Thank you very much.
With that, Mr. Chair, I would like to raise another issue.
I would like to move a motion if I may.
Mr. Chair, to the committee, and to the witnesses, there are many critical issues before us. There are some issues that people have died from. I have not been able to move this committee to even have a debate about the following issue, let alone study it. I mean no disrespect to what's going on here. This is really important work. I want to do this work. But I also want to move this motion:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee immediately undertake a study on the current situation regarding the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), given its current funding constraints; its increasing case backlog of 1,000 cases per month; its current situation of over 60 board member vacancies; and the significant increase in asylum claims to Canada in 2017. That this study should be comprised of no less than three meetings; that the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship be in attendance for at least one meeting; that the Chair of the IRB be in attendance for at least one meeting; that the study be concluded and that the Committee report its findings to the House; and that due to the urgency of this situation, that these meetings take place prior to June 23, 2017.
Mr. Chair, this motion has been tabled in my name. To that end, I would really like it if we could get the committee members to vote on it. The reason I raise this is that we were just talking about immigration. We just heard from Mr. McKenna about the importance of it and his citing, for example, the refugee community and their contributions to strengthening the economy of the communities as well.
Yet, we have a situation in which the IRB is really stuck. They're unable to process cases. They don't have the resources to do so. We have a bit of a challenge on our hands. Also, with the situation that we have in the broader community, we recently had a death occur when people were trying to cross over to Canada.
This motion, in my view, is very important. We need to get on with a study on it in a timely fashion. That's not to say that the study that we're engaging in right now is not important. Of course it is important. Because of the urgency of this in terms of life and death issues, I think it's something that we should be taking a look at in this committee.
I do apologize to the witnesses who are here with respect to this work that's being done today.
The committee in my view has a responsibility to examine pressing issues in a timely fashion. As we have seen now, and as I was mentioning, lives are at stake when it comes to these issues as the government side continues to refuse to resume debate on my motion to study irregular border crossings.
Mr. Chair, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UNHCR, has noted that by the end of 2015 an average of 24 people a minute were being forced to flee their homes due to war and persecution. A total of 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015. That is compared to 59.5 million just a year earlier. This was the first time in the organization's history—