Madam Speaker, I would be happy to stand up and defend where we are going with respect to the bill because it would move this country forward in terms of refugee reform. I will lay out some of the facts in terms of what the truth is.
In 2011, Canada received more refugee claims from the European Union than from Africa or Asia. In fact, last year alone, 23% of all of our refugee claims, over 5,800, were made by nationals from the European Union. That is up 14% from the previous year. It costs $170 million to pursue those claims.
What we need to be doing is helping real refugees settle in this country.