EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, June 7, 1995

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[English]

The Chairman: My name is Gar Knutson. I'm the chair of the subcommittee. I'd like to welcome Mr. Matas and Ms Dench.

You've been in front of parliamentary committees before, so you know the routine. Fire away.

Mr. David Matas (President, Canadian Council for Refugees): Thank you very much for inviting us. I'll just say a few words about the Canadian Council for Refugees for the record.

I'm the president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, and Janet Dench is the working group coordinator. I'm a volunteer, and she's a staff member.

The organization is an umbrella organization of about 135 other organizations that concern themselves with the sponsorship, aid, protection, assistance, and integration of refugees.

I want to commend the committee for discussing this subject of immigration consultancy. It's a topic that's been around for a while. I was part of a task force in 1981 that produced a report on immigration consultants. I've still got the report. It's called The Exploitation of Potential Immigrants by Unscrupulous Consultants, and it was published by the office of the minister of Employment and Immigration in 1981. It proposed a number of solutions and, regrettably, the solutions have not all been implemented and the problem remains with us today.

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I'm a lawyer, but we don't propose to present our submission to you from a lawyer's particular viewpoint. In fact, we want to bring it into a broader perspective. We've prepared something called ``Comments on Immigration Consultants'', and it has 16 points. We've got enough copies for the committee.

We know there are a number of proposals to restrict representation before administrative boards to lawyers. We want to point out that, although the area is in fact complex and lawyers are often best placed to represent a refugee claimant in the refugee determination process, there are good lawyers, bad lawyers, competent lawyers, and incompetent lawyers. There can be a problem when we have a lawyer representing a refugee claimant and the lawyer is inexperienced, incompetent, unknowledgeable, or unmotivated.

I remind members of Parliament that there used to be a system of designated counsel when there were credible basis hearings whereby lawyers were in fact imposed on claimants by law at the credible basis stage. There was no right to choose the lawyer. The lawyer was just given to you by operation of law, and there were rotational lists of lawyers maintained in many provinces. It varied from province to province - in many provinces, simply by accounting firms on a first-come, first-serve basis. Those systems led to a very uneven level of representation.

The Canadian Council for Refugees has had to grapple with this problem of counsel, including legal counsel that's been ineffective and incompetent, and we haven't come with any effective solution today. We have written to law societies, drawing the problem to their attention, but they haven't been very willing to do anything. There have been some attempts at judicial review in the courts, but, by and large, it's been ineffective.

There's one case that we referred to in our notes - the case of Ali Sheikh - in which a lawyer was representing a client and the designated counsel fell asleep during the hearing on three separate occasions, was awakened each time by the adjudicator, and had the case summarized to him. The claimant lost the case, the case went to court on the basis of incompetent counsel, and the claimant failed in the court. I want to read you a sentence from the court judgment. It says:

Given the possibility that a judgment of this kind

- that the lawyer was incompetent -

could found either an action in negligence by the aggrieved client or disciplinary proceedings by the relevant law society, to say nothing of the general loss of reputation on the part of such a sleeping counsel, a Court would want to be sure that its conclusion was warranted before so pronouncing.

And it didn't do it.

So what we see - and this case is a good example - is that the courts are as concerned about the reputations of the lawyers in these situations as they are about the fates of the claimants. There have been some cases in which non-lawyers with incompetent representation have caused the downfalls of the clients, and the courts have intervened on appeal, but I'm not aware of any cases in which incompetent lawyers have led to the downfall of the cases of their clients and the courts have intervened.

The Canadian Bar Association has tried to grapple with this, again in an old report called The Unknown Experts, which came out in 1983 and suggested a form of specialization for the bar that would be self-financed by the bar and would be a voluntary form of certification of specialization; it wouldn't be compulsory. But, again, it's an old report that was a good idea, and nothing got off the ground.

This is a real problem. It's an old problem, and there have been attempts to come to grips with it, and nothing's happened. We encourage the committee to bring this knotty problem to its conclusion.

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There's a second point I want to make, and that's about visa offices overseas. We have problems both in Canada and overseas, and the problems overseas, if anything, are worse than the problems in Canada, because our regulatory system doesn't apply there. The level of ignorance, of course, is a lot higher there. There's a tendency, historically, to throw up our hands in the problem overseas. Yet we feel the problem there is most acute, and we feel something can and should be done.

I was involved in these immigration consultations that took place last year, and I was involved in working group number seven, which dealt with enforcement and where we discussed this very issue. One of the items that, at least from my recollection, there was consensus on was the need for outreach to immigrant communities in countries where there are visa posts abroad to try to inform them more effectively than they've been informed in the past.

There are all sorts of outreach by consultants and travel agents who are doing very fine, thank you, and making a nice living out of giving sometimes good advice and sometimes bad advice, particularly now that the government is charging fantastic amounts to apply for landing to Canada. We believe it would be appropriate that the level of service increase at least to the level at which rumours are dispelled, disinformation be countered, the sometimes blatant misrepresentations that circulate amongst these communities be corrected, and more accessibility and information be available at these visa posts abroad.

The final point I want to make before I hand it over to my colleague to complete our presentation concerns the problem of access to counsel at ports of entry. Right now it is Canadian policy and practice not to allow counsel of any sort, legal or non-legal, competent or incompetent, to claimants who arrive at ports of entry. There's this isolation system, whereby they go through a primary and then secondary examination and counsel is simply not allowed. The Supreme Court of Canada has said that's constitutional.

The reason that impacts on the problem that's before you is that the more you keep out effective or competent counsel from assisting people, the more scope you give for unscrupulous counsel to ply their wares. When somebody who first arrives can't get access to effective and competent legal advice because the government says it will not allow it, they become much easier prey to those who would say anything and everything just to make a buck. We think it's within the purview of this committee when dealing with this issue to deal with the problem of access of counsel at ports of entry.

Those are the comments I wanted to make, and I would ask Janet Dench to complete our presentation.

Ms Janet Dench (Working Group Coordinator, Canadian Council for Refugees): I'm just going to underline for you certain points that are written out in our presentation.

One is the importance of there being a mechanism by which people can make complaints against counsel, whether it be consultants or lawyers - complaints that will be investigated in a thorough manner and acted upon. In the case of lawyers, of course, complaints can be made to the law societies, but it is generally our experience that it is very hard to get together a complaint to claimants. Refugee claimants, in particular, are reluctant to make complaints, and in any case it's hard to be able to give them much encouragement to make such complaints, because in our experience, as David suggested, the law societies, like the courts, have been inclined to put the greatest emphasis on maintaining the reputations of the lawyers rather than ensuring their clients are protected.

For consultants, of course, there is no avenue for making complaints. So if this committee is going to be considering some sort of regulation - licensing of consultants - we would emphasize the importance of having an effective complaints mechanism so that claimants would easily be able to make complaints, they would not be putting themselves at any kind of risk by making complaints, and those complaints would be thoroughly investigated and acted upon.

The second point I wanted to make is that, from our point of view, there is a role in some cases for representatives of non-governmental organizations who are not being paid directly by the client but who have some sort of a relationship because this person has come to them for assistance. They may want to accompany them to some forms of interviews with immigration.

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Representatives have acted as counsel in detention reviews, for example. We feel there is a role for that in certain cases, although in most cases before the Immigration and Refugee Board, for example, we feel people would be best served by having a lawyer.

We would like to see a protected right of access for non-governmental organizations and for others who are not being paid. In fact, we would like to have that right of access re-asserted because it's the experience of some members of the NGO community that when they go to accompany someone, often just to give the person moral support while they're having an interview with an immigration officer, they are told they cannot sit in on that interview.

I'd like to underline the fact that the kinds of problems we're dealing with are not solely about appearances before the Immigration and Refugee Board, which is of course the area covered by the power within the Immigration Act to licensed consultants. There are many consultants who don't intend to appear before the board but who offer, for example, to make submissions on the post-claim risk review, the PDRCCC. They're not appearing before the refugee board, but there's the same need for regulation of consultants because there are some who are incompetent and unscrupulous.

The final point that I want to emphasize is the other side of what David was talking about overseas. There is a need for the department to take up responsibility for ensuring that people in Canada who have dealings with the immigration department have sufficient information so they're not easily exploited by consultants.

Unfortunately, the tendency in the last few years with the progressive withdrawal of access to immigration officers has only increased the problem. While we see fewer and fewer immigration officers around in the main cities, everything is being transferred to the case processing centres in Vegreville and Mississauga. This means that people find it very difficult to get very basic information about their immigration files or about immigration rules in general. I'm sure some of you will know from your own staff who are dealing often with individual cases how difficult it can be to get very basic information about what is going on or what the rules and regulations are.

We feel the department has a responsibility to try to protect its clients against abuse by unscrupulous consultants. It could do this by making sure that both written and oral information is available and that there are people who can give them basic advice so they know what they need to do.

One of the places where this information should be given is at the port of entries. When people first arrive they meet an immigration officer and questions are asked of them. The opportunity should to be taken to ensure that people coming in, especially claimants, are told what their rights are and what to expect so they at least have a little bit of preparatory information when they find themselves approached by consultants or see advertisements that suggest that all of their problems could be solved by engaging this consultant.

I'll stop there. Thank you.

Mr. Matas: Perhaps before we take some questions, I could just make one further point. It's my understanding that Mike Harris's Conservatives have as part of their platform for this election the ending of legal aid for people appearing before administrative tribunals. That would also, of course, cover refugee claimants.

If that indeed does happen, then this problem would get even worse, because our experience in the provinces where there is no legal aid now, in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, is that not many lawyers show up at hearings. It's mostly people by themselves or with non-legal assistants. If that's going to be happening in a large way in Ontario, then the problems that this committee's dealing with are going to multiply many times over.

The Chairman: What would you have us do?

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Mr. Matas: To a certain extent we've been talking about the problems and the solutions are in many different places. I think this is why the problem has never been solved. It's not simply a matter of the federal government passing a regulation. If this was all that had to be done, then I believe it would have been done already.

We're dealing with an area of joint federal-provincial responsibility and the provinces in this area have tended to delegate that responsibility to the law societies. The law societies have a tendency to do nothing. The provinces haven't been very much interested in it because they view this basically as a federal area, even though the power to regulate administratively or license professions is a provincial power.

We tried to grapple with this in the CCR. We've written to the law societies, as I said. What we've also done is approached both the federal and provincial ministers to try to get them to put this on their agenda because the federal and provincial ministers of immigration now meet.

I talked to Peter Harder and to the Manitoba deputy minister who was the chair at the time. They were agreeable, but it just went off to a subcommittee and nothing ever happened.

My own belief is that if we could have a meeting that involved federal people, provincial people, and the law societies and have them discuss only that, it might generate some consensus on the issue.

The Chairman: If you're finished, we'll go to questions. At some point we'll need you to give us a recommendation, assuming the provinces don't necessarily co-operate.

We're working on a two-fold assumption that it would be great if we could get the provinces to do something and we solve the problem. But we don't want this report to be quoted 12 years from now as saying, they looked at it 12 years ago and nothing's ever happened. We want to do everything we can, and I think I speak for the group on that.

Mr. Matas: Some form of certification would be useful. The problem is that the present regulatory scheme only allows for certification in the context of appearance before tribunals. It's too limited.

The certification in the context of the present system would be useful, but even more useful would be a broader certification that would allow not only people who appear before tribunals to be certified but also those who make representations to visa offices, to immigration centres, to ports of entry.

The Chairman: On that note then, we'll go to the questions.

Mr. Nunez.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez (Bourassa): I was late because I had to attend another committee. I thank you for your submission, at least for the part I heard.

Do you know of any examples where the problem has been resolved in other countries, for example in Australia, where a board examines the files of would be consultants, where there is a complaint mechanism, etc.? Are you aware of that?

Mr. Matas: Yes. Yes I know that Australia has legislation on the matter and I have read the Canadian Government's report saying that the system generates many complaints. People say that certification does not guarantee the consultant is competent. But it is an improvement over what we have now.

Mr. Nunez: Is there a similar procedure in the United States?

Mr. Matas: There is no such legislation. In the United States, it is very much the same as in Canada: anybody can do it.

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Mr. Nunez: Could you elaborate a bit more on control and monitoring of immigration consultants abroad? I went to Morocco. It seemed to me that there are many immigration consultants over there. It's a problem. The immigration officer told me that. What could we do to regulate a group of people abroad? Canada has no jurisdiction over this. What could we do?

Mr. Matas: We could do three things. First of all, we could say that if you want to represent someone at an embassy, you must be accredited by the Government of Canada. That's one thing. Secondly, we could give people information about the law, our system and our criteria so that they'll be better informed than they are now. That's the second thing. Thirdly, we could approach foreign governments to ask them to regulate the problem, because it's not a problem to them. If we tell them that it's a problem for us, they may do something.

Mr. Nunez: With regard to the constitutional and jurisdictional issue, these sectors come under provincial jurisdiction and the provinces want to keep them as areas of exclusive jurisdiction. Has the Canadian Council for refugees made representations to the provincial governments in order to have this problem solved?

Mr. Matas: I don't think so. We made representations to the Bar associations and law societies, but not to the provincial governments. I asked the Manitoba Government to put this item on the agenda for the interprovincial conference, but that's all.

Mr. Nunez: Are the errors made by lawyers or consultants a widespread problem? At what level? For instance, what's the most common form of fraud?

Mr. Matas: The most common problem is incompetence rather than fraud. Fraud is rather rare. I live in Winnipeg and I hardly see any cases of fraud. The situation may be different in Montreal.

Ms Dench: To some extent, it depends on how you define fraud. With regard to the lawyers in the NGO sector, one can get the impression that a rather low percentage of lawyers do very good work.

Mr. Matas: Yes, it's mostly a problem of incompetence. There are many lawyers who are not acting fraudulently, but immigration is not their specialty. They do this along with many other things, they accept all clients for all cases and they are very busy. This is a very technical area where the legislation is highly specialized, and they often don't know certain things regarding the people who are claiming refugee status. You have to know the definition and know what is relevant and what is not.

Very often, people have irrelevant information and they don't disclose relevant things. Even though claimants know these things, they don't know that they are relevant nor do the lawyers. Further down the road, it's too late. It's not a problem of fraud, but rather of incompetence.

Mr. Nunez: Incompetence is difficult to prove. If you file a complaint against someone for incompetence, how can you prove it? It's easier to prove fraud, theft or negligence. Even negligence is difficult to prove. But when you're talking about incompetence, there is no mechanism for accrediting consultants...

Mr. Matas: That's what we're saying. There has to be one, even for lawyers.

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Mr. Nunez: For lawyers, you mean? Over and above their membership to the Bar they should...

Mr. Matas: Yes.

Ms Dench: ...obtain a specialization in immigration.

Mr. Nunez: Does the Canadian Bar Association agree with that?

Mr Matas: Yes, the Canadian Bar had agreed. I showed a report containing such a recommendation, but it never was implemented.

Ms Dench: The question was also raised in letters addressed to the provincial law societies. Some were rather in favour of it, others didn't respond. So the question remained open.

Mr. Nunez: Some universities offer specific courses for immigration consultants. The UCAM in Montreal is one example.

Mr. Matas: That's right, but all consultants haven't necessarily taken the course; there are others.

Ms Dench: Training is obviously a key issue; we would like all consultants to be well trained.

Mr. Nunez: Indeed.

[English]

The Chairman: On a point of clarification, there is no rule that requires lawyers to be specialists when they do this kind of work.

Mr. Matas: No. In fact, there's no specialization at all in any of the bar.... I mean, it's all provincial, but to my knowledge there's no bar in any province that has a system of specialization.

The Chairman: Ontario does, but it's more to promote consumer confidence than anything else.

Mr. Matas: I think it's tied to advertising there. You can advertise in a certain way if you go through a certain number of accredited hours, something like that.

The Chairman: Okay.

Ms Dench: One of the advantages of that kind of specialization would be that you could make sure the person has continuing education. In an area like immigration, the law and the rules are changing quite frequently. People need to be brought up to date with relevant changes and case law in refugee determination so, if they haven't been doing it for a few years or they've been doing it but they haven't been reading up, they need to be kept up to date.

The Chairman: Who would like to lead off for the Reform Party?

Mr. Hanger (Calgary Northeast): I gather, Mr. Matas, that you have a major concern with the removal of legal aid, not the removal of it but the hint that this may be coming. I know we are sort of focusing on the illegal consultant side of it. Your recommendation, in a sense, is to clean this thing up while all of these things are happening.

You've got the phoney consultants and the complaints that are coming through about how they're handling or at least representing claimants. Now there's the threat of legal aid that is going to be coming forward - but I don't see where the legal aid fits into the consultant area - then you're talking about wanting a broad certification for those to specifically have access to the visa offices overseas, immigration offices, hearings in general, and certainly the quasi-judicial boards and hearings.

Mr. Matas: That's right. I am suggesting that it all be dealt with at once.

I tie in the legal aid because I see the problem accentuating if lawyers are, in effect, evicted from these hearings. If legal aid is cut off, there still will be some lawyers, they won't be completely evicted. We do have experience with the ending of legal aid in other provinces, in New Brunswick and in Nova Scotia. I do not believe New Brunswick ever had legal aid, but Nova Scotia at one time had legal aid and then they ended it. The experience was that, basically, lawyers disappeared.

It's understandable that once they weren't being paid, they wouldn't show up. Some of them might do it pro bono and some clients might be able to afford it, but there was a marked decrease.

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Once the lawyers disappear, that leaves more room for the non-lawyers. With non-lawyers, you're getting a totally unregulated field, the unscrupulous, the incompetent, and some people who are honest and competent. Admittedly, there are lots of problems with lawyers still, but at least there is a regulatory body in place; we have found it relatively uncaring, but at least it's there. With the consultants, there's nothing at all.

Mr. Hanger: You started out by saying, though, that you're not necessarily against restricting others from this whole area; then you end up saying that basically there should be room only for lawyers to handle any of these areas or matters relating to immigration.

Mr. Matas: No. I would say we should try to keep lawyers in there and we should try to make them specialize, but we do not think it should be restricted only to lawyers.

Mr. Hanger: So the certification and, again, the criteria - this has come up time and time again - would have to be laid out as to what is required. It would need to have a regulatory body to oversee it all and the like for consulting and almost all areas, I would suggest.

Mr. Matas: Yes.

Mr. Hanger: What is wrong with having the immigration officers, if you will, expanded to handle those necessary complaints and whatever procedures there may be that a consultant or a lawyer can't do, or can do?

Mr. Matas: We would like to see the immigration officers' work expanded in this field. There is a lot they can do, such as simply providing more information, dispelling rumours, getting out the programs and outreaching into the communities.

We have consultants putting ads in papers and calling community meetings in foreign countries, and there's no reason why the immigration department officials can't do that as well. We would like to see that. If they did more of it, it would certainly cut down on what we see as a lot of the problems right now. However, it's not a complete answer because immigration officers are not there solely for the purpose of trying to help the people who are trying to come to Canada.

They have a duty to enforce the act. If they see a potential violation of the act in front of them, they have to act on it. They can't turn a blind eye to a violation of the act. If somebody comes to them and gives the impression they're trying to visit in order to stay, they can't advise them. What they have to do is refuse them. They are not just advisers. They're actors in the system.

Sometimes they're adversaries. They may have different views of the interpretation of the law from the person who's in front them. Sometimes the department ends up in court against immigrants. So they're not always in a position simply to help somebody who's coming before them. Sometimes you need somebody else to represent the person concerned.

Mr. Hanger: I wonder how far you can carry that. You have a bureaucracy in place, and certainly they're going to function on the part of the people, if you will. Do you make everything within that bureaucracy, in this case the immigration department, such that you must have a lawyer or a certified person present to handle a complaint or to examine a process or application?

Ms Dench: You could perhaps make an analogy with tax returns and accountants. Some people think they get enough information from the tax department and feel comfortable filling in their own forms. Other people feel the need to seek advice from an accountant or have the accountant fill in the forms for them. You want to be able to know that your accountant is somebody you can trust and that if they are cheating you, you can make a complaint against them. I would see the role of consultants a bit in the same way.

Mr. Hanger: I guess there's a market there. If there's a market for accountants, there will be x number of accountants out there. If there's a market for consultants or lawyers, there will be a number of lawyers out there. I almost get the impression here that we're trying to create a market for lawyers or certified people in this area.

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Ms Dench: But we are saying the opposite. We would like to see the department do a lot more, so more people would not need recourse to a consultant. People may feel they were getting enough information from the department and be quite comfortable filling in their own forms and doing what was necessary.

Mr. Matas: Unfortunately, this is a very complicated area of the law. It's not just me who says this. Many lawyers and judges have remarked on this, that the immigration law is perhaps the most complex area of federal law, rivalling the Income Tax Act. Yet, the people who are dealing with it are people who don't know our laws, our language, or our culture, so it's very easy for them to get confused, misled, and misdirected.

One solution I would suggest - I don't know if we can ever achieve it - is to draft an immigration law so simple that anybody can understand it, no matter what their language or culture is. Then there wouldn't be any need for consultants or lawyers at all. We're a long way from that and I don't expect ever to see it.

However, because of (a) the complexity of the law, and (b) the minimal level of information the people who are dealing with it have, we have a very special problem that's unique to this field.

The Chairman: Are you going to wrap up?

Mr. Hanger: Yes, I have one question here I'd like to ask.

How are you going to get rid of fraudulent refugee claims by regulating consultants?

Mr. Matas: Right now, a lawyer is considered unethical if he participates in a fraud. He is unethical, but he can also be disbarred for it. It's part of the canons of ethics of the Canadian Bar Association and the Law Society of Manitoba and, I expect, every other province, not to participate in a fraud on a tribunal. You can be disbarred for it.

Hopefully, that would also be the case with consultants. You'd set up a canon of ethics with certification. If they did participate in such a fraud, then they would lose their certification. That would be an additional incentive. Of course, people can be prosecuted right now, but when you're dealing with criminal prosecutions, you're dealing with proof beyond a reasonable doubt and it's often more difficult to prove fraud in the criminal courts. It's easier to prove it in civil proceedings. So a system of certification would help in dealing with fraud.

Mr. Hanger: Would a disbarred lawyer have room in the certification? I know there are a number of those sitting in the consulting area right now who actually even hear cases within the IRB.

Mr. Matas: Obviously, that is for the system's certification to decide. My own instinct is that it depends on what the person was disbarred for. If the person was disbarred for fraud, one would think twice at certifying him as an immigration consultant. If he was disbarred for some other reason that had nothing to do with fraud, it may not matter.

The Chairman: For instance, if he had a drinking problem and then 10 years later sobered up and rehabilitated himself.

Mr. Matas: Yes.

The Chairman: Okay. Is that it, Art?

Mr. Hanger: I do have other questions, but if there is time later I'll ask them then.

Mr. Assadourian (Don Valley North): I am sorry for being late. I have a quick question that arises from your previous answer.

Can a disbarred lawyer be a consultant afterward? Isn't it a little against -

Mr. Matas: Absolutely. There is no -

Mr. Assadourian: So we haven't done our business.

Ms Dench: Anybody can be a consultant.

Mr. Assadourian: Being disbarred doesn't mean you cannot be a consultant. You can be a better consultant, actually, because you've been disbarred once so you've nothing to lose.

Mr. Matas: In fact, I've read somewhere - I can't quite remember where - of some disbarred lawyer who was claiming to be a lawyer, even though he'd been disbarred, and representing claimants under these false pretences and not doing all that well at it, either.

It's totally unregulated. The only way it could be regulated under the present system is for the law societies to prosecute these people, or to try to get a prosecution on the basis that they're practising law without a licence. The law societies could do that, but they've shown an extreme reluctance to do that.

Mr. Assadourian: I want to go to my main question that I had intended to put.

Quebec and Canada have an immigration agreement. Would you suggest that this agreement should be revisited? Hopefully, they could do something for the consultants. You mentioned and other people have mentioned in the past that it's overleapt federal and provincial jurisdictions. Is it a feasible solution to open this agreement and then entrench in it clauses to deal with the consultants? Is that the right thing to do? If it is, what can we do to prevent it?

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Mr. Matas: Again, I'm relying on these speaking notes that were put out by the Government of Canada. Apparently the government has approached the provinces, and their attitude is the only way they'd be interested is if the government came out with money to basically pay for everything.

Mr. Assadourian: In the case of Quebec, we pay them some money for certain services, right?

Mr. Matas: Sure, the Government of Canada does pay the Government of Quebec, but not for this. It would mean new money for this. As I understand it, that's what the Government of Quebec would want in order to get involved in regulating this area.

That may be the way to do it, although I hesitate to propose the expenditure of new funds at any time, let alone at this juncture. It's usually not very popular for the federal government simply to give money to the provinces to spend either, but it's a system that might work.

I suppose if we did give money to the provinces to set up a regulatory system for consultants, they might well do it. That's one way of dealing with the problem.

The Chairman: The consultants themselves have offered to bear the costs.

Mr. Matas: Indeed, and that was the bar's proposal - that the lawyers who go through certification would bear the cost of certification. I believe it could be a self-financing system, but there's the question of somehow mobilizing the provinces, if that's where the regulatory power is, and what the incentive is for them.

Maybe they don't have to feel they're making a profit, but at least they have to feel they're not incurring a substantial expense as a result of it. At least initially, the money is probably not going to come from an unorganized group of consultants, although it may.

Mr. Assadourian: Earlier I read one of the researcher's documents, which says lawyers or other individuals - I believe that was the wording - can represent any person in the tribunal for immigration or refugees. If we remove the words ``or other individuals'', will that solve the problem as you see it?

Mr. Matas: Well, it would solve the problem of non-legal consultants, but it wouldn't solve the problem of lawyers. As I say, the problem isn't just consultants. From what we see, we still have lawyers who are not doing a proper job.

Mr. Assadourian: If you go to lawyers, in every kind of law, you get the good ones and the bad ones. It's not unique to immigration. But consultants are unique to immigration, right? That's what we're discussing.

Mr. Matas: Janet mentioned the problem of taxes. We have accountants and non-accountants doing taxes.

Mr. Assadourian: There is a system in the law society to punish those who -

Mr. Matas: They have a system, but it doesn't work. We have approached all of the law societies and they're not interested.

Ms Dench: I'd just like to add also that the problem is not limited to the Immigration and Refugee Board appearance before this tribunal, because the consultants are also giving advice to people without appearing before the tribunal.

If you made the amendment you're suggesting, that would not totally solve the problem of immigration consultants. They could still continue to give advice; they could still make submissions to visa posts and to the immigration department.

Mr. Assadourian: I know from the visitations to my office that a lot of money is paid to these consultants on a cash basis. They don't report their income, or they report part of their income. Would you suggest that if the person doesn't receive the service and he or she pays for it, they report income tax fraud?

Mr. Matas: People should report their income and there should be a way of getting at them if they don't, but that's not going to solve this problem.

Mr. Assadourian: What will solve the problem then?

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Mr. Matas: First of all, it's not just a non-lawyers' problem; it's a problem of both lawyers and non-lawyers. Secondly, it's not just a problem before the board; it's a problem with visa offices as well. It's not that all non-legal consultants are bad; some of them are good.

What solves the problem is a system of certification across the board that covers all services of lawyers and non-lawyers and that includes a component of outreach, where the department itself does a lot more in putting out information. That to my mind would be a solution.

Mr. Assadourian: Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Loney, do you have anything?

Mr. Loney (Edmonton North): I had two concerns. Mr. Matas answered one before I asked the question, and you were raising the other question, so I'll pass for now.

The Chairman: Apparently the meeting at 7:30 has been cancelled, so we're not working to a 7:30 deadline. We'll keep going for a bit if everyone is agreed. That means this group will work past 7:30, if that's okay.

Mr. Hanger: I'm going to be leaving shortly, but my colleague, Philip, will be remaining.

The Chairman: If, for example, we're prepared to work until 8 p.m., I need to confirm that we can continue and spend more time with this witness and not short-change our next witness.

Mr. Hanger: That's fair enough.

The Chairman: Mr. Nunez, then.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: We have heard from representatives of the Ontario Consultants Organization, which also has affiliates outside Ontario. These representatives were mostly former public servants with the Department of Immigration. How do you perceive this problem? I asked some of them if they had waited for a certain period before starting to work as consultants. One of them told me that he had waited one year and the other told me he had started working as a consultant immediately. Do you see a conflict of interest in the fact that these public servants have had privileged contacts with other public servants still employed in this capacity? Could any specific problems arise out of this?

Mr. Matas: This is not a problem that the Canadian Council for Refugees has examined. The problem I would see is this: if someone worked at the Department and becomes a consultant afterwards, there may be some possibility that his clients will be favoured. This may be a real or apparent danger.

I think this has to be solved through a code of conduct in the department. It's not a problem of competence or fraud. Maybe those people are more competent one day after leaving the Public Service than one year after because they're more up to date. But they may give an impression of favouritism and that constitutes yet another problem.

To be honest, we have not examined this problem in depth.

Mr. Nunez: You mentioned in your presentation that if there is a large number of immigration consultants, it's because of cutbacks in the Department of Immigration. There are not enough people who can inform clients, refugee claimants or immigrants. In Montreal, it can happen that the only person that can provide information on how to fill out a form is the security guard. It's unbelievable! Is this a cross-Canada phenomenon? It's a problem everywhere. How do you see it?

Mr. Matas: It's not just because of staff reductions. It's also because a lot of staff has been transferred to inaccessible places such as Vegreville and Mississauga. These are immigration form processing plants. There are a lot of people, but you can't phone them or see them. They stay holed up in this plant with their forms. After a few days or a few weeks, they send these forms back if they're not filled in correctly. This is not a system that's accessible to foreigners.

.1840

Ms Dench: The lack of information can also be attributed to the lack of publicity about program changes. I'm thinking in particular of the IMRED program that was announced last year by the minister, but that was never publicized through an information campaign targeted at the people who are most likely to be affected by this program. So, there is a change.

There are people who had the opportunity to apply for permanent residency in Canada, but who did not know it because the department had done very little or even nothing to inform people of the existence of the program.

Mr. Nunez: My question was somewhat more general in scope. In the current situation, given the cutbacks within the government in general and the Department of Immigration in particular, will the problem of consultants worsen?

Mr. Matas: If there is ignorance, a lack of information, a lack of staff, others will come along to fill the void.

[English]

The Chairman: We're on five-minute rounds this time, so could you make this your last one?

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: Many people who came before us proposed that the problem could be partly solved if immigration consultants were forced to work under the supervision of a lawyer. How do you feel about this?

Mr. Matas: Yes, but who'll supervise the lawyer? One cannot say that lawyers know everything and consultants nothing. The opposite is often true. We have consultants who are very well informed and new lawyers who don't know very much.

Mr. Nunez: Thank you.

[English]

Mr. Mayfield (Cariboo - Chilcotin): I have a couple of questions.

Your submission number 8 mentions that the Immigration Act gives the government the power to regulate licensing. The concluding sentence says it seems as though this has fallen between the federal and provincial chairs. I wonder if you could elaborate on why that would be the case.

Mr. Matas: If they were to license consultants more generally, rather than just for appearing before the board, it would have to be done provincially.

If you look at the regulation of professions, that is done by the provinces. The law societies, the doctors and so on - all the professions - are regulated by the provinces. If we were going to have a system of regulation of immigration consultants, that presumably -

Mr. Mayfield: I'm aware of that. I see it says the Immigration Act gives the government power to regulate licensing, and I'm interested in what you have to say about that. If it does have that power, why has it not been used?

Going on to the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments, perhaps we're into a constitutional issue on that.

Mr. Matas: It's not a constitutional issue in the sense that both want to do it and they can't agree. It's that neither wants to do it; that's the problem. Constitutionally, immigration is a shared responsibility. It's concurrent. Theoretically both could do it or either could do it. So far neither has done it.

.1845

Why has the federal government not done it up until now? Partly for some of the reasons we've been expressing. Dealing with non-lawyers only and with appearance before regulatory tribunals is a small part of the problem. There's all the stuff that happens at visa offices, at immigration centres, and by written representations. There's also the situation with lawyers, which can be problematic.

To just say that for a fee you're going to regulate non-lawyers before boards solves that problem, but not the rest of the problems. You'd be setting up an elaborate and presumably cumbersome or expensive regulatory and certification structure to deal with what's only part of the problem.

To a certain extent, what I think has led to this inactivity is we have a regulatory power that's mismatched with the problem it's supposedly trying to deal with.

Mr. Mayfield: How do you see us solving this problem?

Mr. Matas: As I say, there are three different approaches. One is partly simply a matter of education - of getting immigration and visa officers out there, of distributing pamphlets to the public, and so on. It's not simply a regulatory problem; it's a matter of public outreach. That's one solution.

I think we have to broaden the regulatory power so it isn't just related to non-lawyers appearing before administrative tribunals, but covers everything. It could cover lawyers and non-lawyers. It could cover immigration centres and visa offices.

We also have to get the provinces involved, because this is, after all, a joint jurisdictional area.

Mr. Mayfield: Is there a way of doing this without creating a closed shop?

Mr. Matas: No. That's what certification is. It's a closed shop.

Mr. Mayfield: So somebody has to say no.

Mr. Matas: Yes. You're certified or you're not certified.

Mr. Hanger: Who's going to say no?

Mr. Matas: It would be the certification authority. It would be presumably an independent agency like the regulatory bodies now for the law society or the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Mr. Mayfield: It's been suggested that a way of pushing in this direction would be for the immigration department to have nothing to do with anyone who is not certified and leave the consultants to pound on their respective provincial governments for the certification process to be implemented. Do you see that as a way of pushing the issue?

Mr. Matas: It certainly would push the issue, but it's looking to other people to solve the problem. Particularly for this committee, which is addressing the problem, I would encourage you to try to address it directly rather than push it onto somebody else to solve.

Mr. Hanger: Maybe you could clarify a point for me. I don't know of any federally regulated organization of which you speak that's built right into the act. I'm wondering if you know of any yourself, being in the legal profession.

Mr. Matas: No, I can't say I can think offhand of something that has some sort of federal certification. The closest thing I can think of is, for example, you can be incorporated federally or provincially.

Mr. Hanger: We're looking at legislation that's going to -

Mr. Matas: As I say, this is unique in a number of different ways. One of the ways it's unique is we're dealing with an area within federal jurisdiction.

After all, normally the regulation of the professions is done provincially. It's quite common. Every province regulates all sorts of professions. They regulate real estate agents. They regulate pharmacists. You name it. There are quite long lists of regulated professions, and for the provinces to do this it would be nothing out of the ordinary. The reason it has become such a problem is that the provinces aren't interested, because legislatively the area has become federal.

.1850

Normally, the regulation of a profession is part of a statute that deals with the whole subject-matter, so that you will have a law society act that regulates the law profession and deals with law society act matters generally. There's an optometrist's act and a physician's act and a whole bunch of provincial acts like that, but here we have an Immigration Act that doesn't regulate. None of the provinces has an immigration act that does either, and that's why we make the statement here that it's fallen between the two chairs. It's because of this division of responsibility that this area, which everywhere else is provincial - at least mostly it's federal - it's disappeared from view. It just hasn't been dealt with.

The Chairman: I need to go to the Liberals.

Mr. Assadourian: Correct me if I'm wrong, but in 1988-89 there were about 100,000 backlog cases.

Mr. Matas: Yes - the old backlog.

Mr. Assadourian: I would think mostly because of that backlog we had this bigger bill from the previous government. They wanted to find this electronic system or a station where everything will be solved by pushing the buttons and what have you. Am I right so far?

Mr. Matas: Yes.

Mr. Assadourian: Same with Mississauga, mind you.

Mr. Matas: I frankly don't know the answer to that. The bureaucrats I talked to about Vegreville never talked about it in terms of its being there because of the backlog. They talked about it as being more efficient.

Mr. Assadourian: To speed up the process. The fact is today we were told by the minister that we don't have a backlog.

Is it possible because these consultants suck the blood of innocent people by writing a sentence there or answering the question more accurately than the individual does - he or she wouldn't know the answer, or putting in the wrong answer, misses a form or whatever - for that causes delays and delay costs money to this individual?

If you close Vegreville and Mississauga and go back to the old system because you don't have any more backlogs and do the work properly by the individual there, this way you'd be eliminating the consultant. I'd be able to go to the office and if I have something wrong on my application, this person at the window could be able to say, listen, you've got this wrong, you better change this or put an x here or don't put an x there. So that would solve lots of problems for everybody - for the individual, for the service that we provide - and also eliminate the vast majority of the work that consultants claim they do and they get paid for it.

Would you agree with the fact that to change this system we have from electronic back to manual, because of the fact that we don't have a backlog, will provide better person-to-person service, hopefully, and cut the work of consultants?

Ms Dench: I think we would certainly support bringing the immigration officers back closer to the people and giving them direct access to them. We have never been in favour of Vegreville.

Mr. Assadourian: So would you support the cancellation or closing down of Vegreville?

Ms Dench: Yes.

Mr. Matas: That's not going to be the complete answer. It would help. It's a contribution.

I don't see the cancellation of Vegreville as a likelihood, although we've never been quite happy with it. Even if Vegreville continues, it is still important to get immigration officers at the local offices who are accessible to the population and who can help them fill out the forms, and that's part of the solution to the problem of consultants.

Mr. Assadourian: I see that since 1989 we had these consultants - before then I had never heard of consultants. The minute we had the backlog, we had all these consultants running all over the place, cheating the people of their money and cash savings or whatever. Before I'd never heard of the word ``consultants'' in immigration. You go there whether you are an immigrant or a non-immigrant. It's as simple as that.

.1855

Mr. Matas: I would say this: every new program brings a new opportunity for consultants, especially when it's not explained. We've seen this with DROC, with DIRB, with the backlog application process. They use it as a form of advertising or self-promotion.

Frankly, as I said before, if they can promote it, I don't see why the government can't. If they can make money out of it, I don't see why the government can't.

Mr. Assadourian: With all the changes we've put so far in this immigration system I believe if you bring back the personal human touch with the applicants and eliminate this ``Push button one for French service; push button four for social insurance number'' and so on.... Most people don't understand it anyway, especially those who need the service.

Most people who go to consultants come from overseas. They're not fluent in either French or in English, so they have to know one of their own to ask them for their services.

Mr. Matas: Again, there's no reason why the immigration department cannot get people from the immigrant communities to assist them in delivering the message.

Mr. Assadourian: Would it be cheaper?

Mr. Matas: In terms of cost to society it would certainly be cheaper for the immigrants than having to deal with consultants. Some of them are fine, but what we're dealing with is the problem consultants. For the problem consultants they're a lot better off dealing directly with the department.

Mr. Assadourian: That's right - if you have a department, though. If you don't have a department, the person has no choice but to go to a consultant.

We eliminated the choice the individual expects from us, from the government, so where do you want to go? You have to go to either a consultant or a lawyer and expose yourself and your lifelong savings to these individuals.

The Chairman: I have to cut you off there.

I'd just like to push you hard on a point. Assume you're Minister of Immigration and the provinces are not going to cooperate. You have no money unless you want to take it out of settlement hearings. Yes, education will solve part of the problem, but you don't want to be labelled with: well, there goes another immigration minister who didn't deal as directly and effectively with this problem as he or she could have. What would you do given those parameters?

Mr. Matas: It's hard to know. I certainly would like to explore whether it would be possible to get more information out there from the department to the communities simply by rearranging the budget without spending more money, because I think that's an important part of the problem.

I think the regulatory power has to be changed so that it's not limited just to administrative tribunals, because it's too narrow right now. It's also limited just to non-lawyers. Then I would approach -

The Chairman: Will you just stay with that for a second? Do you change the act, amend the act?

Mr. Matas: Change the act, that's right. Amend the act, expand the regulatory power. You see here we have a proposal from the bar - it's admittedly just a committee of the bar - that recommends a self-financing certification system within the bar. I would look for this from both the bar and the consultants.

The Chairman: That means we're not going to let lawyers in per se, but only certified lawyers. You're going to have an extra level of certification for, say, a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. Is that what you're recommending?

Mr. Matas: Yes, but in effect, I would have a uniform system of certification that wouldn't discriminate between lawyers and non-lawyers. You see, what the act does now is to assume lawyers are all right, and there is a certain minimal level at which they're all right, but we need more than this.

The Chairman: Okay, what else?

Mr. Matas: I also think it's worthwhile getting the provinces involved.

The Chairman: Now you've stepped out of the parameters of my question.

Mr. Matas: If we do that, if we have a system of education.... There are three things here: first, education; second, certification that's much broader legislatively; and third, we actually set up a system of certification.

.1900

There is something else I would suggest - it's something I mentioned in answer to a question - and that is to approach foreign governments to get them to regulate the problem overseas. I think we can do that with little cost, and they might in fact be willing to do it.

The Chairman: Would this system of certification also apply to people approaching embassies or consulates overseas?

Mr. Matas: Yes, I would like to see the power put in the act to do that and then have it done, so that we could and would encourage the system of self-financed certification for people operating a visa post overseas, as well as within Canada.

The Chairman: Ms Dench, have you anything to add?

Ms Dench: No.

The Chairman: I would just say, in closing, that the minister is anxious for us to come up with a real solution.

Mr. Mayfield: Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to ask one question, to push on from where you were going.

You've mentioned education a couple of times now. I'd like to have you talk a little bit about what you mean by education. Your comments have been pretty general, and I'd like you to make them a bit more specific just so I understand what you have in mind about this.

Mr. Matas: Let's be very specific. DROC, the deferred removal orders class, is an example. It's a new program; it's very technical and not very well understood. There is some literature about it, but it's not that easily accessible. I would like to see the government develop a profile of where the communities are and where these people are.

Many of them are within the Chinese community, because we know the deferred removal class consists of people who are here three years or more who have been in constant touch with immigration and haven't gone underground, but nothing's happened to the case. Basically, we haven't removed them, because we don't remove people to these countries, and we know the countries we're not removing people to. So we can go into the communities, and we can have people who speak the local languages - Mandarin, Cantonese, and what have you - say this is the program, this is how you apply for it, these are the criteria, these are forms, this is where you get them, and this is how you fill them out.

If you do that, you're cutting the ground from underneath the consultants. You're offering the service that consultants would offer, maybe well, maybe badly - but you remove the need for them. You therefore remove the problem where there is a problem.

Ms Dench: I would just like to add here the importance at the individual level of, for example, the immigration officer at the port of entry offering literature to the claimant who comes in, telling people what their rights are, what they can expect of the process, to beware of people who might be trying to take money for services they don't need to pay for, and that sort of thing.

Mr. Hanger: So many of the settlement services provide that kind of advice, too.

Ms Dench: They do, yes.

Mr. Hanger: For instance, I was down in Vancouver, and the success.... The settlement services in Chinatown offer anything you would want to know about immigration services.

Ms Dench: This is true. The NGOs do fulfil this role. But many of them will also tell you that sometimes the people have already paid a lot of money to the consultant before they come the way of the agency.

Mr. Hanger: Yes, that's true.

Mr. Matas: Of course, the settlement agencies are overworked and underfinanced. They do a lot, but it's important not to expect them simply to be deliverers of government services without paying them to do that, because they just don't have the personnel and the capacity to do that.

The Chairman: The point I was going to make was that we're not likely going to write a report in the next couple of weeks, but if you think of anything within the context of....

I've tried to give you some helpful information, so if you want to send us anything after tonight, I think you might find that your energy is well rewarded.

Mr. Matas: We will share this discussion with our colleagues and ask them to join us in thinking about it further. We did consult, before we came here, with people in the council who might be interested. That's how we got together this presentation. We'll continue to do that.

.1905

The Chairman: I know I speak for the group here when I say our appetite is quite genuine in terms of solving the problem, and I think the minister feels the same way.

Mr. Matas: Okay.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

We'll take a break now.

.1906

PAUSE

.1913

The Chairman: Members, we now welcome Professor Buckley to Ottawa and to this subcommittee.

Professor Frank Buckley (Individual Presentation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm delighted to be here. I'm very proud to be here. I'm a professor at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. I am a Canadian citizen. I've taught for many years at McGill University and practised law in Toronto. I am originally from Saskatchewan.

I had some lengthier remarks, which are available and which anyone so disposed can look at if he wants. I also have a bigger pile of material, which is an article I've written that will be published in a book by Cambridge University Press on the market for migrants. That's a paper on international migration. I also have a paper on internal migration within the United States. Migration is an academic interest of mine, more as an economist, perhaps, than as a lawyer.

My message here is very simple, Mr. Chairman. My message is essentially to stay the course. My message is that with all the faults that have been mentioned and all the criticisms that have been levelled at the Canadian immigration system, it is far superior to that of the United States.

.1915

I say that, Mr. Chairman, not simply as a Canadian in the United States. I think it is the opinion of most immigration specialists in the United States that wherever you are in the spectrum, the Canadian system is greatly superior to the American system. I'll mention a few reasons why that is the case.

The basic message is that economic studies comparing the two countries suggest that on the market for migrants, Canada has simply beaten the United States hands down. It's not done so by cream skimming, and it's not done so by taking in a small group of very highly qualified immigrants. It takes in large numbers of immigrants per capita, considerably more than the United States.

The foreign-born population in this country, Mr. Chairman, is about 20%; the foreign-born population in the United States is about 8%. Think about that for a moment and realize what a controversial issue immigration is in the United States. God only knows what would be going on in California right now if the immigration levels in the United States were at the Canadian 20% level.

Moreover, Mr. Chairman, we've not done this by being purely mercenary. We have a generous refugee program. Indeed, the per capita intake of refugees in Canada exceeds the per capita intake of refugees plus illegal immigrants in the United States. You'll recall what a big issue the illegals are in the United States.

We have a system that is fair and generous, but is also a system that works very well.

My point is that there is a market for migrants and that Canada has beaten the United States in the market for migrants. I'd like to talk briefly about how countries compete in the market for migrants.

Countries compete, of course, by having different political structures. The last time I looked, Mr. Chairman, refugees went from Havana to Miami, not the other way around.

They compete in terms of economics. Obviously there's a migration to the more prosperous states. States also compete for migrants. Here I mean not only states in the international sense, but also provinces, through fiscal and welfare policies. States compete through screening mechanisms, such as the Canadian point system.

This is a diagram that I am going to place on the board. This simple double bell diagram is meant to illustrate essentially Canadian and American immigration policies. Think of the two curves as representing first of all on the horizontal, percentages, and on the vertical, dollars. There will be a migration of migrants up to the right, generally to the more prosperous countries.

What happens, however, when you have two countries that are about equally prosperous, namely the United States and Canada? While they are roughly equally prosperous, there is one difference between the two countries in their fiscal and welfare policies. I think Canada is generally a more generous country in terms of its welfare policies, but it also taxes people a bit more at the top end. Certainly I observed when I moved from Quebec to the United States, my tax scenario changed dramatically.

What does that mean in terms of migration effects? Remember the migration trends will be to the right. Supposing we have people over here. This flatter curve would represent the United States, and the narrow one would represent Canada. Supposing we have people at the lower end in the United States. It is to their advantage to migrate to a country with a more generous welfare policy.

For migrants at the top end in Canada, over here, they have an incentive to migrate to a country with a lower marginal tax structure, as the United States does.

The point simply is that there are observed fiscal and welfare differences between the two countries that seem to have some explanatory power in terms of migration between Canada and the United States.

I've gone through this by way of making a point about the Diminishing Returns study.

The Chairman: Are you saying that the person at the far left of that graph would go to the United States?

Prof. Buckley: People generally would move towards the right, towards higher returns. The horizontal axis represents dollars. For Canadians who are on this curve, they can better themselves by moving to the United States and partaking of a tax system that is more generous to upper-income earners.

.1920

The Chairman: I understand that. If you just point your pen on the far left, who is that?

Prof. Buckley: The flat curve is the United States, so the point is that lower down in the curve you have people receiving welfare in the United States who might do better moving to Canada or to a country that has arguably a more generous welfare system.

The Chairman: All right.

Prof. Buckley: That's the point, simply. There is some empirical evidence that this explains U.S.-Canada immigration patterns.

The point I wanted to make was a rather different one, and it's about the Diminishing Returns study. The point here simply is that there appears to be a cohort effect in immigration in Canada.

It does appear to be the case that immigrants 40 years ago offered more to Canadians in terms of return than is the case presently. Why should we be surprised at that? If you consider the countries these people were leaving 40 or 50 years ago, the devastated countries of western and eastern Europe, of course it's the case that one could better oneself rather easily by moving to a more prosperous Canada.

We couldn't hope to recreate the situation that obtained in those years, unless we wished similar devastation upon Europe. We're simply not going to compete in that way as we did formerly. On the market for migrants at that point, having a stable economy and a democratic government was like a licence to print money.

Even 20 years ago, where again it appears that the cohorts were superior to present cohorts, going back to the 1970s, we go back to a period prior to the Reagan fiscal revolution where marginal tax rates in many European countries were 90% at the top end. At that particular point, again it didn't take a genius to attract entrepreneurs from western Europe. They were fleeing countries like England at that particular point.

What has happened since then was the Reagan fiscal revolution, where marginal tax rates at the top end went tumbling down.

We're in a much more competitive environment. It's not that we're having difficulty competing with the United States, but we are having greater difficulty competing with traditional exporting countries, like countries of western and southern Europe. It's just harder to do so. That in itself would explain a fair bit of any evidence of Diminishing Returns as presented in this book.

I had some comments I was going to make at this point about the American experience. I think I'll pass on them at this particular point, if only because I find it rather difficult to use my left hand and to write in the margin on transparencies.

I think rather than talk about what Americans do wrong, at this point I'd like to talk about what it is Canada does right in the market for migrants as opposed to the United States.

First of all, it offers a hospitable society. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence about this sort of thing. There's a story that when the Reichmann father came to America right after World War II, he spent a few days in New York, said that wasn't for him, and moved up to Montreal immediately.

I suspect there's still a little bit of that - probably a fair bit of that, in fact.

I think the secret behind the Canadian success has to do, more than anything else, with the ratio of economic immigrants to non-economic immigrants. I did an econometric study of what motivated migrants to the United States. During the period of my study, 1985 to 1991, about 5% of migrants to the United States were economic migrants. A comparable figure for Canadians at that particular point, over that period, was 35%.

The minister proposes in the Broader Vision plan of last November to take that figure up around 50%. That strikes me as an excellent example of the way in which Canada has done extremely well on the market for migrants. In addition, the Canadian system, as opposed to the American system, emphasizes predictability through the point system.

.1925

The previous speaker talked about the complexity of the Canadian immigration system. I assure you, Mr. Chairman, it is much simpler than anything you would hope to find in the American system. I know because I had to fight with the American system to get down there.

For example, the first employment preference category allocates 28% of the total economic slots to priority workers, which includes applicants of extraordinary ability who can demonstrate that they have enjoyed sustained national or international acclaim. I looked at those terms and I said that wasn't me, but was told very quickly it doesn't mean much.

By the way, the regulations add helpfully that winning the Nobel Prize would work.

These terms are not defined, and you walk into the country not knowing what they mean. All you know is that you're going down there for a couple of years and you're going to take a gamble not just on your new employer also that two or three years later you will get your green card. The chances are pretty high, but for top-end economic migrants, these are the people who are least likely to want to gamble with their human capital over the next 20 or 30 years.

The Canadian system emphasizing certainty through the point system is immeasurably superior to the American system. In addition, the Canadian system, though it takes a while, is yet considerably faster than the American one. One reason for that is labour certification in the United States. Before anyone can get a job as an economic immigrant, you require a certificate from the U.S. Department of Labour that there is no comparable qualified American worker. That process takes about a year. The immigration process after that takes roughly another year.

The Canadian system by contrast takes on average about 12 months for economic immigrants. One thing I should add is that the need for lawyers is obviously higher the more complex the legal regime.

In addition, the Canadian system emphasizes flexibility. It is a system in which changes are not legislated by Parliament as they are legislated by Congress in the United States. All these categories are legislated by Congress, and therefore when Americans encounter a failure in their system, they can't fix it as fast as the Canadians can.

The last thing Canada does right, Mr. Chairman, is to offer much more than the United States the benefits of federalism. It may be that the benefits of federalism could be expanded, but contrast the Canadian system with the United States', where at present governors of three states are suing the Justice Department for the non-compliance of the feds with immigration requirements.

The level of contentiousness in the United States, as evidenced by California Proposition 187, vastly exceeds anything you would be aware of in the Canadian experience. As I say, one reason for that is a willingness on the part of the Canadians to welcome the input of the provinces.

I would suggest there is a benefit to expanding the devolution of powers to the provinces with respect to immigration matters. The impact of immigrants is felt most closely upon the place where they live, and one would have thought that the government closest to the place where they live would ordinarily be the government that could best judge those external effects for better or for worse.

I therefore suggest, in general, Mr. Chairman, that first, Canada has done better than the United States in the market for migrants. Second, I applaud the minister for the plans he proposes in his Broader Vision study of last November.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Nunez.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: Thank you, professor Buckley. I listened to you closely and I think that I will also read your document. I think that you are the ideal person to tell us what's going on in the States. We often follow their example. But sometimes, it's not for the best.

.1930

You say that the United States accept less refugees, less immigrants per capita. You know that in Canada immigration levels have been reduced for 1995. And they will probably be reduced even more next year. You know Canada well. What would the ideal number be for Canada? How many immigrants and refugees does the United States take in?

[English]

Prof. Buckley: I'm sorry, could you repeat the last part of that?

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: You know that Canada will welcome less immigrants this year compared to last year. Next year, it will probably be even less. We are trying here to see what the ideal number would be.

Prof Buckley: There is no deal number.

Mr. Nunez: But what do you think it should be for Canada, right now?

Prof. Buckley: I do not think there is an ideal situation or an ideal number.

[English]

I think the thing that is most important is that Canada maintain its flexibility with respect to the cohorts of immigrants arriving in the country. Rather than starting by saying there is this magic number, I think what is most important is taking a look at the people coming over and assessing whether or not they will be of benefit to Canada.

I think the Americans approach immigration on that basis. The Americans approach immigration on the basis of let's find a right number and just do it, which is basically what the Jordan report, which I guess will be released today, will recommend in the United States.

I am aware the minister has targets with respect to what immigration levels will be, but as you know, the actual numbers frequently bear little relation to what the proposals were. There has been a decline in immigrants in the last couple of years from expected levels, which I would guess is basically a function of Canada's changed economic situation. The Canadian deficit, as you know, represents increased taxes in the future, so people coming to Canada now are looking at a higher tax bill for the rest of their life than was the case 10 years ago. I would expect there are those kinds of changes going on.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: Could you tell us a few words about migrations between Canada and the United States? Do you know how many Canadians migrate to the United States every year and for what reasons? You say that Canada is more generous than the United States in the area of immigration. How do you explain the fact that thousands of immigrants come to Canada in the only hope to go to the States one day?

[English]

Prof. Buckley: I certainly don't want to suggest that - I think one would be worried if one spotted something like welfare-motivated migration. My study with respect to American migration trends revealed that something like that seemed to be at work. I don't want to suggest that - In fact, I can't comment on the extent to which this is a major problem in Canada. I can comment on the extent to which it's a problem in the United States.

As far as Canada is concerned, George Borjas has reported there was a movement of less-well-off Americans to Canada and more-well-off Canadians to the United States. The difference in the cohort seems to me to be explained in terms of fiscal and welfare considerations. But as to the extent to which this is a major determinant in Canada, that I'm not prepared to say. I would think far less than the United States where, indeed, the welfare system is less generous.

The difference has to do with the Canadian screening system and the fact that the points system represents more of a hurdle than does the American immigration system.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: You say that different countries are now competing for immigrants. You probably know that in Canada a landing fee of $975 is charged since last February.

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Would these fees have an impact on immigration?

[English]

Prof. Buckley: I certainly wouldn't want to make any comments as whether or not such fees should properly be levied as to refugees. It seems to me that it's proper to leave the refugee issue off-table as far as those fees are concerned.

I think we can also agree that as far as economic immigrants, this is small potatoes. With respect to the family class, that seems to me where reasonable people might disagree. The only thing I would want to say is it would be important for Canadians and for every person in an immigration country to recognize that these issues don't exist in isolation; you also have to look at what your competitors are doing.

Of course, as you know, the Australians have pioneered the system of requiring bonds for family-class entrants. In addition, however, the American Personal Responsibility Act, passed by the House of Representatives last March, would deny all welfare benefits of every kind offered by the federal government to legal immigrants in addition to illegal immigrants. Nothing comparable to that, of course, exists in Canada. The Canadian system, perhaps, will charge you a bit up front, but once you're here you are on board.

The Republican-controlled Congress offers an entirely different vision. At that point, the $975 fee will again, perhaps, look like a quite trivial charge as far as even family-class immigrants. It seems to me that when you look at the issue, what you cannot do is just concentrate on the $975. What you have to do is take a look at all of the benefits and burdens offered to people moving to one country or another. At that point, the $975 will look like rather small stuff, if in fact it goes through.

The Chairman: It will go through.

Mr. Nunez: This landing tax applies also to refugees?

Mr. Assadourian: Landing fees; not taxes.

Prof. Buckley: I don't want to say anything about refugees. It seems to me reasonable that this might be an issue off-table. It's easy to imagine a situation with a refugee arriving in the country in desperate circumstances being hit with a charge of $975 and regarding this as slightly outrageous. On the other hand, one should note that many refugees arrived in this country over a long period in our history, but particularly after World War II, to establish networks of ethnic groups that supported them, and for which this $975 might be small stuff.

I think I'd prefer to say nothing about refugees. I don't have problems with charging user fees to economic immigrants and I really don't have a great problem as to families. Refugees - that's something else.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: As you know, immigration is a shared responsibility between the federal government and the provinces and there are provinces, Quebec among them, that are asking for more powers in this field. What do you think about it? Should immigration be further decentralized? You briefly dealt with this issue.

[English]

Prof. Buckley: I suggested the Canadian system of federalism looked pretty good to me from the perspective of the United States, with all the federal-state controversies going on there.

The Chairman: They're not having a referendum.

Prof. Buckley: Federalism and the devolution of powers to provinces offer two advantages. The first advantage is simply that the level of government closest to the impact of the immigrants would have a say in what's going on.

The second advantage of a provincial role in immigration is that the provinces offer the great laboratory of democracy. It would be interesting to see the different approaches that might emerge if different provinces, having vastly different views about immigration, were permitted to take their own position in the market for migrants.

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I suggest that the competition for migrants, if it devolved to the provincial level, might indeed be quite benign. The strongest argument, it seems to me, against devolution of responsibility to the provinces is a concern that the race might not be to the top but the race might be to the bottom, in the sense that provinces would compete for less valuable immigrants, perhaps with the idea that they might charge some kind of entry fee to immigrants who might afterwards emigrate to another state.

That particular concern would suggest to me the following: that if you wanted to permit greater devolution of immigration responsibilities to provinces like Quebec, you would also want to ensure that other provinces could cure the problem I just referred to by imposing residency requirements on arrivals from other provinces before they could make use of the welfare system.

That, by the way, is an extremely controversial issue in the United States and is due to be dealt with by the Supreme Court this month. This is a vastly greater problem in the United States, as states begin to experiment with differential welfare pay-outs.

The Chairman: It is controversial here as well. And after tomorrow, it may even be more so.

Mr. Mayfield.

Mr. Mayfield: I'm particularly interested in the provincial area. I've enjoyed your conversation on that.

I'll pass to the Liberals.

The Chairman: Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Assadourian: I've really enjoyed your comments. I wonder why my colleague here will not compliment you more by asking you a question.

I regret that we don't have too many members here to listen and enjoy your comments, especially from the opposition side, when you speak about federalism and the right decision this government made in the November 1 announcement.

I have two questions. First, you mentioned that foreign-born Canadians in Canada number about 20% and foreign-born Americans in the United States number about 8%. I also note the murder rate in Canada is less than 1 per 100,000 and I'm quite confident it's quite higher than that in the United States.

Given the fact that our colleague, Mr. Hanger, who is not here, last month went to Washington with Patrick Buchanan - he shared a podium with him - and blamed new Canadians for the increase in violent crime in Canada -

The Chairman: No, I don't think he said that.

Mr. Assadourian: What did he say, then? Correct me if I'm wrong. That's what he said.

The Chairman: No, he did not say that.

Mr. Assadourian: What did he say, then? You can correct me.

The Chairman: I'm not going to say what he said, but he did not say that.

Mr. Assadourian: Tell me so I can continue my question.

The Chairman: Why don't you question the witness?

Mr. Assadourian: As far as I'm concerned, that's what he said.

How would you explain the fact - if that statement is correct - that 20% of Canadians who were foreign-born commit less crime as a whole than 8% in the U.S.? Is that because of our system, because we have such an open system for immigrants or refugees that they feel at ease, rather than the hardship they face in the United States?

Prof. Buckley: The studies I've read - this comes from The Globe and Mail, I think; I have the story, and can pass it you - say that the number of immigrants in prison is vastly less than what you would expect on the basis of their sheer numbers.

The number of foreign-born is about 8%. In Canada, the number of foreign-born in prison is way less, which is probably testimony to the fact that we have a system that works pretty well as compared with the United States.

The statistics I've seen in the U.S. are specific to San Diego. I don't know of any other study. The San Diego study reveals that the foreign-born in prison in disproportionately high.

Mr. Assadourian: In the States.

Prof. Buckley: Yes.

Mr. Assadourian: Just the opposite.

The other point I wish to make is that here in the summary presented to us by the Library of Parliament, it says that you argue that we should open the door to more valuable immigrants, and Canada should do the same.

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Now, if that is true, we as a receiving nation, and hopefully other nations sending immigrants here...what impact will it have on them as nations and on their economy when we take their valuable citizens to be immigrants here in this country?

Prof. Buckley: Your concern, I suppose, is a concern about the so-called brain drain and the effect on the emigration or the exporting state. The best answer I can give you is we're all better off when countries compete for immigrants and when people are permitted to go wherever they want to go. It may be the case that countries lose something.

My ancestors came from Ireland, and I'm delighted they did. I wouldn't want to live in that particular country right now. I'm very happy to live in North America and I love Canada. Undoubtedly some countries did suffer from the brain drain, but against that, the benefits of the competition seem to exceed any of those concerns.

By the benefits, I mean the fact that people who can move to a society that values them more and is willing to compensate them more are going to be producing more in that new society and doubtless will feel more fulfilled in that particular society. That is why I think the mobility rights enshrined in our constitution are amongst the most important rights any individual possesses.

Mr. Assadourian: You gave the Irish example. I can give you the examples of Italy, Poland, Armenia and Lebanon. They have more nationals outside their own countries. Most of those countries are suffering anyway.

If they were to have the original population with the brains they had before this brain drain, maybe they wouldn't have suffered. They wouldn't have had the poverty and hardship they're going through, economic or otherwise.

Prof. Buckley: You raise a difficult problem and one that I don't think has any easy answer. I rather think that if I'm a Canadian or if I'm an Irishman or if I'm Lebanese, I should have the individual right to define my Canadianness or my Irishness or my Lebaneseness wherever I want. I should not be forced to stay in a state because I'm an economic benefit to that particular state.

While I recognize that the point you make is a very valid one, my feeling is it's trumped by the right of an individual to go to any country he wants. The countries that have refused to recognize emigration rights are amongst the world's greatest human rights abusers. While what you say is indeed troubling and does give me pause, it seems to me that on the other hand the mobility rights trump that concern.

Mr. Assadourian: Egypt, for example, is one of the countries in the world that is growing very fast. There's a population explosion. We're bringing immigrants from Egypt who are highly educated and what have you, and we give them nothing in return.

I'd like to get your reaction to this. If we have brain drain in one country, we should compensate that with foreign aid somehow so they can keep on producing these people to help their own people. Otherwise, I don't think it's fair for us to get the best and sharpest from Egypt over here while leaving the people there with nothing - no leadership and no means of producing. There's money drain, capital drain and brain drain, and I don't think it serves our purpose.

Prof. Buckley: As a moral point, I'm sympathetic to what you've said. Speaking as a lawyer, I would not wish to see anything like that legislated, because the one country that legislated something like that was Russia, the Soviet Union, which imposed an export tax on its Jews. It turned out the Jews were one of the great national commodities of the Soviet Union. If you wanted them, you had to pay for them, as Israel did.

It's not the case that individuals belong to the state and should be sold by the state.

Mr. Assadourian: I didn't suggest that.

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Prof. Buckley: I know. But if one talks about moral duties on the part of Canada to perhaps think more carefully about traditional exporting countries, then I'm more sympathetic to you, yes, indeed. It's not easy to quantify that.

Mr. Loney: I have one question.

Mr. Buckley, you made passing reference to welfare motivation. While we won't get into numbers or anything, would you say that trend is identifiable? It's definitely there?

Prof. Buckley: It's definitely there in the United States, which has a very different immigration system.

I should qualify that. I did an econometric study in which I looked at what motivates migrants, both international migrants and internal migrants. I discovered that both sets of migrants were in fact motivated by the prospect of higher welfare in the state they were going to.

I found that internal migrants - people going from one state to another - were deterred by high taxes. I found that international migrants were not deterred by high taxes. My explanation is that internal migrants in the United States see high taxes as something they will pay, whereas international migrants are more likely to see taxes as something paid by natives than by themselves. It's less of a concern for them.

Mr. Loney: Yes, because those who would be attracted by welfare certainly aren't going to concern themselves about taxation.

Prof. Buckley: Yes. In fact a higher tax rate can perversely send a signal that this is a more generous state in terms of welfare.

Mr. Loney: That's exactly the last point I was going to make. One of the criticisms I hear of the family reunification program is it's a ``come on in; the water's fine'' mind-set. There's more to families wanting to get their relatives or extended family outside the country. Here it's based more on the fact that the benefits are better and the benefits are available.

Prof. Buckley: I think it would be interesting to do more economic and econometric work on the determinants of migration in Canada.

In Diminishing Returns, as far as I could see, only one paper dealt with immigrants by classes, and that was the British Columbia study by Susanna Lui-Gurr. She noted essentially - I'm summarizing her work - that economic immigrants did not seem to be abusers with respect to the welfare system, and that family-class migrants and refugees did. This was the British Columbia study.

One would want to see more studies like that. In fact, a study that looks at a pure cohort - in other words, all immigrants for a particular five-year period in Canada - is not all that helpful in designing immigration policy. What you're interested in is how each class does and which questions are particularly good ones.

For example, how important is the ability to speak one of the two languages? There are some studies that indicate this is a good predictor of how people do economically. This would suggest the point system's emphasis on language in fact makes a lot of economic sense.

That strikes me as the kind of research you want to conduct, rather than research on everybody who came in in one year.

I'm a great fan of the minister's report. I think it's splendid.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: There are many more illegal immigrants in the United States than in Canada. Can you give us figures on that? And how can we solve the problem both in Canada and in the United States?

[English]

Prof. Buckley: The question is, are illegals even a problem? Illegals make use of the welfare system in the United States a good deal less than legal immigrants. A number of authors, Julian Simon principally, have suggested that illegal immigration is indeed a very good thing, a very paying proposition, for the United States.

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I am at a loss to explain the demonization of illegal immigrants in the United States. I think it represents that. It represents a kind of scapegoating. It seems to me that there is a serious problem in the United States, but it has to do more with the fact that only 5% of the immigrants there are economic immigrants, more than the illegals.

Mr. Loney: I may be wrong, but we hear stories that one of the reasons there are so many illegal immigrants in the Miami area is that they're a sure source and supply of cheap labour and they're just simply looking the other way.

Prof. Buckley: Absolutely.

One can drive down to a lumber yard about a mile from where I live in Alexandria, Virginia, and any morning of the week you will see approximately 200 Hispanic-looking gentlemen lined up for work. They will get work, from repairs people, gardeners, painters, on a pick-up basis. Everybody knows about that and nobody does anything about it. Occasionally, it gives rise to a certain amount of embarrassment when a presidential nominee is revealed to have employed one of these people, but the fact is that these people are in the United States to work, not to sponge off the welfare system, for which they are not really well qualified.

You go about a half-mile further down the road and you'll find plenty of native Americans not doing very much at all. In fact, some of the nicest evidence on the ways in which immigrants in the United States conduct their lives has to do with what happens 10 or 15 years after they get there. What happens is sometimes they ``go native''. That is, they don't work quite so hard.

The illegal immigrants are poorly educated, often victimized people, who are essentially honourable people with very strong family ties, very religious people. Many of them stay and many of them go back to their home countries. I don't think America loses much by virtue of the illegals. They're a good scapegoat.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: Proposition 187 in California dealt with illegals. It is now before the courts. Do you think it will be ruled unconstitutional? Is there a trend emerging in the United States? Are there similar moves in other States, such as Florida?

[English]

Prof. Buckley: Proposition 187 was extremely controversial when it passed. But of course the great event last November was the revolution in the House of Representatives, in Congress. Now the focus of the discussion has moved from Proposition 187 to the Contract with America. One of the planks of the Contract with America is the Personal Responsibility Act, which, as I mentioned, would deny all welfare benefits to legal immigrants as well as illegal.

So the tenor of the debate has moved about three standard deviations over to the right in the United States. What was something one couldn't talk about openly much six or seven months ago is now openly discussed.

Proposition 187 will, I expect, be found unconstitutional. But one isn't sure. It's always open for the Supreme Court to change its mind. The Supreme Court decisions in question, Plyler v. Doe, for example, are questions based on a very different state of affairs back in the 1970s, where it was said by the majority in that decision that immigration was not much of a problem, it did not impose a burden. In fact, one could make a stronger argument that it imposes a burden right now.

What the Supreme Court will do, I don't know. What I do think, however, is that it matters a great deal more what Congress will do than the Supreme Court at this point. Congress is in a pretty mean mood in terms of cutting back welfare.

Mr. Nunez: Do you think other states will adopt similar proposals?

Prof. Buckley: The Proposition 187 litigation is moving through the court system right now and would hit the Supreme Court next year. I think other states will simply join in the litigation, as they have, and see what happens when it hits the Supreme Court. Before that happens, we'll get a better hint as to what the Supreme Court thinks in about three weeks' time when it looks at Wisconsin legislation imposing residency requirements on recent arrivals from Illinois.

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[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: Are people who immigrate to the United States different from those who come to Canada? What's the difference?

[English]

Prof. Buckley: There is much greater use of the welfare system relative to Americans. They are noticeably less skilled, they are less educated, they are less able to speak the native language.

Mr. Nunez: Where, here?

Prof. Buckley: In the United States.

In terms of ethnic composition, they are actually fairly similar. Entrants to Canada from Europe are below 20% at this particular point. Entrants from Latin America have gone from relatively little to around 15%. The biggest class of entrants right now, of course, are people from Asia. They account for over 50% of the entrants to Canada and about 37% or 35% to the United States.

There isn't a big difference in terms of ethnic composition, but there does seem to be a big difference in terms of skill level and the suggestion basically is that Canada's screening techniques have worked.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: After how many years spent in the United States does an immigrant reach the average standard of living dof Americans?

[English]

Prof. Buckley: That varies with the cohort, or the year in which the immigrant entered the United States. At present, it is not clear that they will, period, or for the foreseeable future. How long it would take entrants from the 1970s is very much a question in controversy right now.

A fellow called George Borjas, a teacher I have mentioned before, teaches at the University of California at San Diego. He suggests that we are talking about generations. For the immigrants who moved to the United States in the 1970s, neither they nor their children will reach the wages of average Americans.

Borjas's point, which is a worthwhile point as we look at this document, is that any studies as to the effects of immigration in the United States cannot possibly compare the entrants from 40 years ago with the entrants of today, because of the vast differences between them.

There was a golden age of immigration and times are a little tougher right now. Canada is still doing rather well, but in the United States they seem to have lost heart in the battle.

[Translation]

Mr. Nunez: How does the bond system in the case of sponsored immigrants work in the United States?

[English]

Prof. Buckley: I don't know there is a comparable American equivalent to that, which is perhaps part of the problem. There is little effort in the United States to hold back welfare payments to recent entrants.

One of the amusing things I found in my study was this. When you do immigration work in the States, you frequently are told it's really not much of a problem because if you become a welfare burden in the United States you can be deported. I looked at total immigration from l985 to 1991 in the States. During that period of time, about seven million people came into the United States, and of that seven million people, exactly seven people were deported as welfare charges.

So it doesn't exist. When you are on board, you are on board essentially. And if you're an illegal and on board, you're on board. The only screening that takes place is really at the airport or at the border itself. Once in, you're in.

Mr. Mayfield: I was interested in one of your comments a bit earlier, Professor Buckley. You were commenting on the provinces insisting that new immigrants have a basic qualifying period before they are eligible for certain benefits. Is that correct?

Prof. Buckley: Yes.

.2005

Mr. Mayfield: When you said that, it struck me as though there are a number of problems to this under our charter, for example. I remember the British Columbia government in quite a different context trying to insist that young physicians and newly admitted physicians to the profession would only be paid through the insurance system if they went to areas of the province where their services were needed, and this was struck down by the courts. Is your suggestion a practical suggestion under our current laws here?

Prof. Buckley: Two questions, really: one, is it practical, and two, is it constitutional? As to whether it is practical -

Mr. Mayfield: ``Constitutionally practical'' is what I am trying to say, then.

Prof. Buckley: It is certainly something you will see a lot of in the United States in the next several years if the Supreme Court decides in the next couple of weeks that this is permissible, because there is a fair degree of welfare-motivated migration within the United States.

Some states, like Wisconsin, that have traditionally a fairly high pay-out want to maintain that without attracting people from low pay-out states, notably Illinois. So it may be that those kinds of restrictions are the sorts of things you need to maintain the desired level of welfare pay-out for your citizens.

As far as the constitutional issue is concerned, I can't opine on that. Of course, mobility rights are enshrined in the charter in a province that passed legislation restricting the ability of an individual from Saskatchewan to earn a living in Alberta. I think that would be struck down, as you point out. Whether the Province of Alberta could pass legislation restricting welfare pay-outs to recent arrivals from Saskatchewan strikes me as a wholly different question.

It is one thing to say we're going to prevent you from earning your living here, but it is another thing to say that you can come here but you don't necessarily qualify for welfare for the next two years. That strikes me as a considerably more suitable policy and constitutional provision for Alberta to legislate.

Mr. Mayfield: You also mentioned you would like to see the provinces perhaps more closely involved in the selection of immigrants. I'm not sure that you mentioned Quebec as it does. One of the difficulties I see in this is that Quebec receives enough money from the federal government in that program that I don't know the federal government would really want to or could afford to be this generous to other provinces. How do you see this perhaps happening...that the provinces could take part in something the same way Quebec does?

Prof. Buckley: I'm not sure if an academic should advise a politician about this most eminently political of issues. It occurs to me that the problem you mentioned, an alleged overpayment to Quebec, if it exists, is a problem that is entirely separate from the constitutional issue of whether or not Quebec should be able to determine its intake of immigrants. Those are separate questions. I hear you saying you are concerned about the overpayment, which is a fiscal problem and very different from the issue as to whether or not the Canada-Quebec accord properly gave immigration responsibilities to Quebec.

Mr. Mayfield: While I'm sympathetic to what you are saying about provinces being involved, I am wondering, again, how we could work practically through the thicket of problems to come to this kind of a situation.

Prof. Buckley: The fact is that of course seven provinces have accords, but only one of them, as I understand it, the Canada-Quebec accord, is a real operating animal. I would conclude from this that the other nine provinces are largely happy with the status quo and have no real quarrel to pick with Ottawa.

I do think the ability of a province to opt out, were one of the nine provinces willing to do so, would be a useful right to concede to the provinces. It doesn't mean they have to exercise it, but it strikes me there is a vast difference between the adversarial relationship between the federal government in the United States and the feds and the provinces here.

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The fact that Canada is open to these kinds of arrangements and the provinces haven't bothered to do so is a testimony to the fact that the federal system generally seems to work for nine of the provinces. It might be difficult to envisage, but this is only because the Canadian system is a worldwide winner in terms of immigration. It is really a first-rate service run by first-rate, dedicated and committed people.

As far as Quebec is concerned, I would have thought that this obviously seemed to me a very useful and benign agreement, the Canada-Quebec accord. Indeed, I would have recommended it be expanded to also include the class of family entrants.

The Chairman: That appears to be all our questions, Mr. Buckley.

Prof. Buckley: I just wanted to say thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for having me. It was a great honour.

The Chairman: We appreciate your being here. I think I speak for the group that we found your testimony very worth while.

The meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair.