Immigration Law

Episode 2 – Jennifer Bond on Refugee Resettlement

Steven Meurrens

Jennifer Bond joins Peter Edelmann and Steven Meurrens to discuss refugee resettlement and ensuring that legislation is Charter compliant.

Jennifer Bond is a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, and is also a Special Advisor to Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship.  Jennifer sat on the founding national executive of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and is founder and current co-director of the University of Ottawa’s Refugee Assistance Project, a multi-year, national initiative aimed at mitigating and researching the access to justice implications of Canada’s new refugee legislation. She is also the Faculty Coordinator of the University of Ottawa’s Refugee Hub, supervisor of the Refugee Law Research Team, and a member of the Public Law Group.

Her e-mail is jennifer.bond@uottawa.ca.

00:26 – 21:31- We discuss international refugee resettlement law. Specific topics include whether countries are obligated to resettle refugees, Canada’s commitment to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees, and the role private sponsorship programs in the global refugee resettlement effort.  Jennifer also explained the security screening that Canada undertakes when it resettles refugees, and how this security process compares to Canada’s other immigration streams.  Finally, we asked Jennifer for her take on what we discussed last week, which is whether in the wake of the BREXIT vote and the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, the aslyum crisis in Europe, the potential rise of protectionism and isolationism in the United States with the election of Donald Trump, and now the recently failed coup in Turkey, Canada can continue to buck global trends and remain a nation that loudly and publicly announces its intentions to continue to welcome a record number of immigrants and refugees.

21:31 – 35:50 – We discuss Jennifer’s 2014 paper titled “Failure to Report: The Manifestly Unconstitutional Nature of the Human Smugglers Act,” as well as the ongoing case involving the whistleblower Edgar Schmidt, who sued the Department of Justice for allegedly failing to report to Parliament whether new laws might be so inconsistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms they would trigger constitutional challenges.  Mr. Schmidt’s website can be found here.  The Federal Court recently dismissed Mr. Schmidt’s lawsuit, and the decision can be found here.

35:50 – 39:47 – Peter and Steven discuss the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration’s current exploration of
Immigration Measures for the Protection of Vulnerable Groups.  Steven poses the question of how history will judge us if, in the interests of not being seen to favour one group of refugee claimants over others, that group faces a similar result to the Jewish people during World War 2.

39:47 – 42:50 – Peter Edelmann and Steven Meurrens discuss the recent misrepresentation decision in Lamsen v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration).  There, the Federal Court affirmed that a visa application must be considered in its totality and that applications cannot be compartmentalised, particularly when making a finding of misrepresentation carries such serious consequences.

42:50 – 46:20 – The Government of Canada is currently proposing changes to NEXUS eligibility and what will lead to the cancellation of a NEXUS card. After providing an overview of the changes, we discuss how Canadians may soon be privileged travellers domestically within the United States.

46:20 – 49:30 – We wrap up by discussing the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., and what it means for the ongoing standard of review debate.

Episode 1 – Peter Edelmann, Deanna Okun-Nachoff, Steven Meurrens

Steven Meurrens

In this introductory episode Peter Edelmman, Deanna Okun-Nachoff, and Steven Meurrens discuss recent developments in Canadian immigration law, as well as some recent news items and a specific case.

00:30 – 8:39 – Peter, Deanna, and Steven discuss how immigration policy in general has changed under the Liberal government, with a specific emphasis on the Liberal’s repealing the portions of Bill C-24 which revoked the Canadian citizenship of certain individuals convicted of certain offences related to national security.

8:39 – 19:03 – The conversation shifts to Donald Trump, BREXIT, and whether Canada under the Liberal government is bucking an international trend towards increased protectionism.

19:03 – 25:06 – In discussing immigration policy under the new Liberal government, we note that unlike under the Conservatives, where Jason Kenney seemed to be directly or indirectly responsible for all government departments related to immigration law, the Liberals are providing autonomy to the Ministers of each Ministry, and what impact that this may have.

25:06 – 38:50 – Peter Edelmann leads off a discussion on Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s current consultations regarding immigration levels planning in Canada. The discussion becomes a very philosophical one about whether centralised planning is necessary, what Canada’s population should be, and how Canada attempts to meticulously control permanent resident numbers while at the same time does not have an overall plan for how many temporary residents are admitted.

38:50 – 41:25 – Steven Meurrens provides a case summary of Sendwa v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 216. In this decision the Federal Court greatly broadened the ability of Canadian permanent residents and citizens to sponsor their relatives. Canadian immigration law provides that a relative of a sponsor, regardless of age, can be sponsored by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, if that sponsor does not have a spouse, a common-law partner, a conjugal partner, a child, a mother or father, a relative who is a child of that mother or father, a relative who is a child of a child of that mother or father, a mother or father of that mother or father or a relative who is a child of the mother or father of that mother or father. Traditionally IRCC interpreted this as requiring that the Canadian sponsor not have a living spouse, child, parent, grandparent, etc. However, the Federal Court clarified that this is too stringent, and instead stated that the law only requires that the Canadian sponsor not have a sponsorable child, parent, grandparent, etc. The distinction will likely be important for Canadians who either do not meet the income requirements for the parents and grandparents program, or whose parents may be medically inadmissible.

41:25 – 53:16 – Deanna Okun-Nachoff comments on how John McCallum, Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, recently committed to “getting rid of silly rules.” She discusses some of the rules that she finds silly, including the Temporary Resident Permits issued to victims of human trafficking, and numerous quirks of Express Entry.