Bill C-31 - What it means

On 6 April the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration tabled Bill C-31, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which if adopted will replace the current Immigration Act. In announcing the bill, the Minister also presented a significant number of other policy directions that are not found in the bill, but are either to be included in regulations or are simply statements of the government's intentions.

Negative discourse: In her announcement, the Minister described the bill as "tough". She said that she was "closing the back door to those who would abuse the system" in order to keep the front door open. Much of the announcement focuses on "closing the back door": strengthening mechanisms to address fraud, misrepresentation and abuse and remove or keep out criminals, security risks, violators of human rights etc. This focus stereotypes refugees and immigrants in highly negative terms. It is also regrettable to find the government pitting some refugees against others: promoting the protection needs of one group of refugees while attacking the protection needs of another.

The new bill is to be called the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and has separate objectives for refugees, and a distinct part on Refugee Protection. This is a way of recognizing that refugees, as people forced to flee, are fundamentally different from immigrants. However, the distinction is not fully respected within the bill: refugee resettlement is covered under Part 1, Immigration to Canada. In addition, many of the rules affecting refugee claimants in Canada (for example, the provisions relating to detention) are found in Part 1, where the specific realities of refugees are not taken into account.

The bill is a piece of framework legislation, meaning that only the main overall rules are included, and most of the details are left to Regulations. The bill is much shorter than the current Act and is simpler and easier to read. However, because many of the important rules are in the Regulations, the Act by itself gives little idea of the real processes refugees and immigrants will go through. Furthermore, putting things in the Regulations opens the door to the government changing the rules, without parliamentary scrutiny, based on its convenience, public annoyance, displeasure at a court's decision on individual rights, etc.

The government has said that it hopes to have the draft regulations available by the time the bill is being studied by the Parliamentary Committee, but has made no commitment.

Security measures: The bill places a heavy emphasis on measures supposed to protect Canada from criminals and abusers, reducing individual rights and protections and increasing penalties. Many of the measures aimed at "closing the back door" are to be found in the bill. On the other hand, most of the measures announced to "open the front door" are merely proposals for the Regulations.