Citizenship and Immigration committee  Our opinion of safe country is that you may designate a safe country but it shouldn't be an absolute designation, that within any country there could be reasons and there could be populations at risk. The designation of safe country should be an indicator to a reviewing officer that a political claim for asylum by someone from the United Kingdom, for example, would simply be spurious, whereas a claim by an individual from the United Kingdom who might be the spouse of a police officer and who claims to be battered wouldn't be spurious.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  What our experience tells us is that many of the bogus refugee claims that are filed are literally carbon copies of each other. These types of claims usually involve some form of political persecution in countries where there is no political persecution.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My point is that in the system currently, a huge amount of time and energy are wasted by processing every application on an individual basis, when the basis for each application is the same as a hundred other refused applications. In other words, they're not real refugee claims.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, I was never with Citizenship and Immigration.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My colleague was.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Immigration is based on an application by an individual. So every single case, whether it is for refugee status, work permits, has to be considered on its individual right. I know of no process in Immigration where there are group immigration documents issued.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay. I would like to make a point on PRRA, the pre-removal risk assessment. It's important to remember why we have PRRAs in the first place. Canada will not remove individuals to countries where they face a real risk of death or injury. That's the reason for PRRA. Therefore, PRRAs should be available to all failed claimants regardless of their country of origin.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, committee members, ladies and gentlemen. We have a submission that is on the way and I'll be reading excerpts from that submission. CAPIC welcomes the opportunity to appear before this committee. We'd like to offer you some different perspectives and workable ideas.