As the Liberal government’s controversial border bill advances in the Senate, a committee is proposing gutting the section dealing with changes to immigration laws.

Senators on the national security, defence and veterans affairs committee began clause-by-clause review of Bill C-12 on Monday as they stare down a Feb. 24 deadline to report back on the legislation to the entire Senate.

The review came only days after another Senate committee released a report recommending that large parts of the bill get scrapped or significantly rewritten.

Owing to its large size and varying subject matter, C-12 was studied by two Senate committees.

The national security committee had the authority to propose amendments but it’s required to consider recommendations made by the social affairs, science and technology committee, which called for the removal of parts five to eight of the bill.

In its report, the committee cited serious concerns about privacy, executive overreach, refugee ineligibility rules and weakened due process protections. 

The committee heard from 35 witnesses and received 36 written submissions from civil society groups like Migrant Rights Network, Canadian Council for Refugees and Amnesty International. 

They warned that the measures could disproportionately harm vulnerable groups and undermine Canada’s refugee system. 

Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director at the Canadian Council for Refugees, said this is the first time that the Parliament actually subjected the bill to “extensive testimony, analysis, critique and recommendations” from a range of experts in civil society. 

“When they heard the range of concerns, they really honoured the finest Senate traditions and gave this bill a sober second thought,” Sreenivasan said in an interview with iPolitics.

She said the government built this bill on the assumption that applicants are making false claims, and because of that belief, it’s pushing forward a “shorter, lighter, less robust process.”

She said refugee protection must be determined individually, and not based on the timing and manner of arrival on whether someone faces persecution.

As the national security committee began clause-by-clause review on Monday, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Lena Diab alongside Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree submitted a letter addressing the other committee’s concerns, while urging the Senate to move C-12 to a royal assent. 

The letter re-emphasized that the bill does not cancel immigration status automatically, block access to asylum, change the Safe Third Country Agreement and weaken removal safeguards. 

The remark noted that the proposed powers to cancel or suspend immigration documents would only apply in “exceptional” and “unforeseen circumstances.” 

“These existing individual cancellation authorities are limited in nature, as they can only be carried out to prescribed circumstances,” Diab and Anandasangaree wrote. 

The ministers also defended the expanded document control and information-sharing powers as necessary tools to respond to fraud and surges in migration, and described the pre-removal risk assessment process as a robust safeguard that meets Canada’s international obligations. 

“If C-12 is adopted, the minister will continually assess the impact of the legislation with careful attention to where additional exceptions could ensure the alignment of Canada’s asylum system with our humanitarian obligations,” they wrote.

The national security committee is expected to complete clause-by-clause review later today.

More to come…