Claims and Acceptance Rate

federal government: The Immigration and Refugee Board has been running two systems side by side, processing the legacy claims filed prior to December 2012 under the old rules by government-appointed adjudicators and post-2012 claims adjudicated by civil servants under the new regulations, according to Toronto Star. What is interesting, observers say, is that the acceptance rate for new claims is significantly higher than for the backlog claims: 61 per cent versus 34 per cent. According to the latest data obtained by the Star, almost half of the 19,960 claims processed in 2014 were granted, compared to just 38 per cent in 2013, despite measures the federal government introduced in late 2012 to restrict access by fast-tracking claims from the 42 so-called safe countries. The high acceptance rates of claims from the safe countries contravene the government rhetoric that these countries are safe, said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees. Their high acceptance rates are noteworthy. The new system was set up to be more difficult so claimants have a shorter amount of time to prepare for their case and collect the documents they need, Dench said. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.