Mr. Speaker, the new border agreement poses a problem with respect to the right to asylum.
According to the notion of safe third country in the agreement, a person whose application for refugee status is rejected in the U.S., where policies are much stricter, will not then be allowed into Canada whose criteria are much more generous toward those seeking asylum.
Does the Deputy Prime Minister realize that, had the notion of safe third country been in effect at the time of apartheid, Canada's honorary citizen, Nelson Mandela, would not have been admitted into Canada had his request for asylum been refused elsewhere?