Thierry St-Cyr

[Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act, November 16th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I think we have every reason to be critical of the piecemeal approach by which the government introduces many small bills to make changes here and there to the Criminal Code. This is more evidence of what I referred to in my speech about the government doing political marketing. There is no clear vision of what the Criminal Code should look like going forward in 2010. Nothing has been thought out. There are little bits of political marketing here and there. The government introduces bills, lets them die on the order paper because of bogus prorogations, reintroduces them and holds press conferences to announce the exact same bill that was already introduced, and so on. The government ensures that the House uses up as much time as possible looking at a whole bunch of bills. Every time, we have to debate for hours, send bills to committee, wait in line at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and then return to the House. It takes a lot of time and energy on our part to finally get the slightest hint of a result and a quality bill. It would be much more effective to examine a single comprehensive bill to update the Criminal Code, as was done a few years ago with the Civil Code of Quebec, for example.

The government's strategy is deplorable, but it is certainly in line with its overall approach. The government's goal is not to improve the safety of Quebeckers and Canadians. Will we be safer? Will there be fewer murders and less crime, violence and abuse? The government is not interested in that. All it wants to do is spend as much time as possible saying that it will bring in longer sentences and claiming that the bad guys in the opposition defend criminals instead of victims.

In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to say what I did not have time to say earlier. As far as helping victims is concerned, the Bloc Québécois has made some proposals here in the House. We are proposing, among other things, that victims of crime have access to extended employment insurance benefits in order to deal with the trauma and the crime they have experienced without having to worry about going back to work right away or losing their house or going bankrupt. This is a proposal to help victims. However, the Conservatives have never supported us. They say that to help victims, we have to put murderers in prison for 31.4 years instead of 28.2 years. How will it help victims whose lives are falling apart, who are losing their homes and their jobs and who have to declare bankruptcy, to know that the murderer will stay in prison 1.17 years longer after committing a murder?

At some parole hearings, victims testify in favour of releasing the prisoner. The government is being unbelievably hypocritical and is using victims to hide its unwillingness to help them. Instead of helping victims, the government is saying only that it will put people in prison for longer. That does not really help victims. The government's attitude is deplorable. I long for the day the government supports our proposals to help victims of crime financially and in other ways.

[Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act, November 16th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on Bill C-48. This bill is very much in line with this Conservative government's philosophy and conception of what a justice system should be.

We will support Bill C-48 because it will give judges more flexibility and enable them to hand down tough sentences, if necessary. The bill is a little phoney however, and I will have the opportunity to discuss this later. Indeed, in practice this bill will have an impact on very few cases and, in fact, it essentially reflects the way things work now.

I will begin with an aside on this government's overall vision regarding justice. Virtually every member who has risen in this House has used the expression about being tough on crime. The expression has been used over and over again, and it is an argument the Conservatives haul out at election time, basically their only argument. Upon reflection, I find it somewhat ridiculous because it basically amounts to taking people for fools. Do they sincerely believe that the quality of a justice system can be gauged by the number of years people spend behind bars? Why then go to the trouble of passing balanced legislation and of asking judges to set sentences? Why not put first offenders behind bars for the rest of their lives? That would be the best system, and the toughest on crime. Obviously, anyone with their wits about them knows that this does not make any sense and that the aim of a justice system is not to put people behind bars for as long as possible.

Moreover, a look at the figures, the real world, and justice systems both here and abroad shows that it is not the justice systems that hand out the toughest sentences that get results. Quite to the contrary, the most successful justice systems are generally those that focus on rehabilitation and appropriate sentencing that corresponds to the seriousness of the offence. Such systems ensure that victims feel respected and feel that they have been heard by the justice system. They also ensure that the person committing the crime gets punished. Such systems are also grounded on the premise that it is possible for criminals to be rehabilitated and, when this is done successfully, reintegrated into society.

This is a constant everywhere. For example, we could not imagine a more severe punishment than the death penalty for homicide. Everyone agrees that a death sentence is about as tough on crime as it gets. And yet wherever the death penalty is in use, homicide rates are higher than in countries where it is not in use. This is also true for Canada, where the number of homicides has declined steadily since the death penalty was abolished. That is the clear evidence that this ideology simply does not work. That is not how it works.

We can also look at the average prison term for a murderer in some countries. In Canada, the average is 28.4 years. Criminals are sentenced to life imprisonment, but they are entitled to parole after a certain time. In Canada, on average, the person serves 28.4 years before returning to society. Sweden and England average 12 years and 14.4 years, respectively. By the Conservatives’ theory, those societies should have completely degenerated, with murders happening constantly. But no, that is not the case. In the case of Sweden, we are well aware that its homicide and crime rates are among the lowest in the world.

In this kind of debate, the government often appeals to what it calls “common sense”. It tries to bring out our basic instincts and get us to say that if someone commits a murder, there is only one way to stop them from committing more crimes, and that is to put them in prison and tell them they are going to stay there for as long as possible. This is a mindset imported directly from the United States. That is what happened with Bernard Madoff, who was sentenced to 200 or 300 years in prison. It is ridiculous to sentence a human being to 200 or 300 years in prison.

Certainly, when we talk about these things at home, on public transit or at the office with our co-workers, when we see something shocking, some heinous crime, we are tempted to say that he or she—because there are women murderers—should go to jail for life or be hanged. That is our basic instinct.

As a society, however, we have to go beyond that and ask ourselves what we can do to ensure our safety. All the criminologists and experts who study this issue agree that what genuinely deters criminals is not how harsh the potential sentence is, but the fear of getting caught. That is what has a deterrent effect on people. For example, if someone plans to murder his wife, he is not going to say to himself that if he kills her, he will go to prison for only 24.8 years, then decide not to kill her when he remembers that it has changed and the sentence has risen to 32.7 years. Obviously, people who plan murders think they will not get caught. It is as simple as that. Even threatening to torture them horrifically for two weeks or five years would change nothing, because people think they will not get caught.

If they really wanted to dissuade, they would invest money in prevention in order to avoid situations that lead to crime, rather than spending a fortune on new prisons and on locking people up longer than necessary. Money should also be invested in our police forces to ensure they have the means to prevent crimes, solve them, investigate them, and prove someone guilty in court. If that were done, potential criminals would think they would get caught. That is the message we should be sending out. That would be much more effective than trying to make offenders think that if they are caught, they will get longer sentences.

This model can be seen in the real world. Experts on drinking and driving, for example, all say the same thing: people drink and drive not so much because the punishments are too soft but because they think they will not get caught. There simply are not very many checkpoints on the streets.

Because of all that, we think the government is taking us in exactly the wrong direction for political marketing reasons.

Earlier today, the question of bill titles arose. The Conservative minister made fun of the fact that the opposition members were complaining about the ridiculous titles of the bills that the government introduces and he said it was frankly not a very important issue. If it is not important, then, why does the government insist on giving its bills stupid titles?

This happens not just in the justice area but everywhere. They talk about cracking down on crooked consultants or protecting Canadians against something or other when the bill does not even do that. They talk about ending early release for dangerous criminals when this does not exist. These titles are complete lies. So why does the government do it if it thinks it is unimportant?

The fact is the government does it for political marketing reasons. It does not really believe in the content of its bills itself. It simply inflicts these ridiculous titles on us. Today we have the Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act. That is a completely gratuitous statement devoid of any basis in reality. First, talk about protecting Canadians has no place in the bill. It is just an opinion. Some people, including the Conservatives, say they believe it will protect Canadians. The experts, though, tend to think it will not have any preventive or dissuasive effect. So the title is untrue. There are no sentence discounts for multiple murders. As the law now stands, the minimum sentence for first degree murder, for example, is life in prison. There is no discount. What the bill addresses is the cumulative nature of the parole system. The title has nothing to do with the actual bill

Once again, some members will say that the title itself is not really important. The title does not make the bill, but what that means—and this is what I want to say to the people who are watching today—is that the government is lying right to their faces. Obviously, the people at home are not going to get a copy of the bill and look at the changes it makes to the Criminal Code. They have obligations and work to do. They are very busy with families, children, jobs and homes. I understand that we cannot all study this country's laws. So what will the average person rely on to try to form an opinion? The average person will rely on what he is told the bill does. If he is told the bill protects people against murderers, he will say it is a good bill. Who is opposed to protecting people against murderers? The answer is obvious. But the public is being deceived and fooled by the government. I think that is insulting to the public.

I have the opportunity to talk with people in my riding, as we all do, and sometimes some of them tell me they do not agree with our positions. They have seen the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice on the news, saying that the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of pedophiles. He is very good at that. Someone who hears that calls my office and asks whether the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of pedophiles. Come on. As though any member of this House gets up in the morning and thinks about what he or she could do to help pedophiles. It is completely crazy to even suggest that to the public.

The bill the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice was referring to at the time had to do with the trafficking of minors. The word “trafficking” appeared nowhere in the bill, apart from the title. So the bill's title referred to the trafficking of minors, but the substance of the bill had nothing to do with that. We can see that the government wants to deceive and fool the public.

I tell people to beware of politicians who take them for idiots and think they are incapable of reasoning for themselves.

The substance of this bill gives a judge an opportunity to impose consecutive periods, as opposed to concurrent periods, of ineligibility to apply for parole. In other words, committing a double murder, first degree murder for example, would lead to imprisonment for life. Whether the sentence is served concurrently or consecutively, nothing changes. The person is imprisoned for life and, in terms of parole, there are already minimums and maximums set out in the law, based on the type of homicide. Presently, when the judge decides on the length of time, he only chooses one period. He will obviously consider all of the factors surrounding the homicide, but technically, he hands down only one sentence and does not add them together.

This bill will allow a judge to impose a minimum period of x years before parole for a given murder, and a minimum period of y years for another murder. These periods would be consecutive, meaning that the prisoner could not be released before x plus y years.

If the government wants to clarify a law in this way, even though this is already happening in practice, why not? We feel it is pointless and does nothing. We will support the bill. That shows that the Bloc Québécois agrees with making an effort to give judges more flexibility. We see the opposite as being problematic—trying to take flexibility away from judges in cases where they would add or subtract years of imprisonment based on the details of each particular case.

To properly understand this bill, I would like to provide one little statistic. We are talking about people who have committed murders, who are released and could reoffend. Between January 1975 and March 2006, of the 19,210 offenders who served a sentence for murder or manslaughter and were released on parole or statutory release in the community, 45 were later convicted of committing other murders in Canada. That represents 0.2% of convicted offenders. Clearly, that is too many murders. The 45 murders committed by those 45 individuals are unacceptable and should have been prevented. Everyone in this House can agree on that. By no means do I wish to trivialize or minimize any of those incidents. But over a period of 31 years, that number is less than 1%, specifically, 0.2%.

Speaking of the government's false impressions and political marketing, why did it introduce a bill to try to improve this recidivism rate of only 0.2%, or so it claims, when it is doing nothing to prevent the huge number of murders and homicides committed by first-time offenders?

Why is it tackling the most marginal and least frequent cases first, rather than getting to the heart of the problem? We saw the same philosophy recently with the refugees arriving as stowaways on ships, for instance, the Tamil refugee claimants who arrived in Victoria. The government introduced a bill that targeted less than 2% of potential illegitimate refugee claimants, but no one is talking about the other 98%. If we ignore it, it does not exist. It is absolutely appalling.

Meanwhile, the government puts on a show, does some hand-waving and pretends to care about people's safety, yet at the same time, it attacks the gun registry. It just does not make any sense. There is a very strong consensus among all police chiefs: a gun registry is needed in order to better prevent potential crimes and to help solve certain crimes. It is pure logic. We register our vehicles, as well as our dogs and cats in many municipalities. We even register our motorboats and I do not know what else. Yet the government wants to attack the gun registry.

That is absolutely ridiculous. Why tell people that we are going to make it easier to obtain firearms—the way it is in the United States—and that we will take away some of the tools the police use to prevent murder and locate criminals, but that criminals will serve longer sentences. There is something not right about that. It reveals the government's hypocrisy.

The other element of hypocrisy, which is very typical of this government, is the use of victims. I use the term use in its most negative sense. I would say that victims are used for political purposes. In fact, this government—and the Minister of Justice did it again this morning in the House—tells us that if we are against this bill it is because we support the criminals and not the victims. That is completely untrue. Victims need assistance in the form of financial compensation, greater access to employment insurance, and other, similar measures that the government refuses to provide.

I see that my time is up. I may have the opportunity to add details when answering questions.

[Economic Development, November 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government has had no involvement with the Montreal financial round table project, which will be launched shortly. Canada Economic Development was invited to participate but did not respond. The minister's office does not even seem to be aware of the project.

Instead of trying to take away Quebec's financial autonomy by imposing a Canada-wide securities commission, should the federal government not participate in the development of Montreal's financial round table project instead?

[Immigration, November 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, following the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, the Conservative government promised to speed up the processing of applications for permanent residence in the context of the special Quebec-Haiti humanitarian sponsorship program. Yet as of October 16, 2010, only 18 Haitians had come to Quebec.

How does the immigration minister explain the fact that, despite his promise to cut red tape, now, 10 months later, only 18 Haitians have come to Quebec through that special program?

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 27th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the solution is quite simple, which should please the minister. It is simply Bill C-11, which he introduced in the House last spring, regarding the balanced refugee reform that was passed unanimously with a few amendments that everyone agreed on. It was indeed a balanced reform that gave the minister all the tools needed for action.

If he truly believes that the bill introduced by the Minister of Public Safety is the solution for dealing with illegitimate claimants, why does it only deal with those who arrive by boat? Why does it target only 2% of all refugee claimants, and moreover, those who arrive from countries that have some of the highest acceptance rates in the world? The minister says he needs legislation, but he needs it for the 2% of claimants for whom it is least needed. What is the point?

If the minister truly believed this, he would have introduced something that would target the other 98%, not just the 2% that have the highest acceptance rates.

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 27th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, before answering my NDP colleague's question, I would like to say a couple of things.

First, I just realized that I told my Liberal colleague I was going to express the Bloc Québécois' intention with respect to this bill. I do not think I said we would vote against it. Just to be clear, we will vote against it.

Second, I am a little disappointed because, unlike my Liberal colleague, I did not even get an attempt at a question from the minister. I do not know if I should be flattered or annoyed. We will probably have an opportunity to talk about this again.

As written, the bill has a very broad scope. It is not limited to those submitting genuine applications for refugee status. Does this suggest that the government was in such a hurry to draft the bill that it forgot a few things? Did it do this deliberately to make the bill so unacceptable that the opposition would vote against it? Is this a trap? I do not know.

We have before us a bill that does not deserve our support as parliamentarians. It does not tackle the human trafficking problem. It is easy to give a bill a title saying that it will tackle human trafficking, but if the 36 clauses in the bill have nothing to do with the title, it will not work. Moreover, if most of the clauses do nothing more than suspend individual freedoms and discriminate against certain individuals, the title should actually be “bill to discriminate against refugee claimants arriving by boat”, “bill to suspend certain individual freedoms for certain applicants”, or “bill to circumvent international laws and conventions”.

I would like to read a clause from the bill:

Refugee Travel Document—For the purposes of Article 28 of the Refugee Convention, a designated foreign national [the person discriminated against] whose claim for refugee protection or application for protection is accepted [a refugee under the Geneva convention] is lawfully staying in Canada only if they become a permanent resident [which means waiting five years]...

In other words, instead of dumping clause 28, this bill claims to respect it but then pretends that these people are not residents of Canada. That makes no sense.

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 27th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would say that the organizations that represent certain immigrants and support this bill are doing that much as certain non-immigrants would. The Bloc Québécois does not treat immigrants any differently than anyone else. When people come to Quebec and join Quebec society, they are part of the Quebec nation, and they are entitled to their own opinions, like anyone else. Like anyone else, they can be fooled by the government. The government can tell them that there are terrorists, Tamil Eelam members, on the boat. It can say that they must be terrorists. Anyone can be fooled and lied to by the government. Whether we are immigrants or not does not matter. Whether we are immigrants or not, we are against terrorists. I do not know why immigrants would be any less against terrorists than the rest of the population.

The problem is that we have no reason to believe that people who arrive by boat are more likely to be terrorists than those who arrive by air. The problem is that false information is being given to the public, which includes immigrants, who are members of the public like anyone else. The problem is that the government has introduced a bill called the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act. The government is asking people whether they agree with stopping human trafficking. It is asking people whether they are in favour of human trafficking. Immigrants would say the same thing as anyone else; they would say “no”. The problem is that this bill does not tackle human trafficking.

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 27th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, last spring Parliament reached unanimous agreement on refugee reform. We showed that we can agree on things, when there is the will to do so. I fear we will have a hard time reaching an agreement in this case and there are probably few things we will agree on in the future.

Perhaps I will do the same as the minister today, that is, I will give my speech in only one language, except in my case, it will be in French instead of English.

I think this must have been extremely difficult for the Minister of Immigration , even though he is willing to step up to the plate to defend the bill introduced by his colleague from Public Safety. To me this feels like a serious repudiation of all the work he did, which we, as parliamentarians had recognized. We voted unanimously in favour of the refugee reform, which should have, as he said himself, lasted for decades, or for at least one generation. It was a fundamental change in how refugees would be treated.

Now just four months later, this reform, which he described as balanced and with which we agreed—we voted in favour of the reform—is being questioned by his colleague from Public Safety. We will not make a fuss, because even though the minister is here in the House today to defend the bill introduced by his colleague from Public Safety, this bill is clearly being imposed on him by his government. One of two things is true: either the balanced reform the minister defended at the time was not balanced and he knew it—he sold us on something that he knew was not balanced—or the reform was indeed balanced, but someone in his government repudiated his work because he or she did not agree with the minister's conclusion.

This is rather disturbing. At the same time, it also seriously undermines the minister's position since, at the end of the day, considering this repudiation by his colleagues, who would want to negotiate and discuss anything with him in the future, if any of his colleagues can go back on the deals he makes and propose a new bill like the one before us today?

It is even more disturbing, since this bill was only passed four months ago, it has not yet been implemented, we have not seen what kind of impact it may have, and so we cannot assume that it is already broken. It was passed four months ago. This seems to be all about political marketing. That is what we are seeing today in the House, because I do not detect any sincerity in the minister's comments. Let me be clear. I do not doubt his sincerity as an individual, but I doubt that he is convinced that the bill introduced by his colleague is the right thing to do. I say that because this is not the same man we saw last spring. When the minister introduced his balanced reform, he met with parliamentarians from the different parties to explain the reform. His officials offered us a number of technical briefings in advance to explains all the ins and outs of the bill. In a way, he was preparing us mentally. We knew what direction he was taking, but today, there is none of that.

The minister must have wanted to be sure that his bill would be defeated in the House; otherwise, he would have acted differently.

It is very clear that this bill simply appeals to some kind of unhealthy populism, that it goes after all refugees by putting them all in the same boat—no pun intended—and that it suggests simplistic solutions. I do not think that even the minister believes in these solutions.

The Conservatives always take the same approach. First, they introduce a bill with a bogus name, something they could put a trademark notice on, something that sells the bill, a crude advertisement. This time, we have the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act. This lengthy bill has only a few measures that address smugglers; the rest have to do with the refugees themselves. The government is going after people in extremely difficult situations, instead of helping people who are in need.

It always uses the same technique to end any debate: it just says that they are terrorists. That is what it said when the boat arrived in Vancouver. It said that there were members of the Tamil Eelam, a terrorist group, among the Tamils. So the government says that anyone who is against this bill is pro-terrorist. And that is it, there is nothing more to add and no further discussion is needed. That is the Conservatives' argument.

It is even more grotesque given that 80% of the Tamil refugee claimants are considered to be genuine claimants under the Geneva convention. A few months earlier, the minister took aim at Mexican refugee claimants, saying that since only 10% of them were accepted, it was suspect. In this case, 80% are being accepted and it is still suspect. There is a problem here. You can worry about acceptance rates that are too low or too high, but not both.

Seriously, I have a very hard time believing that the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and the people in his department thought about this and had an overall vision when they drafted this bill, especially since these same people did all this work last spring, a mere four months ago, and came up with completely different conclusions. Obviously, this bill was prepared quickly, in a purely partisan fashion, as a sort of collection of unrelated measures. They have no vision. They are not taking aim at the problem, but at refugees, which will create much bigger problems that I will come back to.

I would like to put things into context so that the people of Canada who are watching this understand that just because the government says that this bill and its 50-odd clauses crack down on smugglers, that does not mean that it actually does. Human smugglers are not watching CPAC and are not reading the bill. This bill will have no impact on them. The government chose the title of the bill. It can give the bill any title it wants, even if it has nothing to do with the bill's content.

Now let us talk about the substance of the bill. This is a very strong reaction to what we all agree is a real problem, but the government exaggerated the problem. It is trying to kill a fly with a bazooka. Not only is it futile to use a bazooka to kill a fly, but one also risks missing the target because it is such a precise operation. In this bill, the government focuses on the means of transportation by which the person arrives.

That has nothing to do with anything. The government also focuses on the fact that people arrive in groups of two, three, four or 100. That has nothing to do with anything either. There is no reason to believe that the people who want to cheat the system—for some people do—are more likely to come by boat than by plane or by land. Recent history suggests quite the opposite. More of the Tamils who arrived by boat were accepted than claimants who arrive by plane or by land. What is more, the refugees on board that boat were detained just long enough to verify their identity and threat level, and they have all been released since. Clearly, there is no reason to believe that people arriving by boat are less likely to be legitimate refugees than those who arrive by other means.

Nevertheless, I have to say that arriving by boat makes more of a splash. It is a bit like when a plane crashes. It makes the news because of the tragedy of hundreds of people dying at the same time. But is a plane more dangerous than a car? Any transportation specialist will say it is not. One is more likely to die while travelling in a car than while travelling in a plane.

This is when cheap political marketing and cheap rhetoric are used in an attempt to make us believe that the government is dealing with a problem. Only 2% of refugees arrive in large groups by boat. The government is grandstanding across Canada, putting on a show and telling us that it is tackling the problem of refugee fraud. Why does the government's bill target the 2% of refugee claimants who have one of the highest acceptance rates?

Suppose 98% of the claimants had been dealt with. Then we could look at the remaining 2%. Why target people who arrive by boat? There is no other justification than the fact that it is a hot issue and that when a boat arrives, the Conservatives can tell the media that they are going to deal with the situation.

It is rather crass and I am convinced that no one will be fooled. The minister likes to quote poll results to Quebeckers, but they are not happy when they realize that the government has tried to put one over on them by telling them that the refugees are all terrorists, that they have to be kicked out, and that they will take care of it. Quebeckers realize that it is not true.

Let us examine some of the measures in the bill's whimsical assortment of provisions. First, the bill will create a category of refugees: those who arrive by boat in groups of 2, 50, 100 or more. If more than one arrives by boat, it seems that they are more dangerous than other refugees. This category will be established and these people will be dealt with in a completely arbitrary and discriminatory manner. For example, the government will be able to hold them for 12 months without even determining whether they should be released. For purposes of comparison, the current timeframe is two days.

At the beginning of my presentation, I said that if the government had wanted to make improvements, it would have come to see us. Had the government told us that two days was not enough and that seven were required, we would have listened to what it had to say. Had it said that 14 days were needed, we would have studied the matter. Had it said that 30 days were needed, we would have started wondering, but we would have considered it nonetheless. Now, the minister is telling us that people who are not being accused of anything yet must be kept in prison for 365 days, before the government even determines whether there is cause to do so.

It is shameful. The founding principles of our modern, democratic societies are being attacked. Habeas corpus does not grab the attention of the media. What does that suggest?

At the end of the middle ages, people had had enough of arbitrary justice and tyranny and they decided to develop a concept whereby people could not be imprisoned without cause for an indeterminate or abusive period without having the chance to explain themselves. I am not talking about democracy writ large or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I am talking about a rather basic concept. It is the foundation of our societies governed by the rule of law. We do not detain people indefinitely or abusively without telling them what they are being charged with or without charging them. That is what sets us apart from tyrannies and the middle ages. The bill attacks that foundation. The government is saying, “These people arrive by boat, for some unknown reason, but we are going to keep them in prison for a year before we do anything. Then, every six months we will see whether we can release them.” That is not a very good start.

There is another troubling series of elements in this bill with regard to the same people. They will have to wait five years to apply for permanent residence, and they can only do so if they have been recognized as true refugees. Why? The government wants to crack down on dishonest people who test the system and who are not real refugees. It wants to be tough on them for abusing the system. We will see whether the government is going to make any proposals to that effect. However, what happens to people who are true refugees, who have fled persecution? Why should they be penalized? There is no explaining it. Once they are recognized as refugees, the government could even continue to harass them by verifying whether they still are refugees, which is completely at odds with the very concept of what a refugee is. This concept implies that once a person is recognized as a refugee, they can rebuild their life and not spend it wondering whether they will be sent back to their country of origin.

These people would no longer be able to travel outside Canada. The fact that it would be impossible to obtain permanent residence for five years and therefore impossible to bring one's children to Canada could even have the opposite effect. How does the minister—who is so concerned about the message we are sending to smugglers and people who abuse the system—think these people will react? Does he think people are going to cross the ocean alone even though it is going to take seven years to bring their children to Canada?

In addition to risking his own life, someone who wants to flee persecution will also have to risk the lives of his wife and children. That is what the minister is proposing with this bill. It is completely inappropriate and in the end, we could be faced with bigger boats with more women and children on board, because those who flee persecution will have no other way to keep their families together. Do people see where such an extreme measure will take us?

Lastly, to add insult to injury, the minister is denying these people access to the refugee appeal division, even though he knows that this Parliament deemed that to be a very important aspect of the reform and it was something for which I personally fought long and hard. The fact that his colleague has introduced a bill in this House that attacks the universal nature of the refugee appeal division clearly demonstrates bad faith, especially given that the refugee appeal division—by standardizing decisions and eliminating arbitrary rulings—is just as beneficial for refugees, who can avoid bad, arbitrary decisions, as it is for society. It also allows the minister to appeal bad decisions. Furthermore, it makes it possible to build a body of precedents for refugee claims and ensures a certain predictability that discourages people from testing the system, because they know the outcome is predictable.

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 27th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech and I share a number of his concerns. The Bloc's position on this bill is very clear, as I will have a chance to explain in a few minutes.

But, aside from fundamental principles, it cannot be said that the Liberal position is just as clear. Even after my colleague's speech, we still do not know what the Liberals will do when it comes time to vote on this discriminatory bill in a few days.

This is nothing new; it is always the same thing with the Liberal Party. There are always some intellectual gymnastics and some fancy dancing. It tries to please everyone and make people believe that it is tough on crime and open at the same time.

The member has looked at the bill long enough to make a 20-minute speech. Can he simply tell us whether he will vote for or against it at second reading?

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 27th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the bill before us has more to do with political marketing than any true desire to change policy for the better. This bill was announced in Vancouver. It is easy to understand the political aspect because that is where the boat arrived. We also see that the minister made his announcement in English only, even though he speaks excellent French. He really is speaking to Canada.

More to the point, this bill is a clear repudiation by the government of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. It was the Minister of Public Safety who introduced this bill today. In fact, he was in the House to monitor the speech by his colleague from Immigration.

Last spring, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism introduced, debated and defended in the House a fair and balanced—in his own words—reform with regard to refugees. He received the unanimous consent of the House. He negotiated with the other parties and four months later, he is being repudiated by his own government. By tabling this bill, the Minister of Public Safety is sending him a message that the reform he considered to be balanced is not and that other measures need to be presented to the House.

How does the minister feel about being repudiated by his colleague from Public Safety?