I was going to do my next Blog on the important issue of the future of Health Care but given that Canada's Refugee System has been topical of late, I thought it best to deal with that now.
Quite simply, our Refugee System is broken and has been since the mid-1980's.
As is happens, I worked in Legal Services with Canada's Refugee Board and as such have first hand knowledge of what I speak.
Recently I read that a liberal commentator had said that the favourable rate for refugee cases was a mere 6 to 7%. I am not sure what he was smoking but when I was there in the late 80's the acceptance rate was upwards of 70% and that did not include the 40% or so of refugee applicants who went 'missing" before their cases were even heard. Nor does it take into account the fact that seldom did applicants leave Canada after having received an unsuccessful decision.
I won't even deal with the appeal process used so effectively by 'immigration' lawyers to line their pockets while delaying final decisions indefinitely.
The figures I have quoted from personal knowledge may have declined somewhat under the Tories but from what I have read in the meantime, I suspect not.
From my perspective, for every 100 applicants perhaps 5% and more likely 1 to 2 % are legitimate refugees escaping persecution. The balance some 95% are merely shopping for a new home. In short, they are queue jumpers and make mockery of those law abiding people who apply for access to Canada through the normal immigration process.
Often those queue jumpers come without identity papers and little to nothing is known about them. The Refugee process is a non-adversarial one and hence, in most cases, there is little to nothing before the deciding Refugee Judge that would lead to a negative decision.
In a high per centage of these cases, the refugee applicant really is trying to enter the United States - hence the 40% that disappear before their cases are even heard. No wonder the US is concerned about its northern border.
A former head of the Refugee Board pointed out recently that it was the Tories and in particular, Barbie McDougall as Immigration Minister who brought in the Board by way of legislation in the late 1980s. She purposely pulled a provision before passage that would have given Canada the power to refuse applicants who came here from a safe-haven country. In other words, if an applicant originated in Asia and travelled to Canada via England, that applicant could be immediately be returned to England for their processing.
We therefore have the Tories of the 1980s to thank(?) for our disfunctional system.
This is another reason why I believe the current Progressive Conservatives / Conservatives are not 'realconservatives'. They are just another shade of red.
Having said that, Harper is finally on record as saying he will deal with this matter on an urgent basis and we have for the first time in memory a Minister - Jason Kenney who has the courage to follow through. I suspect though that Libs, NDPers and Blocists will join to defeat them.
More on this later...
"Galagher"
