Immigration Minister Lena Diab says the definition of a “public interest” event that would allow her department to pause or revoke immigration applications is “intentionally not defined” in new legislation.
Diab told the House of Commons immigration committee today the definition was left open-ended in the government’s new border security bill, C-12, to allow Ottawa to respond to unforeseen events.
“It is intentionally not defined in the legislation, as I said, to allow for maximum flexibility for the government to respond in a range of unforeseen circumstances that threaten the public interest,” Diab told the committee.
Diab was asked repeatedly during the committee hearing when the government would be permitted to use the new powers to pause immigration applications or cancel existing documents.
The minister said they could be deployed in a national security emergency or health crisis, adding the government could have made good use of the power to pause immigration applications during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tara Lang, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada director general of integrity policy and programs, told the committee the public interest power also could have been used for a mass extension of healthcare worker visas during the pandemic.
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Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner repeatedly asked Diab to explain what safeguards exist in the legislation to prevent the power change or revoke immigration documents en masse from being abused.
“You want Parliament to give the government the ability to kick mass groups of people out, undefined, who they don’t like. That’s what it sounds like to me,” Rempel Garner said.
“How could I go to ethnic groups in my community and say I could vote for this? This is actually bananas and so anti-Canadian. So what are those specific safeguards?”
Diab replied that these powers would “only be used in exceptional circumstances. She said the use of the powers would have to be Charter compliant and the decision would have to be made in consultation with other ministries and cabinet.
More than 300 civil society organizations, including civil and migrant rights groups, have called on the government to withdraw this legislation due in part to the proposed power to mass cancel immigration documents.
Justice department officials at the committee said that it’s their opinion the legislation being put forward is Charter compliant.
The rationale for using these powers would be published in the Canada Gazette and through a cabinet order, with specific reasoning on why the powers are being used and who is affected.
Lang said that while the powers could be used to revoke an immigration document, they would not remove someone’s legal status in Canada as that is a different process.
Lang added that if people feel they are “improperly named” in one of these orders there is an opportunity for them to request to the immigration department that they be removed from the order revoking or modifying a document.
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