moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should enter into discussions with provincial governments to limit the social assistance available to failed refugee claimants who are remaining in Canada to make appeals to the courts and transfer the onus of providing further assistance to these individuals to immigrant and refugee aid societies and other organizations.
Mr. Speaker, my motion, which calls on the government to reduce the financial burden of failed refugee claimants on Canada's social assistance network, is the result of considerable research and communication with a number of organizations and agencies in this country, in particular in the province of Ontario.
At the outset I wish to say that there is little question that Canadians willingly accept the responsibility of providing safe refugee accommodation to an internationally proportionate number of refugee seekers. In fact, Canadians welcome the opportunity to provide a new home to those who through no fault of their own are persecuted or displaced by political events and turmoil.
To be clear, Canadians do not want to stop accepting refugees. To be equally clear, that is not what this motion is about. What this motion is about is to recognize that failed refugee claimants can represent a tremendous burden to Canadian taxpayers. Consequently, the federal government should limit the opportunity for failed refugee claimants to receive welfare.
In the context of this debate let us define what criteria are used to determine an individual refugee.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees cares for and repatriates or resettles some five million refugees and displaced persons each year. A distinction must be made between a displaced person and a convention refugee.
A displaced person is one who, as the result of a natural disaster or political turmoil, has been rendered homeless and who is outside his or her own country. A convention refugee is one who, because of membership in a particular political or social group, religion, race or nationality, cannot return to his or her home country for fear of serious persecution. Obviously not all displaced persons are convention refugees. Most can, at one time or another, be repatriated.
According to UN estimates there are approximately 20 million displaced persons or refugees in the world, but only approximately 60,000 of them are genuine convention refugees. This number is particularly important. In 1993, when I acted as the party's immigration critic, the immigration department claimed that Canada had accepted about 25,000 convention refugees. This position was maintained by the immigration department despite the fact that the UN said that only about 25,000 of those 60,000 convention refugees who were in need of immediate resettlement were resettled worldwide. In other words, there were something in the neighbourhood of 35,000 convention refugees who needed a new home who could not be placed anywhere. Yet our country, through our refugee determination process, took in somewhere around
35,000. If we took in 35,000 through our process, why were there still 35,000 genuine refugees not placed? That is the question that begs to be answered. Unfortunately I have received no answer to that dilemma from the Liberal government.