Bill C-31 (Historical)

Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act

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

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Balanced Refugee Reform Act to, among other things, provide for the expediting of the processing of refugee protection claims.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is also amended to authorize the Minister, in certain circumstances, to designate as an irregular arrival the arrival in Canada of a group of persons and to provide for the effects of such a designation in respect of those persons, including in relation to detention, conditions of release from detention and applications for permanent resident status. In addition, the enactment amends certain enforcement provisions of that Act, notably to expand the scope of the offence of human smuggling and to provide for minimum punishments in relation to that offence. Furthermore, the enactment amends that Act to expand sponsorship options in respect of foreign nationals and to require the provision of biometric information when an application for a temporary resident visa, study permit or work permit is made.
In addition, the enactment amends the Marine Transportation Security Act to increase the penalties for persons who fail to provide information that is 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 in respect of vessels that fail to comply with ministerial directions and authorizes the making of regulations respecting the disclosure of certain information for the purpose of protecting the safety or security of Canada or Canadians.
Finally, the enactment amends the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act to enhance the authority for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to enter into agreements and arrangements with foreign governments, and to provide services to the Canada Border Services Agency.

Bill C-31—Time allocation motion

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. A filibuster is a parliamentary tactic that seeks to delay or prevent a vote on a motion by means of endless debates.

We just heard the hon. opposition member say that she believes that every member should speak to the bill at every stage. If that applied to every bill, then it would be impossible for Parliament to take action, to make decisions and to get anything done.

In a parliamentary context, we have to find a balance between democratic debates, deliberations, consideration of changes and actions. I believe we have found a good balance with, as I was saying, more than 130 speeches, almost 50 hours of debate and the adoption by the government of the motions moved by the opposition.

At the end of the day, our deadline is June 29 and we have to fix the problems with our asylum system, which is the purpose of Bill C-31.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by expressing how grateful I am to the government for allowing us to debate this bill for 13 days. Indeed, we have here a budget implementation bill that amends roughly 70 Canadian laws in 430 pages, and we debated it for only one week. I understand that to the government, 13 days is a long debate.

The minister was talking about a filibuster. Apparently we had a filibuster during consideration of Bill C-31. I would like to know his definition of filibuster. Indeed, to him, holding a democratic debate in the House, listening to public opinion and studying bills are part and parcel of a filibuster.

I would like the minister to rise and explain to us the meaning of filibuster and the difference between a filibuster and a democratic debate on amendments he made to his bill.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Madam Speaker, it was just this morning that I received more emails in my mail pouch dealing with the issue of Bill C-31 and the concerns--

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, that question is just complete nonsense. The reality is that every member has had an opportunity to speak repeatedly on this bill. First of all, many of the elements of Bill C-31 were debated in the previous Parliament under the heading of Bill C-49. Second, in the earlier part of this Parliament most of the provisions of the bill were debated in the form of Bill C-4.

Altogether in this Parliament there have been 47.5 hours of debate, 130 speeches, meaning 130 MPs have spoken to the bill, and 43 hours of committee study. If there are any questions that have not been posed, or any views that have not been expressed during those almost 50 hours of House debate and over 40 hours of committee debate, I would really like to know what they are. I do not know who has been asleep at the switch.

I can say that I have followed this debate very closely. I have been in the House for almost every single hour of debate, and I do not hear new questions or new points of view. I just hear the same speeches being regurgitated over and over again. Eventually we must act in order to meet the deadline of June 29 and to keep our commitment to Canadians to fix the broken asylum system.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a reasonable question. The government did give priority to Bill C-31. Since the bill was introduced in the House, we have spent more hours debating this bill than almost any other bill. We made it a priority to send the bill to committee.

As I just mentioned, the bill has been debated for 13 days or 47.5 hours. Members have given 130 speeches on this matter, which is a lot. There have also been questions and comments after almost every speech. The bill was studied in detail in committee.

I must point out that the government made the substantial amendments suggested by the committee. The government agreed to the amendments proposed by the opposition.

Quite frankly, I believe that this is an example of a process that works very well when it comes to the proceedings and the opposition interests.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. minister for his clarifications. We are all well aware that the bill has a time limit stemming from legislation passed in the previous Parliament. I would like to ask why time allocation in this instance must be rushed to such an extent that we will not have a proper discussion in this place of amendments that are now properly before the House. There should be the opportunity for members to speak to their own amendments in relation to Bill C-31.

I want to thank the hon. minister for being more flexible and willing to take on changes to this legislation and other legislation in the 41st Parliament, but there is more that should be done on this bill before we are finished with it.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Madam Speaker, I can. In fact, there is a very clear and compelling deadline that we are rapidly approaching which requires the rapid adoption of Bill C-31, the protecting Canada's immigration system act.

In the last Parliament, the 40th Parliament, this place adopted then Bill C-11, the balanced refugee reform act, that included major revisions to Canada's asylum system which are scheduled to come into force by June 29, 2012.

Since that time, we have seen the growing problem of both human smuggling and a large and growing wave of unfounded asylum claims particularly coming from the European Union. Therefore, we have concluded that it is necessary to strengthen the asylum reforms and adopt measures to combat human smuggling. That is why we have had to delay the coming into force of the balanced refugee reform act from the last Parliament. To be blunt, we are not in a position to implement the new system contemplated in Bill C-11 in the 40th Parliament. If we do not adopt this legislation, if it does not receive royal assent by June 29 of this year, a new law will come into effect that the appropriate administrative agencies, such as the IRB, are not yet ready to put in place.

I would point out to my hon. colleague that this bill has received 13 days of debate, 47.5 hours of debate and 130 speeches at second reading and report stage. It had 15 committee meetings with over 43 hours of committee study and 109 witnesses. It was preceded in a previous Parliament by Bill C-49,, which had many similar provisions including 3 days of debate, 10 hours of debate and 30 speeches.

In fact, this bill and most of its provisions have received an enormous amount of debate and consideration both in this place and at committee. There is a deadline with a great deal of urgency that we adopt this by June 29.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved

That in relation to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Marine Transportation Security Act and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the report stage and one sitting day shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the said bill and, fifteen minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government business on the day allotted to the consideration of the report stage;

and on the day allotted to the third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition calls upon the government to withdraw Bill C-31 because it is not fair to all refugees. It restricts appeals and gives too much discretion to the minister.

Bill C-31—Notice of time allocation motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

While I am on my feet, I will advise that Bill C-31, protecting Canada's immigration system act, has been debated on six days in the House and there have been over 80 speeches. That is in addition to over a dozen committee meetings where members studied the bill. Yet even with all of that debate and study, I must advise that an agreement has not been reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) concerning the proceedings at report stage and third reading of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Marine Transportation Security Act and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at those stages.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is a Toronto-wide petition with regard to Bill C-31. As we know, over half of those who live in Toronto were born outside of Canada.

This bill strikes at the heart of the very foundations of who we are as a country. The fact that this bill would tear families apart is of deep concern to members of my riding and people right across the country. Jailing refugees for six months without the possibility for appeal, forcibly separating refugees from their families for at least five years, dividing refugees into tiers based on their country of origin, unnecessarily punishing them as a result and expanding ministerial powers to shape legislation by removing parliamentary oversight and access to an appeal process are just some of the things in Bill C-31 that people right across the city of Toronto have deep concerns about.

It is an honour for me to present this petition on their behalf.

Opposition Motion--Komagata Maru Incident

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first, arising out of questions of decorum, I am a believer that anything we do to elevate decorum here is a positive thing. I encourage him. For example, one of his members today, in a question, referred to a minister as being responsible for the department of propaganda. That is an example of what we consider to be the inappropriate kind of thing we hear from the opposition all the time.

We are very interested in seeing this Parliament function and making decisions. We have been happy to see that happening on the budget, with the longest-ever debate on a budget bill probably in Canadian history. We were happy to facilitate that through the rules. We will continue to ensure that we have broad and thorough debate here, but that we also make decisions so we avoid going down the path that others would like to go, to see us go down the path that we see Greece going down and places like the United States, where they have not had a vote in the Senate on a budget bill since April 29, 2009. We do not want to have that kind of indecision and crippling of our economy. However, we are moving forward.

The government's top priority is the economy. On Monday night, as scheduled weeks ago, the House passed Bill C-38, the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, at second reading, bringing us one step closer to balancing the budget and assuring the responsible development of our resources.

The bill, which implements economic action plan 2012, is now with the Standing Committee on Finance and a subcommittee for detailed study by those two bodies.

As a result of the extensive debate we ensured for this bill, even the deputy leader of the NDP described it yesterday in the House as “being studied more than any other budget bill.”

Just so my friend understood this clearly, it was his own deputy leader who described the bill in the House yesterday as having been “studied more than any other budget bill”. That demonstrates our commitment to full debate in this House.

This afternoon, we will continue report stage for Bill C-31, the protecting Canada's immigration system act. This bill needs to become law before the end of June, so we will resume debate on the immigration bill on Tuesday, May 29, after the House returns from its upcoming constituency week.

Tomorrow the House will have an opposition day when we will debate an NDP motion.

On Monday, May 28, the House will have third reading of Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act, which would help our creative and digital economy. After years of thorough study and debate in this chamber, the members of the other place will finally have a chance to consider this important economic legislation.

May 30 shall be the fifth allotted day, which I believe will see a Liberal motion debated. Finally, May 31 shall be the sixth allotted day, which will go to the New Democrats.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, the problem that my hon. friend has is that it was not I who said that Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, fixed the system, it was the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.

The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism stood in this very House and praised Bill C-11. He said that the amendments that were worked out by all parties in this House made the system faster and fairer. He called that legislation a “monumental achievement”.

When my hon. friend says that C-31 would take 80% to 85% of that bill and preserve it, that may be true in content but not in substance. The previous bill, Bill C-11, forced the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism to run decisions about designating a safe country by an independent panel of experts. The government took that out of this bill.

The previous bill allowed all refugees an appeal on merits to the Refugee Appeal Division. Bill C-31 would remove that and applicants from so-called safe countries picked solely the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism would be denied access of appeal to that Refugee Appeal Division.

Bill C-31 is significantly different from the previous bill, Bill C-11. These differences make this bill, Bill C-31, much less fair and do nothing to speed up the system, which Bill C-11 did do.

I would ask my hon. colleague to tell me, if Bill C-11 was not an improvement over the system and was not good enough, why did the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism stand in this House and tell Canadians it was?

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

Madam Speaker, I heard more of an election speech and an ideological perspective from the member. He is certainly allowed to do that. That is what late shows are all about.

However, for many on the opposition benches, the truth merely gets in the way of a good speech or a good story, and I think that is what has happened here. I do not think there is any problem with the way our Westminster model of Parliament works in Canada. It is a government's responsibility to introduce legislation; it is the opposition's responsibility to ensure that legislation is put to the scrutiny of the parliamentary process.

In fact, the member failed to reveal two very important facts.

The first is with regard to Bill C-11. That bill, the refugee reform act, indeed passed through this House with unanimous support. Today 80% to 90% of that bill is still in effect, and in fact was included in Bill C-31. However, in terms of refugee applications, the problem is that there was not enough to do what would be necessary to make the system successful, proper, prudent and fair.

The steps implemented in Bill C-11 included, and still include, an additional 2,500 refugees here in Canada on a yearly basis. My friend across the way mentioned that we are going to have fewer refugees in Canada now; I can tell him, and he knows, that there will be 2,500 more refugees in Canada yearly. He also knows that over 60% of the refugee applications that come forward in this country actually fail. Our overburdened system has a number of individuals in the backlog, and many more people fail through the system than succeed.

Our purpose in bringing Bill C-31 forward is to repair a very broken system. Bill C-11 goes a long way to repairing that system; Bill C-31would complete what needs to happen.

My friend across the way talks a lot about fairness, but there were 5,800 more refugee claims from the European Union in 2011 than there were from Africa or Asia. The total percentage of applications for refugee status in our country from the EU, which is made up of democratic states, democratic countries, is 23% more than from Africa and Asia. What is really interesting is that 95% of those European Union applications are either withdrawn or rejected, while virtually all that come forward are unsuccessful.

Bill C-11 does not address this specific issue in a way that would fix this broken system.That is what Bill C-31 has to do.

My colleague across the way and I have worked together very closely for the last year in a very positive way. We have our differences, but we worked very closely together. If he and his party are suggesting that the current system and this opportunity for people to take advantage of our system are somehow acceptable, that will not happen in this country. That is because one thing Canadians understand is fairness. Canadians want to help refugees. They want to bring them to this country and they want to give them another opportunity. However, the one thing Canadians will not have is people taking advantage of our system, which would not only hurt Canadians but also hurt those who are truly trying to come to this country to seek refugee status.