Look, I think this is pretty cut and dried. I don't think this is complicated. If you come to Canada as a permanent resident, we welcome you. We're the most welcoming country in the world, and this government has maintained the most welcoming posture of any developed country in the world. We have, in fact, since we came to office, admitted nearly 1.8 million permanent residents in the last six years, and we have welcomed about 1.3 million citizens. It's unprecedented in the world and in our history, certainly in relative terms, at least.
In our generosity, we ask very little of people who come to join us in Canadian society. One of the very few things we ask is that in enjoying the privilege of residency in Canada, you not commit a serious crime. Nearly 100% of immigrants find no difficulty in avoiding committing a serious crime. Frankly, I think it's insulting to suggest that this is some kind of a burden placed on new Canadians or placed on permanent residents. I don't think it's a burden to avoid committing a serious crime.
There's some suggestion here that this constitutes a diminution of due process or natural justice. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every foreign national who's charged with a crime in Canada, every permanent resident who is charged with a crime, will get their day in a criminal court. If a judge deems they have committed a sufficiently serious offence to receive a penalty of six months or more, they are currently, under IRPA, considered serious foreign criminals and subject to deportation. We are simply saying we'll move forward with the removal, rather than allowing people to buy several years of delay, during which we see too many recidivists, too many repeat crimes, too many new victims claimed.
Moreover, I would point out that if you get that conviction at a Canadian criminal trial court, you can appeal that conviction to an appeals court, and if there are grounds, you could further appeal it to the Supreme Court. Similarly, under what we are proposing, once that conviction is established in law, they will no longer have this appeal to the IAD of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Let me point out that it's not only the IAD appeal. That's taking us about 18 months right now, because we have so many of these cases, so that buys them 18 months. If they lose there, then they make an application for judicial review of the negative IAD decision to the Federal Court, and that buys another eight or nine months, maybe a year. So we're often talking about two and a half to three years of bought time to stay in Canada. Having eliminated that, under Bill C-43 serious convicted foreign criminals will still be able to make an application for a pre-removal risk assessment. If that decision is negative, they'll be able to seek leave to the Federal Court for review of their negative PRA.
Frankly, I suspect a lot of Canadians think the streamlined system we're proposing here is still too generous for people who have violated the privilege of staying in Canada and have committed serious crimes. But we are, of course, committed to our fair legal system and our international obligations of non-refoulement, for example.