Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, you can have an identity document and still be detained in Australia.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. You wouldn't have a visa unless your identity was proven. Australia doesn't issue visas without it.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If we only talked about boat arrivals, we would be looking at 20% or 10%. It would vary, as some years it would be nobody. There's actually very little detail in the bill to suggest who will be designated. The capacity to designate foreign nationals is enormous. So the question is impossible to answer.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's a difficult question to answer, because Australia has a universal visa system, and anybody who enters Australia without a visa will be detained. So there are a lot of people who come into the country who are detained for a short period of time when they first arrive.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, because lots of people arrive in Australia and have permission to enter the country. They have tourist visas. They have student visas. They have business visas. Just as in Canada, all sorts of people who eventually end up seeking asylum can arrive in a number of different ways.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The issue—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  This bill is omnibus in character, so it has diverse motivations. But certainly a majority of the provisions are directed toward punishing people who come to Canada by irregular means. A small number of the provisions are directed toward increasing penalties for smuggling, but mostly by adding to the slate of penalties—mandatory minimums, which are highly problematic.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, that's right. To return to Ms. James's point about health care costs, there is absolutely crystal clear evidence that if you have a concern about health care costs, you really ought not to detain people. Detention, particularly long-term detention, creates all sorts physical health problems, and particularly mental health problems.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The concept of a list is an anathema to international refugee law, and if it must be done.... I'm not supportive of it being done in any fashion.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, I would certainly be pleased to see the whole bill withdrawn. I can't deny that. I just don't think the mandatory detention provisions in Bill C-31 can be saved. I don't think they can be brought into compliance with the Constitution or with international law, and I think the provisions for designating a foreign national go hand in hand with those mandatory detention provisions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That is what the current Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides, so we have a legislative scheme already actively in place that creates exactly the scheme you've just suggested.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not an expert on European health care, but we know it's of a high standard—western world.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's not what the legislation says at present.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Australia created a system in 2001 in which individuals who arrived on boats were denied family reunification rights and were given only temporary protected status that could later be turned into protected status. It is worth noting that in Australia, somebody who gets protected status, except for between 2001 and 2007, becomes a permanent resident on that day.