Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Opitz, and thank you to our witnesses for appearing before us today.
Mr. Goldberg, from the outset of your presentation to us, you clearly said that you recommended that the bill be withdrawn. You also said that the bill has nothing to do with refugees, if you will, or speeding up the process.
I want to point out a couple of things that I think you perhaps may have missed in making your assessment. With the measures in Bill C-31, the time to finalize a refugee claim for a legitimate refugee would drop from the current 1,038 days to 45 days for claimants from designated countries of origin, and 216 days for all other claimants. Surely you would agree that someone who is fleeing persecution, possible death or torture in their country, would be greatly advantaged by the speeding up of the process for their coming into Canada. I think it points—and we've heard this from other witnesses—to a very compassionate element in the bill.
You mentioned your children. I really thank you for sharing your personal story of your children. I'd like to talk a little bit about some other measures that are in Bill C-31 that will help us to identify a terrorist or a criminal possibly even before they come to our borders. Hopefully, we should be able to identify them. But in the cases where we don't, let's take the two examples of the Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady.
On the Sun Sea, five people were denied, four for security reasons and one for war crimes. On the Ocean Lady, 19 were ruled inadmissible for security reasons, and 17 for war crimes. That's a total of 41 people. I'm sure that you and every other Canadian in the country would be appalled at the thought that 41 people who have perpetrated war crimes or have a record of security breaches in their country would be allowed to live in their neighbourhoods, to be around their children and their families.
I'd like to speak a little bit about the issue of biometrics. We heard testimony at this committee from experts, including officials at the highest level, from the RCMP, CSIS, CBSA, law enforcement people, who attested to the fact that biometrics is a 21st-century identification tool. It is a tool designed to assist countries, that is, law enforcement folks, to identify risks or potential risks. Can you elaborate on that? What would your thoughts be on that? It really points to things that are in the bill that very much have to do with refugees and the security of Canadians.