Mr. Speaker, as sponsor of this bill, I am pleased to wrap up the debate in this House. In the five minutes I have left, I would like to remind members why I am urging my colleagues to support this important bill.
First, it is a matter of democracy and of having self-respect as parliamentarians. It has been more than eight years since this House passed the reform of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and it has been eight years since the refugee appeal division was provided for in the act. But the Conservative government still refuses to implement it.
It is absurd that we need to pass legislation to validate and enforce an act that we already passed. I think that we all need to muster up some dignity and uphold the supremacy of this House. We must decide that when we pass an act, we are passing an act, and will enforce it to the full.
Second, I believe that there is a clear issue of natural justice in this bill. Throughout our legal system, there are chances to appeal at every level in cases that are often much less dramatic than determining whether or not someone is a refugee. There are multiple levels of appeal in ordinary disputes over fences, but when it comes time to remove someone to a country where he or she could potentially be tortured or killed, we do not even bother to have an appeal division. To my way of thinking, this goes against the principle of natural justice, because even in systems with good judges appointed in a non-partisan way, the possibility that they may make a mistake is acknowledged and appeal mechanisms are put in place.
Imagine what can happen at the Immigration and Refugee Board, where many members are still partisan appointees and results such as 98% rejection rates are disturbing to say the least. When not everyone is a good judge, one can imagine how many more errors there may be than in our courts, where we hope this sort of bias and these sorts of partisan appointments have no place.
I am talking about a principle of natural justice, but, again, there is no chance to appeal. I like having a debate with people who do not share my opinion, but, frankly, I am disappointed in the government's attitude and its attempt to have us believe throughout this entire debate that there are other appeal possibilities. There are not. I have had a chance to review a number of cases and to look at the situation, starting at the time a board member makes a ruling, to applications for leave for judicial review in Federal Court, to pre-removal risk assessment applications. Throughout the process, all the upper levels simply say that the board member has already made a ruling, that they do not believe the story and that they do not have the authority to overturn the ruling. The very courts the government is referring to clearly say that they do not have the authority to overturn these rulings. And yet the government tells us there are opportunities to appeal. This is unacceptable.
Finally, I would like to emphasize the importance of this bill in preserving the integrity of the system. Currently we have some board members who refuse practically every application they receive. On the other end of the spectrum, some are very generous and accept almost everyone. Unfortunately, this causes some illegitimate claimants to apply for refugee status by saying they will play the board member lottery and see if the odds are in their favour. By passing this bill, we will create case law with a possibility of appeal and will therefore decrease the chance that someone will abuse the system because they will know that, in the end, the minister could appeal a decision in their favour if the person is not a true refugee.
In closing, I want to thank everyone who worked on this. I want to thank the hon. member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges for her perseverance, and the hon. member for Laval, who introduced a similar bill in the last Parliament. There are also all the social stakeholders, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Quebec Table de concertation pour les réfugiés and all the agencies that support this bill. I would like to thank them for all their work.