Are we harsh about Kenney's amendment?

Erik Fraunberger / The Silhouette

Recently, immigration minister Jason Kenney created a new amendment to the Canadian immigration system involving the designation of “safe” countries to increase the efficiency with which refugees may gain entrance into Canada.

The premise behind such an amendment is that the countries on this “safe” list are unlikely to produce legitimate asylum claimants which, according to Canadian law, include those who possess a “well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

Judging from the current list, which includes most European and Scandinavian countries, the majority of individuals who come to Canada’s doorstep from these nations will not be suffering from the level of persecution that the original 1951 Geneva Convention was designed to accommodate. In fact, equating the socio-economic and political situations of individuals from developed, liberal-democratic countries with those in autocratic, developing countries with no human, civil or democratic rights are blatantly offensive.

Of course, such a policy is not without its flaws, most notably its inability to address the concerns of persecuted minority groups such as the Roma in Hungary.

While this is a problem for the Roma people, it is well documented in a 2012 report by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) that there is a high welfare fraud and petty crime rate amongst Hungarian refugee claimants.

Painting all refugee claimants with the same brush is not amicable or fair but it would be naïve to hold the belief that the Canadian government has the ability to approach each refugee claim on a detailed, individual level without severely straining the existing budget.

It is estimated by the Canadian government that each failed refugee claim costs taxpayers $50,000.

This estimate takes into account social services, healthcare and legal costs for each claimant. If we take this number to be an accurate estimate, then the cost of the failed or abandoned refugee applications from Hungary alone amounted to approximately $54,450,000 in 2010. Keep in mind that the taxes you, your family, and your friends pay contributed to that lump sum of wasted money.

A final and welcome improvement of the “safe” countries list is the reduced healthcare benefits that refugee claimants receive if they are from any of the designated nations. Unless the refugee’s medical issues pose a risk to public health then they do not receive healthcare benefits.

However, also keep in mind that many of our own Canadian citizens, after having worked here for their entire lives, do not have universal access to medical benefits including dental care, eye care and certain vaccinations for free. This group includes seniors who are on a fixed income, usually on their pension from the Canadian Pension Plan.

It would be wise to show some gratitude towards the previous generations that have built this country by providing them with some of these medical benefits instead of rolling out the red carpet for every refugee claimant. It is very unfortunate that Canada is unable to provide care to every refugee with medical issues but the already over-burdened healthcare system in combination with the weak economy does not make this possible.

It has also been argued that Canada has an obligation to provide refugees with the aforementioned benefits. From a humanitarian standpoint, this is a wonderful idea, albeit too idealistic to overcome the challenges that reality poses, as mentioned above.

I agree that a certain level of humanitarian obligation is required to those in need, but what I vehemently oppose is the superior treatment of refugee claimants compared to our own Canadian citizens.