Mr. Speaker, of course the UN convention on refugees, which Canada is signatory to, does require every signatory to provide an initial assessment of every refugee claim. Therefore, Canada, in doing that, is doing nothing more than meeting its international obligations.
One of the major criticisms by many of this bill is that those who come from designated safe countries would not have access to an appeal to the refugee appeal division, whereas people who come from countries that are not so designated would. This would create a two tiered appeals system.
In the previous Parliament, all parties in this House, including the government side, the Conservatives, agreed that that was not fair. In the previous incarnation of this bill, the government agreed that all claimants should have access to the refugee appeal division because there could be mistakes made at first instance.
We all agree that we need a quick and efficient system but the New Democrats say that we could have an efficient system that is also fair.
Why would the member and his government put forward a bill that has a two tiered appeals system? Canadians would never accept that their neighbour can appeal to the court of appeal but they cannot depending on where they come from.