Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины

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.

Eliminating Appeals

What we are doing:

Eliminating appeals to the Immigration Appeal Division for serious criminals,

people who present security risks, members of criminal organizations and

war criminals. There will remain recourse to judicial review with leave by the

Federal Court.

Why we are doing it:

To ensure that we can remove serious criminals and people who pose a

security threat to Canada without delay.

Suspension of a Refugee Claim

What it is:

The ability to suspend a person's application for protection before the IRB if

he or she has been charged with a crime. The claim would be suspended

until the courts have rendered a decision on the case.

Why we are doing it:

To prevent abuse of the system by people who come to Canada not

because they need protection but because they intend to engage in crime.

Repeat Claims

What we are doing:

Extending the period after which a new claim can be made from 90 days to

six months.

Why we are doing it:

To avoid "revolving door" situations where failed refugee claimants return to

Canada and make multiple claims.

Detention and Day Parole

What we are doing:

Excluding incarcerated foreign criminals under removal order from day

parole.

Why we are doing it:

It is inconsistent to integrate individuals into Canadian society who are to be

deported on completion of their sentence.

Streamlined Security Certificate Process

What we are doing:

Applying to permanent residents the security certificate process that

currently applies only to non-permanent residents. The process requires the

signatures of two ministers to the effect that the person is inadmissible on

grounds of security, and a review of the certificate by a Federal Court judge.

Why we are doing it:

To make it easier to remove permanent residents who pose a serious threat

to national security.

New Inadmissibility Classes

What they are:

Two new classes of people who will be inadmissible to Canada: (1) people

subject to travel sanctions imposed by Canada as a member of an

international organization such as the United Nations; (2) people who

committed fraud or misrepresentation on an immigration application will be

inadmissible for 2 years.

Why we are doing it:

To strengthen our ability to enforce international sanctions.

To prevent immigration to Canada through fraudulent means.

Backgrounder # 3

Milestones On the Road to New Legislation

Since 1996, the Government of Canada has been reviewing immigration and

refugee policy and legislation with a view to fundamental policy reform and the

introduction of new legislation.

The comprehensive review process that has been under way since has involved a

significant number of consultations with many different groups and interests as well

as with individual Canadians. Ministers have been discussing immigration reform

with Canadians for more than four years.

This process has included:

The appointment of a Legislative Review Advisory Group (LRAG) in 1996

commenced a major consultation process both by LRAG and by the

government on their report, Not Just Numbers, in 1998.

A Red Book commitment in 1997 and 2000 to streamline and update the

immigration/refugee system, which promised to implement changes to

make Canada's immigration system simpler, more effective, and more

easily understood.

The release of the White Paper, Building on a Strong Foundation for the