Bill C-11 (Historical)

Balanced Refugee Reform Act

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Federal Courts Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, primarily in respect of the processing of refugee claims referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board. In particular, the enactment
(a) provides for the referral of a refugee claimant to an interview with an Immigration and Refugee Board official, who is to collect information and schedule a hearing before the Refugee Protection Division;
(b) provides that the members of the Refugee Protection Division are appointed in accordance with the Public Service Employment Act;
(c) provides for the coming into force, no more than two years after the day on which the enactment receives royal assent, of the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that permit a claimant to appeal a decision of the Refugee Protection Division to the Refugee Appeal Division;
(d) authorizes the Minister to designate, in accordance with the process and criteria established by the regulations certain countries, parts of countries or classes of nationals;
(e) provides clarification with respect to the type of evidence that may be put before the Refugee Appeal Division and the circumstances in which that Division may hold a hearing;
(f) prohibits a person whose claim for refugee protection has been rejected from applying for a temporary resident permit or applying to the Minister for protection if less than 12 months have passed since their claim was rejected;
(g) authorizes the Minister, in respect of applications for protection, to exempt nationals, or classes of nationals, of a country or part of a country from the 12-month prohibition;
(h) provides clarification with respect to the Minister’s authority to grant permanent resident status or an exemption from any obligations of the Act on humanitarian and compassionate grounds or on public policy grounds;
(i) limits the circumstances in which the Minister may examine requests for permanent resident status or for an exemption from any obligations of the Act on humanitarian and compassionate grounds; and
(j) enacts transitional provisions respecting the processing of pending claims by the Minister or the Immigration and Refugee Board.
The enactment also amends the Federal Courts Act to increase the number of Federal Court judges.

Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a lot has been said by the government, in particular about this problem of 95% of the refugee claimants from European countries not bothering to come for their hearings. That is what Bill C-11, in the previous Parliament, was supposed to fix, and will fix as of June of this year.

With the exception of giving the minister the power to determine which countries are safe, why are we in a rush to do what will actually be fixed if we just let the law we passed some time ago take place? What is so urgent, when we have a law coming into place to do exactly what the government says this bill was supposed to do?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand today to add my voice in opposition to this legislation, the anti-refugee bill, and in support of the NDP amendments.

As New Democrats, we oppose the bill because we will not support the punishment of asylum seekers, and that is exactly what the bill would do.

We also believe the Conservative government should change the title of the bill to “the punishing refugees act”. The title of the bill should reflect the nature of its content. If we are to be honest with Canadians, we need to tell them what the minister is doing and the true direction we are headed under the government.

Canadians are proud of our country's tradition of providing protection for those in need. With the passing of Bill C-31, the Conservative government will effectively be killing this tradition.

For over two weeks, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration heard from witnesses who spoke on the content of Bill C-31. Witness after witness told us this legislation was fundamentally flawed, unconstitutional and concentrated too much power in the hands of one minister.

The well-informed opinion of these witnesses should not be taken lightly. We are talking about witnesses representing Amnesty International, the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canada Research Chair in Global Migration Studies and front-line workers who provide legal, medical and psychological support to people who have fled persecution. These are experts in this field. They know far more about this topic than many in this room. Therefore, their testimony should be taken seriously and simply not ignored, which is exactly what the government is currently doing.

As I stand in the House, a key component of our highly respected democracy, with plush carpets and clean water, food to eat, peace in our country, I am reminded that elsewhere in the country and around the world people are not so lucky.

Right now, at this very moment, people are being persecuted, are experiencing discrimination, are living through conflict, public unrest and general instability, and some are forced to make the decision to flee the only home they have ever known, fleeing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

People flee their country because they are desperate and they have no other option if they want to ensure the safety of their families. However, with the passing of Bill C-31, if they come to our country as asylum seekers, much like my father did, depending on their means of arrival and undefined number of people they arrive with, instead of being treated like human beings they will be treated like criminals, treated as guilty until proven innocent. We all know that is not the Canadian standard.

The bill would punish victims of persecution and victims of human smuggling. It would punish those who, because of a lack of money or option, would do whatever it takes to keep their families safe. I ask my colleagues in the House to empathize and put themselves in their situation. I ask them to think for a moment of what they would do to keep their partner, their children, their mother, their grandmother safe. If they needed to, would they run, flee the country that was unsafe through any means?

The Conservatives refuse to accept that our system currently works. We already capture the real criminals and deport them. The sentence for human smuggling is already the most punitive it can be in our country, life in prison and a fine of $1 million, yet we continuously hear members opposite saying that we need to take away the rights of victim in order to catch the human smugglers. The bill would do nothing to catch human smugglers. It would punish refugees and refugee claimants and not the human smugglers.

Instead of targeting the illegal smuggling rings, the Conservatives would rather arbitrarily designate some refugees as “irregular arrivals” and incarcerate all of them. Now, upon arrival, designated refugees will be held in provincial jails, handcuffed and treated like prisoners, with minimal review.

New Democrats are opposed to the measures in the bill precisely because Canada will now be known for punishing the most vulnerable and traumatized people in the world.

My constituents are concerned. Some of the refugees who were on the MV Sun Sea and Ocean Lady live in my riding of Scarborough-Rouge River. They have been given refugee protection by our government. They are making a home in our neighbourhoods, contributing to our economy and giving back to our community.

As the designated foreign national category is retroactive to 2009, these valuable members of our community who came on these two migrant vessels, along with future so-called irregular arrivals, will now be treated as second-class citizens under the new two-tier refugee treatment system that will be created.

Under the bill they, and all so-called designated refugees, would be barred from applying for permanent residence for five years. This is different from all other refugees, who are allowed to apply for permanent residency immediately. The bar would prevent families from reuniting for five years and further as they went through the already lengthy sponsorship system.

We are separating children from their parents. If fathers or mothers flee their country to make way for their children, they would now be separated from their families for a minimum of at least seven years. Children who are 13 will be young adults by the time they would see their mother and father again. Formative years of their life will be lived spent away from their parents.

Further, by the time their parents would be eligible to actually sponsor them, the children may not qualify as dependents anymore, meaning that they will now be forced to live permanently separated from their parents and parents separated from their children.

We could have made the bill better. New Democrats proposed concrete changes to the bill. It was a disappointment to the witnesses, the stakeholders and all involved when all of these good propositions that would have provided improvements to the bill were opposed by the government time and time again.

While baby steps were taken, none of the NDP's substantive amendments were adopted by the government members in the committee.

New Democrats have a better solution to our refugee and immigration system. In fact, just last year, all parties compromised to pass Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. That bill was applauded by our current Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.

Bill C-31, however, ignores these compromises and includes all of the worst parts of the former Bill C-11.

What is worse is that Bill C-31 will pass before we will even have the chance to see the outcome of the changes included in Bill C-31. The government has not even allowed for the changes to take place.

One of the most troublesome measures that the Conservatives refused to revise is impossibly tight timelines for submitting an application to the Immigration and Refugee Board. The refugee system is being set up to fail. The asylum seekers are being set up to fail.

Witness after witness, including the Conservatives' own witnesses, said that these timelines were too short, that they would create incomplete and inaccurate applications. On top of that, some refugees would be refused the right to appeal their application.

We all know, unfortunately, that mistakes can be made at the IRB. The board is not perfect. With cuts to its budget and limited resources to hire adjudicators, the likelihood that mistakes will occur would be even greater. New information could come to light after an expedited claim is mistakenly processed. Without access to an appeal, this information may never be heard.

The consequences of these decisions could truly mean life or death.

Banning access to an appeal for some claimants undermines the international obligations to refugees.

A further dangerous consequence of the bill is that the power to designate a country as safe for all is concentrated solely in the hands of the minister. No country is truly safe. A country that may be safe for some residents may be unsafe for other residents.

Impartiality toward the development and maintenance of this list is extremely important. It is confusing why Bill C-31 would remove the safeguard of having a panel of experts maintain and review this list, as was decreed in Bill C-11 .

We have earned a gold standard on how we treat refugees fleeing persecution in the world. The current government is tarnishing our earned reputation. The Conservatives' changes to the refugee and immigration system will erode Canada's humanitarian reputation around the world.

I cannot support the bill and the move to a discriminatory refugee and immigration system. I cannot support the punishment of asylum seekers and refugees. That is why I oppose the bill and support the amendments put forward by the NDP.

The government needs to abandon the legislation and go back to the drawing board.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to continue the debate on Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act.

Canada and the government are proud of our tradition of being a country of openness to newcomers and a place of protection for refugees. Indeed, since the government came into office in 2006 we have maintained the highest sustained levels of immigration in Canadian history, admitting on average over 250,000 new permanent residents each year, and maintaining the world's strongest tradition of refugee protection.

We are increasing by some 20% the number of resettled refugees that we accept, increasing the integration support that they receive, so that Canada will receive the highest per capita number of resettled refugees in the world. Of course, we also have a generous refugee asylum determination system to ensure that foreigners who come to Canada who have a well-founded fear of persecution are not returned to face danger.

However, this bill is a necessary part of our efforts to protect the openness and generosity of our immigration and refugee protection systems against those who would seek to abuse Canada's generosity, more specifically, through commercial and dangerous human smuggling operations, fake asylum claims, large numbers of which are in our asylum system, and other efforts to subvert the integrity of our immigration system and the consistent application of its fair rules.

I would like to commend the members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on their diligent work and their many hours of hearings on Bill C-31. They heard from dozens of witnesses and diligently considered amendments to the bill.

The members who were in the House in the previous Parliament will remember that we passed Bill C-11, which set out a balanced refugee system. They will also remember that, at that time, the government and the opposition agreed to make certain amendments to the bill to ensure that it was balanced or, in other words, to make sure that the system was quick, effective and fair. At that time, we were happy with the results of that legislative effort.

However, since June 2010, there has been a huge increase in bogus refugee claims in Canada, particularly by EU nationals.

Indeed, last year, we received close to 6,000 refugee claims from EU nationals, which is more than the number of claims we receive from Africa or Asia. Almost none of these European refugee claimants attend their hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board, and according to our fair and legal system, almost none of them are legitimate refugees.

That is one of the reasons why we need to strengthen the integrity of our system to really discourage bogus refugee claimants from coming to Canada and abusing our country's generosity. Processing these fake claims costs Canadian taxpayers approximately $50,000. These are the objectives of Bill C-31.

Further to the statements made by members of Parliament, including opposition members, and by some witnesses who appeared before the parliamentary committee, the government considered any reasonable amendments to create a better bill that meets its objectives of combatting human smuggling more effectively, preventing bogus refugee claims and strengthening the security of our system.

Let me review briefly some of the amendments that were adopted at committee.

First, one such amendment relates to clause 19. Clause 19 provides for the automatic loss of permanent resident status if an individual loses protected person status as a result of cessation.

Cessation means that the Immigration and Refugee Board, I emphasize the IRB, not the minister, can take away someone's refugee status if it is proven that the person no longer needs protection. It has always been in IRPA, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, since it became law in 2002.

Since we introduced Bill C-31, we have heard concerns that an improvement of the conditions in someone's country of origin could result in the automatic loss of an individual's permanent resident status by a decision of the IRB, regardless of how long they have been a permanent resident in Canada.

Some have worried that Canada was moving toward a conditional permanent residence situation for refugees, which I should point out is not unusual in other democratic countries. The United Kingdom and Germany, for example, do not grant immediate permanent residency for protected people. However, this was never the intention of the bill.

To clarify our intentions, we moved an amendment at committee that one automatic cessation ground be removed from clause 19. The cessation ground we are removing reads as follows:

the reasons for which the person sought refugee status have ceased to exist.

The effect of this amendment is that cessation for these reasons, such as a change in country conditions, would not result in automatic loss of permanent residency. This would ensure that permanent resident status is lost automatically only when the cessation decision of the IRB is the result of the individual's own actions.

For example, if people come to Canada, make an asylum claim that is accepted by the IRB, but shortly after receiving such status, they return to live in the country of origin, which they allegedly fled due to fear of persecution, we would reserve the right under IRPA to go before the IRB to say that it appears they never needed our protection because they have immediately re-availed themselves of their country of origin. Therefore we could commence proceedings of the IRB to seek an order to cease their protected person status and revoke their permanent residency, but that would only be if they have done something to demonstrate essentially that they defrauded our asylum system.

The government also moved an amendment that relates to pre-removal risk assessments, also known as PRRAs. When failed refugee claimants are given removal orders from Canada, they can under certain conditions apply for a PRRA, which would trigger a review to make certain that the failed claimants are not being removed into situations where they might face a risk of persecution, torture, cruel and unusual punishment or loss of life.

In its original form, Bill C-31 called for a one-year ban for failed refugee claimants, including those from countries that generally do not produce refugees, which I might add, is a phrase used by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

This measure was intended to simplify the refugee system, eliminate duplication and expedite the removal of failed refugee claimants. The government proposed an amendment that extended this ban to three years for failed refugee claimants from countries that generally do not produce refugees.

The extension of the bar for these claimants is aimed at addressing existing process vulnerabilities that lead to misuse by those who are not in need of protection. It would facilitate the removals of those individuals not in need of Canada's protection, without the requirement to conduct a redundant second risk assessment.

Since the extension of the bar on PRRA would apply only to failed claimants from countries known to not normally produce refugees and generally considered safe, which countries, by the way, based on our proposed guidelines, would see at least three-quarters of asylum claims being rejected, abandoned or withdrawn, there is already a minimal likelihood of returning someone to a situation of risk.

It should also be noted that each eligible claimant would have received a hearing on the merits of his or her case before an independent decision-maker at the quasi-judicial IRB, which decision-maker would have rejected the claim and found no risk in returning the claimant.

In addition, the legislation would provide the minister with the ability to exempt someone from the bar on PRRA, either the one-year bar for most failed claimants or the three-year bar on PRRA for failed claimants from designated countries. That is to say, for example, that if there were to be a major event, say, a coup d'état or civil war in a country, the minister could exempt failed claimants from that country from the PRRA bar, allowing them to in fact apply for and receive a second risk assessment. It is also important to note that this amendment does not preclude a failed refugee claimant from continuing to seek leave to the Federal Court for judicial review of a negative decision of the refugee protection division of the IRB.

Some of the measures in Bill C-31 that received the most feedback from parliamentarians and members of the public were those that concerned the mandatory detention of foreign nationals who arrive in Canada as part of a designated irregular arrival, which effectively would be a large-scale human smuggling voyage. These measures, of course, were part of the section of the bill designed to deal with human smuggling.

This amendment would allow for a detention review by the immigration division of the IRB on the detention of a smuggled migrant in a designated arrival initially at 14 days prior to the detention and then subsequently at 6 months, rather than the 12 months that had originally been proposed in the bill.

I would like to once again thank all the members for their important work in committee. I am eager for all the amendments to be accepted here in the House.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, for two weeks in a row, we heard testimony from experts, front-line workers and refugees who came to express their concerns about Bill C-31 while it was being studied by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I want to remind the House that a policy without justice is an inadequate policy. Bill C-31 completely jeopardizes refugee rights, and creates two classes of refugees.

The NDP does not support Bill C-31. The Conservatives should withdraw it so that the new Balanced Refugee Reform Act can work. Never before have the rights of refugees been as threatened as they are under the Conservatives. Never has our democracy been as discredited as it has been under the Conservative government, which is incapable of respecting the compromises consensually agreed upon with the other parties.

The government is unable to remember that the ratification of international refugee or human rights conventions requires us to make our legislation and policies consistent with the provisions of the international conventions we have signed. The experts who spoke to us reminded us that Canada is a signatory to the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees. They feel that Bill C-31 protecting Canada's immigration system act respects neither the letter nor the spirit of the convention.

Let us first recall that Bill C-31 is an omnibus bill to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, unfortunately by incorporating into Bill C-4 the most unreasonable provisions of former Bill C-11, which received royal assent in June 2010. This bill raises serious concerns in addition to those already raised by Bill C-4, the unconstitutional nature of which we have raised and highlighted in our previous interventions. All the witnesses we heard during the committee's study of the bill agreed unanimously.

I would like to draw the attention of the House to some of the concerns with this bill, both in terms of the Canadian charter and the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees. In response to Bill C-31, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers has said that, like the sorry Bill C-10, Bill C-31 is extremely complicated.

The most draconian measures in Bill C-4 have again been made part of Bill C-31. Take automatic and mandatory detention, for example. Bill C-4 proposed mandatory detention for one year for people fleeing persecution in their country of origin and entering Canada without identity documents in their possession.

Clearly, the safety of Canadians is a priority for the NDP. That is why the current immigration legislation provides for detaining foreign nationals when their identity is not known, when they might run away, and especially when public safety is at risk. So we can see how the provisions on detention found in Bill C-4, which are being reintroduced in Bill C-31 are a direct violation of our Constitution.

Furthermore, the jurisprudence constante of the Supreme Court is categorical in this regard. The Barreau du Québec, the Canadian Bar Association, the Young Bar Association of Montreal and other legal experts who gave testimony were categorical about the unconstitutional nature of detention under Bill C-31, and specifically the detention of children.

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits the detention of children and defines a child as a human being under 18 years of age. We are asking that the age of the child be consistent with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Finally, the experts whom we have heard from in committee have hammered away at the point that the detention of children is prohibited because it is detrimental to them psychologically, mentally and physiologically, and to society as a whole. For example, Australia had introduced mandatory detention for asylum seekers, but it had to backtrack, because, not only did detention cause costs to skyrocket, but it also destroyed the fabric of society and communities.

Why are the Conservatives attempting to put themselves above the rule of law, which is a key principle of our democracy, even though they know what our highest court said about detention in the Charkaoui case? Why are they asking the House to pass a bill that we know will be subject to court challenges, as a number of experts reminded us?

Why are they attempting to mislead the House by proposing that it pass laws that they know violate not only our Constitution, but also the Canadian charter and human rights conventions that our country has signed? Pacta sunt servanda is a principle of international law. Signed conventions have to be respected.

There are also deadlines that violate a principle of natural justice. Lawyers specializing in refugee rights have said that they are deeply troubled by the short time frames that Bill C-31 gives refugee claimants to seek Canada's protection. They find that Bill C-31 drastically changes Canada's refugee protection system and makes it unfair.

Bill C-31 imposes unrealistic time frames and unattainable deadlines on refugee claimants and uses the claimants' inability to meet those deadlines to exclude them from protection.

In fact, under the terms of Bill C-31, refugee claimants have only 15 days to overcome the trauma of persecution, find a lawyer to help them, gather the documentary evidence to support their allegations, and obtain proof of identity from their country.

If their application is dismissed, refugee claimants would have 15 days within which to file an appeal under Bill C-31. As anyone can see, the deadlines imposed on refugee claimants do not allow them to make a full response and defence.

Under our justice system, the greater the risk to life, the longer the time frame accorded to the person being tried to prepare his defence. Bill C-31 does not respect this principle of fundamental justice. A number of witnesses pointed this out to us.

I am also deeply concerned not only about the new term—designated country of origin—that Bill C-31 introduces into our legislation but also about the undemocratic nature of the process for designating the countries in question. Under Bill C-31, the minister alone has the power to designate safe countries of origin, without first defining the designation criteria for these countries that refugees may come from.

According to the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the designated safe country list and the unilateral power granted to the minister dangerously politicize Canada's refugee system.

Refugee claimants who are on a designated safe country list have even less time to submit their written arguments and will not be allowed an appeal.

Bill C-31 also relieves the minister of the obligation of justifying why a country is safe or considering the differential risks that certain minorities face in a country that is safe for other people.

If Bill C-31 is passed, refugees will become more vulnerable because their fate will depend on the political whims of the minister and the government. Failed claimants from designated countries of origin can be deported from Canada almost immediately, even if they have requested a judicial review of the decision. In other words, a person can be deported before his case is heard.

The Geneva convention stipulates that the personal fears of victims of persecution are to be taken into consideration. Nowhere does it say that international protection is given to victims of persecution because of the country in which the persecution occurred, or whether or not the victim used clandestine means to reach a state that is a party to the convention.

It is not only in undemocratic countries that religious minorities are persecuted. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is not restricted to undemocratic countries. Persecution based on race can occur in any country in the world. All member states of the European Convention on Human Rights are democratic countries. But the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights is replete with decisions condemning democratic states for their abuse of individuals.

The government has frequently invoked the UNHCR's favourable opinion of the safe countries of origin list.

I would like to conclude by mentioning my final concern about the changes being made by Bill C-31 with respect to applications on humanitarian grounds. These applications are a tool that allow individuals to remain in Canada, even if they are not eligible for other reasons. Unfortunately, under Bill C-31, applicants awaiting a decision from the Refugee Appeal Division cannot simultaneously submit an application on humanitarian grounds.

I would like to point out that our country has always been in the forefront where basic human rights are concerned.

The refugee problem is a human rights problem and, since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all people are acknowledged to have these rights, whatever their race, religion, political beliefs or lifestyle.

Asylum seekers are above all human beings. They are to be treated with respect, humanity and dignity. More than anything else, they fall into the category of vulnerable people who need our compassion and our protection. What is involved here is universal human justice.

This bill and these universal values are poles apart. That is why Bill C-31 should be rejected.

Motions in Amendment

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not going to give the member that kind of guarantee. What I will do, though, is identify the fact that he talked about a two-tiered system.

We, on this side of the House, do not believe that UN-sanctioned refugees who have been living in squalor and who have been waiting for years, in some cases over a decade, to find out where they will start their new lives and who have already been declared refugees, should, in any way, shape or form, be superseded by irregular arrivals who are claiming refugee status in Canada.

What Bill C-31 would do, and what Bill C-11 did, is it would eliminate the potential of a two-tired system.

We need to ensure that all those individuals who have already received refugee status get their opportunity for a new life in Canada. Those are the individuals who deserve to get here quickly. Those are the individuals we have committed to.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I appreciate the question, Mr. Speaker, because it gives me the opportunity to identify that 80% to 85% of what was in Bill C-11 has been carried forward to Bill C-31.

One of the reasons we introduced this legislation is that the process, even under Bill C-11, would take an extremely long period of time to work through. The minister, the government and the department identified that an opportunity to move forward and expedite the process through which a refugee claimant could make a claim to become a refugee here in Canada would actually speed up that process. , Bill C-31 would give an individual or a family who is applying to become a refugee here in Canada a much quicker process.

Therefore, even if those individuals are in detention during that period of time, they would now have two opportunities for a review of their file. We believe that before that second review takes place in six months, we will have made the identification and will have determined whether the individual is a claimant who has been denied or a claimant who is a true refugee here in the country.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, the problem that my hon. friend has is that it was not I who said that Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, fixed the system, it was the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.

The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism stood in this very House and praised Bill C-11. He said that the amendments that were worked out by all parties in this House made the system faster and fairer. He called that legislation a “monumental achievement”.

When my hon. friend says that C-31 would take 80% to 85% of that bill and preserve it, that may be true in content but not in substance. The previous bill, Bill C-11, forced the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism to run decisions about designating a safe country by an independent panel of experts. The government took that out of this bill.

The previous bill allowed all refugees an appeal on merits to the Refugee Appeal Division. Bill C-31 would remove that and applicants from so-called safe countries picked solely the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism would be denied access of appeal to that Refugee Appeal Division.

Bill C-31 is significantly different from the previous bill, Bill C-11. These differences make this bill, Bill C-31, much less fair and do nothing to speed up the system, which Bill C-11 did do.

I would ask my hon. colleague to tell me, if Bill C-11 was not an improvement over the system and was not good enough, why did the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism stand in this House and tell Canadians it was?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I heard more of an election speech and an ideological perspective from the member. He is certainly allowed to do that. That is what late shows are all about.

However, for many on the opposition benches, the truth merely gets in the way of a good speech or a good story, and I think that is what has happened here. I do not think there is any problem with the way our Westminster model of Parliament works in Canada. It is a government's responsibility to introduce legislation; it is the opposition's responsibility to ensure that legislation is put to the scrutiny of the parliamentary process.

In fact, the member failed to reveal two very important facts.

The first is with regard to Bill C-11. That bill, the refugee reform act, indeed passed through this House with unanimous support. Today 80% to 90% of that bill is still in effect, and in fact was included in Bill C-31. However, in terms of refugee applications, the problem is that there was not enough to do what would be necessary to make the system successful, proper, prudent and fair.

The steps implemented in Bill C-11 included, and still include, an additional 2,500 refugees here in Canada on a yearly basis. My friend across the way mentioned that we are going to have fewer refugees in Canada now; I can tell him, and he knows, that there will be 2,500 more refugees in Canada yearly. He also knows that over 60% of the refugee applications that come forward in this country actually fail. Our overburdened system has a number of individuals in the backlog, and many more people fail through the system than succeed.

Our purpose in bringing Bill C-31 forward is to repair a very broken system. Bill C-11 goes a long way to repairing that system; Bill C-31would complete what needs to happen.

My friend across the way talks a lot about fairness, but there were 5,800 more refugee claims from the European Union in 2011 than there were from Africa or Asia. The total percentage of applications for refugee status in our country from the EU, which is made up of democratic states, democratic countries, is 23% more than from Africa and Asia. What is really interesting is that 95% of those European Union applications are either withdrawn or rejected, while virtually all that come forward are unsuccessful.

Bill C-11 does not address this specific issue in a way that would fix this broken system.That is what Bill C-31 has to do.

My colleague across the way and I have worked together very closely for the last year in a very positive way. We have our differences, but we worked very closely together. If he and his party are suggesting that the current system and this opportunity for people to take advantage of our system are somehow acceptable, that will not happen in this country. That is because one thing Canadians understand is fairness. Canadians want to help refugees. They want to bring them to this country and they want to give them another opportunity. However, the one thing Canadians will not have is people taking advantage of our system, which would not only hurt Canadians but also hurt those who are truly trying to come to this country to seek refugee status.

Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate on Bill C-31. The Liberal Party believes that it is very reasonable to review, consult on and update refugee and immigration laws from time to time in order to address ways in which they may no longer meet the public interest, address issues that have come up since the last revisions and make improvements. The Liberal Party supports that, but Bill C-31, unfortunately, has some very serious flaws.

The fact that the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is the only person who will decide what countries of origin are safe will mean that there is no accountability and no recourse available, and the refugee system will become dangerously politicized.

We see that playing out from accounts in the media about the immigration minister himself and funds potentially being used to organize partisan fundraising from immigrant communities. It is a very dangerous precedent.

The goal is to give one person in this country the power to determine which people will be eligible to claim refugee status and which people will not.

That is dangerous.

This bill will allow the Minister of Public Safety to decide which groups of people are irregular arrivals, and thus gives him too much discretion but no accountability.

The elimination of an appeal process for people who come from a country on the safe country list or for people designated as part of an irregular arrival does not guarantee that the law will be applied uniformly.

Our party opposes long-term detention without warrant, and opposes an unfair review process where the first examination is not held for 12 months. The proposed policies amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

It is clear that, while supporting improvements to make the laws more timely, more fair and more effective, there are many ways in which these are dangerous changes that put unaccountable power in the hands of ministers who have, allegedly, been abusing that power.

The Liberals believe that creating two classes of refugees is not acceptable and that the bill undermines the compassion and support Canada has historically provided to those seeking refuge from situations of risk, danger and abuse in their home country. It punishes selected refugees both by branding them in negative ways as security risks when, in most cases, that is not the case, and by locking them up for long periods of time and treating them much more harshly. This punishing of refugees is an unacceptable way of reforming our system and very likely open to charter challenges.

I will talk about two parts of the context of this.

My daughter was in Sri Lanka seven years ago at the time of the tsunami, which was a humanitarian disaster of massive proportions in Sri Lanka. She was, fortunately, not harmed. She was part of a convoy of aid that citizens had pulled together to drive down in trucks to the areas most affected. What she told us when she came back was that it was extremely dangerous. There were huge security measures that the group needed to take. These convoys of aid were at risk of being hijacked by government forces and by Tamil forces at various times. It was a dangerous situation where there was a civil war and the Tamil citizens were victimized by forces in their own country.

A few years later, the civil war came to a head. There were reports in 2009 that 10,000 citizens were killed and that 280,000 Tamil citizens were displaced in their own country and living in refugee camps. That is the framing for the arrival in British Columbia.

As the member for Parliament for Vancouver Quadra and a British Columbian, I was aware of the humanitarian disaster leading to people leaving the country and coming as refugees to Canada at that time. One boat arrived in October 2009 and a further boat arrived shortly thereafter.

I have an interesting analysis of the arrival of the boat bringing Tamil community members whose lives had been at risk, whose family members had been probably killed by either the government or Tamil rebel forces and who literally were the kind of humanitarian asylum seekers who Canada has a responsibility to accept and to support and has done so successfully in the past.

I will read a couple of sentences from the abstract of the analysis in the Canadian Journal of Communication, No. 4, 2011, by Ashley Bradimore and Harald Bauder of Ryerson University. This analysis looks at 32 articles. It does a careful analysis to ensure that this is a representative sample of the articles in the Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star and National Post. It analyzes the framing, representation and identity in these articles, showing that there was an overall negative representation of the Tamil refugees. The press emphasized issues of criminality and terrorism and constructed the refugees as being a risk. The sentences read:

The discussion established security—rather than human rights—as a focal point and portrayed the immigration system as both “failing” and “abused” by “bogus claimants”.

This security-oriented framework provided a discursive background for the refugee reform Bill C-11, Bill C-11, which has been replaced by Bill C-31.

We see a context in the discussions across national discussions that are not talking about the humanitarian issue or the situation with people arriving from Sri Lanka in these Tamil boats. The discussion centres on illegality and a lot of negatives. In fact, the analysis of the news articles at the time showed that some 66% of the articles sampled had negative terms in the headlines to describe the events, such as “terrorism”, “suspected”, “illegal”, “apprehended”. That is how between 50% and 67% of the headlines characterized the situation of the Tamil refugees coming to British Columbia.

Why was it characterized so negatively? Was that just the media portraying refugees from a known n country where there had been abuses and humanitarian tragedies? Was the media just being negative or was there a government hand in all of this?

It turns out that, in this analysis of articles, between 50% and 68% of the quotes and references in these articles were either from government sources or the police. The government sources were very widely quoted in these articles. What is the significance of that? It turns out that the immigration minister of the day came out very early on with some very negative comments. For example, the minister signalled, “there should be no rush to unconditionally embrace as refugees the 76 men, believed to be from Sri Lanka”. Another one reads, “We obviously don't want to encourage people to get into rickety boats, pay thousands of dollars, cross the oceans and come to Canada illegally”.

Another one reads:

Without prejudice to this particular group of people, [...]

We want to ensure that we don't end up with a two-tier immigration system, one tier for legal law-abiding immigrants who wait patiently to come to Canada the legal way, and another that [encourages] false refugee claimants to come through the back door.

These comments played a significant role in changing the discourse in the media from what was once centred on the humanitarian to talking about illegality, the bogus and queue jumping. That then becomes the basis for putting forward Bill C-31, which is an attack on refugees. First the Conservatives lull the public and then they attack the refugees, perhaps with impunity. However, the Liberals will be speaking out against it.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it was very interesting to hear the government House leader say that a committee should be allowed to complete its work before decisions are made. That is the situation on Bill C-31 with respect to biometrics. A committee was engaged in a study to discuss the facts and meet with experts and witnesses in order to reach a decision on biometrics. However, the Conservatives just shot that out the cannon and are now proceeding with this bill before the committee's work is done.

Of course, it is always a pleasure to stand in this House, but I wish we were debating a bill that I would be able to support.

The title of Bill C-31, protecting Canada's immigration system act, is an improper and inaccurate title because rather than protect it, it would do damage to Canada's immigration system legally, socially, morally and internationally.

New Democrats strongly oppose Bill C-31 because it would punish refugees instead of ensuring a fast and fair refugee system.

This is not the first bill this Parliament has seen that targets the wrong group. I would point to Bill C-4, which I spoke up about several months ago, which has now been rolled into this bill.

I would like to sincerely thank my colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, for his hard work and leadership on this file.

I want to talk about the omnibus nature of the bill which, from a structural point of view, is something that is a disturbing recurring feature of the Conservative government's legislation.

Bill C-31 is an omnibus refugee reform bill that combines the worst parts of former Bill C-11 from the last Parliament with Bill C-4 from this Parliament.

We saw this strategy before, when the government put nine separate pieces of serious and complex crime legislation into one omnibus bill, which it then put out for discussion and debate, thereby denying parliamentarians the opportunity to properly debate the merits of each individual bill.

Now the minister is combining two separate major pieces of legislation, as well as another serious issue, that of biometrics, into one unwieldy bill.

For Canadians who may be watching the debate, I want to explain what those bills are.

Bill C-11 was introduced in the last Parliament. It was debated, went through committee, was amended and passed in this very House. It went through all three readings in the other place, passed, received royal assent and was waiting to be implemented in June. Now, by introducing this bill, the minister has stopped that bill from being implemented. That bill was geared toward reforming Canada's refugee system.

When speaking to that bill on Tuesday, June 15, 2010, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism stated:

We have, in good faith, agreed to significant amendments that reflect their input, resulting in a stronger piece of legislation that is a monumental achievement for all involved.

These amendments, I am happy to say, create a reform package that is both faster and fairer than the bill as it was originally tabled.

The minister has now gone back to the original bill and thrown out all the wonderful hard work done by parliamentarians and the amendments that he lauded as faster and fairer than the original bill, the very bill he said was inferior to the amendments that were made by all parties in the House. It baffles me that the minister has yet to explain his reasoning behind this.

One of the first bills the Conservatives introduced, and one of the first pieces of legislation that I spoke to was Bill C-4. Now the minister has wrapped that bill into Bill C-31. There is no explanation as to why he would do that to a bill which had already been introduced and was moving through the system. This slows the bill down and puts it back at the start of the legislative process.

As I am opposed to the original bill, I do not necessarily mind that it will take longer before it becomes law, but it is certainly a waste of our time and taxpayers' money.

Bill C-4 has been plainly condemned by virtually every group and stakeholder involved in the immigration system in this country: lawyers, refugee groups, churches, immigrant settlement services across the board, and, I might add, a great number of my constituents.

The government has rolled everything into one bill and has added one more controversial issue that deserves its own debate. The government has added the issue of biometrics to the bill.

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration held meetings and was in the middle of an important study on biometrics when the government introduced this legislation that steps on the very thing it is supposed to be studying. Sadly, it is no great surprise to me that the Conservatives moved on this before the facts were in and the work was completed. It is a little haphazard and half-baked like a lot of things they propose.

What does this say about the government's view of the work of standing committees and the experts and witnesses who appear before committees when the government reaches conclusions before the committee members have heard all the evidence? We would not accept it in a court room and we should not accept it here. That is one among many of the problems the government has.

One of my major concerns is the excessive power that the bill gives to the minister. The minister has the discretion to designate countries of origin or safe countries, to designate a group as an irregular arrival and determine what conditions would be placed on those designated refugee claimants. The designations have serious consequences and there should be oversight in making these determinations. Designated countries of origin would be countries that the minister believes do not produce legitimate refugees, usually because they are developed democracies.

The minister has thrown out the panel of experts to advise him, and I ask why. If the minister is so confident that he can choose which countries are safe countries, why would he not want the benefit of advice from experts in human rights? He praised this very idea as a good one 18 months ago. He still has not explained himself.

The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism may have great faith in his own judgment, but to have one person make such important determinations as to which country is safe or not, which country is or is not capable of producing refugees, and who is an irregular arrival is extremely troubling and sets a dangerous precedent. That is too much power for one person to have. It sounds to me that he is creating his own little PMO of control in immigration. We should build in checks and balances. That should be the case no matter who the minister of immigration is, even a New Democrat after we form government in 2015. I do not know who would make the argument that the system is not better served by having that kind of check and balance in place.

With regard to the DCOs, the bill removes the requirement that a determination be made by a panel including human rights experts. By concentrating the power to designate a country in the minister's hands, it opens the prospect that decisions could be made for political and/or foreign policy reasons and considerations. Thus, these designations by the minister create two classes of refugees.

Refugee claimants from DCOs would face a much faster determination process and faster deportation for failed claims. An initial form must be filled out and submitted within 15 days of the claim. DCO claims submitted in Canada would be decided within 30 days, DCO claims submitted at a port of entry would be decided within 45 days. All others would be decided within 60 days. Failed DCO claimants could be removed from Canada almost immediately, even if they have asked for judicial review. In other words, a person could be removed before the review is even heard and that is unacceptable to me and to the members on this side of the House.

Furthermore, DCO claimants have no access to the new Refugee Appeal Division. Herein lies what is fundamentally backward about the bill. The accelerated timelines make it difficult for people to get proper legal representation. This could lead to mistakes and subsequently a negative decision. Legal experts have warned that these accelerated timeframes and restricted access to the Refugee Appeal Division would create an unfair system. The effect of the accelerated deportation would mean that people would already be removed from the country before the legal process had run its course. We know that once people have been removed it is much more difficult to get them back here if they are legitimate claimants.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments and question from the hon. member. It is correct. Under the former bill, Bill C-11, there was a panel of experts, including human rights experts, that could make decisions about a safe country. This would now be put into the hands of the minister. It is just further evidence of the concerns we have about the bill, which focuses more decision making and power, in a political sense, in the minister's office other than through an independent expert advisory situation.

What we had before was far superior to what is now contemplated in the bill.

Why would we have a minister making those determinations about what would be a safe country when we could have reliable, independent experts doing that and giving reasonable advice? Again, it is further evidence that the bill is fundamentally flawed and we should not approve it.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-31. However, I would have preferred that this bill not be introduced at all and that we not debate it. In my opinion, this is an objectionable bill. There are a number of problems with it and it is certainly going to result in legal challenges.

I would like to start by saying that Bill C-31 builds on Bill C-11, which was introduced in the previous Parliament. With a minority government, the Conservatives were unable to pass the strict and severe bills that they wanted. Now, they are taking Bill C-49, which was also from the previous Parliament, and making the necessary changes to complete their biased and discriminatory immigration policy the sole purpose of which is to close our borders for as long as possible to foreigners seeking asylum in Canada.

The change in this government's tone on immigration and citizenship is striking. Most of Bill C-31 is practically copied word for word from the former Bill C-49, the short title of which was Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act. It was promoted as the bill that would protect refugees and discourage smugglers who were endangering the lives of foreigners trying to enter Canada by boat. Bill C-31, which is pretty much the same, is entitled Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act. The image is eloquent.

The Conservatives are now showing their true colours. The intent of Bill C-31 is no longer to protect refugees, but to protect the integrity of Canada's immigration system against ill-intentioned refugees who abuse the generosity of Canadian laws and who try to take advantage of our country. These comments were made and repeated by the previous speaker.

In the previous Parliament, some immigration bills, especially, Bills C-11 and C-35, were passed after much discussion, debate and compromise by all parties. A compromise was even reached on Bill C-49, the predecessor to Bill C-31. This time, the Conservative government is no longer receptive to amendments. On the contrary, the minister himself said that there are gaps in the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and that Canada needs stronger measures that are closer to the original bill we introduced in March 2010.

This time, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is not honouring the agreements reached by the various parties.

At the time, a number of groups that defend rights and freedoms condemned Bill C-49. Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Barreau du Québec and Professor Peter Showler, to name just a few, roundly condemned several key provisions of the bill, saying that they represented a serious violation of Canada's international and constitutional obligations.

In fact, this government is still using the pretext of national security to justify its lack of transparency and its desire to keep people in need out of the country, with no regard for Canada's constitutional and international obligations.

Far from having improved his bill in response to the criticisms about humanitarian considerations in previous bills, the minister instead says that he will not give in to the “immigration industry” lobby whose criticisms only reinforce the idea that the government is truly on the right track. It would be hard to be any more arrogant.

In addition to the government's arrogance, its narrow vision and demagoguery must be condemned.

With this bill, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is creating a new category of immigrants and giving himself the power to arbitrarily impose a different processing system for those immigrants than for other asylum seekers. This discretionary power is, in fact, the power to declare the entry of foreign nationals into the country as irregular by using loosely defined criteria based on national security interests, which was probably the genesis for the idea that this power cannot be delegated.

The creation of this category of refugee was specifically designed to block the entry of as many refugees as possible and it completely disregards the right to equality under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These asylum seekers often come from countries where fundamental rights are denied and where living conditions jeopardize their health and lives.

It is utterly ridiculous, even irresponsible, for a government to arbitrarily punish refugees who arrive by boat on the pretext of wanting to separate the good refugees from the bad as quickly as possible. That makes no sense. A refugee is not a qualified immigrant who can be selected. We cannot select refugees, simply by virtue of their refugee status. According to this government's logic, refugees who are not selected are bad refugees.

The fact that the minister would be able to create two classes of people is unacceptable and downright disturbing. Human beings are all equal, and the minister must never forget that Canada has a legal responsibility toward these people under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and a moral responsibility arising from its international obligations under various human rights treaties.

According to Peter Showler, director of the Refugee Forum and former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, concerns about a deluge of illegal refugees are unfounded because both routes to obtaining refugee protection—the Refugee and Humanitarian Resettlement Program, which targets international refugees as defined by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Canada's Inland Refugee Protection System for refugees arriving in Canada spontaneously—have historically been responsible for the same number of permanent residents in Canada, around 12,000 per year.

The difference between the two systems is control: control over the number of people coming in, the selection criteria, and the procedures and processing times. This is a legitimate concern, but it should not legitimize the crass justifications that the government is using to block access for people who need help.

For example, the minister claims that Canada is getting more and more claims from certain countries, such as Hungary and Mexico, and that these claims often come from “bad refugees” who do not really need protection. According to Mr. Showler, the Immigration and Refugee Board nevertheless accepts a significant number of claims from those two countries, 17% and 8%, respectively.

The minister also claims that this new bill will enable the board to do some “housecleaning” and shorten the waiting list for “good refugees” who have to wait patiently in refugee camps because illegitimate refugees who arrive by boat bog the system down by using fraudulent documents to get into Canada.

That, according to Mr. Showler, is not true because, on the one hand, not all refugees abroad can reach refugee camps, and on the other hand, the United Nations convention recognizes that it is difficult for refugees to be granted asylum, so it allows them to use fraudulent documents to seek refugee protection.

The Conservatives are trying to create an unhealthy climate around immigration, and specifically refugees. The executive of the Canadian Council for Refugees is very concerned about this and stated, “it is very worrisome when the government tries to create an anti-refugee sentiment among the population”. Several statements made by government MPs have promoted that very sentiment.

According to Wanda Yamamoto, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, “the bill is discriminatory and creates a two-tier system of refugee protection in Canada. It also makes it dangerously vulnerable to political considerations, rather than ensuring a fair and independent decision about who is a refugee. Our refugee system needs to give everyone a fair hearing, based on the facts of their case and regardless of their country of origin.”

Determining refugee status will henceforth be directly controlled by the minister, who now has the power to establish his own criteria. Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees said, “there is an arbitrary element in this, which the government is exploiting and abusing.”

Politicizing the immigration system is a very dangerous thing to do. The system had found a rather fair balance between security and individual liberties. All of that is now being compromised in the name of national security. From now on, any difficulty identifying refugees will be considered a threat to national security and, as a result, will justify different, more severe and punitive treatment than for all other kinds of refugees.

The Canadian Bar Association stated that Bill C-31 lacks clear qualitative thresholds and raises serious concern about excessive ministerial discretion. Furthermore, given the serious legal consequences that flow from a designation made by the minister, these amendments are overbroad and unsustainable.

Executive officers of the Canadian Bar Association went even further and recommended that implementation of the proposed changes be delayed to allow for immediate and meaningful consultation with all stakeholders.

I have only touched on some of the important aspects that support dropping this bill. We have asked the government many times to drop Bill C-31. This bill fuels an anti-refugee sentiment and exacerbates fears that are often legitimate, but that are being misguided with a bill like this one.

I think it is a shame that we are voting on this bill this evening with yet another time allocation. The NDP cannot vote in favour of Bill C-31.

We will strongly condemn this bill.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and for the Asia-Pacific Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to have this opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-31, protecting Canada's immigration system act, which would further improve Canada's refugee determination system, as well as our immigration system.

I think we can all agree that Canada has one of the most generous and fair refugee systems in the world. In fact, the facts speak for themselves. Canada currently welcomes one out of every ten resettled refugees worldwide. Since World War II, Canada has provided a safe haven to more than one million refugees and our humanitarian efforts have been recognized by the United Nations.

Canadians can take great pride in the openness and welcoming nature of our refugee system. At the same time, few Canadians would disagree that the system is badly in need of reform. As we see time and time again, refugee claimants wait too long for a decision on a claim. This puts in limbo those who are genuinely in need of Canada's protection but it also allows those who are not really in need of our protection to abuse our generosity and take unfair advantage of our country.

Last year, processing times for a decision on a claim before the independent Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, the IRB, could take more than 20 months and, because of the seemingly endless recourses available, it can take an average of four and a half years from the time a claim is made until a failed refugee claimant has exhausted all legal avenues and is removed from Canada. In some cases, it has taken more than a decade.

As one can imagine, these long delays, as well as access to generous taxpayer funded health and social benefits, encourage individuals who are not in need of our protection to use the refugee system as a way to remain in Canada for years on end.

To address these problems, Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, was passed in June 2010. That legislation included a number of improvements to the refugee system to provide for faster protection and faster removals with the aim of deterring abuse.

Bill C-11 provided for faster processing timelines to quickly decide claims. It introduced a designated country of origin policy to further expedite the processing of claims from those countries. It also restricted access to post-claim recourses to allow for faster removals for claimants not found in need of protection.

However, as we proceeded with the implementation of that bill, it became clear that further reforms were needed. We are concerned, for example, that we are receiving a large number of refugee claims from countries where human and democratic rights exist and which are not typically refugee-producing, such as those in the European Union. If members can believe it, Canada actually receives more refugee claims from the democratic European Union than from Africa or Asia. What is more, in recent years, virtually all European Union claims were abandoned, withdrawn or rejected. If that trend continues, that means that the unfounded claims from the 5,800 EU nationals who sought asylum last year will cost Canadian taxpayers nearly $170 million.

When we consider that 62% of all asylum claims were either abandoned, withdrawn or rejected by the IRB last year, it becomes clear that too many tax dollars are spent on these claimants and on tax-funded social benefits.

We need to send a message to those who would abuse Canada's generous refugee system that if they are not in need of protection they will be sent home quickly. At the same time, those who truly need our protection will get it even faster, while providing an extra level of appeal to most failed claimants.

That is why the Government of Canada introduced Bill C-31, which we are debating today, which will, if passed, further strengthen the asylum system and deter abuse. I will be very clear about one thing. Under these new measures, all eligible refugee claimants would continue to be entitled to a fair hearing before an independent decision-maker.

To begin, we propose to eliminate the information-gathering interview that was developed under the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and replace it with a basis of claim. This document would be submitted at the same time as the eligibility interview for those who make their claim inland or within 15 days for those who make their claim at the port of entry.

Under the proposed measures, refugee claimants, particularly those from designated countries of origin, would receive a hearing before the IRB more quickly. Hearings at the IRB for claimants from designated countries of origin would occur within 30 to 45 days. Claimants who are not from designated countries of origin would also have their hearing timelines accelerated. It is proposed that these hearings would be scheduled within 60 days of being referred to the IRB.

However, to be effective, faster decisions on refugee claims must be complemented by timely removals. Quick removals would contribute to reducing overall costs associated with Canada's refugee system by deterring abuse. Under a reformed refugee status determination system, the Canada Border Services Agency would place a higher priority on apprehending and removing failed refugee claimants. In particular, the CBSA would remove failed refugee claimants within 12 months following a final negative decision by the IRB.

As we know all too well, failed refugee claimants may turn to other options to delay their removal from Canada. That is why limits on other recourse options have been proposed in this legislation.

In closing, let me reiterate, the proposed protecting Canada's immigration system act builds on reform passed in June 2010 as part of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. These new measures further accelerate the processing of refugee claims for nationals from designated countries which are those that generally do not produce refugees. In addition, the proposals reduce the options available to failed claimants to delay their removal from Canada.

Even after these changes, Canada's refugee determination system would continue to meet our domestic and international obligations.

This is what The Globe and Mail had to say about Bill C-31.

Immigration minister's...refugee reforms, aimed at making the process more efficient and decisive, are generally good. If implemented, they will improve an unwieldy asylum program....The legislation rightly focuses on weeding out claimants who are not genuine, and stemming the flow of asylum seekers from countries...that are democracies with respect for basic rights and freedoms....Fast-tracking refugee claims from these countries, and ensuring failed claimants are promptly deported, is an excellent way to ensure Canada does not become a magnet for abuse. The bill will also implement biometric identification, such as fingerprints and photos, for people who apply for visitor's visas. This welcome change will guard against the use of false identities.

I urge all hon. members of this House to join me in supporting Bill C-31 in order to deter abuse of our refugee system, and provide a quicker and more secure beginning for victims of violence and persecution around the world.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the European Union, I am fully aware of the situation. I travelled to Europe myself and heard from many countries about this. Canada is having problems with claims from only two countries, and yes, most of those claims are not legitimate.

However, Mr. Minister, you know very well that Bill C-11 solved all of those problems and that negotiations were held with the opposition. Now that you have a majority, you are pointing the finger at the NDP.

Will you negotiate with us? No. Will you include the amendments that were proposed in this bill? No. So, we will not take any lessons from you, simply because you claim we do not know this bill. We know very well that you will do whatever you want, but this is a mistake.

You have problems, but this bill does not solve them. Stop generalizing the situation by saying that we are going to be overrun with refugees from all over the world. We are having problems with only two European Union countries. This does not mean we should penalize refugees from everywhere else.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to this punish refugees and give a break to smugglers bill. Why do I say that? Even though this bill is supposed to go after smugglers, the people who would be hurt are the genuine refugees.

Two weekends ago we celebrated St. Patrick's Day. I was thinking about the Irish refugees who came to the shores of Toronto. At the turn of the century, over 50,000 Irish refugees arrived on the shores of what was the city of York, before it was called Toronto. At that time, the city of York had only 30,000 residents.

How did the Irish refugees arrive? By irregular means, by boats. Did they have any identification with them? Most likely not. Should they have been locked up? Under this law, if passed, I suppose they would have been locked up for at least a year.

Members can imagine refugees coming to the shores of a big country, to a city that does not have a lot of people, and being locked up for a year. A lot of them were sick. Who would have been able to help them? At the time, the medical officer of health risked his life to serve the Irish immigrants. In fact, a doctor lost his life due to a fever. What was shown to the Irish refugees was compassion and support. As a result, they built Toronto. They helped build Canada. Some of their descendants might even be in the House of Commons.

Had they been locked up, they would not have been able to work or support their families. Under the law that is in front of us, they would not have been able to sponsor their family members to bring them here. They would have been separated from their families for at least 10 years. Because they would have been locked up, they would not have been able to work. After they were released, assuming they were genuine refugees, they still would not have been able to become permanent residents for a long period of time. They would have been prevented from sponsoring their family members. Even after they had become permanent residents, their status could still have been revoked. What kind of stability would their lives have had? None whatsoever.

At the time, if Ireland had been seen as a safe country, many of those refugees would have been sent home.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' recommendation indicates that some countries are safer than others, but we have to determine each refugee's claim based on the person's circumstances. Some countries are considered safe countries, so to speak, but not for gay, lesbian and bisexual people. They could be gay bashed or killed.

How does one declare a country as safe? The previous law said that there would be an advisory committee made up of a team of experts who would advise the minister. This bill just got rid of that. The minister does not need any expert advice. He can just declare a country as safe and the people from that country would be fast-tracked for deportation in no time, without right of appeal to the Federal Court, and no humanitarian or compassionate consideration. They could attempt an appeal, but it would not stop them from being deported. That means individual refugees would not be treated equally under the law.

In Canada we have a fundamental belief that each case must be considered equally under the law. The bill would completely change that. It would treat refugee A completely differently from refugee B depending upon the person's country of origin. However, let us assume it is a gay man from a country such as Ghana or Jamaica. One could say that Jamaica is a safe country, yet people can be killed because of their sexual orientation.

The bill has a lot of flaws. I do not understand why the bill is necessary. Less than a year ago, all parties in the House of Commons worked with the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and came up with a package called the balanced refugee reform act. At that time, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said that he was very proud of the bill because it had all-party support, was balanced and fair.

What has changed in the last eight or nine months? Nothing. Why is a bill that was balanced and fair all of a sudden no longer balanced and fair? Nothing has changed.

In fact, with regard to that bill, Bill C-11, the balanced refugee reform act, the immigration minister came to the committee and said, “This is such a fine bill. It will take us at a least a year to implement the bill. Give us one year and we will make the system perfect.” That is what was promised last June. It is not June 2012 yet. A year has not passed and the bill has not been implemented. The minister obviously has not had the time to implement the bill, and yet this so-called fast, balanced and fair bill all of a sudden became a big problem, and here we are debating another bill.

Think of the amount of money and time that has been wasted. A huge number of witnesses came to committee. There were forums in cities across the country. The immigration committee listened to all types of expert advice. All of that is gone. It is completely changed. The bill in front of us looks completely different. It is quite astounding. I cannot see what has changed in one year. The previous bill has not even been implemented and yet we are here wasting time and money debating a new bill.

What is the root problem? Why do we have such a backlog? Why does it take so long to determine a refugee claim?

Prior to 2006, the wait was one or two years. Things were going along and there were no huge problems. When the Conservatives came into power, they did not appoint any Immigration and Refugee Board members. As a result, for two or three years hardly any cases were being determined. A huge backlog was created because the Conservative minister did not appoint any IRB members.

It is the implementation of the law that is the problem. The law is not the problem.

On top of that, the CBSA said that it had difficulty deporting people because it does not have the right computer system. This is according to the Auditor General and admitted by the CBSA.

The real problem is the implementation of the law. There is no need to change the law. That is why members should not support this bill.

It is a very complex bill. I wish I had more time to address every element of it.