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Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC)

Resolution number
21
Whereas
  1. In June 2000, CCR called for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and CIC to immediately implement the recommendations in the SIRC report concerning three complaints made by people suffering delays in landing for security reasons, and the responses to CCR by both the Solicitor General and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration noted that “decisions on admissibility rest with CIC”, not with CSIS;
  2. The recommendations of SIRC appear to have had no effective role in modifying CSIS recommendations to CIC in this case;
  3. Although one of these complainants has been responded to positively, the other two cases remain unresolved at the present time;
  4. Bill C-36 greatly expands the ability of Canadian authorities to deem someone a “terrorist” and an organization a “terrorist organization;”
Therefore be it resolved

That the CCR:

  1. Call on the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to introduce legislation to expand the authority of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) to review security certificates issued not only against Canadian citizens, but also those issued against permanent residents, Convention refugees and refugee claimants;
  2. Call on the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to instruct her officials that, where SIRC has heard a complaint against CSIS and issued a report, the report be given primacy in the Department’s decisions with regard to admissibility;
  3. Call on the Solicitor General to introduce legislation to expand the authority of SIRC such that SIRC be empowered to review and issue binding reports on the government’s listing of “terrorist organizations” under Bill C-36.
Subject
Security inadmissibility
Working Group
Inland Protection