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entrusted to a private security company. She inquired about the rules applied at the centre, a
copy of which she was given in several languages. Mr. Dominique Collinge, CIC Regional
Programme Director in Quebec, who accompanied the Special Rapporteur on her visit round the
premises, said that a code of conduct was being drafted for guards working in that type of centre.
The Special Rapporteur, as she had done in other centres she had visited, talked privately with
some of the men and women detainees. More specifically, she interviewed a Costa Rican
national, who said he did not understand how he had ended up at the centre. According to his
account, he had arrived in Canada as a tourist with a minor, who said she was his cousin and who
was also at the centre. The person interviewed came from San Isidro de El General, a town
situated south of San José. Apparently, both had arrived in Canada with return flights and a
hotel reservation. He said that the girl’s parents had offered them the trip because she would be
coming of age during the week she would be in Canada. They had been detained at the airport,
despite, according to him, having valid papers and a return flight. The Special Rapporteur asked
him how it could be that he did not know why he was in detention, whereupon he replied that he
did not speak either English or French and that the interpreter came only once a week. The
Special Rapporteur asked if he had been in contact with his consular authorities and he said he
did not know how to go about it. The Special Rapporteur found a telephone directory by the
telephone booth giving the numbers of consulates. However, she noted that detainees were
given little information in that respect.
63.
The Special Rapporteur spoke to a Pakistani, who said that his residence permit had
expired and that he was there awaiting deportation. He said he had applied for a ministerial
order to be able to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds because his
family was being persecuted in Pakistan. More specifically, he said his father had been in prison
ever since the new regime had come to power.
64.
In the women’s section of the centre, the Special Rapporteur spoke with a group of
Chinese women, who were being held because they had no papers and no permit to enter
Canada. One of them, who said she had left China on account of the country’s family planning
policy, explained to the Special Rapporteur that when she had arrived at the centre, she was
introduced to a man of Chinese origin who said that he was her lawyer. She had believed him
and asked him to take up her case in order to claim refugee status. He apparently told her she
should not say that she had family in Canada. She believed him and duly wrote it down.
However, she said that on the day of the hearing, the person who presented himself as her lawyer
was not the same as the one who had visited her in the centre and she found that the statement
submitted on her behalf had been completely altered. She then decided to tell the truth and to
say that she had a sister in Canada. Apparently, her testimony was not given credence and she
was awaiting a deportation order. Her sister came to visit her once a week at the detention
centre.
B. Domestic workers and members of their families
65.
The Special Rapporteur interviewed many representatives of NGOs dealing with
domestic workers in Canada known as live-in caregivers, and live-in caregivers who told her
about their individual cases. Most of the NGO complaints regarding the live-in caregivers
programme related to their obligation to live in the employer’s home and the impossibility of