Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for your presence here.
I would first of all, on behalf of all Committee members, like to apologize for the noise that you heard earlier, when the meal arrived. Our apologies to you, and especially to Mr. Tan, who must have been extremely focussed in order to be able to pursue his brief presentation despite all of the commotion going on around him. You have our thanks. I would ask for your indulgence and understanding.
Mr. Pang, I would like to make a comment, as I do not have a specific question to ask. It is a good thing that you stated at the outset that you were in favour of the bill. Upon listening to the rest of your presentation, I had some difficulty understanding why you are in favour of the bill. Throughout your statement, you talked about problems with delays, with wait times, and you mentioned several situations. However, in this bill, all that is stated is that there is a waiting line and that the order of the people in the line is going to be changed. If that it what is done, then in the end the lineup will be of exactly the same length. In any event, I would invite you to continue to reflect upon this.
I have a question for Mr. Jovel. I would as a matter of fact like to thank you for having done a good portion of your presentation in French. You gave examples of promises not kept and such that it is difficult to place one's trust in the ministers that succeed each other, no matter what the party. I would like to invite you to give some thought to the Refugee Appeal Division case. It seems to be proof that the situation is worse still. The Act provided that there be a Refugee Appeal Division, and parliamentarians, in good faith, trusted the minister who was to decide when this division would be set up, for bureaucratic reasons. It was adopted. That was the reason that was given, the compromise negotiated with parliamentarians in order to change the number of officers examining the applications. Previously, two officers examined each application; with this change, there would only be one. The excuse we were given at the time, as a matter of fact, was that this would reduce wait times, but we were told that in order to ensure that the system be fair and proper and that applicants be able to appeal a negative decision, a Refugee Appeal Division would be set up, but that was never done.
If the successive ministers from both parties, that are in power in rotation, are not even able to implement a clause of the Act, then how can we, in your view, trust them to take measures that have not even been discussed and that we do not know the nature of?