[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, March 19, 1996
[English]
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The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, I would like to begin. The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration continues, with the order of the day being the study of the draft agreement between Canada and the United States on refugee claims.
On behalf of all colleagues, I would like to welcome from Amnesty International Alex Neve and Lynn Horton. Would you like to begin?
Mr. Alex Neve (Refugee Issues, Amnesty International): Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Amnesty International welcomes the opportunity to be here this afternoon and to share with you our concerns regarding the proposed Canada-U.S. agreement.
As introduced, my name is Alex Neve and I am Amnesty International's spokesperson on refugee affairs in Canada. With me is Lynn Horton, an Amnesty International staff member, who coordinates our refugee work in Canada.
As many of you will know, Amnesty International is internationally known and respected as a human rights organization, and it is precisely in that capacity that we appear before you today. Refugee work is, after all, first and foremost human rights work in that it offers us the rare and important opportunity to avoid abuses before they occur. As such, Amnesty International regularly intervenes around the world when individuals are at risk of being sent back to face arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, torture and execution.
We also actively campaign on a more general level, at a policy level, to ensure that national laws and practices provide for the fair adjudication of refugee claims, as it is critical that we are all confident that individuals at risk will be identified and protected.
We are here today because we are gravely concerned that the Canada-U.S. agreement seriously jeopardizes the safety of refugees. We would like to briefly outline our concerns at two levels.
First, I believe it is essential to understand and consider this agreement in its global context, and I will highlight the concerns we have in that regard.
Secondly, however, it is obviously critical to consider the implications of entering into an agreement with the United States in particular. Amnesty International does not believe that the United States is a safe refugee protection partner. My colleague Ms Horton will describe the human rights concerns that lead us to that conclusion.
Either way we look at it, the global context or the particulars of an agreement with the United States, Amnesty International is of the view that refugee protection is so seriously jeopardized that we are calling on the Canadian government to not sign this agreement at this time.
I would like, as I said, to begin by addressing the global context. This agreement is not just about Canada and the United States. It is just the beginning of something much bigger, and I think it's absolutely critical that you keep that in mind as you look at the particulars of this agreement.
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This agreement is Canada's ticket into what I would call a very murky world of a rapidly proliferating number of interstate agreements of this nature that are beginning to interconnect and interrelate in unpredictable and dangerous ways. In essence, we are about to take the first step down the proverbial slippery slope. We are calling on this committee to urge the government to step back from the edge and, instead, proceed in a manner that truly and effectively safeguards refugees.
Amnesty has been watching this phenomenon of interstate cooperation for a number of years now, particularly within Europe. We have repeatedly expressed our concern that cooperation only works if individuals facing human rights violations in their home countries will receive the protection they need and deserve, regardless of which of the cooperating states deals with the claim.
The world by no means offers anything even remotely close to a level playing field when it comes to refugee protection. Procedures differ widely and dramatically, and in many countries often fall far below international standards. In many states things are only getting worse - much worse - not better, and that applies, as we will outline later, for the United States.
Amnesty International has called upon governments in Europe and we now similarly call upon Canada and the United States to level the playing field before embarking on cooperative ventures. We have proposed an international agreement on minimum procedural standards for dealing with refugee claims. That must be the logical first step. Agreements such as this one could then follow suit and could unfold in a manner that does not so seriously jeopardize the safety of refugees. Instead, what we are seeing is a headlong rush towards cooperation with no regard for common standards and no sign that harmonizing refugee determination in a way that protects refugee rights is anywhere on the table. It sets up a deadly game of refugee roulette with the real likelihood that large numbers of refugees will be sent back to the very persecution they have fled.
This broader world that I'm trying to sketch for you is not just hypothetical. We know from our colleagues south of the border that there is strong suspicion that the United States, with or without Canada, will move towards an agreement with Mexico in the foreseeable future. The effect can so easily spiral out of control.
Let's say the U.S. does reach agreement with Mexico. This agreement would allow the United States to further return to Mexico anyone that Canada has sent back to the United States, as long as Canada simply agrees on a case-by-case basis. Once in Mexico, a country that has not even signed the 1951 United Nations convention relating to refugees...who knows?
On top of that, we see in last week's Toronto Star that Canada's ambassador to the European Union has recently announced that Canada is about to begin negotiating a similar agreement with European Union countries. That will plunk us right in the middle of a complex web of agreements among European and neighbouring states. We already know that those agreements are putting refugees at risk.
Let me give you a real-life example.
A Somali refugee with five young children sought refugee status in Belgium. The Belgians returned the family to the Czech Republic, and the Czechs returned them to Slovakia. The Slovaks detained the family at the airport, fed them one meal a day, gave them no place to sleep, and denied them access to a telephone or to an interpreter. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees found the family, interviewed them, and stated that they were indeed genuine refugees. The Slovaks refused to provide them with asylum and instead insisted that they be further deported to the Ukraine. UNHCR strenuously objected. The Slovaks put them on a train to Kiev nonetheless. The UNHCR lost track of the family and there's no further word of their fate.
That example tragically illustrates the global implications of these types of agreements. For Canada, Belgium would be safe; for the the Belgians, the Czech Republic was safe; for the Czechs, so is Slovakia; and for the Slovaks, so is the Ukraine. Safety deteriorates dramatically with each step in the chain, until the end, where, in this case, we do not know what has happened to a Somali family, a family that would have been safe in Belgium.
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The agreement you are reviewing represents perhaps the biggest and most serious challenge yet to refugee protection in Canada. We know the United States and Europe are both eager to work with Canada. Canada must use its influence, moral and strategic, and take the initiative in drafting an international agreement that will take the arbitrariness out of inter-state cooperation and ensure that refugees and their rights do not get trampled in the process. Now is the time, not later; now, before we begin to head down that slippery slope, at which point it will become too late.
Ms Horton will now address our specific concerns about the United States.
Ms Lynn Horton (Refugee Program Coordinator, Amnesty International): Good afternoon.
Amnesty International has shared its concerns about the United States refugee determination system with government officials. They have responded by saying the only issue is whether the U.S. system complies with international standards. We have told them, and we are here today to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that in fact it does not meet that standard.
Our sister organization south of the border, Amnesty International USA, regularly examines the American refugee policies and practices. They have identified a number of key areas where they say the American system does not meet the international mark.
First there is the fundamental matter of compliance with article 33 of the convention. You'll recognize this as the no-refoulement article.
Nothing more dramatically illustrates the state of refugee protection in the U.S. than the example of the interdiction and forced repatriation of Haitian refugees. Thousands of Haitians fled a brutal military dictatorship in the early 1990s. Many left by boat for Florida. The U.S sent coast guard ships to intercept these boats. The boats were destroyed. The asylum-seekers were taken aboard and turned back to their country. Human rights groups, including AI, reported that many of those who were forcibly returned later suffered serious human rights abuses as a result.
What of article 33 in this circumstance? The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that neither U.S. domestic law nor article 33 of the convention limited the president's power to intercept and repatriate illegal migrants, including refugee claimants, on the high seas. The U.S. was roundly condemned internationally and by the UNHCR for this, but to no avail.
Another example of the American system falling well short of the international standard is Central America. For years the American government cynically flouted international refugee protection standards in its dealings with asylum-seekers from that region. In the debate about Central America, the international standard for refugee protection was up against the American policy of turning a blind eye to widespread and horrifying human rights in its client countries, El Salvador and Guatemala. Once again, the international standard was dispensed with.
In the result, fewer than 2% of claimants from Central America were accepted in the U.S. But Canada extended protection to hundreds and hundreds of Central Americans who would very predictably have been turned down in the U.S.
Likewise, the way the U.S. detains refugee claimants in many cases falls far short of international standards. The resort to detention is excessive. AI USA tells us people are routinely held for no good or lawful reason. They have cited many examples to us, but I bring to you only one, that of a seventeen-year-old Togolese girl who fled Togo to escape becoming a man's fourth wife and essentially maid to his first three wives, and to escape a particularly nasty form of female genital mutilation. She travelled on a false passport, which she promptly declared on her arrival at an American airport. She didn't try to enter the country on it. Since then, which was December 1994, she has been detained.
All the ``equities'', as the Americans term them in their jurisprudence, are on her side. She has a relative with whom she could live. There is money to post a bond for her. She has nothing in her history that suggests she is a threat to America or she would abscond. Still she is not being granted parole.
It appears arbitrariness is the hallmark of the detention practices south of the border.
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I want to talk about the conditions that refugee claimants are held in. They may be held in immigration detention centres operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but there are only seven or eight of them in the country. They may also be held in prisons or in commercially operated, profit-driven facilities.
If they're in prisons, they are held with criminal inmates. Our colleagues in the U.S. have told us about people being held shackled to beds in hotels and people being transferred to substandard backwater county jails. The county jails are very happy to receive the per diems the INS pays them, but there is no possibility of adequate representation.
They've told us, too, of a situation where claimants are put up in a huge disused bus repair garage. That is the only place they have access to, apart from washrooms. There's no outside access, no natural light, and very little medical care. These are standard. There's no guarantee of any of these rights.
This, too, flies in the face of international law - in this case, conclusion 44 of the UNHCR's executive committee.
In short, there really is no standard for detention. We hope you see that in America, compliance with international standards for the treatment of refugees is often a matter of their national convenience.
A final point. Amnesty on both sides of the border is very concerned about the proposed legislation called Immigration in the National Interest Act, which is now before Congress. I don't have time to itemize our concerns - that's in our brief at point 3 - but in a general way we consider that this bill slices away at the right that underlies the 1951 convention and all subsequent international agreements: the fundamental right to apply for protection.
The UNHCR has said this proposed legislation would have a grave impact on asylum-seekers and would almost certainly result in the U.S. violating its obligations under the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees. These are very strong words, given the strictures on the UNHCR.
In conclusion, we in Amnesty believe this agreement puts the cart before the horse. The U.S. has a long way to go before it evolves into a responsible refugee protection partner. AI looks to Canada to take the lead in negotiating an international agreement that will ensure that international cooperation does not sacrifice protection.
At a minimum, AI calls upon Canada not to sign any such agreement until the United States brings its refugee determination system up to the international standard.
Thanks for this opportunity.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez (Bourassa): I would like to congratulate you on your presentation, particularly with respect to the situation in the United States. I thought detention conditions there were better than here. I visited the detention centres in Mississauga and Montreal, and the conditions there are bad. However, you say that the situation is worse in the United States.
In November 1993, the then Minister of Immigration said:
[English]
- ``...any agreement for me would have to pass the test that the agreement is on a level playing
field that respects our standards.'' ... ``I don't want to sign an agreement that waters down our
standards. If our standards are higher on immigration, then I expect the Americans will come up
to our standards.''
What do you think about this statement by Mr. Marchi, the former Minister of Immigration, which appeared in the Toronto Star on November 28, 1993? Would you sign an agreement with the United States under those circumstances?
[English]
Mr. Neve: As I guess you can gather from the presentation we've given this afternoon, it's certainly our contention that the conditions that Mr. Marchi outlined in November 1993 have not been satisfied and are very much of grave concern. It's precisely for this reason that we're calling for some real sober second thought before we rush into this agreement, that there be a real effort to step back and take measures to ensure that the Canadian and U.S. playing fields, as Mr. Marchi said and I believe as we've said today as well, are level playing fields.
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The proposal we've made, which is perhaps only one of the ways in which that can be achieved, is an international agreement that would require states to meet certain minimum standards that would always have to be applied in a refugee determination. Until that happens, we very much feel, as I assume Mr. Marchi also felt in November 1993, that any initiative taken puts refugees at risk.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: In your comments, you said that the United States accepts only two per cent of asylum requests from Central America, El Salvador and Guatemala. That is very low.
I was in Chile in January, and I have some contacts with other Latin American countries. They think it is difficult to come to the United States or Canada as an immigrant. It is very difficult to get over this hurdle. Do you think this situation will get worse? Is that what you are saying?
[English]
Mr. Neve: In fairness to the U.S., the 2% figure that we were referring to was in the late 1980s. It has risen to about 5% or 6% now.
The critical point, and the reason why we raised that example, is that it illustrates very clearly that in the United States political factors much too frequently determine the course of refugee determination decisions and individuals often are granted or refused refugee status on the basis of whether it's expedient or in the interests of U.S. foreign policy to do so.
The Haitian example is perhaps a more recent one of another instance where the Americans have allowed their foreign policy concerns to dictate their response to refugees.
It definitely stands to get much worse with the particular legislation that's pending in Congress. Numerous measures in that legislation will make it much more difficult for individuals who do not have proper and valid travel documents, for instance, to access the United States refugee determination system. A particularly large number of Central American refugees who travel over land, often on long journeys through Mexico and crossing the Rio Grande in their search for safety, very often do not have the kinds of identity and travel documents that would satisfy that requirement, and it is quite likely that they would be totally excluded from the U.S. system. That's just one example, but there's certainly very good reason to be fearful that things are going to get worse on that front.
Mr. Nunez: How do you explain the 2%, this low rate? What are the reasons?
Mr. Neve: It was very obviously the fact that the United States was unwilling to recognize that particularly the Governments of Guatemala and El Salvador, which at that time of course were in receipt of American military aid and other forms of assistance, were human-rights-violating states, because for foreign policy reasons the United States was trying to give it an international image that things were fine, or at least under control, and reforms were under way in those countries. For that very reason, it could not afford to allow there to be a countervailing image that suggested that human rights concerns were still very serious.
It was an era in which a review of human rights documents from any group, including Amnesty International, certainly reveals that the human rights concerns were serious, of the first order: disappearances, extrajudicial executions, widespread torture. There's no question about the human rights record that was at stake in El Salvador and Guatemala at that time, but the U.S. again, for foreign policy reasons, was simply unwilling officially to recognize that.
[Translation]
The Chair: Ms. Meredith.
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[English]
Ms Meredith (Surrey - White Rock - South Langley): I want to clarify in my own mind what you consider to be refugees. Does Amnesty International make a distinction between those individuals who are threatened by political establishments, by the state...or do you also recognize refugee claimants who are threatened by poverty or economic conditions? Do you see a distinction between the two?
Mr. Neve: Yes, we do. Amnesty's refugee work stems from our human rights mandate, and the human rights mandate of Amnesty is to take action when we believe individuals face the risk of becoming prisoners of conscience, of being subjected to torture, of facing the possibility of disappearance or extrajudicial or judicial execution. Those are the human rights concerns that fall within the Amnesty International human rights mandate. Our refugee work is such that we take action to ensure that individuals who would face those human rights violations if returned are protected and are not deported.
Ms Meredith: So you don't have any problem with countries sending back individuals who are refugee claimants on an economic basis rather than on a political basis?
Mr. Neve: That's not what we're here talking about today. We're here discussing our concerns about the fact that when measures like this are designed...and they do not in any way make distinctions between groups of refugees. The agreement doesn't draw any distinctions about whether a person is a genuine refugee in the sense of the 1951 convention or is not. It's a widespread non-discriminating agreement that is going to subject everyone to the same risks.
Ms Meredith: I just got the impression from comments, when you compared the acceptance rate of the United States with the acceptance rate of Canada, that perhaps you felt the Americans, who maybe determine a genuine refugee differently from, say, the Canadian system, were sending individuals back into situations.... I know you've used the Haitian one as an example, but when you also use Mexico as an example I get a little confused about what you consider to be genuine refugees. Although some individuals in Mexico may have reason to be concerned, I think the majority of individuals seeking asylum in the United States are economic refugees out of Mexico, not necessarily the other sort.
Mr. Neve: I could clarify that. Actually, I didn't raise Mexico as an example of a country producing refugees. To go into more detail on that example, what I was envisioning was, let's say, someone from Guatemala who leaves Guatemala, goes through Mexico, the United States, and arrives in Canada, makes a refugee claim in Canada, and is bumped back to the United States, under this agreement. In the eventuality, which, as I said, in our understanding is a very real and possible eventuality, that the U.S. enters into a similar agreement with Mexico, that individual could be further returned to Mexico, where there are real concerns about what kind of refugee determination system is in existence, what kind of refugee protection that person would or would not receive, and the very real risk that they might eventually face deportation to Guatemala. I wasn't raising Mexico in the context of Mexican citizens.
Ms Meredith: Okay.
Another thing you seem to be concerned about - actually, your proposal deals with it - is an international agreement. You were concerned that if Canada entered this agreement with the United States, it would be a sort of first step; they are going to be making agreements with the European Community and that sort of thing. This morning I asked the government officials precisely that question, because I was also interested if this was a first step of a many-stage proposal. I was told outright that no, they do not have any agreements in place, or any proposals to have agreements, with anybody other than the United States. Are you suggesting the government officials misled me this morning, or are you assuming something simply from this one agreement?
Mr. Neve: No, I'm not. Unfortunately I wasn't here this morning, so I can't respond to that. What I was referring to is actually an article from The Toronto Star quoting Jacques Roy, Canada's ambassador to the European Union - again someone speaking on behalf of the Canadian government - who indicates quite clearly that Canada is about to embark on negotiations with European Union states for an agreement exactly along the lines of the U.S.-Canada agreement. It's The Toronto Star, March 15 issue. I can certainly give you a copy of it.
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Ms Meredith: I would appreciate getting a copy from you, because that is completely the opposite of the response I got this morning and that concerns me.
Just looking at your proposals, I suppose these are things you would like to have if you were going to set up an agreement internationally.
I get the impression from the first one that you feel that nobody should ever be sent back to the country of origin. Am I fair in saying that you feel that everybody who's making a refugee claim should be provided with -
Mr. Neve: Are you referring to the first point?
Ms Meredith: Yes.
Mr. Neve: No. Where we talk about the fundamental principle of non-refoulement as it's defined in the 1951 convention.... It says that no one should be sent back to a situation in which their life or freedom would be threatened for reasons of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. So basically it takes the very definition of a convention refugee that the 1951 convention provides and indicates that this protection of non-refoulement must ensure that they will never return to a situation in which their life or freedom would be threatened. That's the group of individuals we're talking about.
Ms Meredith: I assume that the countries making the determination that this person should go back are making the determination that this person is in fact not threatened by being returned. So what you're telling me is that their definition or their evaluation of the safety of that individual isn't as good as yours might be.
Mr. Neve: We're saying not only that the evaluation wouldn't be as good as Amnesty International's assessment but also that that assessment would not be what international standards require.
The Haitian example, which is the one we've referred to, is a very blatant and very distressing example of U.S. non-compliance with the non-refoulement provisions. It is a very clear example.
The U.S. wasn't even really looking at any of those cases. They simply made a decision based on foreign policy concerns, and domestic policy concerns really, to intercept that refugee population, even though it was fleeing a situation of very serious human rights abuses, the very kinds of abuses that very clearly generally would raise concerns for any country under the convention - and to intercept them as a group and return them as a group, because they didn't want that group to be able to access the United States.
Ms Meredith: It's my understanding that, upon the signing of this document, this agreement will take place only for the individuals who will enter Canada or the United States as of 1996. Would you not feel that there may be a different attitude with the United States having been held to account for its behaviour with the Haitians? Do you feel that, with the Guatemalans and what not, the situation is still as desperate as it was in the early 1980s, that these kinds of situations are still going to be up front and confronting Canada and the United States on a regular basis?
Mr. Neve: I think we very much do. What causes us great concern is that the U.S. wasn't held to account for the Haitian travesty. They got away with it. They got the sanction and stamp of approval of their Supreme Court. International voices that raised protest - and unfortunately Canada's wasn't necessarily a fulsome voice of protest at the time - did nothing to dissuade the U.S. from that course of action.
For us, that example shows clearly how, when the U.S. decides that, for foreign policy or domestic policy reasons, it wants to do its own thing when it comes to protecting refugees - its own thing not being in keeping with refugee needs and rights - the international community doesn't have the might or influence to change that, and that refugees may be at risk as a result.
Ms Meredith: If you don't think Canada should sign this agreement, then how do you feel we should be dealing with situations in which we have individuals who, although they land in the United States, choose to come to Canada because the acceptance rate here is two-thirds greater than that in the United States? They are asylum-shopping; they are choosing to go to a country that is more likely to give them a positive response. How do you propose we should deal with that as a country?
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Mr. Neve: That in itself, as you've described it, causes me no concern. If I were an individual fleeing for my life or my freedom, I would want to shop, I would want to make sure I was going to go to the country that was going to give me the best chance of receiving the protection I so desperately am searching, especially if I know that in this particular case the other choice - the United States - is a country that detains individuals in the kinds of conditions outlined in our brief, which treats certain groups of refugees such as Central Americans and Haitians with much lower standards for foreign policy reasons. I would make the choice to come to Canada, and I don't see that as an invalid choice if I'm fleeing for my life.
The Chair: Mr. Assadourian.
Mr. Assadourian (Don Valley North): Thank you very much.
I was a member of Amnesty International in Toronto, so I really appreciate the work you do in this field.
Mr. Nunez: Did you vote against the agreement?
Mr. Assadourian: When I ask for your opinion I'll consider it, thank you very much.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Assadourian: Last year in California they voted on proposition 15 - I think it was 15 - about disallowing illegal immigrants or refugees to attend school or receive medical attention. Would you comment on that proposition, if you can?
The other question I have is, in California and in Texas - both southern states - there are different approaches to refugees. In Texas they need refugees for cheap labour and in California they don't, because it costs them money. Is what goes on between two states driven by economic reasons or are there ideological differences - governors, parties, whatever?
The other point is, this is of course election year in the States, and everybody is immigrant-bashing and refugee-bashing; it's a high priority. We've got our own bashing too - someone wants to put a border in the north so we can't go south and stop south from coming north.
Will you comment on those three points, please?
Mr. Neve: The concerns you are raising aren't issues that have directly fallen within Amnesty's work, because a lot of them raise economic and social issues, as I indicated to Ms Meredith - the kinds of things that don't fall directly within our human rights mandate, so we haven't been substantively involved in doing any work -
Mr. Assadourian: The Convention on Refugees signed in 1951 spoke of protection of their health, security, and everything else, right?
Mr. Neve: Certainly. All I'm saying is, from Amnesty's perspective, we are limited to working for refugees according to our human rights mandate.
What concerns us about those issues you are raising - proposition 13 in California, developments in Texas and California, and the legislation and immigrant-bashing that's going on this year - is that it very much reflects the atmosphere in the United States, which is fundamentally becoming an anti-refugee atmosphere. In that kind of atmosphere the kinds of concerns we've been referring to - concerns about detention and disregard for non-refoulement - are only bound to become that much more extreme and serious. As the things you brought up indicate, the political atmosphere there doesn't give us reason to think that there is going to become a more receptive, generous, rights-regarding environment in the United States.
That's as much as I could really comment on those particular developments, although other groups will probably be able to deal in more detail with the social and economic issues that those developments represent. I understand on Thursday you're going to be hearing someone from the U.S. Committee for Refugees, and he'll probably be able to give you a very clear and insightful analysis of those developments.
The Chair: Mr. Dromisky.
Mr. Dromisky (Thunder Bay - Atikokan): Thank you very much. This morning I asked a question, in fact I repeated it, wondering if the witnesses had any knowledge of any omnibus bill or all-encompassing bill that would have an impact on this agreement between the two countries. No one was aware of any particular act, but I see you make references to the Immigration in the National Interest Act that's pending and being proposed in Congress. You state that it could gravely undermine the right to apply for refugee status in the United States. Could you clarify this? And could you give us more information if you have more you could share with us?
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Mr. Neve: Certainly. There are a number of concerns. But the one we've really been focusing on is that the legislation will establish what's called a summary exclusion procedure for individuals who arrive at ports of entry in the United States with false documents or no documents. I'm sure a number of you are aware, or at least can imagine, this is very often the refugee reality. Those individuals will almost immediately upon arrival have to convince an immigration officer, without legal assistance in most cases, that they have a credible, well-founded case before they will be allowed into the United States to further access the refugee system.
The work our colleagues south of the board have been doing in Amnesty International suggests they have real concerns that many people, including genuine refugees, are quite likely going to be rejected at that stage. It's a very difficult and traumatic time. There is the arrival in an airport, the first encounter with someone in a uniform without any legal assistance or representation to help you or to encourage you to fully and truthfully tell your story. It is difficult to understand how you can do this comfortably and securely when you're used to not being able to deal comfortably with uniformed individuals. We must recognize that in a number of instances those people may be survivors of torture and may be traumatized.
All of those factors really quite dramatically suggest to us a significant number of people will be refused at that stage. The idea, as the act suggests, is for an almost automatic turnaround; those people would be on the next plane out of there.
Mr. Dromisky: Clarify something for me. This would apply to all people landing in the United States, whether it's in an airport or a seaport? Some will say to the authorities: ``I don't have my papers. I lost them. I had to run for my life, just grab my kids and run like hell. Here I am, but I want to go to Canada, not the United States.'' Would it apply to them?
Now what would happen in a situation like that? Can they stop and expel that person, even though the person has indicated they just want to go through the United States into Canada?
Mr. Neve: My reading is that it is unclear. It's unclear how the agreement would deal with this kind of case. There seems to be something in the agreement to suggest that if the Americans were about to deport someone who said they wanted to go to Canada, the Americans would notify the Canadians of this fact and the Canadians would, in some instances, be obliged. It gets very unclear and uncertain. That's one of the things that I think would very definitely need to be clarified.
As it stands now, my reading would be there's a very real risk the turnaround will just happen too fast, away from any kind of watchful eyes, away from any kind of legal representation. And the person will be out of there before anyone even knows they wanted to come to Canada.
Mr. Dromisky: I have a quick question regarding the status of women. Will this bill affect the status of women in any way?
Mr. Neve: You'll see outlined in our brief that Amnesty is really concerned this new summary exclusion procedure at the airport will quite dramatically impact on women.
It's particularly women who often find it most difficult to be immediately trustful. Often women have fled situations involving terrible sexual violence. This is an impossible thing to share with a uniformed immigration officer, with no one there to help you immediately upon arrival in an airport. It goes against generations and generations of cultural indoctrination suggesting you can never ever talk about those kinds of concerns.
One of the things Amnesty has really been focusing on in the United States in its work against the legislation is that it does stand to have quite a disparate impact on women refugee claimants.
The Chair: There is one minute left on the government side. Mr. Collins wanted to ask one question.
Mr. Collins (Souris - Moose Mountain): Yes. You said something about shopping around and you didn't seem to see this as a bit of a bother. If that's the case, and you shop here and you shop there and you shop there, where would we draw the line?
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Put yourself in our position. Someone says ``I'm one-stop shopping, but this is my 15th arrival and I'm going to try here''. At what point does he no longer show up as a legitimate person with a concern? Or what if he's just looking for another place to hang his hat and he happens to arrive here?
May I just add the other feature to this. Placing myself in your position, I might say ``Look, if you folks would just get together and give us an international draft, we'd be happy with that''. But we may wait until hell freezes over to ever have this happen, because you've just painted a scenario in which there are countries all over the world that will never see this.
If that's the case, are we not obliged at some point in time to take some measures to move along this course? Maybe you're not going to be very happy with it. But maybe we have to start working with some country - it happens to be our neighbour - to see whether we can't expedite the process, given that it has pitfalls. I think you've raised some that likely are legitimate.
I would like you to respond.
Mr. Neve: I'll respond to your latter question first.
We agree that if we do go down the road of pursuing an international agreement, it's quite likely there'll be any number of states that won't play the game. Our response to this would be they're not allowed to enter into the cooperative ventures; cooperation should be limited to only those states willing to put their commitment to true refugee protection on the line.
Maybe we'd be no further than Canada and the United States. This would mean Canada doesn't allow its cooperation in refugee terms to go any further than this. Maybe we would be able to draw in the European Union states, but it would have to be strictly limited to those countries that make this agreement.
Regarding asylum-shopping, this word is getting used a lot. I think it has a lot of potentially different meanings. When I was responding to Ms Meredith's question about asylum-shopping, I was envisioning the instance of someone who flees their country, passes through the United States, always fully intending to come to Canada. This person does not make a claim in the United States because they do not want to and comes here because they know this is where they have the best chance of receiving the protection they want. This is the exact same kind of choice anyone in this room would make if they were in that kind of circumstance, I'm sure.
In those instances, if this is the reason the person has chosen to come to Canada, I find nothing objectionable in it.
It is a different issue if you want to talk about asylum-shopping in the sense of people who make a claim here, are rejected, move on, then make a claim here, are again rejected. It's not what this agreement is about. This agreement is about something much bigger than that. It doesn't limit itself to cases where people have already made claims.
We've asked the government if they could provide some sort of statistical evidence that this is a concern, that there are, as we might call them, duplicate claims being made in Canada and the U.S. There don't seem to be any statistics. But even if statistics were available, let's sit down and think about some way to deal with this concern, some kind of provision that perhaps deals with individuals who have already made a claim in the United States.
I don't think you could risk absolutely barring them from making a claim in Canada. But there might be some sort of assumption or presumption that could be rebuttable that the second claim, with the claim already having been rejected in the United States, is not a genuine one unless the individual is able to show some evidence of what went wrong in the U.S. process or why the U.S. decision should not stand. For example, has there been a change of personal or country circumstances since the time of the U.S. determination?
The Chair: Thank you. I will take one last question from Madame Gagnon.
Mr. Neve: The Toronto Star, March 15.
[Translation]
Ms. Gagnon (Quebec): You seem to be of a different opinion from that of the minister and her officials, with whom we met this morning. They said they were not concerned, that the United States and Canada had the same protection, so that there would probably be harmonization, and that they met international standards and even exceeded them considerably. The minister told us this morning that some groups did not agree particularly with the principle underlying this draft agreement. She seemed to marginalize some groups that disagreed. Do you agree with the minister's position?
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[English]
Mr. Neve: In our view the United States definitely does not meet international standards. For us it's not just a matter of Canada and the United States not having the same system. That's not the issue and that's not how we approach it. Like the minister and like the government, we feel the proper approach is to judge the United States against international standards.
As Ms Horton outlined for you, the United States falls far short when judged against international standards on the most fundamental issues, such as the issues of non-refoulement, of truly having a non-politicized determination system, of detention, and of basic rights about whether refugees are treated with dignity and respect for their basic human rights, the human rights we all share.
That summarizes our views on this argument about Canada and the U.S. being more or less the same. More or less the same really isn't the issue. Let's look at the U.S. and let's look at the U.S. against international standards. That's where the concerns lie.
[Translation]
Ms. Gagnon: May I ask for clarification? My question has a second part to it. She seemed to say that few groups apparently disagreed with the agreement. Do you agree with that or do you think that refugee advocacy groups unanimously oppose the agreement?
[English]
Mr. Neve: I think there are a number of groups who do have concerns about the agreement, but I think the concerns we have are for very basic reasons to do with international standards and refugee protection. It's not a matter of us saying that we don't want this kind of agreement or that we don't want Canada and the U.S. to enter this agreement. It's a very principled and very deeply felt kind of analysis that leads groups like Amnesty, human rights groups, refugee groups and a number of broader groups that do work around more general social justice issues and anti-racism issues. There's quite a broad number of organizations speaking against the agreement. It's not only the refugee advocacy organizations.
Tomorrow evening in Toronto I will be participating in a symposium organized by the City of Toronto's mayor's office through its committee on race relations. That committee has come out with quite a strong indication that it has strong concerns about the agreement and it feels that the agreement raises real issues about potential racism, for instance.
There is quite a broad number of organizations with concerns, for a wide variety of reasons.
The Chair: I'll have to stop you there because we do have other witnesses.
I have one question. Do you not feel that article 13 in the agreement opens a door to allow the parties to continue to make changes to the agreement and therefore answers some of the inquiétudes, some of the concerns of Amnesty International and of some of the other groups?
Mr. Neve: My simple response is that we very strongly believe - I think the analogy was used earlier - there's an issue here about putting the cart before the horse.
The Chair: Are you in agreement with article 13?
Mr. Neve: Article 13 is not adequate -
The Chair: Okay.
Mr. Neve: - because these concerns have to be addressed before the agreement happens.
The Chair: Thank you.
I'd like to thank Ms Horton and Mr. Neve for coming before this committee. I'll ask the representatives of the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees to please take their places.
We have with us Reverend Dr. Charles Hay, the chair, and Mr. Tom Clark. Welcome.
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We do have a written brief. I would appreciate it if you do not repeat what's in the brief, since we do all have a copy of the brief. Perhaps you could spend ten minutes, as you were given, highlighting those aspects of your brief that you feel we should be more concerned with, concluding with your conclusion.
Please begin, Dr. Hay.
The Reverend Dr. Charles Hay (Chair, Inter-Church Committee for Refugees): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks also for the opportunity to appear before you.
As has already been indicated, the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees is composed of representatives from ten national church bodies, including the Protestant, the Anglican, and the Orthodox churches and representatives from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Roman Catholic orders. We monitor world refugee situations through our connections with overseas church partners in both refugee-receiving and refugee-producing countries. We monitor Canadian government policies on refugees, and we try to keep churches informed about refugee situations and government policies.
We also serve as a resource for churches in their efforts to sponsor refugees. The churches, as I think you all know, have been very active in that capacity.
We represent an institution with a 2000-year history of caring for the stranger and for the victims of our world. That means for us that at the minimum, Canada must be open to those seeking asylum; that the primary referent for this openness is the 1951 convention and the 1968 protocol; and that Canada should not really be in the business of transferring that capacity to determine who does or does not meet the requirements of the convention to any other body.
I shall be brief, Madam Chair, in doing precisely what you expected, although given the fact that that promise is coming from a Presbyterian clergyman you might want to take it with a grain of salt.
The memorandum of agreement begins with an affirmation of Canada's intention to provide protection for refugees in accordance with the convention. Paragraph 2 states that very clearly, and one's spirits could rise as one begins to read this agreement and comes to that section. But it is our reading of the agreement that protection is not its primary focus; that its goal really is to enable Canada to reject refugee claimants who arrive via the U.S. and to do so without an appropriate hearing, which is of course what the convention requires.
We are also concerned that Canada cannot guarantee that all refugee claimants in the U.S. will get that kind of hearing. That point has been made on several occasions today, and I suspect there is no need to belabour it.
There is no reference to international conventions in the agreement. Canada is on record before the UN Human Rights Commission and before the UN committee against torture as saying there are at least two UN human rights treaties that should be applied conjointly with the 1951 convention to the status of refugees. Those two are the Convenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture. Both are deemed to be relevant to refugee determination procedures but neither is at all taken into account in the agreement.
There is no provision for individual choice. That point again was made earlier on today by Professor Hathaway and by others. In our view the agreement establishes a principle, a country of first arrival principle, for which there is no basis in international law. We are worried about this.
When I say ``we'', I mean the Inter-church Committee for Refugees, which is itself composed of people who work with refugees on a daily basis. We do represent, I think, the genuine concern of the churches, not so much about this agreement, since perhaps most of them have not been faced with it, but about the well-being of refugees and appropriate procedure for determining refugee status.
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We're worried that this agreement obviously affects individual rights, that it allows Canada in effect to expel claimants to the U.S., and that the consequences for some refugee claimants could be of the most serious kind. Yet what we understand to be normal procedures for establishing agreements that relate so directly to human rights are bypassed.
I put this forward tentatively. My colleague will probably be much firmer about it. But it is our understanding that agreements like this that do seriously affect human rights usually have some reference to the provinces; usually there is some attempt to make sure that it is in conformity with the Canadian Constitution; usually the justice department is involved to see whether or not this is in agreement with international treaties. So we're really concerned about this. All of these concerns arise not so much out of the technical aspects of the agreement itself but simply out of our concern about and for refugees.
We see nothing in the memorandum of agreement that actually meets the concerns expressed in the opening paragraphs, specifically paragraph 2. Our church leaders and the Inter-Church Committee itself, and all those who are working with refugees who know something about this agreement, are really perplexed about why we are even considering it, given the fact that there is no clear level playing field between Canada and the U.S.
Madam Chair, that's our presentation, but let me say one thing. I'm the resident amateur in the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees. Tom Clark is the repository for knowledge and wisdom with respect to refugee affairs. Therefore, in an open display of cowardice, I would appreciate it if the questions could be directed to him.
The Chair: Yes.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: I would like to start by congratulating you on your presentation. Your comments are very important. In light of the moral authority of Canada's Churches, I hope the government and the committee will act on your words.
Yesterday, 64 American organizations opposed to the signing of the agreement wrote to President Clinton. One of the signatories was Amnesty International. There were also a number of Churches.
Do you have any contacts with the Churches in the United States? What is their position? Do you work jointly with them on these matters? Do the Churches in the U.S. share the concern of the Inter-Church Committee of Toronto?
Mr. Tom Clark (Inter-Church Committee for Refugees): Yes and yes.
Mr. Nunez: Could we get a copy of the letter sent by the American organizations to President Clinton?
Mr. Clark: Yes, definitely. I may have one in my file.
The Chair: If you have it with you, you could give it to our clerk, who will make copies for everyone after the meeting.
Mr. Clark: If I have one. If not, I will send you a copy tomorrow.
Mr. Nunez: Thank you. I don't know whether you heard the witness or other witnesses this morning talking about refugees' right to choose their country. The minister took exception to this right, but she did mention the right of countries to accept or reject a request for asylum. I think we have to be logical about this. Do you think a person seeking asylum should be entitled to choose the country? If so, why?
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[English]
Mr. Clark: As churches, we like to use some international reference point. It seems to us, therefore, that the individual has the right to seek asylum in other countries, plural. That is part of the universal declaration. It's also part of the Organization of American States system and the Inter-American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man under which we're accountable. So I presume that on that basis alone the individual has the right to seek asylum in other countries, plural.
However, I think if you look at our brief, we're coming at it in a slightly different way. We are suggesting that individuals have rights by being children of God, or citizens of the world under the UN treaty system, which Canada has ratified, and that states or governments have responsibilities with respect to ensuring those rights.
Consequently, our view is that if a person asks Canada for help, we shouldn't just say for some technical, mechanical reason that they happen to have been or passed through somewhere else on the way, and we shouldn't ignore their views and essentially do Pontius Pilate and say, no, somebody else will look at that and we aren't going to care about the standards of treatment or your particular problems.
So our concern is that it's not just the choice of the individual, it's the responsibility of the state for the individual, and that responsibility comes not only from the 1951 convention but, as Canada has said, from the human rights treaties that give rights to human beings. It may well be that Canada can return persons to the United States. As you were saying, not everybody who claims refugee status, even in good faith, may be a refugee and may need protection. But what we would say is that they remain human beings and there are some basic standards of treatment that apply to human beings, and they should be applied. So there is something for everyone, and for refugees there is something more.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: You're not a lawyer, but do you think that if this agreement was signed between Canada and the United States, it could be challenged in Canadian courts? What would be the chances of success of such a challenge? Does the agreement violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
[English]
Mr. Clark: Well, lawyers will likely reflect on challenges in Canada. My view is that it's not consistent with international human rights law and therefore it's the sort of thing we will want to discuss with the international human rights agencies.
The committee has just put out an analysis that shows there is a gap between the international human rights standards and how the Canadian courts function. So it may well be that the Canadian courts don't find a problem. Certainly, as Amnesty has testified, the United States Supreme Court tends not to find problems in fairly horrendous refugee situations, if the recent past is anything to go by.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: This morning, Professor Hathaway made a suggestion. I understood him to say that he was opposed, but if the agreement were ever passed, he suggested that it not come into effect until Canada and the United States had achieved harmonization regarding the protection of refugees. What do you think of the suggestion?
[English]
Mr. Clark: The committee is on record as agreeing that it is probably a principle before any of these things can happen.
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In fact if, as we had suggested, we had had time to develop an alternative agreement that would have done some of the positive things that have been ascribed to this agreement, such as improving asylum in the region, etc., I think it would have been an agreement that as its first step would have set out to move towards a level playing field and then moved into dealing with the real problems. With respect, I'm not sure at present freedom of choice is a problem. If there need to be provisions for emergency situations when choice might be waived, let's talk about that. But let's not do it for everyone all the time when there appears to be no need to do it.
One of the things that happen in the human rights treaties is that there is explicit provision for a declared, defined emergency when certain rights can be restricted. It seems to me that's the sort of approach one should be taking. Most of the time it seems to me, certainly personally, freedom of choice is a very low-cost, easy way of doing business. So if most of the time one can grant freedom of choice - and according to the information we have from people doing border work people are coming to Canada because that's where they want to make their refugee claim for reasons of connection or link or some kind of friend or family - we don't understand why one shouldn't do that, most of the time. And if there are emergencies one wants to envisage, then let's talk about them and let's try to deal with them. If we're trying to respond to the sort of refugee emergencies we've had in this region, that could be constructive, because as we know from the Haitian crisis, there isn't a mechanism for dealing with large flows of refugees in the region.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: You said that the draft agreement did not refer to the Convention Against Torture or to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. How could we go about including a reference to these international agreements? Should it be part of a possible agreement on refugees? I had trouble understanding what Mr. Hay was saying about this point.
[English]
Mr. Clark: I'm not sure I understood the question.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: Would the agreement be acceptable if it referred to the Convention Against Torture, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights?
[English]
Mr. Clark: No, but that would be a step in the right direction. I guess our concern is that the agreement should make reference to all the relevant treaties. It should aim to accomplish not just the convention but.... Refugee claimants remain human beings, and as I was saying, we should aim to provide their human rights as well as the special bonus they get if they're a refugee.
It would help. As Dr. Hay was saying, a perplexing thing is that some of the things the agreement says it will do it seems it will not do. In our view, for the agreement to be viable it must have some legitimate purpose, it must have some reasonable way of getting there, and there must be some appropriate proportionality between what it's trying to do and who it's hitting. We don't see that in the agreement.
So it's pretty much a fundamental problem for us at this point. I don't think just making reference to a treaty would fix it.
The Chair: Ms Meredith.
Ms Meredith: I want to run a few things by you. I don't know if I'm missing the point here or what's happening.
My understanding from the United Nations is that third-country resettlement is the last resort; that's not something they really encourage, because it's not the most successful means of looking after people who are in a situation of distress.
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We also know that the individuals we're talking about here are not the ones who are sponsored by Canada or the United States, are not individuals who have been recognized by the country as needing sponsorship. These are individuals who on their own accord have chosen to leave and to seek asylum somewhere else, for whatever reasons.
If I understand well, if somebody chooses to go to Canada and happens to be in the United States on their way to Canada, this agreement recognizes that and doesn't really involve them. They have 10 days by land and 48 hours by air to get to Canada through the United States. When I see that, in my mind I see that the people who would fall into this are people who are living illegally in either Canada or the United States and at some point decide that they had better legitimize their presence and they want to make a claim somewhere. Or they might be picked up by the American or the Canadian authorities and be found to have come to that country from either Canada or the United States.
So we're not talking about individuals who have made a conscientious choice to come to Canada and have been stymied somewhere on their way here. We're talking about people who have decided to seek asylum or to live in another country and have not claimed status as soon as they land.
Am I wrong in making that assumption?
Mr. Clark: Again, the evidence we've been working on is the persons who are coming into Canada through the United States. According to the groups there, most of these people intended to make a claim in Canada.
Ms Meredith: But if they had come into the United States intending to go to Canada, they had 10 days to get to Canada. If they had the means to get to the United States and they were planning to go to Canada, then I assume that they would have had the means to have got there in 10 days. So I'm not sure that we're talking about great numbers of people who were planning to claim asylum in Canada who are going to be caught up with this.
I think this agreement will catch people who, to be quite honest, are illegally in either Canada or the United States, get caught, and are trying to claim asylum. They get caught in, ``Where do I claim refugee status?''
If they claim it in Canada but they came from the United States, then Canada can say, ``You don't fall within the guidelines. You took longer than 10 days. You've been in the United States'' - or in Canada - ``for eight months or ten months. You haven't claimed status. You were obviously in the United States for a period of time. Even if you weren't, why didn't you claim refugee status immediately?''
Mr. Clark: I hear what you're saying, but we have come at this issue in a slightly different way. My perspective would be to ask what problem the agreement is trying to solve. If persons now coming to Canada are not in the category you're describing -
Ms Meredith: I would suggest that the agreement is trying to catch precisely those individuals, the ones who are, and have been for some time, in the countries illegally and who decide, for whatever reasons, that they had better legitimize their presence.
If they were in the United States for longer than ten days or two weeks or three weeks or eight months or ten years and then came to Canada to get a legal recognition and felt that their chances were better than those in the United States, what is wrong with having an agreement that deals with that issue?
Mr. Clark: But, with respect, I think what you're defining is a hypothetical problem, that the agreement -
Ms Meredith: I suggest to you, sir, that the problems you are creating are also hypothetical. I have been shown nothing other than one incident with Haitians, who were not even in the United States, which witnesses are using as a basis for alleging inhumane treatment in the United States with refugee claimants. I don't think my reference is any more hypothetical than the cases that you are anticipating may arise in the United States.
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Mr. Clark: Yes. I guess all I would say is that it's obviously, at the very least, a burden to impose on refugee claimants to require them to access the Canadian border in a very short time, if that is provided - and I need to check that. I would say one has to justify that in some fashion. If there is no basis for justifying it in terms of no problem that's being solved, then it's not a legitimate imposition.
Ms Meredith: But if you're claiming people have the right to choose wherever and a person is choosing Canada to seek asylum, and if it's for the reason that Canada accepts two-thirds more than the United States, wouldn't you think that individual, on reaching North America, is going to proceed to Canada? This agreement takes that into account. If they're in the process of getting to Canada, then they can make their claim in Canada. But if they take months to get to Canada on reaching the North American continent, that's suspect, and they should have made their claim in the United States.
I personally don't see anything wrong with it. If they are intent on claiming refugee status in Canada, if that's their choice in claiming asylum, then why the delay in getting there? Are they on a sightseeing trip of North America or what? I think this agreement protects those people who genuinely want to make a claim in Canada.
Mr. Clark: Yes. I may well be able to define a time at which it may be implausible for a person to make a claim in Canada. But my problem is that we have signed a convention. We've said if a person needs protection we'll give it. If a person arrives and needs protection, we should be able to give it, irrespective of their history. That's my problem in a nutshell.
As I said, if we can see emerging problem situations we need to deal with, I would prefer to deal with them in that manner, rather than by getting in the way of what appears to be working fairly well on a normal basis, which is people exercising their choice because of their friends or their families or some other connection in Canada.
Ms Meredith: But if an individual in the United States wants to come to Canada because they have family here, that is also dealt with in this agreement, as I understand it. They allow the exceptions for those individuals who are trying to be unified -
Mr. Clark: It's true the agreement deals with immediate family, but ``family or friends'' is often broader. The reason why people would come to Canada could be broader than their immediate family; I mean spouse or child.
Ms Meredith: I go back to the thing Mr. Collins said: where do you draw the line, then? Where do you say this is a good enough reason but this isn't? You have to draw the line somewhere. My comment is if they found protection in the United States for a period longer than ten days or two weeks or three months, they found protection and they don't need to go to another country to find that kind of protection. If they're on their way and they're caught in transit to Canada, then the way this is written protects them for that. But if they have found protection in the United States, that's where they should make their claim.
Mr. Clark: If they have found protection in the United States we don't have a problem, because they'd be refugees. The issue is -
Ms Meredith: But the point is that although they've lived there for three or four months and have been protected living there, when it comes time to legitimize it, if they feel they don't have a good enough excuse to meet that, they may want to make their claim in Canada because we have an acceptance rate two-thirds greater than the United States'. So at that point they may decide they want to have what they consider weighs better in their favour and make the claim in Canada.
Mr. Clark: But I think that's what I heard Professor Hathaway addressing this morning. If it really is the fact that the United States isn't going to get them protection and they really are a refugee and we really are going to recognize it, I don't see why they shouldn't come here and ask for it, if you see my point. For technical reasons, to send them back to the United States without looking at that is a problem.
.1700
Ms Meredith: But our system takes five or six years to look at that issue, and I don't think it's fair to the system or to the individual. If our system operated in a more precise manner in a timely fashion, perhaps that would be the way to deal with it.
Mr. Clark: For different reasons, we have come to the similar conclusion to Professor Hathaway, that if the two procedures were in fact giving substantially the same protection, the problem goes away. But the refugees aren't going to shop around anyway because they're going to know that they're going to get the same protection. His alternative, I think, improves protection in the region, which we say we want to do, and it ensures that people get protection and stops the concerns about people moving around.
Ms Meredith: You're telling me, then, that Canada has to wait until the acceptance rate of the United States is up to 72%, as in Canada, before we should enter any kind of an agreement to deal with this.
I would suggest to you that the United States may not be willing to accept to the extent that Canada has. To be quite honest with you, I think a lot of people have problems with our determination of who is a genuine refugee and who we are allowing to come in under that category, as opposed to just an application for landed immigrant status.
I would suggest that we have to deal with it before some other country comes up to our level. I think we have to deal with the problems that are in place, which have been expressed to the government and certainly to myself. There are situations that do have to be dealt with and this is at least a start -
Mr. Clark: But I'm not understanding the situations that have to be dealt with. We haven't been told, or at least to our satisfaction, that there is a credible rationale for the agreement. What is the problem that it's trying to address?
Ms Meredith: I have been told by people - am I out of time?
The Chair: We have a bell that will ring at 5:15 p.m. for a vote, so I want to give the members of the government an opportunity.
Mr. Collins.
Mr. Collins: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I have a document from the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees in front of me and I would like to refer to it. Is this your document?
Mr. Clark: Yes.
Mr. Collins: I hope you will forgive me, but I look at paragraph 3 where you make this statement: ``We think the claims for this Agreement are fraudulent.''
Sir, I take some umbrage, and I find it rather vitriolic of you to make that observation. You may find there may be some reason for review, but I think if you're making a statement that you think it's fraudulent...I take it very seriously.
In my humble opinion, sir, I think it needs to be reviewed. I come here as a part of this committee and I don't take that lightly. When you make this kind of observation, I think, sir, that we need to step back and ask whether you would want to rethink this kind of statement.
I come to this committee, Madam Chair, attempting to listen to all sides of the debate, and I apologize for not being able to talk to the legal gentleman this morning.... But I think when we sit here and when I read this document, I have some grave misgivings. I happen to be part of one of the groups that is represented.
I would like you to react to what you put in that paragraph, sir.
Mr. Clark: Let's take the sentence that follows it: ``Officials have said it will accomplish things which upon examination it will not.'' That's our opinion.
Is that fraudulent or isn't it?
Mr. Collins: Well, in your opinion, sir, you've said you think the second sentence follows. I'm not so sure that sentence two then follows sentence one. We disagree. I am sorry, I don't take that to be fraudulent. We have a disagreement, however you put that down. I think the text you've used is very serious.
Mr. Clark: We've said ``Officials have said it will accomplish things which upon examination it will not.'' And we've said ``We think the claims for this Agreement are fraudulent.''
It seems to me that it is...I don't know, I need my Oxford English dictionary. We might soften the word ``fraudulent'' if we check it in the dictionary.
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But as for ``Officials have said it will accomplish things which upon examination it will not''.... As regards improving asylum in the region, I think we try to show why we think it will not accomplish that. I think you've had other testimony that shows that it doesn't fully honour international law.
Mr. Collins: If I might go back for a moment, this morning I wanted an answer to the question, do you know of any that are in the shopping arrangement? I said to the others, have you any examples? I'm not so sure, but they can give me something that somebody said in the United States, or somebody else said, and now, because we have some officials who made some statements, they're fraudulent.
I'm just saying I think we've taken a leap of faith, if I may use the expression, in this particular instance in dealing with this document. If you can tell me of some that you don't know are one-stop shopping, I'd like to know about it. Maybe they've identified some. I think Ms Meredith said there may be some using this process.
I understand, and I think you have a very good group and you do an honourable job. But what if there is this process?
Mr. Clark: I can tell you why we think they're not shopping. That's because the agencies that receive refugees that make border claims, and if they're referred back to wait in the United States for border claims, tell us that the people they're servicing - that means providing a place to live while they wait - are people who are coming to Canada, have not made claims in the United States and didn't intend to make claims in the United States.
So we don't have any basis for accepting that rationale. Of course, if we were given figures, we might change our view.
Mr. Collins: Okay.
The Chair: Are there any other questions on the government side?
I would like to ask two or three questions since we have a little bit of time left, Mr. Clark.
I would like to know, first of all, if you were at all consulted during the two consultations that took place, one in Washington and one between the department and the officials.
Mr. Clark: Yes.
The Chair: Were any of your recommendations incorporated into the agreement as it stands at the present time?
Mr. Clark: Yes.
The Chair: How many recommendations did you make and how many of them were incorporated?
Mr. Clark: I'd have to do a count. Certainly not -
The Chair: I don't mean to put you on the spot, but were most of your recommendations incorporated into the present agreement?
Mr. Clark: Not as far as I know. But there was a much earlier agreement...and there has been some effort to introduce immediate family, as Ms Meredith mentioned, into the current agreement.
The Chair: Was that part of the recommendations you made to the department and the minister?
Mr. Clark: We pointed out the lack of them in the earlier agreement, yes.
The Chair: So some of your recommendations have in fact been incorporated into this agreement.
Mr. Clark: That's possible, yes.
The Chair: Possible. Is it or is it not?
Mr. Clark: Well, yes, it's quite possible.
The Chair: Okay.
Mr. Clark: In fact, we hope it would be normal. But the difficulty is that if the agreement requires 30 changes and 15 are made, it's understandable that we would still be here, as we are.
The Chair: Yes, and that's why we're here to do the consultation.
Mr. Clark: Thank you.
The Chair: I'd like to thank you very much for coming before the committee. Thank you very much for your comments.
We are adjourned, ladies and gentlemen, until Thursday morning.