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

At a news conference to announce the initial list of Designated Countries of Origin, whose citizens will have their asylum claims expedited for processing because they do not normally produce refugees

Ottawa, Ontario
December 14, 2012

As delivered

Good morning.

Thanks very much, and good morning everyone. As you know, Canada has a proud tradition of welcoming newcomers and protecting refugees. Refugee protection is part of our history, part of our national character. Since the underground railroad, in fact, since the United Empire Loyalists, we’ve been a world leader in providing protection to victims of persecution, just as we’ve done since the Second World War, welcoming more than a million refugees from around the world, and as we do today, welcoming one out of every 10 resettled refugees worldwide. In fact, Canada welcomes the highest per-capita level of resettled refugees in the world, but that’s not good enough. We’re actually in the process of increasing our target for admission of resettled refugees by 20%. At the same time, we believe profoundly in our tradition of asylum for those who find their way to Canada, seeking protection from persecution.

Today, I’m announcing that as of tomorrow, we will launch our new fast and fair balanced asylum system that will renew and enhance Canada’s tradition of refugee protection. We will do so as a result of the passage by Parliament of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act in 2010 and the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act earlier this year. These changes come into effect tomorrow and will deliver faster protection for real refugees, while at the same time discouraging those who are not refugees but seek to abuse our generosity, from doing so in our asylum system.

An important part of these measures is the authority to identify designated countries of origin. The designated country of origin policy allows for the expedited processing of asylum claims from countries that, in the terminology of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, do not normally produce refugees, but that do respect human rights and offer state protection to those who need it.

As of tomorrow, Canada’s new asylum system comes in to effect. Twenty-five countries from the European Union will be designated, as will Croatia, shortly to be an EU member state, and the United States of America. As a result, asylum claims from citizens of these 27 countries will have their claims heard on an expedited basis. And there’s a very good reason for that. I want to be very clear. Canada continues to welcome the flow of legitimate refugees and, of course, of workers from the European Union and their families, tourists and students.

The entry into Canada of these types of people benefits our society and our economy and is key to jobs and prosperity, but it’s cause for serious concern that the European Union, with its democratic tradition of freedom, respect for human rights and independent judiciaries, has been the number one source for asylum claims made in Canada over most of the past three years. In 2011, Canada received more asylum claims from the European Union than we did from Africa or Asia. We received more asylum claims from Hungary, in particularly, than we did from Iran or China or North Korea combined.

Hungary was Canada’s top source of asylum claims last year. In fact, of all of the asylum claims made by Hungarian citizens all around the world, 98% of them, 98%, were made in Canada, even though those same Hungarian citizens have unrestricted mobility rights within the 27 democracies of the European Union and have access – visa-free access – to dozens of other countries around the world. What’s more, virtually all EU claimants either withdraw or abandon their claims. I repeat, withdraw or abandon their claims. That is a decision that they make, that they do not need our protection following their claim, or they go on to have their claims rejected by the fair and independent Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. 

Of the total number of asylum claims filed by EU nationals around the world, over 80% were filed in Canada, even though EU nationals again have mobility rights within 27 member states and visa-free access to dozens of countries around the world, and yet, for some peculiar reason, 80% came to Canada. I understand fewer than one percent went, for example, to Australia and the United States, countries in which they have visa-free access and which, of course, have their own robust traditions of asylum.

The majority of EU claimants do not appear for their hearing at the Immigration and Refugee Board, as they withdraw or abandon their own claims. In fact, well over 90% of all EU asylum claimants were rejected last year, and since we granted Hungary its visa exemption in the spring of 2008, we’ve seen some 6,000 Hungarian asylum claims finalized, of which about 62% were abandoned or withdrawn by the claimants themselves, and about 33% of which were rejected by the fair Immigration and Refugee Board, meaning that we get 98% of the worldwide claims from that one country and virtually none of them turn out to be well-founded.

Let me remind you that only two months ago, the EU was announced as the recipient of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize by unanimous decision, for, quote, “over six decades of having contributed to the advancement peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.” And so it is remarkable that this has been one of our top source regions for asylum claims. Failed EU claimants are able to spend years in Canada at great expense to our taxpayers, receiving free health care, welfare, education and other social benefits.

These numbers speak for themselves. They clearly show that a significant number of asylum claimants in Canada do not need our protection, ultimately do not even seek our protection, but by all appearances instead are coming here to benefit from the generosity of Canada’s social welfare system and, in the process, end up bogging down our asylum system, helping to create what peaked at two-year wait times for hearings for bona fide refugees who actually need our protection and for whom the asylum system exists.

It’s important to underline that all eligible claimants from a designated country will continue to receive a full and fair oral hearing on the individual merits of their claim in front of the independent, quasi-judicial Immigration and Refugee Board, and the fact that they are coming from a designated country will have precisely no bearing whatsoever on the consideration of their claim. 

I emphasize this point because there have been widespread misunderstandings, suggestions from some, that claimants coming from designated countries will not be allowed to make asylum claims in Canada, or that those asylum claims will somehow be presumptively unfounded. Neither of those accusations are true. Both of those are myths.

The reality is that all claimants from designated countries, including these EU member states, will continue to have precisely the same, a full fact-based oral independent hearing in front of a highly-trained, independent decision-maker at the quasi-judicial Immigration and Refugee Board, consistent with due process and natural justice, compliant with the requirements of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as defined by the Supreme Court in its 1985 Singh decision, and compliant with our requirements under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Let me reiterate because there’s been some confusion and even mischief on this point, that the designation of a country of origin takes nothing away, nothing away from asylum claimants in terms of due process that currently exist in terms of their ability to have an independent, fact-based, merit-based hearing at the IRB. However, claimants from designated countries will have their asylum claim heard by the IRB within 30 to 45 days, depending on whether they make their claim at a port of entry or inland. In comparison, all other claimants will have a hearing within 60 days, compared to the current waiting period of about 600 days. This means faster protection and certainty for real refugees, and less time for bogus claimants to abuse Canada’s generosity.

Just as they do now, failed designated country claimants will continue to have the option to apply to the Federal Court to review a negative decision. However, they will not have access to the new Refugee Appeal Division of the IRB. I repeat, the new Appeal Division, something that was created in principle in the Immigration and Refugee Protect Act in 2002, but was not previously brought into force. The reforms that we launch tomorrow actually enhance procedural fairness and safeguards in our asylum system by, for the first time, creating a full, fact-based appeal available at the IRB, which will be accessible by the vast majority of rejected claimants. So this is an enhancement of asylum fairness.

There will be no automatic stay of removal for DCO claimants should they ask the Federal Court to review a negative decision, which means that they could be removed from Canada while their application for review before the Federal Court is pending, and all failed claimants will have the opportunity to apply to the Federal Court to review a negative decision. Indeed, I should point out that very, very few applications for judicial review of negative IRB decisions are redirected back to the IRB by the Federal Court. In the case of Hungary, for example, a fraction of a percent of rejected Hungarian asylum claims end up being redirected back to the IRB, and, of those, only a fraction end up getting a positive protection decision. I think out of 6,000 finalizations, that’s only happened in three or four cases. 

I know that the idea of designated countries of origin seems new, but the fact is that many developed democracies use a similar authority to accelerate asylum procedures for the nationals of countries not known to produce refugees normally, and they’ve done so for many years. In fact, this idea of accelerated claims for nationals of countries that do not normally produce refugees is recognized as a legitimate tool by the executive committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is why what we’re doing today is actually a standard feature of the asylum systems in most other human rights-respecting, refugee-protecting liberal democracies.

These states include the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Belgium and Finland amongst others. Some EU states also have accelerated procedures for the nationals of other EU member states, and I should point out that the timelines for designated-country claimants in these other European countries, for example, are typically much faster than what we are proposing. In many of these countries, they process initial asylum hearings for DCO claimants in a matter of days, in some cases 24 hours or less, and we’re proposing 30 or 45 days by comparison.

In fact, within the 27 member states of the EU, asylum claims from other EU nationals are considered to be manifestly unfounded. In many of these countries, claims by other EU nationals are considered inadmissible or are subject to expedited processing. Now, among other things, this reflects the fact that EU citizens have mobility rights in all neighboring EU countries. In addition, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, recognized when he was here in Ottawa three years ago that, “There are indeed safe countries of origin and there are indeed countries in which there is a presumption that refugee claims will probably not be as strong as in other countries,” and he has recognized the legitimacy of providing expedited processing for asylum claimants from those generally safe countries.

The success of our new system hinges on our ability to speed up the current processing times for asylum claims and the ability to designate countries of origin plays a key role in our efforts because if we cannot dissuade large organized waves of unfounded claims from certain democratic countries, then we’re left with only one other instrument, the blunt tool of visa imposition, to protect the integrity of Canada’s immigration system – and that, we want to use as a last resort.

Being able to designate such countries and accelerate the processing of these claims also provides us with the tools, as I’ve said, to respond to those spikes in false claims. Now, it’s important to note that designation is not automatic. Countries are triggered according to objective quantitative or qualitative criteria for review leading to a possible designation. At least 60% of claims from the country have withdrawn or abandoned their own claims and at least 75% of claims have been withdrawn, abandoned or rejected by the IRB.

In the case of countries with low numbers of asylum claims, no consecutive 12-month period with 30 or more finalized claims during the three years prior to designation, then objective qualitative criteria are used such as the existence of an independent judicial system, recognition of basic democratic rights and freedoms, and the existence of civil society organizations.

In fact, a country must meet all of these criteria to be triggered qualitatively. If a country meets either qualitative or quantitative triggers, it then undergoes a review by CIC in consultation with other federal government departments, and this shows you how exhaustive the review is. This includes the country report and other analysis with respect to issues in the European Union primarily. So there’ve been massive amounts of research done by my department and other branches of the Government of Canada.

I should also, just in closing, say that these changes are essential to protect the integrity of Canada’s immigration system, to enhance our proud tradition of refugee protection. As a result of these changes, we expect the number of unfounded claimants abusing Canada’s generosity to continue to decline, meaning that we can provide faster protection to real refugees and devote more resources to the resettlement of bona fide refugees waiting around the world in UN camps.

So I’ll make a summary in French and take your questions.

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