Senator Rose-May Poirier

Senator Poirier: My first question is for ICCRC. I’m looking for clarity when it comes to the transition. The bill contains two scenarios: Either you would be continued as a college or discontinued completely to have a stand-alone college. Why would the bill not be clear and have your institution incorporate the modification, and wouldn’t that be more cost- and time-efficient?

Mr. Murray: To answer your second question, yes, it would be more cost- and time-efficient. The only reason of which we are aware for the current structure in the bill is in reference, again, to the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, which requires a corporation created within it to have members’ approval by way of a vote for fundamental changes. This would be a fundamental change to the organization. The plan A and plan B, as we’re calling them, transition provisions of the proposed statute require, under plan A, a member vote approving the application of the council to become a college.

Senator Poirier: Would that be the biggest difference between the two?

Mr. Murray: Yes, that’s correct.

Senator Poirier: My second question is for all three witnesses. We are receiving, as you know, important immigration legislation stuffed into an omnibus budget bill. Did the government consult with your organizations on this matter?

Mr. Murray: The government certainly consulted with the council. We have been talking to the government for several years around the issue of obtaining statutory authority and our need for it. Throughout those discussions, it has been universally acknowledged that an organization like ours without statutory authority is set up to fail.

So we, working together with the government, have been pursuing this for some time.

Mr. Jade: Yes, the government consulted with us, and we submitted papers and submissions in that regard with all details built into it, including a very large part where we proposed some of the fundamental changes to move out of the CNCA.

Ms. Seligman: Yes. Again, I’m not speaking on behalf of the bar today, but I’m very familiar and have participated. The CBA presented a very detailed paper to the committee and has been consulting since. The CBA’s position is that consultants should not be allowed to exist or, if they are going to exist, they have to practise under the supervision of a lawyer.

Senator Poirier: My last question is for you, Ms. Seligman.

As a law firm that specializes in immigration law, how will the transition to the college of immigration affect the immigration lawyers?

Ms. Seligman: What I don’t like to see is the government involved with the actual regulation, and I believe there’s funding going on and other involvements which you mentioned. In terms of holding out to the public — and I’m 100 per cent sure the consultants will do that — it appears the government is giving preference or a seal of approval to the consultants.

In terms of the actual day-to-day practice of seeing what consultants do and the damage that is done by non-lawyers practising law, I don’t think anything will change. As I mentioned, having a college is not going to impact anything, unless you increase the quality of the people who are going through that college or through the education.

I was going to recommend mandatory minimum education requirements to make sure that it’s not left up to the discretion of the college. Left on their own, I doubt much will happen.

Senator Poirier: Thank you.

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Senator Poirier: We have in front of us a division from your government’s omnibus budget bill that will make important and major changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It should require a longer study, and examination by the different committees instead of being pushed through the omnibus bill. Why is your government not presenting this division as a stand-alone bill so that it would receive the proper scrutiny? What is the rationale for that?

Mr. Blair: What we brought forward was a very comprehensive response, which included significant budget investments in Budget 2019. If you have the opportunity to read the budget document we presented, I think we were very clear that what we were presenting was a comprehensive response to more effectively and efficiently managing the refugee asylum system and refugee determination system.

The significant investments we made were coupled with compatible and complementary regulatory measures that would make those investments more effective. That’s why we’ve presented them together in that bill. We believe the regulatory changes that we have included in this bill are very much tied and complementary to the significant budget investments that we’re making in the system.

Senator Poirier: Division 16 introduces a new ground of ineligibility for the refugee protection if a claimant has previously made a claim for refugee protection in another country, whether the United States, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand. Do the other four countries have similar language for the grounds of ineligibility if the claim is made here in Canada?

Mr. Blair: I can tell you, senator, that provision is based on a principle of asylum primacy recognized by the vast majority of countries, including those with whom we have information-sharing agreements, which are the ones that you named. The principle of primacy is that it encourages refugee claimants to make their claim in the first country to which they arrive.

Of course, people coming to Canada in an irregular fashion are those that have come from the United States. We are surrounded by water otherwise. Since 2004, under the provision of the existing treaty between Canada and the United States, third country agreement, those individuals who had previously made a claim in the United States would not be eligible to make a claim in Canada. The fact that provision did not apply to those who crossed irregularly created an unfortunate and unintended incentive for people to cross irregularly.

Senator Poirier: Are we the only country out of the five with this ineligibility? If so, wouldn’t this be increasing the backlog?

Mr. Blair: In fact, senator, I believe it does exactly the opposite. It actually reduces the backlog in IRB and presents what I believe is an appropriate and compassionate opportunity for a hearing if a person is determined to be in need of protection. But what we want to encourage is for those who have already made a claim in a safe country, that they continue to pursue their claim in that country and not make a subsequent or second claim.

Senator Poirier: But we would be the first country doing that?

Mr. Blair: I don’t believe that’s true, but I’ll ask my colleague from IRCC to comment.

Fraser Valentine, Director General, Refugee Affairs, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: All of the countries with whom we have information-sharing agreements have robust asylum systems, so they’re comparable systems to ours. None of the other countries, however, have the measure that we would stream these folks in the eligibility stream, the pre-removal risk assessment. None of those countries have that type of tool in their asylum program. The answer to your question is they don’t have a similar kind of ineligibility provision because they don’t have that tool in their asylum program.