Jason Kenney is feeling the love.
The immigration and citizenship minister has announced an overhaul of the refugee system that is getting some good press and somewhat subdued criticism given the scale of the changes.
Among other things, Kenney has pledged that refugees will get a hearing in front of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) within two months rather than the 19 it takes now.
“The current system is broken, it needs to be repaired,” Kenney told the Epoch Times on Monday.
Nobody was disagreeing with that, but it is somewhat unexpected that Kenney's changes haven't sparked lynch-mob opposition. With an issue as contentious as the refugee system and the myriad of special interests involved, it is tough to please everybody, but Kenney might have come close.
“I've been very pleasantly surprised with the positive response. This has received endorsements from I think every newspaper in the country that has written an editorial about it,” he said.
Kenney also touted the support the plan has received from Peter Showler, director of the Refugee Forum at the University of Ottawa and former chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
Showler wrote an op-ed supportive of the changes but raised concerns that the rapidness of the initial IRB interview could make effective legal representation difficult. He also said serious problems could arise from Kenney's most contentious proposal: the safe country list.
The safe country list is Kenney's response, copied from the United Kingdom, Australia, and United States, to flash floods of fake refugees that overwhelm the system. The influx causes massive delays for genuine refugees and costs Canadian taxpayers a fortune for years of social services and appeals as the refugee system tries to eject them from the country.
But the safe country list isn't like Santa Claus's nice list—it will only ever include the handful of democratic countries with solid human rights records that have become the source of a sudden surge of refugee claimants.
In cases like this, such a country could be deemed “safe” and claimants from there would be forced to fight their deportation at a federal court rather than the regular appeal process—a system that will also be dramatically simplified under the reforms. Kenny pointed to Hungary as a country that would make the list if it were in place now. A member of Nato and the European Union, last year Hungary became a top source of refugees to Canada.
Kenney said that of the 2,500 Hungarians that applied for asylum, 97 percent withdrew or abandoned their claims.
“They didn't actually need protection in Canada. Many of them actually went back to Hungary and of all the claims filed, only three were given protection by the IRB. That means that there was an acceptance rate of close to zero percent.”
Kenney said in some cases criminal networks or unscrupulous businesses are sending people to Canada through the refugee system. In other interviews, he has said they come to cash in on generous social programs.
“We need an additional tool to accelerate the process in order to send a message to the commercial and sometimes criminal networks that organize those spikes in unfounded asylum claims that people people won't be able to stay in Canada forever or for several years—that they will be removed after a fair hearing and an appeal within a few months.”
Kenney's new system would see claimants from safe countries leaving Canada within a year and will provide additional resources for the Canadian Border Services Agency that will be used exclusively to round up rejected asylum applicants and get them out of the country. Some 38,000 have already disappeared.
NDP immigration critic Olivia Chow has decried the safe list as creating a two-tier refugee system, while Kenney has said fake refugees turn Canada's whole immigration program into a two-tier system where honest immigrants wait in line while cheaters jump the queue through the refugee system.
But Showler also raised concerns about the safe list, saying there is serious risk if an unsafe country gets deemed safe and Canada sends genuine refugees back without giving them a full appeal.
Kenney said the safe list would only include six countries if it were in place now. Without it, he explained, the only way to deal with this kind of problem is to impose a visa on the source country like he did with Mexico and the Czech Republic this year—a blow to Canada's diplomatic and commercial interests with those countries.
There has been some concern that having a safe list could open the refugee system to diplomatic pressure but Kenney said that is not going to happen.
“There is not going to be a safe list where China say is lobbying to be on the safe list. There will only be a list of a handful of countries that are democratic, respect human rights, offer protection to people who need it and are the principal source of unfounded claims,” he said.
“There is a fairly high percentage of asylum claims from China that are accepted, so that fact alone would mean that China would not qualify for the safe country of origin designation, based on the criteria that I have outlined, Secondly, consideration of safe country designation would look at a country's human rights record, and we are talking about democracies with a very strong human rights record, and I will leave it to you to interpret whether or not it appears China would qualify.”
The Liberals look to be on board with the changes. Maurizio Bevilacqua, the official opposition's immigration critic, has raised some concerns about there being enough cash to fuel the plan, but seems likely to support the bill that will make the changes.
The NDP and Bloc Quebecois raised concerns about the overhaul for a couple days during question period, but seem to have dropped the issue, indicating acceptance if not approval.
Kenney said the only organizations to criticize the package are a couple on the “fringey left” and their disapproval was a given.
