Mr. Chair, I find it interesting that the minister in his remarks and his answer talked about efficiency and about processing times. The word he did not mention at the beginning of his answer was “justice” and what is fair and just for refugees in this country and for people who need a hearing.
The fact remains that every major refugee serving organization in Canada and many around the world have called for the implementation of a merit based, fact based appeal which does not currently exist in the process.
I still remain very concerned that the government would propose something like this with all of the information that the minister talks about at hand, would make it go through that entire process, would allow people to believe that we were on the verge of improving the system and making it more fair and just ,and then would back away from that proposal after it had been passed by Parliament. I still think there is a very serious problem there.
I want to go on to another question. The last time the minister was before the committee I asked about the proposal for changing the system of how settlement contracts are awarded in Ontario through the government. I talked about the request for proposal system and I said to the minister that there were rumours the department was planning on switching to a request for proposal system in Ontario. The minister said that he did not respond to hypotheticals or to rumours. I understand, however, that officials from the department have been having consultations both in Ontario and in British Columbia, where the provincial government that manages the settlement funding goes through a similar request for proposal process.
In British Columbia our experience of that has been absolutely disastrous, to put it mildly. It has taken a sector that was incredibly cooperative, that had built relationships over many, many years, that was effectively covering the province and making sure that settlement services were available across the province in an effective way and it set these groups into a competitive process. They were competitive with each other. It is a very complex process in which some groups just did not have the resources to participate and one that has left gaps and incredibly hard feelings.
I want to ask the minister again, is this kind of process being proposed for Ontario, a request for proposal process? Why would he go down that road when our experience in British Columbia has been so disastrous?