Government holding the line on asylum policy, in spite of low support

The Liberal government says it has no immediate plans to change how asylum claims are treated or processed at the border in the wake of a new poll showing over 90 per cent of Canadians aren’t happy with the status quo.

Mark Holland, parliamentary secretary to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, said Wednesday that the current system is working “effectively” and “doing the job that it should.”

“The poll also shows there’s not a lot of understanding of how exactly the process works, or why it works the way it does,” Holland noted.

“The reality is there’s no way for somebody to get a free ticket to Canada.”

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The poll, conducted by Ipsos and published Wednesday morning by Global News, revealed that just 8 per cent of Canadians are happy with the current rules. But the survey also showed that only a slim majority (55 per cent ) of respondents said they had a working knowledge of the rules surrounding who can, and cannot, make a refugee claim.

WATCH: Overwhelming majority of Canadians say refugee rules must change

0:51 Overwhelming majority of Canadians say refugee rules must change: Ipsos poll

At the moment, the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States requires Canada to turn away any asylum seekers who show up at a legal border crossing. Because they arrived on U.S. soil first, they must make an asylum claim there.

But people who cross illegally, away from a designated border checkpoint, are arrested and brought to an immigration or border official, where they can register an asylum claim in Canada.

“The Safe Third Country agreement is monitored by the United Nations … their commentary has been stable, the agreement is working,” said Holland.

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He added that Canada needs to process people “in an orderly fashion, so we don’t have people making multiple claims to multiple jurisdictions … so the agreement we have with the United States is important.”

READ MORE: Are asylum seekers ‘queue jumping’ and other key questions

The government is listening to officials on the ground and monitoring the number of crossings on a daily basis, he said, and if the number of asylum seekers continues to spike and resources are not able to keep up, Ottawa may change its approach.

“Obviously if it comes back to us that we’re in a situation where the trajectory of things requires a realignment, we’re going to make sure we move in that direction. That’s not where we are today.”

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One thing that does need to change immediately, Holland said, is the level of public education about Canada’s refugee system.

“Obviously there’s been increased volume (of border crossings), there’s been a lot more attention, so I think it’s incumbent upon us — and we’re embarking on doing this — to talk a lot more about why it works the way it does, what are the mechanisms that we have to keep Canadians safe, to make sure the process is fair.”

The number of people crossing into Canada by land and making asylum claims increased more than six-fold in Quebec for the month of February, as compared to the same month last year. The number quadrupled in the Prairies, and that was in the dead of winter.

Still, Canada has seen major upswings in refugee claims before. In 2001, there were more than 44,000 claims made (in total) at border crossings or inland. For the first two months of 2017, the total was 5,520.