Mr. Chair, Mr. Coderre is right. We could use the visa tool universally, as Australia does, and impose it on every country. Personally, I do not believe that this would be in Canada's interest. We have seen the negative reactions from Mexico and the European Union.
At the same time, we have to be consistent. Last week, the Liberal Party critic for tourism, Mr. Bains, said that we would have to withdraw the visa that has been imposed on Mexico. Mr. Coderre indicated that we should be imposing visas on a certain number of other countries. We need a tool that is somewhere between these two positions.
You mentioned that there was a backlog of 20,000 refugee claims under the former government. Over the past decade, the average number has been 40,000 claims. In 2004, there were more than 50 000 cases. Finally, I would remind you of what your leader said:
There are a number of countries in the world in which we cannot accept a bona fide refugee claim, because you don't have cause, you don't have just cause coming from those countries. It's rough and ready, but otherwise we'll have refugee fraud and nobody wants that.
Personally, I do not agree with your leader at all. I think that he goes too far in his policy to prevent a hearing—