Other Western countries apply different criteria to refugee determination and some view their obligations to refugee claimants as not extending much beyond providing temporary refuge. In many cases, claimants who arrive here aren't actually fleeing their homelands but instead arrive from such apparently benighted locales as Switzerland and Italy, where some live and even work for years before heading to Canada. I can't imagine the situation for some claimants now arriving from the U.S. to be much different. Canada is often a destination of choice because of the laxity of its determination system and the availability of taxpayer funded benefits. We need to objectively examine and reform this system before Canadian taxpayers become sufficiently cynical to entirely withdraw their support for it. This is the reality articles like this really need to address.