As the long awaited legislation on refugee reform finally goes to Parliamentary committee this week, Liberals today called for key changes to solve the flaws with the bill before it returns to the House of Commons for its final vote.
“We must ensure that the fundamental rights of vulnerable individuals will be protected under these proposed changes,” said Liberal Citizenship and Immigration Critic Maurizio Bevilacqua. “Without key revisions we will likely see an even larger backlog at the appeal level, endangering individual rights and leaving taxpayers with a larger bill.
“The government should not forget that it tripled the application backlog by their inaction on the Immigration and Refugee appointments process.”
Once the bill goes to the Citizenship and Immigration committee, Bevilacqua said Liberals will be demanding four clear revisions to this legislation:
1. The initial review process must be procedurally sound and fair and it must not cause unnecessary and costly delays at later stages. Timelines for initial hearings will also need to be reviewed as possible provisions to ensure claimants have appropriate legal representation.
2. The bill must provide further clarity around the independence and qualifications of the proposed bureaucratic first-line decision makers.
3. The way the concept of designated countries of origin is designed in the legislation raises concerns. Liberals will be seeking measures to increase the transparency and accountability of the designated country-of-origin process, as well as the currently proposed degree of ministerial discretion.
4. There must be more flexibility built into Conservative proposals to restrict refugees’ access to humanitarian and compassionate applications to ensure nobody falls through the cracks.
Mr. Bevilacqua added that if the Conservative government is serious about providing real refugee reform with transparency and accountability, these changes should be seriously considered and acted upon. More details as to where the money will be coming from will also be essential to the smooth passage of this bill to third reading.
“Canadians cannot afford further poorly implemented band-aid solutions like the imposition of visas on individuals from Mexico and the Czech Republic last summer,” said Mr. Bevilacqua. “This is why we’ll work to ensure that we have cost-effective refugee reform that will streamline the system while preserving the fundamental rights of claimants.
“Liberals want real, substantive reforms to refugee legislation in this country, and we are willing to work collaboratively with all parties to achieve this goal.”
