Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Ministers and officials. Thank you for your presentation.
I would like to expand a bit on the safe third country agreement. I know that the government's perspective and the minister's perspective is that we should keep the safe third country agreement in place.
However, the minister must know that we had a situation where an asylum seeker, Mr. Seidu Mohammed, came through in the dead of winter. He crossed over and in fact advised that in the U.S. his claim was rejected. He cited immigration detention and the lack of access to legal counsel as major factors related to his claim, in how his claim was being rejected in the U.S. He came to Canada, lost digits in the dead of winter, made an application, and was successful. Canada found that he was a valid asylum seeker and granted him the status to stay.
That's one case that shows that the safe third country agreement is not working—at least not for Mr. Mohammed.
The other situation that has been brought to our attention by the IRB is that some 300 applications now have been processed. A little over 50% of the 300 successfully got an asylum claim here in Canada, so I would argue that the minister should look at this carefully and intensively. Canada has a legal obligation in the international world to play our part with respect to asylum seekers. Frankly, many people, including experts, are saying that the safe third country agreement is not working.
I'm going to park that with the minister. I'd like to get a quick response from the minister, specifically related to Mr. Mohammed's case. How can you then say that the safe third country agreement is working for people, when in fact it didn't, at least not for him?