Tories to announce major reforms to refugee system

The federal government is set to table legislation Tuesday that will overhaul Canada's broken refugee system -- reforms that include replacing political appointees to the Refugee Board with public servants trained to spot bogus claimants.

In an effort to clear a backlog of some 60,000 refugee claims, the new guidelines will also reduce the number of appeals available to those whose claims have already been rejected, and will create a new refugee appeal division.

The government estimates that about 60 per cent of refugee claimants are bogus, and it hopes that the new streamlined system will weed out the false claims while making it easier for legitimate asylum-seekers to enter Canada.

The move to end the practice of appointing adjudicators to the Refugee Board is particularly significant, given that most judges "are patronage appointments," said CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife late Monday night.

"They're political loyalists who can't distinguish between legitimate asylum seekers and bogus refugees, and so the government decided to turn over the job to professionals," Fife said.

Earlier Monday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney offered a preview of the legislation by announcing his government plans to increase the number of people this country will accept from UN refugee camps around the world.

Kenney said Canada will accept 2,500 additional UN-selected refugees who have been living in refugee camps and urban slums. That will bring the total number of people who come to Canada each year from overseas camps and slums to 14,500.

"Millions of people have fled violence and persecution to seek refuge outside their home countries and we would like to do more to provide them with protection in Canada," Kenney said in a statement. "We know that we can't help everyone. But what we can do is introduce balanced reforms to our refugee system that will allow us to expand our refugee resettlement programs to provide protection to more people."

To achieve the new numbers, the minister announced that the Government-Assisted Refugees Program will be expanded over time to accommodate 500 more refugees, while another 2,000 resettlement places will be added to the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program.

The legislation is subject to Parliament's approval.

The changes also include a boost in funding to the Resettlement Assistance Program, which helps government-sponsored refugees integrate into Canadian society. Funding would jump 20 per cent, from $45 million to $54 million, the first increase in more than 10 years.

"We have been clear that Parliament enacting balanced reforms to our asylum system will be met by more government help for refugees living in desperate circumstances around the world and in urgent need of resettlement," Kenney said.

There are currently an estimated 10.5 million UN-designated refugees living in camps and urban slums throughout the world, about 100,000 of whom are settled each year in countries with resettlement programs. According to the government, Canada resettles about one in 10 of those refugees.

But critics have long called for an overhaul of a broken system that costs as much as $50,000 per claimant and four-and-a-half years to exhaust the appeals process.

In an interview Sunday with CTV's Question Period, Kenney said the backlog has led to a 19-month waiting period for a hearing.

The slow-moving legal immigration system attracts false claimants who use the asylum system to "jump the queue" and gain entry into Canada "through the back door," Kenney said.