Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism continually says that Canada exceeds our obligations of international law by simply giving a refugee claimant a hearing. Under the 1951 refugee convention, host countries have the obligation to assess the claim of any asylum seeker who reaches their territory.
Of course, there is no refugee queue. Everyone has the right to seek asylum regardless of how many others are doing so at the same time. There is no obligation in international law for a refugee to seek asylum in the nearest country. Refugees often escape to the nearest country. Often the country is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention and has no legal obligation to protect them. Those people are often at risk of arrest, abuse, detention, demands for bribes, forced labour, et cetera.
I would like to make a brief comment on the minister's comments on previous Bill C-11 about the independent committee to assess designated safe countries. What he said then was that those amendments “go a long way in providing greater clarity and transparency around the process of designation”. That is what the minister said about the committee in the last Parliament and he scrapped that committee in this Parliament.
Why does my hon. colleague think the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism may have changed his opinion on the process of designating safe countries?