Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. The detention issue has been the one which has been most significantly torqued by the opposition in terms of what it exactly means.
In our country over the last 8 to 10 years, approximately 100,000 refugees have sought and obtained refugee status. I mentioned in my speech that we have had two irregular arrivals. Arrivals such as those will be deemed to be irregular arrivals if they happen in the future. In those situations, because individuals come over in mass quantities, literally hundreds of individuals and families, we have no method to determine the identity of those individuals or whether they deserve to seek refugee status in our country.
It is important to know that when individuals are detained, they will be treated fairly. They are going to be well taken care of, but they are going to be detained until we can identify them and determine that they are not going to be a harm to Canadian society and until it is determined whether they truly deserve refugee status in our country. The opposition has failed to acknowledge that less than half of one per cent of all of the refugees who have come to this country in the last 10 years would be deemed to be irregular arrivals. Significant as it is, we can see that this is a very special process that will be used very little, but human smugglers will know it will be used once Bill C-31 is passed.