Thank you very much for the question.
In a broad conversation like this we need to be aware of the way in which we can implicitly assume that the goal should be to reduce the number of people who arrive. I would argue that the goal should be to make sure that people who need protection as refugees can access that protection in a safe and reliable way without needing to put themselves and their families at risk. Of course, we have a shared interest in regularity in arrivals and in making sure that the process is well managed, but so often we slip into this kind of thinking where low numbers mean we're doing our jobs right. When we look more broadly at what's going on in the world, I think we need to be suspicious about that kind of thinking. Instead, we need to look at the kind of factors that are driving people to come and make sure that we can give their claims the consideration that they merit.
If we think about the IRB determinations of the claims of people who have been entering irregularly from the United States, of course a significant number have been recognized as refugees. I think this attests to the system working well in some ways, in that people have the opportunity to make a claim, to be heard and to be granted protection as refugees in Canada.
I would just echo Doug's comment that we are not in a crisis situation in Canada, nor are we in a crisis situation in Europe. These are countries that are well equipped to deal with arrivals on the scale that we're experiencing lately. It's important to look at what's going on in countries like Lebanon, for example, where one in four people right now is a Syrian refugee. It's important to recognize that is a whole different scale and take the conversation in that direction so we can think about how we can support countries on the front lines that are really struggling.