Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Before I start to give my speech, I would like to thank the Canadian government for accepting Asia Bibi, the woman who was imprisoned for nine years in Pakistan and was released and came to Canada. It is a great day for us as a Pakistani community that she was released from prison and is in our country where she can live a new life.
I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to be part of this process to share our perspective and experience and to better understand the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Canada is a welcoming country where people from everywhere come to realize their dream to live in peace and in security.
International Christian Voice is a human rights organization and sponsorship agreement holder directly in touch with asylum seekers.
My brother, Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian federal minister in Pakistan, was martyred under a hail of bullets by religious extremists for defending the rights of all persecuted religious minorities. Continuing his legacy, International Christian Voice has successfully sponsored several vulnerable families to Canada since 2015.
With regard to the topic of discussion today, it is our opinion that refugee claimants from other countries that have the same compassionate approach to refugees as we have in Canada need not apply for refugee status to Canada, because they are already eligible for all the rights, freedoms and benefits in their country of residence. In this way, we can save our resources for where they can be more effectively applied.
It is our opinion that making a refugee claimant, whose application for refugee status in Canada has been denied, wait for 12 months to elapse before they can appeal their rejection is counterproductive for both the refugee and for Canada. During this time, the refugee is left hanging in a vacuum and the Canadian government must support them during this period of unnecessary inaction.
International Christian Voice has been very closely in touch with asylum seekers. From 2015 to the present, my team and I have made three fact-finding trips to Thailand and Malaysia. We have personally visited over 100 families seeking asylum, most of whom were languishing in detention centres or were in hiding, fearing arrest and deportation back to the country from which they fled due to religious persecution, violence, threats to their lives, kidnapping and forced marriages.
In March of this year, ICV was able to visit the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok and personally talk to several families detained within. They were living in intolerable and inhumane conditions. Many asylum seekers are suffering with stress-related sicknesses, and several have died without medical assistance while in the detention centre.
In our opinion, Canada's resources would be better spent on claimants who are suffering while residing in the countries that are not signatories of the 1951 refugee convention, like Thailand, where claimants are suffering from malnutrition, no medical facilities and separation of families. They are stateless and helpless. These redirected financial resources would help to alleviate the backlog of asylum seekers in countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia.
We agree with the proposed provisions to authorize the Governor in Council to expedite the processing of the applications when the Governor in Council feels that the government or competent authorities are unreasonably refusing to issue or unreasonably delaying the issue of travel documents to citizens or nationals of that state or territory who are in Canada.
Thank you.