One of the reasons we proposed additional reforms to our asylum system through Bill C-31 is that since the adoption of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act in June of 2010, we have seen a growing wave of unfounded asylum claims coming in, particularly from member states of the European Union—last year, 5,800 EU claims—which has created the bizarre situation that we're getting more asylum claims from the European Union than we do from Africa or Asia.
I mentioned this in my speech to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees 60th anniversary meeting in Geneva, and there were visible gasps in the audience. The high commissioner himself said that was the single most remarkable thing he had heard during the conference.
It just strikes us as being, at best, peculiar. Virtually none of those EU asylum claimants actually show up for their hearings. Since we've had the visa exemption for the Czech Republic, Hungary, and other European countries in 2008, about 95% of claimants have abandoned or withdrawn their own claims. That is to say, through their own admission, they're saying that they made claims but they didn't need Canada's protection.
So clearly we need flexible tools to address highly organized waves of unfounded claims coming from democratic countries, where life may not be perfect, but if you are a citizen of an EU member state, you can move. If you need protection, you can cross into any one of another 27 states. Why is it, I ask myself, that there were I think zero asylum claims from the EU in Australia last year, and I think about 30 in the United States, but 6,000 in Canada?