Thank you.
I appreciate your comments, because it really gives rise to a discussion on the human rights aspects of members of the Conservative Party, who really care about these things.
As a lawyer who's been in the human rights field for a long time, I'm thinking about several things you said. First, you did mention that where there are different lawyers, there will be different opinions. My opinion differs from the lawyer who's speaking to you, I would suggest.
You mentioned the timeframe required to do the work. Well, you know that we acknowledged the Supreme Court of Canada's decision, and we know that the charter applies and we know that the Charter of Rights is subject to exceptions that may be reasonable in a free and democratic society. What's reasonable is to make sure that true, legitimate refugee claimants get processed quickly.
My second comment to Ms. Sims is that we heard in New Zealand that they process claims in 15% of the time that we're presently doing that. We need to do some catch-up here. The colouring of that as a two-tiered system, which suggests there's some unfair inequality being visited upon certain applicants, is completely wrong. If “two-tiered” means that real, legitimate applicants get processed within 20% of the time, then, yes, I'm all for that. I think most Canadians would be as well. It's about time we understood what we're doing is to respect the human rights of people who really need to be protected.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.