Interview on AM770 Danielle Smith on Immigration and Election 2019 September 20, 2019

Danielle Smith:	We have been doing a series about immigration over the course of the last day, looking at where the parties stand on immigration. And I wanted to talk to Raj Sharma to see if he's seen anything out there that gives him some confidence that any of the political parties have the right answer for solving some of the problems he's spoken so eloquently about with us in the past.
Danielle Smith:	Raj Sharma, of course, is partner and immigration lawyer at Stewart Sharma Harsanyi, joins me now to talk about it. Raj, thanks so much for being with me today.
Raj Sharma:	My pleasure.
Danielle Smith:	When I talked with you in the past, you've been so excellent at just giving us a play by play of how the backlogs are growing and some of the consequences of that. You've talked about what some of the solutions are, and it seems like there are a lot of people putting a lot of minds to figuring this out. Is there any progress being made from your perspective?
Raj Sharma:	Well it's an interesting time that we're in right now. I honestly expected immigration, irregular migration to play a greater role in the election campaign so far, but obviously that's kind of probably fallen by the wayside given the events of the last 48 hours.
Danielle Smith:	But you know, it's interesting. They're connected. I think in some ways, part of the reason why liberal supporters are giving Justin Trudeau a pass is they're saying, well, look at how supportive he's been of bringing fast-tracking Syrian immigrants, of not closing down Roxham Road. They are connected, I think, in giving him some kind of credibility for him. For voters who see that as a number one issue. Is there some legitimacy to that?
Raj Sharma:	You're right, there is seemingly this sort of connection, and I think that there's this sort of disappointment or this sort of concern I suppose in terms of the Trudeau brand that perhaps this individual is not ... is different than what he is in private may well be different than what he is in public. That doesn't gainsay his policies, but at the same time, we have to hold everyone accountable whether they're on the left or the right, and whether he himself has held himself out to this sort of higher moral ground.
Raj Sharma:	He himself has been this almost insufferable, sanctimonious, woke individual, and that is now giving pause I think to immigrants, to new Canadians that what we've been seeing in terms of Mr. Trudeau. You're right, in terms of he himself has lectured us on diversity and inclusion, and he himself has moved Canada's policies in terms of Syrian refugees, dramatic intake, there. He has also presided over this massive uptick in terms of irregular migration, tens of thousands of individuals that have crossed the border of the U.S. border into Canada.
Danielle Smith:	Let's talk about the first one because when I look back in hindsight, the refugee program, the fast track of the ... I think it ended up being 25,000 in that first traunch, turned out to be pretty successful. He managed to work on some glitches pretty quickly, and a large number came through private sponsorship and there've been studies afterwards saying that those who came through private sponsorship, a better integration of jobs, like they've gotten much higher levels of assimilation into Canadian society. So if I look at that policy on its own, it seems like that was a win for him.
Raj Sharma:	I'm a huge fan of the private sponsorship process. So Canada is the only country in the world that allows private individuals to sponsor refugee applicants to relocate permanently. So when we talk about this colloquially known as the group of five sponsorships, these individuals, these humanitarian individuals in Canada, they commit to resettling and assisting and being there for refugee claimant financially and emotionally, and they take on this serious responsibility. And I think we should encourage this sort of private commitment, so they commit in terms of finances, they commit to ensuring that newcomers to Canada have a place to stay, for food, shelter, clothing to settle them or integrate them into Canadian fabric of our society.
Raj Sharma:	So I'm a huge fan of this program, and I hope that it continues. And again, where the, the advantage of this program is that we are selecting individuals from camps, let's say around the world refugee camps, individuals that have been displaced. The UNHCR has already recognized them as persons in need of protection, or the country that they're in has already certified that they're individuals in need of protection. There's already been screening, there's already been interviews and a background check for example. So I think that this has been an unmitigated success story in terms of Canada, the private sponsorship. I would like to see more of it frankly, but of course there's other demands on our resources.
Danielle Smith:	Completely. Also when Michelle Rempel put pressure on the government to create a separate stream for Yazidis, because I don't think that they were being identified by the UN body. They reacted there too, so that I think is another win. Right?
Raj Sharma:	Absolutely. I think Ms. Rempel has done an amazing job, frankly in terms of opposition, and again, it showcases that both major parties in Canada are supportive of immigration and are supportive of Canada's humanitarian tradition.
Danielle Smith:	Okay. Roxham Road. I think the tweet was a disaster. I think that that was what initiated the flood of people thinking, "Hey, all I have to do is get a travel visa to the U.S., cross at the border and I'm in." And many of them are economic migrants, many of them are not legitimate refugees, and so I think they bungled that, but they also then went out and made sure to work with the Nigerian government where many were coming from saying make people aware that they're not going to be approved and they're going to get deported if they don't meet our criteria. And that seems to have slowed down the flow at the border. I'm not sure how to interpret that, but I wanted to get your take on it. Is it sort of a bad news than good news story? Or is it just bad news, bad news? Because we still haven't figured out how to manage the flow.
Raj Sharma:	No, I agree with your assessment of the situation. It was perhaps overly enthusiastic. Overly enthusiastic sort of a sub tweet perhaps of Donald Trump assuming office. And what you'll see, not just working with the Nigerians, but you will see at behind the scenes that the immigration refugee board, the board put in place something called the Jurisprudential Guide.
Raj Sharma:	So what that does is that if you've got a claim from Nigeria, and an individual from Nigeria is fearing a private actor. A private entity, not the government, for example. They've put in place a sort of precedent, and the precedent says that in most cases someone in Nigeria can go somewhere else and be safe. That's called Internal Flight Alternative, so that Jurisprudential Guide has allowed the board to be very very efficient in its processing of these claims. The second thing that they've done behind the scenes is that they've prioritized removal of those individuals that make a claim after crossing the border. And so they've prioritized, once the refugee claim is refused, they prioritize the removal process for them. So that also probably will give rise to a disincentive.
Danielle Smith:	And what about clearing the backlog? Cause that's one of the things that you raise because ... I remember one of the first times we talked about it. It was if you're coming across the border and you're going to be refused, but it takes them five years or longer to process your claim, you may just end up qualifying by default for compassionate stay. Have they solved that problem?
Raj Sharma:	Well, it's very interesting because the liberal government under Trudeau has actually responded far stronger than I expected. So there was a budget omnibus bill called C-97. Inside that budget omnibus still of a couple of months ago were changes to the immigration refugee protection act. For example, they've now, let's say someone comes into the U.S. And notifies the U.S. that they want to make a refugee claim. And making a claim in the U.S. takes many many years, and so what they do is, let's say they decide to come to Canada and make a claim here. The liberals have now, the liberal law as now precludes those individuals from proceeding with their refugee claim in Canada, even if they've just done a notification of a claim in the U.S.
Danielle Smith:	Uh-huh (affirmative).
Raj Sharma:	We never even saw this, for example, during a Jason Kenney's tenure.
Danielle Smith:	And so that is essentially an extension of the Safe Third Country Agreement. If you can apply in U.S. then that's your first choice.
Raj Sharma:	Absolutely, and again, unanticipated by me-
Danielle Smith:	Let me-
Raj Sharma:	and I think anticipated by every other immigration lawyer or stakeholder.
Danielle Smith:	All right, let me pause you for a minute because then I want to see. Now that we know what the real record is, and it's been up and down, there's no question about it, but it looks like they're on the path to solving some of these problems. I want to understand what your assessment is and what their immigration policies are going into this election. Raj Sharma is my guest, partner and immigration lawyer at Stewart Sharma Harsanyi, and he joins us to continue this discussion after this on 770 CHQR
Danielle Smith:	Raj Sharma is my guest, partner in immigration lawyers who are Sharma and Harsanyi. Now here's the question: it sounds like they've fixed a lot of the problems, some of them self created. I'm of the opinion that it doesn't look to me like you get the liberals or the conservatives, you're not going to get a big difference in immigration policy. With the approach that they've been taking with attempting to close the loopholes, with still honoring the Safe Third Country Agreement, with roughly the same number of migrants that they want to accept. It seems to me like they're pretty similar policies, and I just want to see if my guests degrees. What do you think Raj? Is it pretty much the same liberal and conservative? Any big difference in their policies?
Raj Sharma:	I agree that the, policies would be the same. I think the liberals were in a ... between a rock and a hard place, in terms of the border crossings, and I simply can't see, despite all the sound and fury that came from the conservatives, I simply don't see any sort of viable alternative options that they would have put into place.
Danielle Smith:	Okay. And the NDP, I don't know. It doesn't look that different to me either. They do want to focus on gaps in settlement services, improving foreign credentials recognition. Both of which I think are really in a provincial purview, but I don't maybe, but they also want to protect newcomers from taking on unscrupulous immigration consultants. It sounds more like tweaking than any kind of big overhaul. Do you see it that way?
Raj Sharma:	When you start getting into the NDP sort of policy or philosophy, let's say, or the Green, they seem to have this sort of a pie in the sky or sort of, you know, belief in unicorns and fairy dust about borders being meaningless and that ... I just don't see that as being practical. And you know it's always good to be livid in sort of this ideal world. But you know, I live in this world and, the reality is that orderly immigration ... orderly immigration policy gives rise to support for immigration. And once we either lose control or have perceived to have lost control over the selection of individuals that come to this country, you will see a degradation of that support for immigration.
Danielle Smith:	I see what you're saying. So because they both say they want to suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States. Is that what would lend itself to us losing control over immigration policy?
Raj Sharma:	I think so. I think that what we have right now, this sort of detente, and again you're talking about hundreds of thousands of individuals in the U.S. with precarious immigration status. So you have hundreds of thousands of dreamers. You have their parents, you have hundreds of thousands of Central Americans under very very fragile TPS status right now. I think that sending that signal out for example, that the U.S. is not a safe country, and we're going to set aside or dismantle the Safe Third Country Agreement is going to give rise to consequences that perhaps they have not envisioned or thought trough fully.
Danielle Smith:	Last one. A Green proposal to eliminate the temporary foreign workers program. Ah! Like for me that is the beautiful program that allows us to recruit people from abroad for when we need the economic extra help and then gives them a pathway to permanent immigration as well through through provincial nominees. I would think that that's not a bad program. Maybe fix some of the abuses, but I don't know if it should be eliminated. What do you think?
Raj Sharma:	There is abuse in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. There has been some changes that have been put into place. Those changes have been welcomed by most stakeholders. It's a great program, and again, there are exploitative employers, but that's true in all sort of circumstances. But I think that's a situation where you sort of tweak it as opposed to ... because the reality is that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program addresses the needs of employers as well. And so once you have full employment mobility, that will have impact on the labor market for Canadians. So, and again, people should realize that there's at any given time there might be a half million international students, for example, in Canada that have the ability to work and compete against local citizens-
Danielle Smith:	Yeah.
Raj Sharma:	And permanent residents. And so you are going to skew the labor market, and you're going to impact individuals, Canadians that are making on the lower quartile let's say of wages. So we have to be very careful when we start talking about introducing hundreds of thousands of individuals, foreign nationals, to compete against our own citizens and permanent residents.
Danielle Smith:	In my last 30 seconds ... People's Party want to reduce the amount of migrants to a 150,000.
Raj Sharma:	I think it's a bit of a pipe dream. And again, I don't know where they've gotten that number from. That being said, I don't really know where we got the the liberal number from either, but I think 150,000 in Canada in 2019 ... it's simply ... it's a talking point.
Danielle Smith:	Okay.
Raj Sharma:	It doesn't reflect the data or the needs of Canada.
Danielle Smith:	What should the needs be? Somebody says that we brought in a million people last year. I think that's too high.
Raj Sharma:	The plan is for a million over three years.
Danielle Smith:	Million over three years. Thank you. I thought that that person was incorrect. So 350,000 ... is that about the right mark, or do we know?
Raj Sharma:	That's about right.
Danielle Smith:	Okay. Raj, thank you so much for your comments today.
Raj Sharma:	My pleasure.
Danielle Smith:	Raj Sharma is partner and immigration lawyer at Stewart Sharma Harsanyi. See, it's not a million a year. It's 350,000 a year up from I think 250,000, and Maxime Bernier wants to go to 150,000. We need to figure out what the right number is, and I've tried to do a couple of segments on that. I promise you I'll do another.