Mr. Speaker, I am happy to answer the member's question. The safe third country is something that has been bugging me all along.
I have no problem saying that the safe third was brought in by our government in 1988 but, unfortunately, was never acted upon. When we talk to the people in immigration now they tell us that all they have done so far to the existing law that is on the books is spend a year and a half negotiating with the United States. No other country has been looked at so far, which is really very unfortunate because a lot of countries are out there.
We have seen cases recently, such as the group that came through India last summer from Tibet. We know for a fact that some of those people spent several years in India and others spent several years in Germany. They could easily have applied through those countries. Since we know that they came from those countries, had we had agreements with them, they could have been sent directly back there to apply.
I do agree with the hon. member on that. It was one of the recommendations I made in committee and one that was unanimously accepted by all members. One of the items I had asked for, and which was accepted, was that at the end of each year the minister would bring a report to the House stating how many countries with which they had been negotiating and how far the negotiations had gone. Doing that on a yearly basis would probably push things a little more to get this into the system.