Monday, April 17

JEFFREY SIMPSON

Wednesday, April 12, 2000

Here we go again with yet another attempt to get Canada's immigration and refugee policy right.

Pierre Trudeau was prime minister in 1976 when the act under which Canada now operates came into force. Since then, it has been amended a staggering 30 times as governments responded to changing political currents, administrative snafoos, partisan attacks and court rulings.

On the refugee side, Canada never recovered from the Supreme Court's Singh decision that gave Charter protection to anyone who so much as placed a baby toe on Canadian soil.

That decision gummed up the refugee-determination process, defying repeated legislative and administrative efforts to produce an efficient, fair system. Instead, the system became highly legalized with multilayered appeals, immigration lawyers growing fat, and lengthy administrative backlogs.

Post Singh, more and more money was thrown at the system, to no discernible useful effect. New processing arrangements were tried. The Auditor-General exposed administrative problems. More members were appointed to tribunals, and new methods were adopted for appointing tribunal members.

Nothing worked. The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), required to operate under post-Singh conditions, remained a bureaucratic morass. The public credibility of the country's system for handling refugees was further compromised by ongoing problems enforcing the board's deportation orders.

Any genuine attempt to reform the business of processing refugees should start by invoking the notwithstanding clause against the terrible Singh decision. But the Chrétien government considers that clause the equivalent of toxic poisoning, and won't go near it.

So all the Chrétien government could do was to try yet more administrative changes in the wake of boats full of illegal Chinese immigrants disguised as refugees, and the ongoing problems at the IRB. These are part of the overhaul of the 1976 legislation to be called the Immigrant and Refugee Protection Act.

On paper, some of these changes seem so sensible that the mystery arises why they have not been part of the country's laws since 1976. Such as? Barring "serious criminals, security risks [and] organizers of criminal operations." Extending to one year from 90 days a repeat claim to prevent "revolving door" applications. Starting a security check when a person makes a claim. Large fines for human trafficking.

These measures apply to only a fraction of refugee claims. The bulk of them do not involve "boat people" or criminals and, for these kind of refugees, most of the post-Singh procedures remain in place. The proposed refugee changes therefore respond more to last summer's headlines than the IRB's endemic problems.

Easing public concerns about "illegal" immigrants disguised as refugees and human traffickers struck the government as necessary to divert attention for higher immigration levels.

No public support exists for significantly higher immigration, apart perhaps from some immigrant groups that the Liberals dominate politically. For that political reason, Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan keeps talking about upping Canada's yearly immigration intake to about 300,000, or 1 per cent of Canada's population, from about 175,000.

School boards, social agencies, housing authorities, English-as-second-language teachers, urban planners -- no one is prepared on the ground in cities that receive large numbers of immigrants (Toronto and Vancouver especially) for such an increase. And yet even in the notes accompanying the new legislation, Ms. Caplan repeated the 1-per-cent figure. If she's not careful, that 1-per-cent figure could become something the government eventually feels it must achieve for no other reason than saving ministerial credibility, the worst way to make policy.

The immigration changes accomplish one important objective: assigning more weight to education, flexible skills and knowledge of English or French for independent immigrants. Canada needs more of these kind of immigrants (although not based on a target of 300,000 a year) to compensate for talented people heading to the United States, the country's low birth rate and its aging population.

Ms. Caplan then spoiled her immigration changes by loosening the criteria for family class immigrants, including allowing someone to sponsor an immigrant at 18 and reducing the length of sponsorship requirements to three years from 10.

The minister got about half the important changes right in the refugee and immigration parts of her bill. Given the history of the 1976 legislation, it won't be too many years before amendments are necessary.