Canada's refugee-determination system is broken, and has been for decades. The question is how to fix it -- and which of our politicians is brave and creative enough to accomplish the repairs?
Leaving a meeting Sunday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the Mexican government was not to blame for the flood of asylum-seekers entering Canada from Mexico in the past four years. It was not the action or inaction of Mr. Calderon's government that had compelled Canada to impose visa requirements on all visitors from Mexico beginning last month. The culprit was Canada's lax refugee system, which practically invites illegitimate applicants to come, and seems unable to expel any -- even those whose applications are turned down --once they are in the country.
Of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who apply each year for refugee status in Canada, no more than 8% to 10% will ever be successful. If we used the strict definition of who is and is not a refugee employed by many other nations (and the UN), the success rate likely would be as low as 2% or 3%. Still, in the four to five years it can take to get a verdict, applicants will consume tens of thousands of dollars each in social programs. Many earn tens of thousands more under the table. (Work by refugee applicants is prohibited; still many manage to find it in the black market.)
We accept more refugees per capita than any other country in the world. And even if a refugee has his bid rejected, there is little chance he will be removed from the country thanks to the ridiculously dilatory appeals procedure open to failed applicants.
In short, once a supposed refugee is here, he or she is here for good in most cases. This laxity is legendary around the world, so it is little wonder our refugee system is groaning under the weight of what the PM called "bogus" claims.
But this is no surprise to any of the bureaucrats working within our system, or to the politicians of every party. Even the Liberals, who have been making political hay from the Tories' July 16 decision to require visas of all visitors from Mexico, Colombia, Haiti, the Czech Republic and elsewhere, are well aware of the failings of our rules. After all, they tried to amend them in the 1990s only to run aground on the rocks of ethnopolitics.
From the beginning of this year until the middle of July, when Immigration Minister Jason Kenney implemented the new visa requirement, nearly 17,000 Mexicans and 3,000 Czechs arrived in Canada seeking refugee status. Since Mr. Kenney's new rules came into effect, the flow has slowed to a trickle. Requiring visitors from suspect nations to seek a stamp of approval for travel from a Canadian official in advance of their trips -- i. e., a visa -- screens out most of the phoney applicants before they reach our shores.
The Liberals know this as well as the Tories. After all, they applied a visa requirement on Czech travellers, took it off, then reimposed it, all during their last 12-year stint in office -- and all because they had exactly the same experience as the Harper government: The minute visa requirements are lifted, some countries begin overwhelming our refugee workers and boards.
Source : National Post August 2009
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