ARCHIVED – Speaking notes for The Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

Yesterday, Parliament passed the final stage of Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act. It received Royal Assent and has now become law. This is a major step to protecting the integrity of Canada’s immigration system. Ours is a country that is open to newcomers and takes very seriously our humanitarian obligation to provide protection to victims of persecution and refugees from around the world. That’s why our Government has been maintaining the highest sustained levels of immigration in Canadian history, admitting over a quarter of a million new permanent residents each year since we came to office and maintaining the highest per-capita level of immigration in the developed world. We’re also accepting one out of every ten, resettled refugees, people living in UN camps around the world, and have the highest per-capita number of resettled refugees in the developed world.

But in order for us to maintain that tradition of openness to the talents of newcomers and our strong tradition of refugee protection, we must demonstrate to Canadians that our immigration system is characterized by the consistent application of fair rules, by the rule of law, and that immigration is working in Canada’s interest. That’s why we proposed the measures in Bill C-31 to demonstrate to Canadians and the vast majority of immigrants who are law-abiding that we will not tolerate those who seek to abuse our generosity, including bogus asylum claimants, human smugglers and those who might represent a risk to Canadian security and safety.

As you know, in the last Parliament, we adopted the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which provides for a faster but fairer refugee determination system. It helps us to correct the dysfunctionality of the current broken system, but since the adoption of that law in 2010, we’ve seen a troubling growth in fake asylum claims coming particularly from the democratic European Union.  In fact, we now receive more asylum claims from the European Union than we do from Asia, Africa, or Latin America, and almost none of those European asylum claims turn out to be well-founded or in need of Canada’s protection.

The vast majority – over 90% – of those European claimants abandon or withdraw their own claims, choosing of their own volition not to seek Canada’s protection, but virtually all of them enroll in Canada’s generous welfare social income, health care, subsidized housing and other social support programs. That’s why we had to take additional measures in this bill, C-31, to deter bogus asylum claimants from abusing Canada’s generosity, to stop them from clogging up the system which makes it slower moving for the bona fide refugees to whom we want to grant protection and certainty as soon as possible.

That’s why in Bill C-31, we’ve streamlined the process for the designation of certain countries of origin from which claims will receive accelerated treatment. It’s also why we have in this new legislation brought forward the ability to more quickly withdraw permanent residency from those asylum claimants who fraudulently obtained it. We believe these measures, combined with the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, when implemented in our new and faster asylum system later this year, will send a clear message that Canada continues to have a model asylum system for bona fide refugees who need our protection. They will get that protection in two to three months under the new system rather than two years under the current system, but at the same time, it will send a message to those who plan to come here and file bogus asylum claims that they’re no longer welcome to do so. They will have access to our system, but if they’re found not to be in need of our protection, those decisions will be made quickly and they’ll be removed quickly.

Furthermore, the bill creates strong measures to deter human smugglers from targeting Canada. They represent a dangerous life-threatening worldwide industry that claims the lives of thousands around the world every year. Just this past week, we saw another vessel with smuggled migrants in Southeast Asia sink with dozens of lives lost. We must do everything within our power to ensure that lives are not lost by human smugglers targeting Canada which is why the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act changes the business model for human smugglers. It reduces the pull factors, it reduces the incentives for people to pay in some cases up to 50,000 or $60,000 to be smuggled to Canada from Southeast Asia in particular.

I would like to underscore and thank our law enforcement agencies, our intelligence agencies and foreign governments for their cooperation with us in successfully interrupting several large-scale planned smuggling voyages headed for Canada, but the smugglers, based on our intelligence, continue their operations. That’s why this law sends a strong message to them that if they’re convicted of being involved in smuggling, they’ll face a serious mandatory minimum prison sentence in Canada and people who choose to use their services will not, even if they’re deemed bona fide refugees, obtain immediately the privilege of permanent residency and family sponsorship that goes with it. This will depress the price point for those smugglers targeting Canada, making it uneconomic for them and we think substantially reducing the pressure for smugglers toward Canada.

Finally, Bill C-31 introduces the legislative authority to create a biometric visa system which will be by far the single most important improvement in immigration security screening in the history of our system, and we will begin implementing it in high-risk countries and eventually it will have coverage for all foreign nationals who require a temporary resident visa to Canada. It’s a system already adopted by Australia, the United States, now the United Kingdom, the European Union is moving towards this system. It will, amongst other things, allow us to identify and refuse entry into Canada of, for example, deported foreign criminals who’ve already been deported but came back. So these measures combined represent a huge step forward in reinforcing the fairness and integrity of our immigration system.