Again, I emphasize that there are many levels of appeal. I also want to emphasize that it was in 2002 that IRPA was brought into effect by the previous Liberal government. It included within the statute a refugee appeal division, but it was my Liberal predecessors who felt that it would be disastrous to the refugee asylum system if they were to actually implement the appeal division because it would add even more processing time into what is already taking too long. Fundamentally, as I've mentioned, we do have a very fair system with multiple levels of de facto appeal, access to the Federal Court, and full compliance with our charter in international obligations. The addition of an appeal division in that context would not qualitatively improve the fairness of the system, although it's preferable to have an appeal on the merits, in my judgment, within the context of a streamlined system.
If we now pass that bill today and we add another five months onto the process, what does that mean? It means longer processing times, more incentive to come and abuse the system, and that will attract more claimants. It simply continues to allow the system to spiral out of control. We need to get it under control.