Thank you.
Minister, I think I can help you with that request for criticism.
I wanted to talk about the designated safe countries provision under Bill C-31. This is the proposal you have in your bill that would allow you, on your own—without the committee that you've now said you were wrong to have praised for being transparent and clear—to designate a country as safe for certain refugees.
Now, we know that these people who come from a safe country will have no appeal to the refugee appeal division, only to Federal Court. I'm aware that you're not a lawyer, but I assume you're aware that an appeal to the Federal Court is not an appeal on the merits of a decision; it's an appeal only on procedural fairness grounds.
You've also said that this complies with a statement of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and that he approves of the practice of designating certain countries as safe. However, the UN High Commissioner actually said that if a country designates certain countries as safe, there must be an appeal on the merits of any initial decision, something that your bill explicitly does not have.
So why did you remove the appeal to the refugee appeal division from the previous bill for refugee claimants from so-called safe countries when you agreed that it was a good thing in the past, and in violation of the statement of UN High Commissioner for Refugees?