Friday, August 13

BRIAN LAGHI
Parliamentary Bureau
Friday, August 13, 1999

Ottawa -- Ottawa could deter smugglers from importing illegal immigrants to Canada by substantially reducing the time it takes to process refugee applicants, a prominent immigration lawyer says.

However, such a move would cost money and force the government to detain would-be refugees upon landing to ensure they don't disappear before their claims are heard.

"Spend the money needed for dealing with these people quickly," said Ben Trister, secretary of the Canadian Bar Association's section on immigration.

"The smuggling community understands when you're open for business and when you're closed for business."

Mr. Trister was commenting on the recent arrival of two boatloads of immigrants, one of which arrived on the Queen Charlotte Islands yesterday. All individuals who land in Canada are allowed to make a refugee claim, a process that, on average, takes about 11 months. Some individuals use that time lag to abandon their claim and disappear into Canadian society.

Mr. Trister said there is nothing stopping the government from speeding up the process. However, it would have to spend a considerable amount of money to do so, and would also have to detain refugees upon landing. He suggested the government might consider detaining those immigrants whose identities they cannot be sure of, a right it already has.

He added that all refugees deserve a hearing, and he compared the refugee process to the judicial system, where all are considered innocent until proved guilty. The system is set up to ensure that legitimate claimants aren't sent back to persecution. That means that occasional bad apples get in.

However, Mr. Trister said the process could be accelerated without destroying its integrity.

Currently, the Immigration and Refugee Board, which decides such matters, has about 27,000 cases to deal with. The board would like to reduce that figure to 14,000, a number that would bring the waiting period down to about six months.

Mr. Trister said there's no reason why the board can't move even faster. He suggested the government might consider expediting the process temporarily. A quicker process would cut into the smugglers' pool of potential immigrants, who pay up to $30,000 to find ways to get into Canada, he said. Potential immigrants might be persuaded not to take the risk if they knew they faced a quick hearing and deportation.

However, a spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan said yesterday such an idea might be difficult to implement.

Huguette Shouldice noted that, under current law, newcomers are given a 30-day period to decide whether they want to make their claims official. They also require time to find a good lawyer, whose job it would be to help a would-be refugee make a good case.

"You have to give them the opportunity to be heard," she said.

Earlier this decade, the government attempted to expedite the process by rejecting what were deemed to be frivolous claims. However, Ms. Shouldice said, that system was jettisoned after a number of court appeals found at least some merit in the claims of many would-be refugees who had initially been refused hearings.

Still, Ms. Caplan has said she is considering several options to crack down on smuggling, including the possibility of speeding up hearings.

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