High-level resignations from refugee board will further delay claims: advocates
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 | 10:03 PM ET
CBC News
The resignation of the chair and five key advisers at the Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board has people concerned that refugee claimants will have to wait even longer to have their cases heard.
"What it's going to mean is an already lengthy wait is going to get even longer," Joshua Sohn of the Canadian Bar Association of British Columbia told CBC News.
On Friday, the chair of the refugee board resigned with just eight months left in his five-year term. News reports said Jean-Guy Fleury said it was time for new leadership at the refugee board.
An interim chair, Brian Goodman, has been appointed to temporarily replace Fleury starting March 17. Goodman has worked for the refugee board since 2001.
While Fleury was handing in his resignation, five members of an advisory panel in charge of hiring new members of the refugee board also stepped down.
The resigning members were unhappy that Immigration Minister Diane Finley plans to appoint two of the seven members on the panel, according to CBC Radio's Salma Nurmohamed.
The resigning panel members warned the move would politicize the board.
While the resignations rolled in, the board was struggling with another problem — it is short 52 adjudicators.
The refugee board is supposed to have 156 adjudicators, who handle immigration inquiries, lead detention reviews, and can order people's detention and release.
Media reports suggested Fleury complained that it was taking the Immigration Department too long to fill the vacancies. He and a board of experts had selected about 50 candidates to fill the jobs, but the federal government had not followed through.
Sohn told CBC News that the recent resignations would probably delay the process of filling the adjudicator vacancies even further.
Opposition MPs speak out
The resignations and wait times had federal politicians talking Wednesday. Some sided with the five panel members who quit and echoed their concerns about the political appointments to the panel.
"Giving the minister the power to appoint Conservative hacks or ideological partners is completely unacceptable," New Democrat MP Bill Siksay said in a press release. "It politicizes this important process, a process where board members make life-and-death decisions about people's lives."
Spokespeople for the Immigration Department defended the appointments, saying their candidates would be fully qualified.
The Immigration and Refugee Board is a tribunal that makes decisions on refugee claims made from inside Canada.
The board also holds detention reviews, hears appeals on immigration issues, and holds hearings on whether people may enter or remain in Canada.
