Canada: Canada

Canada Dept: Twelve years ago, the Canadian refugee system was the fairest in the world because each individual claim was assessed by two people. This outweighed the then-absence of any formal appeal. This vital centerpiece of fairness is long gone, but the further erosion of Canada s commitment to refugees has accelerated rapidly over the past two years, according to Globe and Mail. Those seeking protection must now complete their initial paperwork within 15 days. This will not be possible. Forms will be incomplete and inaccurate. Vital supporting material will be unavailable. Decision makers will have to rely on less information than ever before. This will lead to more mistakes. In the refugee decision making, errors cost lives and taking into account the results of appeals, acceptance rates for those who come to Canada seeking protection as refugees have recently been broadly similar to acceptance rates in other liberal democracies. Canada s system has fewer avenues of appeal than the United Kingdom, longer time frames for detention than Australia, and the same access to health care as the United States. In terms of direct resettlement from overseas, Canada brings in fewer refugees per capita than Australia. In assessing the most recent round of reforms, Jeffrey Simpson singled out two features : faster time lines and the so-called safe country list. There is some chance that each of these will speed up the system, but no chance they will improve it. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.