First of all, thank you very much for inviting me to speak before the committee.
Before making my comments on Bill C-11, may I say that I share with other Canadians the belief that Canada should give protection to a reasonable number of genuine refugees? I would add that some of my own family members, my in-laws, were boat people who fled from an oppressive regime. I got interested in these issues when I served as ambassador or high commissioner in various countries in Asia and the Middle East, where there were large flows of refugee claimants as well as immigrants in general.
We have to acknowledge, though, that despite public support for a good refugee system, there are major problems with the current system. The public is concerned about this and there is strong public support for reforms to the system, both to speed up the process for cases that have merit as well as finalize decisions and arrange for the speedy removal of the large numbers of claimants who are not considered to need our protection.
It's abundantly clear that a very large number of the people who make refugee claims in Canada are not fleeing persecution, but are, rather, abusing the system simply to gain permanent residence in this country, in most cases for economic reasons. Even though Canada is one of the most difficult refugee-receiving countries for asylum seekers or refugee claimants to reach because of its geographical location, we nevertheless receive a very substantial proportion of the claims made globally because we have the most generous system of benefits for claimants and, on average, we approve three times as many claims as other countries do.
In 2009, for example, we received over 33,000 new refugee claims. The UNHCR made a survey of 44 industrialized countries. Out of those 44, we ranked behind only the United States and France in absolute number of claims. Both of those countries have significantly larger populations and are much more geographically accessible to most asylum seekers.
In the time allotted to me, I'm going to concentrate my remarks on the provisions of Bill C-11 that deal with what are described as designated countries of origin, which are widely referred to internationally as safe countries of origin.
If members of the committee wish, I'll also try to answer questions on other aspects of Bill C-11, such as the use of public servants in the first or initial decision level of the determination process.
The term “safe countries of origin” is used to describe countries that are democratic, have a good human rights record, subscribe to the UN conventions on human rights and refugees, and are considered not to persecute their citizens. Many refugee-receiving countries won't even consider a claim from a national of a safe country of origin, or they at least have in place a system for dealing quickly with such claims so they don't clog the system and these countries can concentrate on claims that have merit.
Canada, however, until now, has been practising no such restraint and has allowed people to make claims who are nationals of a host of countries that would not seriously be regarded elsewhere as refugee producing, that is, that persecute their citizens as defined in the UN convention.
In 2008, for example, we allowed claimants into our refugee determining system who were Norwegians, New Zealanders, Australians, Germans, French, British, and American, and the list goes on. While the number of nationals from most of the countries I just mentioned was in most cases relatively small, some were not. In 2008, for example, more than 2,300 U.S. citizens made refugee claims in Canada. That's not an insignificant number when it comes to the time and resources required to deal with their claims.
Perhaps more noteworthy, however, are the sudden increases that have occurred in a number of claimants from specific countries, many of which would be considered by other refugee-receiving countries as safe. Most recently, these have involved claimants from Mexico, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, but there were similar occurrences going back decades and involving people from Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Argentina, and Chile, etc.
This type of problem has arisen in part because of the way we've stretched the definition of persecution in the UN convention. Ironically, Canada some years ago warned the international community at a UNHCR meeting in Geneva that if the refugee definition is drawn too broadly, we risk defining the problem into complete unmanageableness, and that is what has happened, to a large extent.
The Canadian representative at that particular meeting went on to make the point that it was particularly unfair that we spend thousands of dollars each on individuals who manage to reach our territory whether or not they are deserving of our help, yet relatively little on those languishing in refugee camps.
In the case of the spike in claims last year by people from the Czech Republic, the argument was made by refugee advocates that although members of the community from which most of them came, that is, the Roma--or as they are sometimes called, the gypsies--weren't being persecuted by the Czech government, the fact that the latter could not prevent members of the population in general from discriminating against the Roma was the equivalent of persecution and, therefore, they should be eligible to make refugee claims. Under this expanded definition of persecution, we would be obliged to accept, for example, applications from the more than 100 million of the Dalit, or untouchable caste, in India.
Clearly, the refugee convention was never intended to deal with this kind of problem, and if the convention is to be applied in a realistic and practical manner, it cannot be interpreted in a way that results in us being expected to solve other people's social problems by moving all of their people in difficult circumstances to Canada. It's worth noting in this regard that the other members of the European Union will not consider a refugee claim from a Czech national, Roma or otherwise, since the Czech Republic is a democratic country with a good human rights record.
In the circumstances, it is quite appropriate that Canada establish a list of designated countries of origin, particularly in cases where there are rapid increases in claims from nationals of countries that do not persecute their citizens. In my view, the answer is clearly yes: we should establish such a system.
Until now, we've been reduced to imposing visitor visa requirements in such cases. This is a very awkward way of dealing with such situations and it usually brings with it a number of negative consequences, including adverse reactions from the countries affected, and it might include retaliatory impositions of visa requirements on Canadian travellers.
A further negative consequence of the ease with which virtually any non-Canadian can make a refugee claim in Canada is the extreme caution we often have to exercise in issuing visitor visas to nationals of many countries. When I was working at various Canadian embassies overseas, we frequently had to turn down visitor visa applications from people who were probably bona fide visitors but who we could not take a chance on because it was so easy for them to claim refugee status once they arrived in Canada. If we had a more sensible refugee determination system, we would not have to turn down as many visitor visa applications as we do now.
Now, will the provisions for designating countries of origin in the proposed legislation work effectively if indeed they're approved and implemented? That remains to be seen.
People from countries so designated will still be allowed to make refugee claims but will not be able to lodge an appeal with the refugee appeal division if their claim has been turned down. The expectation, presumably, is that this restriction will deter most such individuals from making claims in the first place. But should this not turn out to be the case, should it not be a significant deterrent, the government would be well advised to consider firmer measures to control the unjustified spikes from nationals of those countries of origin.
