Mr. Speaker, I was fascinated by the hon. member's response to that question. I congratulate the minister on her willingness to listen to the committee, her willingness to listen to other Canadians, and having absorbed that material reflecting on it and producing the bill. It is nice to work with a minister who listens. I appreciate as well her work with the committee and her respect for the committee. Over the course of my few comments I will reflect on and refer to the number of recommendations she has picked up. Before I go much further, I want to indicate that I will be splitting my time.
I just returned from leading a multiparty delegation to Taiwan. It was a fascinating trip. Taiwan processes about 1,200 visas a day. It is the busiest visa office we have in the world. The Taiwanese have a saying about Canada, that Canadians live quietly in paradise. That is very interesting.
I would suggest that the way the Taiwanese see us is in large measure the way many other people in the world see us. It is therefore of no great surprise that many people in the world try to get to our borders and will sacrifice anything they have in order to get here. They will almost and literally sell their souls to the devil in order to be able to come to Canada.
We should all have these problems. Other nations should have these problems. The Prime Minister is fond of saying that when he goes abroad and returns here he realizes that his problems in governing this nation are frequently of less serious magnitude than the problems of many other leaders.
It is reasonable to say that most countries would like to have the same problems we have. People are literally dying to get to this country and we therefore have a surfeit of human capital. Nevertheless, we are inundated by those who wish to come here. We literally have 39 million border crossings on an annual basis; in other words, the population plus 10 million people. We issue something in the order of three million visas on an annual basis.
In order to be able to control our borders and have some semblance of an immigration policy we have to devote enormous resources to it. Frankly we do not always do it as well as we might, but the minister has in some large measure responded to those issues.
Some criticisms of our immigration policy are legitimate. One of them is that people come here and claim to be refugees. That will get them into the system. Then they go through the refugee system and if they are turned down they appeal that. If they fail at the appeal they go back to claiming a risk review. Then they go to risk review and if they fail at that they can appeal. If they fail at that they come back to humanitarian compassion. If they go to humanitarian compassion and lose on that, they go to some form of appeal. If they do not like that they get a removal order. They appeal the removal order and after that they go to deportation. If they do not like that they disappear.
It is a system which is rife with abuse and something that the minister has addressed. One thing she did, which was a recommendation of the committee, was to try and consolidate the process. She decided to consolidate the refugee determination process, the risk review process and the humanitarian compassion process so that they would all be done at one time.
The minister has moved to end this interminable game of snakes and ladders. This is a game with people's lives. Frankly it is a game that challenges the tolerance of Canadians to be fair and responsible to those who are in need of protection in our country.
Currently the assessment of grounds for protection is handled in several stages. One is at the IRB and the other is at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. The new system will consolidate these grounds into one assessment during a single hearing process at the IRB. Essentially the working thesis of the bill is that the facts are the same. Whether the facts are for refugee determination, risk review or humanitarian and compassionate grounds, they are all the same facts. Therefore it is only appropriate that all the same facts be dealt with at the same time such that individuals who may or may not qualify for refugee determination may well qualify for risk review.
The grounds for assessment of risk are the Geneva convention on refugees, the convention on risk of torture and risk to life and/or cruel and unusual punishment. These grounds are not new. They are merely brought together so that there are no longer a multiplicity of steps but one.
The second aspect of the consolidation of the review process will be the shrinking of two member panels to one. Currently two member panels hear refugee cases at the IRB. In the majority of cases the decisions are unanimous. The process will be made more efficient by the use of single member panels.
At the committee we heard some testimony on the part of those concerned about refugees that in fact this may create its own difficulties. The minister has responded by delegating a specialized panel within IRB to do a paper review of the process so that after determination under refugee criteria, determination under risk review and determination under humanitarian and compassionate grounds there will not be slip-ups and injustices. There will be a paper review by the IRB on an internal panel composed of experienced members.
The minister, by delegated authority to her officials, may intervene at the IRB hearings more frequently to present security information or other data pertinent to the case. We are hoping that the minister becomes much more active in this process.
I quote the minister on her process because the bill she is coming forward with is on something that Canadians have made clear. Canadians have made it clear that they want a system based on respect for our law. They do not want to continually read Toronto Sun headlines about the latest this or that which abused the process. We still want to maintain an openness to newcomers and this is why the bill tries to be faster and fairer in all our decision making.
The committee listened to hours of testimony. I thought it would be instructive if I referred back to the committee's report which was tabled last month. Looking at recommendations 9 through 23, I note that the minister has picked up on all those recommendations.
The committee recommended that the refugee division sit on one member panels with the option of sitting as three member panels to hear test cases or cases that pose particular difficulties. The committee recommended that there be an internal appeal structure for rejected refugee claimants, and she has picked up on that. It recommended that all the risk related decisions concerning an individual be consolidated in the refugee division, and she has picked up on that.
The committee recommended that the refugee division strive to increase the percentage of claims handled through the expedited process. She has picked up on that. It further recommended that the current restrictions on the participation of the minister's representative at the refugee hearing be eliminated and the government be more active than it has been in the past in choosing in which cases to intervene. Again she has picked up on that.
Therefore I again acknowledge the courage on the part of the minister to do these sorts of things and to take this very activist role in reflecting what the committee actually hears.
The other area the minister has beefed up is that of admissibility. In other words, before the individual comes to the country and is at the airport is a more useful time in which to clear up areas of admissibility. The adjudicator will now examine admissibility and will exclude those convicted of serious criminal offences, that is, violations of human rights, organizers of criminal activity, and security risks. Instead of going to the IRB if the decision is negative, it will now go to the federal court. In other words, it is the elimination of another stage of the snakes and ladders process.
My final point is that the minister is also getting serious about residency. Instead of simply having a casual definition of residency, we will require actual physical residence in the country for two out of five years.
This bill deserves the support of all members. This has been a long process. The minister has engaged widely in hearing from a variety of members, the committee and Canadians. I hope members will see that in her bill and will give it much support. The minister has listened to the committee and has put forward a bill which reflects much of what we heard.