Mr. Chair, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this issue.
First, I want to amend the motion briefly by adding that it be reported to the House of Commons, if it passes—standard.
The safe third country agreement was signed by the former Liberal government. What it means is that if a refugee claimant goes to a visa office in the U.S. and says, for example, “I'm from Haiti, and I travel through the U.S., but I want to declare refugee status in order to get into Canada”, they would not be given the right to have a hearing. They in fact are not able to apply in the U.S.
As a result, what is happening now is that many refugee claimants are flooding across the border, because in Canada we do not deport people to Haiti, for example, whereas in the U.S. they do.
The reason this is not a good agreement in the first place is that Canada has an independent foreign policy. We should not have a policy that is directed by the United States. We are a sovereign country. We really should have independent foreign policy. If we have an independent foreign policy, there is no reason to say to refugees, “You cannot apply—you travelled through the U.S., you are physically in the U.S., you therefore are not entitled to a hearing.”
It's my belief—the same belief as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—that every refugee claimant should have the right to apply as a refugee no matter where that person has travelled through. There's no such thing as safe third country.