Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for coming and speaking with us and giving us your case.
I have to state that I deeply respect the compassion and commitment you all share in the protection of human rights and the pursuit of moral justice. The committee, as you stated, is obviously deeply concerned with the refugee appeal process and the fact that refugee claimants can only be heard by a single IRB member.
The question I want to ask the panel is, given that the current government continues with the 2001 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act without creating the refugee appeal division that has been called for in the past, and given that there is a major backlog with respect to the number of claimants and the processing time, and given the fact as well that the department is accelerating this backlog with their refusal or inability to appoint staff to the Immigration and Refugee Board to deal with it, if the minister or if a new government were to provide the refugee appeal process, would that be enough for churches to cease providing refugee claimants with sanctuary? If there were an appeal process set up, would churches then not be forced to be in this position? Would that be enough?