Minister, I have experienced exactly what you are experiencing. I also issued visas. Within the Canadian system, consistent with the values inherent in the immigration system, we must draw a distinction, during this process, between granting authority to officials—and I was on the front lines in this regard—and the issue of appeals to the IRB. That is one thing.
I would however like us to discuss safe countries. I was the first to negotiate the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. When we start saying that a country is safe it means that we're taking away that primordial value, in the area of immigration, in Canada, and each case loses its specificity.
For instance, if, for a host of reasons, an individual is harassed in a given country because he is homosexual and you say that this country is safe, from that point on you are sending out a message that every person coming out of that country is safe. Therefore the option to help someone on a humanitarian basis no longer exists. We need more transparency.
I personally, as a former minister of Immigration, object to the idea of labelling people based on the country they're from. I think we need to draw a distinction between a visa... In fact, perhaps we should say that there should be visas issued for each country, if we follow our logic. We need to say that in considering each specific case, regardless of where it is from, there is a reality people are facing.
I would like to quickly address the final point, Minister—