Refugees suffering for Ministers’ incompetence – Karygiannis

Refugees suffering for Ministers’ incompetence – Karygiannis

OTTAWA–The Honourable Jim Karygiannis, Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Agincourt, is expressing his concern that present and future refugees will suffer due to the incompetence of Conservative Ministers of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney and Diane Finley.

“Both Ministers allowed the backlog of refugee claimants to rise. They refused to ensure that the Immigration Refugee Board (IRB) was fully staffed.” said Mr. Karygiannis. “This was unconscionable. People were waiting for years. Their lives were on hold as they waited for a decision.”

Figures from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration show that, between 2002 and 2005, the IRB reduced a previous backlog of refugee claims by processing an average of 127% of the claims per year. Between 2006 and 2008, the IRB received 87,767 claims, it processed 52,500, averaging 59% per year.

“The Harper Conservatives permitted the backlog numbers to grow. They created a crisis, so they could solve the crisis and try to look good.” Mr. Karygiannis stated. “Kenney recently went on an appointment binge, appointing Conservative friends to the IRB just before he introduced his new legislation. Will these appointees look at the merits of individual cases or will they follow the Minister’s directive to only allow refugees from certain countries?”

Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Federal Courts Act, will allow the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to establish a list of countries from which Canada will accept refugees.

In his report “Fast, Fair and Final: Reforming Canada’s Refugee System”, former Chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (1999-2002), Peter Showler stated:

The federal government has said that it would like to restrict refugee applications from nominally democratic countries. However this ignores the human rights reality of many democratic countries.
Unfortunately, being a democratic country does not mean that human rights abuses do not occur. There are several democracies that discriminate or abuse certain portions of their own population.

“I am very concerned about the proposed list of acceptable countries.” Mr. Karygiannis stated. “It gives far too much power to the Minister and could be subject to abuse. Once again, Kenney is catering to his Reform Party roots, not considering the plight of those who come to our shores looking for protection.”

(PRESS RELEASE)