Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join everyone here today to speak to Bill C-31, protecting Canada's immigration system act.
I thank the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism for not only bringing forward this much needed act, but for being here in the House while the bill is being debated to answer questions, explain what the act entails and how it would improve upon the refugee claimant system that we have here in Canada. I also thank his parliamentary secretary for the work he has done in carrying this bill and ensuring we have this fulsome debate here in a democratic process.
I often hear from constituents in my riding of Selkirk—Interlake how important it is that we fix the refugee system. We always hear stories of people who come in and abuse the refugee system. They take dollars out of Canadian taxpayers' hands and use it in ways that benefit them personally but do not broaden the economy or culture of Canada. There have been a number of emails circulating on the Internet that find their way into the offices of members of Parliament and it is about time that we address some of the concerns that constituents have had. There are emails that have been going through cyberspace and letters to editors that have been written over the years that address the situation of whether people are legitimate asylum seekers, how many dollars are attributed to those individuals as they sit in the queue waiting to have their refugee claims heard, and whether or not they gain access to Canada or are denied and have to be returned to their country of origin.
I do not think anyone in this House could disagree that Canada has the most fair and generous immigration system in the world. However, as I said, no one has tolerance for the abuse that the Canadian refugee system has undergone over recent history.
However, for people to think that our government is trying to crack down on refugees and that there would also be a crackdown on overall immigration, I can say that is absolutely false. Since we have come to power, total immigration into Canada has gone up 15% on a year over year basis. That has helped Canada in finding skilled workers, finding people to work in our health care system and bringing people into our communities to help us continue to grow and prosper as a country. There is no doubt that immigrants who have come to Canada and call it their home have contributed significantly to our economy and helped us to get through the economic downturn.
Bill C-31 is a follow-up to what we have already done under Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. I do not think it has been said enough here that we have committed as a country to increasing the overall number of refugees we take in every year by 2,500 per year. That is almost a 10% increase of where we were last year and it is still generous. It means that we are still reaching out to help those who are in need and that we will help people who are in countries where they are being persecuted, prejudiced, possibly facing genocides and other atrocities to have the opportunity to come to Canada. We want to make it faster for refugees to come through the system and get safe asylum.
We will do that through a number of different ways. We will establish the safe countries list. By having a safe countries list we hope to reduce the backlog we have today of over 42,000 refugee claimants who are seeking asylum in Canada. Bill C-31 would reduce the overall processing time to 45 days for those people coming from the safe countries list. Right now, claimants coming from safe countries are seeing an average processing time of 1,038 days. We would dramatically reduce that time.
Second, as was mentioned earlier by the member for Barrie, we would bring in biometrics and follow suit with what so many other countries have done. We would bring in digital photographs and fingerprinting, as well as give people seeking asylum the opportunity to make their application in their own countries at Canadian consulates and embassies to get their names into the system along with data. By allowing them to make those claims in their own countries before they come to Canada would expedite the process.
The third important thing here is that we are going after the human smugglers. We do not want to see people profit from other people's disadvantage. We do not want people going out and extorting thousands of dollars from people to bring them to Canada, even though they come from countries where they can make those refugee claims. It is important that this bill addresses that.
As the minister has already said, we are not going after the actual bona fide asylum seekers. Rather, we are going after those who are out to abuse our system. We use the word “bogus” a lot and it gets thrown around but there are those who absolutely abuse the system.
All we need to do is look at the facts that we are dealing with today. The European Union, western world countries, democracies with human rights and established rules of law, account for 23% of all claims coming to Canada. In 2011, 5,800 refugee claimants came from the European Union, which is 14% over 2010, and, more important, it is more than we are getting from Africa and Asia where there are countries that have dictators, where we know people are being persecuted either because of their religious belief or race or are being disadvantaged because of their gender.
It is just amazing that we are getting so many claims from the European Union. Out of those claims, and this is where the word “bogus” comes in, when they actually need to appear before the Immigration and Refugee Board, 95% of those claimants never show up to defend their case. They are saying that they are sorry that they have wasted our time and have taken our money but that they will go back home now. What we are hearing is that they are getting off the plane or the boat, coming from countries like Hungary, the Roma in particular, saying that they are a refugee and then ask for the cheque. They are not even attempting to go through the process of proving that they are disadvantaged in the country that they reside.
The Roma coming from Hungary are essentially 18% of all the claimants that Canada faces. They are the large majority of those coming out of the European Union. That accounts for over 4,400 people, which is an increase of 50% from 2010. Last year, 4,400 people from Hungary tried to claim refugee status here in Canada.
People In the European Union have the freedom to move around without visas and without passports. They get to go back and forth and work in each other's jurisdictions. Therefore, how can these people be economic refugees or political refugees, or be persecuted under a system where they can go anywhere they want within the European Union, where we know there are some great democracies and leaders in human rights and the rule of law?
Belgium only received 188 people from Hungary in 2011. The U.S. only received 47 applicants. France and Norway only received 33 each. We are dealing with 4,400 refugee claimants from Hungary. How is that a fair system when we have people applying who are coming from legitimate countries where they want to get away from war, from government-forced famines or from being persecuted because of their religious beliefs?
This would have a huge savings cost wise for the Canadian taxpayer because we would be removing these people who are just using the system but, more important, it would speed up the system and open the door for legitimate asylum seekers. Those are the ones we want to reach out to and to see overall numbers increase by 2,500 refugees a year, so that Canada's generosity and compassion will still be second to none in the world.
Again I congratulate the minister and his department for their foresight and for going ahead and making these changes so that we can once and for all do away with a system that is broken and allow us to address the real needs of those seeking asylum around the world.