Bill C-49 (Historical)

Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) authorize the Minister, in certain circumstances, to designate as an irregular arrival the arrival in Canada of a group of persons, the result of which is that some of the foreign nationals in the group become designated foreign nationals;
(b) authorize an officer or the Minister, as the case may be, to refuse to consider an application for permanent residence if the applicant has failed to comply with a condition of release or other requirement imposed on them;
(c) provide that a person may not become a permanent resident as long as an application by the Minister for cessation of that person’s refugee protection is pending;
(d) add, as grounds for the detention of a permanent resident or foreign national, the existence of reasonable grounds to suspect that the person concerned is inadmissible on grounds of serious criminality, criminality or organized criminality;
(e) provide that the Immigration Division must impose any prescribed conditions on the release of certain designated foreign nationals;
(f) provide for detention rules and a review procedure that are specific to the detention of certain designated foreign nationals;
(g) clarify the authority of the Governor in Council to make regulations in respect of conditions of release from detention;
(h) provide that certain designated foreign nationals may not apply to become permanent residents until the expiry of a certain period and that the processing of any pending applications for permanent residence is suspended for a certain period;
(i) require certain designated foreign nationals on whom refugee protection has been conferred to report to an officer;
(j) authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the reporting requirements imposed on certain designated foreign nationals;
(k) provide that the offence of human smuggling is committed when a person organizes the coming into Canada of another person and knows, or is reckless as to whether, the entry into Canada is or would be in contravention of the Act;
(l) provide for minimum punishments for the offence of human smuggling in certain circumstances;
(m) in respect of the determination of the penalty to be imposed for certain offences, add as an aggravating factor the endangerment of the life or safety of any person as a result of the commission of the offence;
(n) change the definition of “criminal organization” in Part 3 to give it the same meaning as in subsection 467.1(1) of the Criminal Code; and
(o) extend the time for instituting proceedings by way of summary conviction from six months to five years.
The enactment also amends the Balanced Refugee Reform Act to provide that a refugee protection claimant whose claim is rejected is not prevented from applying for protection earlier than 12 months after the day on which the claim is rejected, if it is rejected as a result of a vacation of the initial decision to allow the claim.
The enactment also amends the Marine Transportation Security Act to increase the penalties for persons who fail to provide information required to be reported before a vessel enters Canadian waters or to comply with ministerial directions and for persons who provide false or misleading information. It creates a new offence for vessels that fail to comply with ministerial directions. It also amends the Act to authorize regulations respecting the disclosure of certain information for the purpose of protecting the safety or security of Canada or Canadians.

Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I find what that member says just incredible. I mentioned some numbers. Numbers speak. They cannot be transformed. Twelve sections in Bill C-49 affect refugees. How many sections affect smugglers? We were told by the minister that this is a bill about smugglers. But only five sections in the bill affect smugglers. I would like to know where the focus is in this bill.

I and my party are all for change as far as the smugglers are concerned. Absolutely nobody on this side has ever said that it is a good thing for smugglers to smuggle. What we are saying is that they have to be punished, not the refugees. This bill would actually persecute would-be refugees.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently when the member for Trinity—Spadina participated in the debate yesterday afternoon. She talked about that very concept. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time, and I tried to concentrate on something else.

It is clear that those 10 years in limbo will mean 10 years of suffering for these families. It also means that this will cause many Canadians to suffer financially.

There is a lot to be said about the financial costs of this bill. Bill C-49 itself says nothing. It is absolutely silent.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for that correction. It is very kind of him. I am even happier. I had hoped that it was a Conservative because I hoped that there was at least some good in the Conservative Party with regard to immigration. But what can I do?

Let us go further back in time, to the arrival of 151 Tamils on the shores of Newfoundland in 1986. They were immediately granted landing until their refugee claims were processed by, and I hope this time I am right, the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. Two years later, that government enacted a complete overhaul of the refugee system, in 1988. Both the Conservative prime minister and his immigration minister, at the time, continued to stress Canada's humanitarian commitments to the dispossessed.

How ironic that Bill C-49 should reverse this humanitarian tradition of which Canada is so proud.

I think and hope that every member in this House remembers what happened in 1914 when a ship full of people from the Punjab, Sikhs, was refused landing. I hope people remember that in 1939 the St. Louis arrived on the eastern shore, and Jews fleeing Nazi Germany were also refused. We know what fate awaited them.

I would like to end on a more positive note.

I would like to quote Jeanne Sauvé, the then Governor General of Canada, who said in 1986 when Canada was awarded the Nansen Medal:

...this celebration cannot allow us to forget the harsh reality of the millions of displaced people and their tragic journey through solitude and abandonment.

Finally, I would like to quote from an article in the August 14 edition of the Calgary Herald, written by Don Martin, referring to the Sun Sea refugees who arrived recently off the coast of British Columbia. He said:

Only when it's women and children trapped in the hold, potentially trying to reunite with husbands or fathers who were on the Ocean Lady, is there a sudden screech for a security clampdown, revised laws and public safety campaign. It's a classic political diversion tactic.

These are not my words. These are the words of a journalist.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am rising in the House once again, this time to participate in today's debate about Bill C-49, which affects three laws: first, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act—which means revisiting Bill C-11; second, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act—and I wonder if it really is balanced; and third, the Marine Transportation Security Act.

This bills aims to correct an illegal situation. It really is a government's responsibility to protect its border security. Security is clearly a critical issue for the entire world.

I would like to refer to certain international documents, agreements that Canada has signed, thus agreeing to be fully accountable for implementing their contents.

First, I would like to remind members that Canada signed the 1951 Geneva convention. It is also signed the protocol stipulating that individuals who have been victims of persecution since 1951 must also be subject to the Geneva convention. I will obviously come back to this during my speech.

The Geneva convention and the protocol that followed are the reasons why our refugee acceptance system was created. This system, despite its faults and weaknesses, and there are some, has become a model for industrialized countries.

This bill proposes a number of clauses that would punish smugglers, those who profit from the poor people who are trying to flee their country and come to Canada to live a life free of terror, discrimination, rape and killing. These smugglers receive enormous amounts of money and they violate international laws as well as our own Canadian laws.

In response to that, Bill C-49 proposes a substantial fine, for example a fine of $1 million for any criminal organization guilty of inducing, aiding or abetting a group of people to illegally enter Canada. That is from subclause 117(3), as it would be amended by the bill.

This amount depends on the number of people arriving in the group. The offenders could also receive a life sentence.

That is an improvement, in my opinion.

These clauses can certainly act as a real deterrent for smugglers hoping to bring groups of people illegally into Canada. Still, I would suggest that impounding the vessel or ship on which they come would be an additional deterrent to these smugglers. The price of smuggling then would become exorbitant and the loss of the vessel a real economic loss.

We also wish to congratulate the minister on his intention to work with local police forces in the home countries of human smugglers.

That aspect is not included in the bill, but is an important part of any concrete action.

Refugee claimants are not criminals. How many times must we repeat this? However, Bill C-49 treats them as if they were guilty of crimes, and again, this is what the bill suggests throughout the first part of it. Why are there only five sections of Bill C-49 that impact smugglers and twelve sections that impact refugees? We thought it was about smugglers. In fact, it is about changing the Canadian law, after study, which admits prospective refugees.

Another question I have is, why is this bill sponsored by the minister responsible for public safety and national security? Is it because the Conservative government wants to give Canadians the impression that refugee claimants pose a security threat? It tried to do this with the ship that arrived off the coast of British Columbia a few weeks ago, when in fact we see several weeks later that not one person has been held because he or she is a terrorist, yet the rumour goes on.

The people who are on these ships, or whatever mode of transport they use, are seeking safety and a good life in Canada. It is not their intention to break any international or Canadian law, yet the government presumes that they do so when it decides, through a bill like Bill C-49, to detain all the individuals designated as irregular arrivals. Irregular arrivals are those people who arrive in groups larger than, one would suppose, just a man, his wife and his children.

In this way, Bill C-49 is in direct violation of section 11(g) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states that an individual is “not to be found guilty on account of any act or omission unless, at the time of the act or omission, it constituted an offence under Canadian or international law or was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations”.

These refugee claimants, these people who flee in exile, include women, elderly people, young children, men and quite often, as we have learned, even pregnant women.

As a signatory to the Geneva convention, Canada is duty bound to protect these claimants. But instead, Bill C-49 would have them immediately detained. Let us be clear: “detained” is a nicer way of saying “imprisoned” or “incarcerated”.

This is contrary to article 31(1) of the Geneva convention, which states, “The contracting states shall not impose penalties...provided [the refugees] present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.”

Even if we agreed that detention is required, the length set out by Bill C-49 also goes against article 31(2), which states, “The contracting states shall not apply to the movements of such refugees restrictions other than those which are necessary and such restrictions shall only be applied until their status in the country is regularized. The Contracting States shall allow such refugees a reasonable period... ”

I would like to emphasize the word “reasonable”.

But this bill proposes keeping these people in prison, until their identity can be proven, for up to one year.

Those of us who have worked with refugees and for refugees know that quite often, these vulnerable people have had to leave very suddenly and cannot always bring their official documents to prove their identity.

I should also remind hon. members that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, of which we are all so proud, protects any person present on Canadian soil, regardless of their citizenship.

What about the negative consequences of detention on these people? As I was saying earlier, among these refugees we often see older people, very young children and pregnant women. Often they have been tortured, raped or abused in their country. They received no protection in their own country and they fled.

They did not receive protection from the smugglers during the dangerous voyage, but they had hope. When they arrive in Canada, despite what they might expect, they are not entitled to protection from the Canadian authorities either.

How do we explain to these young children why they are prison? What crime did they commit?

I would like to read from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989. Section 40(2)(a) of this convention stipulates that:

No child shall be alleged as, be accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law by reason of acts or omissions that were not prohibited by national or international law at the time they were committed;

How do we explain this clear violation to them?

Section 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:

Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.

However, under clause 20 of the new Bill C-49:

The Minister may, by order, having regard to the public interest, designate as an irregular arrival the arrival in Canada of a group of persons...

And, under clause 55 of the same bill:

If a designation is made under subsection 20.1(1), an officer must

(a) detain, on their entry into Canada, a foreign national who, as a result of the designation, is a designated foreign national;

or

(b) arrest and detain...

This is clearly an arbitrary detention.

It is regrettable that under clause 110, no appeal may be made by a refugee claimant in respect of a decision of the Refugee Protection Division. In Canada, even common criminals have the right to appeal a judge's decision.

Our humanitarian tradition that allows individuals the right to appeal decisions is entrenched, or I thought it was. Even Bill C-11, tabled in Parliament by the same minister, respected this right.

Bill C-49 also has hidden consequences. For example, section 11 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, as amended, would state that the designated foreign national may not make an application for permanent residence until five years have elapsed. Subsection 25. (1.01) of the same amended act would also state that the foreign national may not make an application until five years have elapsed. It is clear; it is stated twice in the bill.

Let us figure it out. When people arrive in Canada they are held for one year to prove their identity. The applicant may become a designated refugee, if all goes well. At that point, he must wait five years before making an application for permanent residence. Why? When the Immigration and Refugee Board establishes that someone is a refugee, that person is permitted to apply immediately for permanent residence in Canada. After the five years, if all goes well, the person applies but does not immediately become a permanent resident. We know it, I know it and everyone with immigrants in their riding knows it as well: two or three years may elapse before the government responds to the application. I estimate, and I do not believe I am exaggerating, that someone could wait up to 10 years before receiving permanent residence status in Canada.

During these 10 years not only he but his entire family will be in limbo, not knowing how life will unravel.

An irregular or designated refugee will therefore have to wait 10 years before being able to sponsor his or her family. Those are the hidden consequences of Bill C-49. Refugees cannot sponsor their families before becoming permanent residents of Canada. Given that they will not have the right to travel outside Canada during the entire period, they also will not be able to visit their spouse or children. That comes from a government that boasts about protecting family values. These family values are certainly not protected. Quite the opposite.

Amendments to the current immigration law proposed under Bill C-49 further consolidate the minister's legal authority to suspend an application for the consideration of any type of status, for example refugee status or even to be heard on humanitarian and compassionate grounds for access to Canada's protection, for a full five years. Let us not forget the individual would have already spent 12 months in jail, called detention, even before the government would look at the case. All these delays would be based on whatever the government deems to be the grounds for public policy. This amendment would then become part of section 25 of the IRPA as amended under Bill C-11.

This means that the timeline we just suggested, these 10 years, is the best-case scenario. It is not the scenario where the person is sent back or is refused anything in Canada. It is a scenario where he thinks he is going to stay, 10 years of limbo if the minister decides not to intervene.

Let us go back in time. Bill C-49 brings us back to the time of the Chinese exclusion act, the act that caused Chinese men to live their lives here in Canada without their wives, without their families. In fact many of these men never saw their families again. It caused economic hardship.

This is what caused the Canadian people to say they would not continue this, and this is when the concept of family reunification came in, when Canadians decided it was cruel to allow people, men and women, to stay here in Canada as Canadians and yet separate them from their families, wives, husbands and children, for we did not know how long.

Lo and behold, it was a Conservative prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, who had the act repealed in 1947. How unfortunate that the present Conservative government cannot continue this humanitarian tradition.

Let us go back in time again to 1986—

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today in support of Bill C-49, an act to prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system.

Human smuggling is a transitional criminal enterprise that spans the globe and Interpol says that it is a growing global phenomena. This form of illegal commercial migration is very dangerous and it exploits those individuals who are captured within it. Human smugglers consider their passengers to be little more than cargo and the boats on which they carry their passengers are like nightmarish prisons.

Migrants are typically stranded at sea, on an overcrowded boat, with unsanitary and unsafe conditions. These conditions often lead to severe illness or cause fatal accidents. As a result of these inhumane conditions, people die in human smuggling operations every year. Nevertheless, many illegal migrants decide to risk their lives and undertake this perilous journey for their destination country.

By charging people large sums of money for their transportation, human smugglers have made a lucrative business out of facilitating illegal migration, often by counselling smuggled persons to claim asylum in the country to which they are smuggled. Once they arrive in their destination country, these migrants are often at the mercy of their human smugglers and forced to work for years in the illegal labour market just to pay off their debts to their smuggler.

The arrival of the MV Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady in a period of less than 12 months is a clear indication that Canada is becoming a favoured destination for these human smuggling networks. Interpol says that human smuggling syndicates benefit from weak legislation and low risk of detection, prosecutions and arrests compared to other transnational organized crimes. If we do not take strong action now, more vessels will arrive and more lives will be put at risk. We cannot just stand by and allow these exploitative operations to continue.

This legislation would enable us to crack down on the despicable human smugglers who prey on these vulnerable migrants, but it also aims to stop those tempted to use this perilous form of migration by introducing several disincentives.

A key disincentive is that those arriving as a result of a designated smuggling event would not be able to apply for permanent residency for a period of up to five years. This would apply whether they are found to be in need of protection or not. During this five year period, persons found to be in need of protection would be restricted from travelling outside of Canada and would be unable to apply for permanent residency to Canada through other means. As a result, they would not be eligible to sponsor family members into Canada or become Canadian citizens during that time period.

The legislation also proposes mandatory detention for up to one year, which would also help ensure the safety and the security of Canadians.

When these migrants arrive on our shores, we have no idea who they are or where they are from. Often, they arrive without proper documentation and we do not whether they are criminals or terrorists who pose a threat to our safety and our security. Mandatory detentions would allow us to properly verify and confirm the identities of individuals to determine whether they are in fact admissible to Canada or whether they are involved in some form of illegal activity. This proposal is entirely within reason and it is fair.

The government's priority is, first and foremost, to protect the safety and the security of Canadians. This is the least that Canadians can expect from their government.

We are also taking measures to ensure that these individuals have access to fewer Canadian benefits. As we all know, Canadians enjoy health services that are among the best and most generous in the world. We need to ensure that illegal migrants are not receiving health coverage that is more generous than what is offered to other Canadians. It certainly will not happen under this government.

Currently, asylum seekers, resettled refugees, failed asylum seekers awaiting removal, detained individuals and victims of trafficking are provided with temporary health coverage through the interim federal health program.

Under these proposed changes, the scope of the services provided under the IFH program would be limited for those who arrive in Canada illegally via human smuggling operations. They would receive only basic coverage, including medically necessary care and immigration medical exams that refugee claimants must take upon their arrival in order to ensure they do not pose a risk to public health or safety.

Canada's generosity should not make us a target for criminal activity such as smuggling operations. We must remove the incentives for people seeking to come here by way of human smuggling. In doing so, we will uphold the integrity of our immigration and refugee process and our programs and ensure that the safety and security of Canadians is put into place.

This has certainly taken the attention of the public over the past 12 months. We have seen two ships arrive in our country for the purposes of smuggling, which is why the scope of the bill needs to be implemented. I have heard opposition members claim that this bill is some sort of a knee-jerk reaction to what has happened. I find that compelling in a way because, if this were a reaction to what had happened, then they would have to argue that we are actually about 11 months late introducing this legislation.

This legislation was put together over the past series of months to ensure that we have legislation that is strong, that is certainly consistent with the charter and with our Constitution, and, most important, that is consistent with the feelings and the positions that Canadians have held on this issue across our country.

There is no doubt that the issue in itself is a difficult one. We all know and, as members of Parliament, we have listened to the positions, arguments and stories in our ridings of refugees who have claimed asylum. We have heard them say that they needed to come to Canada in order to escape the perils they faced in their country. There is no question that the reason these ships are here is that our system is so generous and open and we want to ensure that those who need protection and those who are truly refugees have a place to come to in safety where they can become Canadians, find employment, find a new way of life and raise their families in a country as democratic and open as Canada.

However, the fact remains that the only answer to solving this problem of ensuring those who are clearly refugees, clearly want to be here and clearly need to be here go through the process that we have in place.

The previous speaker mentioned Bill C-11, which is exactly what this country needed in terms of reforming our refugee legislation. We took great pains to get through that process. I know, as the parliamentary secretary, we worked hours upon hours and days upon days to get that legislation back to the House of Commons so it would be supported at third reading. When it did come back here, it in fact received support from all parties. We now have a new system in terms of refugee reform legislation that will be implemented over the next 18 months.

Bill C-49 is so well augmented with Bill C-11 that we will have completely reformed and changed the direction that this country needs to take when it comes to refugees and those who need to seek asylum here. They will need to seek asylum in a way that follows the system that we have in place, not to jump the queue and not to be forced by smugglers, who take advantage of every person on that boat, to pay for their freedom rather than earn that freedom through a process that we have in place, which is one of the most generous in the world. We cannot have it.

The Canadian people have spoken loud and clear on this issue. The one thing that we need to continue to come back to is fairness, because this is what the Canadian people understand so much better than the rest of the world. No Canadian wants to see individuals living in peril in their country. If it is important enough for us to understand that freedom of security, of governance and of democracy needs to happen here in this country and they deserve that, then our arms are wide open to them, but we have a process and a system.

There are people who are taking advantage of these individuals, charging them more money then they could ever afford in their lifetime, to get on to a boat and somehow find a way to come here. They make promises and claims. They literally push those individuals onto the vessel to get them here to Canada. They tell the individuals that Canada will accept them, that Canadian laws are so generous and in need of so much repair that when they land here they will be given the status they so want.

Those refugees who have a rightful claim and a rightful place for freedom will get that here in this country. However, those who do not are standing in the way of those who actually do.

This process of human smuggling, of bringing people into this country by crowding them onto a ship and having them land on Canadian soil, is not the way Canadians want this to happen. Canadians want to know who is on that ship and who is going to claim refugee status here.

Simply turning these hundreds of individuals loose on Canadian soil has the potential to put Canadian lives and health in peril. We do not know where these individuals have come from. We do not know if they are true refugees. We do not know if they are terrorists. We do not know if they are criminals in their own country. That is not the type of environment we want here in this country.

This bill changes all of that. It sets in place a process that will show respect for those who truly deserve refugee status. It will send a loud and clear message to countries and smugglers who live off the proceeds of these individuals that we will not be in a position as a country to accept this any more.

The Minister of Public Safety, the President of the Treasury Board, and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Multiculturalism made this announcement in front of one of the ships that arrived here. They made the announcement on the west coast, but that message travelled to the east coast of our country almost immediately. There is page after page of endorsement. Group after group, editorial after editorial, Canadian after Canadian have said that this legislation is right, it is timely, it is good, it is fair. It is something that everyone in this House should be supporting.

One headline reads, “Ottawa tightens rules on human smuggling”. The Headline News article states:

The bill, titled “Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act,” shows that Ottawa will not tolerate abuse of the system by getting ahead of the immigration line, but stresses that the federal government of Canada will continue to welcome legitimate immigrants who could contribute to the country.

An editorial in the Calgary Herald stated:

Tough anti-smuggling legislation aimed at stopping boats of illegal migrants from showing up on Canadian shores, places the punishment where it belongs, on the smugglers.

...It's a welcome crackdown on a crime most Canadians would agree is heinous.

The list goes on. Another editorial on human smuggling stated:

The government must act to safeguard the integrity of Canada's immigration system, which welcomes 250,000 newcomers a year. Polls show that the public's high level of support for immigration dipped by 20 per cent after the arrival of the Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady -- even though asylum seekers and skilled immigrants are two very different streams.

That is a very important point to realize. We are a country that accepts, at the present time, per capita more immigrants than anywhere else in the world. We are open to skilled immigrants. We are open to low-skilled immigrants. We are open to seasonal workers. We are open to immigrants who want to come to this country to build a new life for themselves and their families.

What we are not open to is those who want to come here to take advantage of our system, those who in fact want to move to the front of the line. Smugglers know this. They know that in their hearts Canadians want to help these people so they take advantage of it.

By passing this legislation, we would at least be putting ourselves in a position where we no longer would be that country where terrorists and smugglers simply say, “We will dump them all in Canada. We will make millions and millions of dollars, and we will dump them all in Canada because Canada does not have the laws in place to prevent this from happening”.

Canadians have spoken loudly on this issue. They want to welcome new immigrants to this country. Many of us in this House have parents or grandparents who came to this country as immigrants. There are members in the House who came to this country to become Canadians. All of them have done it in a way that respects the rule of law in this country and that respects the system of fairness that all Canadians have come to accept.

The opposition is trying to say that this is something it is not, that this is a position we hold because we want to hurt people. It is the exact opposite. That type of rhetoric has no place in this House of Commons.

There are individuals and families who need our help, but those families and individuals are not just those who seek refugee status in our country. They are the very families and individuals who are Canadians and are here right now.

We need a system of fairness. We need a system of equality. We need a system of acceptance. We need a system that protects Canadians, but says to those who claim refugee status that we are a country that is open, we are a country that is free, we are a county that is accepting, but let us make sure that we do it with fairness and that we do it through a system that protects the individuals who are truly refugees and that protects Canadians here.

This is legislation we need. This is legislation that Canadians want. This is legislation that will actually put our country in a position not only to promote why this is a great country to come to, but why this is a great country in which to live.

There are smugglers and others who take advantage of the most down and out in an attempt to profit, and there may be those in the opposition who would allow that to continue and will vote against this legislation. However, there is no one on this side of the House who will do that. We are going to make sure that we fight as long and hard as we need to in order to put this legislation in place and bring our system up to where it needs to be.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I understand the minister because those people, obviously, are not Canadian citizens. But they are still citizens of the world who have a right to benefit from the treaties that Canada has ratified and that allow them to seek asylum.

Once again, what we are seeing with Bill C-49 is that the public safety minister can designate as irregular an arrival in Canada of a group of persons, who then become designated foreign nationals. Designated foreign nationals who claim refugee or protected person status will be treated differently from other asylum seekers. The fact that different applicants would be treated differently is what we found to be unacceptable in Bill C-11. In Bill C-49, a different status is created for these designated foreign nationals.

If they are denied refugee status, they have to wait five years before they can apply for permanent resident status. In the meantime, their claim could be re-evaluated to determine whether they can return to their country.

They cannot travel outside Canada or apply for permanent resident status or citizenship for five years. Consequently, they cannot sponsor members of their family, such as their spouse or children. Designated foreign nationals who have been denied asylum cannot appeal to the new refugee appeal division, only to the Federal Court. They also will not have access to health benefits that other refugees can access through the interim federal health program.

And so, not only is the principle of fairness—which says that all refugees have access to the system—being called into question, but asylum seekers who arrive in a group will be in a sort of legal vacuum for five years, which will strip them of the same rights given to asylum seekers who follow the usual refugee process. Just because a group of people arrives, that does not mean that they are not legitimate refugees, and the Bloc Québécois feels that this categorization would be extremely prejudicial to them.

The acceptance rate for refugee claims by Sri Lankan Tamils is 80% on average, and there is no indication that the situation in Sri Lanka will change and that it will be deemed that their lives are not in peril.

It must be understood that the Bloc Québécois' objective has never changed and has always been to oppose categories based on the origin of claimants or how they arrived here, because Canada has signed international treaties. Therefore, these people can make a claim, but that does not mean it will be accepted. We need an analysis process that is effective and quick. For that reason, the Bloc Québécois asked for the current process to be revised and for an appeal division to be set up so these individuals would have the opportunity to assert their rights. It must be effective, and we have to invest the money needed to do that.

The Conservative ideology was bolstered by the arrival of a large number of refugees, which received extensive media coverage. The Conservatives decided to make this their priority and to set aside all the opportunities they had to modernize the current process through Bill C-11.

This does not bode well for future discussions. In fact, the legal vacuum created for this category of designated foreign nationals, who are not yet classified as refugees, keeps these designated foreigners in legal limbo for five years, when they file a claim for refugee or protected person status. During that time, they cannot apply for permanent residence or family reunification. Consequently, they cannot sponsor members of their family or their spouse. Furthermore, they are not free to move or to enjoy all the rights that other claimants may have.

As I mentioned, Canada's international and constitutional obligations are important. Not only does this bill run counter to its international obligations under at least three treaties it has signed, but it also contravenes the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states in subsection 15(1):

Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Which includes how they get to Canada.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, about Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act.

It is important to clearly understand the objectives of this bill. One of the objectives is to allow the public safety minister to designate as irregular an arrival in Canada of a group of persons, who are categorized as “designated foreign nationals”. Designated foreign nationals who claim refugee or protected person status will be treated differently from other asylum seekers.

That is the reality. My Conservative colleagues are trying to tell us that this bill is meant to crack down on human smugglers, but its real objective is to create two categories of refugees, or rather a new category for designated foreign nationals. That is the reality.

Again, the Bloc Québécois will not support Bill C-49 and will vote against it, because it aims to do more than just crack down on human smugglers. It will punish people who are fleeing persecution, including children. Once again, the Conservatives are using a specific example from recent events—which made headlines in Quebec and Canada—to advance their law and order agenda, even though the measures they are proposing will not change the situation. The reality is that these people have arrived, they are here and the bill will not change anything in terms of the situation that unfolded when the last boat arrived in British Columbia.

The Bloc Québécois therefore opposes any new refugee category that would be justified only by the manner in which refugee claimants arrive. The fact that claimants arrive in a group does not mean they are not legitimate refugees. The Bloc Québécois believes that a new category that puts even heavier burdens on refugees would be prejudicial. We also deplore the fact that this government is backtracking, after a compromise had been reached on refugee reform. For years now, we have been calling for the refugee system to be updated and for the creation of an appeal system. We had nearly reached an agreement with the government, but instead it has decided to push ahead with its agenda rather than a compromise, because of a media event.

We in the Bloc Québécois believe it is simply inconceivable that all refugee claimants who arrive in a group can automatically be imprisoned for a maximum of 12 months, with no possibility of disputing their arrest. Worse still, according to the bill, that period can be extended indefinitely. This is a matter of fundamental human rights and democracy, specifically, the right to liberty. No human being should have to face such a situation.

This bill on illegal immigration goes against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as Canada's international obligations under the 1951 refugee convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Bloc Québécois believes that it would be completely irresponsible to vote in favour of a bill that flies in the face of at least three treaties meant to protect fundamental human rights.

For years, the governments, Liberal and Conservative alike, have allowed the current refugee system to get bogged down without doing anything about it. The thing that should be noted about this alarming statement is that this is not the first time the Conservative government has tried to resolve the problem by tightening the rules around asylum seekers coming to Canada. Take, for instance, the decision to require visas from Mexicans and foreign nationals from the Czech Republic, or the government's unwavering desire to develop a list of safe countries of origin as part of the refugee system reform. We do indeed detect, in the development of immigration policies, a discriminatory tendency to want to close the borders, including to those who are seeking refugee status. The proof is in the targeted range for total protected persons, which went from between 26,000 and 31,800 in 2008 to between 19,600 and 26,000 in 2010, not to mention the growing use of propaganda rhetoric that, in the name of national security, is used to justify taking a hard-line approach to this category of immigrants.

Although the government is saying it wants to punish human smugglers with this bill, it is instead punishing people who are fleeing persecution, including children. Once again, the government is being utterly discriminatory toward these refugees and is putting words into action to separate what it considers to be good refugees from bad refugees, as though their lives were not equally threatened.

The current system is bogged down because no one wanted to modernize it. When refugees arrive in large numbers, the government's tendency, which was solidified under the Liberals and confirmed by the Conservatives, is to tighten the system and prohibit them from entering the country. Under international treaties that Canada has signed, refugees deserve at least to have their file reviewed. Will we keep them all here? Not at all. Far from it. We will offer hospitality to those who truly need it and who are being persecuted in their home country, but we have to develop an effective file analysis system that respects human rights.

The Bloc Québécois has repeatedly shown the House that the existing system should be updated. The Liberals did not want to do it. The Conservatives appeared to want to do it—we hoped so, at least—but the Minister of Immigration was rebuffed with this bill, which flatly rejects everything he had put in place through discussions and negotiations to change the existing system. By creating a new class of refugees or foreign nationals requesting asylum, they are rejecting all improvements to the existing system.

I will now turn to security. When the MV Sun Sea arrived, the government issued a barrage of public statements positioning the arrival of boats as a threat to the security of Quebeckers and Canadians. As it turns out, those statements were unfounded. True to their ideology, the Conservatives used a widely reported event to promote their own political law and order agenda. There was no reason to believe that the arrival of the MV Sun Sea posed a threat to the security of Quebeckers and Canadians.

Under the existing law, any asylum seeker arriving by boat must be fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed. Canada's waters are under the authority of the Canada Border Services Agency, the CBSA, which has the power to detain asylum seekers if there are any doubts about their identity and to oppose their release before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Immigration Division.

Some of the other 76 Tamils from Sri Lanka who arrived last year aboard the Ocean Lady and requested asylum remained behind bars for more than six months. None of them were found to be members of the Tamil Tigers or any similar organization. They were eventually released once the CBSA found that they were not a threat to national security.

Let us not forget that the 492 passengers aboard the MV Sun Sea accounted for less than 2% of the asylum requests received annually. The record, 5%, occurred in 1999, when four boats arrived carrying 600 asylum seekers. In 2010, the number of requests should be around 25,000, the lowest average in the past 20 years.

Arguments to the effect that the arrival of huge numbers of refugees poses a threat to public safety do not hold up. They certainly do not justify passing a bill that treats refugee claimants so harshly. We are not saying that smugglers should not be punished. However, this bill punishes legitimate refugee claimants. That is the problem. In addition, we feel that the existing act has all the mechanisms required to manage the arrival of these boats.

Why create a new category? The Conservatives simply decided to advance their ideological agenda.

Let us examine the compromise struck by Bill C-11. The Conservative government seems to be obsessed with classifying refugee claimants based on their numbers or origin. Such a measure was widely denounced when Bill C-11 on reform of the asylum system was studied. Initially, the federal government wanted especially to implement the concept of designated countries. Failed claimants from countries deemed to be safe would not have had access to the new refugee appeal division, a measure deemed extremely discriminatory by the Bloc Québécois.

The Conservative government insisted on this country classification. It said that, if this measure was not accepted, it would scuttle its own bill. Imagine. By making a strong case for refugee rights to the government and the other parties, the Bloc Québécois helped members reach a last-minute compromise designed to produce a reform that was truly effective and, even more importantly, fair to all asylum seekers.

Once again, it is important to understand that under international treaties that Canada has signed or recognized—and that Quebec would have signed if it were a country—all refugee claimants are treated with respect and have the right to be treated fairly, no matter their country of origin.

Even though the concept of designated countries still exists, this division will be accessible to everyone, including claimants from the designated countries. To compensate for that, two other expediting mechanisms were put in place. That was the compromise with Bill C-11. If the Refugee Protection Division rejects a claim for refugee protection, it may state in its reasons for the decision that the claim is manifestly unfounded if it is of the opinion that the claim is clearly fraudulent. Unsuccessful claims submitted by claimants from the same country that are referred to the RAD would then be expedited. There will be regulations regarding the processing times for refugee claimants from a designated country. They will be shorter than for regular claims so that claimants who file unfounded claims can be deported as quickly as possible.

The Bloc Québécois cannot believe that the government has decided to take a step backwards, when a compromise had been made regarding the reform of the current refugee system. In fact, with Bill C-49, the government is creating a new category of refugee, based solely on the way the refugee claimant arrives. That is what is unacceptable.

The Bloc Québécois agreed to make compromises on Bill C-11. The government wanted safe countries. For those arriving from these countries, there was no division that applied, while for those not arriving from safe countries, there was a division that did not apply. All the government said was that the same standards apply to everyone, but for certain countries, the processing time would be shorter. Obviously, that was a compromise that the Bloc Québécois could accept, given the Conservatives' intransigence. Now, the government has changed its mind and is ignoring all of the debates and forcing Bill C-49 on us, because there was a story in the news that gave the government the opportunity to advance its ideological agenda, whether it will admit it or not. Once again, I was listening to the Conservative member who spoke before me. He made it clear that the goal was to combat illegal smuggling, but the real goal is to create a system that treats refugee claimants differently when they arrive by that means.

So there is a new category. The Minister of Public Safety, citizens of the world—

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour and a pleasure for me to rise and speak in favour of Bill C-49, Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, and I would certainly like to commend the hon. Ministers of Citizenship and Immigration and of Public Safety for the good and timely work they have done in getting this legislation before the House.

Hon. members will know that in recent years the smuggling of human beings across international borders has become a multi-million dollar activity that is actually global in scope. Some estimates place the number of people who are smuggled across borders every year at 800,000. The United Nations notes that it is one of the fastest growing areas of international criminal activity.

The precise number of people who are smuggled across international borders is difficult to confirm, given the clandestine nature of these operations, but there is no doubt that human smuggling is big, big business. People can be smuggled by land, by sea or by air. Human smuggling may be perpetrated by organized crime groups or by individuals with links to terrorist organizations. This fact in itself should spur us all into action. Like many of our international allies and partners, Canada today is a target for the global activities of organized criminal enterprises that engage in this reprehensible act of human smuggling.

Canadians have recently witnessed the arrival of 492 Sri Lankan Tamils aboard the MV Sun Sea, less than one year after the arrival of 76 Sri Lankan Tamils aboard the boat the Ocean Lady.

Earlier this month, a number of people were discovered in a container at the Port of Montreal in a possible case of human smuggling or human trafficking.

Last year, the RCMP's Atlantic region immigration and passport section, working with the Integrated Border Enforcement Team in New Brunswick, arrested four people alleged to have facilitated illegal migration. Two of these individuals have since pleaded guilty and were convicted of offences under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, including human smuggling and misrepresentation.

Finally, Canadians previously witnessed the seizure of four cargo ships that appeared in remote west coast waters, carrying nearly 600 migrants from southern China. Many of these individuals were children and teenagers whose parents had paid sums equivalent to 10 years of their salaries to so-called snakeheads that specialize in human smuggling.

Human smuggling is a serious crime. I think all members of the House would agree with that, and the international community has taken decisive action to respond to it. The UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplemental Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air provide a broad international framework to respond to the varied threats posed by organized crime and their smuggling ventures.

Canada was among the first countries to sign and ratify these important international crime treaties, and the tabling of this bill today reflects Canada's ongoing commitment to strengthening our responses to migrant smuggling.

Human smuggling undermines the integrity of Canada's borders and our immigration and refugee programs and system. It poses a threat to public safety, since the identities of smuggled individuals are often hard to establish, and in many cases, it poses a threat to national security or public safety, since human smuggling ventures are also being used to traffic narcotics and/or arms, to secure safe haven for criminals and terrorists, and to raise funds for a wide range of illicit activities, including the aforementioned terrorism.

Bill C-49 will give law enforcement officials much needed and additional tools to investigate and prosecute these individuals who organize and engage in human smuggling ventures. It will also enhance law enforcement's ability to investigate the potential national security and public safety risks posed by unidentified migrants who come to Canada as part of an irregular arrival, among whom there may be individuals with criminal and/or terrorist links.

More specifically, Bill C-49 will amend the current human smuggling offence, about which the last speaker spoke, in section 117 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The proposed amendments would make it an offence to organize, induce, aid or abet someone to enter Canada, knowing that or being reckless as to whether that entry would be in contravention of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Currently, only situations where the smuggler knew that the smuggled person did not possess the documents necessary to enter Canada are captured as an offence under the act.

It is clear, at least it is clear to the members on this side of the House, that by broadening the offence in this fashion our laws will now better reflect the different methods that smugglers utilize to bring persons into Canada.

In addition to amending the offence, the bill also proposes tough mandatory minimum penalties of imprisonment ranging from 3 to 10 years, depending on the particular facts that are proven in court. This sends the clear message to smugglers, criminals who have little concern for smuggled persons and immigration laws, that Canada will no longer tolerate these illegal activities.

The bill also proposes increasing the penalties for the operator of any vessel who fails to comply with ministerial direction to leave or not enter Canadian waters or who fails to provide required pre-arrival information, and who provides false or misleading information to officials.

Today, vessels of 300 gross registered tons or more that are bound for Canada must fill out a pre-arrival information report at least 96 hours before arriving at a Canadian port. The Minister of Transport has the authority to direct any vessel to not enter Canadian coastal waters or to travel to another area in Canadian waters when and if there are reasonable grounds to believe the vessel in question may pose a security threat.

It is an offence under the Marine Transportation Security Act to knowingly make a false or misleading statement or to provide false or misleading information. Currently there are fines and a maximum one-year prison term for failure to comply with the ministerial direction or for making false or misleading statements and a maximum six-month prison term for not filing the requisite pre-arrival information report.

Bill C-49 also proposes significantly stiffer fines as a further deterrent to those considering mounting marine human smuggling ventures into Canada. Indeed, the amendments the government is proposing will mean that the operator of any vessel who fails to comply with a ministerial directive to leave Canadian waters or one who provides false or misleading information to officials will be hit much harder in the pocketbook and will face a longer prison term.

The proposed penalties for failing to comply with certain requirements of the Marine Transportation Security Act will be raised from $10,000 to $200,000 in the case of an individual on conviction on indictment. In case of a corporation, on conviction on indictment the penalties will be raised from $200,000 to $500,000.

The penalties will be even higher in the event of subsequent offences. Again, in the case of individuals, maximum potential prison terms will be raised from six months to a maximum of one year for those who fail to file the pre-arrival information report.

Stiffer consequences, stiffer fines and stiffer sentences will all send a signal to human smugglers that Canada will not tolerate their illegal and highly dangerous activities. Canada will not sit still while human smugglers calmly sail into our waters, travel across our borders or even land at our airports.

We will take action. We will work with our international partners to deter, detect and prevent these illegal activities. If they do get to Canada, we will take every step possible to hold these persons accountable.

In addition, Bill C-49 will ensure that border officials and police have the time to properly identify and investigate the organizers of human smuggling operations, as well as smuggled individuals who may pose a threat to our safety and to our security.

In particular, the bill that the government has put forward will provide for the mandatory detention of persons who arrive in Canada as part of a designated arrival until such time as they have been determined to be refugees by the Immigration and Refugee Board or 12 months have passed since they were initially detained, with exceptions for cases that involve exceptional circumstances.

This measure will prevent potentially dangerous or inadmissible persons from being released into Canada before their identity and the level of risk they present to Canadians can firmly be established. As the minister has mentioned, these amendments proposed are tough but they are also fair. They will help to make Canada a much less attractive target for human smugglers. They will help to make sure that the organizers of human smuggling operations are better held to account for this reprehensible crime.

I therefore urge all hon. members to support this legislation before us today and to work with the government to ensure its speedy passage.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this House in support of Bill C-49, the preventing human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system act.

From the day our Conservative government was first elected, we have made strengthening the criminal justice system a consistent priority. We have told Canadians that we would take action to crack down on the activities of organized crime groups and others whose activities undermine public safety and destabilize our communities. We told them that we would help build safer neighbourhoods for everyone and ensure that our streets and homes would be places where families could feel secure.

Ours is a government of action. We have consistently delivered on these promises time and time again. We have passed legislation to stiffen penalties for crime, and violent gun crimes in particular. We have provided law enforcement agencies with the tools and resources they need to do their jobs. We have taken steps to ensure that violent offenders are kept behind bars, not in their living rooms.

We are here today to take decisive action again.

In August, Canadians were reminded that this country is not immune to the global activities of organized crime groups intent on making a profit from the smuggling of hundreds of foreign nationals. The arrival of 492 Sri Lankan Tamils aboard the MV Sun Sea came less than one year after the arrival of 76 Sri Lankan Tamils aboard the Ocean Lady. The fact that two such vessels have reached Canadian shores in less than 12 months clearly demonstrates that large and growing human smuggling ventures are extending their reach and expanding their logistical capabilities and that these human smuggling networks are increasingly targeting Canada.

Human smuggling is a despicable crime, and abusing Canada's generosity for financial gain is utterly unacceptable.

Canada has an obligation to crack down on dangerous criminal enterprises that benefit only those who organize such large-scale ventures and do so little with regard to the human cargo which they transport.

We also know that human smuggling routes can be used to traffic narcotics and firearms. This poses a threat to public safety and erodes our communities.

The profits from human smuggling may also be used to fund other illicit criminal activities.

Our government is committed to protecting the safety and security of Canadians. We are committed to maintaining the integrity of our borders and our immigration and refugee programs. We are committed to ensuring that Canada's immigration system remains fair. That is what the legislation before us today is about.

Bill C-49 is focused on giving officials additional tools to better respond to human smuggling.

First, we are proposing targeted amendments to the smuggling offence to ensure that it captures the various ways in which smuggling can occur.

Under the current regime, prosecutions for human smuggling require proof that the accused knew the individuals being smuggled did not have the documents required by law to enter Canada. Today's amendments would expand this to include any violation of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, including for example bringing people into Canada in a way that avoids their presenting themselves for examination as required by the act.

Currently, only situations where the smuggler knew that the smuggled persons did not posses the documents necessary to enter Canada are captured as an offence under the act.

What does this mean in the context of smuggling? It means that a prosecutor could prove this offence by showing that the accused was aware of the substantial risks if the smuggled person was or would be entering Canada in contravention to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act but simply did not care.

We believe these changes would improve our ability to investigate and prosecute those who contribute to human smuggling ventures.

Second, we are proposing an escalating mandatory minimum penalty scheme for persons convicted of smuggling, reflecting our government's intention to more effectively deter and denounce this criminal activity.

Under the proposed legislation, the number of people smuggled and the presence of aggravating facts would determine which mandatory minimum penalty would be imposed upon conviction. The two aggravating facts are: the offence was committed for profit or for the benefit of, at the discretion of, or in association with a criminal organization or terrorist group; and the person, in committing the offence, endangered the life or safety or caused bodily harm or death to any of the persons smuggled.

The mandatory penalties would be, where less than 50 persons are smuggled, three years' imprisonment if one of the above aggravating facts was present, or five years' imprisonment if two of the above aggravating facts were present. The mandatory minimum penalties would be, where 50 or more persons are smuggled, five years' imprisonment if one of the above aggravating facts was present, and ten years' imprisonment if two of the above aggravating facts were present.

These amendments send a clear message. We will not tolerate smuggling operations in Canada and such conduct will be met with strong sanctions.

We are also proposing amendments to the Marine Transportation Security Act. For example, this bill would increase the penalties for anyone who fails to comply with the ministerial direction to not enter or leave or to proceed to another area in Canadian waters. Increased penalties will also apply to anyone who fails to submit required vessel pre-arrival information or who provides Canadian officials with false or misleading information.

The irregular arrival of a large number of irregular migrants all making refugee claims can pose significant challenges for border officials who are tasked with identifying each applicant in determining whether the individual is inadmissible to Canada and whether the individual poses a risk, due to the individual's association with organized criminal or terrorist organizations.

The sheer number of applicants combined with the increased complexity of examinations and investigations can and does overwhelm existing resources. This is why we need a new approach to the processing of irregular migrants, or one that will ensure Canada remains fair but also vigilant.

Bill C-49 accomplishes this by allowing the Minister of Public Safety to designate those who land on our shores in a way similar to those aboard the MV Sun Sea or the Ocean Lady as an irregular arrival. The minister will be able to make such a designation when he or she has reasonable grounds to believe that establishing the identity or admissibility of individuals who come to Canada as part of the arrival or other investigations cannot be carried out in a timely manner, or if he or she has reasonable grounds to suspect that the arrival of the group involved organized human smuggling activity.

Under the current rules, any foreign national or permanent resident may be detained on entry into Canada. People can be detained if an immigration officer considers such an examination necessary in order to continue an examination. They can also be detained if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they are inadmissible to Canada, are a danger to the public or are unlikely to appear for an immigration proceeding.

The reasons for such detention however, must be reviewed by the Immigration and Refugee Board within 48 hours, and subsequently reviewed within seven days, and then each 30-day period that follows. In many cases this provides a reasonable system of checks and balances to help prevent unreasonably long detentions.

In the case of irregular arrivals however, the current system of detention review does not provide officers from Canada Border Services Agency with sufficient time to properly interview and identify each individual, or to determine whether the individual may be inadmissible to Canada or pose a risk to Canadians.

Too many resources are expended in meeting the demands of the detention review schedule rather than focusing on the required investigations and verifications needed to ensure the integrity of Canada's immigration and refugee program as well as the safety and security of Canadians.

Bill C-49 addresses this by providing for the mandatory detention of persons who arrive in Canada as part of a designated arrival until such time as they are found to be refugees by the Immigration and Refugee Board, or until 12 months have passed since they were first detained. Those persons still detained after 12 months will have a detention review hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board to determine whether there is a basis for their continued detention. If the Immigration and Refugee Board continues detention, there will be subsequent reviews every six months. The minister will be able to order early release where exceptional circumstances exist.

Under our proposed amendments, individuals who come to Canada as part of a designated arrival will, for a period of five years, be prevented from applying for permanent resident status and sponsoring family members. Restrictions on travelling outside Canada will also apply during this period. They will also be prevented from accessing a more generous health care plan than the average Canadian currently receives, something they can do at the present time through the interim federal health plan.

These are practical and sensible provisions. They address the need to properly identify individuals who come to Canada as part of an irregular arrival. They will help to keep Canadians safe by helping to ensure that dangerous criminals and terrorists are not released into Canadian society. They will also help deter human smuggling operations from targeting Canada.

We also need to deter other kinds of abuse of Canada's immigration and refugee protection program. Refugee status can be revoked when it is proven before the refugee protection division of the Immigration and Refugee Board that an individual had lied to support his or her claim for protection and that the remaining credible evidence is not sufficient to support the individual's need for refugee protection. This is referred to in the act as the vacation of refugee status.

Bill C-49 amends the Balanced Refugee Reform Act to prevent such persons from appealing decisions of the refugee protection division with regard to the vacation of refugee protection to the refugee appeal division of the Immigration and Refugee Board. The bill also eliminates appeals to the refugee appeal division with respect to the decisions the division has made that a person's need for refugee protection has ceased.

All these measures substantially enhance our ability to crack down on those who engage in human smuggling. They strengthen our ability to protect the safety and security of Canadians from criminal or terrorist threats, and they respect our international obligations and commitments to provide assistance and sanctuary for genuine refugees.

Before I end my speech, I want to address the comments made by the NDP's public safety critic last week. He compared the selfless act of those who helped slaves escape persecution to the criminal human smugglers who prey on vulnerable individuals and who only care about profit. That member should be ashamed and he should apologize to this House.

Human smugglers are clearly targeting Canada and are treating our country like a doormat. The problem is growing and must be stopped.

Canadians expect appropriate measures to respond to the challenges associated with such large-scale arrivals, such as those we have recently witnessed. They want to help those in need and those who need our protection, but Canadians are not naive. They know that threats exist and that we must remain vigilant.

That is why our government is committed to taking action on many fronts, both domestically and internationally. That is what we have done, and that is what we are going to continue to do in the future.

We are proud of this bill. I encourage the member for Vancouver Kingsway and all members to recognize that the serious problem posed by human smuggling is growing and must be stopped.

The House resumed from October 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Madam Speaker, there are too many misconceptions in that speech for me to respond to at this point but I do have two points to make.

First, the member is factually mistaken when she says that the government of Australia has changed its policy with respect to detention of asylum seekers. In fact, the Australian detention policy, under the Labor government, is far more robust than that which we propose in Bill C-49. In fact, it detains all asylum seekers, regardless of whether they were smuggled to Australia or not, or the means through which they arrived, until their claims are processed. We propose to do no such thing. The Australian practice in that regard, frankly, reflects the standard practice in most other democracies that are signatories to the United Nations convention on refugees.

Having said that, what I found most disturbing and, frankly, demagogic in her speech was to draw a completely specious parallel with the tragic and unjust experience of the rejection of the St. Louis and other second world war Jewish refugees. In that case, Canada had a deliberate policy of none is too many, where we deliberately excluded Jewish immigrants as refugees. We had no refugee resettlement program and no asylum system per se.

Under the regime we propose in Bill C-49, people arriving in those circumstances would be able to enter our waters, disembark and have an asylum claim. Under the new system that we adopted this spring, they would almost certainly have a positive protection decision and be out of detention within a matter of a couple of months. To suggest that we would return people to their deaths is irresponsible and demagogic. Canada--

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

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.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, being an immigrant to this country, I have a lot of interest in this legislation and I listened to the member opposite very carefully.

I understand that quite a few immigrant community organizations have endorsed Bill C-49. I will try to read the names of a few: the Tamil Community Centre; Toronto Community & Culture Centre; the United Macedonian Diaspora (Canada); Taiwanese Canadian Association of Toronto; Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society; l'Association du Canada; Islamic Lebanese centre; World Lebanese Cultural Union; B'nai Brith Canada; Canadian Friends of Ukraine; Young Polish Canadian Professionals Association; Chinese Cultural Association of Greater Toronto; Canadian Confederation of Fujian Associations; Canada First Community Organization; Armenian National Committee of Toronto; Multicultural Helping House Society; Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations; Armenian National Committee of Canada - Western Region; Vancouver Multicultural Society; to name a few.

What does the hon. member e attribute all those immigrant communities lining up in support of this bill?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

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.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.