Bill C-4 (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 or from six months to 10 years, as the case may be.
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

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-4, the so-called act to prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system, and I do so with great trepidation. The bill is another misleading and ingenuous device by a government bereft of compassion and determined to exercise its majority with a punitive and heavy hand.

I would like to speak to two specific elements of Bill C-4, the first being human trafficking. The truth is that the Conservative government is playing politics at the expense of the human beings who need help and support to find a better life for themselves and for their families.

We studied the issue to trafficking human beings at great length in the status of women committee. The committee found, in its 2007 report, that the issue of human trafficking was complex and many steps needed to be taken to address this horrendous crime against vulnerable people.

The underlying cause of trafficking is poverty. Individuals are trafficked into Canada from other countries where there is no hope for a future. It often is more difficult for a woman to immigrate to Canada because there are many more barriers such as the need for money and education, which are for many women inaccessible. Immigration laws need to be changed to allow more women to immigrate on their own and not through means that leave them vulnerable to human trafficking. The temporary resident permit process needs to be reviewed and victims who have been trafficked should be sheltered for 180 days and allowed to work. The government should ensure their basic needs are met during this period.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act needs to reviewed and amended. In particular, section 245 (f) of the regulations states in part that a “victim having been under the control or influence of traffickers...is more likely to require detention”. This section needs to be eliminated. Many traffic victims are threatened with criminal or immigration exposure by their traffickers. That is preventing them from seeking help. Section 245 (f) assumes that these people are criminals and not victims. This simply reinforces the power of the traffickers. Steps need to be taken to help victims of trafficking or those in danger of trafficking instead of treating them like criminals.

The Conservatives claim that the bill cracks down on human smuggling. That is not so. As it is currently written, it concentrates too much power in the hands of the Minister of Immigration and unfairly penalizes legitimate refugees. The government should, by all means, go after the criminals, the traffickers, the smugglers, but do not pursue a course of action like that proposed in Bill C-4 that jeopardizes the innocent and the vulnerable.

The other issue I want to discuss relates to the predecessor of Bill C-4, Bill C-49, introduced in the last Parliament in reaction to the arrival of the MV Ocean Lady and the MVSun Sea from Sri Lanka. When the MV Sun Sea arrived in B.C. in 2010, the government fanned the flames of fear and racism about the individuals on the boat by insisting that many of them may have had links to the Tamil Tigers. Without any investigation or efforts to determine who was on the ship or what they had endured, the government incarcerated 492 men, women and children and set in place barriers to their refugee claims.

What were these Sri Lankans trying to escape? Amnesty International provides some insights.

During the Sri Lankan civil war some 300,000 Tamil civilians were displaced by armed conflict and consequently detained in government camps. Those suspected of ties with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE, more than 12,000, were detained separately. Many were held incommunicado and sometimes in facilities not designed to hold prisoners, or they were detained in secret places. Innocent civilians were trapped for months prior to the conflict's end, without adequate food, shelter, sanitation and medical care, or any access to humanitarian aid. The LTTE used civilians as human shields, as well as using threats and violence to prevent them from fleeing the conflict zone. Government artillery killed and wounded those same innocent civilians, including patients in hospitals and medical workers.

The government of Sri Lanka failed to address the impunity enjoyed by warring factions for past humanitarian violations and continued to carry out enforced disappearances and torture. Hundreds of Tamils continued to be detained in the south for lengthy periods without charge under special security legislation. Human rights defenders and journalists were killed, assaulted, threatened and jailed. Police killings of criminal suspects intensified.

In May the Sri Lankan government declared victory over the LTTE ending more than 25 years of armed conflict. However, an end to fighting did not end the government's reliance on draconian security legislation or stem human rights violations.

Both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE violated international humanitarian law. The Sri Lankan government used heavy weaponry indiscriminately in areas densely populated by civilians. The LTTE forcibly recruited adults and children as combatants, used civilians as human shields against the approaching government forces and attacked civilians who tried to escape. Independent accounts from the conflict areas were limited as access by the media, the UN and humanitarian agencies was absolutely restricted.

According to UN estimates, thousands of civilians died in the fighting. Displaced people reported enforced disappearances of young men separated from their families by the military as civilians tried to cross into government territory. The government did not reopen the highway to the Jaffna Peninsula until July, thus severely restricting civilian access to humanitarian supplies during the first half of the year.

By the end of May, civilians displaced by fighting were confined to government camps in the north and east where conditions were crowded and unsanitary. The Sri Lankan government initially banned humanitarian agencies from the newly established camps, which were run by the military, and only gradually eased restrictions to allow delivery of relief material.

Humanitarian workers were not permitted to speak to displaced people. Visits by journalists were tightly controlled and no independent human rights monitoring was permitted. By year end, restrictions on freedom of movement had been relaxed, but over 100,000 people remained in the detention camps and they were dying by the thousands.

During all this time and all this misery, the Government of Canada refused to act, refused to speak out, refused to demand an end to the atrocities. Canadians of Tamil descent came by the thousands to Ottawa to beg their country, to beg their Prime Minister to do something, to say something in the desperate hope that the slaughter of their families would end. The Prime Minister did nothing. Therefore, in fact, the government helped to create the refugees it denied in 2009 and 2010.

New Democrats recognize and respect our responsibilities to refugees. By all means enforce the many laws already in place to prevent criminals from smuggling human beings or trying to gain access to our country, but do not arbitrarily abandon our human obligations to others and do not further expose our country to the criticism of other nations, which wonder aloud what happened to Canada's respect for human rights.

The bill has been soundly criticized by the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International Canada, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Bar Association and an expert panel at the Centre for Refugee Studies. They have told the government that Bill C-4 violates Canada's international human rights and refugee protection obligations. It violates charter protections against arbitrary detention and prompt review of detention.

Bill C-4 undermines Canadian values of humanity, honourable conduct and obligation to our fellow citizens both at home and around the world. They are asking how their government could justify the detention of children, defend blocking family reunification and how it could justify giving the government the power to arrest any non-citizen or permanent resident without evidence of criminality. Indeed, Canadians are asking, “How did we come to this? How do we get our Canada back, the one that we love?”

We need a resounding “no” to this legislation.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of sections that Bill C-4 would violate.

Section 15 of the charter talks about equality under the law. Bill C-4 would create a new second class of refugees who are denied a temporary resident permit or a humanitarian and compassionate grounds application. For all of these reasons it would go against that section and section 9 of the charter, which deals with arbitrary detention.

We are simply not allowed to do that. This legislation calls for that and it is wrong.

I also mentioned the UN convention relating to the status of refugees. The bill is probably in violation of it.

Article 31 states:

The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.

The UN convention would also be broken by this legislation.

It is unfortunate that the government has a majority in this particular case. I hope the bill will go to committee and that the parts of it that are contrary to our charter of rights and the UN convention will be struck down.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in Bill C-4 as I have worked and do work with refugees. Every day I see the great work that is done for them through organizations such as the Thunder Bay Multicultural Association and others in northern Ontario, as well as across Canada.

I will offer some background on the bill. It is a reintroduction of Bill C-49 from the last Parliament. In part, it was drafted in reaction to the arrival of the MV Ocean Lady and MV Sun Sea to the shores of B.C. in 2009 and 2010. At that time, the government stoked fears that a significant number of the individuals aboard those vessels might be criminals or might have links to the Tamil Tigers, a listed terrorist organization. That is where Bill C-4 comes from, just so people understand.

This is my analysis of Bill C-4. It is by no means complete but all I am able to fit into nine minutes or so.

The minister can designate any group of refugees as “irregular arrivals” should he believe that examinations to establish identity and so on cannot be conducted in a timely manner. Another criteria would be if it is suspected that they have been smuggled for profit or that a criminal organization or terrorist group was involved in that smuggling.

Designated claimants are then subjected to all kinds of special rules. This is my concern. It is discriminatory. It creates two classes of refugee claimants. It possibly violates the charter's equality rights, as well as the refugee convention which prohibits states from imposing penalties on refugees for illegal entry or presence.

It is important to remember that designated claimants, including children, will be mandatorily detained upon arrival or designation. There will be no review by the Immigration and Refugee Board of their detention for a year. Their release is only possible if they are found to be a refugee or if the refugee board orders their release. The minister may determine there are exceptional circumstances.

My concern is that this mandatory detention is a clear violation of the charter. The Supreme Court has already struck down mandatory detention without review on security certificates. It could imply indefinite detention on the basis of identity with no possibility of release until the minister decides identity has been established. Arbitrary detention is also a violation of a number of international treaties.

Mandatory conditions set out in regulations would be imposed on all designated claimants released from detention. This also causes me concern as the conditions are not specified but rather are based on unfair principles that do not take individual cases into account. It could be very burdensome as well as very expensive.

Once a designated claimant is accepted as a refugee, regulations require that he or she must then report to an immigration officer to answer questions. The decisions made regarding designated persons cannot be appealed. Not only is this discriminatory and risks violating provisions in the refugee convention, it is similar to the government's attempt in previous legislation to exclude nationals from designated countries from an appeal process.

A designated claimant cannot apply for permanent residency for five years. If the person fails to comply with the conditions or reporting requirements the five-year suspension can be extended. This rule applies to those accepted as refugees as well as to those who have been refused or have never made a claim. The worst consequence for accepted refugees is that this rule can delay reunification with their spouses and/or children for five years or more.

Designated persons can make a humanitarian and compassionate application and apply for a temporary resident permit before five years. My concern is that this would be an undue barrier for humanitarian and compassionate claims. It may also be a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as there will be no opportunity to consider the best interests of the child.

Article 28 of the refugee convention says that states must issue travel documents. That does not apply to designated persons until they become permanent residents or are issued temporary resident permits. This means that designated refugees cannot travel outside of Canada for at least five years after they have been accepted as refugees. My concern is that this is an attempt to legislate away the rights of refugees established by international treaty.

The minister can make retroactive designations for arrivals in Canada since March 31, 2009. For example, the passengers of the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea could be designated.

What is happening is the Conservatives are playing politics with refugees, pure and simple . They are trying to frame this as a public service or public safety issue. The bill was introduced by the public safety minister, despite the fact it primarily deals with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This is an immigration and refugee issue not a public safety issue. The current law has dealt with the cases of the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea quite adequately.

The New Democrats recognize and respect our responsibilities to refugees. The Conservatives have taken an approach that would damage our standing in the international community and violate our commitments under the convention relating to the status of refugees, the refugee convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The proposed process is unclear, arbitrary and ultimately very discriminatory. It will not curb human smuggling.

In my opinion, the Conservatives should be less focused on photo ops and more focused on enforcing the existing laws against smuggling. Rather than playing politics, they should provide the RCMP the resources they need to get the job done.

There are many organizations which do not like the bill. The Canadian Council for Refugees has called for the bill to be scrapped. Amnesty International Canada stated that this bill:

...falls far short of Canada's international human rights and refugee protection obligations and will result in serious violations of the rights of refugees and migrants.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has issued a scathing attack on the government's attitude toward refugees.

Ultimately this goes against Canadian values. We in this place and a majority of Canadians believe that as a free nation we have a responsibility to ensure that we provide a home to those refugees and migrants escaping situations that have put their lives and the lives of their families in peril.

As members can imagine, I will be voting against the bill. I welcome any questions the members may have.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to speak to Bill C-4. Many of my colleagues on both sides of the House have spoken for and against the bill with great passion over the last few days. I will now inform the House of my views on this draconian and, as some would say, backward bill.

First, the bill would give the minister the power to create a two-tiered system and designate groups that he or she feels are an irregular arrival if the minister deems that people's identity or their inadmissibility cannot be determined in a timely manner. It would give the minister a new discretionary power that he or she can exercise in the public interest to order the arrival in Canada of a group of persons to be designated as an irregular arrival.

These individuals are then subjected to mandatory arrests and detention. Those who are detained are forced to wait at least 12 months before their cases are reviewed. This goes against section 9 of the charter that calls for prompt review of detention.

Those deemed irregular arrivals, which automatically makes them designated foreign nationals, would need to wait at least five years before they could apply for permanent residence, temporary residence, a temporary resident permit or an application on humanitarian or compassionate grounds.

We cannot let the politics of fear undermine the Canadian commitment to protect the rights and freedoms of those who come to our shores fleeing persecution.

I will give an example of how the bill would hurt refugees to whom we should be giving safe haven.

In 2009, Mr. Arjan Tabaj and his wife, Anilda Tabaj, along with their daughter, Maria and their two sons, Vincenzio and Christian, were deported from Canada despite interventions personally made on the family's behalf by the former member of Parliament for Etobicoke Centre. These were made to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.

Mr. Tabaj is a partially paralyzed survivor of an assassination attempt during the elections in Albania. Albania continues to experience regular political assassinations and the shooters in this case are free due to alleged political connections. The Tabaj family has spent the last two years in hiding out of fear for their safety in that country. They were here in Canada before and were sent back.

Following the government's wrongful deportation, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, the former member for Etobicoke Centre, privately sponsored immigration lawyer Katherine Ramsey to challenge the decision in the Federal Court of Canada. The hon. Madam Justice Simpson's August 30, 2011 ruling compelled the Government of Canada to issue temporary resident permits and visas to facilitate the Tabaj family's immediate return to safety in Canada.

Upon learning of the court victory, the Tabaj family left their hiding spot in Albania, first travelling to Greece and then to Italy. They finally arrived yesterday at terminal 3 at Pearson International Airport at 2:45 p.m. They finally came back after being sent to Albania.

Supporters and Etobicoke community members, including Mr. Borys Wrzesnewskyj, were present at the airport to greet this family. What a wonderful end to a tragic story.

This is a prime example how the government is failing to deal with the smugglers but hurting legitimate refugees.

The House of Commons and, in particular, the government, should realize what damage can result when we are dealing with refugees who come to our shores.

Many of us in this House and maybe some of the listeners today may not realize the terrible mistake that Canada made in 1944 when Canada refused entry of the S.S. St. Louis to our ports. On board the S.S. St. Louis were a shipload of Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Germany trying to find a new home. They were refused in many countries and, of course, at that time the minister made a terrible decision and he refused them access to our shores. The boat went back and terrible things happened to those people. That is an example of what we did wrong.

As Canadians, we have done things wrong and I think we realize that and we move forward with better legislation. I just talked about the Tabaj family. The Conservatives made a mistake as that minister in 1944 made a mistake. The Conservative minister made a mistake and he should apologize to that family for what it went through.

I bring this example of the S.S. St. Louis because Bill C-4 is a knee-jerk reaction, if we think about how it came out this summer, to make political points. Who are the points to? These refugees are not voting. However, like the Tabaj family, those passengers on that S.S. St. Louis were sent back to a terrible situation. We are fortunate that the Tabaj family came back here alive.

This bill fails to achieve its stated principle of cracking down on human smugglers and instead targets legitimate refugee claimants and refugees. I believe the House should pass our amendment that states the following:

this House decline to give second reading to Bill C-4, an Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act, since the bill fails to achieve its stated principle of cracking down on human smugglers and instead targets legitimate refugee claimants and refugees, and because it expands the Minister's discretion in a manner that is overly broad and not limited to the mass arrival situation that supposedly inspired the introduction of this legislation, and because it presents an imprisonment scheme that violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protections against arbitrary detention and prompt review of detention, and because its provisions also violate international obligations relating to refugees and respecting the treatment of persons seeking protection.

I am a son of immigrants. They were welcomed into this country in 1952. Our family has been embraced by Canadians since that time. It is a great honour that I stand here today as a son of immigrants to represent the people of Sydney—Victoria. My father often stated that Canada was one of the best countries in the world because of its opportunities and fairness.

I believe when we draw up legislation in this House we must constantly ask ourselves two questions: Does it give opportunity to people? Is it fair? Those are two major questions that fit into all legislation. That makes our country one of the best countries in the world.

As we move forward with this legislation, we would hope that the government would see the relevance of these amendments that we are bringing forward and just stop here for one minute and see what we are doing here. I ask that it look at the amendment, take it back to committee and see what other countries are doing.

We have such a great record in this country dealing with immigrants and with refugees, which is why they come here. When we go into a business shop or go with a taxi driver, these are refugees who came here over the years and we gave them opportunities and they have given back to us.

Let us not go on the slippery slope for ideological reasons and have draconian measures that may suit some voters. Let us move forward as one of the best countries in the world, accepting people out there to come into our country. Just because they come by water, they should not be discriminated against?

The House resumed from September 20 consideration of the motion that Bill C-4, 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, and of the amendment.

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, as the opposition House leader quite astutely noted, our priority is the economy. We saw that already with successes this spring when we introduced a budget that was adopted by the House. We introduced a budget implementation bill with measures like an increase to the old age security payments, which was also adopted by the House. We continue to pursue that economic agenda.

Our other priority is also related to having a sound economy, and that is having safe communities and safe streets by combatting crime. As members know, there is a strong linkage between severe crime and harm to the economy. We obviously want to change that, and this is why we have moved in that direction. That is what we have been debating this week, primarily.

In the next week, our government will continue to move forward with important bills that Canadians elected us to implement. Today we will continue debate on Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. We will continue to debate that next week until it is dealt with.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind the House just how long the measures in the safe streets and communities bill have been before this House and the other place. When we tally up all the days since those bills have been introduced, it has been a combined total of 2,700 days since their first introductions. That is almost 20 years of elapsed time that those bills have been before the House in one form or another.

We have already had over 180 speeches given in the House on those bills, important law and order proposals as they are. Unfortunately, right now we are no longer actually debating the safe streets and communities bill; we are technically debating an opposition motion to delay and obstruct our efforts to tackle crime and get that bill passed.

I urge all members to put aside their parliamentary maneuvers designed to delay and obstruct and give all members the opportunity to vote, once and for all, on the important measures included in the bill.

Tomorrow, we will be debating Bill C-4, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act.

As the Prime Minister stated earlier in the week, the government will be introducing a motion to extend our involvement in the UN-sanctioned NATO-led mission in Libya. I will be scheduling that debate for Monday.

Next Thursday, September 29, will be the first allotted day.

Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, in the introduction of Bill C-4, the minister and others on the government benches talked about how this bill would target the profiteers and smugglers. We in the Liberal Party and, I believe, most, if not all, members of the opposition have indicated that they are not really the primary victims. The primary victims are the refugees seeking asylum. I would suggest that the number of profiteers or smugglers, which this bill is actually named after and, apparently, targeting, who will be impacted is pretty close to zero, if not zero.

Does the member want to comment on the title of the bill and on how the government seems to be of the opinion that this bill targets profiteers or smugglers?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Madam Speaker, like many of my colleagues I spent the summer in my riding, Pierrefonds—Dollard, a riding in which more than 30% of the people are immigrants who have come to Canada from all over the world to search for a better way of life for themselves and for their children. I therefore often had the opportunity to take up discussions about issues relating to immigration. I heard a lot of frustrations and concerns about the management of immigration in Canada.

My introductory remarks may appear unrelated to the bill being discussed today, and I understand that the connection may seem tenuous, however I ask for your indulgence. I cannot open my remarks today without relaying the disappointment felt by my fellow citizens at our failure today to discuss their true concerns, such as immigration application processing times, the non-recognition of foreign credentials, and the dearth of funding for immigrant settlement and adaptation assistance.

Now that I have conveyed this displeasure, and since the discussion today concerns not this issue but rather coercive action against refugees, I shall now address Bill C-4.

I would like now to turn to research from Amnesty International, which shows that in Australia, unsympathetic views from the population toward asylum seekers are not racially motivated, nor do they stem from a lack of compassion; rather, the research found that community fear of asylum seekers stems from the media and both major political parties.

I think it is fair to suspect that our own government is guilty of diffusing such fears. Let us think back, for example, to 2009 and 2010, when immigrants arrived off the shores of B.C. in two different vessels, and the Conservative government of the day showed fear that a significant number of those individuals might have links with the Tamil Tigers, a listed terrorist organization. On that particular matter, Amnesty International reminds us that it is legal to seek asylum by boat under international and domestic law, and that nearly all asylum seekers who arrive by boat are real refugees.

This bill would in fact create two classes of refugees: one class of refugees who arrive by boat, and another class made up of all the others. In this regard, the Canadian Council for Refugees states that this is discriminatory and contrary to the charter, which guarantees equality before the law.

My colleague from Saint-Lambert made a very interesting remark: people do not necessarily choose how they escape a natural disaster or menacing regime; they take the first opportunity that arises to save their lives or that of their children. I know that it is inconceivable, but this bill would create two classes of refugees based on method of arrival.

One could be forgiven for wondering why the government has introduced this bill when it has made previous attempts to pass similar legislation. Why has the government not opted instead to introduce changes to assist in combating traffickers rather than refugees? I just alluded to the disparity in the treatment reserved for the two classes of refugees under this bill, but more to the point, this government is engaging in the rhetoric of fear. They refer to immigrants as potential terrorists. They speak of security rather than of issues involving immigration and citizenship. And yet, I believe this to be a matter of immigration and citizenship rather than national security.

On another note, I should stress that this bill would allow for the arbitrary detention of refugees. This matter has been discussed at length, so I will not belabour the point, but this bill could authorize the detention of refugees on the basis of the minister's suspicions or the refugee’s method of arrival. I would however like to focus specifically on the treatment of children under this bill.

I join my voice to that of the Canadian Counsel for Refugees and many other organizations that condemn the raft of measures proposed in Bill C-4, measures that fly in the face of our obligations to refugees and, of course, to children. Indeed, in addition to the proposed measures regarding detention, this bill would slow down the family reunification application process and prohibit applications to travel abroad for a period of several years.

On the matter of child detention, the Australian Human Rights Commission tabled a brief in May 2004 in the Australian parliament stating that child refugee detainees’ rights were repeatedly violated. More specifically, the Commission reported that Australian immigration detention law fails to protect children's mental health, provide appropriate health care, protect children's right to an education, and does not necessarily protect children in need of assistance or those with a disability.

Children arriving in Canada already face a number of challenges, even if they arrive under optimal conditions. They have to learn the language and adapt to the climate, a new culture and a new school system that is very different, and often they then have to help their parents and family integrate into this new country when they are sometimes the only one in the family who knows the language or the culture. With these coercive measures, children will hardly be arriving under optimal conditions conducive to their integration into the country.

We have every right to wonder if Bill C-4 aims to protect the rights of these children whom the government plans to so summarily detain if they are refugees that are suspicious or arrive by boat.

Our country signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and I am very proud of that fact. This convention states that signatory states must take legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect children and to prevent all types of abuse, neglect or negligent treatment. Those protection measures are not being discussed today. We are talking about Bill C-4 and the possibility of detaining children, but we are not talking about what else will be put in place to protect these children who may be put into detention centres. What will be done to ensure that these children receive an education and care? That is not being discussed, and that is very worrying.

The New Democratic Party promised Canadians that it would develop a fair, efficient, transparent and accountable immigration system and that it would put an end to restrictive immigration measures rooted in secrecy and arbitrary decisions by ministers.

We also think it is important to increase resources to reduce the unacceptable backlogs in processing immigration applications, with an emphasis on speeding up family reunification. These are certainly not priorities that are reflected in Bill C-4.

The problem is that the Conservatives are saying that this bill will help reduce the magnitude of human trafficking. In reality, the bill as currently worded puts too much power in the hands of the immigration minister and unfairly penalizes refugees, as we discussed just now with my colleague. We see more than just measures for reducing trafficking. We also see measures that penalize newcomers.

My colleagues and I agree that we have to address trafficking and smugglers, but we are seeing more than that. The thing that worries me about this bill is the way refugees are treated.

Refugee determination by independent decision-makers is a fundamental aspect of a fair justice system. The way we receive refugees is often cited by the international community as a model of fair treatment, but this bill risks putting us in another category. It would not be the last time we disappointed the international community.

Can the minister tell us when the government is going to stop going after refugees and focus only on the criminals?

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not consider the people who come to Canada to seek refuge to be queue jumpers. There are a lot of people who have come to this country, including a lot of people in the House, to seek refuge.

In his question, my colleague from Newfoundland mentioned queue jumping. Let us examine queue jumping out of Sri Lanka. These are spousal cases. People are sponsoring their wives. There are a couple of files that I would like to bring to the attention of the House.

A file was opened in my office on September 17, 2010. Today we received an announcement saying, “Please be advised that this application has passed on paper screening stage and is presently in queue for review”. The second one is dated March 11, 2011. To this day it is still in process. There is one from January 2011 and today we heard, “We are paper screening”. There is one from October 18, 2010, and we heard today, “Please be informed that this file has been paper screened and it is in queue to be reviewed by an officer”.

These are examples of people who are sponsoring their families, their wives and their husbands, and they are all from Sri Lanka. According to the minister's website it takes two months in the case processing centre in Mississauga and then it goes to Sri Lanka and it is supposed to be 13 months. These figures speak for themselves. It is not 13 months. It goes on.

If any member of the Conservative Party were to stand and say that he or she does not think the Conservatives are targeting the Tamil community, I have news for that member. When Bill C-4 came forward the Conservatives did not even have the kindness to reach out to the Canadian Tamil Congress.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Madam Speaker, one has to look back in our history and examine the people who have come to our country, the people who have immigrated and the people who have come on ships seeking refuge.

There are some examples of which the country might not be very proud. One of them was the Komagata Maru and the other one was the MV St. Louis. In both those examples, people were turned back. They were not even allowed to come to our shores. Years later governments apologized for what happened.

I cannot forget back in the mid-1980s when a ship full of Punjabis came from India. As soon as it arrived on our shores, and I believe it was July 1987, the then Conservative government made the headlines such as, “We have been invaded”, or “They are arriving. Let's do away with them”. The House, if I remember correctly, was brought back in the middle of the summer in order to discuss that.

I had the opportunity and pleasure of meeting some of those people, approximately 25 years later. I have seen them become productive citizens, with their families, who have gone on and are truly Canadians. Some of them even delved into politics.

It brings us to today's situation with Bill C-4. It seems that it is like the Tamils are invading, the Tamils are coming. It is the Tamils, the Tamils.

Let us examine why the Conservative government is raising the flag about the Tamils coming. Why are the headlines, “We have been invaded by the Tamils?” Why are we where we are today?

The Tamil community certainly feels it has been targeted. I remember when Stockwell Day was the leader of this party and he showed up with a brush and went on to say that most of the Tamils were terrorists. Children in schools in my area, where I have a large Tamil population, were scared that if they went to school, they would be called Tamils. There were incidents where young ones were called terrorists and were being abused by other children.

This went on and on over the years. I remember in the winter election of 2005-06, the Conservative Party and the minister today said that they would classify them as terrorists.

The government could have taken a look and said that there was a problem in Sri Lanka, that there was a civil war in Sri Lanka. It could have considered what it could do to intervene and find a solution. That was not the issue. The issue was helping Sri Lanka and the government of Sri Lanka, mostly Sinhalese, in order to alienate the Tamils, and that occurred. The Tamil community rose up and came out on the Hill and said that they wanted intervention. They wanted their government to speak, but nobody listened.

The Liberals also turned a blind eye to it. It was everybody's fault for not listening, the results that occurred after the termination of the civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people were interned in Sri Lanka. There were horror stories of combatants who were executed. A Channel 4 video shows the government of Sri Lanka executing combatants who were arrested. There were stories about women who were raped, children were separated from their parents, and the stories go on and on.

Even to this day, the Tamil community, not only in Canada but around the world, is calling for justice. Some of those people who were going through that hardship decided that enough was enough and that they were going to find a better life. They were going to seek refuge.

Some people, when they come to Canada, find different means. They go from country to country. They come in here with illegal passports. They arrive at our shores and say that they are seeking refuge.

These people decided, like the people of the Komagata Maru, back in the 1910s, that they were going to get on a boat and come to Canada. We had two boats, one in 2009, the Ocean Lady with 76 Tamils, and in 2010, the Sun Sea with 492 Tamils. “Well, we have been invaded by the 568 people who came to our shores, and there were more boats”.

The government decided back then that it would bring in legislation that was draconian. It did not have the numbers then, but it has the numbers now. Now the government is saying that it is going to go ahead with it and not listen. It is going to steamroll the legislation right through and use it as a tool to fund raise.

In many constituencies we saw the ads that were played during the election. We see the outreach the Conservative Party is doing. It is using these two boats and this draconian bill in order to put a wedge right between the communities and between different ethnicities in Canada. It is going back to its reform base and saying, “Give us money in order for us to fight the war”. What war? Five hundred and sixty people arrived on our shores. Is that a war?

We are debating a bill that died last year. The bill says to those people that if they come to Canada and the minister decides to arrest and detain them for a year, they cannot apply to land until five years later.

When people come to this country to seek refuge, they have a hearing. It can take anywhere from nine months to a year, maybe a little shorter, and then they have to apply in order to land. That is a humanitarian and compassionate process. They send their paperwork off to the case processing centre in Vegreville and it just sits and sits. If they are really, really lucky, maybe in four or five years they will be called in in order to land. If it is a concurrent application, which means the individual and his or her family are simultaneously applying, the individual lands and the family comes over.

As we have it right now, we are separating refugees who come to our shores for anywhere between four to five years. If they come on a boat, they cannot apply until five years later and maybe, if the situation in their country has changed in those five years, we will send them back.

For example, in 1939 the St. Louis came over full of Jewish people who were seeking refuge from Hitler. We might have kept them here for five years, but when 1945 rolls around, things have changed in Europe and we send them back. Where is the sense in all of this? People have to be looked at when they arrive here. We have to look at the conditions in their country at the time of their arrival.

Let us talk specifically about the 492 Tamils and the 76 Tamils. If this law had been in force they would not have been allowed to apply for landing until five years had passed. It would take five years plus another four to five years before they were landed. That is 10 years. For example, a mother comes over but has separated herself from her child, perhaps because she has lost her husband. The child is five years old when she leaves. She is stranded, but she will not see her child for 10 years. A five year old has been left behind. The child will not see his or her mother until he or she is 15. The child will grow up without a mother, without a parent, but when that child turns 15 and if the child is really lucky and the minister has not changed his mind, the child might come to Canada.

This is the draconian bill the Conservative government is bringing in.

A couple of years ago, an inspector general from the UNHCR, Mr. Arnauld Akodjenou, spoke to the citizenship and immigration committee. We asked him how Canada was reaching out to the UNHCR and asked whether people's credentials and information could be provided as to whether they are really refugees or not. I asked him whether Canada had reached out. The answer was that they had not had anything from Canada.

What Canada was doing, and what Canada is doing under the current Conservative government, is going back to Sri Lanka and asking the Government of Sri Lanka whether these people are legitimate refugees. Somebody who is fleeing a situation comes to Canada and instead of going to the UNHCR and the inspector in order to ask him what to do, we send information back to Sri Lanka. If these people were to be deported, they would be the first ones to be hurt.

When the Sun Sea came in 2010 there was an article which stated:

“The UNHCR supports the important work of law enforcement agencies in combating human smuggling....”

Mr. Mahecic of the UNHCR went on to say:

“It is nonetheless important to recognize that while refugees...are a distinct group with critical protection needs. It is not a crime to seek asylum.”

The article continued:

Although the war has ended, the UNHCR says Tamils might still have legitimate reasons for seeking asylum.

Let me repeat that, “Tamils might still have legitimate reasons for seeking asylum”.

The bill we are debating today is putting the Tamil community at risk. This is not only in Bill C-4--

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin my discussion on Bill C-4 by clearly contradicting what has been a repeated false claim from the other side of the House for the folks who are listening in on this debate.

I know many Canadians are very concerned about the bill and about the repudiation of basic Canadian values, of our treaty obligations and a whole variety of things that a number of my colleagues have been raising in the House all day.

What we have heard from the Conservative side is the repeated claim that somehow the number of refugees accepted in Canada has increased.

Anyone watching this debate can go to the CIC website, a federal government website, to see the actual figures. When the Conservative government came to power, 32,500 refugee visas were issued in 2006. Years later, in 2010, there were 24,500 visas issued. People can verify this on the website themselves. Perhaps there are Conservatives striving to change the figures as we speak, but I certainly hope they will keep the figures as they are written now. We can see over the time the Conservatives have been in power is a steady reduction in the number of refugees who are accepted in Canada.

One of the fundamental values we have as Canadians is the belief that those who are living under human rights violations or living in war should have the ability to apply for refugee status and come to Canada. However, we can see, from the figures that the government publicizes on its own website, what Conservatives have done systematically over the last five years. They have ended the queue. They have told refugees that they will not come to Canada.

It is understandable in that context that the Conservatives have been driving down and closing the door to Canada around the world for those living in situations of extreme violence and difficulty and they have now put forward a draconian piece of legislation that punishes those few refugees who actually make it to our shores.

As we know, when the Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady came to British Columbia, those people who had risked their lives travelling across the Pacific Ocean were immediately interred. They were put in prison and detention camps. I was able to visit them as a parliamentarian to see the conditions for the men, women, children and families who had escaped Sri Lanka and the systematic ongoing human rights violations that are taking place in northern Sri Lanka.

That has been well-documented by international organizations. Even though they are not allowed into Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly spoken of the ongoing human rights violations taking place there now. There are serious assaults, sexual assaults, disappearances and forced imprisonment without trial of individuals in northern Sri Lanka.

Understandably, in that situation any of us would be concerned about our family's welfare and health. We would strive, by any means, to leave that kind of situation. Nobody in this room and no Canadian across the country who had their family under threat would say that it was fine to leave their family under threat.

Those refugees got on a leaky boat with very little water and food. They spent weeks and weeks coming across the Pacific Ocean to come to Canada. They came to Canada for one reason only. They came to Canada to be safe.

This bill would tell those refugees, now that the Conservatives have closed the door to refugees, as we have seen over the last five years, that if they come to Canada to be safe they will be put in prison for a long time.

These are draconian measures that are a complete repudiation of basic Canadian values. There is no process and there is no queue. The Conservatives have closed the doors, as we have seen from the Conservatives' own figures on their website. If women, men and children come to Canada, they will be put in prison, not to verify their identities, which might be a normal process, but to punish them.

The Conservatives make reference to the bill cracking down on human smuggling. The bill is cracking down on refugees. It is imposing penalties on refugees who come here with whatever means they have, the bit of savings they may have been able to take out of the country, despite the human rights violations and the threats to them and their families. They make it to Canada and the Conservatives decide that they will be severely punished. That is only one aspect of this bill that concerns New Democrats and only one aspect of why we are standing in the House speaking out against what the Conservative government is trying to do.

The second is the fact that the bill gives licence to the minister to basically determine, at any time, what he considers to be a political file. We have seen systematically, over the course of the past few years, the Conservatives play political games in all kinds of ways. The Conservatives seem to like to divide one Canadian from another, francophones from anglophones, westerners from Quebeckers and those in Atlantic Canada and new Canadians from those who may have been here, like my family, for a number of generations.

We have seen the Conservatives play what is in my estimation the lowest kind of politics with refugees who only strive to protect their families and come to safety. That is all they are attempting to do, to start a new life in Canada in safety. All they ask for is safety, to live without that constant threat of violence at any time, that constant and unpredictable sense that at any time they may have a family member thrown into prison arbitrarily with no trial, or that a family member may be assaulted or raped, or a family member might simply disappear. These are the realities that exist in that area. Although human rights observers are not allowed into the area, the anecdotal evidence coming out clearly indicates that the human rights violations continue, and everyone should be aware of that.

Refugees strive to come to Canada, so they get in leaky boats with little food and water. These boats are not very safe and they come across the Pacific. They land on our shores and a minister, who is above all influenced by political factors, decides whether they will be thrown into jail for a long time and pay huge fines with what is left of the resources the refugees were able to take with them when they left. That is the second component. We are talking about a draconian law, but we are also talking about giving full powers to a minister who has repeatedly intervened in the immigration system in a political way.

The immigration system is supposed to be sacrosanct. It is supposed to be judged by a system of values that the vast majority of Canadians share. Instead, we have seen the government use those powers in ways that are designed to only further the interests of the Conservative Party. That is also the reason why we are concerned about this bill. A number of members from the NDP have said very clearly why they are concerned about that.

The third issue that I will raise in the time I have left are the violations of international treaties that Canada has signed. I will cite, as many of my colleagues have, the UN convention relating to the status of refugees.

Article 31, it states in part, “The Contracting States shall not impose penalties...on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened”.

This is a bad bill, it is a political bill and it is a draconian bill. That is why New Democrats are standing up for Canadian values and saying no to Bill C-4.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as this is my first chance to rise in this new session, I want to welcome you and all of my colleagues back to this place. It is good to see everyone and I look forward to our passionate discussions in debates to come.

Today I rise to debate Bill C-4 or, as the Conservative government has dubbed it, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act.

When I started to read the bill, I must admit that I had an odd feeling of déjà vu. The name of the bill reminded me of a movie title that really has nothing to do with the movie itself; it seems out of place and even misleading. With its name, one might think that the bill would be straightforward and do what its name says, that is, prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system. Sadly, the bill will not do that.

As written, the bill misses the mark. It takes square aim at the victims of human smuggling, the vulnerable and the poor, those who are desperate to seek a better life and to escape the horrors of oppression, poverty, discrimination and mortal danger. We in the NDP do not believe that the solution to this, or any other problem for that matter, is to punish the victim.

The bill as worded would create two separate categories of refugee claimants. As such, it is discriminatory and a violation of charter equality rights and the refugee convention, which it clearly does. However, these facts do not seem to bother the government so far.

Let me point to more issues that I have with the bill as it stands.

Under this proposed legislation, we see that designated claimants could not apply for permanent residency for five years. Furthermore, if the person fails to comply with the conditions or reporting requirements, this five year suspension can be extended to six years.

This proposed rule applies both to those accepted as refugees and those have been refused or who never make a claim. For accepted refugees, the worst consequence is that this rule would delay reunification with spouses and children overseas for five years. These families have already suffered a great deal, but with this proposal the government seems bent on adding to their suffering.

We in the New Democratic Party have known for a long time that the Conservative government has not been very concerned about family reunification, but this adds to the lack of empathy on the government's part.

The Conservatives state that this bill will result in a reduction in human trafficking. But in reality, in its present form, the bill concentrates too much power in the hands of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and unfairly penalizes the refugees. By contrast, the NDP wants to directly penalize the criminals: the traffickers and the smugglers. As it presently stands, the bill punishes legitimate refugees and those trying to help them. The proposed process is not clear, and it may be arbitrary and even discriminatory in the extreme.

Parliament just approved a strong and balanced refugee law a few months ago. What we need now is better enforcement. The Conservatives should be less focused on photo ops and more focused on enforcing the laws against human smuggling that we already have and give the RCMP the resources it needs to get the job done, instead of playing politics.

An attempt to play politics is precisely what this is. I am just getting to know many of my colleagues in this place from all across our great country and from all parties so I do feel pretty safe saying that many here in this room are either descendants of people who fled persecution and strife elsewhere in the world or have done so themselves.

When the masses of people from England and France came to this colder end of North America for the first time, many came to escape tyranny and persecution, and to seek a better life that was not available to them in their homelands. Those new arrivals, along with many first nations of this land, came together to be the founding nations of the country that we have today.

Our country is not always perfect but it is a shining beacon to the world, which is exactly why so many people are willing to risk their lives to come here, and that is precisely the point. By punishing the refugees who come here by such desperate means, the government will not reduce the desire of people from around the world to keep trying to come here. People will continue to want to come to Canada because of the greatness of this country. As long as we are this great and caring nation, people will continue to want to come and be part of it.

We should not punish those desperate refugees. We should punish the people who are trying to take advantage of their desperation. We must remember that the name of the bill is preventing human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system.

My New Democratic colleagues and I call on the government to do as the bill's title says, go after the human smugglers, and do not punish the innocent refugees who are simply seeking what so many generations before us came to this country to seek, which is a better life and a future for their children and families.

Under this bill, designated claimants, including children, will automatically be detained when they arrive or at the moment they are so designated. Children! Detained! How does detaining children solve anything?

Moreover, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada will not move to review the detention for a year. People can be released only if it is established that they are refugees. The board orders their release after a year; even then, it cannot release them if the government is of the view that their identities are not established or if the minister determines that there are exceptional circumstances.

In my opinion, this is a clear violation of the charter. We know that the Supreme Court of Canada has already put a stop to mandatory detention without a review of the security certificate. These provisions will result in indefinite detentions in identity issues with no possibility of release until the minister determines that identity has been established. Arbitrary detention is also a serious breach of international treaties. We are therefore asking this government to drop this bill.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Papineau on Bill C-4, the fact that punishing vulnerable refugees will be ineffective, illegal and inhumane. He mentioned that it would be five years before a refugee could apply for permanent residency status. Another factor in the bill is that a decision could be made not to allow that permanent residency because of factors that may have changed in the country of origin.

I would like my colleague to comment on what it would do to the fabric of Canada and the economy of Canada to have refugees remaining in limbo for years after having been determined to be genuine refugees but not able to know whether they can even have a successful permanent resident application.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I had the honour of being the official opposition critic for immigration and citizenship when this bill was introduced for the first time as Bill C-49. It was a very bad bill at the time, and I am very disappointed to see that the government is putting it forward again in the same form, now called Bill C-4. We are still discussing a bill that does not work.

It is a little like Groundhog Day where we are going over this again. However, I will try to keep things extremely simple for the members of the government so that they understand why this is a very poor piece of legislation.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question. There are laws in Canada, including one that punishes smugglers with life imprisonment, in fact. So, Bill C-4 is a fake bill. We are talking about refugees and protecting children on this side of the House because this bill masks the fact that legislation already exists to punish smugglers. So it is not necessary to create another law. Steps need to be taken to imprison the smugglers.