Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In keeping with past tradition, I'll keep my remarks brief and to the point, jealously guarding the chair's time.
After canvassing individuals, associations, and colleagues from coast to coast, I have found that there's a collision of passions. On the one hand, there is our natural inclination to provide our generous protection to the persecuted, the refugee. That's in keeping with Canada's fine traditions. On the other hand, the public desire for control and respect of Canadian sovereignty requires that we guard against those who would abuse Canada's generosity when it comes to protecting the refugee.
How do we reconcile these two passions? You will likely see throughout the day experts who will explain that we're making a mistake on the refugee determination side in Bill C-31. I'd like to contribute by explaining very quickly how this came about and the struggle to reach the right balance.
First, what I tell people is to look at what is not in the proposed law. Canada had the opportunity to introduce the power to interdict would-be refugee claimants on the high seas. It cannot be ignored that that political choice was intentionally made not to interdict overseas in respect of our genuine desire to protect the persecuted. Other countries, western democratic countries, engage in this practice, but not Canada.
In terms of numbers, you're looking at 35,000 refugees per year, and over a 10-year period you can guesstimate that there are at least a 250,000 to 350,000 claims.
The section of Bill C-31 attracting the most interest of my colleagues relates to mandatory detention, denial of family reunification for five years, and those sorts of things, connected to a mass arrival. I suggest that people should focus on solutions. It's easy to identify prospective charter violations.
Where is the solution? What must be known is that political opinion, subsequent to the arrival of over 500 claimants in vessels created a severe downslide in Canadian support for our immigration programs in their entirety.
How many of these marine arrivals occur in a decade? In two decades, there have been three. That’s an average of about two every ten years, with the highest number being recently. So of 250,00 to 350,000 people, you're talking of about 1,000 or 2,000 in 30 years. I can't light my hair on fire when the numbers are that low. Of the poor people who did arrive and make a claim, as with other categories, an average of about 40% were accepted in our typical fashion, with others sliding in under other programs such as on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
But regarding the principles at stake, including mandatory detention in Canada, I have not heard the War Measures Act invoked. But the public opinion that requires a solution engages a political communication strategy on the part of the Government of Canada to deter arrivals. Deterrence is the result of a law that may well indeed be charter-inappropriate. What remains to be seen is the effect. The gamble is the political embarrassment of having a law declared contrary to the supreme law of this country, the charter.
The practical outcome of this may well be the reduction, if not the elimination, of mass arrivals in marine fashion.
That's the political backdrop and strategy, and I would love to hear solutions from other witnesses rather attacks on the legalistic, technical position of it being pro or contra the charter. We need to work in this room together prospectively to find a solution whereby we can achieve both passions equally—to protect the persecuted and prevent the abuse of our Canadian generosity. That's the task.
Having said that, I move quickly—I will close in about a minute, if not two—to some things that may be tinkered with technically. The idea of a safe third country list is politically problematic, so I would recommend some consideration of a sunset clause on the list. Instead of being whacked twice politically for a decision to put something on, and then something off, put something on with a timer so that the country name drops off the list automatically without further ado after a period, such as 24 months. That saves you a lot of embarrassment down the road. It's practical; it's doable.
I'll walk quickly though the other aspect, and then I'll pass the torch. Two illustrations should be borne in mind when looking at Bill C-31. The St. Louis mass arrival by boat: How would you treat those Jews? Would it be mandatory detention for a year? They did it back then. An oven or a detention in Canada? It's an easy choice. Then there's the Tiananmen Square massacre and the students who arrived in this country. Before June 1989, no one believed there was a problem in Chine. Now what? So build those safeguards so you can proactively have a little safety valve, a little delay, for the pre-Tiananmen sequence of events. I think that's important.
That's going to be my time for now. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.