CITI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA CITOYENNETÉ ET DE L'IMMIGRATION

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, March 18, 1998

• 1534

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are considering recommendation 155 of the report of the legislative review advisory group, entitled Not Just Numbers: A Canadian Framework for Future Immigration, particularly issues relating to removal and detention.

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We're very fortunate to have witnesses here from the Canadian Council for Refugees. I'll ask you to introduce yourselves. The order I have on my sheet probably would be best.

Janet, you're with...?

Ms. Janet Dench (Executive Director, Canadian Council for Refugees): The Canadian Council for Refugees.

The Chairman: And Ladane Affi, you're with her?

Ms. Ladane Affi (Member of the Executive, Canadian Council for Refugees): Yes.

The Chairman: And Rivka Augenfeld?

[Translation]

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld (President, Table de concertation de Montréal pour les réfugiés): I am from the Table de concertation des organismes de Montréal pour les réfugiés.

[English]

Glynis Williams is with me today from Montreal.

The Chairman: And then from Toronto?

Mr. Fred Franklin (Member, Toronto Refugee Affairs Council): I'm Fred Franklin from TRAC, and I have with me Ms. Joan Simalchik, who is the author of a report on detention.

The Chairman: And then from the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees we have Tom Clark and Gloria Nafziger.

All right, then. That's the order in which I'll ask for the presentations to be made.

Ms. Dorma Grant (Member, Refugee Committee on the First Baptist Church): You missed the fifth group.

The Chairman: Oh, I'm sorry. From the Refugee Committee on the First Baptist Church, we have Dorma Grant. Thank you very much. Where are you from?

Ms. Dorma Grant: I'm from Kingston.

The Chairman: I should remember that. I got correspondence from you people.

[Translation]

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: Mr. Chairman, with your permission we have agreed together to take a few minutes to clarify the rules governing this meeting. We would like to suggest to you a different order of presentation from the one you have chosen. We would like the national groups to be heard before the local groups, which means first the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees, the Table de concertation de Montréal pour les réfugiés, TRAC, and then the group from Kingston. We hope you can agree to this suggestion, as it seems to us more logical to move from the national to the local level.

Second, we would like to clarify with you and all committee members what we expect from this meeting. We agreed to have a round table discussion instead of following the usual practice of each group appearing and answering questions individually. On this occasion we will make our presentations one after the other and then discuss the issues with you. We hope this approach will prove to be productive.

We were also told when we were asked to accept this approach, which is completely different from the one used for a number of years, that we would have more time than is usually given to each group. We were told that we could continue until 6:00 pm and would have the opportunity to discuss these issues.

Mr. Chairman, we are not individual groups but various coalitions representing hundreds of members across Canada, who have worked in many areas for and with refugees, defending their rights. We hope that will be taken into consideration. We have a lot of things to share with you.

We would also suggest that the meeting not be...

[English]

The Chairman: Okay, fine.

[Translation]

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: I would respectfully ask, Mr. Chairman, that you please allow me to conclude. We would like to clarify certain points to ensure that we clearly understand one another. Since we have just been informed that we have less time than expected, we would ask you to allow us to continue these presentations at an appropriate time because we would like to share with you certain points as well as useful suggestions and documents from other groups. This is therefore our intention as we appear before you together today. We have prepared our presentations so as to ensure that this meeting will be as productive as possible.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

First of all I'd like to get a show of hands from all the members who are going to make presentations today regarding the first proposal, and that is on the order of presentation. Have you all agreed to that order that has been suggested? You all have.

As far as the second recommendation is concerned, that's exactly what we intend to do. We'll have you present your information in the order that you have determined and then we will have an open forum. I'll ask one member on the committee to get started and then we'll bounce back and forth. If we come up with a topic or a theme or a concept that we're working on, I will ask each and every member, if they can contribute in any way towards that theme or concept at that point in the round table discussion, to so contribute. If any member of the committee wishes to interject or ask a question pertaining to that concept at that time, strike when the iron is hot. Don't wait until half an hour later to come back to that point.

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Do you understand? Okay. The round table forum is open.

Yes, Mr. Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): Mr. Chairman, so as to ensure that everything is quite clear to our witnesses, I would point out that we have to vote at 5:00 or 5:15 pm. Am I mistaken in saying that?

[English]

The Chairman: We will deal with that when that comes, Mr. Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: We can come back if we have not finished, but we have to go and vote.

[English]

The Chairman: I'm very anxious to get started with this group, because we have so many wonderful people here.

Who is the first?

Ms. Janet Dench: My name is Janet Dench, with the Canadian Council for Refugees.

We have prepared a brief for the committee. Unfortunately, in five minutes it's not possible to give you more than a short taste of the brief, but I hope you'll be able to read it at your leisure.

We start off with some general comments. The enforcement functions of detention and removals are an unpleasant, if necessary, aspect of the application of the Immigration Act. The CCR is not opposed to detention and removals. It is, however, our position that policies and practices relating to detention and removals need to conform to principles of fairness, full respect for rights, and treatment with dignity.

Those without status in Canada are among the most vulnerable in our society. They have few rights and limited means to assert those rights. They are often isolated without friends or families. They are generally unfamiliar with the protections offered them by Canadian rules and institutions.

Because of this inherent vulnerability, it is essential that the system offer adequate safeguards to ensure that non-citizens' rights are properly protected. We are concerned that when detention and removals are discussed, we hear a lot about the vulnerability of the system and very little about the vulnerability of the people in the system.

It is true that some people abuse the system. They find out its weak points and exploit them. However, concern for preventing abuse of the system must not blind us to the fact that we also need to prevent users from being abused by the system. We must beware of building a system around the system abusers. The measures we have in place should certainly be capable of dealing with abuse, but they must also be able to ensure that the rights and dignity of all are safeguarded.

We have some comments on the proposals in the legislative review report. We welcome the report's recognition of the current problem with the apparent arbitrariness of detention decisions. The report's solution to this problem, however, is to develop transparent and codified detention criteria intended to remove the discretion from decision-making and render unnecessary the current system of detention review before an independent decision-maker. We cannot agree with the authors that the proposed criteria are transparent. On the contrary, we see a list of criteria that are open to all manner of disputes and interpretations.

The right to liberty is a fundamental human right. We cannot accept a system that would propose loss of liberty as a disincentive to non-compliance.

I'll skip over to talk about what for us would be necessary conditions for fair removals. Until and unless we can be confident that the system adequately protects those who need to be protected, and behaves in a compassionate way, the credibility of the removals function is in question. Fair removals depend on fair systems to determine who should be removed.

We list in detail the kinds of protections we feel need to be in place before a decision to remove someone can take place.

We've listed a number of issues with removals. In brief, the first is lightning removals, where people are removed without being given any notice or the opportunity to pack their bags, say goodbye to family and friends, and in other ways conclude their business.

Two, some of the techniques of enforcement are excessive, including the use of handcuffs and leg-irons, even for people who have shown no violence or lack of cooperation.

Third, we raise issues relating to breaches of confidentiality, where CIC informs the receiving country that the person is being removed from Canada.

Overall, our concerns relate to the culture within enforcement, which too often takes a cynical and disrespectful attitude towards those with whom it is dealing. From the point of view of NGOs, confidence in the enforcement branch has been undermined by some incidents in recent years.

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Perhaps a fundamental issue is the lack of clear accountability. Immigration officers are the only Canadian officials with the power of arrest that are subject to no independent oversight. When allegations of abuse by immigration officials are made, there is no external mechanism for investigating the allegations. Such a mechanism is urgently required, so that corrective action can be taken where there has been improper behaviour, or on the other hand, so that the officers involved can be exonerated if they have been wrongly accused.

We have a series of recommendations relating to removals, which I commend to your attention. I'll skip on to issues relating to detention.

Our concerns with detention relate to two main areas: decision-making about detention and release, on the one hand, and conditions of detention.

On the first category, we raise issues relating to detentions of refugee claimants, detention of minors, long-term detention, detention of people for whom no enforcement action is expected within the foreseeable future, and the fact that there are wide regional variations in detention decisions.

In relation to our concerns with conditions, I'll mention inadequate access for visitors, NGOs, lawyers and family members; lack of availability of legal aid; minors are detained in centres for adults; lack of access to education for minors; lack of adequate medical care; detention of individuals in criminal detention centres; lack of adequate facilities for women; lack of provision for families to spend time together; and finally, excessive use of restraints, meaning handcuffs and/or leg-irons, including for people who have been cooperative.

Again we have a series of recommendations. We have also given, as an appendix to the brief, a long resolution that we adopted in 1994, which includes a whole series of recommendations relating to detention.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. Now we'll go into....

Ms. Gloria Nafziger (Chair, Inter-Church Committee for Refugees): The Inter-Church Committee for Refugees. I'm Gloria Nafziger, speaking on behalf of the committee.

The Chairman: Very good.

Ms. Gloria Nafziger: I would very much like to thank the committee this afternoon for having the opportunity to appear here. We believe that the parliamentary standing committee is a very important part of a process that gives us our rights within the democratic society. We thank you very much for providing us with the opportunity to be heard here, and that our comments can be recorded and questioned and weighed within due process.

ICCR, for your information, is a coalition of 10 Canadian religious bodies that was founded in 1980. We have a mandate that includes the monitoring of the world refugee situation and Canada's responses, as well as developing common church analysis, positions, reports and briefs in the area of protection, resettlement of refugees, and for related groups of non-citizens.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the comments I'll be making are very much focused on our final recommendations and conclusions. It's very hard to give weight to these recommendations and conclusions without realizing that they are not just being pulled out of thin air. There's a very large body of work we are depending on that draws us to the position we're actually able to present you with and the conclusions we have. The short, brief presentation that we do this afternoon hardly begins to give justice to the amount of research and work on the cases of individuals that we have done over the years.

We come to this place of raising concerns with respect to deportations and removals based on the experiences we have had with real live individuals whom we have assisted over the years. We cite in our brief several examples of cases that are currently before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN committee on torture. Both these bodies have asked Canada not to remove or deport several persons while their cases were being examined. Canada has ignored these requests.

ICCR has taken cases to the international bodies. And I would like to draw your attention to the fact that for ICCR, reference to the international bodies has been a last resort. We have tried first to find a way for Canadian courts to remedy problems, but the Canadian courts have not responded so far.

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It is our experience that at present Canada is deporting people in the face of formal requests from international bodies not to do so, and that Canada's administrative and legal remedies have not intervened adequately for these individuals.

We have a rationale for using a human rights approach in Canadian legislation. We believe that deportation is an international affair. International human rights treaties do form the most just basis for deportation.

The international perspective is based on the study of a range of real-life case complaints. The quality of treaty-body case law now compares very well with that of national courts in western countries.

Deportation itself can be difficult when the receiving country chooses not to cooperate. Failure to cooperate is less likely if an objective international approach is being applied.

Countries like Canada use non-adherence to human rights treaties as one of their levers in order to improve the human rights situations overseas that give rise to asylum-seekers. We in Canada must be seen to adhere to these same human rights treaties; otherwise, the leverage we have tried to apply in situations overseas is removed, and Canada suffers to lose its credibility internationally.

We recommend principles for change. Deportation and detention safeguards must be brought into line with Canada's international human rights treaty obligations. In order to do this, we recommend that Canada make reference to international treaties in law. Reference to the jurisprudence relating to these treaty rights must also be made in law. Canada must seek consistency in law between the treatment of non-citizens and Canadians when comparable rights such as liberty, family rights, and protection from death or torture are at issue.

With respect to deportation, and basing this on studies that have been done, we believe that a simple legal remedy is required. It must be brief and simple, qualify as a court, suspend deportation pending the final decisions, pronounce that a particular right has or has not been violated, and provide redress.

With respect to these principles, we would like to recommend that an independent and impartial tribunal should be available to hear reasons why a refugee claimant, asylum-seeker, or other non-citizen should not be deported. There must be clear, objective criteria in law that are reasonable in light of the full range of human rights that are to be protected. There also must be access to the courts, up to the highest court if necessary. Finally, there must be a suspension of deportation until a case has finally been resolved. We would like to note that none of this is currently available for asylum seekers.

With respect to detention, we would recommend that criteria and procedures for detention of non-citizens and release should, as a minimum, follow the same requirements used to deprive Canadians of their right to liberty for a criminal offence. The conditions of detention should follow international standards, and should at least follow those used for Canadians.

With respect to enforcement, we conclude that there is a need for an independent public investigation mechanism, at least comparable with that available for complaints against the police. This mechanism should take a special form such as an ombudsman in the context of a human rights body like the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

In conclusion, present Canadian deportation procedures are not consistent with the perspective of international human rights treaties. According to the treaties, measures necessary to ensure international treaty human rights are an obligation. The requirements of international human rights treaties with respect to deportation have been studied, and are known. Reasonable ways of meeting the international human rights requirements have been suggested. Application of an international human rights perspective makes sense in terms of justice and practicability.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you. Who is next?

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[Translation]

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: Mr. Chairman, the Table de concertation de Montréal pour les réfugiés has in recent years participated in every conceivable consultation process held by various levels of government, both parliamentary consultations and special consultations. On the question before us today, we recommend that you consult the 1986 Parliamentary Committee report, Mr. Tassé's report and all the other reports written on the subject.

We also commend you for having taken the necessary time to hold hearings on the subject; we hope that we will have all the time needed to continue so as to thoroughly study these questions and subsequently produce clear and well thought out recommendations on these issues of fundamental justice.

The rest of the presentation will be made by Ms. Glynis Williams because, among our members, there are some with particular expertise on the subject before us today.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you, very good.

The Reverend Glynis Williams (Table de concertation de Montréal pour les réfugiés): Thank you very much.

I have written comments. I'm just going to read some of them. I'm sorry that I didn't pass them out already. I'll ask my colleague to do that.

As the legislative review correctly states, the common criticism is that detention decisions are arbitrary and highly discretionary. The report continues by saying that under the new legislative framework, the discretion to detain would be limited.

Recommendation 122 outlines the criteria for providing provisional status, and was deliberately framed in positive terms, such as that status will be granted if a person is likely to appear—

Mr. Réal Ménard: It's very difficult for the translation.

Ms. Maria Minna (Beaches—East York, Lib.): She's going too fast. Slow down.

Rev. Glynis Williams: It's that I have three minutes.

Recommendation 122 outlines the criteria for providing provisional status, and was deliberately framed in positive terms, such as that status will be granted if the person is likely to appear for removal from Canada, if required.

Stated another way, this means that a person is deemed uncooperative if they refuse to sign a document requesting travel documents from their country of origin, the same country they presumably believe is unwilling or unable to protect them.

It is unclear how a person should correctly respond when asked if they are willing to return to their country, if necessary. How should an Algerian respond when asked if she is ready to return to Algeria, if necessary? If she says no, she is uncooperative. And if she says yes, does that not indicate that perhaps she is really not that frightened, or does not fear persecution and therefore, is not in need of Canada's protection?

The use of the word “likely” is worrisome. It is quite likely, however, that many people will be put in detention should the intent of this recommendation go forward.

A welcome suggestion in the preamble to recommendations 120 to 125 was the call for greater access to telephones, counsel, and non-governmental organizations.

In Montreal, NGOs have a relatively good relationship with the regional CIC officials, resulting in our Sunday visits, and more open visiting privileges during the week, only if we have the names of persons being detained. But we are very aware that so much more could be done.

It may come as a surprise that NGO representatives, myself included, have persuaded people not to claim refugee status, or to abandon their claim when the situation clearly merited this advice. Safeguarding the integrity of the system is a mutual goal.

Many aspects of the report reflect a real concern about costs. Conservative estimates place the cost of detention at $150 a day per person, children included. One gentleman we assisted was detained for 14 months before finally being released, and today he is a Canadian citizen. Those 14 months, at a minimum, cost the taxpayer over $59,000, and this man was never considered a security threat, nor was he non-compliant. The emotional costs to him, of course, are incalculable.

I have two more brief points. Statelessness will be an increasing reality for a small number of people who seek protection in Canada. Nationality laws in the republics of the former Soviet Union deny citizenship to some people, even though they were born on their territory. Futile attempts to secure travel documents in order to deport have not prevented Canada from sending people back on one-way travel certificates.

In one case where we subsequently became involved, the person was sent to Warsaw, Moscow, and returned to Montreal, where he ended up in detention. He had been accused of destroying the single personal identity document he possessed. Canadian immigration agents here had put this document in the hands of the airline attendants, with the instructions to hand it directly to Russian authorities. Russian authorities refused him admission, since he had never lived inside Russia.

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Even though we could not deport him, and he had friends ready to sign him out of detention, he continued to be held. Once again, using the conservative estimate, each month costs taxpayers $4,500.

Recommendation 87 states that the protection act should provide criteria consistent with Canada's obligations under the 1951 convention and other developing human rights and humanitarian standards. Here's our proposal: Canada should contribute to the reduction of statelessness by giving protection to those who are stateless, like the gentleman mentioned before. Although the numbers in Canada who will be helped by this provision are few, the benefit to those persons will be significant.

A final point relates to public perception and confidence in the system. In this area churches share a common concern with government.

In the course of my work I'm regularly invited to speak with church groups or preach in parishes on the subject of refugees. Too often the subsequent comments go something like “I had no idea it was like that”.

The report refers to prevailing assumptions about immigration that are unfounded and untrue, but eventually they reach the level of myth. It also points out that refuting a myth takes so much more effort and information than creating one.

I respectfully submit that the large-scale use of detention advocated in the report will feed into the myth that refugees are criminals and profiteers taking advantage of our generosity.

The Laval Detention Centre outside Montreal looks like a prison. It is tucked in behind the old St. Vincent de Paul penitentiary, with numerous surveillance cameras inside and out, and a chain-link parameter fence topped by barbed wire. It sends the message that the people being detained are a menace to our country. The ones we consider really problematic we transfer to real prisons. Images like this contribute to the criminality myth.

I want to end with a story. Once again, you'll have to forgive me for being preachy. On Good Friday last year I was invited to join four West Island churches in Montreal as they made their annual walk through the community commemorating the Christian religious event of the crucifixion of Jesus. I was asked to give the sermon. I spoke of Tunda, a young man from the Congo, Zaire, who had arrived at Mirabel Airport with a Canadian passport that was not his own.

In transit in Paris, he had been threatened by the authorities there: if they let him on the plane, and he arrived in Montreal and claimed refugee status, he would immediately be turned around and returned to Paris, which would then deport him back to Kinshasa. He was terrified.

So he arrived at Mirabel, and insisted that it was his own document. He was not believed, and he was put in detention. Tunda had reason to believe that the authorities in France were telling the truth. His sister had claimed refugee status in Belgium in the previous year, and had been detained, refoulée, and ended up in a prison in Kinshasa.

Tunda knew no one, and he was lost. His only crime was to use a false document to arrive here, and to believe the French authorities. He had an exclusion order made against him denying him access to the refugee system and permitting his expulsion from Canada as soon as it was possible. It's only because of the moratoria that he is still here. Today his case is before the Federal Court.

In the world of refugees, Tunda's crime is not a crime. He believed that using a false document was his only escape. Because he did not say the magic word, “refugee”, at the right moment, he was excluded from the system that is designed to protect him. Tunda was innocent, and we put him behind bars and threatened him with expulsion to Zaire at the height of the crisis in that country.

Jesus also was a man innocent of the charges laid against him. In his case, it was the government leader from Rome who pleaded on his behalf to no avail. The rest, of course, is history.

Tunda and Jesus have something else in common. Their fates are not unique or unusual. Crucifixion was the poor man's death. Hundreds joined Jesus on that famous hill of death, and Tunda's story is not unique, except perhaps that we found him.

The hundred or so folk who heard this story last year do not have confidence in the system. In their minds the system that was designed to embrace and protect the persecuted has excluded and betrayed them. Canada can do better than this.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Who is next? Is it Mr. Franklin? Go ahead.

Mr. Fred Franklin: I'm here today, as we talk about detention and removal, to remind us that the title, not just numbers, implies that each of these numbers has a human face.

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I'm the coordinator of the detention committee of TRAC, the Toronto Refugee Affairs Council. With me is Joan Simalchik, author of a study commissioned by us on the circumstances and consequences of detention at Celebrity over a two-year period. I hope that some of the questions will be directed to her, or that you may have a chance to introduce her briefly after I speak.

The Toronto Refugee Affairs Council is an umbrella organization of 24 community-based agencies, responding to the protection and resettlement of refugees, as well as having a detention committee so we can address concerns in this area from firsthand knowledge.

Unlike some of the organizations, we have no secretary and no office; we are a volunteer organization. So our information is not as systemized as the presentations you have heard, but we are very much in support of all the things we have heard. These are experiences that we also have at Celebrity.

As a member of the Quaker committee on jails and justice.... This is a committee in the area of corrections. It makes refugees famous in prison through our weekly programs for prisoners that began 15 years ago. Even then it struck me how arbitrary the process seemed to be—that is, who landed in prison and who didn't. Any Canadian prisoner had far more rights and protection than the asylum-seeker. Since then I've become increasingly involved with detention and deportation issues because of my dual knowledge of the prisons and immigration.

The submission before you is informed by the reality of people at the receiving end of the policies you have been asked to examine. In contrast to policy-makers, we meet the detainees face to face and see the fear in their eyes. You've heard some of the stories. Many of them are victims of processes they do not fully comprehend and cannot control. We see people trapped in detention in Celebrity. That, of course, is the origin of the title given by our researcher. People land in there and say “Is this Canada, that this is happening to me?”

We therefore urge you not to accept a worst-case scenario as the norm for the new act. Their interpretation of protection is couched in very negative terms, and shows a worst-case scenario.

We have seen initial detentions based on hyper-suspicions that later proved unfounded. People were detained when they arrived. It then takes at least two weeks to get them out, even if it's a simple, stupid misunderstanding.

Many difficult cases that are complicated would be resolved much earlier and more justly if competent advice and legal counsel were available in holding centres and prisons. This is one of the major frustrations. Again and again we see the case of a person who comes to us and his situation has been badly scrambled and has deteriorated because of the lack of counsel or because he was badly advised. And although it has nothing to do with the legislative process, we have a duty to see that when we detain people, advice and legal advice is available to them.

Furthermore, how can cooperation and compliance be expected from a detainee in such a situation? The review committee talks about compliance or non-compliance. We often find that a person cannot comply or sign a document if he or she does not understand what's going on, if he or she has not had proper advice.

This often holds people up in jail, or people in Celebrity become uncooperative, because they refuse to sign a passport application to a country to which they're deadly scared to return. Then they're listed as uncooperative, and they may be sent to jail for that.

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In any sphere of life there are some people who try to manipulate the law to their own advantage. If suspicions of deviousness or criminal intent would govern all social relations, normal life would be grim for all of us.

In our submission we support what we see as reasonable precautions, and we must oppose the measures that constitute harassment.

Since 1985, and again in the 1990s, refugee advocates opposed the handcuffing of all detainees. I remember a report before a similar standing committee in 1985 that raised some of the same objections. Rivka Augenfeld was one of the presenters. Nothing has changed in that regard, and now the handcuffing, and sometimes leg-irons, of detainees who are being transported to hearings are common practice. I've seen mothers handcuffed in front of their children; they were just out of their minds seeing this.

As mentioned before, on the subject of detention and removal we are very much aware that international standards and conventions, to which Canada is a signatory, apply to all protection in Canada, as they apply to everyone else. These include detention conditions, the treatment of prisoners and detainees, and their removal, and we've heard about that. We see these standards frequently ignored. For example, people deported to injustice and cruel treatment in spite of requests for further investigation by human rights groups.

We've just had one deportation where the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had said please stay the deportation, we want to look into this case. A few days ago he was gone. I knew him in prison, and I was flabbergasted by this. Canada should have some regard to this.

I just have an observation on the larger context. All immigrants and refugees, including many of those first detained, are potential Canadian citizens. Their Canadian experience begins with the first official they encounter. I've seen many people's disgust at what happens to them at the airport, etc., and at finding themselves detained in this arbitrary process.

I wish to quote from the certificate of Canadian citizenship: they must “uphold the principles of democracy, freedom and compassion.” Then the laws and practices they experience have to demonstrate these same values. This certificate was given to me by a man rescued from prison a number of years ago. It took him three and a half years to go through the system. He was very much a genuine refugee. He was jailed. It took an arm and a leg to get him landed, and finally he brought this. He's a forgiving soul, but it is true that we must uphold those principles of democracy, freedom and compassion that we ask people to subscribe to, for all Canadians.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Franklin.

I guess all groups have already made their presentations.

A voice: One more.

The Chairman: Oh, one more. I'm sorry, Dorma, right. I missed you last time, and I missed you again.

Ms. Dorma Grant: I'm from the ad hoc committee for refugees from the First Baptist Church of Kingston, Ontario. We are a group of eight people who take on a refugee issue as it comes to light, and we see it through.

A few years ago we met a young man in the prison who was going to be deported to Iran. Consequently, from that we began to get interested in how immigration and deportation occurred.

Our concern, of course, is with convention refugees being deported back to their homelands or situations in which they are likely to be imprisoned, tortured, and/or killed.

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We see the origin of the problems as coming from six different directions. I can comment on them, as well as on the proposed solutions to the problems that we have discussed as a group and would like to present today.

The origin of the problem, to begin with, is that we have a law that permits the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to condemn any non-citizen of Canada as a danger to the public in Canada on the basis of her opinion alone. This is without a trial or even a hearing, and without right of appeal. Then the person is deported without regard to the probable consequences.

The second one, legal challenges to this law on the grounds that this violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has not yet established binding precedents to prevent its use to deport refugees under the convention back to their original homelands.

Third, although Canada is a signatory in the 1987 United Nations convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, the 1951 UN convention on refugees, and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, these have only moral, not legal, status in Canada. Consequently, they can be violated with impunity by officials of Citizenship and Immigration.

Fourth, senior civil servants in Citizenship and Immigration Canada appear to support a policy of zero tolerance for non-citizens who get in trouble with the law. The minister supports them, and as quoted from someone who has already left that department, there is strong pressure from the very top to deport anyone who can be made to fit the guidelines.

Fifth, the Canadian public is unaware that Canada routinely delivers permanent residents of Canada into the hands of their mortal enemies. Many are imprisoned and tortured, and some are executed.

Sixth, a substantial segment of the Canadian public has become anti-immigrant and anti-refugee. Our politicians appear to be listening to that segment.

The solutions that we as a group would like to present here today are the following:

Repeal the law that allows the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to deport non-citizens on the basis that in her opinion they constitute a danger to the public in Canada. Replace it by a law that requires any such charge to be proven in court using procedures and standards of proof similar to those used when a person faces the charge of being an habitual criminal.

Make it a serious offence under the Criminal Code of Canada to deport, attempt to deport, or assist in the deportation of any non-citizen into a situation where he or she is likely to be imprisoned, tortured, and/or executed.

Those who are accused of serious crimes in their homelands can be extradited if there is the prospect of a fair trial and imprisonment without torture. While extradition proceedings have legal safeguards, our present deportation process does not.

The penalty for deporting a non-citizen into a situation in which the civil servant responsible for that deportation should reasonably have known would result in imprisonment, torture, and/or death should be substantial. A charge of either criminal negligence or manslaughter might be appropriate.

Make the provisions of the 1987 United Nations convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, the 1951 UN convention on refugees, and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights legally binding on the Government of Canada.

For example, article 3 of the 1987 United Nations convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment states that:

No State Party shall expel, return...or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

Canada's violations of article 3 are neither infrequent nor minor. They do not appear to be based upon ignorance on the part of our civil servants as to the probable fate of the deported person, since in many cases the person being deported is not a refugee claimant but a UN-certified refugee under the convention who had been accepted as such by Canada, entered Canada with the approval of our government, and had been living in Canada as a permanent resident prior to being deported back to the country from which they had originally fled for reasons that the UNHCR considered quite adequate.

• 1620

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Ms. Grant. I'll defer to the end of the session my comments pertaining to your comment on politicians.

We will start our open forum with the member from the Reform Party, Mr. Reynolds.

You all understand the format. I'm going to ask the committee members and also the people who are responding to please focus on whatever the concept is that is being presented, and don't bounce all over the place and introduce 15 others that are related, unless it's absolutely crucial to the development of that concept.

Go ahead, John.

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.): May I raise a point of order, please?

The Chairman: Yes. What is the point of order?

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: A lady has done a very interesting and important study on the subject before us today. Could she be given at least one or two minutes to outline the main points of what she has to tell us? I think that could stimulate discussion.

[English]

The Chairman: Your name, please?

Ms. Joan Simalchik (Researcher, Toronto Refugee Affairs Committee): My name is Joan Simalchik and I'm the author of this report, which I think many of you may have.

The Chairman: Yes.

Ms. Joan Simalchik: Okay. Thank you.

The Chairman: All the other members have the paper? Very good.

Go ahead, Joan Simalchik.

Ms. Joan Simalchik: I will make three brief comments concerning this. There are 14 really specific recommendations in the report.

In general, to begin I'll say many of the items I discovered in the research are not new. In particular there was a report issued by Roger Tassé in February 1996 that included very specific, important recommendations, including the establishment of a code of ethics for detention and removal staff; criteria to be established for countries to which people are being deported that could pose a risk to them; and three, the establishment of an independent review to look at policy and complaints regarding detention and removal.

To date nothing has been implemented. Therefore my first recommendation is to immediately implement Mr. Tassé's recommendations of two years ago and to not always begin from the beginning.

The second thing, which you've heard many times today, is the open-ended use of discretion that now exists within the Immigration Act. Again, it's a recommendation to have more specific guidelines.

While my study has really been on the operation in Toronto in the Celebrity Inn, I also had occasion to look at Montreal—and you've heard Glynis speak on the situation there—and also Vancouver.

I'd point out how the discretion is so open that the conditions of detention and the population of people who are detained really radically differ from place to place. In Vancouver and Montreal there are very few numbers of people who are refugee claimants. There are rejected refugee claimants. But in Toronto, 30% at any given time are people who are making a refugee claim. They have not lived in Canada, but are just coming into the border and are detained. This is their only experience with the country. Why that would vary to that extent from locale to locale is one example of the open-ended use of discretion.

Another example is that in Toronto in 1995 and 1996, the detainee population had reached 175 in total. Because of budget conditions, the staff now are limited to keeping people to a maximum of 100 detainees. In my investigation and interviews with immigration staff I tried to determine what were the consequences of this. This is 75 people from one year who are not detained but would have been had they come to Canada the previous year or had they been discovered in Canada.

Apparently there are no resultant or consequential problems because of the new budget thing, but it leads me to ask what objective criteria people are being detained on and if they're being detained according to budget slots. If the budget is reduced further, will we have fewer detainees in Toronto, and if the budget is increased, will we have more? Probably there should be something a little more objective than that.

• 1625

Another problem that happens, and I think it's very critical, is that within the detained population refugee claimants and people with rejected refugee claims tend to get lost within the general mix. There are people in detention who have overstayed their visitors' visas, who have crossed the border back and forth. There are a lot of people on the move in the world today; they're not all refugees.

Within this population, once people are detained they tend to lose their identify as refugees and they're regarded by immigration and the system and the process as just people without status. Many times they themselves are quite confused, because the process is quite complex. Once they're in those kinds of conditions it's very difficult to establish where they are. Sometimes people here have discovered this too. There will be people removed from Canada who don't know if they've had a rejected refugee claim, if they've made a post-determination application. They don't know if they've had an answer on it. There's complete confusion and their identities are lost.

Therefore, another recommendation with regard to this is that refugees be regarded as distinct in the system. In fact, even on the immigration roll-calls people are not listed or noted according to their immigration status, but there is their deportation liability. We won't know if someone's a refugee claimant, a person with a rejected refugee claim, or an overstayed visitor, but we will know that American Airlines has the responsibility to pay for their removal. I think that the immigration category should be noted and that refugees should be regarded as distinct and afforded every possibility.

My third point is on the conditions of detention that again vary from place to place. You've heard Glynis' description of the facility in Montreal. The facility in Toronto is an airport strip motel, a very seedy place called the Celebrity Inn, which is surrounded by barbed wire. It really is not an adequate facility for people on long-term detention. Because the detention of immigration refugees is intended to be short term, the conditions in there really differ from prisons. Therefore, you don't even have adequate conditions. The air supply is not adequate in this Celebrity Inn. They really can't do very much about that.

As of this moment there are fifteen people who have been there more than six months; there is one who has been in that place close to three years. There are no visits allowed except through plexiglas with families or friends if they have them here. There aren't any educational facilities, recreational programs. There is no access to religious services, so people who have been in there have missed major holidays of their own faith.

Of particular importance is the provision of health care, which really has to have some kind of immediate attention. Qualifications and prerequisites have to be instilled so that the health staff, the doctors and nurses who are contracted by the immigration department, have cross-cultural communication experience and also transcultural experience.

Two years ago a man died in the Celebrity Inn who was a diabetic. It was discovered upon his death. There was an inquest into this, and fundamental changes have not been made after this inquest.

There are still serious problems that should be addressed, including the fact that there are people being detained who have suffered persecution, who have suffered torture, and they are in detention without any kind of recognition of that fact or any access to services and health care. That would be the third recommendation.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Ms. Maria Minna: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I apologize for my interruption but I just wanted to clarify something with the comment with respect to Tassé, with nothing having been done. I know that within days there should be a report from the department with charts on the recommendations and there has been a great deal of work done. You may not have seen the report, but you will see it when it comes out.

Ms. Joan Simalchik: We haven't heard it yet, so I would really be very happy about that. I hope the code of ethics was there, because the interviews I—

Mr. Réal Ménard: This is not a point of order.

Ms. Joan Simalchik: Can I clarify anything?

The Chairman: No, that's all right.

Mr. Reynolds, please.

Mr. John Reynolds (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We'll be happy to see the report too.

Can anybody tell me how many people are being held in detention at any one time, and the combination of adults, children?

• 1630

Rev. Glynis Williams: The average figure last year was somewhere around 25, and it has gone up to 50, but sometimes it's less than that. The women and children in Montreal are detained in a separate area, and there are always women and children there, but considerably fewer than there are men.

Mr. John Reynolds: Somebody mentioned that the women up there being taken to a meeting are handcuffed and put in leg shackles. Is that a standard procedure?

Rev. Glynis Williams: My experience is yes.

Mr. John Reynolds: Are the children too, or just the mother?

Rev. Glynis Williams: No, it is just the mother.

Mr. John Reynolds: So if there is a father involved, the mother and father would be shackled and handcuffed and the children go along to wherever they're going?

Rev. Glynis Williams: Yes.

Mr. John Reynolds: Somebody mentioned a simple legal remedy and mentioned the word “tribunal”. Is there any reason why it has to be a tribunal and not one judge, not a political appointee but a legally trained person who would be appointed by the judiciary to be that type of a judge? Is there any reason why it couldn't be one instead of three?

Mr. Tom Clark (Co-ordinator, Inter-Church Committee for Refugees): There's no reason why it couldn't be one judge. In our Inter-Church Committee for Refugees we've tried to figure out how the international standards shake out. We've tried to do that objectively, and the language we're using is the language we've come out with. It's clear that whatever it is has to qualify as a court, and we think that in Canadian law the typical kind of tribunal would so qualify.

I gather a typical tribunal would have a civil servant front end, a back-up appeal section with commissioners, and it would be backed up by a Federal Court appeals section. That's the sort of thing we would figure would apply, largely because we think of this principle from international human rights law: one tries to treat the strangers or the non-citizens in the same way as we would treat Canadians. So if that's the kind of system we have, that's what they would get.

Mr. John Reynolds: So if the system involves going through the normal system and then the check and then you're finally turned down, the final decision is an independent judge appointed by the judiciary.

Mr. Tom Clark: In our view, there are several issues. The final issue is whether or not we can deport this person. And if an important right is at issue, then you have to have access to the courts to deal with that. That's what we're saying. The court may say you don't have a case and it may not hear it, but you have to be able to raise the issue.

Mr. John Reynolds: So you're satisfied as long as it's an independent judge making that decision.

Mr. Tom Clark: Yes.

Mr. John Reynolds: Mr. Chair, go ahead.

The Chairman: Ms. Bulte, would you just carry on with the same topic.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale—High Park, Lib.): Ms. Dench, I understand where you're coming from on the importance of having due process and rights. However, one of the things I have seen in my own constituency is that we get people who have come here and the process has failed them. For whatever reason they are still here ten years after the fact. They've gone through the process of not being deemed to be a refugee, but there's one process after the other and then the deportation order comes up. How do we deal with that person who's been here for ten years?

One of the things I really recommend to the inquiry is the fact that this process has to be quick. What happens to these people who have been allowed...and who have complied with everything? We're not talking about a breach of criminality. If we put in appeal processes to the Supreme Court of Canada in every case, we're not dealing with the fact that these people should be entitled to a quick decision. Certainly that's what this legislative review is saying. We can't let people stay here and become part of our society and we have to support them for ten years. How do we deal with that issue? It's an important issue, because we have people who have been here forever.

Mr. Tom Clark: Let me give you two answers. If this were France and the person had been in the country since the age of six, they wouldn't be deported. If they had been in the country ten years, they wouldn't be deported.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: On what basis?

Mr. Tom Clark: Simply on the basis that they had become de facto, essentially, a part of that community. That's only part of the answer. Those are criteria that were adopted before the Council of Ministers of Europe as a consequence of one of these international cases against France. Incidentally, they are bound by a court, whereas Canada isn't, so of course we violate things.

• 1635

Second, when we say that you go before a tribunal, we're not saying a multiplicity of places. At the first complaint that went before an international body, Canada argued that a person could raise each and every decision that had ever been made by any immigration official before the Federal Court by leave, and should have done so to have exhausted the domestic remedies, and that the person at any point during their stay in Canada could, by paying $500, launch another humanitarian compassionate appeal, and then that decision could be appealed by the Federal Court.

So I don't think proposing something that's more just is necessarily proposing something that's more complex and protracted than we have now. The superior courts are quite capable of looking at a case and deciding whether it does or does not have merit. Unfortunately, the Federal Court at present doesn't tend to see merit when it's there, but that's another problem that's not before you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

I would like to swing the discussion back to that period in detention. We talked about the treatment. Could we get some indication from any of you who have been to a detention centre about what types of living conditions the children have and what kinds of living conditions the men have? Have any of you been there?

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: Some people go there every week. Some of us have been there from time to time. Some of us have been to a series of detention centres as they've moved from one hotel or motel to now a prison. And I can assure you that Glynis has been kind in describing what that prison looks like. It's a terrifying place to see if you try to put yourself in the eyes and head of somebody who's coming up there for the first time.

The problem is that people are kept in detention in conditions that do not even meet the minimal standards of some jails where criminals are held. People end up for months in situations where there are no recreational or educational facilities. In Montreal there are religious services but in Toronto there are none, and now they've separated the women and the children.

Your committee might want to get hold of a report that was done by two immigration officials subsequent to a complaint from a lawyer on behalf of her two clients. The regional director commissioned two of her employees to do a report on the complaints. Many of the allegations and specific complaints were kind of minimized, but they went on to use this occasion to say they had been in this place for a year now.

By the way, I don't know if you realize that it's called a centre de prévention de l'immigration. It's not a detention centre but a prevention centre. What that means exactly I will leave to you. As well, the commissionaires who run it—there are a few immigration officers, but it's run by a corps of commissionaires who get very little pay and are very arbitrary.

This is an excellent report. I'll give it to the clerk, because it's about 50 pages long, is in English and is written by two immigration officers who write in clear, simple language that is easily understandable to a lay person like me. One of the things they look at is arbitrariness. They look at procedures and complaints about arbitrariness. One guard lets you do something and you do it, then the next guard comes and screams at you for doing the thing the first guard let you do. I'll just read two paragraphs:

Many written procedures exist. Nevertheless, some procedures and operating principles are either not respected, incomplete, not clearly established or need to be updated. These deficiencies may have led to the allegations that guards spared no effort to invent nonsensical rules by harassing and fabricating instances of misbehaviour.

According to the persons in charge of these commissionaires, the CCC, at the centre, the operational guide is not given to recruits. Why? Because it needs updating. So they're not giving them anything. The guide is no good, but we don't have a new guide so we have no guide.

However, no recommendations have been made to the department by the CCC regarding procedures in the guide. There are presently two sets of directives, those determined by immigration and the practices written by the CCC.

Then they go on to make recommendations. They give one example that speaks to Mr. Reynolds' point about women:

The CCC has taken the liberty to modify certain procedures that are clearly established in the operating principles. For example, they unilaterally decided that patrolling in the male living quarters could not be done by female guards, although male guards are still patrolling the female living quarters.

That led to many of these complaints.

This decision was taken subsequent to a complaint and was not brought to the attention of immigration officers.

So after a complaint there are no more women in the male quarters, but there certainly were men walking around in the women's quarters—women from many different countries, very modest women.

• 1640

I won't go on, but I would commend this report to you. I would also commend to you a report that was done subsequent to another complaint around the whole issue of Algerians in detention in Montreal for many months and the arbitrary decisions that were taken.

A group called la Coalition pour le respect des droits humains, which has applied to be heard by your committee—I would commend you to hear them—had a complaint. That complaint resulted in another report commissioned by the regional director of immigration, and two retired officials—bureaucrats—were commissioned to do that second report. That report might be very interesting for your committee in terms of looking at the whole issue of arbitrary detention and deportation proceedings.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Are there any further comments or questions pertaining to this particular area we're discussing? Mr. Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I have a few questions on this point. When we heard the government officials, it was a little as if that reality did not exist. I think it is your responsibility to help us to understand the issues in detail and not just the general situation.

I would like to come back to Ms. Janet Dench's presentation. She told us that basically the principles of natural justice are not being respected since people do not have access to a lawyer, to a legal counsel, have no appeal recourse mechanism and are detained without really knowing why. Is that the general message you are giving us?

We could summarize by saying that the principles of natural justice, which has a meaning in law, are not being respected. I understand this is the general message you are giving us. I would ask you to speak to us specifically about these people's access to a lawyer, since that is where the whole process must begin.

I also have a supplementary question: do you have an idea of the people being detained? This is my first question: what is the profile of the people being detained? Are they people who are here without a visa? Are they people who entered the country illegally? Could you please answer those two questions first, and then I will have two further questions.

Ms. Janet Dench: As regards the principles of fundamental justice, we consider this to be a general rule which has to be followed throughout the process, be it with respect to removal or detention. What concerns us the most in the way the current system works is the arbitrary nature of certain decisions regarding detention.

As regards access to a lawyer, that depends very much on the region. It varies from province to province, depending on whether people have access to legal aid or not.

There is also the question of physical accessibility. What is of concern to us in the case of Montreal is that the detention centre is very far from the city itself and lawyers. There are very few lawyers willing to make the trip to the detention centre. So even if the people concerned have the money to pay for the services of a lawyer, in fact they will find it very difficult to get one.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Could I please ask you for a clarification? When an individual is detained, that means that usually someone has administrative responsibility for him or her. Are you telling us that an individual can be held in detention for two, three or even four years without ever seeing his or her family? What is their position in terms of the way the judicial or administrative machinery operates?

What I want to understand is how that can happen. If someone is incarcerated it is because a decision was handed down as part of the process that there was non-compliance. If an individual has been incarcerated, then someone has assumed responsibility for the decision. Someone must no doubt be monitoring the case. You are telling us that even if these people ask to see a lawyer or ask what is in their file as a normal step in the process, they have no way of making their wishes known.

Ms. Janet Dench: It is a fact that some people have been detained for a very long time. This is not true in the majority of cases. What we find worrying is that detention, under the Immigration Act, is considered as far less serious than the detention of a person accused of a criminal offence, for example.

• 1645

For us, the fundamental point is that the person concerned is deprived of their freedom. Whether he or she is in an immigration centre or a prison, there is not much difference. So what we are asking for is that people detained under the Immigration Act be given at least the same safeguards as someone imprisoned under the Criminal Code.

Mr. Réal Ménard: But who does the person speak to? We are no longer talking here about an immigration officer. To whom is the person referred when he or she is detained?

Ms. Janet Dench: The second part of your question addresses the issue of who is responsible for the case. Generally, the initial decision to place someone in detention is made by the immigration officer. After being detained, the person concerned must be seen by an adjudicator within 48 hours of detention. Sometimes it may be the adjudicator who makes the initial request for detention but more often it is the immigration officer.

Mr. Réal Ménard: What you are telling us is very important. The decision is made by the immigration officer, therefore at the second level. But you are telling us that it can also be taken at the adjudication stage. Do you consider adjudication as a first appeal recourse?

Ms. Janet Dench: The adjudicator is at least an independent decision maker. He will listen to what the immigration officer has to say, namely why he judges the person should be detained. He also hears the person concerned or his or her lawyer. So at least the detention decision is reviewed, which is far better than what is proposed by the advisory group, namely a system where there would be no such recourse.

Now, as regards decisions, if the adjudicator accepts the recommendation of the immigration officer and maintains the detention order, the person concerned can have the detention reviewed. That is done every month. What often happens is that a person who has been in detention for a long time is heard every thirty days. The same things are repeated and the decision upheld. So, theoretically the person has a chance of being released from detention, but that will not happen because the same arguments are simply repeated.

Mr. Réal Ménard: One last question since otherwise the Chairman will lose patience with me, despite the friendship he has for me. If someone detained in one of those centres in Montreal, Toronto or some other city asks to have access to a religious service, to a priest or minister, can he make his wishes known? Is there someone responsible for forwarding his request?

I realize that the Supreme Court handed down a decision requiring that the same freedoms be recognized for every Canadian citizen. If you were to cite us concrete examples of such rights being violated, we would have to recall the government officials who appeared in order to obtain more information.

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Canadian citizens.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Not Canadian citizens, but people on Canadian territory must be treated that way. As a former Board member, you must surely know that.

[English]

The Chairman: These are valid concerns that have been raised. Does anyone in the group of witnesses want to contribute to this discussion?

[Translation]

Rev. Glynis Williams: I think that depends on where you are. If you are in Montreal, you are luckier than if you are in Toronto. But there are problems in Montreal too. That is because the people being detained do not know we exist. With the Privacy Act, it is very difficult. The immigration officers do not give us, NGOs, the names of the people being detained.

As I said, we are lucky in that every Sunday afternoon we can go around the common room areas. Volunteers like us can visit people and ask them why they are there and what their problem is. Sometimes people tell us they do not know, they do not understand what is happening, they are visiting, they arrived the day before and have no idea what is going on.

We may also offer them religious services when we are able to do so. But that is very arbitrary. It depends on the situation.

• 1650

We can discuss this for a long time. We could talk a lot longer about this, but I think we should give the floor to someone else.

[English]

Mr. Fred Franklin: We need to clear up one thing. We're talking about immigration holdings and detention centres, and sometimes we talk about jails.

First of all, we have tried to find chaplaincy in the immigration holding centre, but it has to be organized and funded, and this has not happened. What is available is Bible study.

If someone manages to use the phone to ask for a minister, a minister can come to see him, but he must arrange it beforehand. So you have to somehow find out how it's done. If you just show up and say you want to see so and so, you may not get in. You have to arrange this beforehand.

So there is a lack of organizing there. Part of it is that the NGO community has not been able to, but there has also not been any effort by the immigration department to recognize that.

In jails it is customary that there be a chaplain for every 200 prisoners. So there is a rule. So if someone is held in a jail, there will be chaplaincy and regular services. But that is not taking place in the detention hotels.

Ms. Gloria Nafziger: I want to come back to the point being raised with respect to access to legal counsel in the detention and immigration centres.

In theory, access to legal counsel exists, but what often happens in practice is quite different. The difficulty, in Toronto at least, is having legal representatives there to act on behalf of individuals who are in immigration detention. They may or may not have access to legal aid, but even if they have access to legal aid, because they're in detention their ability to find a lawyer to act on their behalf is extremely limited.

In Toronto it had been the practice of the Osgoode Hall Law School to try to send students to the immigration centres, because they weren't able to get lawyers who were fully certified to go out and assist the people who are on immigration holds. Persons who are in criminal institutions or are incarcerated on criminal charges, pre-trial, at least have access to duty counsel, but nothing similar exists for people who are in immigration holds.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Tom Clark: I would just add something on the question of the natural justice and their recourse. It's to follow up on what Gloria said.

Attached to our discussion document on immigration detention you will find a comparison between the provisions of the Criminal Code and the provisions of the Immigration Act that relate to detention. To bring you back to our concerns, if the general understanding is that we treat non-citizens the way we treat citizens—as you so aptly put it, whether everyone in Canada falls under the same charter—then does this way in which people are treated with respect to immigration detention, as compared with somebody who is charged under the Criminal Code, amount to a distinction that we should call discrimination?

Our concern is that it is a rather large division, and I would invite members of the committee to look and compare. You have a justice applying very detailed provisions that are clearly release-oriented in the Criminal Code, and under the Immigration Act you have an adjudicator.

There is a case in Toronto now where a provincial court judge, somebody from a constitutionally established court, has granted habeas corpus to an individual and the immigration adjudicator continues to refuse to release the person. So this is the bizarre state of justice in our neck of the woods.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Yes.

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: I have a small point.

I hope the officials have told you that immigration officers have powers beyond the range of any policeman or soldier in this country. There is no policeman who can arrest somebody because he thinks the guy won't show up for his court date next week. If the person doesn't show up, you issue an arrest warrant, but you can't decide Joe Blow isn't going to come next week, then go to his or her house, arrest them in their pyjamas and take them to detention.

Sure it has to be reviewed by an adjudicator, but that kind of suspicion, behaviour, and treatment and the way people are talked to.... No matter what we do with people, they are human beings and they have human dignity.

• 1655

At the end of the day, I think we do a lot of outreach in the community. I talk to police groups. I've addressed the National Defence College of Canada for several years in a row and I put it to them that they don't have these powers, and that if they did do such a thing they could be brought up on a charge of breach of ethics. There is a code de déontologie and there is a procedure for reviewing behaviour. We've never been able to ascertain whether any of this applies to immigration officers.

So I think it's in everybody's interest, including immigration officers, to have a code or criteria or procedures where they can be held accountable. We think everything in the Trempe report that speaks to accountability, reporting, statistics, data and transparency are excellent recommendations that have been made over and over again, and we think they would go far in remedying some of this.

Most of what we've been talking about doesn't need new laws or regulations. It's the administrative practice that's so arbitrary. It changes from hour to hour and from city to city. And we feel that a lot of that can be remedied now. We don't have to wait for a new law in two or three or four years.

The Chairman: And because it's so dynamic and forever changing, that's why we find it so frustrating. You have raised some very good points. We thought we had a handle on it, and next thing you know nothing is there. It's gone and something else has evolved.

If it's still in the area of detention, Ms. Hardy, and then we will jump over to this side.

Ms. Folco, Mr. Saada, and Mr. McKay, do you all want to ask questions in this area, or do you want to switch to another topic?

Mr. John Reynolds: Mr. Clark made a comment and I'd like to ask—

The Chairman: I already gave him a chance.

Mr. John Reynolds: I just wanted to ask him a follow-up on the—

The Chairman: No.

Go ahead, Ms. Hardy.

Ms. Louise Hardy (Yukon, NDP): I have a couple of questions around the arbitrariness. I find what you've described very shocking, because it sounds more like a concentration camp than a prison, where people have absolutely no rights.

The arbitrariness gives power so that we have the instance of someone being in custody for six and a half years, and then Mr. Sami Durgun waiting not even five years for what he was after. Is it that the whole system functions all on its own, with complete disregard for the kind of justice that we would function under?

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: The short answer is yes.

Ms. Janet Dench: I would like to comment on the issue of arbitrariness, which I think we all agree is at the root of the problem.

It's interesting to review the guidelines on detention that were released by the Immigration and Refugee Board just last week. That came in response to complaints raised by the Canadian Council for Refugees. We complained that the adjudicators too often seemed to just accept the arguments presented by immigration officers without really weighing the pros and the cons.

So we're pleased that they have adopted some guidelines, but we also have some concerns about the fairly limited nature of those guidelines. They talk about long-term detention, which is a very important issue, but they don't deal with the issue of the first detention decision. So when the person was detained just a couple of days ago, that first revision where they go before the adjudicator—we feel there also need to be guidelines for that, because that first detention decision is often where the problem starts.

I imagine you will probably be hearing, if you haven't already, from the Immigration and Refugee Board on those guidelines.

Ms. Louise Hardy: Are families separated? Are husbands, wives and children separated as well?

The Chairman: Ms. Folco.

[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco: First I would like to commend all of you because I know how involved you are helping these people, refugees in detention centres. I am personally familiar with the work you do. So, please accept my congratulations.

I think your presentation gave committee members a far deeper and more comprehensive picture of the situation than we have had to date. As you are no doubt aware, we have heard from several officials from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration who gave us approximate, vague answers without any figures. I am very happy to hear you talk about real concrete issues which, as I know and would point out to my fellow committee members, are factual. I would like to stress that point.

• 1700

I would also like to comment on the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul detention centre in Laval. It is located in the riding where I stood as a candidate in the 1993 elections. As I result, I am quite familiar with that detention centre which was a prison before they decided to close it down as it was so old.

So it is not good enough as a place to incarcerate people who have been found guilty of crimes, but it is good enough for placing the people whom we talked about this afternoon. This is a very important point that should be stressed.

I do have one question. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do nevertheless have a question. It concerns those people who are incarcerated and held for weeks, months or longer. An individual arrives without any documentation. But at some point he or she will have to be released. What is the basis for deciding to release him? If he has no documents when he arrives, there is a strong chance that he will not have any three months later or subsequently. So what happens? What is done to make it possible to release such people?

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: It is not necessarily people without documentation who are placed in detention.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: That is why I would like to have examples.

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: I think Joan or Glynis could talk to you about that. They are not necessarily people without documentation. For various reasons Immigration Canada decides that some people should not be heard again or constitute a danger to the public. Those are the two main reasons. There are all sorts of people from many categories. You have to distinguish between the people who are placed in detention when they arrive but will be released during the process and those who remain detained throughout the process. You must appreciate that people can remain in detention throughout the process, including the stage when the application for refugee status is being considered. It does not happen often, but it can happen.

There are also people in detention because the authorities want to deport them. However, that may not work. Sometimes people have documents, but their country does not allow them to return. Or, it may happen that for some very good reasons the individual does not want to apply for a passport. He or she has other documents and it is established who they are, but they cannot or do not want to sign the documents because they fear for their life.

So there are all sorts of possible situations. Sometimes the immigration officers repeat the same arguments, as Janet pointed out. I think Glynis can tell you about the case of one man who became a citizen after spending 13 months in detention. It is a very revealing case. She can tell you how that happens month after month before the adjudicator.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Mr. Chairman, I must add one thing. It will not take long. When Ms. Mawani, Chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board, appeared before the committee, I suggested to her that committee members be invited to attend a hearing. I know that a number of committee members have done so. I also think it would be helpful for committee members to visit a detention centre in their region. It does not have to be the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul centre. It could be anywhere. They could really see how things happen. Mr. Reynolds told us that it would be useful to go and meet with the people at a customs post. I agree, but let's look at other places also. Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two very short comments and a very sort question.

My first comment follows up on the legitimate question Mr. Reynolds asked about the number. It cannot be determined, but I don«t think it is really a very large number. But in my view, even one case like that is one too many.

The second point is that once these people are on Canadian territory, then so as to ensure we are acting consistently the same principles and treatment should apply to them as to all Canadian citizens and people living in this country.

There is one very short question I would like to ask. Ms. Williams, I think it was you who indicated that it was very difficult for people detained to have access to a lawyer. I think a number of people followed up on that point.

• 1705

Do those people who are in detention have access to organizations such as yours? Are they systematically put in contact with you? For example when someone is detained, is he or she automatically provided with a list of organizations such as yours which should at least be able to help them? It's all well and good to provide access to a lawyer, but as they don't know the country or the people, they will not be able to manage very well. So I would like to know whether that is done. If not, why not? How do you see your role in this very difficult transition period?

Rev. Glynis Williams: The answer is no, they do not have a list of organizations such as the one I belong to. I will continue in English if I may.

[English]

I'll give you exactly what happens in Montreal. We are fortunate, because Sunday afternoons we have a window of opportunity if we have volunteers who visit in the community spaces. But the Privacy Act means we have only access to community spaces, and over a period of time, periodically we seem to lose that right. Then you have to go back and argue with the fonctionnaire: “We had it last week. What happened?” For instance, we now can't go into the women's' section.

At one time we could go into the television rooms, which is where most people sit. It's boring. There's nothing to do in these places. Now we can no longer go in those areas. We have to sort of stand at the window and wave to see whether they'd like to come out.

People don't know who we are. The first question we have to answer is that we don't work for Immigration. We don't advertise. Although we happen to be a faith-based group, that's not why we are there. We are there to see who is being detained and why. Do they have access to people who speak their language? Do they have access to legal counsel?

Unfortunately, some in legal counsel who seem to go in and visit more often are those take money and then do not follow up on what they say they will do. We try to follow up in those situations.

It is disturbing that this is not across the board. There should be, in our opinion, regular and easy access to organizations like ours. If people don't want it, that's quite all right, obviously. But they need to know that we exist and that we have the opportunity to go in and visit easily.

We spend a lot of time in waiting rooms, as well, waiting to get access into the facility, and then to be metal-detected every week and any number of other situations you would find in criminal institutions. But these are not criminals. That's what we want to keep saying.

I think the question was not answered earlier as to the profile of people in detention. Again, I think it depends. It's very different, where you are.

I'm very glad to hear you say it shouldn't simply be numbers that are detained that our concern. They're human beings.

Yesterday I spent more than three hours in a detention review for two visitors who have come with return travel tickets and $1,500 American, with two people in the waiting room waiting for them, who knew they were coming. They have jobs back in Israel, and still they're in detention. They may well be returned without ever having seen anything of Montreal. They were transferred in handcuffs. They were deprived, for six hours, of any food or water, even though they requested it and were prepared to pay for it. In addition, they say they were treated rudely.

We can't verify that, but the simple fact is, these are visitors. For all the criteria one might use, who do you think is legitimately here as a visitor and is likely to return, they seem to have everything you would think was normal—jobs, family contacts, sufficient money, return airline tickets, entry and departure from any number of western countries and other European countries without having made refugee claims. They're being held on the suspicion that they aren't really visitors.

That's only one example.

Mr. Jacques Saada: I have one last thing. To my mind, the issues you're bringing around this table are huge. They are monumental, very deep. I don't think there is a quick fix to all of this at the same time. I think we have to be very pragmatic about it.

• 1710

What could be done in terms of very simple, concrete, immediate actions that would not entail any change in the law or any change in massive systemic ways? What could be done to improve the situation, pending something more in-depth?

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: We have all these recommendations. We have the Tassé report. I'm very happy also that Ms. Minna says that something is coming, but we didn't know that. We know what we're told. We think two years is a very long time to respond to a report, and we have to say that some of the things in the Tassé report were brought up in the Davis-Waldman report, all in the lifetime of this government.

There is stuff from 1986. There's the coroner's report from Toronto.

Administrative changes could be made. A code of ethics would do, you know. Accountability can be instituted. Some of these things are less expensive. We're all concerned with costs. I think Glynis made the point that what we do do costs the taxpayers a lot of money, and at the end of the day, we find out after the fact that it wasn't necessary. I think Janet would like to add to that.

Ms. Janet Dench: Yes—just another point that is supposed to be on the table. As you may know, the department has been working on a detention policy that is supposed to give greater guidance to officials in making their detention decisions. That policy was about to be released in September of 1996. It was withdrawn at that time for further discussion, and we still are waiting for that policy to be adopted. We hope that a forceful, clear policy might go some way to addressing the arbitrariness in detention decisions. So one simple thing would be to ensure that a strong policy is brought down.

I'd also like to mention on a different line, following up on Glynis's comments about NGO access, I think a lot of greater humanity could be introduced into the system if there were institutionalized open access for NGOs, perhaps involving the contracting of certain NGOs to be present on a regular basis in the detention centres.

The Chairman: John.

Mr. John Reynolds: Mr. Chairman, I have a question for Mr. Clark, so he'll get a chance to answer.

I'd just like to say also that Mr. Saada, I agree with you: if one person is being held innocently, it's too many. The idea of asking the question for numbers is what is it costing us? Besides the human cost, there's a cost to government, and if we can eliminate the necessity of holding innocent people, that's one way to turn it politically. That's why I asked that question.

Mr. Clark, you made a comment about a judicial decision being ignored. Can you explain that in more detail?

Mr. Tom Clark: It appears to be a simple matter of fact. The case is an extradition case, and we haven't talked about that, but immigration and extradition all tend to merge, and there doesn't seem to be a coordination.

This is the case of somebody who is indicted for murder who made a refugee claim. The name is Pacificador, by all accounts not a nice gentleman. But he's been for over six years in the Don Jail, which is a short-term jail for criminals, while the government contemplates his extradition, and of course there are problems with his extradition.

Finally, his lawyer went for habeas corpus before a judge of the Ontario Provincial Court General Division—in fact the same man who had originally suggested that he should be incarcerated pending his extradition, a conservative judge in my mind, so I was surprised by the outcome. The judge said he should be released. The immigration adjudicator has maintained him in the Don Jail under the Immigration Act, and he is still there. I mean, all I'm reporting is the facts.

Mr. John Reynolds: So the judge didn't make an order that he be released, but rather a recommendation?

Mr. Tom Clark: I don't know any more details.

Mr. John Reynolds: It would seem strange that a judge could make an order that could be overruled by an adjudicator.

Mr. Tom Clark: Yes, it seems strange to me, too.

The Chairman: Okay. John McKay.

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

There seems to be some considerable level of consensus that the system needs to be fixed, and that the length of time the person is in the system is way too long, by anybody's standards, whether you're a person who wants everybody shut off at the airport or whether you want to let people in forever. The length is in large measure the issue.

• 1715

Presently we have this Kafkaesque system that bounces you around hither, thither and yon, with all kinds of rooms for appeal and rooms for humanitarian and compassionate reviews, etc.

What I'm interested in hearing from you as witnesses is what is the more absurd part of the system? What could be given up? Is it the appeals process? Is it the humanitarian and compassionate? Is it the risk review? Where can the system be squeezed so we achieve the issue of brevity? Where is the squeeze?

Ms. Gloria Nafziger: You've referred to the appeals process in all of these processes—the PDRCC and the H and C—but what you're missing is that there is no meaningful appeal on the substance of the case.

A voice: For refugees.

Ms. Gloria Nafziger: For refugees.

If there were a meaningful appeal on the substantive issues of a case, issues that come up in further appeals and processes and procedures under PDRCC and H and C wouldn't need to happen. There needs to be a procedure, an appeal that can deal with all of those things at one time, and that doesn't currently exist.

A lot of these other procedures that come into play now wouldn't need to be there. If you open up an appeal on the merits, credibility, and substantive issues, you can do away with so many of these other issues.

Mr. John McKay: In your view, could risk review, could refugee determination, could issues of humanitarian compassion all be dealt with at the same time, same place, same hearing?

Ms. Gloria Nafziger: Refugee determination is one issue. It needs to be a clear decision on refugee determination. That decision needs to be isolated and made—

Mr. Tom Clark: As a status.

Ms. Gloria Nafziger: —as a status. You need to know the status. Having made that determination, you then need to make all of those other decisions on risk review. You might decide that according to the definition this person may not be a refugee, but when you look at the following procedures in terms of risk review, you might come to a conclusion that it would in fact be a risk to send that person back to the country from which they come.

Mr. John McKay: But my concern is can you do that hearing on the same day, the same place, with the same adjudicant? Is there any conceptual reason why that can't be done?

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: The appeal has to be separate.

Mr. John McKay: I'm not talking appeal, I'm talking about.... You have your three things here. They're always in play, and it makes the system absurd. You have the refugee determination, the risk review, and the humanitarian and compassionate review. You can bounce around this system before you ever get to appeals—ignore appeals for the time being. Just within that box, shall we say, you can bounce around for eighteen months or two or three years. The question I have for you people who deal with the system on a daily basis is where's the squeeze there?

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: One of the things is resources. We keep talking about resources. If you want it to work, you have to put the resources where you need them at the time that you need them, and bite the bullet, because in the end it will save you money, not cost you money.

If you look through all the submissions that all of us have made over the years, and some of us have been in this supposed business—I'm waiting for the first cheque—for a long time, we keep recommending a fair but just system, and an efficient system. None of us have ever recommended a long, drawn-out system. We're all convinced that it's better for refugees for it to be timely, without sacrificing justice, and it's better for the people who will be refused that it be more timely. It's better for all of us.

In order to do that, you need a system that meets those requirements. We're convinced that it's possible, if the resources are put in place and if there is a political will to do it. If there is a political will, it can happen. If the political will can impress the bureaucratic will that its political will should prevail to do the right thing, then maybe something can happen. We've seen that before.

However, if we don't have the resources where they're needed, we have a situation where we have a risk definition that we find is inadequate—and if you'll invite me back, I'll come and tell you about it—where we take a very long time with an inadequate definition to refuse almost everybody. Now, what is the point of taking months and months and months with a definition that doesn't make sense to refuse about 96% of the cases?

We don't think it's great. We have proposed other alternatives, but all of the alternatives.... And we would submit to you that as NGOs in the field, we are very practical. We have a lot of very practical suggestions to make to you, which we've made over the years. A lot of what we've proposed over the years would have lessened the procedure, lessened the cost.

• 1720

Maybe eventually, some of what we have to say will sway enough people and some of this will be implemented, but you're right; it takes a very long time, and it costs a lot.

Janet probably could—

Mr. John McKay: I'm not interested in the issue of resources. I'm not interested in getting into spitting contests as to political wills versus bureaucratic wills.

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: But Janet could answer the question.

Mr. John McKay: What I'm interested in knowing is, in principle, is there any reason why a refugee determination process could not be designed A to Z, six months, the whole nine yards dealt with, ignoring and excluding the issue of appeals?

Ms. Janet Dench: With all respect, I think all of the groups around the table have made submissions to the minister as part of the legislative review process. In that process we've also raised issues relating to detention and removals. We were told they were going to be dealt with by this standing committee.

Very little time has been given for this study. I think it's important that we stick to the issues, because there is a lot we would like to say about it. We can talk about the refugee determination system if you want, but I'm not sure that will get us much further forward on this issue of detention and removals.

Mr. John McKay: Fair comment.

The Chairman: Joan.

Ms. Joan Simalchik: In terms of a quick fix, there are two things. Some of the people who are held in detention for the longest period of time are those who have had their refugee claims rejected and the countries to which they should be sent refused to comply with travel documents. There isn't any cooperation.

The other one is being sent back to countries where Canada feels there are unsafe conditions—for instance, Algeria. As it now stands, people in those situations have been kept, and are being kept, sometimes for periods of up to, it seems, about 15 months. This is the arbitrary date in which it's ultimately seen that they have to be released—and they are, at around 12 to 15 months. But everyone knows—it's tacit understanding—that they ultimately will be released.

We would suggest that it might be easier to have a shorter time system. You know they're going to be released at 15 months, so why not 4 to 6? As well, when people are released, they're not just released arbitrarily. Usually there are bail conditions that can be put on in terms of sureties and securities and conditions. So there are ways to ensure it. Sometimes it would make more sense to do it sooner rather than later.

The Chairman: Good point.

All right, Maria.

Ms. Maria Minna: To go back to the whole issue of detention, are there any acceptable reasons for detention, in your view? I would really like to know. I think it's important to get down to the brass tacks. What, in your view, would be a good reason to detain somebody? Is there any? I think it's a fair question, to try to see where we start.

As well, how does one prove that? What would the process be that would be acceptable to prove, in fact, that's the reason to detain that individual? I think that burden of proof, if you like, is important.

The other is, of course, with legal representation for the individual and what have you, and how that would work. If you could do that first, because then I have another question about provisional status, which we haven't got to but I think is a big part of the report we need to deal with. I'd like to address it.

I think it's important. We've talked about the condition. I understand that. We've talked about, as you've just said, somewhat of a revolving door—they're in, they're out. I understand that.

I'd like to get to some of the brass tacks as to what would be, in your view, the acceptable conditions and processes.

Mr. Tom Clark: I will speak to the ideal as opposed to the acceptable.

As I was saying, I think we should use the model as to what we apply to Canadians. It's very simple. It's in the Criminal Code. If you're a danger to the public or you won't show for a proceeding, those are legitimate grounds.

So the issue isn't the grounds, the issue is how they're applied. If the same judge that applied them to somebody that was being charged was to make the decision on some of the cases in immigration detention, they wouldn't be in there.

Certainly, if there were the same kinds of detailed guidelines in law.... Despite the discretion we believe judges have, they seem to have far less than an immigration adjudicator. When you look at the Criminal Code, they're told very precisely the various steps to go through to facilitate release. So I don't think we have disagreement on the grounds for detention.

• 1725

I think the earlier concern about identity is tied in very much with the same notion that if the person is a danger to the public or won't show for a hearing on account of difficulties in identity or legitimate concerns with identity, they can be detained. Identity per se is not a legitimate ground.

Ms. Maria Minna: The government should be able to prove through due process they won't show.

Mr. Tom Clark: That's the way the Criminal Code is written.

Ms. Maria Minna: I think it's important to make that clear. I was making the connection, but I wanted to make it clear.

Ms. Gloria Nafziger: That's right.

In addition, not a quick topic but a full afternoon in and of itself are the application of security certificates to individuals who have been identified to be a danger to the public, the manner in which those certificates are applied, and the individuals' ability to understand the case against them so they are then able to find a way of responding to the case and plead their ability to be released from detention. It's a very complicated issue.

There is the case of Mr. Suresh, a Tamil—the case is probably well known—in which those concerns are very much exemplified. I think the whole issue of the application of security certificates—how they're used, how an individual has the right to know the charges against him—is a very important consideration. Again it speaks to the need for greater openness, transparency, and due process. We would have that in an application under the Criminal Code, but it doesn't exist for immigration.

Ms. Maria Minna: My other question has to do with part of what we're looking at and part of what the report talks about. I've read some recommendations—I've the advantage over my colleagues in that I've been around this for a few weeks now—on the issue of provisional status and how the recommendations go with respect to losing it or not losing it. Do you like the idea of provisional status and, if not, why not? How is it being proposed? I think it's important to look at that. It's a major part of the report, and I think it's important. It goes also to detention, because if you lose it—

Ms. Janet Dench: I think what we like about provisional status is that it gives people who are waiting for some decision to be made some kind of status that could be recognized by the various authorities. We would like to have something like that, because often the people who are in process, whether it be the refugee determination process or any number of other immigration processes, are waiting for a decision to be made.

They may have certain rights to services such as social services, health services, and educational services, but often it's a real struggle to get those rights recognized. An endless amount of time is spent fighting to get those rights, because the various authorities involved don't know quite what to do with this person who is in a provisional sort of status.

That's the positive side. However, where we part company very radically from what is proposed in the report is with the suggestion that those who do not have this provisional status—and it is very easily lost in the terms of the report—cease to have any rights, including the fundamental right to liberty. We cannot accept that people, no matter what their status in Canada, do not have the fundamental human rights. Their status fundamentally is a status as human beings, and that has to be respected.

The Chairman: Ms. Augustine.

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I too want to compliment you for not only the work you do but also your knowledge of the issues and the fact that you were able to be so explicit with us. It seems to me that in any discussion that takes place around the issue, especially when we talk about arbitrariness, we have to look at the profile of who is detained and the process within which you work.

No one has mentioned anything about race or colour or country of origin. It seems to me that in the Canadian setting there seems to be almost a farce. We could sit here and talk about arbitrariness and about procedures of arrest, handcuffs and all those things we're talking about, and not mention the profile of the individual who is often the subject of those measures.

• 1730

Have either of you done any study on the profile of the individual based on gender, race, colour, and country of origin? During the visits you make to the centres, do you see that there are people from any specific area or part of the world or belonging to a particular race or having a particular colour...? How does it affect the discussion?

Ms. Joan Simalchik: I'll be very brief.

I am in the last two years of my study in Toronto. What struck me the most is that if you look at Celebrity Inn and then you look across Airport Road at Pearson airport, where you see a multicultural mix, the vast majority at Celebrity Inn are people of colour.

Ms. Jean Augustine: The conditions there are the worst?

Ms. Joan Simalchik: Yes. The people there are primarily from South Asia and Africa. Previous to that, there were more from Latin America. There still are some, and there's a number from the Middle East and Iran.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. I'm sorry, but I have to stop you there.

We have to make a quick decision on whether or not the committee wants to return. At 1.45 we have a vote; at least it's called for 1.45. By the time there's an actual vote, it might be about 5.55. That means we wouldn't get back here until closer to 6.20 or 6.25. So I think....

Mr. Jacques Saada: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I am of the impression that we might have much more than simply one vote.

The Chairman: Oh.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte: It's a standing vote, so there'll be two.

The Chairman: Oh, there's two. Well, it will be quite some time.

I'd therefore like to thank the members. I'm really impressed with the information. We have been working on the skeleton for some time, and now you people are putting the flesh on it and giving it some life. We're beginning to understand what that machinery is all about and where the weak joints and spots are. Thank you very much.

Ms. Rivka Augenfeld: I'd like to thank you very much for this discussion. We've hardly touched on deportation per se, and I understand the constraints, but I would suggest to you.... Those of us from the different cities—and this is my own idea right now, I haven't consulted with my colleagues—would be happy to meet with members from those cities or come back if you wanted us to come back to talk about deportation.

We think it's an extraordinarily difficult, complex, and important issue. We are sending people back to situations often of great difficulty and danger, and we are violating some of our international obligations when we do it.

We couldn't address it all here, but if the committee were to subdivide and meet with some of us, as long as the results came back to the big committee, that might be one way of doing it. Other groups could also address you on those issues.

The Chairman: Yes, thank you very much. I certainly appreciate it. We really have to look at it in great....

Mr. John Reynolds: I would just like to say that I want to thank you for all this material. Once we have a chance to review it, we may have other questions, at which time we could—

The Chairman: Yes. Give us a chance to read those documents you presented, as well as those two reports you mentioned today. The clerk and the researchers are going to get copies for us. You, I know, will be available at the drop of a pin. Thank you very much for coming.

Members of the committee, before I adjourn the meeting, there will be no meeting tomorrow. I would like all members to celebrate this weekend, because Mr. McKay has finally reached his 39th birthday. I would like you all to celebrate with him.

The meeting is adjourned.