Mr. Speaker, I will get right to the point. Bill C-31 is a blot on Canada's reputation. This bill will tarnish our international image as a host country. It will be a major step backward with respect to protecting refugees in Canada. It puts tremendous power in the hands of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and fails to revamp Canada's refugee determination system. The purpose of this bill is not, as stated, to fight human smuggling or to help asylum seekers by expediting the process. Its true purpose is something else entirely. All it will do is punish refugees.
Bill C-31 is a patchwork of bits and pieces of old bills, including Bill C-4 on human trafficking, Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, and biometrics.
One of the bills introduced during this Parliament was Bill C-4. That bill received such strong opposition from lawyers and refugee rights organizations that the government dropped it. This bill would allow the minister to designate the arrival of refugees as an irregular arrival. The bill uses the phrase “a group of persons” without really specifying how many persons constitute a group. We presume that two people could indeed constitute a group. These designation criteria are far too vague and disproportionate and leave too much room for legal interpretation. A family fleeing a war-torn country would be a group of persons.
The most despicable proposal in this bill is the one whereby any person designated a “foreign national” will be detained for a maximum period of one year, without review and without any chance of appeal.
Immigration detention centres are already overcrowded. Accordingly, these designated persons will likely be transferred to provincial prisons to live with criminals. Under this bill, a person could be detained for 12 months without review.
According to the bill, a person in detention who receives permanent resident status will not be released since they are not entitled to a review of their case for a period of one year.
The government is not giving any thought to the distress felt by these people who have fled a country in the hope of having a better life. This government is not considering the desolation of these people who are fleeing persecution in their country and who now are being mixed in with the criminal population for a year without review of their case, as I was saying.
These measures go completely against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international law. The Supreme Court ruled in the Charkaoui case that detention under a security certificate is unconstitutional. That means that every person in Canada has the right to appear before a judge within 48 business hours. The Conservative government has no qualms about introducing a bill that is likely unconstitutional.
Under the Supreme Court ruling, detention has to be subject to a timely and regular review to ensure that it continues to be legal. All asylum seekers not arriving in groups, therefore arriving alone, are entitled to this review. Families would be exempt from this review because they constitute a group of two or more people.
Not only can a group be detained for a year, in addition, no exception is made for the individuals in the group, regardless of gender, age or health status. These inhumane provisions are a direct violation of the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Indeed, this United Nations convention clearly indicates that no host country shall impose sanctions against refugees by reason of their illegal entry if they present themselves without delay to the authorities and give good reason for their illegal entry.
Canada is, in fact, a signatory to this convention.
The measures proposed in the bill are an attempt to discourage refugees from seeking protection in Canada. Not only are these people being detained without the right to appeal their case, but the implacable attitude of this government will end up increasing the number of removals. That goes entirely against the humanitarian values Canada espouses and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Moreover, this bill stipulates that refugees shall be banned from making an application for permanent residence for a five-year period after obtaining refugee status.
Once again, this bill violates the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees by prohibiting any person who has obtained refugee status from traveling outside Canada. The refugee will, therefore, have no travel document. That also violates the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Furthermore, refugee claimants will not be able to sponsor their families for a period of five years. That means, for example, that a 15-year-old teenager who enters the country illegally will not be able to sponsor his parents for five years. Bearing in mind these constraints alone and the average time it takes to process claims for refugee protection and applications for permanent residence, refugees will be separated from their families for seven years. These measures are discouraging for all refugee claimants.
The minister also reserves the right to designate a country as safe for foreign nationals without even benefiting from the expertise of a committee on human rights. This measure will result in the implementation of stricter deadlines to submit a claim for refugee protection. This will make it difficult to properly prepare an application, which may lead to a refusal.
Moreover, the refugee claimants from the list of countries deemed safe by the minister who have been forced to leave the country will no longer be entitled to file an appeal before the Immigration and Refugee Board. If they are determined to appeal, their only recourse is to seek a judicial review before the Federal Court. Despite this provision, there is a strong likelihood that the claimant will be deported to his country of origin before the court has had time to make a decision. Furthermore, this bill prevents the Refugee Protection Division from reopening files. This clause goes against the principles of natural justice. This bill needlessly takes away a jurisdiction that has always existed.
Another clause is being added to the long list of barriers to claims for asylum. Once again, this clause gives another discretionary power to the minister that allows him to detain any individual who is suspected of a crime. There is no guideline for the principle of suspicion. However, it does not stop there, because the bill specifies that it is possible to turn down any claim if a person has committed an offence, even if it is a trivial offence. Let us take the example of a person who, in his own country, refused to obey an order from the dictatorial government and dared to express his opinion publicly, and finds himself with a criminal record because of it. Canada would refuse his claim because of this offence, without even considering the cases of persecution for which that government is responsible.
This Conservative government is going even further in its indifference to the suffering of thousands of people who are fleeing persecution. In granting permanent resident status to refugees, Canada is offering them safety to settle in our country and quietly begin their lives over again. However, the Conservatives, with their misguided thinking, want to grant permanent resident status on a conditional basis. This bill would allow an application for permanent resident status to be suspended when the country of origin is on the list of countries considered safe and stable, countries that are put on the list by virtue of the minister's discretionary power.
That is not all. This clause is retroactive, which means that thousands of permanent residents will have to leave their new country and new life in Canada. Take the example of someone who left his country because of political persecution 30 years ago. When he arrived in Canada, he asked for asylum and we granted him permanent resident status. He began a family here, but 30 years later the government tells him that his country is safe and he can go back.
Bill C-31 is underhanded; it goes even further. The Conservatives also want to demand biometric data from applicants for a visitor visa, a student visa or a working visa. Biometrics has a reputation as a technology that gives considerable power to states for keeping an eye on people. Bill C-31 put forward by the Conservatives is a huge reversal in immigration policy and is aimed solely at refugees and asylum seekers, to their detriment. The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is giving himself the right to make criminals of certain refugees and throw them in jail, without review of their files, for a period of one year.
The Conservative government is now interfering with the right of every person to defend himself. I believe that this bill is discriminatory and that it sets up a two-tier system for refugee protection.