Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can be extremely brief, then, because it's really not my area of expertise. I'll just also say that I do think anything that contributes to really identifying people who are in fact war criminals, which would facilitate an investigation or other remedies, is certainly positive.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, and I certainly wouldn't say that the screening should not be happening and that there should not be some effort to take a look at whether there are these allegations against war criminals. Because then, of course, we'd have more people who are the victims living in Canada in the same communities as the perpetrators.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In a way what I was going to say is that it's not really my area of expertise. I'm sure there are others who have a better sense, really, of what's happening in terms of the various specifics around how people are tracked and identified. We work more at the stage of, when people have come here, what we would like to see.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I do think that singular focus on deportations is really the heart of the point that I want to make today. I think that really misses this opportunity for justice, and I think not all of the approaches would cost money to implement. The things I didn't raise are more from the organizations that are working more closely with immigrants and refugees, but I will say this approach raises some real concerns as well that people are being labelled publicly as being accused of these crimes as though they've actually been through a criminal process, and they haven't.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I will answer in English so that I can be a little clearer. On the question about which situations we focus on for cases here in Canada, something that is very important is not just looking at justice in individual cases and negotiating for an extradition request but also investing in the justice processes that are happening in the affected countries.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. You obviously know quite a lot about this issue. About two or three years ago, I think, there was an evaluation of the war crimes program in particular. One of the key findings was that the RCMP is extremely underfunded, under-resourced, so the RCMP's investigations could potentially feed all these parts of the program, in particular the investigation piece.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I think it is because there are these limits. The ICC's stated policy is to look at the highest level of perpetrators in any situation. If we have an alleged 2,000 war criminals in Canada, and they could be brought to justice elsewhere or one of the people who would be considered the highest-level perpetrator could go to the ICC, that makes sense.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I only know what I've been reading in the media. I've seen maybe 13 or 14 from this most wanted list who have been removed.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  To give you and perhaps others some details about the program, it was created in 1998 and had a budget of $15.6 million and that has never been increased. After September 11, a fourth department was added, which was the Canada Border Services Agency, as it was created. That same amount of money, $15.6 million, went from three departments to four departments.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We are creating in the world a system of international justice. Canada has been very much a leader in that process. It's been under previous governments, but this is really not a partisan issue and should not be a partisan issue. We have the new International Criminal Court. It's widely touted as such a great achievement in providing justice when these crimes occur, when we had nothing in place throughout history, and in giving hope that we will send this message and deter atrocities.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My points, given the mandate of our organization, are more about the issue of justice. I'm sure that there are others who can speak more to what's happening at the border. That's really not our area of expertise. The point I really want to make is that, in a sense, when someone who's accused of some very serious crimes comes here, it almost presents an opportunity, if there are a few cases that can actually then be prosecuted.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I think it's a good question. I don't know a lot about what happens at that end of it, in terms of what's happening in the countries themselves as people are making the applications. But my sense of things is that certainly if there were significant resources to really be able to investigate someone's background and history, and make a decision on that basis, then I understand the idea of trying to prevent more people from coming.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much. Distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to join you today. Distinguished members of the committee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. In the context of your discussion on Canada's immigration system, I will address the issue of how Canada should respond to the presence of alleged war criminals in this country.

Justice committee  Thank you. I didn't get a chance to get to those points in my brief. My point about requiring a real and substantial connection to Canada is to address the question that is sometimes raised. If we open the doors to survivors of torture in Canada, or terrorism for that matter, will that not open the floodgates for many cases to go forward?

Justice committee  Thank you very much.