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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, February 10, 2003

0805

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

0810

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

0825

The Chair

Ms. Audrey Jamal (Executive Director, Canadian Arab Federation)

0830

The Chair

Ms. Cynthia Pay (President, Chinese Canadian National Council)

The Chair

Ms. Cynthia Pay

0835

Ms. Mary Lam (Member, Immigration Committee, Chinese Canadian National Council)

0840

Ms. Clara Ho (Member, Immigration Committee, Chinese Canadian National Council)

The Chair

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths (Executive Director, Dominion Institute)

0845

The Chair

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad (Settlement Counsellor, Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture)

0855

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich (Blackstrap, Canadian Alliance)

Ms. Cynthia Pay

0900

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Ms. Audrey Jamal

The Chair

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

0905

Mrs. Erica Lawson

Ms. Cynthia Pay

Ms. Audrey Jamal

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad

Mr. Andrew Telegdi

0910

The Chair

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths

The Chair

Ms. Audrey Jamal

The Chair

Ms. Mary Lam

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—St. Clair, NDP)

0915

Ms. Mary Lam

Ms. Audrey Jamal

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

Ms. Cynthia Pay

Ms. Audrey Jamal

0920

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad

Mrs. Erica Lawson

The Chair

Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton—Lawrence, Lib.)

0930

The Chair

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths

The Chair

0935

Mrs. Erica Lawson

The Chair

0940

Mrs. Erica Lawson

The Chair

Mrs. Erica Lawson

The Chair

Mrs. Erica Lawson

The Chair

Ms. Cynthia Pay

Ms. Audrey Jamal

0945

The Chair

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad

The Chair

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths

The Chair

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths

The Chair

0950

Ms. Mary Lam

The Chair

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

The Chair

1010

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy (General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association)

1020

The Chair

Ms. Amina Sherazee (Law Union of Ontario)

1025

The Chair

Mr. Stephen Green (Lawyer, As Individual)

1030

The Chair

Mr. Stephen Green

The Chair

1035

Mr. David Lesperance (Lawyer, As Individual)

The Chair

Mr. David Lesperance

1040

The Chair

Mr. David Lesperance

The Chair

1045

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

The Chair

Mr. Stephen Green

The Chair

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

Ms. Amina Sherazee

1050

The Chair

Mr. David Lesperance

The Chair

Mr. David Lesperance

The Chair

Mr. David Lesperance

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Telegdi

1055

Ms. Amina Sherazee

1100

The Chair

Mr. Stephen Green

The Chair

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

The Chair

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

The Chair

1105

Mr. David Lesperance

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

Ms. Amina Sherazee

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

The Chair

1110

Ms. Amina Sherazee

The Chair

Ms. Amina Sherazee

The Chair

Mr. Stephen Green

The Chair

Mr. Stephen Green

The Chair

Mr. Stephen Green

The Chair

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

1115

Mr. David Lesperance

The Chair

1120

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

The Chair

1125

Mr. Stephen Green

Mr. Joe Comartin

Mr. Stephen Green

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

The Chair

Ms. Amina Sherazee

Mr. David Lesperance

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

1130

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Telegdi

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Telegdi

The Chair

Ms. Amina Sherazee

1135

The Chair

Ms. Amina Sherazee

The Chair

Ms. Amina Sherazee

The Chair

Mr. Stephen Green

The Chair

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

The Chair

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy

Mr. Stephen Green

The Chair

1140

Mr. Stephen Green

1200

The Chair

Ms. Mary Williamson (Vice-President, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants)

1210

The Chair

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Ms. Mary Williamson

1215

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Ms. Mary Williamson

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Ms. Mary Williamson

Ms. Amy Casipullai (Coordinator, Policy and Public Education, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants)

1220

Ms. Mary Williamson

Mrs. Lynne Yelich

Ms. Mary Williamson

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Telegdi

1225

The Chair

Ms. Mary Williamson

The Chair

Ms. Mary Williamson

1230

The Chair

Ms. Mary Williamson

The Chair

Ms. Mary Williamson

The Chair

Ms. Mary Williamson

The Chair

Ms. Mary Williamson

1235

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

Ms. Mary Williamson

Mr. Joe Comartin

Ms. Mary Williamson

The Chair

Ms. Mary Williamson

Mr. Joe Comartin

The Chair

Mr. Joe Comartin

The Chair

Ms. Amy Casipullai

1240

The Chair

Ms. Mary Williamson

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

NUMBER 018

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Monday, February 10, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¾ (0805)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.)): Good morning, everyone. Good morning, colleagues, and welcome to Toronto, the centre of Canada for immigration. So nice to be here.

As you know, the committee is travelling across the country. Half of our committee is doing from Toronto west, the other one has eastern Canada. We've got a lot of work to do. In fact, we're discussing a number of different issues, and I know some of you will be here also on other issues. We're discussing Bill C-18, of course, which is our citizenship bill, and we'll be discussing the provincial nominee agreements and resettlement programs, as well as our national ID card briefings or hearings.

We appreciate the great input you gave us with regard to the new immigration and refugee bill that was passed last June. The committee continues to do an awful lot of work and is very interested in making sure the new bill is working in spirit, as well as in practice. But more importantly, Bill C-18, the citizenship bill, is the culmination of living in Canada and wanting to become a citizen of our great country.

Lynne Yelich is here from the Alliance Party; she comes from Saskatchewan. I'm from London, Ontario. Joe Comartin, representing the NDP, is from Windsor. Andrew Telegdi is from Kitchener-Waterloo. I know a couple of other colleagues will be joining us, sooner, hopefully, rather than later.

What we'd like to do is have a panel discussion. I'd like you each to take five or seven minutes to take us through your brief. I don't expect you to read it. What we'll do for interesting night time reading is read all your briefs. But I'd like you to just summarize what's in the brief, so that we can spend an awful lot of time asking you questions, with you giving us some insight. Again, I want to thank you in advance for taking the time and for the work you do for all of us, not only us in Parliament, but Canadians in general. So welcome to you all.

Maybe we could start with the African Canadian Legal Clinic, Erica Lawson.

¾ (0810)

Ms. Erica Lawson (Policy and Research Analyst, African Canadian Legal Clinic): Good morning. I was afraid that you were going to let me go first, but thank you for the opportunity to present to you this morning.

There are a number of concerns we have with respect to the citizenship bill, and we see this as an extension of the concerns we had with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. And I just want to talk a little bit about the context, because that's where I come from. I'm not a legal expert. I do policy and research for the clinic, so I'm only speaking about the context in which our laws are passed and about the historical experiences of people. You mentioned earlier, Mr. Fontana, that this bill is about what it means to have Canadian citizenship, which is a very serious question. It's always been a contested issue, what it means to be Canadian, and I think, in light of September 11, these questions become even more crucial.

So that's a perspective I want to talk a little about, because we see some very serious, troubling changes happening in our country with respect to who is entitled to citizenship and the benefits that come with citizenship. We need to think about that. I see a great deal of criminalization going on in the laws we're now passing. I see a great deal of racialization of certain people. I certainly see this bill as a reflection of our concerns about terrorism and who is a terrorist. That's a backdrop against which we have to think about these issues. They are very serious.

One of our concerns is with clause 5 in the bill, which we see as creating a two-tier system. That is the section that speaks to the exception with children who are born outside of Canada. I think, if you have parents who have Canadian citizenship, you should automatically be entitled to Canadian citizenship, regardless of where you are born. So our recommendation is that this section should be deleted. Every Canadian, no matter when he or she became a citizen, should have the same rights and privileges. This means every child born outside Canada to any Canadian citizen should acquire citizenship without distinction.

I also see a broad move to revoke and annul citizenship. This is the context in which I understand this bill, that there are sweeping powers being introduced to take away and annul citizenship with impunity. This is a concern. I speak specifically here to clauses 16 and 17, where the minister refers a certificate to the court, and there is a lack of evidentiary and procedural protection in the hearings that would happen with respect to revocation and annulment in these areas. There doesn't seem to be a clear correspondence between the issues at stake with respect to this section. What are the issues that lead to annulment or revocation? What procedures are in place? What evidence do you bring to this serious matter to determine that citizenship should be revoked or annulled? So again, our recommendation is to delete clause 17. I'm not sure what purpose it serves in the context of a country that's supposed to be democratic. It seems to contradict that in many ways.

Clause 18 is another concern for us, because it gives the minister broad powers to annul citizenship within five years of its acquisition. What's troubling about this particular section is that the person in question only receives a summary of the grounds for annulment and is not entitled to know the full evidence against him or her; the person concerned can only make written representations to the minister and has no right to a full hearing. That's a problem and, again, it contradicts what it means, I think, to live in a democratic society like Canada. So our recommendation is that given the seriousness of annulling citizenship, clause 18 has to take into account or provide for a full review process, a hearing, and the right to have an independent decision-maker hear what the evidence is. I think we can all agree that it's a real concern when you are revoking citizenship and I don't get a chance to speak to the evidence against me.

Clause 23 is another concern for us, the provision that we can refuse citizenship to an applicant on reasonable grounds, believing the person has engaged or will engage in an activity that constitutes a threat to Canada. From where I sit, that's highly subjective. What constitutes reasonable grounds to take this kind of action? So again, we call for the deletion of this. I'm not sure what purpose it serves, and again, I will make that proposition in the context of what I said earlier, that there is a lot of secrecy around what is going on in our country with respect to immigration and citizenship. That must be of great concern to all of us.

Clauses 21 and 22 comprise another broad subjective area where, in my view, there is great potential for the abuse of power. The minister has the authority to refuse citizenship on the basis “that a person has demonstrated a flagrant and serious disregard for the principles and values underlying a free and democratic society”. I'd like somebody to explain to me what that means, serious disregard for principles underlying a free and democratic society.

All of these things are highly subjective, and I think these are the kinds of things that need to be considered with a great deal of care. Citizenship entitles us to an identity, to benefits, to particular status and consideration, and if it is going to be taken away, it should be done with the utmost care and consideration.

There are a number of other areas that concern us in the bill. I spoke to the ones that are most crucial for our constituency and our allies, and it's all very clearly laid out in the brief I presented to you, so I won't get into more detail. I do hope you will take the time to read it--it's wonderful bedtime reading--and I hope we can have more dialogue on this.

¾ (0825)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Erica, for a great brief and some good recommendations we would like to talk to you about.

We will now go to Canadian Arab Federation, Audrey Jamal.

Ms. Audrey Jamal (Executive Director, Canadian Arab Federation): Thank you. Thank you for letting me be here today.

As Erica mentioned in her presentation very eloquently, this is a time of grave concern to the Arab Canadian community, and indeed to all ethnic communities in Canada. I'm here today specifically to represent the Canadian Arab community, because the concerns of the last year and a half have been so significant to us. I don't want to walk you through our submission, because it does detail all the clauses we have concerns with, but I want to lay out some examples of how, if the bill is passed, it will affect Arabs and Muslims in Canada. I need to show specifically how our community will be targeted.

Our overarching concern with Bill C-18 is that it creates two classes of Canadians, those born in Canada and those born elsewhere. In Canada now there are an estimated 500,000 Arab Canadians, the great majority of whom were born overseas, in the Arab world or in other places. So this is going to affect a significant portion of our community and a significant portion of Canada.

I want to walk through two parts of the bill. The first is part 2, specifically clauses 16 and 17. These clauses would grant powers to the Minister of Citizenship to annul or revoke citizenship. It would allow the minister to make a declaration that a citizen either has obtained citizenship under false pretences or represents a security risk to Canada. If this declaration is granted, it is automatically effective as a removal order, so this is one action that serves two purposes. Our concern is that this grants unprecedented powers to the minister.

Our concern is also, as Erica mentioned, the context within which this is happening. We are looking at a system that is now highly anti-Arab, highly anti-Islam--Islamaphobic is the term that's often used. So our concern is that this power of decision will be affected by the culture of anti-Arabism that is so prevalent in Canada now.

Our third concern related to clauses 16 and 17 relates to the fact that evidence can be submitted from foreign governments. I just want to highlight two examples of how dangerous this can be; they may be on the level of the extreme, but I want to show you, if this is passed, what it can mean to our community specifically. One question this raised for me is whether the minister will use information from the Government of Algeria to revoke the citizenship of Algerian Canadians, bearing in mind, of course, that the Algerian government has waged a decade-long war against its people's basic freedoms. Furthermore, is the Government of Canada going to rely on evidence against a Palestinian Canadian woman from the people who occupy her land? We need to look at what foreign security agencies we are going to for the information and if this information is going to be used against Canadian citizens. This is very dangerous. If we pursue this logic to its most absurd, yet not improbable, conclusion, one can imagine a scenario whereby Arab Canadians are tattled upon by their neighbours, only to find themselves stripped of their Canadian citizenship and deported, all the while ignorant of the accusations levelled against them. This goes back to secret evidence, secret hearings, and never having the opportunity to know what evidence has been put against a person. I do take this to the level of the absurd, because we need to look at how far this could actually go. Since these have no place in Canada at the beginning of the 21st century, we recommend that clauses 16 and 17 be deleted.

The Canadian Arab Federation, as a national organization representing Canadians of Arab origin for the last 36 years, has further concerns about clause 21, which outlines the prohibitions to citizenship. Under this the minister can submit a recommendation to the Governor in Council in order to prevent a person from obtaining citizenship or even taking the oath of citizenship. This recommendation again comes after a subjective decision on behalf of the minister given as a recommendation to the Governor in Council that a person has exhibited “flagrant and serious disregard for the principles and values underlying a free and democratic society”.

We have three key concerns relating to clause 21. First, this is very broad and very vague and allows for subjective decision-making on the part of the minister. We are also concerned again about the context. We are living in a time of great anti-Arab sentiment and Islamaphobia in Canada. Third, we're concerned that there is no provision for appealing a decision in order to mitigate any kind of systemic racism. The implications of clause 21 strike deep fear into the heart of the Arab Canadian community. Past, present--and, sadly, future--international events have thrown a particularly virulent form of discrimination at Arab and Muslim Canadians. In defending ourselves from racism and stereotypes and discriminations, this clause doesn't even allow us the basic right of appeal. This is a serious concern. CAF recommends that clause 21 be amended in order to remove the phrase “flagrant and serious disregard for the principles and values underlying a free and democratic society“ and that the minister not prohibit anyone who would otherwise qualify for citizenship from taking an oath.

When I was reading through this bill over the weekend, and indeed all of last week, I was struck by two examples we've seen recently in the media. The first is Maher Arar, a Canadian of Arab origin who was deported back to Syria by the US authorities. The second is Mohamed Jabarah, also a Canadian citizen, I believe of Kuwaiti origin, who was transferred by CSIS to the American authorities and is now in the hands of the American military. What I've seen in Bill C-18 is that we can formalize these kinds of procedures and that the Canadian government cannot protect Canadian citizens from these kinds of things. This is not the kind of Canada we want to create. We need to protect all our citizens and all our immigrant communities, because this is what we're founded on, this is who we are as a country.

So I think we really need to go back and revisit many of these clauses and open a dialogue on how we can improve things for all our communities.

Thank you.

¾ (0830)

The Chair: Thank you, Audrey, again for some great insight, as well as some recommendations.

We'll go to Mary Lam of the Chinese Canadian National Council and Cynthia Pay.

Ms. Cynthia Pay (President, Chinese Canadian National Council): And also Clara.

The Chair: Yes, Clara Ho.

Ms. Cynthia Pay: Good morning.

I'm the President. I also work as a staff lawyer at a community legal clinic here in Toronto. With me are Mary Lam, who's been an immigration lawyer in private practice for 10 years, and Clara Ho, who works at the Metro Toronto Southeast Asian and Chinese Legal Clinic.

CCNC is a national human rights and anti-racism organization with 27 chapters across the country. We have particular concerns about the bill, and we're not going to repeat some of the comments, but definitely endorse those of the Canadian Arab Federation and the African Canadian Legal Clinic about the increased, sweeping, draconian powers of revocation and annulment of citizenship and the increased powers to prohibit or refuse citizenship. We're definitely very concerned about those powers, especially in the context of the whole threat of terrorism, as mentioned by some of the other speakers.

We've seen this before, especially in relation to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The last flavour of the month was the fear of trafficking, and that had a big impact on the Chinese Canadian community. So in that act we saw a lot of provisions on detention of people who were trafficking. The new thing now is the threat of terrorism. I think what's important is that we want to establish legislation that actually responds to the real issues, the real values of Canadian society, not just to whatever happened to take place in the last six months. We want to keep this legislation for an ongoing period of time and stop responding to hysteria and stress among the wider public.

The bill creates different and unequal classes of citizenship, which is in direct contradiction to one of the clauses--it says all citizens have equal rights in Canada--and makes it easier to lose citizenship without access to fundamental legal and procedural rights we hold dear to our hearts as Canadians.

We are going to talk about three particular issues. The first one is the issue of adoption. We just want to raise a few concerns, but also maybe question how this is going to work. The bill creates a new process whereby an adopted person can apply for citizenship directly, without first becoming a permanent resident, as is currently the case under the Immigration Act. We see this is as a positive if it exists as a parallel process, if we are creating different ways people can acquire citizenship, but if this is meant to replace or exist in contrast to the Immigration Act, we are very concerned, because in the case of citizenship there are no actual appeal rights.

Also, with respect to the Chinese community, there are very different standards by which adoptions are actually considered to be true adoptions or in the best interests of the child. One of the contrasts that has been raised is between Canadian citizens adopting babies from China and Chinese Canadians adopting people who have blood ties to them. I can actually talk about an experience in my own family. My father was actually adopting my blood cousin , and the adoption was refused, because it was seen to be not a true adoption. So I think there are big dangers in respect of how these adoptions are assessed and whether appeal rights are available. Luckily, appeal rights were available in our case, but under the citizenship regime that is being proposed there are no appeal rights.

I will turn it over to Mary to talk about residency.

¾ (0835)

Ms. Mary Lam (Member, Immigration Committee, Chinese Canadian National Council): Good morning.

We want the Citizenship Act to last for a long time. We don't want to be here in another five years, six years, we want this act to see us into the future, and the position of the CCNC is to maintain a very flexible definition of residency, as in the current act. It's absolutely important to have such a flexible definition, because without question, our economies are changing. There is a globalization of the economy. People do business across countries, across borders. There are going to be lots of reasons for people to leave the country to do business, but that does not mean their time in Canada should not be counted towards residency.

The Federal Court of Canada in the last 30 years has been able to analyze and provide sound case law for a flexible definition. In addition, citizenship judges represent one of the very few human aspects of the citizenship process. Citizenship judges are, as one Federal Court judge said, high-calibre Canadians. They are simply there because they reflect what we want in Canadians. If you take away a flexible definition of residency and go to a strict definition of physical residency, all you are going to have is a paper-pushing process, a number-crunching game. Citizenship judges, as I see it, on a practical level, really would no longer be necessary. Where then is the human face to citizenship? I think we have to place some trust in these citizenship judges, who have the flexibility to decide: I want to apply physical residence, I want to understand your particular circumstances. Let permanent residents understand that even if they are not in the country all the time, that time will be counted towards Canadian residency. As another point--and I have used this example before--I think it's very important that we look, in some cases, at the calibre of the person as the reason they're leaving Canada. What are they contributing to the Canadian economy? I think it's crucial that we maintain citizenship judges, and if we don't have the issue on residency, I don't see why they would even be required.

Clara.

¾ (0840)

Ms. Clara Ho (Member, Immigration Committee, Chinese Canadian National Council): Good morning, everyone. I'm just going to talk briefly on clause 14, which concerns the automatic loss of citizenship. As Mary has informed us, along with some of the points raised by the Canadian Arab Foundation, we're living in a world where mobility is an increasing reality, and that is ever more poignant in the Chinese community as well. We are concerned about clause 14 because, as with some of the other things proposed in the bill, it has the potential of creating either a two-tiered system or two different classes of citizens, born in Canada or born outside Canada. One of the issues we have is that an individual doesn't really have any choice as to where they're born.

Clause 14 imposes a restriction on mobility rights of second generation citizens born of Canadian citizen parents who themselves were born outside Canada. They are required to apply to retain their citizenship, which is an issue. Our main concern is that in the event that something occurs where they fail to apply and they might become stateless, we would like to see some sort of process in the bill that would allow for appeal of this removal of citizenship.

The other issue is how that affects our charter rights as Canadian citizens, mobility rights and equality rights? That's pretty much our main concern for clause 14, as well as other items in the bill that have this effect.

The Chair: Thank you, all, for your insight and recommendations. I'm sure we've got some questions for you.

Now we'll go to Rudyard.

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths (Executive Director, Dominion Institute): Thank you for having me.

We're a national charity dedicated to the promotion of Canadian history and shared citizenship. We do have a number of activities, including an extensive program of public opinion research on Canadians' attitudes about citizenship, and we operate a national speakers' bureau that facilitates dialogue between new Canadian citizens and high schools and community groups across the country.

I can see in our presentations this morning that citizenship in this act is about more than a legal forum or a legal process, it's about a running debate we've had in Canada since the introduction of the first act in 1947 about the interconnectedness of our citizenship, our sense of common identity and shared values. I think it's very important that we take a moment to step back from some of the very valid concerns that have been raised this morning to think about how citizenship affects our sense of ourselves as Canadians. I think citizenship in this particular bill applies, in some ways, not just to persons becoming Canadian citizens, but to those of us who are already citizens by virtue of having gone through this process or having been born in Canada. There has been a tendency, I think, since the first citizenship act to devalue citizenship as a touchstone for a sense of national community and identity, to see it in a highly legalistic form, to devalue its requirements, to turn it into a process, a process often with very low benchmarks indeed.

So our submission really focuses on how this bill can form an important tool within the larger tool box of the federal government and Canada writ large to form attachment between Canadians, our nation state, and our shared democratic values.

To be specific about the bill in two instances, we feel it's absolutely essential that the three-year residency term remain a baseline requirement. Far too often, I think, Canadians feel--and our polling shows this--that we treat our citizenship almost as a flag of convenience, as an economic good or end. But with these arguments about globalization and the need for lowering these requirements, because they facilitate the demands of probably predominantly high-end skilled immigrants who are functioning within the global economy, I think to capitulate to that minority devalues the meaning of citizenship, the incredible set of rights and responsibilities that come with it for those who are becoming citizens, but also for those of us who take our citizenship by being born in this country.

I also think, while it's not explicit in the act, the clause about certain knowledge and familiarity with Canada and its democratic institutions is really an important piece of this larger puzzle of attachment. We've done some surveys that asked average Canadians, not people who are coming to this country, to take a mock citizenship exam, and most Canadians born in Canada would fail the same exam immigrants take today.

So I'm not making a division here between new Canadians, persons becoming citizens, and people born in this country, I'm trying to unite this bill and the larger question of how we form attachments to a common nation state, to a common national purpose in an era of intense globalization and value change. And I think we start in this bill by, as it does, raising the standard of what is required in respect of the responsibilities to assume citizenship. All this is summarized in our brief, so I don't go into much detail, except to say this committee is engaged in some really important work. It's not just about the rules and regulations of this particular bill, it's about positioning citizenship, I think, in the same way maybe history a generation ago used to be a common lynchpin or nodal point for our country to articulate its sense of common and national identity. In this very complicated, interesting, and polyglot 21st century, I think citizenship will replace history in some of those more traditional 20th-century techniques for nation building. And that would be my final point to this committee, that this bill is about something incredibly exciting, something incredibly complicated, but so important and worthwhile, nation building and how you do that with justice, fairness, and equity in the 21st century.

That's the extent of my contents. Thank you.

¾ (0845)

The Chair: Thank you, Rudyard, for your insights.

We move to Ezat, from the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture.

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad (Settlement Counsellor, Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture): We have 25 years of experience working against global torture and for rehabilitation of torture survivors who come from all over the world to Canada, mainly as refugees. My request to you is, please consider torture in the Citizenship Act. Torture is something that never goes away. Psychological scars especially will remain forever in the life of the survivor.

There are three areas I request you to consider. One is the question of the special treatment of survivors of war and torture who come to Canada. The second is the principle of non-refoulement of torture. The third issue is the prosecution of torture. In respect of these concerns, I want to raise some issues with you.

First, the Citizenship Act is very important. As we know, citizenship is a fundamental right, not a privilege. Actually, citizenship is considered the right to have rights. Also, we strongly believe Canada should be a community of equal citizens, not a society of two-tiered citizenship. And the gap between naturalized citizens and born citizens should be narrowed down. The Citizenship Act should bring about a sense of belonging in all Canadians, regardless of where they were born.

We are also concerned about terrorism and violence. We appreciate your concern about that, but we believe terrorism not only annihilates people and property, it also destroys values. The Citizenship Act should bring about a kind of balance between fighting against terrorism and adhering to Canadian values.

Also, please consider article 3 of the convention against torture and the most recent ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, and do not send anybody at any time to torture.

Another concern is the question of statelessness. When somebody loses citizenship and that person is acting badly, the person should be deported, but there is no country to accept that person, and it may lead to statelessness.

Also, the Citizenship Act should not be an instrument of control of naturalized citizens. Obtaining citizenship should not be easy, revocation and annulment of citizenship should also not be easy. Otherwise, Canadian citizenship would be of no value.

Also, there is a tendency in Canadian immigration history to keep people in limbo. Please consider that issue also.

After this introduction I want to very briefly share with you some of the areas we are opposed to this bill.

The first area is the tremendous power given to the minister and to the Governor in Council. As members of the executive, they have taken the role of the judiciary in some cases. There is no right to appeal. There is no independent tribunal to decide about this very important issue. We knows from our experience that ministers usually implement a decision through the hands of immigration officials. This may lead to tremendous power for the bureaucracy.

There is also the question of prosecution and punishment of torturers and war criminals and people who have committed crimes against humanity. It is very important deportation, revoking citizenship, and annulment of citizenship should not act as a substitute for prosecution. They should be prosecuted and punished. Renunciation of citizenship by no means should let them escape punishment.

Further, this bill is not transparent in some areas. We request more.

Finally, you have mentioned that offences committed in Canada and outside Canada should be treated equally. No. In some countries, especially under tyrannical governments, there is no demarcation line between prosecution and persecution. Sometimes writers, journalists, and human rights workers are prosecuted as dangerous criminals and terrorists.

I have two requests of you. With victims of torture, survivors of war, people who suffer from mental health problems, please be generous to them. Some of them cannot learn either of the official languages. They can't acquire information about Canada. I have one client right now who was denied Canadian citizenship because of that. He's a victim of torture. They killed his mother in front of his eyes. He's almost paranoid.

Finally, I don't understand discrimination between refugees and landed immigrants in respect of residency requirement. Everybody who has a legal status, especially convention refugees and protected people, after three years should be entitled to Canadian citizenship. That will help us a lot.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

¾ (0855)

The Chair: Thank you, Ezat. Thank you, all.

Before I go to questions, you and others who've talked to us about the bill, I'm happy to say, have talked about the value of citizenship in pretty glowing terms. It is much more than a legal process, it is about who we are and our national identity. Some of you also today, as well as some yesterday, feel that perhaps this bill--and you've used some pretty stark terms today that I don't think I've heard in Ottawa yet; maybe when you get away from Ottawa, you start getting real language--is anti-democratic and too secretive. You talked a little about whether it is too much based on terrorism, racialization, and those kinds of terms.

So I'm sure we've got some questions as we try to probe the context. The Citizenship Act we have now has served this country fairly well for the past 25 or 30 years. We've tried over the past three or four years. This is the third citizenship bill that's come before this committee. The House of Commons passed a previous one, but as you know, it didn't clear the hurdles, because elections were called. The third time at it we want to make sure we get it right, and I think I made a commitment in Ottawa I also heard here, that we don't want to create different classes of citizenship.

So let's start asking some questions. Lynne.

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

Thank you, all, very much for your presentations. They were all very good.

When I sit and listen to you, I think perhaps we're doing this Citizenship Act almost backwards. This should be done at the immigration level, all of the appeals. Perhaps becoming a citizen should be just that. They should become a citizen and that's it. There shouldn't be any clauses to revoke or annul or anything like that, you've gone through all that with immigration. Perhaps some of these things can be done at the immigration level, for instance, with adoption; the best interests of the child should then be considered at the provincial level. It should be done with the provinces at the immigration level. Then, when the time comes to become a citizen, you just become that, and you never have any chance of losing it.

Let's talk about adoption first. I think, Mary, you brought it up. Should it even be in the Citizenship Act? Should they automatically get their papers? I'm talking about the best interests of the child as well, because provinces are more responsible for adoptions and families. So I'm just wondering about that.

Ms. Cynthia Pay: We think that's a good suggestion. The main concern would be that there's a true opportunity to establish the nature of the relationship. If this is a free-standing process, without any access to a sponsorship process, there wouldn't be a chance. It's just an application, and if you are refused, there's no chance for you to appeal it. I think that's a theme that goes across some of the other issues as well. For example, on revocation of citizenship, why is it happening after the fact? There's a whole process of CSIS checks, for example, a very stringent process to actually get your status. So why is there a chance? If there's a problem with the system, let's fix that system and not go through the back door through citizenship to solve a problem that exists somewhere else, if it does exist in fact.

So I think your suggestion is good. Where the people who know these issues concerning proof of adoption and the relationship are at the provincial level, those are the people who should assess it, not at the citizenship level, unless there are two processes.

¿ (0900)

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: And you would go across to the other concerns, not just adoption, also revoking and annulment, all of that.

The Chair: Does anybody want to comment on adoption? As I understand the question, it is whether or not you use the citizenship stage or the immigration stage, when you're talking about landed status and you're working on the best interest of the child through the province. Don't forget that there is a federal role, through the immigration bill, with respect to adoption. The provinces get involved, but it is primarily still a federal jurisdiction in allowing adopted children into the country, just so that we are not confusing everybody here.

Lynne.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: The other question is the concern about not being able to see or hear the evidence against you. Would you be more comfortable, if that clause came in, if the person was at least able to see the evidence that was used against them to have their citizenship revoked or annulled? Is that something that could be put into the act to help you?

Audrey.

Ms. Audrey Jamal: The Canadian Arab Federation would feel much more comfortable if a person who is about to have their citizenship revoked is aware of the evidence that has been put in against them. The source of this information is a key concern. Is it coming from CSIS? Is it coming from a foreign intelligence gathering agency? Is it coming from a foreign police system that opposes them, perhaps for political reasons, within their own country? We look at the position of political activists who come to Canada, either as refugees or just to get Canadian citizenship. I think it's essential that this person knows the information that's been used against them and the source of that information. Also, I think something that needs to be put in here is that person needs the right to appeal that information in a court of law in an independent way.

The Chair: Okay.

Andrew.

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

It was interesting listening to your testimony. So much is a repeat from Bill C-16 and Bill C-63, and I hope this time around we're actually going to be successful in making some amendments.

I think clause 21 is a good place to lead off. This is denial of citizenship for “serious disregard for the principles and values underlying a free and democratic society”. What is so bothersome to me about this bill and to so many witnesses, and you all touched on it, is that this citizenship act does not reflect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. When you talk about the values of a free and democratic society, it would seem to me the charter should be written all over it, because that's really the value we have as Canadians. One of the colleagues who is not here, John Bryden, talks about getting that right into the oath; if you get it in the oath, it's a grounding, if you will, for the legislation.

On the revocation stuff, if you look at section 7 of the charter, it talks about everyone having a right to life, liberty, and security of person, and security of person is very much citizenship, the right not to be deprived thereof, except in accordance with principles of fundamental justice. We have clause 17, where they can take secret information. It could be the Government of Iraq. It says “government”, it doesn't say which. It could be any government, and the rules of evidence do not apply--Star Chamber. I think it's critical that if we're going to succeed, we succeed because we, as Canadians, respect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

So let me ask the question my colleague John Bryden would ask if he were here--he's going on the eastern tour. Do you believe the principles underlying the Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be injected into the citizenship oath?

¿ (0905)

Mrs. Erica Lawson: Absolutely. At the African Canadian Legal Clinic one of the sections in the charter we use over and over again is the equality rights section. I think it's absolutely fundamental that the citizenship bill not contradict the rights of the charter. My understanding is that the charter supersedes all these laws we pass. There cannot be contradictions in there. So I absolutely agree with you. Some of the challenges you're likely to get with this bill will come directly from the charter, because I see so many violations within this bill with respect to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Ms. Cynthia Pay: I agree with what Erica said, but let's not have this sort of starved, dessicated view of the charter where we just try to see what kind of legislation can scrape by, let's actually enact legislation that really fulfils the values behind and a rich interpretation of the charter. This bill is so obviously contrary to those values, and we're creating different classes of citizens. That's completely against the spirit of the charter. I think there are huge problems here with creating the different classes, taking away people's rights. In addition to the charter, there are people's legal rights, having situations where the fundamental right of citizenship can be revoked without access to the legal procedural rights we all expect as Canadian citizens. So I think it's not just the charter, but our civil, political, legal rights are so important and are being attacked under this bill.

Ms. Audrey Jamal: I agree with the sentiments of my colleagues at the table. Essentially, we need to use the charter to underline the fundamental justice, fairness, equality within our society. I think we need to create the kinds of legislation that are going to reflect that and respect the equality of all Canadian citizens. To go back to one of Lynne's original questions about stepping back into the process, if people become Canadians, security checks are there originally, and they shouldn't come up in a secret way a few years down the road in order to remove somebody's citizenship.

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad: The charter supersedes all other laws, and it should be incorporated, but it is not only the charter, but more than that. We have written in our brief that “the bill should consider, among other things, an exhaustive approach to the Canadian national and international human rights obligations. It should be at par with instruments such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the UN Covenant on Civilian and Political Rights, Convention against Torture..., the Statute of Rome for International Criminal Court.” Yes, I do agree with you.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: Rudy, you were talking about making sure it's three years. Right now what the act says is that you've got to be here 1,095 days within six years. I recall hearing evidence from Placer Dome. They hired an executive overseas who then immigrated to Canada, but they hired him specifically because he was an international businessperson. When he travelled abroad, he was actually getting business for Canada, which would result in Canadians being employed and wealth being generated. His family was in the country. I agree he should be here 1,095 days, but does it really matter if he is here 1,095 days in seven years or eight years, as long as he fulfils that requirement, as we know he has an attachment to the country by having his family here, paying taxes here? Would you see that as beneficial, making sure of the 1,095 days, but moving the limits, if need be, from six years to seven years, eight years, whatever?

¿ (0910)

The Chair: I would like to hear your comments on all of that. How do we define physical presence or residency or attachment to the country within a three-year period out of six, or whatever it is?

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths: You have to think that it's a period of time within a period of time. What we are asking is for people to be resident within Canada not over 15 or 20 years, but within what I would define as a fairly low baseline requirement. We can't take the obligations of citizenship lightly, because I think it influences how all of us look at our citizenship. In my presentation what I was trying to say is that citizenship can, and I think will, have such an important impact on the country in respect of how we construct a common identity. Being resident in the country over a specific period of time allows people to form attachments with their fellow citizens and with the civic values that underpin a common sense of civic identity, civility, and decency that defines our country. So I worry that for a very small margin of high-end business executives and their probably equally high-priced lawyers, we end up devaluing the larger benefits that could come with requiring people to spend the thousand-plus days within the six-year period.

The Chair: Audrey, I take it when you nod like that, it means you have no concerns about physical presence or residency.

Ms. Audrey Jamal: We do have concerns about that. They are outlined in our brief.

The Chair: Yes, but I asked the question, so if you want to give me the answer to it, that's what I am asking for.

Mary.

Ms. Mary Lam: It's an issue of quality versus quantity. So what if somebody is here for 1,095 days physically if they don't do anything for the benefit of Canadian society? You have people who are here for their own self-interest for three years, but if you have a high-calibre individual who works probably 70 hours a week, and when he is here in Canada, he is involved with your charities, volunteering his time, why not? Would he not be a good Canadian? We are looking at individuals and their potential contributions to Canadian society. I think that's why we have to keep a flexible definition. Just because somebody is here for three years, it does not make them a better Canadian.

The Chair: Okay.

Joe Comartin.

Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—St. Clair, NDP): My first question is going to be a legalistic one, back to the charter. Have any of you looked to get legal opinions as to whether these sections are going to survive a challenge? I think the committee would be well served if we were aware that some of the legal scholars had already written opinions challenging clauses 16 and 21 and some of the other ones.

¿ (0915)

Ms. Mary Lam: We are not aware of any formal legal opinions, but our understanding is that some of these clauses will be challenged. There is no point in implementing an act that's going to be challenged. You are going to get a big void if the Supreme Court should strike it down, you're going to be back at square one. That's why I think a lot of care and thought has to be put into some of those clauses, especially I think the prohibition ones referred to earlier on. I know, with some of the fact situations, they will go up; some individuals, and a lot of groups will be behind them, will challenge these clauses.

Ms. Audrey Jamal: I don't have a legal background, but our brief was drafted by a lawyer and I will just note a couple of points. The first one concerns the equality of all citizens, which is going back to the point about a two-tiered system. We are advocating that this be removed. A naturalized citizen shouldn't be treated differently. She goes on to say this would be consistent with section 15 of the charter, as well as international law, as well as Bill C-18's own stated purpose under clauses 3 and 12 not to subject Canadian-born and naturalized second-generation citizens to differential treatment.

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad: I had an informal talk. We had supper with people from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and some friends from the UN Committee against Torture. There were some concerns, and they mentioned some charter challenges. Some of them raised this question, and maybe I will raise it with you. What do you do with born Canadian citizens if they are war criminals or they have committed crimes against humanity? Would you revoke their citizenship, would you send them back to another country, find a country to deport them to? Also, the whole question of equality of citizens was a big concern. Still, nobody knows about the outcome of this bill, because as you mentioned, we've gone through these other bills, and we don't know whether it will survive or not. I think you will face some charter challenges.

The Chair: I should tell you, Joe, that the committee has asked the question. It's come up before, but we get the standard answer from Justice: of course it will meet the charter requirements. We are going to probe that a little more once we've heard from the witnesses.

Do you have an additional question?

Mr. Joe Comartin: I see Mr. Borovoy has come in, so he may be able to answer that question when he comes to the floor.

Are there any comments as to what impact this bill, if it gets through as printed, will have on the number of people admitted to Canada? Are numbers going to drop inevitably because of this? Further, Audrey, directly to you or Ezat, do you see that the proportion of people admitted to Canada from the Arab or Islamic world will go down, the ratio from that part of the world will change?

Ms. Cynthia Pay: We have to also remember that we are competing for the best and the brightest immigrants. Why would someone choose to come to Canada when they know there is less and less protection for your rights as a citizen and it is harder and harder to become a citizen? A lot of people who are looking to emigrate to another country like to go to the United States, for example. Let's face it, sometimes Canada is a second choice, and so we're competing for those people, even today. So I think it would have an impact on numbers, especially with those people we ostensibly want to get.

Ms. Audrey Jamal: I think, Joe, your comments about immigration from the Arab world are tricky. I don't think we can ever make the assumption that people immigrating from these parts of the world will not pass regular Canadian standards for citizenship. Beyond that, some of the concerns I raised in my presentation were to do with gathering evidence against a person from foreign security agencies. Those are key concerns for us, looking specifically at Palestinians, Algerians, even at the Syrian and Egyptian communities coming to Canada. A question I would put back to the committee is, what regulations are going to be put in place when you're dealing with these kinds of governments? What protections are going to be put in place for Arabs coming from these parts of the world to ensure that their rights are going to be protected and this kind of information won't be submitted? And a follow-up question to that would be, what measures are going to be in place to ensure that Arab Canadians are not specifically going to be targeted?

You're right, I think we will see a decrease in numbers of people immigrating to Canada. As Cynthia aptly pointed out, we are competing for immigrants and we need to be that country that people feel welcome to come to. I think what we're seeing over the last year and a half is that people are getting more and more afraid to go to the United States, but also now to come to Canada, because their rights are being violated. We saw it with Bill C-36, we're seeing it again now with Bill C-18.

¿ (0920)

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad: That's a major concern. People come to Canada under different streams. People who come for protection have no choice, they will come. People who choose Canada as their home by their own will I think will feel some impact. I have talked to them frequently for the last 18 years in Canada. Even refugees choose Canada because of human rights concerns, because of equality, because of civil rights, because of Canada's being a country of equal citizenship. If you change that, I think they will have second thoughts.

I have one more concern. Last night I had a meeting with people from the community. I told them I was coming here to meet with our legislators. They said, please tell them not to let an immigration officer abuse the power of the minister and revoke our citizenship. It has created a panic among immigrant communities. This is my major concern, that if that happens, we leave Canada and work in other countries, Scandinavian countries, especially some people who are highly professional.

Mrs. Erica Lawson: The last time I appeared before the committee, Mr. Volpe asked me this question when I talked about people being deported because they didn't have citizenship. One of your comments was, people should get citizenship, and that will address the issue. It's really interesting that now, when people supposedly have citizenship, there are moves to annul and revoke their citizenship and deport them. I definitely see that there will be a drop in the numbers. We already have a high number of people who are being deported. What is the incentive for people to come here if for those who have contributed to the country all these years citizenship doesn't guarantee that they'll live out their lives here? That's very problematic.

The Chair: Okay.

Joe Volpe, one question.

Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton—Lawrence, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for my tardiness, but I came in just in time to be introduced by Ms. Lawson.

I'd like to make a comment, but I guess the question that will eventually come out of the comment is probably best directed to someone like Mr. Griffiths.

I've been through this process before. My question to Ms. Lawson was, why don't people simply become citizens? But it was a rhetorical question, because that ought to allay everybody's fears.

As I was coming down this morning, one of the newscasts referred to a notorious individual implicated in a murder. He became very famous here in the city about five or six years ago, served some time in jail, was acquitted of all charges, but was deported nonetheless. He'd been here as a toddler. Now special relations are being established between our police department and the police department of this gentleman's country of origin. It struck me that this wasn't an isolated case. In fact, my office, like maybe those of other members of Parliament, is filled with people who come to us for assistance because their children, usually boys, came here as toddlers and in this Canadian environment developed traits that weren't consistent with the values of their own families--I dare say, Mr. Griffiths, Canadian values. They run afoul of the law, and once they've served their sentence, the first person they see is an RCMP officer, who ships them over to a country they've never heard of, probably because they've never taken an interest in geography or politics.

What I witnessed here in a few minutes and in the past is predicated on linking citizenship with immigration, citizenship with employment, and what it used to be linked with was culture. If you ask whether citizenship has value because people will be attracted to becoming a citizen here, you're linking it up with immigration. I'm not sure that's necessarily a valid line of thinking. Unfortunately, this is a citizenship and immigration committee. People come to this country because this is an evolving nation, it's still very young, and we are in a position of being able to contribute to the branding of Canada. The legislation is the imposition of a brand that's already existing or one that holds out hope of development, evolution.

When one takes a look at comparable situations, European usually, to say we're much better or much worse, we're comparing apples and oranges. Until very recently European nations were homogeneous entities, and therefore already had a brand. It was very difficult in post-war Europe to accept anybody who wasn't part of that national group, because of the culture, the legal system, the political system, the historical system, and we're assuming that those same presumptions of homogeneity apply here in Canada. But there's a different definition of Canada in rural Quebec from that in rural Ontario or rural Alberta.

So when we talk about granting citizenship so that people understand and develop an attachment to Canada, I would challenge all witnesses to give us the definition of that to which a Canadian must get attachment, in numbers of days, numbers of years, and is it attached then to something that can be revoked? You acknowledge evolution, but if you move the target and you can never get attachment, it has no value. It can never be acquired. Why would you pay for something you can't get, when it can be taken away from you immediately?

So there's a different concept here, I suppose a legal concept, the one Joe Comartin raised a few moments ago. Can this thing possibly withstand a challenge in the courts? And if it can't, what's the purpose of engaging in an exercise that has little value other than someone wanting to say this is an indication of Canadian values? It's something the premiers' conference just last week had enormous disagreement about.

Canadians were British subjects until 1947, and those who had British subject status became Canadian citizens, unless, of course, you were a woman. If you were a woman and you married a non-Canadian, you lost your citizenship, you lost everything. If we want to point to a Canadian value as one in which you can lose whatever rights you have simply by your association with someone else, we should go ahead with legislation like this, Mr. Griffiths, if we want to reinforce that particular concept. But I thought we were moving in a direction to ensure that those who had established some attachment to Canada could never lose that attachment to Canada. People don't make a move out of a comfortable environment, culture, friends, family, to go to a place where they become uncertain, but there are some, as I read your very brief introduction, that suggest that they can.

¿ (0930)

The Chair: That's a long, complicated question that revolves around residency, revocation, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but I'll let you try to answer it.

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths: Let me just try to tackle a few elements.

I don't have an opinion, nor am I an expert on the whole issue of revocation of citizenship as per this act. So I'm just not going to comment on that. I think some interesting points have been brought up today, and as a citizen, I would support some of the concerns that have been expressed around this table.

I think you are right that in Canada we have developed what I would say is an interesting non-European model of attachment. We have a model of attachment that is based in some ways on the absence of a unifying history or a common public memory. All the surveys we do at the Dominion Institute, some of which you may be familiar with, show that Canadians know very little about their history, and that lack of knowledge seems to be periodic; it affects all generations, but especially, it seems, young people coming out of our provincial school systems lack knowledge not only about the country's history, but about different parts of the country. That's why I would say the work of this committee is so important. What you're really talking about here is using, I think, citizenship as a new engine for attachment in a 21st-century Canada. You're replacing a static European model with exclusionary immigration policy, a kind of public memory written in centuries of conflict and accomplishment, but based in history, with a very different, much more interesting, somewhat complex model of identity attachment and integration.

So I would agree with your point that there has to be something at stake, something of value for people to go through the process of attachment, but the process of attachment has to be taken with the utmost seriousness. We cannot allow these kinds of lax residency requirements. We should be strengthening the citizenship exam process. We should be very strict in enforcing the language requirements. All these are things that allow for this attachment to form.

So again, to summarize, I think the work of this committee is much more interesting than the specific bill as a legal, formal construct, and I really look forward to seeing the work you and your colleagues produce over the coming months.

The Chair: Thank you, Rudyard.

This committee travelled across the world, after we passed our new immigration bill and since then. I want to make the linkage Joe and you tried to talk about, this whole thing about attachment. I agree it's a lot more. This is the motivation. We went to Germany, as an example, and you could never get to be a citizen of Germany. They want you to work there, and you could work there for 20 or 30 years. They may or may not invite you to bring your kids, your mother-in-law, your father-in-law, or whatever, but you will never become a citizen. What I found startling, and even motivating, is that they said, how has Canada been able to resettle and integrate people from 180 countries and make them feel good about being Canadian? And do you know what it was? It was our citizenship. After you've been here three years, four years, five years, whether or not you're physically present, you have an attachment, you have family, you have work, you have relatives. The prize at the end of the day is that the country is prepared to give you a piece of paper that all of a sudden says you are Canadian. They found it incredible that we would make this linkage between immigration, multiculturalism, and citizenship within a three-year period. You're right, it is generous compared to other countries. In other countries you have to wait five years or ten years.

How do you define attachment? This is what Joe raised and what you brought up and what everybody talked about. Is it about physical presence or is it about building a relationship with a new country? Even if you were born here, there is having a relationship with the country you were born in. I think the motivation this committee is trying to understand involves what it is to be a Canadian in respect of identity.

I'm a little concerned that we continue to hear we are creating, by virtue of this bill, not only two classes of citizens, but perhaps three. So how would we ensure that this is a bill that says, you are simply a citizen, whether by birth or by naturalization? Would it mean getting rid of clauses 16 and 17, as someone suggested, so that one cannot revoke, annul, or even deny citizenship? How are we going to make sure we have one class of citizenship? I want you to all respond to that.

Second, you all talked about clauses 21 and 22, “a flagrant and serious disregard of principles underlying a free and democratic society”. Some of you have indicated that this bill might be anti-democratic and perhaps seen within the context of September 11, so that it's looking too much at criminalization, too much at terrorism, as opposed to the good things about our country. Some people have said, get rid of this phrase, because it's too broad, we don't understand what it means. The administration has said it really is about hate-mongering, and perhaps we ought to define it in that context, as opposed to the free and democratic society. And then there are a whole bunch of people inside, including some of our members, who are saying perhaps we ought to tie it to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

So I wonder if I could have your comments on those two issues.

Erica.

¿ (0935)

Mrs. Erica Lawson: I think, once you acquire Canadian citizenship, which is not easy, by the way, not as easy as people think it is, that's it. There shouldn't be any further possibility that the citizenship will be revoked or annulled. I say that within the context of the discussion that took place between Mr. Griffiths and Mr. Volpe. I envisage a more dynamic sense of value and citizenship. There is an underlying presumption that disturbs me, that a certain class of Canadians have a monopoly on a certain set of values. That's the language implicit in Mr. Griffiths' discussion. I think, when a person comes here and gives up a lot to get here, to hold that person, because they come from outside, to a higher standard of performance or value than somebody who is born here is very problematic.

I think once you get here and have citizenship, you should have that citizenship for the rest of your life. You should not be treated any differently in respect of being deported for criminal activities you may have engaged in. You should be punished as any other person who was born here is punished, spend time in jail, pay a fine, whatever the issue may be. That, for me, is a more dynamic sense of what it means to be in a young country with all these possibilities. I think there is an underlying suggestion that we want to hold on to what British values mean, and it's very problematic that way.

With respect to your second question, very quickly--

The Chair: While you are answering the one about revocation, there has to be an alternative. What if you lied on your application or in your representation? Are you saying in absolutely no way, shape, or form ought we to annul or revoke? I need you all to think about that, because it is very important to get down to the specifics.

The second point, then.

¿ (0940)

Mrs. Erica Lawson: The quotation in clause 21 speaks to a very subjective view of what it means to violate democratic principles, and we need to think through that very carefully. It's a philosophical discussion, which is really my attraction to this whole debate. There has to be a more dynamic opening up of what constitutes values and democracy and all those things.

As to whether somebody who lies to get into the country should be deported later on, that's a tough one. My sense of fairness and justice inherently, politically, leads me to say no. If you get here and acquire citizenship, you should hang on to that.

The Chair: I need you to be careful, though. We're not talking about deportation as an automatic thing, we're talking about perhaps being a permanent resident for a little longer. So let's make sure and let's be clear.

Mrs. Erica Lawson: Okay.

The Chair: You don't lose your citizenship and get immediately deported to a country that may abuse you by way of torture. Let's get factual here. We are talking about losing your citizenship based on misrepresentation. That doesn't mean you are going to be deported the next day.

Mrs. Erica Lawson: Then I say you don't lose your citizenship. I say, understand what the circumstances are, give people due process.

The Chair: Okay.

Cynthia.

Ms. Cynthia Pay: As to how you avoid creating different classes of citizenship, our position would be that you get rid of some of the clauses that do create the classes, clause 14, talking about the second generation born abroad, clauses 17 and 18, revocation and annulment. In particular, with revocation and annulment, we submit that you have to do proper checks in advance, instead of trying to fix the problem after citizenship has been granted. There may be times when citizenship shouldn't be granted, we are not saying there are no standards there, but if there are standards, apply them properly before citizenship is granted. So you can get rid of that problem of different classes in advance. If you do continue to include clauses 17 and 18, at least there have to be procedural rights if citizenship is revoked or annulled, and those are lacking in the current bill.

Second, with clause 21, we agree that it's definitely too broad in refusing citizenship. We already have a lot of ways citizenship can be prohibited in clause 28. So our submission is to again get rid of that section. It's too broad, there's no need for it. We have other clauses in the bill to achieve the same goals. Again, there is a definite lack of appeal rights and procedural rights.

Ms. Audrey Jamal: I echo the statements, specifically on clauses 16 and 17. These are two that definitely need to be removed.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to address your question on when we should revoke citizenship and whether these clauses should stay in the bill. I think we have to look very closely at this question, because if we are bringing in secret evidence and if we are bringing in information from foreign governments, we need to look at who we are persecuting in doing this. Certain communities are under a lot of scrutiny right now, and if this is going to be used to take away the citizenship of Arab and Muslims today, who is it going to be tomorrow? So I think we need to look very hard at this on an individual basis. If a person has indeed lied or submitted false evidence with their citizenship claim, we need to look at the reasons they may have done that. It could be fear, knowing an organization isn't respected in Canada in the same way it is internationally. Lebanon would be a perfect example of this kind of thing. So I think we need to look at it on a case-by-case basis.

¿ (0945)

The Chair: Ezat.

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad: First I want to know whether many people have lied, and how many, to get citizenship, because you have the screening system. For example, to get convention refugee status in Canada, there are so many background checks. Again, when you want to become a landed immigrant, you go through background checks. When you want to get citizenship, there is another background check. And now you have citizenship, they come and say you have lied to the system. The onus should be on the government, not only on people who are citizens and who are defendants before Immigration and Citizenship.

Another problem when you speak about attachment is the language of the bill. The whole language should be changed, I think. When I read it, I feel that I'm a potential risk, as a naturalized citizen, to Canadian society. And there is the whole preoccupation with the question of deportation. I don't think violence and even terrorism or external factors impose on Canada from other countries, and I strongly feel that you should have second thoughts. Attachment is meaningful participation in social life, and for that, the first step is non-discriminatory legislation, so everybody feels equal.

Also, adherence to the principles of a democratic and free society is ambiguous. Define it or delete it.

The Chair: Rudyard, you spoke to us about the threshold in getting citizenship. When you do you believe one should lose it, if at all?

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths: Mr. Chairman, you bring up a very good point. If citizenship is obtained through fraudulent means and there's not the capacity to annul that citizenship because it was obtained fraudulently, the whole nature and character of the citizenship that is bestowed on everyone else is devalued. Again, because some people are born in this country, and therefore arrive at their citizenship not through the process of this proposed act, you have a fundamental problem. There's no way around that, and again, it's just a question of being as fair and equitable in the solution of that problem as you can.

The Chair: As a clarification, I'm only repeating what's in the bill, not necessarily stating my personal view of the situation.

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths: Okay. I am providing my on-the-fly analysis of this.

Regarding the clause on the principles of a free and democratic society, my understanding was that this clause is an addition to the previous bill, because this was seen as a problem there, and is an expansion on an even vaguer statement that resided in the previous bill. I can understand why it does cause people some concern. Perhaps it is possible to look at the other clauses of the bill with regard to checks and balances within the system, but there has to be that capacity if information is brought forward to the minister and there is an open and transparent way of establishing that those grounds are valid. Citizenship cannot be a fait accompli.

The Chair: Because you raised that issue and to show you that our research people are right on the ball, in the previous bill, C-16, which was passed, the clause that referred to this very section says, “if the Minister is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that it is not in the public interest for a person to become a citizen”. So it was defined in relation to public interest, and now we've gone to a flagrant disregard for a free and democratic society.

As one last comment, everybody is a little worried about its being an administrative bill, and as you know, we're moving from citizenship judges to citizenship commissioners. Everybody was worried that judges had too much discretion and were abusing their power. Now we're moving away from total discretion to a totally administrative framework, dehumanizing this whole thing. Are there any comments? I know the Chinese Canadian group indicated that there was a value in making sure there was discretion for judges. Nobody else commented on it.

¿ (0950)

Ms. Mary Lam: We have no comments other than the ones we've made. There is a value to citizenship judges, and they are high-calibre individuals.

The Chair: Okay.

Ezat.

Mr. Ezat Mossallanejad: The concern is the symbolic terminology, in my view. When you speak about judges, you always think of the separation of the judiciary from the executive, but when we speak about commissioners, it goes to the spirit of the bill, which has given lots of arbitrary and discretionary power to the executive. I think we should go back to the judges.

Mr. Rudyard Griffiths: Around the table here today we're hearing a great demand for transparency and for clear procedure and process. Maybe the shift from judges to commissioners enhances process and procedure. With the arbitrary nature in elements of this bill people around this table are complaining about, maybe quite justly, can one have it both ways?

The Chair: That is the million dollar question we are trying to answer.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: There was concern about immigration officers having so much power to revoke citizenship. I think Ezat should tell his community that it does not have to worry so much. Last night, you said, you were speaking with your friends, and they were concerned that immigration officers will have a lot of power to revoke citizenship. I don't think this bill goes quite that far.

The Chair: Well, I'm not sure I would totally agree. I think there are certain provisions in there with regard to security certificates that.... I'm not suggesting that one ought to fear-monger and communities ought to worry, but that whole issue of having security certificates issued by administrative people has raised the very fears Ezat has talked about. Hopefully, that's not the Canadian way. I think you've all raised some concerns as to how this secret information gets to a minister or an immigration officer who, in fact, can remove citizenship, and indeed permanent residency. That's already in the immigration bill. We tried to build fences around that whole provision about how certificates are issued by immigration officials, and if there are some abuses you hear about, Ezat, I'm sure this committee would be very interested in hearing of them.

I think we've had a very good discussion this morning. Your input has been invaluable, as it has before, and so I thank you. We're only starting this process, and I know some of you are coming back to talk about the national identity card, whether or not we should have one in this country and what it means. I know some of you will be speaking about how we can move from immigration to citizenship with resettlement programs and provincial nominees. Thank you again for your wonderful input.

We are going to take about a five-minute break while we clear the table and get our witnesses and our new forms.

¿ (0950)

À (1006)

The Chair: Resuming our discussions on Bill C-18, an act respecting Canadian citizenship, I want to welcome the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Alan Borovoy and Stephen McCammon, Amina Sherazee from the Law Union of Ontario, and Stephen Green and David Lesperance. I want to thank you for taking the time, and also for attending this committee on previous occasions to give us your insight with regard to our immigration bill and so on. So again, welcome.

Some of you have provided us with your briefs, and you have five to seven minutes to summarize them, so that we can ask you some questions.

We will start with Alan and Stephen.

À (1010)

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy (General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has not studied the entire bill that closely, but there are some elements of it we want to particularly focus on. They arise in the areas of revocation, annulment, and the initial denial of citizenship. I'll take each one in turn.

We do not object to the idea of revoking the citizenship of anyone who obtained it by engaging in significant deception. The problems arise with the process by which the person can be considered to have engaged in a significant deception. First there is the question of the burden of proof. In some respects the bill is silent, and where it isn't silent, it uses, in our view, the wrong burden. It talks about the balance of probabilities. People do not pull up stakes and relocate from one country to another with ease. It is often accompanied by substantial hardship. Interestingly, the United States Supreme Court once said the revocation of citizenship is more serious than the taking of property. In that case the court said the evidence should be clear, unequivocal, and convincing, and it went on to say the mere preponderance of evidence is not enough. When expressions like “balance of probabilities” are used, there is a great risk that this will be interpreted as a mere preponderance of evidence, and that's just not good enough when it comes to divesting a person of his citizenship.

The second process arises in the course of security cases, where material evidence can be withheld from the impugned citizen on the basis that its disclosure would prejudice some security interests. We realize that the bill does try to accommodate the citizen's interests consistently with that. Our view is that it could go even further without disclosing prejudicial information to the impugned citizen. We would recommend that the bill provide for the appointment of a special advocate, who would have security clearance and have access to all the information at issue. This advocate would not necessarily take instructions from the impugned citizen, but at in camera hearings of the court would represent the citizen's interests. The citizen, of course, would still be entitled to his own counsel at the public sessions of the court.

The third recommendation goes to the lack of appeal when it raises security issues of this kind. Our view is that the loss of citizenship is so great a loss and the opportunities for mistakes so great that the cosmic coincidence of what judges are sitting on what cases should not be able to determine it. The single judge alone is not fair. There ought to be recourse to a fuller right of appeal even in those cases.

Those are the procedural problems. There is a substantive issue that is being incorporated from the Immigration Act into this bill. Some of the grounds for deporting the person who has just lost his citizenship have to be re-visited. Consider, if you will, just one example, the basis for deporting people for having engaged in the subversion by force of any government, not necessarily any democratic government, but any government. Would I understand from this that a person who got involved in trying to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein would be deportable on those grounds from Canada? Surely, that's a repugnant outcome, so the matter has to be revisited, as do a number of these other grounds.

The second matter is the issue of annulment. Here I will touch only on one part of it, though there are other problems with it as well, as one of them just jumped off the page. A person's citizenship can be annulled for having sustained two convictions for summary conviction offences within a given period prior to having been granted citizenship. If I read this correctly and if I understand how one thing links up with the other correctly, if a person went camping a couple of times without a permit, that person would be subject to the annulment of his citizenship. I hope the government will forgive me if I suggest that it's hard to take this seriously. We would suggest, therefore, that some of these grounds be revisited, because a lot of them contain this kind of problem.

Finally, on the issue of the initial denial of citizenship, we note the new ground, “flagrant disregard for the principles of a free and democratic society”. To be sure, that is an improvement over what the predecessor bill contained, but we must recognize the terrific opportunity language of that kind creates for abuse. In order to minimize the risk of abuse, though we appreciate that different considerations apply to the initial grant of citizenship and to subsequent revocation, it is our view that at the very least, the bill should provide for an opportunity for a court to review the decision the politicians have made, with a view at least to determining whether it was in the ball park of reasonable judgment. It creates an awful perception when people with political interests, like politicians--and this is not to disparage the political interests, it is simply to understand the different roles these things have to play in our society--have the last say about whether X becomes a citizen on the ground that the person has shown a flagrant disregard for principles of a free and democratic society. At the very least, there ought to be an opportunity for a proper judicial look at that if the person wants to have it.

These, Mr. Chair, you will appreciate are only a few remarks. I want very much to stay within the allotted time limit. There is more to say, but I hope it is clear from what we've said that the bill in its present form should not be adopted. It would have to undergo some pretty substantial amendment, in our view, before it would be worthy of enactment. All of which is, as always, respectfully submitted.

À (1020)

The Chair: Thank you.

The Law Union of Ontario, Amina.

Ms. Amina Sherazee (Law Union of Ontario): Good morning.

I'm a lawyer and one of over 200 members of the Law Union of Ontario. We thank you for the opportunity to make submissions on Bill C-18, which is not to be confused with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, though I had some trouble with that as I was reading it, because it certainly reads like it. As an organization, the Law Union is concerned primarily with challenging discriminatory and oppressive legislation, and we are strongly opposed to the passage of Bill C-18 for the following reasons. First, we think it's unconstitutional and discriminatory. Second, it gives dangerous broad powers to the minister, without procedural or substantive safeguards. Third, there's no need for a new Citizenship Act, since the current act still sufficiently addresses the new so-called security concerns.

Before I get into those concerns, I should tell you that I am a naturalized Canadian citizen. I immigrated with my family in the late 1970s, at the height of what is colloquially referred to as Paki-bashing. While my family and I considered Canada our new and permanent home, as a very young child, I was relentlessly taunted by rhetorical questions, such as “Why don't you go back to where you came from?” These soon turned into directives, such as “Paki, go home.” As I grew older, the racism underlying those comments turned into a more polite and politically correct version, with comments such as “Where are you from originally?” All of this leads to a sense of not really belonging in Canada or being Canadian, but one could and does comfort oneself with the realization that we are, after all, Canadians, because we are Canadian citizens and, notwithstanding racism and intolerance, as citizens, we are all equal. This comfort goes a long way when you are in a racial minority and/or born outside this country.

If you pass Bill C-18, you will be entrenching those sentiments in permanent law for application and enforcement by the state. First, it is unconstitutional and discriminatory. The stated purpose of Bill C-18, under clause 3, is to affirm that all citizens are equal and, under clause 12, that all citizens have the same rights, regardless of how they became citizens. Not only do these sections contradict the rest of the provisions in the bill, it's simply untrue under Bill C-18.

Bill C-18 creates a distinction between citizens born in Canada and those born outside. Naturalized citizens are subject to revocation and annulment of their citizenship. Those born in Canada are automatically citizens, while those born outside are selectively denied citizenship on vague and arbitrary grounds, such as age, under clause 11, or the minister's belief about a person's disregard for a free and democratic society, under clause 21. Bill C-18 violates the equality guarantee in section 15 of the charter, and the discrimination against naturalized citizens that is at the very heart of Bill C-18 is unacceptable, racist, and criminal and must be abandoned, on the principle that non-discrimination and equality are fundamental human rights. There is no provision in law, domestic or international, for circumventing this right in the name of national security or otherwise.

Secondly, the powers granted to the minister under Bill C-18 to revoke, annul, and deny citizenship without fundamental justice and due process mirror the draconian secret trials that permanent residents and aliens are subjected to under the Immigration Act. In this regard, Bill C-18 has the effect of treating some citizens like aliens. Citizens and permanent residents alike are denied the right to a fair and open trial, and the only justification is that they are not really citizens because they weren't born here.

The prohibition against citizenship for those who have criminal charges and convictions represents a historical, racist double standard. It is worth reminding you that this country was settled by convicted criminals from England who were sent to Canada under the U.K.'s Transportation Statute, 1717. Those bands of criminals were not deported by the early settlers in the indigenous population. Rather, they were given an opportunity to start a new life.

Since the days of those early settlers, immigrants have continued to build and shape this dynamic country. If they otherwise meet the requirements of citizenship by demonstrating ties to the community and residence, then they should be granted citizenship. The minister should not be permitted to selectively pick and choose who will and who will not become a citizen and who will and who will not remain a citizen.

Our submission is that the current Citizenship Act is sufficient to address the new concerns about security, especially with the passage of the Anti-terrorism Act and the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Citizens can either be persecuted for war crimes and offences related to terrorism domestically, or they can be extradited for prosecution. Under section 1 of the charter, it's constitutional to do so. Bill C-18 is not about anti-terrorism and security. It's about wielding an axe of intimidation over new immigrants and it's about silencing dissent in the face of the new, repressive, and increasingly undemocratic era of globalization and anti-terrorism.

Before I end, I would like to remind this committee—and I hope you will carry this message to the other members of the committee—that Bill C-18 is not an ordinary bill, because it deals with an extraordinary matter. Citizenship is not like a driver's licence. Citizenship is the basis of society, and a constitutional democracy hinges on equality amongst its citizens. We have not achieved gender, racial, and social equality as it stands, but we do have some semblance of formal equality as citizens. Bill C-18 will eliminate this, and then it's a slippery slope to implementing a sanguinity system in which even children born here will be stripped of citizenship.

Bill C-18 will impact on the majority of Canadians. In Toronto alone, more than 59% of the population was born outside of Canada. Approximately a quarter of parliamentarians in the House of Commons are naturalized citizens.

As a committee, you have two choices. You can either allow Bill C-18 to pass a second reading with minor amendments, or you can do your job as MPs elected by both Canadian-born and naturalized Canadian citizens, and reject Bill C-18, which really has no place in a democracy. We hope you will do the latter.

Those are my submissions. Thank you.

À (1025)

The Chair: Thank you, Amina.

Stephen Green, welcome.

Mr. Stephen Green (Lawyer, As Individual): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and these honourable members. I'm a practitioner in immigration and citizenship law in Canada, and I have appeared at hundreds of citizenship applications on behalf of my clients. I have provided a paper that touches briefly on four areas, those being residency, adoption, revocation and misrepresentation, and annulment.

To begin with residency, the bill now proposes to remove the flexibility of the previous act with respect to residency. The previous act required three years of residence without defining the term “residence”. There are limited exceptions under the proposed bill. These exceptions, I submit, are not enough. I believe those people who are deserving—those being permanent residents who wish to acquire their citizenship—will not be able to acquire it because of these strict residency requirements. Those people include students, international executives who have to travel abroad, individuals representing Canadian companies abroad, and individuals who have their own Canadian companies. I ask this committee, however, why this bill recognizes that if you are a spouse or common-law partner of an employee of the federal or a provincial government, you are exempted from the requirements of physical presence.

My recommendation would be to adopt section 28 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act with respect to the residency requirements, because in that particular act, they recognize that permanent residents have to travel abroad.

À (1030)

The Chair: We fixed that.

Mr. Stephen Green: Absolutely. It was a very good thing.

However, the only suggestion that I would make in addition to that is that it does not recognize the ability of students to travel abroad if they are permanent residents. I would ask the committee to look at that.

With respect to clause 9 and adoption, I commend this bill for finally recognizing that adopted children, children who are naturalized in Canada, and children who are born here should be treated the same. However, the problem is that the way the system is set up, it will require my clients to both sponsor their adopted child and file an application for citizenship. I say that because of the appeal right if the application is denied. If an application is denied for the citizenship of the adopted child, then I only have the right to go for judicial review, which can't look at all the circumstances of the case. However, if the application is denied based on a sponsorship, then I have the right to go to the Immigration Appeal Division to have my case heard.

In order to stop this dual process that is costing Canadians double the amount of money, my recommendation would be to amend the bill to indicate that a refusal of a citizenship application with respect to adoption should be treated in the same way as a refusal for a sponsored application. You would then have the right to appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division.

My other concern with clause 9 is the way it's written now. You have to meet the adoption laws of the country the child is coming from, as well as those of the country of the adopting parents. Canada doesn't have laws for adoption, provinces do. I therefore submit that this can't stand. It's wrong. The provinces control our adoption laws, not Canada.

Finally, if a person does decide to go through the sponsorship process—that being the immigration system—then a citizenship officer can look at the whole process again and ask if it is in the best interests of the child. We don't want that. It is turning into an administrative process. We are taking the “special” concept out of this whole bill.

I heard comments before that it's not turning into an administrative apple. I submit that it is, because clause 44 gives the minister the right to delegate everything. There are no limitations like those under IRPA, in which there are certain limitations, in my respectful submission.

On revocation, with respect to clause 16, I submit that we're creating two classes with respect to appeal rights. If I am a permanent resident of Canada and I have misrepresented, I have the right to go to the Immigration Appeal Board to argue my case based on humanitarian considerations. If I get it revoked under the Citizenship Act, I don't. Why are we giving permanent residents more rights of appeal than Canadian citizens? I don't understand. They should be equal. I would submit that if a revocation does occur, they should again have the right of appeal under section 63 of IRPA in that regard.

On administrative annulment, one of the big issues that I see here is that if we annul a person's citizenship and they have given derivative citizenship to a child, then what happens? Unlike revocation, in which we're just revoking that particular person, in an annulment we're stating that it is void. What do we do with that child who received citizenship as a result of their parents?

I would also like to mention that we don't need the annulment provision. The revocation is good enough. I would argue that if we want to take away someone's citizenship with respect to identity and we've missed the five-year period, the courts would say you can't use the revocation provision because Parliament has specifically dealt with annulments with false identity. I think that's a very serious consideration that one has to look at.

I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. All of this is respectfully submitted.

The Chair: Thank you. All of the witnesses so far have given us a lot of food for thought, and I'm sure we're going to have an awful lot of questions.

David Lesperance, welcome.

À (1035)

Mr. David Lesperance (Lawyer, As Individual): Thank you very much for allowing me to appear.

The Chair: I don't believe we have a copy of your submission. We're looking into it.

Mr. David Lesperance: Before we start, then, my material was contained in a blue envelope. I do have extra copies here, though.

Given the time constraints, I decided to focus on a particular element of this bill, that being residence. I started by looking at what the minister had set out as the goals of citizenship legislation, and those are really five different ones: to reflect the realities of today's world; to show that people acquiring citizenship have a strong link; that there be clear, fair, objective, and enforceable criteria; to make the system simpler and more efficient; and to attract the best and the brightest—and attracting the best and the brightest means working with the immigration legislation and trying to define that it's not only attracting them, but is keeping the best and the brightest.

In the area of residence qualifications, Bill C-18 has decided to replace the term “residence” and equate it with physical presence. I believe that emphasis on physical presence, that change, is a fundamental flaw. It won't result in Canada reaching its immigration and citizenship policies. According to government estimates, 90% of citizenship applicants indicate that they have been in Canada the entire time during the relevant naturalization period, so we're really only talking about 10% of the people.

Who comprises that 10%? Is there a group that we really value and want to keep? Is there a group that we feel is undeserving of immigration? Do we have a way of separating the two? At the risk of appearing a bit blunt, I've used terms to divide that 10% group into two different types. One I will call “supercontributors”, and the other one the public has referred to and I will refer to as “freeloaders”.

I define supercontributors as those highly skilled business people and workers who view international travel as an absolute requirement of being part of the global economy. These are the best and the brightest that each minister keeps talking about. They come to Canada equipped with skills, experience, capital, and international contacts, and they have to continue to maintain and own and expand those things in order to remain supercontributors. Many countries, including Canada, have indicated that they require a critical mass of these supercontributors in order to have national economic prosperity. Countries aggressively try to recruit them, and they struggle to keep these people. They're sophisticated, worldly, and law-abiding, and they view clarity, consistency, and efficiency from the home country as absolute requirements.

For this group of people, international travel long ago lost its romanticism. It's a necessary requirement. I'm sure members of this committee can feel for them, given the type of travel you have to do within Canada. Some of these people will take steps to try to minimize this burden. They may have homes overseas, because it's a lot nicer to be in a familiar apartment. Depending on their situation, they may even be able to bring family or try to coordinate these trips just to minimize the impacts on their lives.

The physical presence requirement of Bill C-18 is going to be a disaster in trying to attract and keep these supercontributors. It's ludicrous to believe that we can attract new supercontributors or keep the ones we have if we're telling them that citizenship will be delayed or even denied if they continue to engage in this travel that is an essential part of their business lives. They're well aware that other countries, and most notably those in the EU, are moving away from these strict physical presence requirements. Canada is moving backwards. It is not keeping in touch with today's realities.

In discussions with immigration officials, I gathered that the physical presence requirement has been put in and emphasized to try to deal with what they perceive as the problem of the freeloaders. They define the freeloaders as people who wish to use Canada as an insurance policy or as a place to get medical treatment or educational treatment while making a minimal contribution. These people will show no hesitation in circumventing the legal rules and requirements, because they have been shown time and again that circumvention is easy, virtually undetectable, and results in lower costs for them to achieve their goals.

I have included in my submission today a copy of something I put together for an IRPA submission. I called it “A Scoundrel's Guide”. It was a compilation of street knowledge on how people are circumventing the physical presence requirements—and they will continue to circumvent them under this new act.

À (1040)

The Chair: But it's not telling people how to do that, right?

Mr. David Lesperance: It's a compilation of street knowledge, it's not anything you couldn't gather on a street corner in most cities, like Toronto, or even independently if you think about it a bit. It's very easy to circumvent. The real question is why we are trying to put in a physical presence requirement that we just cannot enforce.

One of the things I also want to emphasize is that the idea of physical presence is also enamoured because it seems to have a strong correlation with having a strong link to Canada. I think that's basically false for two reasons. One is human nature. You simply have to be in a city like Toronto during that quadrennial event, soccer's World Cup, to appreciate that some people who have been physically present in Canada most of their adult lives have not decided to engage Canada. They have much stronger links with wherever they came from and can basically isolate themselves even while they are physically present.

In addition, with modern technology—my apologies to any reporters here—I haven't subscribed to a newspaper in three years. I read everything online. I listen to talk radio in Vancouver online. When I travel, I watch Hockey Night in Canada online. If you want to decide to engage yourself in Canada's society, politics, and issues of the day, it's very easy to do so online. Supercontributors are technologically savvy people. Trying to say that a supercontributor will only forge a strong link to Canada if he is physically present in Canada just ignores modern technology. So this emphasis on physical presence is really going to be a disaster in terms of trying to keep the supercontributors, and I think it's going to be completely ineffective in trying to take citizenship away from or deny citizenship to freeloaders.

I have recommended two changes. One is to equate the term “residence” not with physical presence, but with the same definition contained in Canadian tax law. That 90% of people who are physically present in Canada all the time or who indicate that they are, are also going to be resident in Canada for tax purposes. Supercontributors who wish to qualify for Canadian citizenship have to agree to be taxed as Canadian residents. That means they would agree to be taxed on their worldwide income. If they are making that money overseas, they are going to be taxed just as much as they would be if they were making it in Canada.

I think the Canadian public generally agrees that a basic criterion of citizenship is that you agree to pay your fair share of taxes. It's the price we pay for a civilized society. Tax residency is very easy to prove. It doesn't require a James Bond-like examination of the person's background. The person simply files their copies of their resident tax returns or their notices of assessment. It's very easy to determine if somebody has decided to file as a resident for tax purposes. Most importantly, the freeloaders will avoid this like the plague, because for them, that is deemed to be too high a cost of acquiring Canadian citizenship. They'll look elsewhere for their insurance policy.

The second thing I recommend is that we strengthen the current test of knowledge of Canada, whether we strengthen the test itself or combine it with a mandatory course that people have to go through and pass. They could take that course online or in classrooms before they are qualified to sit for the examination. It's going to be a much greater indicator that they have decided to seek out and engage themselves in Canada. And again, for those people who are physically present, it will force them to at least find out about these things in Canada.

That's my submission.

The Chair: We have a copy of the test here if you want to take it, David. Some members have indicated that it was too tough. We should start handing it out to our witnesses, or even to the members of the committee, to see how we do on it.

Thank you all. I'm sure we have an awful lot of questions, because you've raised an awful lot of very important issues.

I liked what you had to say, Alan. I don't want to quote the Supreme Court of the United States, but they said losing one's citizenship is perhaps even worse than losing one's property. That's a pretty fundamental question.

À (1045)

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: It's not very often that I like to quote the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Chair: Well, sometimes they do certain things right. We'll find out whether or not our Supreme Court thinks the same way if this ever gets challenged. I'm sure we'll have some questions related to this whole constitutional issue that Amina brought up.

Libby.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): I was listening to all of the testimony, and I was interested in tax residency. I think that's rather a good idea, but on the knowledge of Canada, I think a lot of people would fail, so I would be a little concerned about that.

I noticed that nobody really talked about responsibilities in the sense of what the responsibilities of becoming a Canadian would be. After listening to the testimony, it almost seems that it's easier to remain an immigrant. If you become a citizen, you fear your residency requirements aren't as easy, and revocation is also there to be feared.

Is this what makes citizenship really important? Does this help to set the bar too high by having these clauses in here? Can you agree that this is why we have these clauses? Is it because they're there to make citizenship something to hold onto?

I think we need to set the bar high for citizenship, so that it isn't taken advantage of. It has been mentioned or alluded to that there are a lot of people who really do take advantage of our citizenship. This brings me to ask you about dual citizenship. If you want to become a Canadian citizen, then why don't you just become a Canadian citizen and really take on the responsibilities of a Canadian citizen?

I see you shaking your head, Stephen, so you can start by answering. I say we should set the bar quite high to become a citizen. We're very generous with our immigration laws. I think we are, anyhow. But when you become a citizen, a lot of responsibilities come with it.

The Chair: Let's deal with the main question first, and have all of you respond to it.

We'll start with you, Steve.

Mr. Stephen Green: I don't think our immigration laws are very generous, but with respect to setting the bar, I agree that it should be a very high bar to get citizenship. Defining that bar is the important matter, though. I don't think appeal rights should be the defining point, but that's what all of us seem to be talking about: the right to lose. I think the bar should be set based on how to gain it by knowing rights, responsibilities, and those types of things.

What does it mean to be a Canadian? What is the connection? Those are interesting questions. I speak to many groups around the world and from different places. The most important thing they seem to like about Canada and why Canada is so great is the fact that we're not this melting pot. We're able to say we're different. My famous speech is always that if you want to go to America, they put you in a pot, mix you up, and out comes an American. In Canada, we don't do that, and we're proud of not doing that. Maybe that's what Canada is all about. So the bar that I talk about is the one set for you to become a Canadian. We shouldn't be concentrating on the way to lose.

The Chair: Alan, do you have any particular point?

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: On the issue of dual citizenship, I confess that it is an issue to which I have not hitherto directed my powerful mind. If you would, give me about a year or so to mull that over.

As for whether the bar should be set high or low, I invariably find it difficult to answer questions like that in the abstract. I'm much more concerned about which particular bar we're talking about. Let's engage in a debate about this bar or that bar, but not all bars in the abstract.

Ms. Amina Sherazee: On the dual citizenship part, I tend to agree with Alan, actually, when it comes to setting bars. The main problem I have with this act is that the procedures are completely contrary to principles of fundamental justice.

Pierre Trudeau was the one who reintroduced dual citizenship after it had been abolished prior to that. Brian Mulroney tried to take away dual citizenship and there was a big outcry about it.

I don't know if dual citizenship is really what's going to make it so that citizens are somehow going to be more likely to behave in the way that this committee is contemplating that citizens should behave. We have an increasingly globalized economy. Look at the European Union. People move very freely from state to state with their EU citizenship. So I don't think dual citizenship is such a problem.

The procedures under the act, however, are a real concern. If you're suggesting that you are somehow going to produce a particular type of citizen by setting those procedures as an abstract bar, then I'm saying the risks far outweigh any potential benefit you think you might get from having such an abstract bar in place.

À (1050)

The Chair: David, do you have any comments?

Mr. David Lesperance: We would have to determine if the bar—the bar being physical presence—is higher or lower than the bar for tax residency. Given these scoundrels, I would say it's very easy for them to lie and to circumvent any physical presence request, so a tax residency bar would actually be higher.

The other thing is that if you are going to have a contest in which people have to clear a bar, you better be able to watch it and monitor it and make sure they are not diving underneath it. There's no point setting an imaginary bar you cannot enforce.

On the issue of dual citizenship, I have read a fair amount on this. Oftentimes, I'll have clients—and again, my particular type of clientele is supercontributors, for lack of a better term—who will look at and choose various countries, and they will take into account the whole bargain. They are people who are sophisticated. When they are looking at citizenship, or even if they're contemplating getting a work permit, they are looking from the outset at what the obligation all the way through to citizenship is going to be. They contemplate that. They are planning far ahead, so they are looking at that.

Also on dual citizenship, I'm reminded of the debate that occurred in the United States in the early 1960s, when JFK was running for president. Could somebody have loyalty to the United States while being a Roman Catholic who was supposedly controlled by Rome?

I think people are sophisticated enough. I have many roles. I am a father, I'm a parent, I'm a child of my birth family, and I'm somebody who is also involved with my in-laws. I have other families. I'm able to certainly contemplate multiple roles and come out with an intelligent decision so that those roles are never in conflict with each other. I'm mature enough. Citizens going through this exercise are also certainly mature enough to be able to balance the two.

When there is a direct type of conflict between the two—for example, when a home country is going to war with Canada—then that's covered by different legislation. That's covered by treason legislation. In such circumstances, people have to choose one side or another. But in most cases, that's a rarity, and it's dealt with in other legislation when it does occur.

The Chair: This is the first time I've heard this whole debate about dual citizenship. Nothing in this bill would take that away.

Mr. David Lesperance: Correct.

The Chair: I should also say that the rest of the world is accepting dual citizenship and is not in fact reverting. When we pledge loyalty to one country alone.... In the rest of the world, there are exceptions, but very few countries in the world do not accept dual citizenship.

Mr. David Lesperance: If we look at the modern trends and at a country like Germany, Germany has traditionally not allowed dual citizenship. However, it has been opening that up in the last few years, and recently came to an agreement that was done purely on economic terms. The agreement allows dual citizenship between France and Germany. So that's where the world trend is going.

The Chair: I think the fundamental question was how high that bar should be when it comes to conferring citizenship on someone. That's what this whole debate is about. And once you have it, how should a state take it away? Or should it be able to take it away?

We'll go to Andrew.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: Ms. Sherazee, your reference to your own particular circumstances was very touching. It wasn't until I was a member of parliament and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration that, in reading the legislation, I came to the realization that I am a second-class Canadian according to the present act, as is everybody else not born in this country.

I can only think of Michael Greene, when he made a comment for the Immigration and Refugee Board. He commented on the last Immigration Act, and he basically said the act was conferring Stalinist police powers on our immigration officials and the minister. In many ways, when I look at clause 17, it's very much like a show trial. It gives the appearance of legality, but legality can be devoid of justice. That clause offends the most fundamental part of what Canadian values should be about, that being the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and particularly section 7, where it talks about “security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

Given the nature of the importance of the Citizenship Act and how central it is to Canadian society, I think we would want to have a reference to the Supreme Court before we ever adopt something that seems to be the continuation of a previous bill, except that this one is more draconian. Under Bill C-63—and I mention this for you in case you haven't seen it—there was a proposal that came out of the same bureaucracy this bill came out of. The proposal in there was not only for the revocation of the citizenship of some persons in Canada by what I consider to be a fraudulent process, but the cabinet and only the cabinet, on a political decision, had the call to extend that to a child who might have been here fifty years or longer, without any reference to any court. I find that mind-boggling.

Clause 21 talks about Canadian values. To me, the Canadian values that should be enshrined in this act...my colleague John Bryden, a member of Parliament, has made a real effort to try to get the values of the charter enshrined in the citizenship oath and in other parts of the bill, to serve as a foundation for what the citizenship bill is.

On the residency requirements, I could live with the 1,095 days if there weren't an arbitrary cut-off of six years, because when you're talking about people who come to Canada because they're good at international commerce and get hired by Canadian companies, well, they are hired to travel abroad. They might never be able to qualify. The other question I would have about the bill is what happens if you're only here 1,090 days. Somebody down the road could decide to check you out and maybe find out you had a trip to Florida that they were unaware of.

There was one more question that Mr. Borovoy didn't respond to. Maybe you're not aware of it. The minister is now going around trying to promote an ID card for all of us, an identification card. I'm sure the Canadian Civil Liberties Association will have some input on that.

But this is a scary bill. The existing bill is scary, and this one looks even scarier.

À (1055)

Ms. Amina Sherazee: With all due respect, I don't think we need a reference to the Supreme Court. You can look at my submissions. I make it quite clear how it's in violation of various sections of the charter, as well as current case law that establishes that citizens should have a right to procedural fairness, natural justice, and fundamental justice at the very least.

I agree with you that the provisions in clause 16, with respect to judicial discretion on evidence, are very draconian. Evidence lies at the heart of an adversarial system, and clearly you have the power stacked against the individual citizen when you have a minister making an application for the revocation of that. The evidentiary procedure envisioned by clause 16 is not going to survive charter scrutiny, but you can look at my submissions for greater details on that.

I believe the right of citizens to remain in Canada and not be deported is also entrenched in the charter, under section 6. In a case called Solis v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), a 1997 case, the Federal Court looked at whether or not a permanent resident had the right to remain in Canada. The court said a permanent resident does not have a right not to be deported, but Canadian citizens do have a right not to be deported.

Basically, in this legislation, you can have someone who is a citizen one day and who can be deported the next because a declaration acts as a removal order, which is effective immediately when the declaration is made. The minister goes to court and can get a real bang for his buck by saying he's going to ask for a declaration, but really what he's getting is a deportation order and you have no right to appeal it. It's final. There's no judicial review. There is no other way of dealing with it.

Á (1100)

The Chair: There are at least six lawyers here. I know you've indicated that we shouldn't send it to the Supreme Court, so let's all pretend you're Supreme Court justices. I'll ask the fundamental question. Do you think this would pass? I know our Justice people say it passes the test of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but that's their standard answer to everything when we challenge them, of course.

Just pretend you're Supreme Court justices for a minute. Tell me whether or not you think this bill, as it is written in its present form, would pass the test. Amina, you have said no, and that if we just read your submission, it should be clear.

Stephen, what do you think?

Mr. Stephen Green: I think the whole secrecy of it all would not pass the fundamental rights question just on the concept that this person is a citizen. There has to be something higher granted to a citizen as opposed to a permanent resident. So I would have great concerns about many sections here.

The Chair: Alan, you've spoken many a time on these kinds of things.

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: If you are insisting on making me a Supreme Court justice, I'm going to demand tenure before I leave here.

The Chair: No, it'll last a minute and a half.

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: I'm always a little bit reluctant to give a legal opinion this way, because it would probably be worth about what you're paying for it.

I'm not as persuaded as my colleagues are. I think these are tough questions. Predicting what a court would do with these things in this day and age is a hazardous exercise. Much depends upon the cosmic coincidence of what judges are sitting on what cases at what time. But rather than respond in this either/or fashion to this whole question of secrecy, let me urge you to consider at least some way that you, as legislators, can reduce the unfairness in the process.

I suggested to you that you consider the idea of a public advocate who would have access to the secret material and whose job it would be to represent the impugned citizen's interests in any secret hearing, in any in camera hearing. In that way, we could take some significant steps toward reducing the unfairness for the person in the process. I think it's a mistake to just look at it as something we either take or leave just the way it is. I suggest that the better part of wisdom is to try to improve upon it.

The Chair: David.

Á (1105)

Mr. David Lesperance: I think that's really the point. If I was sitting on the bar, it would really depend on the situation that was put in front of me and the arguments that were made. I really think it could go either way. I really believe that if I was a justice—and at times I'm maybe not the most liberal judge at all—I would think it could very well fall against section 7. However, my concerns and the concerns of the Supreme Court of Canada would be very much relieved with the type of suggestion Alan was making.

I would not want to be that Justice lawyer who gave that unequivocal opinion that it would withstand all assaults. I would feel a little more comfort when sleeping at night if I had something like Alan's advocate as my comeback to claims that the applicant did not have procedural fairness.

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: And I'll tell you that we just met this morning.

Ms. Amina Sherazee: I really wish my colleague Barbara Jackson was here, because she is actually someone who has appeared before the Federal Court on many occasions and has challenged the security certificates under the security certificate proceedings. She would be in a better position to tell you how very difficult it is for a lawyer to do their job in representing their client.

While I understand that Mr. Borovoy has a suggestion for a public advocate, nothing can take the place of an advocate for the citizens themselves, particularly when you take all the sections and you read them together. Under clause 17, “information” means any information, even from the government of a foreign state, an international organization, an institution, or all of them together. You can have evidence and information from CSIS that is obtained by secret police in a dictatorial regime, against someone who has probably been granted refugee status after claiming refuge from that very regime, but now this information is going to be used against them to revoke citizenship. This act is very unclear, because it's going to catch people like that.

It's also open to anonymous allegations. Under clause 23, I believe, information will not be revealed if it's a threat to national security. Fine, we're already dealing with that under the Immigration Act. But then it says “or to the safety of any persons.” Well, what's to stop my neighbour from inventing a lie about me in order to have my citizenship revoked? There's nothing in here to prevent that sort of abuse from happening, and then there's no right to appeal.

So I really want you to think about this before you give it the green light.

The Chair: Joe.

Mr. Joe Comartin: I heard from you in particular, Amina, that we just don't need this legislation, and I've heard from some of the rest of you statements along certain lines that we don't need this or that part of it. I'm going to ask specific questions, but I would like you to address them from the perspective of whether we really need this legislation or whether we need all of this legislation.

It's huge. It's a challenge. The provisions with regard to some of the changes on adoption, let me suggest, would be in fact a benefit—not all of them but some of them. So this is my question to you. Are you really serious that we just don't need this legislation at all?

Stephen, the impression I had about residency, revocation, and annulment is that you have serious reservations. My question to you is whether we need those sections at all, or are we okay with the existing legislation?

Alan, perhaps a bit more specifically, on the flagrant disregard, which is found in clause 21, I'm a bit surprised that you wouldn't see it as being unnecessary in Canada at this point in time. Therefore, I'm asking specifically whether we need clause 21. Or can we just deal with some parts of the legislation and clean up other parts of the legislation, but get rid of clause 21 completely?

David, this goes right to a numbers thing. In terms of the figures you gave us on the part about the residency requirement, in that this is really only going to affect 10%, can you give us any sense of what percentage of that 10% are the freeloaders, as you put it? How many are we really going at?

The Chair: [Inaudible—Editor]...questions, one specific one to each of you, with the more basic question being whether we need this legislation at all, or parts of it, none of it, or some of it.

Let's start with you, Amina, and then we'll go to the specific questions that Joe had for each and every one of you.

Á (1110)

Ms. Amina Sherazee: I don't think you should throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I don't think Bill C-18 in its current form needs to be passed the way it is. You can ask for slight amendments to the act. We had that a couple of years ago with the Citizenship Act, and you can do that again. It doesn't bar you from bringing those more progressive suggestions forward.

With respect to clause 17, I don't remember what your question was.

The Chair: On adoption, what do you think about changes to that part of it?

Ms. Amina Sherazee: That's a progressive and beneficial amendment. I haven't turned my mind to it very much, but I was listening to Stephen Green when he was making his submissions, and I concur with him. You can still amend the Citizenship Act to include that. You don't need Bill C-18 in its current form.

The Chair: Stephen, do we need the act, or parts of it or none of it? And what about adoption and some of the provisions pertaining to annulment, revocation, and permanent residents having more rights than the citizen?

Mr. Stephen Green: Do we need the act? Not really. We can fix what we have. And when I say “fix”, it's interesting because of the residency issue. I'm sure many people have told you it's difficult for us to decide, it's not transparent, and things like that.

But I would submit that, administratively, the department has fixed it already. They sent a memo to all the citizenship judges a couple of years ago, saying that if a judge approves a residence case when the applicant has spent more time outside than inside, the department will appeal the case. They have appealed a tremendous amount of cases, and the Federal Court has now fixed this problem.

Years ago, I believe they appealed about 22 cases a year in all of Canada. It's now way up there. Perhaps you could ask your researchers to let you know how high, but they fixed that administratively.

The Chair: Maybe that's why we ought to get rid of the citizenship court judges, too.

Mr. Stephen Green: I believe we should have those judges.

The Chair: I do too.

Mr. Stephen Green: With respect to adoption, they would again fix that administratively as well. They have an operation memorandum whereby you can now apply directly to a senior bureaucrat in the department to go from non-immigrant to citizen. I'd like to see them put that in the act with respect to adoption, but we can fix the situations there.

The Chair: Alan, do we need the act?

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: I should tell you that the mandate of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association doesn't quite go that far, so I don't know that we can be too helpful to you with respect to that level of generality.

As far as the specific clause is concerned, clause 21, let me put it this way to you about the new provision for refusing to grant citizenship on the grounds of a flagrant disregard for the principles of a free and democratic society. Our organization did not request such a provision. Our organization would not be opposed to the removal of such a provision. Our organization is also not opposed to such a provision. In our view, there is nothing that contravenes civil liberties principles in trying to select people for citizenship on the basis that they are democrats. That doesn't offend us.

What we are concerned about is the potential for abuse in a provision like this, because the terminology is such that it could give rise to lots of conflicting interpretations and arguments. What is particularly unacceptable is that a decision—or at least a final decision—of that kind with respect to a particular individual could be made by someone with political interests to protect. That's the reason why we proposed having recourse to a court at least to determine whether the judgment was within the ballpark of reason or of reasonable judgment, or whether the decision was within the framework of reasonableness. That's why we made that proposal.

So we could live with having a clause like this, but we could also live quite comfortably without it. If we're going to have it, though, then it ought to be a much fairer one than it is at present.

Á (1115)

Mr. David Lesperance: To answer the simple question, I think we need Bill C-18 or portions of it to deal with two major problems—and I'll take a different position from that of Stephen.

On adoption, I absolutely agree with him. I think this is simply a change that has long been overdue, that everybody basically agrees with, and that has been awaiting a Citizenship Act to get passed. I was very intrigued and had one of those moments when I thought, “Oh, yes”, when Stephen brought up the issue of dual filing and eliminating the need for that by putting in the change.

With regard to residence and it being fixed by a physical presence, and to go to your question on what portion of the 10% are freeloaders, I would say the freeloaders long ago learned to masquerade as part of the 90%. They long ago said they are simply going to put on their application that they were here all the time. We have no idea whether they were or not. They will go through with this great sea of humanity, many of whom were physically present, and we won't be able to pick them out of the crowd.

The people who are caught in that 10% are the supercontributors who don't get speeding tickets, let alone the one who would consider filing a false affidavit on a citizenship application. So we are directly affecting the people we are taking such great pains to have.

In addition, this change that Stephen talked about didn't get rid of the problem or fix it, it simply swept it under the carpet. Now the freeloaders know they don't have to indicate that they've been gone at all. They just complete an application that shows nothing. That's why the appeals have dropped. It's because the supercontributors have said this is silly. Why would they curtail international travel, which is something they've decided they have to put up with in their life? They're not coming. Meanwhile, the freeloaders have decided to move into the 90% and be hidden. What's the net result? No appeals, because the supercontributors aren't coming and filing in the first place and the freeloaders have avoided this long delay and appeal process by simply posing as a masquerade.

If we pass the physical presence requirement as it certainly is, you're just guaranteeing that the result, which is not transparent.... It's something the members of the bar are aware of, but your average citizenship applicant is not aware of it because it's something that's not posted on the government website. We're talking about being clear, fair, and objective, and it certainly fails on the enforceable criteria.

The Chair: I wonder if I could ask just a couple of questions before we go to another round.

From most witnesses that we've heard, including your group and the one before yours, it's becoming clear that we're talking about due process as the biggest concern with this bill, either because it doesn't go quite far enough or because there aren't certain balanced, reasonable safeguards. There's no balance there with regard to either denial, annulment, or revocation. Therefore, if there isn't due process, then the whole bill becomes suspect as being too secretive, not probably reaching the bar that we would want, and forcing people maybe to do certain things.

If we were to try to fix this bill with regard to due process.... Right now, denial essentially is the minister's decision. It's a political decision. It has nothing to do with courts. It might be appealable, but it's a political decision. We fixed Bill C-63 or the last bill, Bill C-16, from the standpoint of revocation, because it was going to go completely to cabinet. Now, at least, we have it going to a court in which it is appealable in some way, shape, or form. Of course, the annulment provisions are all new, in terms of whether or not we ought to be able to annul by way of misrepresentation within the first five years.

I want to ask this of you, Alan. It has been mentioned before that if we built in appeal mechanisms, then one suggestion we could think about was perhaps the issue of terrorism or danger to Canada and so on. You're suggesting an advocate. Should it maybe go to CIRC, the committee that deals with the whole issue of whether there is certain representation, whether it is appealable, and whether confidentiality is on a certificate that has come forward. Would CIRC be a mechanism that we could use as a way of being able to provide better process? Of course, the other question is whether or not we should use maybe the Immigration Appeal Division as the appeal mechanism for some of those other concerns that have been raised.

I would ask all of you this question. If we were to build in the appeal mechanisms throughout either the judicial, denial, annulment, or revocation provisions of this bill, would doing so essentially allay an awful lot of the concerns on its constitutionality, on fairness and reasonableness, on in fact making sure that we don't create two classes or three classes of citizens? That is the last thing that we, as a committee, want to create. There should only be one class; therefore, I want to make sure we get it right and that we're not creating two and three classes of citizenship.

I wonder if I could start with you, Alan.

Á (1120)

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: Now you're challenging me to remember the question.

Involving CIRC in these processes would be a helpful thing to do. I would regard it as helpful, but not sufficient. Amina put her finger on this correctly a few minutes ago, when she said there's no substitute for having your own lawyer who is fully informed, is getting instructions, and is able to represent your person. I appreciate that.

What we're faced with is the difficulty of trying to reconcile two rather important values. On the one hand, we have fairness for the person facing possible revocation of citizenship together with deportation. On the other hand, we have our concern that vital material prejudicial to our national security should not be disclosed. The question then is whether or not we can create a process. It won't be adequate, but can it be less inadequate than it currently is?

When I made my suggestion a few moments ago about having a public advocate, my argument was simply that it would make it better. Having CIRC involved would also make it better. I don't see the two as mutually exclusive. In terms of the idea of the advocate—since it's a new concept, it bears fleshing out a bit—this person would have full access to all the material but could not disclose it to the citizen. In that way, he doesn't receive instructions from the citizen, but his job within the framework of the in camera hearing would nevertheless be to advance the citizen's interest. The citizen would still have his own lawyer at the open hearing, fully instructed, but that lawyer wouldn't have access to the material.

Now, this is not a good system. Given the security interests on the other side, though, the only question is whether it is a significantly less bad system than the one you have. Isn't that what we should be trying our damnedest to do?

The Chair: Stephen.

Á (1125)

Mr. Stephen Green: I really don't have much more to add with respect to what Alan said, but it's interesting that, with respect to appeals, the present Citizenship Act has this person called the amicus curiae available in some way. When we went to Federal Court in the past, this person represented the public. His role in the court was to say, “My Lord, this on the one hand is the good part of the case, and should be allowed. However, My Lord, on the other side, this is the bad part and you shouldn't allow it. However, I leave it up to this honourable court to decide.” So we have some of this already in the existing act.

Mr. Joe Comartin: The amicus curiae not constrained by the security requirements of not disclosing anything.

Mr. Stephen Green: No.

The Chair: That's the problem.

A voice: That's the dilemma. There's no question about that.

Mr. Joe Comartin: I'm sorry, but can I just pursue this with Alan?

The Chair: You can once we hear from Amina and David.

Ms. Amina Sherazee: I'm going to take the opportunity to respond to the comment about clause 21. Clause 21 has no place at all in the Immigration Act. Who is democratic and what is democratic is a purely philosophical and political discussion. It's not a legal question, and it shouldn't be the basis for determination of whether or not someone is a citizen. That is measured by their conduct, which is caught by other laws that we have in the country.

The Citizenship Act is not the only law that we have in this country. If someone is being undemocratic, there are other ways of dealing with them. We have the Criminal Code, we have the Anti-terrorism Act now, and we have the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

With respect to the secret trials, there's no substitute for open proceedings. We can all sit here and speak in the abstract, but with all of us never having done one of these cases, I don't think we can really and truly appreciate what it's like to try to defend a client when you go into the courtroom not knowing what the evidence is, not having the ability to cross-examine, and not knowing what the source of it is. It's like walking into a dark room and trying to find something in it. It's extremely prejudicial.

We have a concern about protection of sources and identity and national interest, and I appreciate that. But Canadian law has recognized that certain sources of information will always be protected. For example, we have procedures that the court has devised with respect to cabinet privilege cases. We have procedures in serious cases such as wiretapping in the context of murders and drug trafficking. We have protection for informants. You can have an in camera proceeding or you can have a voir dire. You can have a lot of different proceedings that would allow counsel to know what the evidence is, let the person have a fair day in an open court, and still be able to protect the interests of national security.

I don't think the two are incompatible. You can give the citizen—and we're talking about a citizen, we're not talking about a foreign national, an alien, or a permanent resident—the full protection of the law. If they don't have it, then I believe it is discriminatory, unconstitutional, and contrary to fundamental justice.

Mr. David Lesperance: [Inaudible—Editor]...so that a more informed discussion can continue.

The Chair: Joe, I'll give you a supplemental.

Mr. Joe Comartin: The concern that I have with your suggestion, Alan, is that it does not allow the advocate to challenge the bureaucracy, which has an inherent bias to keep that information confidential not because it really is a matter of national security, but because it makes it easier for them to pursue their case. It seems to me that the advocate would have to be able to challenge the essence of the evidence and say it is not a matter of national security. It seems to me that, in every case, we should be able to challenge it.

Having said that, I'm still very worried that the advocate will not be in a position to adequately challenge unless they can take instructions and gather information from the citizen.

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: The advocate could still acquire information from the citizen. All I said is that since he can't disclose completely to the citizen, he isn't in a position to take instructions from the citizen but can certainly take information and evidence. The advocate would be fully free, on that basis, to challenge whatever case the bureaucracy has. He would go in informed and would be able to challenge and be able to cross-examine on the basis of what he has been told. I don't pretend that this is the same thing as having your own lawyer fully, but I am suggesting that this would improve upon what you have there now.

And this doesn't preclude a constitutional challenge of the whole thing. I always like to ask the question about what we do between now and Utopia. That's where most of us live, right? That's why I say that, in your role as legislators, it would be wise to put all of the procedural safeguards in there that you can possibly think of, even as you don't like them and you hope that this will be challenged constitutionally.

Bearing in mind the awfully sensitive interests on the other side, might this not be one of the least unworkable schemes that we could come up with? I don't say it's one of the better schemes, but it may be one of the less bad schemes.

Á (1130)

The Chair: Andrew, did you have one final question?

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: In regard to your answer in which you said it will do less harm or reduce the unfairness, Alan, I guess the premise is that it's unfair. As we get to Utopia, we do it by being less unfair as we go along.

It seems to me that clause 17.... We talk about terrorists, we talk about organized crime, and we talk about human rights abusers. These are serious charges. If somebody is a terrorist, he's a threat to the country. The last thing we want to do is boot him out of the country. We would probably want to stick him in jail, because that individual is a danger to the country. If a person is really involved in organized crime, that person should again be in custody. We have ways of dealing with dangerous people. If a person has committed human rights abuses or a crime against humanity, that person should be facing trial in front of the International Criminal Court.

What bothers me about the bill is that it sets out some possibly very dangerous individuals and then says that if we just kick them out of the country, this will secure our safety. There are other pieces of legislation with which we can deal with this stuff. There is no question that clause 17 came to us because of 9/11.

In the press releases and what have you regarding this act, the minister made a big deal about how the political process that exists at the present time for revocation is going to be replaced by a judicial one. Of course, that's not the case, because clause 18 refers to the minister and the bureaucrats. By the very nature of the way it's laid out, clause 17 is probably worse than the existing act, although there is some improvement in clause 16.

What we have to respond to is the fact that if a guy is a terrorist, there is a way to deal with a terrorist. Surely to God, expelling him from this country is not going to make Canada a safer society. In reality, if somebody gets kicked out, they can get back in. If they're a danger to the country they are going to be—

The Chair: They could also be a danger to the world. If you're a terrorist, it doesn't matter where you are if you're determined to attack the very values of the world, let alone a country.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: Right, so we should be sticking you in jail.

The Chair: I don't know, Andrew, but let's ask the question to Amina.

Ms. Amina Sherazee: With the exception of fraud and knowingly concealing or misrepresenting, I really would like to ask the committee a question. What is the purpose of revoking citizenship? What is the justification behind it? What's the objective behind it?

Á (1135)

The Chair: We've only done a hundred in twenty years, and that gets to the fundamental question of when you pass any law, right? Over 200,000 people a year apply to become citizens in this country, and there really isn't a problem at all with the existing law being what it is. You can always make changes to that law.

But Andrew asked a fundamental question. What's the motivation behind this bill? Is it terrorism? Is it 9/11? Is it that we have some pretty brutal, undesirable people in this country that we want to get rid of, and we want to use the citizenship bill as a way of doing that because we can't get rid of them any other way?

My point is that if you look at where we've spent tens of millions of dollars so far, it has been on trying to use the revocation system that we now have in place. So it's not as if we're talking about great numbers of people. In fact, I think our administration told us that this year, there may be ten or twelve cases or something like that, and there have only been a hundred over the course of twenty years. So that's the answer to the question.

Ms. Amina Sherazee: But what's the objective of revoking someone's citizenship? What's the purpose behind it? What is the minister hoping to accomplish? How is it going to lead to a better and freer democratic society? How is Canada going to be a better place because you're revoking someone's citizenship?

The Chair: The committee doesn't have an answer, because we're listening to the citizens of Canada. We started this process. We're asking you what you think of this bill. We haven't made up our minds. It would be absolutely foolhardy and foolish for me to say we've already done that. This is a government-initiated bill. The committee has nothing to do with the government. We're here as the independent eyes, ears, and nose of Canadian citizens. At the end of the day, once we submit our report and do a clause-by-clause study, then you'll know where we sit. But right now, we're just starting the process of listening to people like you telling us what's right and what's wrong with this bill. So I'm not sure it's fair to ask what the committee—

Ms. Amina Sherazee: I'm asking it more rhetorically, because it seems to me that there really is no purpose except to apply a double punishment to someone. We already have that under the Immigration Act.

The Chair: That's a fair comment.

Stephen.

Mr. Stephen Green: I think you have to ask if we're achieving what we want through the revocation process. I don't know the answer, but I would say that if we're talking about the twenty cases you referred to or the hundred cases that happened, we have to make sure the due process is in line. Then, when the people who spoke before we did say their community is up in arms because they think they're going to lose it for whatever reason, the system is in place to make sure that it is clear to people that it does not apply to them.

The Chair: Alan.

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: I've forgotten your question.

The Chair: It was essentially on the whole motivation behind this bill. In your opinion, what is it about?

Mr. A. Alan Borovoy: When I try to make a judgment about public issues, I make it a practice not to go into people's motives. I just assume they're all unacceptable, and I go on from there. The sole question is whether you agree or disagree on the merits, not what the person's subtext or agenda might be.

Mr. Stephen Green: If I can just make one brief comment about clause 21, it would be interesting to see the process that would perhaps be going on now, given that we have an Order of Canada recipient who made some comments out west with regard to a certain community. He has stepped down, and now they're looking at taking away his Order of Canada. If he were a permanent resident of Canada, what would be going on now if he applied for citizenship with respect to clause 21? Who would be lobbying? Who would be doing what? It's interesting. I think we'd be going through the process that Alan has talked about. Where is the power to make that decision?

The Chair: I want to thank you all. You have been most instructive and useful in your comments.

I think we do want to get it right. I think we have a good system in this country. It has served us very well. This is the third time at this bill in 25 years, but I think you've all raised some very important issues.

One, fundamentally, is that citizenship is not to be taken lightly, nor is it to be conferred in a very lighthearted way either. It is the most important thing that a country can give to a person, and we want to make sure that if we are in fact going to take it away or not give it, we ought to have due process and fairness and reasonableness in our system, because that's essentially what our country stands for in the Charter of Rights.

Conferring is one thing, and we want to make sure we do not create different classes of citizenship as people read this bill and see themselves in it. I think that would be problematic to our country. So we have a big job in terms of trying to test all of the things you've indicated.

I can tell you that your briefs, your submissions, and your answers to our questions have been very useful to us this morning. This is only the start of the process, not the end of the process, and we may ask you back.

Thank you so much.

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Mr. Stephen Green: Thank you.

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The Chair: We're going to take a short break before we go to our next witnesses and start to talk a little bit about provincial and territorial nominee programs.

Á (1137)

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The Chair: Colleagues, we're going to be moving to dealing with provincial and territorial nominee programs, as you know, post our passing of our Immigration Bill.

The next step in the process, even before citizenship, is what we're talking about this morning, and that is how some of our provincial nominee agreements are working, and how they could be enhanced in light of what we've passed with the Immigration Bill. We'll also deal a little bit with the settlement and resettlement programs available to permanent residents and newcomers to our country.

I'm happy that we have the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants with us today. We are pleased to have Amy Casipullai and Mary Williamson with us.

Welcome, and we look forward to your input.

Ms. Mary Williamson (Vice-President, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants): Thank you.

To give you a bit of an introduction to OCASI, it was formed in 1978, to act as a collective voice for immigrant agencies that were trying to coordinate responses with regard to immigrant and refugee issues. OCASI is a registered charitable organization governed by a board of directors, and it is comprised of over 150 community-based organizations in Ontario.

I am one of the board members of OCASI, a vice-president. Amy Casipullai is one of our staff people in charge of policy, and she does a lot of the writing for us. What I'm reading comes as a result of her expertise.

OCASI has established a reputation as a respected advocate for the immigrant and refugee sector in Ontario. Our remarks to you today on the provincial nominee program are made in the context of Immigration Minister Coderre's proposal last year to introduce a process compelling immigrants to settle in smaller centres across the country, rather than in large immigrant-receiving centres like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

The recently released data from the 2001 census shows that, as of May 15, 2001, 5.4 million people, or 18.4% of the total population, were born outside of the country. In Ontario, the foreign-born population increased from 17.8% in 1991 to 26.8% in 2001. Non-traditional immigration centres such as Windsor, Ottawa, Kitchener, Hamilton, Oshawa, and London have shown a large increase as well. Over the last ten years, as highlighted in the census data, these communities have invested in building strong infrastructure and welcoming communities for immigrants. They've been able to attract and retain these individuals and families.

When new immigrant families are located in communities where social supports are few and there is little or no access to existing services, the struggle to adapt and integrate is much more difficult. The social cost of such isolation is high, and it is borne by the newcomer families as well as by the societies into which they are brought.

The provincial nominee program experience in other provinces has shown some success in attracting and retaining immigrants in centres that do not traditionally receive large immigrant numbers. The success experienced in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, was due in large part to a cooperative effort between all three levels of government in investing in infrastructure and programming that created a welcoming community for new immigrants. Such infrastructure must include employment, housing, social, and health services, while creating an atmosphere that is tolerant and free of discrimination.

The provincial nominee program structure supports the process of identifying skills gaps in local communities and attracts the immigrants who are able to fill these gaps. The challenge to retain immigrants has been met by cities like Winnipeg by investing in infrastructure that contributes to that welcoming community.

Immigration Minister Coderre's proposal to contract immigrants to settle in small communities for three years must be considered against this background. The minister's casual dismissal of immigrant mobility rights is particularly alarming. Newcomer families are going to settle in communities where they're welcome. To just drop them and leave them marooned in potentially hostile environments is completely unacceptable.

The notion is that immigrants are somehow exempt from being able to exercise mobility rights that are the prerogative of every resident in Canada who is not incarcerated. We propose instead that, together with the Province of Ontario and the municipalities of smaller centres, the minister should explore the possibility made available through the provincial nominee program, and use the potential of the program to identify skills gaps tied to employment, while investing in an infrastructure that can provide adequate social and community services.

A welcoming community will attract and retain immigrants, as well as individuals born in Canada. A community that does not have the support it needs to retain native-born residents cannot hope to retain immigrants upon the conclusion of the contracted period. OCASI recommends that the minister and all levels of government should collaborate in investing in smaller centres, which could then successfully attract and retain immigrants through a provincial nominee program.

That's the written piece.

Ontario doesn't have a provincial nominee program, and it's something we should seriously investigate. We see numerous small communities...in fact, in our region, they're saying 10% of the newcomers, the immigrants, are eventually settling in rural Ontario, but they're doing it after they've been in larger areas and have received all the settlement support.

I work in an immigrant agency in London. We have a large rural community within a 16-kilometre radius. We encourage new immigrants to look for employment there. We're in an agricultural centre, and a lot of the jobs out there, at least when you're beginning your trek to settle in Ontario, are in the agricultural community. Yet when people go to those rural communities, there isn't an infrastructure there and they struggle to even stay there for the duration of their part-time or temporary employment, because they don't even have access to transportation back and forth to the larger communities.

We need to take a look at how well the faith communities have done in sponsorship, and at where they have sponsored into rural communities where the infrastructure of the base community is there and provides that additional support. They are then able to help even with commuting back and forth to the larger communities, where ESL language provision and employment services are available.

So we're here trying to push. We know there's a need in the rural communities and in the less urban communities. We know how difficult it is in large centres, where housing in particular is an issue, as is employment. We see many immigrants and refugees who end up in poverty because they can't meet their own financial needs in centres where the cost of living is so high.

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The Chair: Thank you for that insight, Mary. I know we have some questions.

Lynne.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: If the resources are there, do you agree with Mr. Coderre's proposal to put our immigrants into smaller communities? Do you think he should have the ESL classes? Do you think more should be given to you to use as resources to keep the immigrants there?

Ms. Mary Williamson: We really encourage and would love to support immigration going into smaller communities, not contracting immigrants so that they are forced to stay there. That's the part we have a problem with—you know, you can come to Canada if you sign a contract that says you will stay where you are for three years. What happens if the community isn't there? What happens if they run into problems? Is it an automatic deportation order when they can't successfully complete that three-year contract?

As for directing and destining immigrants into smaller communities, absolutely, they do need ESL and they need access to services. In London, I send counsellors out into some of the smaller communities to try to spend at least a little time with the community, in trying to help them with their needs and in trying to service the needs of clients as newcomer clients. They feel isolated, and the communities themselves feel inadequate in responding to newcomers' needs.

Â (1215)

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: How can we encourage them to come into rural areas, then? If you don't want them designated or delegated to an area, how can we get them into the rural areas where the population is needed? We have schools. We have good infrastructure. We have a lot of the amenities that would make newcomers very welcome, especially in the first year, when the government helps to provide for them. I would say there's not a lot wrong with suggesting that they go into the rural areas. Once they get into the bigger centres, that's where they seem to run into the problems. They want to be in their communities and they don't get involved in smaller communities.

Ms. Mary Williamson: Whether they're refugees or whatever class of immigrant, my experience with newcomers is that they want to work. They want to feel they are contributing members of a community. I think employment is the biggest thing that will attract and retain them in a rural centre or an urban centre.

Employment cannot always be the first step, though, because there are other issues that need to be dealt with first. If you are encouraging them into a rural setting, then if there are ESL opportunities not only for the head of the household but for the children, so that the children can get on with their lives and so that the spouse in the family can get on with theirs; and if you can educate the community to understand some of the challenges around settlement....

I lived in rural Alberta for many years. We knew visible minorities only when the Toronto Blue Jays' training team was in town. That was the only time we saw black members in our community in Medicine Hat, the home of the baby Blue Jays. We didn't know. My children didn't know. They had never been exposed to diversity.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: You said Ontario doesn't have one of these programs at all, so what would you expect of one? If they set one up, what would you want to see? You cited Winnipeg. Of course, Winnipeg is unique because they are working very hard to populate. In Ontario, you don't need the immigrant population as badly as we do out west. We're almost competing for immigrants.

Ms. Mary Williamson: Actually, before I do that, Amy wanted to just add a little something to my comments.

Ms. Amy Casipullai (Coordinator, Policy and Public Education, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants): With regard to the minister's proposal, I think we're trying to say we don't think it's a good idea to compel immigrants to stay in a smaller centre for a period of three years. I know the minister's position is that there are many individuals who would like to come to Canada even under those constraints, and we understand that. What we are trying to say is that you cannot treat immigrants as a separate class and take away the mobility rights that every other Canadian has access to. What we are saying is to look at the provincial nominee program as a way to deal with this. The minister's concern, understandably, is to make sure immigrants are dispersed and are not all flocking to major centres like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, like we said in our submission.

With the provincial nominee program, it's possible to set up an agreement with the province in question, so that immigrants are dispersed to smaller centres where they will be able to find employment. This has been successful in centres like Winnipeg, and it has been successful because, with the program, there was an agreement and an understanding with the city. The city, the province, and the federal government put resources in to make sure that community supported immigrants and welcomed them.

There's a fundamental question here. If people who are born in smaller centres are themselves leaving their own communities where they were born and bred, where they had a supportive community and family members, where they have people they have known all their lives, then why does the minister think a new immigrant with no ties—none whatsoever—will stay there beyond the period of three years that he is proposing?

What we are saying is that if you are really serious about pushing this through, then look at the factors that make people stay in a community. Those are a community where they feel welcome and a community where there is an infrastructure to support them. That's one of the reasons we think the provincial nominee program is an ideal way to look at it. It exists in other provinces.

I don't think we are necessarily saying Ontario needs a provincial nominee program, because as we can see from the stats, a lot of immigrants come to Ontario. But what we are suggesting is that if you are absolutely determined to push through on the idea of destining, look at a provincial nominee program as a means to do that in a way that will work out even in the future, not just the first three years.

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Ms. Mary Williamson: To comment on your question, Lynne, Ontario is seeing many immigrants, but the majority of them are going to Toronto. In London, we'd like to see more. In the smaller communities outside of London, we'd like to see more. So I don't think we're competing with the western provinces, I think we're competing with the larger centres of Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich: [Inaudible—Editor]...with Denis' proposal and work with it? Once he delegates that immigrants have to go into these smaller communities, could we work with the proposal and ask for help to keep those people in the communities? Instead of worrying about compelling them to those areas, let's let them come. Once they come, I'm surprised by how much they don't want to leave a small community. They realize they weren't born into it, yet they've made it a home. In fact, we have had immigrants in our community who hate to leave. They don't like to see people go into Toronto or places like that, because they feel they're doing an injustice. They're not becoming Canadians, they're going to their own community and culture. They seem to want to just live in that box and they don't want to integrate as well.

So I think we should just perhaps work with his proposal and not maybe worry so much about....

Ms. Mary Williamson: I see and talk to a lot of new immigrants, and they will go anyplace if there are the resources and if there is a way to ensure that their family's needs are going to be met, so that they can contribute and not be a burden on Canadian society. One of the biggest problems is the perception out there that they are on welfare or on government assistance. That turns the community against them.

Give them an opportunity to show their skills, to show that they can contribute, and they will go where there is a need and where there is a community. Even between London and Toronto, we're looking at refugees destined for London but who leave London and go to Toronto or to other communities where there is family or where there is a community setting that can support some of their cultural needs.

The Chair: Andrew.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: I want to relate a personal experience from when we first came to Canada in 1957. The first port of call we had was Vancouver. My father was an architect and a town planner. For whatever reason, he couldn't get accreditation in Vancouver either as an architect or as a town planner. Five years later, he went to an industrial show in Montreal, when he was working for Panabode as a draftsman in Vancouver. On the way back, he stopped off at the City of Toronto and applied for a job as a planner at Toronto City Hall. Within two weeks, he got hired, so we packed up and moved from beautiful British Columbia to Toronto. It was a very beautiful day when we left B.C. I remember that the flowers were out. It was April. When we landed in Toronto, it was snowy and dark and grey.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that people will go where the jobs are and where the opportunities are. We have to make sure the opportunities are there for the skills that the people have, because if you're underemployed or you feel you are wasting your talents, you're always going to be gravitating someplace else.

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The Chair: To put this into the context of what we want to do, as you know, when we finished our immigration study and the new immigration bill, there was no doubt that the new immigration bill said we want to attract more immigrants to this country. I think we'll do that. This year and last year were the first times that we actually achieved our objectives.

It's true factually that 70% of all the immigrants who come here locate in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, much to the chagrin of every other part of the country that wants immigrants, because those areas are depopulating—Saskatchewan, Atlantic Canada, and so on.

As a committee, we want to be proactive. We were very impressed with some communities, including the community in Winnipeg that, as a community, said they want to go out and attract people who can be doctors, who can be nurses, who can be teachers, who can be carpenters, bricklayers, and so on. As a community, they wanted to take ownership of that, and I think that was a rather unique model. I'm sure every other community around this country is also trying to do that, too, because they need those skills. And we're not replacing ourselves as a population, so we'll need more immigrants from around the world.

Our committee is troubled by the fact that small-town Canada isn't getting its fair share. We put forward a notion on adaptability, in terms of assessing whether or not an immigrant should come to this country or not. We have to be able to look at whether or not they might want to locate somewhere else and could get extra points for wanting to do so, and where a community wants to work with those things.

The provincial nominee agreement, in our opinion, is the best vehicle by which to achieve it. Manitoba is probably one of the provinces where that works well, but Quebec has also done very well with it. We just signed with Alberta, which is unique. I don't know what Ontario's problem is. It's beyond comprehension that we can't get an Ontario government that will sign on to a provincial nominee agreement. We need them as true partners with regard to immigration. All I hear is a government that complains about immigrants, yet it doesn't want to come to the table to look at a provincial nominee agreement that can do those kinds of things. At the same time, it could talk about the settlement program. Maybe you can tell me, Mary. As an organization, why do you think Ontario isn't at the table?

Can we use positive reinforcement measures? I hate the word “contracting”. I don't know if that's what the minister really meant. I think his heart is in the right place. In his discussions with his ministerial counterparts, they talked about how it would be possible to attract people to other centres, just like we were attracted to Timmins, Ontario, from Italy, to work in the mines. It wasn't a contract, but we were saying, “Hey, you want to come to this country? Here's your ticket in.”

Ms. Mary Williamson: Opportunity.

The Chair: Western Canada was developed by giving land away to the Ukrainians and to everybody else who would take it. We were giving away 20 acres, 50 acres, 100 acres, for nothing, as an inducement to get people to come to this country. So rather then getting hung up on this contracting idea, let's be creative and innovative in terms of how we can make sure immigrants can come into small towns.

But I want to know what the hang-up is with Ontario first. Secondly, I want you to talk a little bit about more settlement programs. What are your needs? We're coming up to budget time in the federal government. We're looking at ways of being able to make sure of things, from accepting foreign credentials—which is a real frustration to us—to how to move people from coming here, settling here, and moving toward citizenship, which is what we were talking about this morning.

Ms. Mary Williamson: I'm going to give you my personal perspective, because I don't have anything written from OCASI.

As far as the Province of Ontario is concerned, what I have heard over the years that I've been involved is that Ontario is constantly arguing that it's not getting its fair share of the immigration budget. When settlement renewal went through and the federal government was trying to entice the provinces to the table, it was all about a fair share of the budget: Until you give us our fair share of the federal budget, we're not going to talk to you.

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The Chair: That's why we have the provincial nominee agreements.

Ms. Mary Williamson: If you turn around and look at things more recently, Ontario isn't investing provincial dollars. What do we have? The Ministry of Citizenship has a very small budget. As agencies, that's all we're getting in contributions, primarily from the province, and they're again looking more and more to the federal government for transfer payments.

Even in our cities, I don't think there is a strong enough commitment to the valuing of a diverse community at the city level. What I've seen and what I've heard over the years is that immigration is a federal issue. As agencies, we're therefore told we're not entitled to apply for funding through anybody else, because the departments have gone to core services. So I think that's a big thing.

Therefore, how do we get them to the table? Where does the money come from? With settlement renewal, there was the first $35 million that was given to the Province of Ontario. We have no idea where that money went, but it certainly didn't go into the immigrant agencies' budgets.

The Chair: They have a bad habit of taking our money and then not giving it to anybody.

Ms. Mary Williamson: They put it into roads.

In Ontario, with the mentality that we saw and with what was happening provincially with anything having to do with immigration, we weren't even supporting Ontario signing on, because we didn't believe the money would be used for immigrant services.

We need to invest in ESL. We need the provinces, through their education systems, to better support the children of new immigrants and refugees. We have many cases in which we fight with the school boards to try to get the children in school. Even though we argue that education is the right of every child, barriers are imposed every time we try to work with new families, particularly those that are not permanently landed as of yet.

We need higher levels of LINC, or Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada. In our community, once an immigrant has gotten to level 4 or 5, that's the end of the federal dollars. There are not a lot of dollars for high-end LINC and labour-market LINC training, so I think that's something we need to see a lot more of. How do we take education and communication together and bring more of an employment discussion into things?

We're doing a lot of conversation circles through the host program, which is part of the ISAP, the immigration settlement and adaptation program. I've worked with the university in London in trying to provide some language training for the internationally trained dentists, because they're lacking that conversational English and it's not there.

So we need more ESL dollars. We need more child care for people who want to attend LINC. We have long waiting lists, because if there are spaces in the class for the adults, there are not enough spaces for the children, but we need for the children to be included.

Amy, I don't know if you want to add anything on the children.

The Chair: With regard to the children—and then I'll go to Joe—isn't it a matter of coordinating all three levels of government that are involved in some way, shape, or form socially? We can provide the LINC dollars in ESL, but I'm not sure the federal government can pick up the day care costs. That money usually comes from the province and/or the municipality. If there isn't any coordination, if there isn't a provincial nominee agreement in which you set out where everybody is going to—

Ms. Mary Williamson: Within the LINC Program, Joe, child-minding is attached to a fair number of the LINC classes. If I am —

The Chair: So you're saying there isn't enough money in LINC to do that.

Ms. Mary Williamson: There isn't enough in child care.

The other thing is that for many of the immigrant agencies, Immigration provides nothing but silo funding. No administration money is attached to those programs. With ISAP right now, we get salaries plus 15%. That 15% includes administration and direct programming costs. In an organization the size of mine in London, I'm running in excess of an $80,000 deficit annually because 90% of my programs are the immigration programs and there is no administrator. We look forward to the VSI, the voluntary sector initiative, to provide some core dollars to community-based organizations. How do you operate and how do you remain a solid entity within any community when you don't have core support?

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The Chair: Joe, do you have any questions?

Mr. Joe Comartin: I've worked fairly closely with LINC and the other programs, Joe, and just so you're aware and the committee is aware, we did a review. There was an inter-agency dispute, and it ended up in their review being done for Windsor just last year. We're running probably 35% less services than we actually require. That's the kind of waiting list we have for ESL, particularly for parents and mostly mothers who need the child care services. The federal programs are that far behind.

Mary, I'm not clear on what the nominee program would do for a community like Windsor, because we do have those other services and they are fairly extensive. We have five different agencies working with LINC. They have contracts with them and are providing the services. What I see missing in Windsor is assistance with job finding, job allocation, and that whole job search. Would the nominee program provide infrastructure to allow that?

My second question, specifically in the job area, deals with foreign-trained professionals. The big area is medical, but that's not the only one. Would the nominee program allow for work to be done in that area to make it easier for them to get training?

Ms. Mary Williamson: With a provincial nominee agreement, it can succeed in a big way if you bring the other levels of government in, when you have the provinces and the municipalities involved. That's why it has been successful in Winnipeg and in other communities. You have to bring the other levels of government to the table. That's where you get those additional supports for employment.

Mr. Joe Comartin: Can we bypass the provinces and go directly to the municipal level?

Ms. Mary Williamson: In some provinces, I think that would be a wise choice.

The Chair: But I don't think we've had any alternative in Ontario, where we don't have a provincial nominee agreement, even though settlement and resettlement really fall outside the provincial nominee agreement. The fact is that we go not directly to the municipalities, but directly to agencies like Mary's and the ones in your community, Joe. More and more municipalities are starting to talk a lot more about how to deal with these kinds of issues.

Ms. Mary Williamson: Right now, there's the Ontario Works program in Ontario, in which our welfare system is blaming immigrants for the high numbers. When you're dealing with that kind of mentality, how do you bring them to the table and get them to encourage a higher number of immigrants into a community? We need to get employers, we need the communities, we need HRDC, and we need to encourage.

Mr. Joe Comartin: Is there any experience in the country in which, if you don't have a province signed on, there is a direct relationship between local agencies and the...I didn't think there was. My understanding was that—

The Chair: I don't think there is either, but we can get that information.

Mr. Joe Comartin: Thank you.

The Chair: Amy, did you have something to say?

Ms. Amy Casipullai: Yes. Thank you, Joe.

With regard to the question you raised about Windsor, and also the question you asked about the provincial nominee program in Ontario, one of the disconnects that we have seen at OCASI and that our member agencies have reported on is that, with the change in immigration policy to attract more people with very specific skills, you have people coming in with these extensive skills, education, and so on, but they cannot find employment in their field. The provincial nominee program could be one tool whereby individuals could be connected with jobs in their field, and then you could be fairly certain that Canada is not wasting these resources. We go to all the trouble to attract these people, and then they cannot contribute to Canada's economy.

On your earlier question about signing an agreement with Ontario, that's a decision that has to be made by the provincial government. All we are saying is that if the Minister of Immigration wants to proceed with the notion of destining, it's not that we oppose it. What we feel very strongly about, though, is the lack of mobility rights if this proposal is going to go through in its present form. That's what we would like to caution you about. It's very important that people do not lose mobility rights.

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The Chair: [Inaudible—Editor]...mobility rights. Again, sometimes language can get in the way of making some good decisions. As a committee, we're very sensitive to that.

The only thing I want to say about provincial nominee agreements is that when we crossed the country to talk about immigration, every province wanted more immigrants, which was absolutely fantastic. The provincial nominee agreements are the vehicles by which to achieve that. We've increased Manitoba's numbers, and we've increased a number of provincial numbers.

What we also heard when we travelled around the world is that provincial governments aren't doing enough to market their own provinces, market their own communities, market the skills that they need. Yes, they have these provincial nominee agreements—in fact, our immigration officers were fitting immigrants to the provincial nominees—but a lot more provinces need to get out and market themselves in the various countries that are sources for great immigrants. That's what we want to talk to the provinces about, and that's what the minister has started to do with regard to foreign accreditation and those other issues. But you have to get them to the table, first and foremost.

I want to thank you very much for your input again. I know OCASI has done some very good work in terms of giving us some good advice on how we can do it.

Mary, I know you just talked a little bit about what we need to do further as a government in terms of ESL, labour, and employment and training programs, to make sure that people can move, obviously, to their fullest potential when they come here, and not necessarily be relegated to lesser jobs than they're really qualified for. We were all frustrated to hear about the number of people who can in fact be qualified doctors, qualified nurses, qualified engineers, and qualified skilled workers who unfortunately are being barred because of some provincial problems with regard to recognition of those credentials. We want to do that.

If you or any of your other, sister organizations have anything to add on the whole issue of settlement and resettlement and provincial nominee agreements, our committee would welcome that.

Ms. Mary Williamson: We're doing another presentation this afternoon, but as long as you've heard that we don't want contracts signed, that's the big thing.

The Chair: Thank you so much.

We're adjourned until 1:30.