The CBC has compiled and presented Canada’s refugee acceptancerate for all countries of origin from 2006-2009. The acceptance rate was calculated by dividing the number of refugee claimants accepted by the total number of cases that the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada finalized from 2006-2009.
From 2006-2009, refugee claimants from the following countries had the highest rate of acceptance (only countries with more than 10 finalized claimants have been posted):
| Country |
Claims Finalized |
Accepted |
Acceptance Rate |
| Eritrea |
80 |
75 |
93.75 |
| Dijbouti |
38 |
35 |
92.11 |
| Ethiopia |
85 |
78 |
91.75 |
| Uganda |
29 |
26 |
89.66 |
| Burundi |
94 |
82 |
87.23 |
| Afghanistan |
159 |
136 |
85.53 |
| Sri Lanka |
405 |
345 |
81.19 |
| Sudan |
23 |
19 |
82.61 |
| Rwanda |
132 |
109 |
82.58 |
| Zimbabwe |
111 |
89 |
80.18 |
The information is interesting both for personal interest, but also for trying to ascertain which countries will likely be designated as safe countries under the Bill C-11 refugee reforms.
As previously discussed in this blog, Bill C-11 will introduce the concept of designated safe countries of origin into Canada’s refugee system. If a refugee claimant is from a designated country, then their claim will be affected in the following ways:
- Their refugee hearing will occur within 60 days of an informational interview instead of 90; and
- Any appeal will be heard within 30 days instead of 120.
According to Bill C-11, a country will be designated if:
- the number of claims for refugee protection is equal to or greater than the number of claims specified in the regulations that will be developed later; and
- the rate of acceptance by the RPD is equal to or lower than the rate set out in regulations.
The information provided by CBC sheds some light as to which countries will likely be designated according to the second criteria for determining whether a country is “safe”. According to the information provided by CBC, the following are some of the countries with extremely low rates of acceptance:
| Country | Claims Finalized | Accepted | Acceptance Rate |
| Croatia | 12 | 0 | 0.00 |
| France | 27 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Hong Kong | 25 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Portugal | 21 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Slovakia | 87 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Spain | 11 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Thailand | 100 | 0 | 0.00 |
| United States | 526 | 2 | 0.38 |
| Hungary | 575 | 3 | 0.52 |
| Czech Republic | 664 | 12 | 1.81 |
Given that these countries all have acceptance rates of less than 2%, it is difficult to see why these countries wouldn’t be designated under the new system.
In any case, the information provided by CBC will be useful for future potential refugee claimants and their counsel to how much skepticism their claim is likely to be met with, and, in the future, whether the claimant will be subject to the designated country of origin rules.