Thank you.
I agree with Mr. St-Cyr on one thing, which is on the point that you've made. There's nothing magical about a particular percentage of acceptance or rejection. He can argue that 42% is too low; I can argue it's too high. That's not the issue.
I'm sorry Ms. Chow left. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said that Canada has the best refugee determination system on the planet. I sat opposite the high commissioner a year and a half ago and was told, “Sure, we're never going to say publicly that an appeal division isn't a good thing, but I'm telling you that if most of the countries on this planet had a system that was half as good as Canada's, we would be ecstatic.”
So the percentage of acceptance rates I think are not particularly important. What is important, though, is that our current system is being overburdened by an excess of applications that are not really sustainable in law. The addition of the refugee appeal division will add five months. It means that provinces will have to pay for education, for health, for welfare, by and large, for people who will not be held to be refugees. But because they have been enabled to stay in Canada longer, they will probably be allowed to stay for humanitarian and compassionate reasons. The practical effect of this additional five months will mean that non-refugees will be allowed to stay in Canada even though they should not be allowed to stay.
Mr. Dykstra asked if I could comment a little bit on the minister's proposals for making change. I can't talk about that in a great deal of detail. Mr. Kenney himself said on a number of occasions that we recognize the current system isn't working. It is devoting far too much time to cases where there's patently no basis in law for the person being made a refugee. I think we have to look that through.
The government has been quite successful in increasing the number of commissioners. That's been very helpful. But one way or the other, we have to find a way to deal with the increase in applications. With the world economic crisis it's going to get worse before it gets better. Adding an additional five months in a way that we believe will not substantively help the resolution of individual cases is not the way to go.