Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины
Access to the Refugee Determination System
What we heard:
Access to the refugee determination system is too restrictive and would
deny access to people convicted of politically trumped-up charges. Others
who are excluded from the IRB procedures may be denied access to a fair
risk assessment upon return to their country of origin.
Our response:
The possibility of politically trumped-up charges will be considered by the
IRB, except in cases where the Minister finds the person to be a danger to
the public.
The new bill clarifies that unsuccessful refugee claimants, refugees who
have withdrawn or abandoned their claims, and refugees excluded from the
IRB process will have access to a pre-removal risk assessment prior to
removal.
The risk review may provide for an oral hearing, depending on the complexity
of the case.
Repeat claimants will have access to the risk review after six months
instead of one year.
People refused resettlement overseas will have access to the IRB
determination system should they later apply from within Canada.
Other Amendments to Respond to Stakeholder Submissions
The time limit for filing leave for judicial review of overseas decisions is
prolonged from 15 to 60 days.
Convention refugees and protected people whose identities have been
established will be provided with a document indicating their status and
making them eligible to apply for refugee travel documents.
- 30
2001-03
Backgrounder # 2
Making the System Work Better
For Immigrants
Improving Client Service
What we are doing:
Piloting new approaches to overseas processing.
Introducing new technology: the Global Case Management System.
Why we are doing it:
To ensure faster processing, quality decisions and increased transparency.
Clearing up Backlogs and Managing the Inventory
What we are doing:
Designating new funds to clear up backlogs.
Improving the management of the inventory of applications for permanent
residence and for immigration visas abroad.
Introducing the Multi-year Planning Process.
Why we are doing it:
To serve Canadians, permanent residents and potential immigrants faster
and more effectively.
To enable the program to move toward immigration levels of one percent of
the population.
Expanding the Family Class
What we are doing:
Broadening the definition of "dependent child" by increasing the age from
under 19 to under 22.
Opening up adoption provisions in keeping with the principle of the best
interests of the child.
Modernizing the definition of "family" to include common-law and same-sex
partners.
Why we are doing it:
To reflect the high value Canadians place on the family.
To maintain and enhance the family class as an important component of the
overall program.
To reflect the changing nature of social relationships in Canada.
Facilitating Family Reunification
What we are doing:
Creating an in-Canada landing class for sponsored spouses and partners for
both immigrants and refugees.
Exempting sponsored spouses, partners and dependent children from the
admission bar with regard to excessive demand on health or social services.
Reducing the age at which Canadian citizens and permanent residents are
eligible to sponsor from 19 to 18.
Including "parent" in the definition of family class within the Act.
Reducing the length of the sponsorship requirement from 10 years to 3
years for spouses and common-law opposite- and same-sex partners.
Why we are doing it:
To make it easier for families to be reunited as soon as possible.
Incorporating the Best Interests of the Child
What we are doing:
Incorporating the principle of the best interests of the child in appropriate
provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Why we are doing it:
To uphold our international commitments as a signatory to three United
Nations conventions on the rights of the child.
To reflect the high value Canadians place on the well-being of children.
Modernizing the Selection System: Skilled Workers
What we are doing:
Moving away from an occupation-based model to one focused on flexible
and transferable skills.
Assigning more weight to education.
Increasing the relative weight of having knowledge of an official language but
ensuring that language is not a bar to admission.
Creating an "in-Canada landing class" for temporary workers (including
recent graduates from Canadian schools) who have a permanent job offer
and who have been working in Canada.
Why we are doing it:
To attract and keep the highly skilled, adaptable immigrants that Canada
needs to succeed and prosper in the future.
Expanding the Temporary Worker Program
What we are doing:
Facilitating the entry of temporary workers through a more serviceoriented
approach.
Pursuing agreements with individual sectors or firms to identify and meet
short-term labour market needs, while respecting the terms of applicable
federal-provincial agreements.
Why we are doing it:
To allow the immediate needs of employers to be met faster.
To expand our access to the global labour market.
To attract people who are skilled and on the move and to encourage them to
make Canada their destination of choice.
Strengthening Sponsorship Obligations
What we are doing:
People in default of court-ordered spousal or child support payments will not
be allowed to sponsor.
People convicted of a crime related to domestic abuse will not be able to
sponsor unless a pardon has been granted or rehabilitation has been
demonstrated.
New legislative provisions will improve the ability of the federal government to
recover the costs of social assistance in cases of sponsorship default.
People receiving social assistance, except for reasons of disability, will not
be able to sponsor.
Why we are doing it:
To strengthen the integrity of the sponsorship program.
Streamlining Appeals
What we are doing:
Introducing a new leave requirement for people appealing visa officer
decisions from overseas.
Developing an alternative dispute resolution mechanism for overseas
decisions.
Limiting inland humanitarian and compassionate applications to one per
year.
Why we are doing it:
To provide a screening mechanism for applications to the Federal Court for
review of overseas decisions. The leave provision currently exists for inland
applications only.
To provide an effective, alternative means of reviewing and solving disputes
regarding overseas decisions.
To ensure a fast and fair inland system for considering applications on
humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Business Immigration
What we are doing:
Establishing objective criteria to assess business experience for both the
investor and entrepreneur programs.
Creating a new net worth requirement for entrepreneurs.
Why we are doing it:
To strengthen the integrity of the business immigration program.
Objective Criteria for Permanent Residence
What we are doing:
Introducing a clear physical residency requirement. To retain permanent
residence status, a person must be physically present in Canada for a
cumulative period of 2 years for every 5 working years. People who spend
time overseas for specific reasons (to accompany a Canadian citizen, to
work for a Canadian company, or for humanitarian reasons) will retain their
status.
Developing a fraud-resistant permanent resident card.
Ensuring an oral appeal to the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) for all
loss of status cases.
Ensuring that permanent residents without a valid card have the right to
enter if they have been outside Canada for less than one year.
Why we are doing it:
To implement a clear objective standard that is easier to administer.
To replace a document that is easy to forge with one that has
state-of-the-art security features.
And Refugees
Strengthening Refugee Protection: Overseas Resettlement
What we are doing:
Amending the criteria for "ability to establish in Canada" to include social as
well as economic factors.
Pursuing agreements with NGOs to locate, identify, refer and pre-screen
refugee applications in areas where refugees are most in need of protection.
Ensuring that people in urgent need of protection are brought to Canada
within days.
Why we are doing it:
To ensure that the need for protection is the overriding objective in
resettlement from abroad.
To focus existing resources on areas where refugees are most in need of
protection.
Facilitating Family Reunification of Refugees
What we are doing:
Processing overseas families as a unit, including extended family members
of refugees whenever possible.
Allowing dependants of refugees, selected inland or abroad, to be
processed as part of the same application for a period of one year after a
refugee has acquired permanent resident status.
Exempting refugees, their spouses, partners and dependants from the
admission bar with regard to excessive demand on health or social services.
Why we are doing it:
To facilitate the reunification of refugees with their family members as soon
as reasonably practicable.
Faster and Fair Refugee Processing Inland
What we are doing:
Referral to the IRB to be made within three working days.
Consolidating protection decisions at the IRB to examine all risk grounds at
a single hearing. Grounds will include the Geneva Convention, the
Convention against Torture, and the risk of cruel or unusual treatment or
punishment.
The use of single-member panels as the norm, supported by the
establishment of a paper appeal on merit.
Reducing the waiting period from 5 to 3 years for the landing in Canada of
undocumented refugees who are unable to obtain documents from their
listed country of origin because there is no central authority in that country
to issue documents.
Why we are doing it:
To allow genuine refugees to be processed faster so that their lives are not
put in limbo while they wait for decisions crucial to their future.
To provide a fair opportunity to correct errors in law or fact in the first
instance, and to increase the integrity of the decision-making process.
Front-end Security Screening
What it is:
A security check initiated when a person makes a refugee claim.
Why we are doing it:
To catch criminals and people who present security risks at the start of the
process and speed genuine refugees through the system. Currently, a
security screening is carried out only once a person is granted refugee
status by the IRB.
Admissibility Hearing
What it is:
A hearing before an independent adjudicator to decide whether a person is
admissible to Canada.
Why we are doing it:
To make fair but fast decisions on security cases.
Pre-removal Risk Assessment
What we are doing:
Legislating a procedure to fairly assess the risk of return prior to removal.
There will be flexibility for an oral hearing should the complexity of the case
require it.
Repeat claimants, failed refugee claimants, and refugees who have
withdrawn or abandoned their claims will be assessed on the grounds of the
Geneva Convention, the United Nations Convention against Torture, and the
risk of cruel or unusual treatment or punishment.
People found to be inadmissible to Canada for reasons of serious
criminality, security, organized crime or violations of human rights will be
assessed on the grounds of the United Nations Convention against Torture
and the risk of cruel or unusual treatment or punishment.
Why we are doing it:
To ensure that there is a fair and effective procedure for assessing the risk
of return for individuals being removed from Canada.
Strengthening Enforcement
Penalties
What we are doing:
Increasing penalties for existing offences.
Creating a new offence for human trafficking.
Extending Criminal Code counterfeiting provisions (which currently apply
only to passports) to cover any immigration document or travel document
(with an exemption for refugees).
Allowing for the seizure of assets in cases of migrant smuggling and
trafficking.
Providing new authority to seize citizenship documents to prevent fraud.
Creating a new offence for people who counsel a person to misrepresent
himself or herself or to commit an offence under the Act.
Creating a new offence for the possession and laundering of proceeds from
immigration offences.
Raising the penalty to life in prison for migrant smuggling and trafficking.
Why we are doing it:
To ensure that we have the tools we need to combat organized crime and
human trafficking.
Exclusion from the Refugee Determination System
What we are doing:
Barring access to serious criminals, people who present security risks,
organizers of criminal operations, or violators of human rights. A "serious
criminal" is defined as someone who was convicted of an offence punishable
by 10 years or more and who has received a sentence of 2 years or more in
Canada. People convicted of an offence punishable by 10 years or more
outside Canada will only be excluded if the Minister finds them to be a
danger to the public.
Why we are doing it:
To prevent abuse of the refugee protection system.
