Canada’s Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has introduced legislation that will bring reform to Canada’s Asylum System and fairness to those genuinely seeking shelter from conflict and oppression.
 
Canadians can be proud that our country has one of the most generous refugee systems in the world. In fact we’ve given shelter to over one million refugees since World War II.
 
Unfortunately, as Canada makes an effort to provide refuge for those who need it, there are many who try and take advantage of the generosity of Canadians. This puts us in danger of creating a two-tiered system: one for those who patiently wait in line to come to Canada and another for those who jump the line, thinking they can play the system to their own advantage.
 
The result has been an overburdened system with a backlog of people who are claiming asylum. It traditionally takes an average of 19 months for claims to be heard by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. Deserving asylum seekers have to wait in line – often for years – to come to Canada.

It is estimated that each failed asylum claim costs Canadian taxpayers $50,000; and the system is flooded with unfounded claims. A good example of the severity of this problem is the over 2,500 claims that came from Hungary last year, of which, only three were deemed in need of Canada's protection. Adding to the problem is the fact that it takes about 4 1/2 years for failed asylum seekers to be deported, which unnecessarily costs provinces billions of taxpayer dollars.
 
Our Conservative Government is addressing this inequality by proposing legislation that will result in faster decisions, quicker removals of failed claims, depoliticize the process through which claims are heard and deliver balanced reform to increase help for those who genuinely need it.

Our legislation takes effective steps to protect the integrity of our asylum system, creating a two-stream approach -- one for refugee claims from democratic countries, another for the rest. This will discourage periodic floods of thousands of asylum claims from countries that are democratic and generally conform to international human rights conventions.

Refugees who have legitimate reasons to come to Canada deserve to be supported during their transition. That’s why our Government is also proposing to invest in increased help for genuine refugees who come to Canada through government or private sponsorship programs.
 
By fixing our broken system here in Canada we can effectively increase the generosity of our overseas system.
 
Our Conservative Government is working hard to fix our broken asylum system to help ensure that genuine refugees can find asylum in Canada faster and more efficiently.