the proposed regulations, which contradict the language and the intent of the act.

The written brief elaborates on these inherent contradictions and the confused language concerning processing, and in the few moments I have to speak I would like to focus on the implications of the proposed process.

The regulatory impact statement analysis suggests that temporary permits would be used much as ministers' permits are used under the current system, to process inadmissible persons for landing. This creates enormous hardships for people, and it serves no useful purpose. In many ways, it's analogous to the difficulties faced by the refugees in limbo, who are kept on hold for several years if they are deemed not to have sufficient proof of identity. These are people we've accepted on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Many of them have already been here for a considerable time, and to put these people on hold because they have inadmissibility doesn't appear to have any justification and causes a lot of problems.

The most dramatic example is a case where someone has medical inadmissibility, and often this is a reason for the humanitarian and compassionate discretion's being exercised in favour of an applicant. There may be one member of the family who has a medical condition requiring treatment that's not available in the country of origin. The cruel irony of the current system, which the regulations would appear to perpetuate, is that such a person who is accepted or a family that's accepted will not be able to obtain health coverage. So the treatment will still be dependent on charity or not available, and this goes on, under the proposed regulations, for three years.

So we are recommending that the regulations be redrafted to make it very clear that as intended by the act, where an individual is inadmissible, but has warranted the exercise of discretion on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, they be expeditiously processed for landing and that there not be a delay.

Michael.

À (1045)

Mr. Michael Bossin (Barrister and Solicitor, Community Legal Services (Ottawa-Carleton), Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group): Thank you. I'm going to deal first with the inability of people on social assistance to sponsor under the proposed regulations.

I met with a client yesterday, and I thought afterwards about how these regulations would affect her situation. She's a woman from Somalia who came to Canada as a refugee claimant, was accepted as a refugee, and is now a permanent resident of Canada.

When she fled Somalia, she went to Ethiopia with her husband and her children. When she came to Canada from Ethiopia, she came with the two youngest kids and left her husband with the three other children. As soon as she left Ethiopia, everything went badly back home. Her husband became seriously ill and had to go to Djibouti for treatment. He left the kids with her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law had a stroke and has not been able to speak since then. The three children got sick with cholera and they all died. The woman here lost contact with her husband for years, until finally they re-established contact. She cannot get affordable day care for her children here. She's on social assistance. Can she sponsor her husband to come to join her in Canada under these proposed regulations? No. She's ineligible because she's on social assistance.

The minister's representatives who testified before you will say she can apply under humanitarian and compassionate grounds, and that the visa officer can consider humanitarian considerations, which I think are abundant in this case. But visa officers are not known for showing compassion in cases like this. That's why so many cases of this nature have gone to the appeal division of the Immigration and Refugee Board. My client will not see the humanitarian and compassionate route as an another opportunity. She will see it as second-class treatment. She will say she's being offered the dirt road while everyone else is able to take the highway. She will see it as an injustice, and I agree.

The other point we raise in our brief concerns the long responsibility of sponsors and the consequence of a sponsorship breakdown in which the person being sponsored ends up on social assistance. We make a point that I'm sure has been made to this committee before. The regulations do not take into account the reality that people's situations change. People lose their jobs, they get sick, they get into accidents, and they're unable to fulfill their obligations of sponsorship, often for reasons beyond their own control. In our view, the regulations are too rigid and don't take those changes of circumstance into account.

We have a social safety net in Canada for people to whom those things happen, but for these people who sponsor, the price of accessing that social safety net is extremely high. What will happen under these regulations is that there will be two classes of people in Canada who take benefit of that social safety net. There are those people who sponsor and will be incurring a debt when their family members go on welfare, and there will be those other Canadians who go on welfare who don't incur a debt. We're creating two different classes, and, again, we consider that to be an injustice.

À (1050)

The Chair: I know your brief talks about more than those two issues. We appreciate that, but thank you very much for highlighting those two and for your suggestions.

We'll go to Parkdale Community Legal Services, and Geraldine Sadoway.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway (Staff Lawyer and Supervisor of Immigration and Refugee Law Group, Parkdale Community Legal Services Inc.): Thank you. I'm very pleased to be here in your city of work, and I thank you, Mr. Fontana, for coming to our community of Parkdale, in Toronto, two years ago to talk about Bill C-31. We know you made changes to Bill C-31 and to Bill C-11, and that encourages us about this committee, because we know the regulations need changes.

PCLS, Parkdale Community Legal Services, has worked for thirty years in the low-income neighborhood of Parkdale in Toronto. We provide access to justice in a storefront setting in this community. Many people in our community are new immigrants and refugees. But we're also connected right across the country to legal clinics such as the ones Caroline and Michael participate in or work for, and we know about these problems right across the country. We've been doing this work for years, so we have face-to-face knowledge of the people who have these problems, as many of you do in your constituencies.

You know we're part of a larger coalition, and you've received the coalition brief, which I actually appended to the Parkdale brief so that you would have it in translation. Today, though, I'm just going to talk to you about two issues: the most vulnerable immigrants and refugees who come to Canada, those being children.

I'm going to deal with two points in the regulations that are very disturbing to us. One of them is the definition of “dependant child”. In the new regulation, a dependant child is defined as a biological child or legally adopted child. The only way to determine a biological relationship is through DNA testing. Most of you have not had DNA testing to determine your relationship to your parents or to your children, nor would you want it.

The Chair: I wanted to ask an awful lot of times, I must tell you.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Maybe he finally did do it.

Anyway, nor would you want to. That's exactly the point.

The human community around the world has found ways to determine relationships: through laws and customs. The simplest one, the one we all subscribe to in Canada, is the presumption that birth within marriage is proof of parentage. We have that presumption in law in the common law jurisdiction, and that similar presumption exists around the world: that children born within a marriage are the children of the parents involved. We do not do DNA testing in order to register the births of children.

In the past, only the children who were born outside of a marriage needed DNA testing to establish a relationship and to establish responsibility when there was a reluctant parent. DNA helps to identify parents who may not want the responsibility. That's when it can be useful. But now, what the proposed regulation is going to do is go behind the presumption of parentage and place so-called “legitimate” children at risk of exposure to scandal and to the loss of their own identity. This has already happened, as the example that I give you in my brief tells you.

The case in my brief is a real case, and it's a tragedy. But why does this happen? Why is DNA testing required, despite the fact that the child has been recognized as a member of this one family since birth? It's a tragic thing that has happened, and it is not necessary. It is not in the best interests of children.

I wanted to tell you—I was hoping I would be able to quote it, but the document hasn't actually been published yet; it's soon to be published—that the International Organization for Migration is very concerned about DNA testing by Canadian immigration officials abroad. Canadian immigration officials do it more than any other country. Why? This is not a security issue. We don't need to defend ourselves from these children.

What happens to these children if they are found not to be the biological children of the parent? I can tell you what is happening. They experience separation, sometimes for years, while we try to do a humanitarian application, while we try to unify a child with a parent or parents when that child has been somehow cast out of their own family.

You might think this is something that may happen in other parts of the world but doesn't happen here, that this is something unfamiliar to Canadians. Well, in fact, it's not so unfamiliar. One of the articles I read when I was working on this particular case described how, if you checked the pedigrees of many of our citizens today—their long lines of ancestry that go back many years—you would in fact find a 5% rate of what are called “non-paternity events”. In other words, this is something that is part of our reality, and to protect children, we encourage recognition of relationships based on documentation. We do not require DNA testing. That is required when we need to do it to protect the children, not the other way around.

À (1055)

You may ask how that can happen. Well, it can happen because of something as simple as an accidental or deliberate mix-up in a hospital—which does happen, although not in great many cases—and it can also happen to hide scandals within families. In the past, it could happen in order to protect the unwed mother, or it could happen when there was a rape or an adulterous relationship. But whatever the reason, if the child is being protected and is being brought up within the family, that child should not be excluded.

Our recommendation to you is that our Immigration Act should reflect our own family law in Canada. In the definition of “child”, we must recognize the legal children of a marriage as legitimate children, in accordance with the laws and customs of the place where the child is born, just as we recognize other relationships, such as marriage or adoption in accordance with the laws of the place where that marriage or adoption takes place. Prima facie, we should recognize birth certificates and documents. If they don't have those documents, we should ask for affidavits, declarations, and other proof of relationship before we ask for DNA testing. My argument to you today is that DNA testing should only be done at the option of the parents.

My second point has to do with education. You have my brief, and I've outlined to you what happened in the United States on this issue. There, of course, they have many more children who are undocumented—so-called “illegals”. That sticks in my throat, because I can't see a child as being illegal. A child is a human being who requires all of our attention and care.

We recommended a change to section 30. That was not accepted, and we are disappointed. We are disappointed because of the exception you have left in subsection 30(2) of the act, that being an exception not permitting or not authorizing the children of persons in Canada who are temporary residents not authorized to work or study—which I think is a long way of saying bona fide visitors or tourists.

The exception unfortunately leads to a demand by school authorities for documentation. “What is your immigration status?“ they ask, in order to find out that you're not a bona fide tourist. If you don't think it's happening—and many of you from other parts of the country may not realize that this is a problem—it's a huge problem in Ontario. The school boards in Peel and Mississauga have said they turn away hundreds of children every year because they don't have immigration authorization. The school boards use this as a reason to deny entry to schools.

What can you do about it now? We have to ask that, we have to keep pushing this issue, because we know children's very lives are at stake when they are denied education. And I emphasize that: their very lives are at stake. I'm not exaggerating.

What you can do is reflect what you did say when you debated this issue in your committee. You can put into the regulations directions stating that immigration officers are not to use the right to education or access to the schools as a manner of enforcing the Immigration Act. You can protect the privacy of individuals who get into schools. But that doesn't really resolve the problem, because in order to meet the requirement that subsection 30(2) provides, a parent has to say they are not a genuine visitor but are here illegally. They do have to prove that.

Á (1100)

You can make it clear in the regulations that no questions can be asked by the school boards, that there can be no communication between the schools and immigration officers about a person. The school boards are third parties after all, so it's not their business; their business is to educate children, not enforce the Immigration Act. You can therefore put it in the regulations that school boards are not to contact Immigration. Schools are not to ask for the individual's identity number, for their personal ID number, because that's private information that accesses the entire immigration file of the individual. That could be part of the regulations, and it would reflect, to me, what I think your committee intended, and that was that schools are a place where children are educated and where all children have a right to education.

You could also direct that immigration officers not to communicate with the schools to find out where a person is living. If I had that kind of evidence in the regulations, I could then say to a parent who is taking their child to school that, since they're living here without status, it's not going to put their status in jeopardy. You all know that what we do is try to regularize people's status, but it's an emergency situation to get the children into school.

When I say children's lives are at risk when they're not in school, I'm also thinking of those children who have come to our attention because they didn't show up for school or because someone in the school, such as a teacher, noticed that someone was not in good shape, was getting sick. Those are the kinds of cases that will not come to our attention if we allow children to be kept out of school in Canada.

Those are my remarks. You have my submissions, so I've tried not to repeat anything that's in my written submission. I trust you will read my written submission.

Thank you very much.

Á (1105)

The Chair: And you can trust that we'll probably ask you some questions, Geraldine. I think you've opened up a couple of points that some of us may want to ask you about.

Erica, welcome.

Ms. Erica Lawson (Policy and Research Analyst, African Canadian Legal Clinic): Thank you, and good morning.

I'd like to apologize for not having enough time to circulate my brief before appearing here, but I do have copies. Unfortunately, I only have copies available in English, but I do have copies with more extensive recommendations and a clearer analysis.

The last time I appeared before the committee, I spoke about the need for a raised perspective in the act, and I'm also going to speak about that in regard to the regulations today. I had talked about the importance of contextualizing and historicizing when we make these laws, in order for us to realize that they don't just fall out of the sky. There's a real history behind the way we come to make these laws.

The Chair: Oh, I don't know. I sometimes think they fall out of the sky.

Ms. Erica Lawson: It would be nice to think that.

There are actually five main areas that we've focused on in the clinic brief, but I'll just address two in the interests of time. They would be discretionary decision-making and the selection criteria for skilled workers.

We have many concerns, and our concerns stem from the historical, legal, and experiential knowledge that Canadian immigration procedures are not applied fairly. In reality, factors of race, class, gender, nationality, culture, and language are all central elements in determining who gets into Canada, and whether it's as temporary visitors or as permanent residents. They're also important in regard to who gets deported. Therefore, we really feel analysis of the proposed regulations from a critical race perspective is crucial in order to get a full understanding of the effect and the impact of the provisions on African Canadians and other racialized groups.

A critical race perspective, as I said earlier, requires that we contextualize and historicize the laws that we make and the procedural mechanisms that we use to implement these laws. It also challenges us to consider the ways in which racism is organized and how immigration is complicit in this process—as you all know—and to look at immigrants and refugees as whole human beings with families and communities. Furthermore, such an analysis is consistent with a contextualized approach under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Just as an aside—which is actually in the brief—before I move on to the two points I want to address, I come here with an even greater awareness of the way in which racial profiling has been used recently in immigration. We experience that as a community especially where I live in Toronto, with over-policing and all of that. My remarks are really tempered by the realization that racial profiling is a huge issue for this community, and I caution about the way in which Immigration may rely on racial profiling to target certain communities, especially the African-Canadian community.

Having said that, the ACLC, the African Canadian Legal Clinic, is concerned with the way in which discretionary decision-making powers under the proposed regulations will be exercised, particularly with respect to examination, admission into Canada, detention and release, and removal from Canada. The exercise of an immigration officer's powers and duties is one avenue through which racial stereotypes may be introduced. Given the pervasiveness of anti-black racism in Canada, an immigration officer's discretion can be affected, like I said before, by racial profiling and racial biases, particularly in the manner in which they assess persons engaged in the immigration process, and on issues of general credibility. There's a pervasive notion that somehow African people or African-descended people are suspect when we come here and in the reasons why we want to come here.

Á (1110)

Without getting into a lot of details about that—it's outlined in more detail in the brief—there are two recommendations that we'd like to make with respect to this issue. One of them is that, consistent with the decision of the Supreme Court in Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), the discretionary decisions of immigration officers must be made in a manner consistent with international human rights norms. Further, such decisions must be made in a constitutional manner. As such, the use of discretion must be free from racial prejudices, stereotypes, and biases, and must not have a discriminatory impact on African-Canadians, nor on any other racialized groups, for that matter.

We suggest one way that you might want to do that—and I know this is a contentious issue, but it's one I think we need to talk about; it's a discussion we're starting to have in other areas as well, including policing and education.... In order to ensure transparency, accountability, and the international and constitutional integrity of the exercise of discretion, statistics must be kept on the basis of race and country of origin of persons who are refused entry into Canada, detained, released, issued removal orders, and deported from Canada.

One of the things we come up against all the time—and I know this from my experience in working with the schools—is that there really is no proof that a particular group is targeted. While it's a touchy issue, it is something we need to discuss. How do we keep the stats to prove these regulations are in fact not being carried out fairly across the boards?

The second issue I'd like to address is the selection criteria for skilled workers. I found the presentation this morning to be really interesting, and I thought a lot of people, in other briefs I've read, have really done a good job of pointing to the way we value people's skills. I want to say, though, that where African Canadians in particular are concerned, the impact of the criteria as set out affects people from African and Caribbean countries in particular ways.

In reality, as you know, most of these countries have economic and educational infrastructures that cannot be compared with wealthier countries such as ours. In addition, while many African and Caribbean educational institutions have rigorous standards, poverty does limit access to higher education. Skilled workers from these countries are likely to possess useful skills and trades that do not require university degrees. Nevertheless, they are qualified, their skills are valuable, they are in need, they can contribute to Canada, and they can become committed citizens, as they have historically. My point is that paper qualifications do not necessarily reflect the true worth and value of the skills people bring here.

I guess what I'm asking is that we really question the notion of the brightest and the best, which is something that comes up a lot in the act and in the regulations. How do we value people? What types of things do we look at to say an individual brings a lot to the table? It's not good enough to suggest that the hard skills—language and all of those things—are the bottom-line criteria, because you cut out a lot of the very valuable experience and richness that people bring.

The recommendation that we have with respect to this issue is that the selection criteria be weighted to take into account skills, abilities, and experiences that are needed and are valuable to Canada; and that those criteria recognize that a university degree is not the only determinant of a potential immigrant's contribution to this country. We also suggest that in order to appropriately weight the selection criteria, the government should engage an external African-Canadian facilitator to undertake a national consultation with the African-Canadian community and with representatives from Canada and the Caribbean diaspora. That will also give these communities a way to influence these kinds of processes, which are by and large inaccessible to the communities that are affected.

Having said that, I actually have a lot more to say, but I realize my time is very limited. With respect to wrapping up, then, I will ask that you consider what we have to say. I will ask that you consider it in terms of the historical and current experiences that people have with racism in this country, in order to bring a broader and more critical perspective to the issues as we think about them. It's also a greater challenge, of course, because the way in which racism plays out is not as obvious as it once was. Certainly, it's more sophisticated, and the language that we use has become more sophisticated. I do see a lot of that in the regulations.

Á (1115)

So as you carry this out and listen to everything everybody who has appeared before you has said, I'm asking respectfully that you recognize that these things are not race-, gender-, class-, or culture-neutral. They do affect the way these mechanisms are carried out.

Thank you.

The Chair: Great. Thank you, Erica.

Again, thank you, all, for your great submissions and your recommendations. I want to thank your organizations on behalf of the men, women, and children you represent. You're on the front lines. I've seen your organizations in action, and you do some fine work on behalf of our country.

One of the things I forgot to mention is that if you have any comments with regard to any proposed regulations for immigration consultants—I know you're on the front lines, so you're probably the very people who are in fact doing some of that good work—and that particular subject matter, we wouldn't mind hearing from you on that also. Perhaps somebody will ask you the question, but if not, I've just asked you.

We'll start with Paul.

Mr. Paul Forseth: Thank you.

I want to go back to this issue of the definition of “dependent child” and perhaps provide some detail on how the common-law presumption of a child could be reflected in the regulations.

I think there is a concern about the buying and selling of children around the world. Sometimes when even refugee people show up in the appearance of a family with dependent children, the so-called “wife” is not really the wife, the kids have been purchased, and it's a whole fraud in order to get the terrorist into the country or because there is a trade in children. How do you prevent the buying and selling of children? Capacity creates its own demand. Where there's a capacity to beat the system, you create and incentive.

I'm looking at “dependent child”. It says:

“dependent child”, in respect of a parent, means a child who

(a) has one of the following relationships to the parent, namely,

(i) is the biological child of the parent, if the child has not been adopted by way of a full adoption by a person other than a spouse or a common-law partner of the parent, or

—and then it talks about the dependency.

How could that regulation be more appropriately worded in order to fit what I suppose the larger objectives are in terms of having integrity in the system, yet still have an appropriate social reflection?

Á (1120)

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: We deal with the legality of other relationships based on, first of all, documents that are prima facie evidence of the relationship. If we have proof or some reason to doubt the legality of those documents, or if the documents don't exist, then we go to sworn testimony and we look for evidence from the community. We look for baptismal certificates. We look for school certificates. There are many ways to show a family relationship. We do this all the time to deal with the issue of bona fide marriages or bona fide sponsorships of other relatives, and particularly of spouses, and now we're going to do it with common-law relationships.

If there was any evidence of huge numbers of children being brought in improperly—and there isn't any such evidence—then maybe we could be concerned that we had to do DNA testing of children, but there aren't that many children of “convenience”. Children are not convenient to a lot of people, as most parents would know.

The Chair: I hear you.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Children are part of a family, and they have to be looked at within the context of their family and they need to have that protection. Besides, we've also signed a number of international agreements in which we have promised to maintain the identity and integrity of children, not attack them.

What I'm seeing happen with the DNA testing...it's an easy tool, and it's also racist, because it gets into the issue of the cost of doing it. In the countries where it's done, where it's required, it's not a good thing for children. The act says, “in the best interests of children”. It repeats that several times. We do not have to defend ourselves and our borders from children. We have to ensure that we make the definition inclusive of the children who are recognized as members of the family, not exclusive and restricted to only biological children.

Mr. Paul Forseth: So in looking at the definition, then, my point is how that definition of “dependent child” should be worded.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: It should include biological and/or legal children, in accordance with the law or custom of the country where the child is born. That's what we do in Canada. We recognized those children as someone's legal children, unless somebody raises something to oppose that.

Mr. Paul Forseth: It sounds like Michael wants to chime in.

Mr. Michael Bossin: You made a comment about how to keep out the terrorist who is bringing in these children of convenience or these children who have been purchased. As you know, there are plenty of provisions in the act to keep out terrorists. We don't have to do that through this regulation concerning dependent children. There are plenty of provisions in the act to deal with issues of security.

The Chair: Just as a follow-up if I could, Paul, I have a very good question.

The present regulation, as I understand it, has no reference whatsoever to “biological”. Under the present definition in the regulations, then, would that suffice, or are you talking about not using the word “biological”, but using the words “legal children”? Does the present definition—

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: No, the present definition says “the issue”, and that is actually now under litigation in our case, because we're saying the issue includes the legal issue of the marriage. This is extremely important because—

Á (1125)

The Chair: We have to move on, Geraldine, but do you have a legal definition that you have proposed in your brief?

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Yes, our brief recommends that the definition of “child” should include the biological and/or the legal child, in accordance with the law or custom where the child is born. That means a presumption of law, and that the child born within the marriage is the child of the parents. To that, we would add regulations that say that prima facie documentation is enough, because we really have to stop this DNA testing. It's very dangerous, it's very harmful.

The Chair: All right.

Anita.

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, thank you for your presentations. I think you bring forward some very important things.

Let me ask you, Geraldine, how prevalent is this DNA testing?

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: All I know is that Canada does it more than any other country. It's happening more in countries such as the African countries or countries that have had a lot of turmoil.

Why does Canada do it, and why does Britain not do it? I don't have the answer to that. All I know is that it seems easy. The officers can say they don't have to check, they don't have to look at these documents if they can just say they want a DNA test done to prove the relationship. It's an increasing phenomenon.

There are two articles that are about to come out. Our case is being dealt with in one of them. The Lancet is publishing an article about this determination of relationship through DNA testing, and the International Organization for Migration is doing this critique.

It's a big problem, and it's an increasing problem. It can lead to other kinds of...when we do DNA testing, we're getting into genome testing and so on as well, which is another problem for us.

The Chair: Anita, I'm going to interrupt, if I could.

I know that nowhere in the regulations, now or in the future, does the acronym “DNA” ever show up, but I know it's a requirement, because you keep saying it's being used more and more.

Is it in the guidelines? Is it in the manuals for the—

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: It's in the guidelines currently.

The Chair: Can you provide us with a copy? I could ask the department, but I would rather have you give it to me, because then I can surprise them and tell them I have it.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: I have a lot of other stuff, too, but I want you to provide it voluntarily to us. That would help, if you have it.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: I'll do that.

Ms. Anita Neville: The other issue that you raise, the one about children not being in school, is of a huge concern. I recall the previous minister addressing this issue quite forcefully, saying status was not to be an impediment to it. I think there is probably some difficulty—and I'm not a lawyer—with our giving direction to school boards or school authorities in terms of what they can and can't ask, although I don't think there's difficulty in our giving direction to immigration officers in terms of their role in keeping children in or out of school.

Again, how prevalent is this in Ontario? Are you aware of it being the case in other jurisdictions? From your perspective, is there anything else the federal government can do to address this issue, which I view as a very serious issue?

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Yes, it is, and I would really like to see it resolved without us having to do what had to eventually happen in the United States. There, it had to go to the Supreme Court of the United States in order for it to be said that these children were being discriminated against by asking about their immigration status in order to let them get into school. I don't want us to have to do that.

It is a big problem in Ontario. In our little clinic in Parkdale, we've seen probably forty to fifty kids a year over the past four or five years that we've been dealing with and really focusing on this issue. Often, we see them after they've been out of school for two or three years. Believe me, when we get them into schools, the schools are very upset that they have to deal with a kid who has not been in school for that long. And we have very good people we work with in the schools on this issue.

You ask what you can do to direct the school boards. You can't direct the school boards but.... It really seemed ironic to me when I read in the regulatory impact statement—and I put this in my brief—that we don't have to do anything about education authorizations if we don't want to because education is a provincial jurisdiction. In fact, that's exactly true. Education is a provincial jurisdiction. But what we could do—they do this in the Income Tax Act—is not make the information available. The school can't phone the tax department to ask for information on someone's taxes. You can also make it very clear that this immigration information is private information, and that the schools do not have access to that information about a parent's or a child's immigration status. If I could point to that in the regulations when I'm talking to a family, if I can tell them that the schools are not allowed to ask Immigration about the family's status, then I think I would be safer.

Now, we're going to have a fight with the schools, too—and I guess I should correct myself by saying it's not the schools and it's not the teachers, but a lot of the school boards. The boards think this a way to limit costs, to limit it on the backs of innocent children who are not here because they chose to come here, but because their parents chose to come here. That is wrong, and we will have to fight with the school boards, but we will continue to fight.

I know your hearts are in the right place, because I read your debate and I know what you're concerned about. But we really do have to just do everything we can to make sure that, from the federal government's perspective, there is no limitation on children getting into schools.

Á (1130)

The Chair: Thank you for saying that. I would agree, Geraldine, that this committee spent a number of hours discussing this very issue, and we were shocked to find out that, in fact, some kids were not being allowed.... And it wasn't just in Ontario. I think it was in other jurisdictions across the country as well, and the minister and this committee did in fact debate this and wanted to make sure that, in Bill C-11, the principle was that every child that is here goes to school. I think subsection 30(2) only suggested it if you were a child accompanying a parent or whatever, but you were here as a visitor, though. That's obviously an entirely different situation.

Anybody who is here legitimately as a refugee, undocumented or whatever, should have their children allowed into schools, but we know an awful lot of tugs-of-war are being played in the provinces between governments and school boards in terms of funding and money. But I think the intent is there, as you indicated. We'll just have to make sure the regulations make that emphatically clear.

Madeleine.

[Translation]

Mrs Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Good morning, everyone. I would like to continue to discuss the problem of children who are not treated the same way. In fact, this all points to the reality of illegal immigration. I imagine you have thought about this issue and perhaps come up with some solutions.

Though I am far from being an expert, I think that the vast majority of illegal immigrants in Canada are simply people who want to better their lives and that the percentage of terrorism is certainly no greater than it would be around this table.

Let's take the example of illegal immigrants who, in the area we are discussing, have children. Even if they did not have any... Suppose that they have been living in Canada for a certain number of years and that it has been proven that though they earn their living illegally, of course, since they have no other choice, they get by and are decent people. Can't anything be done?

If I were an illegal immigrant and went about my business fully aware of the situation, and if I were caught after a few weeks, there would not be an issue of becoming acclimatized to a new country. But for children, it does become an important issue if they have been living in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver for the last five years.

I would like to know what you think about that type of situation. It is obvious that children have a right to education and if you polled Canadians, they would all agree. People don't care if the children in question are illegal immigrants and if they were, Canadians would not deny them the right to education. That's obvious.

I have a second question for you, Erica. In your brief, you alluded to the fact that the proposed selection criteria contained in the regulations discriminates against less developed countries. You don't have to be an expert to see your point. How do you think we can correct that?

It seems that there will be selection criteria. Everyone agrees. There's no point in saying you don't want any. Do you think there is a less discriminatory way of taking different realities into account? There are international indicators, such as GDP. For instance, in the case of immigrants coming from countries whose GDP is below a certain level, couldn't we give them a certain rating? As it now stands, the selection criteria are discriminatory. That's very clear. I'd like to know what you think. Perhaps you have other ideas?

Á (1135)

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Let me reply.

[English]

If you don't mind, though, I'll speak in English. I could try French, but I'm afraid I would might miss some points.

I think Caroline would also like to mention something on the situation of illegal immigrants.

Yes, we have a number of illegal immigrants in this country. Most of them are hard-working, they're surviving, and they do have children. We do have a means to get them landed, and I'm very often involved in that in terms of regularizing status. It would be better if we had something that made it clear that a certain amount of time—you've used five years—would be a strong indication of their ability to establish. At the current time, our guidelines do not provide for recognition of such a particular amount of time. We do look at establishment, but no criteria are suggested as being enough to show establishment.

Our concern is that these humanitarian applications that are made—and this is what Caroline's point was—will again result in a delay if a positive decision is made for reasons of inadmissibility. Frankly, we though section 25 of the act had overcome that by saying that people who are inadmissible could be accepted on humanitarian grounds.

So it does exist, but I do just have to refer you to a program that was developed about twenty years ago. It was a program established in response to a concerns about illegals in Canada. I remember it because I was beginning my law practice at that time. You could apply anonymously through a third party, and if the facts checked out, you were landed. That was a good way of clearing up a backlog of people living without status in Canada. I think we need more creative ideas like that to resolve the problem. I don't want to have people living without status in Canada, but I know it's a reality.

I hope that answers your question.

Á (1140)

The Chair: Caroline.

Ms. Caroline Lindberg: If I could just add to that a little bit, there were policy guidelines that predated the current policy guidelines under the current act, which did have a category for consideration when immigration officers were exercising discretion on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. It talked about people who were de facto residents, who had been living in this country without status but had established themselves.

Although there were no guarantees—obviously it's a discretionary decision—I recall a suggestion that it would have to be a minimum of at least five years for a favourable exercise of discretion in most cases. Those sorts of situations aren't specifically categorized in the current guidelines, but they do come forward and can be successful applications. It is therefore absurd and seems to serve no useful purpose to have these people wait a further three to five years—depending on the reason for inadmissibility—if this is a concern for any reason, given that the act doesn't require that. It creates problems for people in terms of things like access to post-secondary education or access to the full range of services that a permanent resident can access. If one thinks of settlement and integration as an ongoing process, this just impedes that and puts roadblocks in the way. Of course, it also further delays the opportunity for such a person to become a Canadian citizen.

There's another concern there, in that if people knew they could come forward after a certain period to make some kind of application, then to the extent that the government has concerns about security and knowing who is here, there's less likelihood of persons who are not known to the authorities remaining in Canada. There is much more likelihood of knowledge about people and who is here.

Obviously there are some ways in which the system can deter, but there are people who will come to Canada for a variety of reasons and remain here without status. Rather than fully preventing people from getting here and being here, what the system does in many ways is categorizes them and accord them status or not. So I think there are ways in which it is more to our benefit in terms of security and knowing who is here.

The Chair: If I could be permitted, Madeleine, I now understand this whole issue of illegal immigrants. I think this committee has talked about a way of creating an incentive. I think Steve talked about an amnesty or a little bit about bringing....

If I understood Geraldine's argument, the best interest of the child who resides in Canada, regardless of their status, means they should be able to go to school and no one should have the right to ask. How does the child of illegal parents go to school without anybody finding out that the parents are illegal or not? At some point in time, you need names, numbers, and all that stuff. You have to have some checks and balances in the system, so to speak.

I understood Geraldine to be saying you shouldn't ask. The third party shouldn't contact the immigration people if we do in fact want to talk about the best interests of the child. I thought that's what Madeleine was getting at in terms of that particular question.

Ms. Caroline Lindberg: Well, I suppose I went off on a tangent there—

The Chair: That's okay, because—

Ms. Caroline Lindberg: I do agree that, particularly in the province of Ontario, the Education Act is very clear that status is irrelevant in terms of the right of a minor child to attend school. In fact, for a child under the age of 16, school attendance is compulsory. But it seems many of the school boards, for whatever reason, still feel this inclination to seek permission or guidance from Immigration in regard to the right of a child to attend school, even though the Education Act is very clear and it's a matter within provincial jurisdiction.

I think the starting point is that we don't really feel there should even be a need for federal legislation in the area, and that it's not within federal competence. However, the problem doesn't seem to get solved from that standpoint, which is why more needs to be done.

Á (1145)

The Chair: It comes down to the question of money. Everybody needs to know who's going to pay. That's the problem.

Ms. Caroline Lindberg: You can't deal with it as money when you're talking about basic human rights.

The Chair: No, I know, but the boards of education couldn't care less about human rights, in my opinion. They want to know who's going to pay for the education of the child. That's what starts to happen. You get this tug-of-war between federal money and why you have a province that doesn't want to get into a provincial nominee agreement so that we can talk about resettlement issues, money, and so on. That's the problem.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: The interesting thing about the money, though, is that when we asked the schools if they have to advise anyone when they admit children into school, if they have to advise provincial authorities as to which ones are illegal and which ones aren't, they don't. If they register the child, that's a child in their school and they get money, they get funding, for that child. No one asks which percentage—

The Chair: But I think you told us already, Geraldine, that the school boards that we heard from on Bill C-11 weren't registering these children unless they had status, unless they had a card, unless they had a number, unless they had something. Why? Because they wanted somebody to pay for their education. If it wasn't going to be the feds, it was going to be the province or it was going to be the city. It was going to be somebody who is going to pay them for educating the children.

So it's a quagmire that we're trying to get through.

Mr. Michael Bossin: Can I just add one small point?

[Translation]

In answer to your question, under section 32 of the act, it is possible for children of persons who have not been granted status to study in Canada, but it's not the same if a person has a visitor's status, for instance. The children of that person do not have the right to study in Canada. But children of people who have not been granted status may study here.

[English]

The Chair: Yes.

Geraldine.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: And we have to tell children to then go out of status. We have to say that they have to wait six months, not go to school, and not renew their status, and then they can go. As lawyers, we're in this ridiculous situation of having to tell someone to go out of status.

The Chair: Erica, you had something on the question of the discriminatory decisions system.

Ms. Erica Lawson: Thank you for your question, Madame. It's an interesting question for me, because I see it on so many different levels. What tweaked my interest when you asked the question was the connection between GDP and selection criteria. This is how I heard your question. In it, there is a suggestion that somehow people are coming here to improve themselves economically. This is not an accusation by any means, but given the fact that the question is connected to GDP, there's a perception that somehow people come here to take.

What needs to happen on the ground is that the people who make these decisions need to be trained. Immigration officers need extensive training to develop a broader analysis of the world, a more complex view of the world. We can't call upon stereotypes. The people don't necessarily come here to take. The reasons for why they are poor are very complex. The reasons why we are rich are also connected to that level of poverty that other people outside the country experience.

There is a way to undermine the discrimination that other people experience, and that is by training officers and the people who make these decisions to develop a more conscious way of thinking of the world, valuing people in the world, and looking at poverty. And I only say that based on what I hear all the time.

Last summer, we heard the mayor of Mississauga saying that one of the reasons why our health care system is taxed is that, if you go down to the hospital, you will see all sorts of immigrants who are using the system in ways that they shouldn't be. Those people are in a pervasive world view that we need to challenge continuously. It's an ongoing process, but I'm a big believer in training the people who make the decisions to look critically at the criteria we use to decide who gets into this country.

Thanks for your question.

Á (1150)

The Chair: Yvon.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou--Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I would like to congratulate our guests and their organizations for having made us aware of all these issues and for having made recommendations. Most of the situations they talked about this morning reminded me of cases I've had to deal with in my riding office. I could actually attach names and countries to the issues pertaining to racial profiling, the status of children, problems with school and all the other matters which were raised. I was reminded of real cases which we tried to settle with Immigration Canada as best we could or of cases which are still pending. You have hit the nail on the head. I frankly wonder why we are still dealing with these issues.

I am wondering whether you have been invited to participate in the wide-ranging consultations which the Department of Immigration said it held to help it draft the regulations. If so, were you able to make these recommendations? I may have another question, depending on your answer.

Mr. Michael Bossin: No, not before the regulations are tabled. We have been invited by officials from the Department of Immigration to take part in a discussion once they are tabled.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: You mean since December 15?

Mr. Michael Bossin: No, it was about two weeks ago.

[English]

The Chair: They're trying to get caught up.

Mr. Michael Bossin: Yes, and I was consulted personally afterwards, but not before.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: I would say it was the same for us. We didn't know what would be in the regulations. We've been putting forward briefs based on proposals of the act, based on the Not Just Numbers report, going back three years now, but we have not been consulted on the regulations.

But on the issue of “biological child”, I will say it's directly relevant to a case we're now fighting in the courts. The department has basically said they would win this one if they define child really restrictively in order to include only a biological child. To me, it's shocking that the department is basically going around the court at this point, because there still is a legal argument to be made in court that currently we recognize legal children as well as biological children. It's almost like they saw this case and closed the loophole in order to shut out the legal children and only have the biological children. The irony is that someone who has had no relationship with a child as a family member for the child's entire life could sponsor a 15- or 16-year-old child they've never seen but who is their biological child, but someone who has been the father, the parent, to a child for the child's entire life and who recognizes that child and has given the child his name, is not able to sponsor that child. How does that make sense? It's against our family law tradition in this country.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Mr. Chairman, it is clear once again that the consultations held by the department were only partial and shortened. Certain stakeholders did not have the opportunity to give their point of view. Further, part of the consultations were held only after the draft regulations were published.

Based on the answers which were given, some by the department in response to certain points of view which were expressed, it becomes clear that most of the arguments made in response to the proposals were purely legal or legalistic and that proposals dealing with rights and generosity, issues which Canadians sometimes publicly boast are their strong points, were not well received.

I therefore hope that our report will highlight the shortcomings of the consultation process. We have discussed the matter several times. The issue just won't go away, as won't the type of narrow-minded responses provided by the department in answer to several valid issues or suggestions raised by organizations which were heard.

Thank you.

Á (1155)

[English]

The Chair: If you want to put that question forward to the department, they will be coming back. I've made a note that you do want to, and perhaps you might want to give them advance notice so that they can let you know who they met with, at what times, on what dates, and where. That wouldn't be such a bad idea, because you're right, this whole document talks about consultation, but everybody we've consulted with so far doesn't like what the heck the department has put forward. I myself would therefore like to know when they did all this consulting.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: And we're living in the same country.

The Chair: David.

Mr. David Price: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Many of my questions have been answered, but I want to thank you for your presentations. They were absolutely very interesting and mind-broadening. We should have our minds broadened a little before we get finished.

The Chair: Mind-bending.

Mr. David Price: No, they were broadening. They opened up. We should have had our minds bent before we finished with the bill, but anyway....

Just to follow up, there was one little thing, particularly on the illegal children in schools. I agree with you totally. The first thing we have to concentrate on is getting those kids into school and keeping them there. We're almost talking about trying to hide them. That's really what we're doing, and that's such a difficult thing.

I've been involved with school boards in Quebec in particular, where it's very difficult. If I look at my own school board, they have an audit system. Every year, they come in to actually verify who is in the classes, who they are, what their background is, and everything else. How are you going to hide that?

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: In the United States, as the committee was told, they have 8 million illegal immigrants, but their children are all going to school. They have a right to attend school. As I've mentioned to you in our brief, the schools are not allowed to ask what a person's status is. They ask for their address, for their name, and for their date of birth, but that's it. That's all that's needed. So I think we can do it by just putting some privacy concerns into the regulations. Protect the privacy of the individuals attending school. There's no connection.

There's a direct line between immigration and welfare now. I say that to all my clients, and I tell that to the law students in my program. Welfare officials call up to find out if someone has been sponsored. They call up Immigration and ask for the ID number. We don't have that in the schools, but it could happen. In fact, we have actually made a complaint to the privacy commissioner about school boards asking for copies of immigration documents and for the ID number, because that's a violation of privacy. Why should the school have that information? Under the Education Act, it doesn't need it.

Mr. David Price: They do, in Quebec, because—

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: They don't need it under the Education Act.

Mr. David Price: Yes, they do.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Why?

Mr. David Price: Because they have to be educated in French. They could be cheating by being in an English school. That's why they're audited.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: Okay, I guess this is a particular area that I am not familiar with, having to do with the language issues in Quebec. There probably would have to be some special provisions there. But it's not necessary in—

Mr. David Price: That's why we're caught.

In Quebec, they've even tried to have some the school boards taking some kids on while they were getting no funding for them, yet those auditors would come in and say no, and they were out. So it's not a matter of the funding.

The Chair: Just as a point of clarification, Geraldine, the Supreme Court of the United States said they shall be educated or shall be let in. The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet determined whether or not they should be asked. There's a campaign going on there that says you shouldn't ask, as there probably is here, but I'm not sure the Supreme Court said they could not ask.

Ms. Geraldine Sadoway: No, following the Plyler v. Doe decision, to ensure that it has effect, all children are to have access to schools, without discrimination. That is the policy following Plyler v. Doe. Yes, I think it goes back and forth and that there are some difficulties with it, but in the great majority of the places.... In fact, my colleagues in the States tell me the debate now is not about access to primary and secondary school, it's about post-secondary school in terms of equal access.

Â (1200)

The Chair: Of course, it's going to get to that level.

Again, we're dealing with the principle here, and hopefully we can make sure they do it in the regulations. Hopefully we can make sure kids...I think that's what the debate has been about today. It has been about making sure the bests interests of the children are in fact served. The best interests of the children are best served by them being in school.

As for status, it should have absolutely nothing to do with status, except for those who are temporary residents, in my opinion. I think the committee had said that if you're a temporary resident here, or at least a visitor here, then obviously everybody else ought to be given access to education, okay?

As to whether or not the regulations and/or constitutional issues are there, I don't want to get into that quagmire. At least today, we can't.

Anyway, thank you.

Before we wrap up and say thank you very much to everyone, Michael, quickly, I have one the question on the regulations and immigration consultants.

Secondly, with regard to this H and C issue that you brought up right at the beginning, it's true, we talked a little bit as a committee about section 25, which allows humanitarian and compassionate hearings to occur, especially for those people we've just been talking about: those who may have in fact been here for four or five years, who have children, who are contributing to the country, and who should perhaps therefore be given some consideration. I think section 25 is there. And you're right, the regulations seem to go counter to section 25 and the spirit of what it is. Could you comment on that one?

Thirdly, with regard to social assistance and the example you used, what are you suggesting that the alternative be? Should the regulations allow people, regardless of their financial status, to sponsor either their dependent children, their children, or their spouses, even if they're on social assistance? Is that what you're saying?

Mr. Michael Bossin: Caroline is going to deal with the H and C, and then I'll answer your questions.

Ms. Caroline Lindberg: Is your question with respect to how the regulations contradict the act?

The Chair: Well, what are you suggesting, because section 25 talks about H and C? I think you've indicated that regulation 114(2) seems to counter what the spirit of the act says.

Ms. Caroline Lindberg: Yes, I think it contradicts both the spirit and the language of the act. The act is very clear in saying that the minister “may grant...permanent resident status or an exemption” from any requirement of the act. But regulation 110 deals with the in-Canada applications, although there are parallel provisions for the overseas ones and the same problems are found there. I focused on the in-Canada applicants, those being the ones members of our group deal with primarily. There are many ways in which that regulation repeats, in many different ways, the obstacles that are put in the way of landing. It talks about a requirement that there be an exemption, which is not a requirement of the act. It creates admissibility requirements; it requires the person to be admissible.

Essentially, what we are recommending is that the regulation not impose any admissibility requirements in relation to the landing of people who have been accepted on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. The act is drafted to contemplate inadmissible people being landed for humanitarian and compassionate reasons, so there shouldn't be—

The Chair: —any further barriers to...[Inaudible—Editor].

Ms. Caroline Lindberg: No, the regulations should not be setting up barriers.

The Chair: Does your brief give us some suggestions and possible wordings for those regulations?

Ms. Caroline Lindberg: We didn't include a suggested wording. Would you like me to follow up on that with you?

Â (1205)

The Chair: Yes, if you could, please.

Michael.

Mr. Michael Bossin: With respect to the other questions, beginning with the sponsorship question, right now there is an income requirement for all sponsorships under the current regime, except in the case of spouses and children. We accept it as a matter of principle, I think, that everyone should be at least entitled to try to bring their spouse and children here. Because there is an inadmissibility class in the current act—as there is in the new act—for people who have to rely on social assistance, many of those cases are refused. But the way it is now, those people at least have a right to appeal the visa officer's decision.

As you probably know, bringing that spouse to Canada will really help to get someone off welfare in many cases. It will help those children, because it will bring another parent into the picture, never mind all of the other myriad humanitarian and compassionate reasons why kids should have their other parent here with them and why spouses should be able to be together.

Canada has said repeatedly that family reunification is a cornerstone of our immigration policy. It seems to us that this really detracts from that policy. So if you ask what we should do, it should be status quo at the very least, in our view. Everyone should be entitled to be eligible to sponsor their spouse and children.

With respect to your question about consultants, it's not something we've consulted about, but I'm sure we've all have seen the work of consultants. There are good consultants and bad consultants. I think one of the concerns is that they deal with a very vulnerable population, and they're not regulated in any way. Given the way things are right now, people are therefore open to exploitation. There are a number of ways you can deal with that. For example, it seems to me that you can make provisions that only barristers and solicitors shall appear before this tribunal or whatever.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Michael.

Again, I'd like to thank you all very much for your briefs, your recommendations, and your thoughtful answers to our questions. They're very much appreciated.

We're adjourned until Thursday morning.