Ottawa

Mere semantics – or something else?

Harper and his “bogus” Mexican remarks

Mere semantics - or something else?While writing up this morning’s NTK niblet on the North American summit, ITQ found herself somewhat intrigued by how the prime minister described those claims that, in his view, are overloading the current refugee system. Does he believe that each and every unsuccessful claim is, by its very nature, “bogus” — which, at least as ITQ understands the term, implies a deliberate attempt to usurp the system with false or misleading information?

The statistics provided by Citizenship and Immigration Canada do tend to suggest a rather stark contrast between applications coming from Mexican nationals versus the rest of the world, as far as acceptance rates, but the prime minister’s comments seemed to hint at a more widespread problem within the system itself. If that was the case, wouldn’t you expect to see similar results for claims made by non-Mexican nationals?  And isn’t it possible that a claim could be made in good faith, but still be unsuccessful, for any number of reasons? Surely there are any number of applications that could go either way, depending on how the process unfolds, and the makeup of the IRB tribunal that hears the claim.

Anyway, I’ve asked PMO for a clarification, but I was curious to see what the rest of you might have to say. Is there a difference between a failed refugee claim and a bogus one?

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