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

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

moved:

That in relation to 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 four further sitting days after the day on which this order is adopted shall be allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the bill, and that, fifteen minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government orders on the fourth day so allotted to the consideration of the second 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 said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I might add that will mean there will have been debate on this particular bill on six different days.

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, with the encouragement and support of the opposition House leader, I will continue to try to engage all the House leaders and other parties in an effort to work on consensus approaches as to scheduling matters. I will make the observation that for a dance to work everyone has to be dancing. Therefore, I will continue to make my best efforts.

This afternoon, we will continue debating the opposition day motion from the hon. member for Hamilton Centre.

Tomorrow we will conclude debate on the amendments coming from the other place, on Bill C-10, the safe streets and communities act. We will have our final vote on this important legislation on Monday night. Bill C-10 will pass a number of important proposals that our government has put forward over the last five years that stand up for victims and for making our communities safer. I might add that Monday will be the 94th sitting day of the House, which means our government will have easily met our election commitment to make this bill law.

Also on Monday, the House will resume debate on Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act. We will return to this debate on Thursday and Friday.

Tuesday will begin with Bill S-4, the Safer Railways Act. This is an important bill that was nearly passed before the opposition forced an election last year. I hope we will see the debate conclude sometime Tuesday.

If we have extra time on Tuesday, the House will take up a second piece of legislation, Bill C-15, the Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act.

Wednesday shall be the seventh and final allotted day of the supply cycle. I might correct my friend that I do not think this has ever been designated in the House. We will debate a motion from the New Democratic Party and end the afternoon with two appropriations bills from the President of the Treasury Board.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I stood here in the same place last week and acknowledged that the government had gone a whole five sitting days without moving a time allocation motion and I encouraged the House leader of the government to continue that practice. Therefore, I am quite disappointed standing here today.

They moved not just one time allocation motion on Tuesday, but they moved two such motions. What they are doing is truly undemocratic. I urge the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons once again to put an end to this practice immediately.

For the coming week, there are a number of issues that are outstanding and unclear so I will list them.

I understand that we have a confirmation that Bill C-10 will come before this House for debate tomorrow and that the vote on Bill C-10 will be put off until Monday evening.

I further understand that Bill C-31, the attack on refugees bill, will come before the House on Tuesday. I would ask the House leader if that is still the case and if it will be before the House for the balance of the week.

With regard to other legislation, I will repeat a question I had earlier for him but never got an answer to. Where is Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill? When will that be back before the House? Will we ever see it again or is the government just going to dump it?

Finally, could I have a confirmation for the House that the final supply day, which was originally scheduled for Monday, has now been put over to Wednesday and all the votes that will flow subsequent to that will be Wednesday evening?

Bill C-10—Time Allocation Motion

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised by this motion. There should not be any reason why we should be surprised. It has happened 16 times since Parliament started. Since the May 2 election, this will be the 17th time.

It is a total abdication of the democratic responsibilities that the government should have, and every Government of Canada should have and has up until this point, to allow for meaningful democratic discussion and debate in the House. We are here for that. That is why it is called Parliament.

The government has never understood this. Since the Conservatives received a majority, they have run roughshod over that moral, democratic responsibility they have to the opposition parties and to Canadian citizens as a whole.

I understand the member will move another motion of this kind on Bill C-31. When will we see that one?

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, I do want to express my amusement, I guess is the best word, at the opposition House leader's great interest in the democratic process in the Senate. Of course, his party's position is that body should be abolished. The one benefit is that if he had his way, Bill C-10 would already be law today. That is something we hope will happen very soon.

Let me begin by thanking the hon. member for asking for the business of the House in the upcoming week. I am happy to provide it to you, Mr. Speaker, to him and, indeed, to all Canadians. This afternoon we will continue debate on Bill C-28, Financial Literacy Leader Act.

Continuing our week focused on jobs and economic growth, because that is what this week is about, tomorrow morning we will resume debate on Bill C-28, the financial literacy leader act, and in the afternoon we will debate the Canada-Panama economic growth and prosperity act, Bill C-24. That bill implements a free trade agreement that was signed almost two years ago, which will create new jobs for Canadians by opening new markets for Canadian exporters and workers. The bill was studied and passed by the international trade committee in a previous Parliament and has been debated on numerous days at second reading in this Parliament.

Monday will be the fifth allotted day, when I understand we will debate an NDP motion. I know members of the House would appreciate it if the opposition House leader could tell us what motion we will be debating at that time. I know I am certainly interested.

On Tuesday afternoon, we will begin debating the protecting Canada's immigration system act, Bill C-31. I also understand that the safe streets and communities act, Bill C-10, will be returning from the other place very soon. We will consider Senate amendments on Tuesday morning and Wednesday. The amendments relate to the civil remedies for terrorism portions of the act, which I understand enjoy support from all parties. Thus I would invite the opposition to agree to move quickly on those items that we all support, so that we can get those provisions into law as soon as possible.

As the House knows, the government committed to passing this bill within 100 sitting days, and we will keep that commitment. Thursday, March 8, will be the sixth allotted day of this supply period, which will also go the NDP, I understand.

Rights of the Child

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at least 430 children are detained in Canadian prisons every year. These are children of refugees, children of war, children of famine and violence. Yet what are we offering them? A stay in prison with no education and no psychological support. Why? Because an officer felt that their parent could not appear before the authorities or because that parent could not satisfy the officer as to his or her identity. Is this going to improve? Certainly not.

Bill C-31would lengthen prison sentences for refugee claimants who arrive by boat with a so-called smuggler or, worse still, a group designated directly by the minister. And so dozens more children will be languishing in our prisons.

The Canadian Council for Refugees, an organization in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, maintains that this incarceration is contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the international Convention on the Rights of the Child.

You can be sure that the NDP will be working hard to mobilize public opinion to ensure that Mr. Harper’s new prison cells never become filled with dozens of children—

Citizenship and Immigration

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, on November 29, I rose in the House to address what I thought was a disturbing trend happening at the Immigration and Refugee Board, or IRB. The trend appears to be that there are more and more Conservative appointments being made to that body and fewer and fewer claims for refugee protection are being accepted. We now have the lowest rate of approvals in Canadian history.

I and many MPs have stood in the House to highlight cases where the system appears to have failed and we have called on the government to act to help an immigrant family or refugee. Invariably, the minister or parliamentary secretary responds that all applicants have gone through our system and we must trust that the system works. They say that the process is fair. They claim the IRB is independent. They say that our system has several opportunities for appeal.

Most important, when asked if there is anything they can do to prevent a deportation of a particular individual, they often point out that they do not want cases to be decided by the whim of the minister or to be subject to political interference. I could not agree more with that sentiment, but political interference is, regrettably, becoming apparent throughout the system. How are we supposed to have faith in our system when we hear about patronage appointments made to the IRB?

When I asked the minister about patronage appointments in the House, he said that he knew of only two appointments that had Conservative ties. In less than 24 hours, we were able to find 16 former Conservative politicians, candidates, donors or advisers to ministers of the government had, in fact, been appointed to the IRB.

Since November, we have learned of two more recent patronage appointments, people appointed to the IRB apparently because of their Conservative ties as opposed to their independence or expertise. Worst of all, we have learned that these board members seem to be biased against granting refugee protection. One member, who was recently reappointed by the government, was reappointed despite granting zero out of 169 refugee claims that he heard.

This would not be so troubling if the lives of people were not at stake, but they are. The integrity of the IRB is critical to the integrity of the whole system. If we cannot trust the independence of the IRB, then all the appeal processes in the world do not matter. What we know about appeals, particularly in relation to the Federal Court of Canada, is that the appeals are not based on the merits of the case. They are not even based on the facts of the case. The appeal process simply determines whether the process was followed properly and whether procedural justice and natural justice principles were observed.

We are told to trust the independence of the system, but the minister introduced Bill C-31, which inserts great potential for political interference into our immigration system. With Bill C-31, we learn that the minister wants even more power to be concentrated in his office. He has backtracked on a pledge he made to all parties in the House and all Canadians to approach refugee issues with a better sense of fairness and balance.

The minister wants the discretion to designate countries, in his opinion, as safe. He wants the sole discretion to determine by that discretion who has access to the Refugee Appeal Division. The minister wants the sole discretion to decide if a refugee's arrival in Canada qualifies as irregular. The minister wants the power to impose mandatory detention for up to a year on people whose biggest crime may be thinking that Canada will offer them safety from persecution.

It is getting harder and harder to take the government's advice to trust the system. How can we when we see the creeping of political interference and political judgment into a process that should be quasi-judicial and completely free of any kind of partisan hand.

Will the government stop this disturbing trend toward injecting political ideology into our immigration system and return to a commendable record of having an independent IRB and immigration system?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

No it is not, Mr. Speaker. As is often the case, the member is completely wrong. In fact, there is nothing in Bill C-31 that would give a minister power to revoke permanent residency from anyone. There is already in the Immigration Refugee Protection Act a power for the Immigration and Refugee Board. That would be an independent, quasi-judicial body that can revoke protected status and/or permanent residency from people who obtained it fraudulently.

Yes, we do believe that people who fraudulently obtain asylum or permanent residency should have that reviewed. If they obtained it fraudulently, it can and should be revoked by the IRB, not by the minister.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the problems associated with immigration are not limited just to waiting lists. Le Devoir revealed this morning that under Bill C-31, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism wants to reserve the right to take permanent resident status away from anyone who ceases to be protected by refugee status. This is a major change that affects the status of thousands of residents.

Why make this change, which threatens permanent residents? And why concentrate so much power in the hands of the minister?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers has concerns in regard to Bill C-31, as does our party. It said, “The designated 'safe' country list, and the Minister's unilateral power to list countries, dangerously politicizes the refugee system”.

Will the minister agree to an amendment, similar to that contained in the bill from the last Parliament which passed the House unanimously, that would require the minister to make recommendations for countries to be listed from an advisory committee?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, if the opposition has some common-sense ideas for amending Bill C-31, I am open to hearing them. With the reform we are proposing, the system will continue to be the fairest in the world. Canada is going to provide protection for real refugees within two months, instead of two years under the current system. At the same time, we are going to address the wave of fake claims for asylum from democratic countries. If the opposition has any ideas for achieving that goal, we are open to hearing them, but we have to enhance the integrity of Canada's immigration system.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the thoughtful question. Unfortunately, the premise is entirely wrong because the criteria for the designation of safe countries is laid out in Bill C-31. In part, it will include countries that have a rejection rate at the IRB of 85% or more. I am not the one who makes those decisions. It is the independent decision makers at the quasi-judicial independent IRB.

It is very interesting to see the member's indignation. All we are saying is that those claimants will not have access to the Refugee Appeal Division. The Liberals refused to bring in a refugee appeal division. It is this government that is finally creating the Refugee Appeal Division.