Yes, we have. We believe that Bill C-31 complies with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We believe there is a compelling policy objective in ensuring that we have identified illegal and irregular migrants. These are people who typically arrive without documentation in suspicious circumstances, who by definition have been smuggled into Canada by a criminal organization in violation of multiple laws.
We believe there is a compelling security rationale for maintaining immigration detention for such individuals until we have identified who they are. In a vast majority of these cases, though, it is a practical reality. Smuggled migrants who make asylum claims will benefit from the accelerated timelines of our faster asylum system. In many cases, if they are in fact bona fide refugees they would receive protected person status and be released from detention in a matter of months.