I would say that if the appeal division were to be implemented in the way it was first presented--which was that you go to the IRB, you get a negative decision, you go on appeal, you win or you lose--if you lose, you no longer get a stay of all removal proceedings from the time you get a negative decision of a refugee appeal division.
Just to step back a bit, one of the big incentives for refused claimants right now to file at the Federal Court--some have excellent reasons for filing, others don't--is it gives them an extra three months or so during which everything is suspended. So whether they have a good case, and some do and might even be in the lucky 10% or so that have their case heard, or whether they have no case, there's a strong incentive to file at the Federal Court because it buys extra time.
That's extremely expensive to everybody, especially to the Federal Court judges, who are looking through a lot of cases that they don't feel are seriously prepared but have to look through anyway.
If the refugee appeal division were introduced, but there was no stay of removal after that, then virtually no one would file at the Federal Court unless they felt they had a really serious case. There would be no benefit to them. They would just have to spend a lot of money without getting any additional stay. So I believe that would save the Canadian taxpayer a lot of money, implementing it in that way, which is my understanding of the way it was meant to be implemented.
With the other recommendations of allowing the IRB to reopen a case where, exceptionally, there was very strong new evidence, change of circumstance, coup d’état, and so on, that in itself would probably eliminate much of the demand for the PRRA.
For the remaining cases where there actually did have to be a PRRA at the end of the line, to make sure someone was not deported to torture or death, I don't think it would save any money because you're still paying an official to make the certain decision. But I think you would save the money further upstream with those other reforms I mentioned.