Liberals achieve key changes to refugee reform bill

OTTAWA – After extensive discussions with all the other parties and stakeholders to make the Harper government’s proposed refugee reform legislation more efficient, balanced and fair, Liberals welcomed key changes at the Citizenship and Immigration committee.

“Over a number of months, Liberals have worked with all parties to reach a balanced compromise on refugee reform and improve the Conservative refugee bill,” said Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. “By negotiating in good faith with all parties to improve this bill, Maurizio Bevilacqua did an excellent job leading our effort to improve this flawed legislation.”

“The vast majority of Canadians have expressed a desire for reform to the refugee system, which would allow all claims to be dealt with faster so genuine refugees can be settled more quickly and the ones judged to be false can be sent home sooner,” said Liberal Citizenship and Immigration Critic Maurizio Bevilacqua. “However, Canadians have also been clear that they want a reformed system to err on the side of fairness when dealing with people’s lives.”

The key changes include:

• With the support of both other opposition parties, a Liberal amendment restoring the ability of refugee claimants to access humanitarian and compassionate applications, so nobody falls through the cracks.
   
• With the negotiated agreement of all parties, strict limits to the Minister’s discretion to designate countries with good human rights records for an expedited process.  These changes will ensure such a designation will only be considered in very limited circumstances and made only if recommended by an advisory panel including independent human rights experts.
   
• With the negotiated agreement of all parties, access to the new Refugee Appeal Division for all claimants, confirming that every case will be treated as unique.  This would not have been achieved if the Liberals had not taken a firm stand during negotiations.
   
• With the negotiated agreement of all parties, new reasonable timelines for interviews and hearings, to ensure this bill does not actually worsen the backlog and jeopardize procedural fairness with an unrealistic process.

“We are pleased that after extensive negotiations, the Conservatives were willing to compromise on some key issues and that the other opposition parties were willing to work together on aspects of the bill that the Conservatives were not willing to change, like humanitarian and compassionate applications.  The end result is a drastically improved bill,” said Mr. Bevilacqua.

“We’ve come a long way for Canadians and we’re proud of what we have achieved for them,” concluded Mr. Bevilacqua.