Rathika Sitsabaiesan

[Petitions, May 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present petitions on behalf of constituents in my riding, as well as the greater Toronto area.

Based on Canada's reputation around the world for the protection of strong humanitarian rights and human rights laws around the world and Canada's international championship of human rights and justice, the petitioners call upon the Canadian government to urge the United Nations to immediately establish an independent, international and impartial mechanism to ensure true accountability and justice in Sri Lanka following the human rights violations that were identified by the United Nations panel of experts.

[Business of Supply, May 18th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, it saddens me that the member, who is also a member of the South Asian community, speaks along the same lines of the current Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. He said, ”This was a single incident that affected about 350 non-Canadians of some 90 years ago”. He said that we should forget about it and move on.

That is very hurtful. I would like to quote the editor of the Asian Journal who said:

No matter how much money any government spends on monuments and other projects, it is all MEANINGLESS if the government fails to apologize in Parliament for the Komagata Maru incident.

This is what the South Asian community wants, not this new creation of a two-tier apology system for official wrongdoings by a government. Because this was an official wrongdoing by the Canadian government, it t needs an official apology, and that can only be done if it is officially done by the House, which is recognized as a place for official apologies in this country.

[Business of Supply, May 18th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's comments show how much commitment the South Asian community has shown to Canadian communities.

Since the Komagata Maru, we have given so much to the economic well-being, the cultural well-being and the growth of this country, and have contributed so much to what this country is known and cherished for around the world, which is diversity and inclusion of all immigrants to this country.

That is why the members of the South Asian community and the people who were affected by the Komagata Maru deserve an official apology in this House of Commons, not just a public political speech in a park.

[Business of Supply, May 18th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, on May 23, 1914, the ship, Komagata Maru, arrived in Burrard Inlet near Vancouver with 376 passengers aboard from British India. At that time, Canadian immigration officials enacted regulations to block immigrants from India from being admitted to Canada. Immigrants were required to come by continuous journey from their country of birth and enter with at least $200 cash each. This continuous journey regulation did not mention race or nationality and, on the surface, seemed fair and applicable to all immigrants. However, it was an open secret that the regulation was intended to be applied primarily to people from British India.

When the Komagata Maru arrived onshore, Canadian immigration authorities did not permit passengers to leave the boat, claiming that they could not be admitted until officials had determined if they met the requirements of the continuous journey regulation. Since they were refused permission to land, the passengers lived aboard the ship for two months, like prisoners, continuously threatened by famine and disease. For the entire two months, the passengers of the Komagata Maru, the Indian community in British Columbia and Canadian immigration authorities were engaged in a heated legal battle about the passengers' right to enter Canada.

At the end of the two months, only 20 passengers were given permission to stay in Canada and, on July 23, 1914, the Komagata Maru was forced to leave Canadian waters. When it returned to Calcutta, India, 19 passengers were shot by the British Raj.

This tragedy was a major embarrassment for the Canadian government of the day, and even today it reminds all Canadians and particularly Canadians of South Asian heritage of past injustices.

The Komagata Maru tragedy is a reminder of a policy of exclusion for immigrants based on the unjust basis of culture, religious belief and skin colour.

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Newton—North Delta.

Despite the prejudice and hostility in Canada that the Komagata Maru story exemplified, the South Asian community has survived and prospered in Canada. The community emerged in the 1980s with a positive and confident outlook, and today in a more tolerant and compassionate Canada, the Komagata Maru remains a powerful symbol of unjust discrimination.

Despite Canada's proud tradition of protecting refugees, the country has not always been generous toward those in need of protection. However, we have learned painful lessons from our history and, since then, Canada has set an international gold standard for how we treat and welcome asylum seekers and refugee claimants.

This was our reputation until the current government began to reform our refugee and immigration system and change the way we treat asylum seekers to a regressive level similar to what was seen at the time of the Komagata Maru. By ramming through Bill C-31, people who flee a country and arrive by boat, like the Komagata Maru, would not be permitted to land in Canada. However, once they step foot on Canadian soil, they would be detained, some in provincial prisons, and treated like common criminals.

This tragedy of the Komagata Maru shows us where we went wrong and where we should never return. However, as we are witnessing with Bill C-31, it is becoming yet another example of Canada failing to learn from the mistakes of the past. This is one perfect example of immigration laws gone wrong and resulting in the unnecessary loss of human life.

As a country, we need to ensure that immigration reform will not result in any more loss of human life. Unfortunately, I do not think this will be the case should Bill C-31 pass.

The tragedy of the Komagata Maru is a dark chapter in Canadian history and this dark chapter must finally be closed. The people of the South Asian community deserve closure for this trauma so that the process of healing and reconciliation can begin. What better time to acknowledge this fact than during the month of May, Asian Heritage Month, and mere days before the anniversary of this tragic event?

In 2008, the Prime Minister attended an outdoor cultural festival in Surrey, B.C. where people were led to believe that he would announce the date of a formal apology. Rather than listening to the festival organizers who advised that an apology from the state would be ill-received at this park, the Prime Minister chose to issue an apology anyway. This apology was widely regarded as rude, insincere and disrespectful.

A dignified official apology for the Komagata Maru tragedy is long overdue. By refusing to formally apologize for the Komagata Maru incident, the Conservatives have essentially created two different levels of apologies for historic wrongs. This is wrong.

Without an apology in Parliament, there is no official acknowledgement that what Canada did was wrong. The South Asian community in Canada deserves a respectful acknowledgement of this historic wrong.

Today, as we remember how Canada treated the Komagata Maru in 1914 and we commit to learning from our past, we ask the government to officially apologize in the House of Commons to the South Asian community and to the individuals impacted in the Komagata Maru incident.

[Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, May 17th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Winnipeg North for the question and the work he has done on the citizenship and immigration committee.

With respect to the retroactive nature of the minister's right to designate people as irregular arrivals, the fact that it specifically goes back to 2009 is odd. However, it is understandable based on the minister's comments in the last Parliament when he said that the anti-refugee bill he introduced then was specifically targeted because of the Tamil migrants who came to Canada by the Ocean Lady and the migrant vessel Sun Sea and that he needed to stop migrants from arriving in Canada in this fashion.

My people, the Tamil people, were fleeing persecution when they threw themselves onto a rickety cargo boat and held their lives in their hands for two months. We know that one man actually perished on the voyage over on the MV Sun Sea. They are now contributing to our economy and communities in Canada. The fact that this bill would give the minister the ability to now designate them as irregular arrivals and send them back to persecution is absolutely wrong. That is all I can say.

[Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, May 17th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat some of what I mentioned in my speech.

Witness after witness, including Conservative witnesses, spoke of the unconstitutionality of the bill and the impossible timelines that are being set out in the bill. Yet the minister seems to have not heard the government's own Conservative witnesses either, apparently, because when amendments were proposed in the committee, they fell on deaf ears. The Conservative members voted against them time and time again, even when the Conservatives own witnesses were being quoted in support of the amendments and against the timelines. Apparently I only hear the NDP witnesses, when we really did take into account all the witness statements that were presented to the committee.

[Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, May 17th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand today to add my voice in opposition to this legislation, the anti-refugee bill, and in support of the NDP amendments.

As New Democrats, we oppose the bill because we will not support the punishment of asylum seekers, and that is exactly what the bill would do.

We also believe the Conservative government should change the title of the bill to “the punishing refugees act”. The title of the bill should reflect the nature of its content. If we are to be honest with Canadians, we need to tell them what the minister is doing and the true direction we are headed under the government.

Canadians are proud of our country's tradition of providing protection for those in need. With the passing of Bill C-31, the Conservative government will effectively be killing this tradition.

For over two weeks, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration heard from witnesses who spoke on the content of Bill C-31. Witness after witness told us this legislation was fundamentally flawed, unconstitutional and concentrated too much power in the hands of one minister.

The well-informed opinion of these witnesses should not be taken lightly. We are talking about witnesses representing Amnesty International, the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canada Research Chair in Global Migration Studies and front-line workers who provide legal, medical and psychological support to people who have fled persecution. These are experts in this field. They know far more about this topic than many in this room. Therefore, their testimony should be taken seriously and simply not ignored, which is exactly what the government is currently doing.

As I stand in the House, a key component of our highly respected democracy, with plush carpets and clean water, food to eat, peace in our country, I am reminded that elsewhere in the country and around the world people are not so lucky.

Right now, at this very moment, people are being persecuted, are experiencing discrimination, are living through conflict, public unrest and general instability, and some are forced to make the decision to flee the only home they have ever known, fleeing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

People flee their country because they are desperate and they have no other option if they want to ensure the safety of their families. However, with the passing of Bill C-31, if they come to our country as asylum seekers, much like my father did, depending on their means of arrival and undefined number of people they arrive with, instead of being treated like human beings they will be treated like criminals, treated as guilty until proven innocent. We all know that is not the Canadian standard.

The bill would punish victims of persecution and victims of human smuggling. It would punish those who, because of a lack of money or option, would do whatever it takes to keep their families safe. I ask my colleagues in the House to empathize and put themselves in their situation. I ask them to think for a moment of what they would do to keep their partner, their children, their mother, their grandmother safe. If they needed to, would they run, flee the country that was unsafe through any means?

The Conservatives refuse to accept that our system currently works. We already capture the real criminals and deport them. The sentence for human smuggling is already the most punitive it can be in our country, life in prison and a fine of $1 million, yet we continuously hear members opposite saying that we need to take away the rights of victim in order to catch the human smugglers. The bill would do nothing to catch human smugglers. It would punish refugees and refugee claimants and not the human smugglers.

Instead of targeting the illegal smuggling rings, the Conservatives would rather arbitrarily designate some refugees as “irregular arrivals” and incarcerate all of them. Now, upon arrival, designated refugees will be held in provincial jails, handcuffed and treated like prisoners, with minimal review.

New Democrats are opposed to the measures in the bill precisely because Canada will now be known for punishing the most vulnerable and traumatized people in the world.

My constituents are concerned. Some of the refugees who were on the MV Sun Sea and Ocean Lady live in my riding of Scarborough-Rouge River. They have been given refugee protection by our government. They are making a home in our neighbourhoods, contributing to our economy and giving back to our community.

As the designated foreign national category is retroactive to 2009, these valuable members of our community who came on these two migrant vessels, along with future so-called irregular arrivals, will now be treated as second-class citizens under the new two-tier refugee treatment system that will be created.

Under the bill they, and all so-called designated refugees, would be barred from applying for permanent residence for five years. This is different from all other refugees, who are allowed to apply for permanent residency immediately. The bar would prevent families from reuniting for five years and further as they went through the already lengthy sponsorship system.

We are separating children from their parents. If fathers or mothers flee their country to make way for their children, they would now be separated from their families for a minimum of at least seven years. Children who are 13 will be young adults by the time they would see their mother and father again. Formative years of their life will be lived spent away from their parents.

Further, by the time their parents would be eligible to actually sponsor them, the children may not qualify as dependents anymore, meaning that they will now be forced to live permanently separated from their parents and parents separated from their children.

We could have made the bill better. New Democrats proposed concrete changes to the bill. It was a disappointment to the witnesses, the stakeholders and all involved when all of these good propositions that would have provided improvements to the bill were opposed by the government time and time again.

While baby steps were taken, none of the NDP's substantive amendments were adopted by the government members in the committee.

New Democrats have a better solution to our refugee and immigration system. In fact, just last year, all parties compromised to pass Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. That bill was applauded by our current Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.

Bill C-31, however, ignores these compromises and includes all of the worst parts of the former Bill C-11.

What is worse is that Bill C-31 will pass before we will even have the chance to see the outcome of the changes included in Bill C-31. The government has not even allowed for the changes to take place.

One of the most troublesome measures that the Conservatives refused to revise is impossibly tight timelines for submitting an application to the Immigration and Refugee Board. The refugee system is being set up to fail. The asylum seekers are being set up to fail.

Witness after witness, including the Conservatives' own witnesses, said that these timelines were too short, that they would create incomplete and inaccurate applications. On top of that, some refugees would be refused the right to appeal their application.

We all know, unfortunately, that mistakes can be made at the IRB. The board is not perfect. With cuts to its budget and limited resources to hire adjudicators, the likelihood that mistakes will occur would be even greater. New information could come to light after an expedited claim is mistakenly processed. Without access to an appeal, this information may never be heard.

The consequences of these decisions could truly mean life or death.

Banning access to an appeal for some claimants undermines the international obligations to refugees.

A further dangerous consequence of the bill is that the power to designate a country as safe for all is concentrated solely in the hands of the minister. No country is truly safe. A country that may be safe for some residents may be unsafe for other residents.

Impartiality toward the development and maintenance of this list is extremely important. It is confusing why Bill C-31 would remove the safeguard of having a panel of experts maintain and review this list, as was decreed in Bill C-11 .

We have earned a gold standard on how we treat refugees fleeing persecution in the world. The current government is tarnishing our earned reputation. The Conservatives' changes to the refugee and immigration system will erode Canada's humanitarian reputation around the world.

I cannot support the bill and the move to a discriminatory refugee and immigration system. I cannot support the punishment of asylum seekers and refugees. That is why I oppose the bill and support the amendments put forward by the NDP.

The government needs to abandon the legislation and go back to the drawing board.

[Sri Lanka, May 17th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, May 19 marks the third anniversary of the end of the armed conflict of the Sri Lankan civil war. The 26-year conflict saw the death of an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people, and thousands more were displaced from their homes. Many of the displaced, like my family and many of my constituents, fled the country to seek safety in great countries like Canada.

Humanitarian organizations continue their work in postwar Sri Lanka, providing emergency medical relief for the internally displaced. Reports of continuing abductions and torture, systemic lack of basic security for women, increasing lack of freedom of information, illegal settlement of the northern areas and a lack of religious and linguistic freedoms for minorities are ongoing.

The victims on both sides of this conflict have waited too long for justice. On the anniversary of the end of the civil war, New Democrats call upon this government and the world to take firm action to hold Sri Lanka to account and push for an independent inquiry into the allegations that war crimes and crimes against humanity took place during this time of conflict.

[Citizenship and Immigration, May 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is sad that the parliamentary secretary thinks that refugees clog up our system when these are people who are fleeing situations of persecution or oppression from wherever they are coming. They are asylum seekers.

The parliamentary secretary needs to stop blaming the backlog on the previous Liberal government. I agree that the Liberals handled it poorly, but for the last six years, the government has not done much to make the situation any better. It has actually made it worse.

Family reunification and family support are extremely important factors for healthy and effective integration of our newer immigrants in Canada. People who have faced war, who have faced traumatic experiences beyond our imagination will no longer have access to this vital support system, and thanks to the amendments to our immigration laws, including Bill C-31, they will now be revictimized.

When will the government understand the importance of family reunification and immediately reverse the moratorium on parent and grandparent class applications within the family class?

[Citizenship and Immigration, May 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, last fall the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism announced, effective immediately, a moratorium on new applications to sponsor parents and grandparents to immigrate to Canada. This unfair punishment for new Canadians and Canadian permanent residents is compounded by new measures recently introduced in the punishing refugees act, also known as Bill C-31, which will place a mandatory five-year wait time for refugees to become permanent residents and apply to reunite with their families.

The last time I asked the minister about this issue, he blamed the problem of the backlog of applications on the Liberals. We continue to hear the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism claim that his department is increasing and speeding up the reunification for family members, but with this moratorium on family reunification and a five-year bar for refugees, the Conservative government is making it harder for families to stay together. The Conservative government has to take responsibility for that.

Parents and grandparents wait an average of seven years to come to Canada. One family in my riding has waited over 16 years. Now, people will have to wait an additional five years on top of an already lengthy separation. But wait, this excruciatingly long countdown for parents to see their children, and grandparents to see their grandchildren will not begin until 2014. The government will not be accepting new applications to sponsor parents and grandparents until 2014, if at all. While we know there is a substantial backlog for family class applicants, refusing to reunify families is not the way to deal with the backlog.

Working as the member of Parliament for Scarborough—Rouge River, I have spoken with many families who have been waiting years and years to have their parents and grandparents join them here in Canada. We all know the benefits of having our parents and grandparents here with us. We understand the value of reuniting families. I am lucky enough to have had my grandparents join me here in Canada from Sri Lanka. They have added so much value to my life.

We need to address the existing inequities in the system and develop a balanced and equitable approach to dealing with the backlog. This includes raising the overall level of immigration and the number of immigrants that we accept each year to approach approximately 1% of the population.

When will the Conservative government start putting families first and help those who have waited so long to be reunited with their loved ones?