Bill C-11 (Historical)

Balanced Refugee Reform Act

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Federal Courts Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, primarily in respect of the processing of refugee claims referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board. In particular, the enactment
(a) provides for the referral of a refugee claimant to an interview with an Immigration and Refugee Board official, who is to collect information and schedule a hearing before the Refugee Protection Division;
(b) provides that the members of the Refugee Protection Division are appointed in accordance with the Public Service Employment Act;
(c) provides for the coming into force, no more than two years after the day on which the enactment receives royal assent, of the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that permit a claimant to appeal a decision of the Refugee Protection Division to the Refugee Appeal Division;
(d) authorizes the Minister to designate, in accordance with the process and criteria established by the regulations certain countries, parts of countries or classes of nationals;
(e) provides clarification with respect to the type of evidence that may be put before the Refugee Appeal Division and the circumstances in which that Division may hold a hearing;
(f) prohibits a person whose claim for refugee protection has been rejected from applying for a temporary resident permit or applying to the Minister for protection if less than 12 months have passed since their claim was rejected;
(g) authorizes the Minister, in respect of applications for protection, to exempt nationals, or classes of nationals, of a country or part of a country from the 12-month prohibition;
(h) provides clarification with respect to the Minister’s authority to grant permanent resident status or an exemption from any obligations of the Act on humanitarian and compassionate grounds or on public policy grounds;
(i) limits the circumstances in which the Minister may examine requests for permanent resident status or for an exemption from any obligations of the Act on humanitarian and compassionate grounds; and
(j) enacts transitional provisions respecting the processing of pending claims by the Minister or the Immigration and Refugee Board.
The enactment also amends the Federal Courts Act to increase the number of Federal Court judges.

Balanced Refugee Reform Act

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member does have a point. When I read the information about how it can take five years to follow through this process, I could not believe that could be a healthy situation to be in. Clearly, it just makes sense for all concerned to have the process done more quickly.

I am not sure whether it was a refugee situation, but there was a family in Newfoundland and it was the exactly the case the member for Yukon described. The family had been involved in the community. The entire community was behind the family in trying to keep the family from being sent back to Russia. For people to live with that uncertainty over their heads for even one year would be enough, but for five years would be excessively long in my opinion. I think we all agree that we should shorten the time period considerably.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question about the bill's title. The Conservatives are developing an annoying tendency. Instead of naming bills based on the legal purpose of the enactment, for instance, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, as is traditionally done, the Conservatives are adding more and more subjective qualifiers. If my memory serves, in this case, we are now talking about a balanced refugee reform act.

Does my colleague think this ridiculous practice should stop? They should be more serious. We are voting on a bill, and value judgments have no place in the titles of bills. I would hope that parliamentarians vote in favour of a bill because it is a good bill. There is no need for the bill to indicate that it is a good bill.

We saw this tendency earlier this week with the bill to improve the health of Canadians and the economic stimulus bill. Does my colleague agree that these ridiculous little stunts need to stop and that the Conservatives should stick to the legal aspects of the legislation?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. The reason they do it is so they can put it in their press releases. They should simply write the press release and send it out. They do not have to include it in the bill.

Having said that, we have had two private members' bills on the whole issue of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act in the last seven days in this House. I have to admit to a bit of a weakness here because when my staff read that the member for Eglinton—Lawrence had introduced the pedal act, my staff insisted that I introduce the car act. As much as I fought the idea, I was persuaded at the end of the day that the car act had a particular ring to it and I went with that. I must apologize to my friend, but I caught the same disease that the government has.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today to the bill that the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism recently introduced in the House.

This refugee bill was eagerly awaited and badly needed. No one will be surprised to hear that the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was very helpful to my fellow Vietnamese who immigrated to Canada at the same time as I did.

When people ask me about my background, they ask me three questions. First, they ask me where I come from; second, whether I remember the war; and third, whether I was one of the boat people. It is clear that Quebeckers and Canadians understand and agree with the principle of refugees.

This debate coincides with the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Many people from my country came here as refugees and became prominent citizens, like the refugees from other countries who came and made Quebec and Canada better.

The current act is quite out of date and sometimes gives refugee claimants a bad name. It is high time we modernized it.

On March 30, the federal government introduced Bill C-11 as part of its reform of the refugee system. If it were passed as it stands now, this bill could have a serious negative impact on refugees. It is not enough to pass a law to improve what is not working. What we must do is find a balance and create something that will work.

The Bloc Québécois has asked the government to provide the committee with the regulations so that we can do an exhaustive study, because many measures announced as part of this reform are not included in this bill.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of studying this bill in committee, and I am proud to say that I will study it carefully, because I am the assistant critic. The member for Jeanne-Le Ber is the Bloc Québécois critic, and he does a very good job, by the way. We make a great team, and the people of Quebec can be glad to have a team like ours, because we will see to it that the flaws in this bill are corrected.

We are happy that the government is finally looking at implementing the refugee appeal division. However, we are disappointed that it is not fair, because not all applicants will have access, which we believe is discriminatory.

When people from designated safe countries are denied at the first level, they will not have access to this appeal division. Even if the government assures us that all files will be examined individually, there is no guarantee that there will be no mistakes.

My colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber pointed this out. We know the statistics of some IRB members. Some of them flatly reject 90% to 95% of the applications they receive, while others show more flexibility. A decision made by one man or one woman is arbitrary. That is why it is not fair that refugees from designated safe countries will not have access to the refugee appeal division.

Another thing: which countries will be designated safe by the minister and the government?

The government is currently working on Bill C-2, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia. The government tells us that a free trade agreement with this country is no problem because Colombia respects human rights.

However, Canada accepts Colombian refugee seekers who claim their rights have been violated in Colombia. Will the minister put Colombia on the list of safe countries? I wonder.

On the one hand, the government says it wants to sign a free trade agreement with Colombia because it is a safe country. On the other hand, it accepts political refugees from that same country because their rights have been violated. What will the minister choose? Will the minister decide to list it as a safe country?

That is why we think that the idea of safe countries is questionable. We do not know where the minister will put Colombia and other countries that do not respect the human rights of women or homosexuals—these are recognized rights.

Even though the Conservative government sometimes has difficulty acknowledging them, these rights are still recognized in Quebec and Canada. What will the minister decide? Will he designate certain countries as safe even though they do not respect human rights, women's right or the rights of homosexuals? What category will these countries be in? It worries me.

A civil servant will make the decision. Applicants from designated safe countries will have no right to appeal. That is far too radical considering that the decision will have been made by a single person. It is possible that an applicant's individual rights will not be respected. He will not have all the rights that other people with the same background but who come from different countries will have.

Statistics for certain board members are alarming. We should not find this kind of unfairness when the decisions are made by civil servants.

It also says that an immigration officer will have 8 days, as opposed to 28, to refer a refugee claim to a first interview with a department official.

Some people are traumatized when they arrive here. They have been abused and pressured. Some come from very corrupt countries. They do not trust the government in the country they came from. When they arrive here, they are told that in eight days they will have to explain their situation to a government official. They have left a corrupt country where their rights were violated. They are told that they have eight days to prepare to explain their situation. That is not very long for people who have suffered such great trauma.

Then, the second hearing happens 60 days later. Do not forget that many refugee status claimants arrive here having left their houses, their families and their jobs with no preparation whatsoever. They did not bring any documents to prove what they are saying. They have to get those documents.

As MPs, we occasionally write to embassies in Africa. Although we have more resources than refugees or applicants, it takes a fairly long time for the mail to get there as well as for the reply to come back.

What will we do when the person does not obtain the documents required for their defence within 60 days? Will their application be refused automatically? Will this person be penalized because they could not provide the necessary documents?

At present, it takes 19 months and now we are talking about 28 days. Perhaps we could find a compromise. I believe there is enough flexibility to do so.

At present, more than 45% of refugee claims are accepted. When refused, the failed claimants can ask the Federal Court for a judicial review. This court presently accepts 13% of applications. Where an error was made in the decision, 2% of requests are allowed. In total, 60% of applicants are successful in the end. The tragedy lies in the fact that many failed applicants have found work, married, had children born in Canada and have learned the language. In other words, they have fully integrated in the host society.

The current backlogs are unacceptable for 40% of the claimants who will be forced leave Canada. This government is largely responsible for these backlogs. Indeed, since 2006, we have gone from 20,000 to 60,000 backlogged claims. We know that over a third of the board members could have rendered decisions, but there are many vacant positions, which has caused this backlog.

As my colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber put it so well earlier, we cannot help but wonder if these delays are arranged on purpose in order to stay within certain quotas set by the government. What will they do in the future to stay within those quotas? Will they deny more claims? This will not serve Quebec or Canada.

We must ensure that this new legislation does not discriminate against claimants and does not deny more claims because they are processed faster. That would be tragic, both for the claimants and for our current system.

It is definitely time to reform this legislation, but that does not mean it should be reformed in a slapdash manner. We can take the time to reform it correctly. There is a difference between saying that it should have been done a long time ago and saying that we will do it too fast, which could lead to other injustices. If we did that, we might improve what is not working, but we would risk undermining the parts that are working. We must ensure that this bill does not create new injustices.

In committee, my colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber and I will ensure that when the time comes to vote on this bill in the House, it will be much improved and will respect the needs of claimants as much as possible. We no longer want to hear that, according to statistics, 60% of claims are completed and are successful. It is sad to hear people say that refugee claimants are abusing the system.

It is an essential system that is desperately needed, but the current legislation is outdated.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for her remarks and for her work as a member of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

I would like to comment on a few points. First of all, she said that there was no guarantee that cases would be dealt with individually or that decisions would be based on merit. But that is not true. In the reformed system, the IRB will deal with every refugee claim in an independent and quasi-judicial fashion on the basis of merit, in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In dealing with claims, we will go beyond our obligations under the international conventions on refugees and torture.

Second, she asked whether Colombia would appear on the list of safe countries of origin. As I said earlier, the answer is no. One of the main criteria for a country to appear on the list of safe countries of origin is that refugee claimants from those countries are turned down because they do not need our protection. Some 76% of claims by Colombians are allowed. Such a country will never appear on the list of safe countries of origin.

Last, she said that there was a quota for admissions, which is not true. We expect that the proportion of claims allowed will increase after the reform because there will be fewer unfounded claims for refugee status. She said that people do not make false claims, but that is neither objective nor accurate. Unfortunately, there are too many false claims. For example, 97% of claimants from the country that produces the most claims withdraw their claims themselves after arriving in Canada. By their own admission, they do not need Canada's protection.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister for his answers and clarifications.

There are two reasons behind the high number of false refugee claimants and the fact that a significant number of claimants withdraw their applications when they arrive in Canada. First of all, the act is very outdated and perhaps does not contain the standards needed. Secondly, asylum seekers are often taken advantage of and do not receive good advice; there is no supervision. People coming to Canada ask someone to help them through the immigration process. As long as this process is not supervised, there will be abuse.

The minister said that there would not be a quota and that the number of accepted claims will be increased, but will this increase be for claims after the initial hearing or after an appeal? It would be interesting to know. If an appeal division is created, but only some people have access to it, that creates a limit, which is unfair. It comes back to what I was saying earlier: there would be two types of claimants, which would be unfair.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the member's speech. I want to pursue the point she made about appointees to the boards, and also talk about boards in general.

First, does she think that would clear up some of the backlog that we have all agreed needs to be done, and that there is a need for more officials in those positions or more positions?

Second, to expand that discussion, the government has talked about cutting down on boards to save money, cutting the membership of various boards. The problem is, as most people know, most of those spots are already vacant. I think there are only 18 part-timers on those boards, so that will not save much money.

However, my worry is about the philosophy of cutting back on these boards. Who will be cut off these boards and which particular positions will be cut because usually people on a board represent somebody. It could be government, an NGO, individuals, provinces or territories. Who will be lost on these boards when representation on boards is cut back?

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate my colleague's question.

People from the communities currently represented are those who are most likely to be in need.

We must certainly not reduce the number of board members.

Nonetheless, the government talks about accepting more claims. That is good. The government says it wants to save money, but I must say that it is these interminable delays that are so costly.

A person might apply for refugee status and not get a final answer until seven years later, only to find out they are being deported. In the meantime, the person has integrated, bought a home and their children go to school. That is what is so harmful about all this. If a person's claim is approved and they get permanent resident status, they have the same rights and the same duties as a citizen and they integrate into society.

Immigration is a positive thing. People are not against immigration. When people come here as refugees it is not by choice. They do so because they are being persecuted in their home country. They do not choose to claim this status. They are fleeing a very harmful situation.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member a specific question about section 109.1. We have discussed a fair bit in the House the fact that the definition of designated countries is to be determined by regulation. I read this provision backwards and forwards and I am still trying to figure out what comes first. I do not envy a refugee claimant trying to figure out this provision. I am looking forward, in the review period, to receiving greater clarification in addition to the guidelines and regulations.

It has occurred to me, based on information that has been provided to me, that the largest category of refugees apparently now in the world are environmental refugees. Given the mindset of the current government to the recognition of climate impact and the problems many nations around the world are facing, an immediate question comes to my mind. There are so-called safe countries, which by way was not noted in the legislation but was pointed out by the former chair of the board. I wonder if the member would like to comment on my nervousness about what kinds of countries should be designated. They could have a good system of government, but they could be devastated by climate, such as Tuvalu?

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her question.

Currently, so-called environmental refugees, people seeking refugee status because of natural disasters, as my colleague mentioned, are not mentioned in the convention. This concept has not been included in international conventions. It should be. It is certainly a good idea.

Nonetheless, I am not surprised to see that the minister did not include this concept in his bill, since it is not yet recognized in international conventions.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge that the minister spoke this morning and has taken the time to listen to the debate. It is a good model for other ministers. I wish he would pass it on to them because good things happen in this place, even at second reading, which is somewhat problematic at times simply because members are speaking to themselves without the benefit of expert witnesses and testimony. Everyone is sort of left to their own ingenuity to craft together some of the important issues.

The minister will know that there was an interest in having this particular bill go to committee before second reading simply because it is a very comprehensive bill. There are certainly some contentious areas, but I think there is consensus within this place that we need an overhaul of the refugee system.

Right now it is estimated that there are 10.5 million refugees around the world, according to the UN High Commissioner. Every year some 20 developed democracies resettle about 100,000 of them globally. From that number, Canada resettles between 10,000 and 12,000, or 1 out of every 10 refugees, annually. We are second only to the United States, which has 10 times our population.

When we think about it, 10.5 million people probably have no hope in their circumstances. The global community is making some effort, but it is minuscule compared to the need. How much can a country do? I sometimes wish we could do more.

Before I came to this place, I had a CA practice and three of my clients worked for the Malton community council, Malton Community Information Services, and the community assistance services of Peel. All three of those agencies provided services and assistance to refugees. It was my first exposure to the plight of people coming to this country seeking asylum from places where some of the stories are very difficult to even speak about because they are such horrible situations.

I used to visit the airport to see some of these people coming in. I would see people in the middle of winter coming in with virtually only the clothes on their backs, maybe tank top shirts, shorts and sandals, and walking on the tarmac through the snow.

When I became a member of Parliament, the issue of refugees and immigrants was always a big issue. It is a big part of the work we do. A lot of people asked, why were we letting all those criminals into the country? It is more a problem of ours that we have not educated the public, for which we have a responsibility.

We know there is a difference between immigrants and refugees. We know people have to go through a very difficult process to get into Canada by applying for permanent residence status and, ultimately, to become citizens of our country. However, the refugee part is the hard one to explain to people.

It is hard for people to understand that there are people around the world who suffer on a daily basis, are being persecuted, tortured and even killed. There are many examples. Members deal with organizations that are involved in countries like Burma, for instance, where the slaughter of people is enormous.

This is an extremely important bill. I wanted to participate in the debate, so I could say that I have received some input from constituents and stakeholders about the bill. Their concerns are more prompted by the fact that this is such a comprehensive change to the legislation. It is very difficult for them to get their minds around it or to understand whether it is really going to work.

Let us look at the summary. I am not going to read it. There are a dozen substantive initiatives or changes that are going to be made in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, as well as changes to the Federal Courts Act.

It concerns me that we have so much on our plate. Then we look at the bill and note that the reference to regulations. This is where members of Parliament, on a hope and a prayer, hope they understand what the bill states it wants to do and gives the confidence to the minister and to the order-in-council to promulgate regulations, which are enabled by the legislation but which deliver what the legislation states.

The public may not know this, but when we deal with bills in this place and they go through all stages in the House, go to the Senate and get royal assent, if those bills require regulations, normally we do not see them. We do not see the detail, and everybody knows the devil is in the detail. This is why it is important that the minister would, to the greatest extent possible, provide the framework for the regulations. We cannot understand the thrust of each of the elements of the bill without seeing some of the detail of what is proposed in the regulations.

This has to be thought through. The department is not dealing in a vacuum. It is not going to wait to start its work. However, when we worked on the Assisted Human Reproduction Act at the committee stage, we asked officials how long it would take to do all the regulations. We were told it would be two years. It is about four years later and we still do not have all the regulations. I know that for a fact because the bill said, prior to gazetting any regulations, that the regulations should go through the relevant committee for comment, not to judge or change or whatever, but to see them and comment for the minister in the event that something was missed.

I would recommend that for the minister in good faith. The regulations should come to the committee for comment if there is that concern. That would go a long way to alleviating the kinds of concerns that have been developed. It is workable and it puts confidence in the committee system, which has worked on the bill, that these are the regulations, this is what we talked about, this was the stated intent and we see that in the regulations. The bill is too important to leave to order-in-council in the hope that it works out fine.

I hope that might cause some consideration by the minister from the standpoint, in listening to the debate today, that there have been some relevant concerns about the bill. This will take a lot of work. It will a lot of collaboration among all the parties to work this through committee, to deal with the challenges that will come from Amnesty International and from other stakeholders, other people who have been mentioned in the debate. These people will raise issues about things like the time frame is too short in terms of the first stage. Then there is the other problem of what is a country of safe origin. It has come up in virtually every speech. We really need to nail that one down.

When we talk at second reading, we know we will be asked to give approval in principle to the bill. Once it goes to committee and through the rest of the stages, those fundamental principles are locked in, so we have to be absolutely sure. I am not so sure everybody will be comfortable with the bill as it stands. However, in view of the fact that we started this debate and we will not go to committee before second reading, this will take good faith on behalf of all parties to work to stretch as far as possible under the rules of this place to consider some of the changes which have been suggested.

The members have raised some very valid points in debate thus far with which we have to be dealt. The number of witnesses that should be at committee should not be unduly restricted given the importance of this bill, but we have to reasonable as well. We do not need to have 20 people saying the same thing. Let us get one or two groups that represent an issue area to get some substantive backing to a position. It is important that we look to witnesses at committee who have well served Parliament in the past in terms of giving their experience and expertise.

Picking that witness list is going to be extraordinarily important. I do not think we want to protract the committee stage process any longer than is absolutely necessary, but we have to hit those high points that have been raised by members in debate today.

Those are my recommendations for committee and for the minister.

I would like to quote from the minister's speech this morning. He said, “This bill and related reforms would reinforce Canada's humanitarian tradition as a place of refuge for victims of persecution and torture while improving our asylum system to ensure that it is balanced fast and fair. The bill would ensure faster protection of bona fide refugees, reinforce procedural fairness by implementing a robust refugee appeals division at the IRB and ensure faster removal of those who seek to abuse Canada's generosity by making asylum claims”.

I emphasize the word “fast” because in my experience as a parliamentarian of over 16 years, fast does not always equate to fair. Sometimes fast means mistakes are made. I want to caution the members on the committee not to be railroaded and to ensure that the questions that are asked are answered.

There are enough stakeholder groups that are very concerned about, first, the process of appeal. My concern is we have had experience in the country where if people cannot get what they need to get through the process as it is laid out for them, they have an option, and that is to go underground. That is not a good outcome in terms of refugee determination.

We have had examples of things like that. It is not refugees, but I remind the House of the so-called undocumented workers in the construction industry. There were 20,000 construction workers. I know one of my colleagues worked on this for a long time. I remember the first question I ever asked about undocumented construction workers was this. Where did that name come from?

These people have come to the country without papers. They are working underground in areas that have a high demand for skilled labour, but they are not paying taxes, they are not contributing into their future for their pension system and they are not covered by our medical system. They are working underground. Their existence is being perpetuated by businesses that have these people in an awkward situation. They cannot come out. They are hiding. They hide all day long, and they work all day long. That is about all they can do because they do not have credentials. As far as I know, that is still an unresolved situation simply because we need construction workers.

This is unfair to those people as well. It is because the system could not deal with the demand that we had in the construction industry, and it was much cheaper. I hate to digress like this, but when we think about it, this is the kind of thing that can happen. Some businesses out there are in fact paying minimum wage to skilled workers who cannot come out and complain because they are undocumented, they do not have papers, they are illegal aliens. They are living lives of hell and they have absolutely nothing to do to save for their future or provide for their retirement. This is an accident waiting to happen. It really is a terrible situation.

People cannot get their situation in order to make the necessary representations and have the lawyers get the papers to do what they have to do. I raise it to enforce the point that if we have a refugee system that is too fast, then they may very well go underground. I do not know how many are underground already, but I do know there are a lot of people in the country who, in one way or another, got in here and then disappeared. They are in flight.

We do not need to have that problem get worse. The minister will know we have suggestions that the 60-day time frame should probably be 120 days. In this place, 60 days is nothing. We give ministers 60 sitting days just to respond to a committee report. It is one of those things at which I hope we can look. We need to hear from those who are on the ground, who deal with these cases and who have a high degree of credibility to find out whether we put ourselves at risk of forcing people to go underground simply because they cannot comply with the requirements nor prepare to go through the prescribed process.

To show where we have come from, we had a situation when I came here where refugees who came to Canada were in the process. It was illegal for them to work. I remember a colleague named Sergio Marchi, if anyone remembers him. He was the minister who brought in the changes to permit refugees to work and earn a little income, which was very important to them. Rather than being reliant on the Canadian system, they needed the dignity of work to take care of their families.

I do not remember the exact number, but I will guess. Somewhere around half the refugees coming into Canada were coming across the U.S. border. That really stuck me. How was that possible? People say there must be a reason. I guess the reasons are pretty clear. If I were a refugee and I went to the United States because it was easier to get into the States than Canada, I would find that I would get no legal aid, housing, health or assistance whatsoever, However, if I cross over the border, Canada would take care of me.

It is amazing how long it took, but I think we have resolved that to the greatest extent possible. It is basically the country of first safe landing, where it will have to take care of the refugee and the refugee determination. I think that has helped substantially, but the irony is the backlog has risen substantially. I think the minister has probably heard from a number of people that the current government has not had this as a priority. It has been delayed. It is an indictment that opposition members are throwing out.

I do not think it is time to throw blame around here. I am rising today and appealing to the minister and all hon. members to find a way to make this work, to ensure that the committee process is as robust as possible and when we get through this process, to ensure that we can quickly get a bill, if that is what the minister wants. It is a laudable objective to ensure that our system is balanced, fast and fair.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, I will reiterate that I am prepared to share, inasmuch as is feasible, draft regulations with the committee. Having been in opposition for many years, I know that opposition members are understandably skeptical about the ambit for regulations that are implied in a bill but at the same time it is very difficult to put every instrument in the statute and regulations are an important part of the legal system.

Having said that, I agree that there is a need for transparency. We are trying to pursue this in as collaborative a fashion as possible. It is my intention to share with committee draft regulations, for example, as to the process for the designation of safe countries. I also will accept amendments to outline the criteria for what would constitute designated safe countries.

I also would be open to the notion of submitting to the standing committee for comment future regulations as they are prepared.

Secondly, with respect to the member's comments on the notion of fast, in point of fact this is a principle, an idea, a word that I have developed from Mr. Peter Showler, the former chairman of the IRB, who has often been a strong critic of our government and who is now the chairman of the revenue policy think-tank at the University of Ottawa. Professor Showler has said:

The real secret of an effective system is that fast and fair are not opposites, they are complementary. The government appears to understand this principle.

He goes on to say that every refugee asylum system in the democratic world aspires to be both fast and fair.

It's even more difficult to design an entire refugee claim system that is both fast and fair. This Conservative government has done just that striking a reasonable balance between the two.

With respect to the member's comments on the backlog, when our government took office there was a 20,000 case backlog in the asylum system. Between 2006 and 2009 there was a 45% increase in the number of asylum claims, peaking at 38,000 claims in 2008, well above the maximum capacity of the IRB when fully staffed to finalize 25,000 decisions a year.

The point is that this is not a resultant neglect by the government. Let us not politicize this issue. The reason we need asylum reform is, in large part, because huge backlogs have been a permanent feature of the system. Over the past decade, the average backlog has been 40,000 cases.

Bill Clinton said, “One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result”. We do not want to keep doing the same thing over and over again, pouring good money after bad when we need to reform the architecture of the system.

Yes, there are additional resources but we need to streamline the system, and I believe all of my predecessors in the previous Liberal government said as much but, for whatever reason, did not act on it. However, I am pleased to see the Liberal Party's openness to taking action in reforming the system now.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear the minister's views. I agree that we should not get close to politicizing this. There is lots of it to go around I am sure if everyone tried very hard but it is not very productive.

I think the minister is well aware that Professor Showler's concern has to do with the 60 days for the first hearing. The note I have here is that it is a very quick interview, too quick and impractical. It is impractical in the sense that the refugee will not be able to find a decent lawyer, inform the lawyer and let the lawyer gather and present evidence at a hearing. If that first hearing is not a good hearing, the entire system will unravel fairly quickly.

That is an interesting perspective and I hope we will be able to examine it because it would be awful if we had a timeline that would undermine the good work that otherwise can happen to allow us to properly and fairly address refugee determination and to help those who require the help and, for those who do not qualify, that there is a quick removal before they take root or take flight.

Those are the kinds of things that I know all hon. members will want to look at. I thank the minister for his commitment.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I never miss an opportunity to ask a Liberal member this question, because I want to make sure that we can really count on the Liberals when the time comes to amend this bill.

My colleague must know that I introduced Bill C-291 on the refugee appeal division. The Liberals said they supported that bill, which was a very popular thing to say. But when it came time to vote in the House, the Liberals had twice as many members absent as all the other parties combined. The opposition still had three more members present in the House than the government, but as luck would have it, four Liberals remained seated. The bill was defeated by a single vote, as if by magic.

No one is fooled. With that vote, the Liberals turned their backs on refugees. It suited them to say publicly that they were in favour of the refugee appeal division, but they did everything they could to engineer the defeat of my bill in the House.

This time around, can we count on the solid support of the full Liberal caucus?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a backbencher. I do not know if I can speak on behalf of my party.

I want to assure the member and the whole House that our critic has done an extraordinary amount of work in providing us with sound information, to identify areas that he feels comfortable with and to suggest there are some areas where we want to have robust dialogue with respect to making amendments. We want to see this legislation go to committee to hear witnesses. We want to do a good job on this.

I hear the member, but I think he would agree, along with virtually everybody else in this House, that it is time to put the political rhetoric and the history behind us and start looking forward, because it is in the best interests of Canada.