I apologize for that. I will.
The result of this lack of temporality, the lack of a danger assessment, the lack of any transparency or accountability in the assessment of whether groups are terrorist groups under the act results in a completely arbitrary and irrational designation of people as terrorists.
There is, of course, the provision that was designed specifically for the correction of mistakes stemming from this overbreadth of subsection 34(1), and that is subsection 34(2), the ministerial relief provision. However, in practice over the past seven or eight years that provision has been gutted; in my submission, in the hands of the current minister it has been turned into a completely illusory remedy.
Unlike the groups formally designated under section 83.05 of the Criminal Code, where there is a specific procedure and the groups are gazetted, the list that's used by immigration authorities for refugees and immigrants is created behind closed doors with no public input and no transparency. This is a serious problem, in my submission, and does untold damage to the security of refugees without having any discernible positive impact on the security of Canada.
The next topic I'd like to touch on is the advanced passenger information program and interdiction, two topics covered by previous witnesses. The attraction of this kind of technology is obvious. Who wouldn't support checking people to make sure they aren't terrorists or criminals before they come to Canada?
The problem, however, is that it's not the terrorists who are being interdicted overseas. It's the asylum seekers. Interdiction measures targeting improperly documented travellers seeking to travel to Canada are not about national security. They are about preventing asylum seekers from getting to Canada.
Your CIC and CBSA witnesses from February 14 and 16 responded to questions from Mr. Davies, a member of the committee, and were quite clear that the real goal of the interdiction program is specifically to prevent or reduce the arrival of refugees seeking refugee protection.
When we contemplate this, however, we need to remember a crucial point. Of those who make refugee claims in Canada, about 48% are accepted by the IRB as having a well-founded fear of persecution or as being at substantial risk of torture.
What then of the 4,000 improperly documented people interdicted each year? Even if only half of those interdicted people were still planning to make a refugee claim, we are still looking at a 48% acceptance rate at almost 1,000 bona fide refugees being turned back before coming to Canada and being denied access to protection in Canada as a direct result of our interdiction activities.
What happens to these people when they're turned away?