Mr. Speaker, I will reiterate that I am prepared to share, inasmuch as is feasible, draft regulations with the committee. Having been in opposition for many years, I know that opposition members are understandably skeptical about the ambit for regulations that are implied in a bill but at the same time it is very difficult to put every instrument in the statute and regulations are an important part of the legal system.
Having said that, I agree that there is a need for transparency. We are trying to pursue this in as collaborative a fashion as possible. It is my intention to share with committee draft regulations, for example, as to the process for the designation of safe countries. I also will accept amendments to outline the criteria for what would constitute designated safe countries.
I also would be open to the notion of submitting to the standing committee for comment future regulations as they are prepared.
Secondly, with respect to the member's comments on the notion of fast, in point of fact this is a principle, an idea, a word that I have developed from Mr. Peter Showler, the former chairman of the IRB, who has often been a strong critic of our government and who is now the chairman of the revenue policy think-tank at the University of Ottawa. Professor Showler has said:
The real secret of an effective system is that fast and fair are not opposites, they are complementary. The government appears to understand this principle.
He goes on to say that every refugee asylum system in the democratic world aspires to be both fast and fair.
It's even more difficult to design an entire refugee claim system that is both fast and fair. This Conservative government has done just that striking a reasonable balance between the two.
With respect to the member's comments on the backlog, when our government took office there was a 20,000 case backlog in the asylum system. Between 2006 and 2009 there was a 45% increase in the number of asylum claims, peaking at 38,000 claims in 2008, well above the maximum capacity of the IRB when fully staffed to finalize 25,000 decisions a year.
The point is that this is not a resultant neglect by the government. Let us not politicize this issue. The reason we need asylum reform is, in large part, because huge backlogs have been a permanent feature of the system. Over the past decade, the average backlog has been 40,000 cases.
Bill Clinton said, “One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result”. We do not want to keep doing the same thing over and over again, pouring good money after bad when we need to reform the architecture of the system.
Yes, there are additional resources but we need to streamline the system, and I believe all of my predecessors in the previous Liberal government said as much but, for whatever reason, did not act on it. However, I am pleased to see the Liberal Party's openness to taking action in reforming the system now.