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OTTAWA — Canada’s asylum system is unable to cope with surges in the number of claimants, resulting in a backlog of more than 71,000 refugee claims, Canada’s auditor general concluded in a new report released Tuesday.

Asylum seekers are currently waiting an average of two years for a decision on their refugee claims, interim auditor general Sylvain Ricard found in the report, and that could increase to five years by 2024 if the number of new claimants remains steady at about 50,000 per year.

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The report points to inadequate funding and poor sharing of information between the three agencies that oversee the asylum system as reasons for the backlog.

“People seeking asylum in Canada wait about two years for decisions from a rigid system that can’t adjust to volume spikes,” the report claims.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said the audit, which covered the period from January 2015 to June 2018, is a “snapshot in time,” and that the government has made improvements to the asylum system since then. He also blamed the former Conservative government for underfunding the refugee system and leaving the Liberals to play catch-up.