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

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I must tell the hon. member for Cape Breton—Canso that I will have to interrupt his speech at 2 o'clock for the usual statements by members.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that overwhelming sound of indifference from my colleagues when they heard that my speech would be cut short.

This has been a very enlightening debate. Many of the speakers have brought very important points forward today throughout the course of the debate, certainly in the presentation that was presented by our leader, the member for Toronto Centre. In light of his vast experience on this topic and what he has done and seen over the course of his career, he sees a government that has certainly missed the mark in bringing forward this legislation.

We have seen it time and again, regardless of the issue such as the omnibus justice bill presented today. With regard to legislation on immigration before us now, the government has taken the approach that it first wants to soften the ground. It wants to scare the Canadian public into thinking that there is some type of crisis in our midst, that there is this onslaught of illegal refugees who are towering on our shores.

In the debate earlier today we heard from the member for York West, a former minister of citizenship and immigration. She had never dealt with a case like this during her tenure. Several of those involved in the debate today spoke with reference to the fact that there had been no significant increase, yet it has been put before the Canadian people that there is a degree of urgency because of an onslaught of refugees.

We see the same thing with the omnibus justice bill, which was presented and will be debated later in the House, that there is a crime wave sweeping across the country. When that fear is created, the government then is in a position to move forward with its ideologically driven mandate and agenda. That is the whole focus right now of the government.

I look forward to resuming, and I know all members in the House are looking forward to the remainder of my speech once we come back after question period.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The member for Cape Breton—Canso has seven minutes remaining in his remarks when we resume debate on the motion and five minutes for questions and comments.

Statements by members, the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska.

The House resumed 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.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 is described as an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to prevent smuggling. However, it does nothing of the sort. What it would do is prevent refugees from arriving in Canada.

I think the best way to describe one of the flaws in the bill is to look backward, because that is what the Conservatives are doing with this bill. They are moving Canada backward. In looking backward, what would have happened had the bill been law in the past?

My ancestors arrived in this country from Ireland as refugees of a sort. They were religious refugees. They were practising Catholics who felt threatened that their religion would not be accepted with the British domination of Ireland, so they came to Canada by boat, and they paid good money for that. They came under forged documents, under the wrong name. They did this because they were desperate to leave Ireland. They knew a famine was coming, they knew there was a problem and they were desperate.

Another bunch of my ancestors came from Germany, again by boat. They left because of what they felt was religious persecution against their Catholic faith. They went to the United States first, travelling under the right documents, but they would have been detained had they come to Canada because they came by boat in large numbers and they paid somebody to bring them here.

My most distant relatives from my mother's family coming to Canada came to what is now the United States before the Mayflower. They came in 1592 or 1594, something like that. While legislation might not have been in place, there were certainly native North Americans here who, if they behaved the way the Conservatives do, would have jailed all my ancestors as they arrived by boat without documentation, without permission and they paid good money to get here.

These are but some of the ridiculous examples of what would have happened in the past. I say “ridiculous” because that is what this legislation is.

Much more recent than those occasions, in 1939 a ship containing over 900 refugees arrived in North America, looking to find some place to put those refugees. Canada turned it away. That ship went back to Europe. That ship was the MV St. Louis. Some members opposite have suggested that it would have been a better thing had the Conservative bill now before us been in place at that time as Canada would not have sent the ship back. Those refugees would have been put in jail instead and they would have been safe.

However, that is not what the minister said the purpose of the bill is. The minister has said that the purpose of the bill is to not allow refugees into Canada. The purpose of the bill is to ensure that the boats do not leave the country of origin. The purpose of the bill is to make it financially unprofitable for the human smugglers to bring these people across because they would know they would end up in jail.

If that is the purpose of the bill, then in 1939 the St. Louis would never have left Hamburg in the Conservative's view. Instead of merely 254 German citizens and Jewish people being exterminated as a result of being sent back by Canada, all 937 would have faced probable elimination in the concentration camps in Europe. I know that seems rather extreme, but I am trying to give the bill a historical perspective.

We cannot and should not build our laws in this country on the basis of a knee-jerk reaction to a couple of boats arriving on the west coast that someone, somewhere, declared might have criminals on them. We should not build our systems in a reactionary way, rather than looking at the overall problem.

The overall problem is that there are too many people on this planet who are refugees, who need a place to go, who need to find a home. Canada should be welcoming those people. We should not be asking those boats to stay home. We should not be trying to prevent those people from coming to Canada in the first place, which is what the minister admitted was really the purpose of the bill.

It is somewhat hypocritical of the government to suggest that it welcomes immigrants, that it welcomes immigration. It welcomed them during the last election campaign, touting a Conservative government to the immigrant community as a good thing for them. Many of those people the government was wooing are in fact refugees.

Now that we know the Conservatives' real agenda, which is to prevent refugees arriving in Canada, to prevent the necessary acceptance of people whose countries are so war-torn or so undemocratic that they absolutely need a place to go, it is wrong. If we are trying to prevent those people coming here, it is wrong. It is so wrong.

I agree with the notion that we should attempt to stop the potential profiteering off the plight of people in very poor and war-torn situations. However, this is not the way to do it. This will not arrest a single smuggler; it will not deal with that problem at all. All it will do is to prevent people who should be allowed to come to Canada from coming to Canada. That is not what I believe.

I do not believe the Conservative government or this House believes that. I believe that we all think that Canada is a great place, a place that should be accepting of as many citizens of the world who want to come here, who can supply us with great labour and resources and their intelligence and world views. We should be accepting of that. To do otherwise, to prevent it and try to restrict it, is wrong-headed.

The specifics of the bill are so wrong that Canada will fly in the face of the convention that it signed at the UN. We signed the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. We are bound by it and yet are doing exactly what it says we should not do:

The Contracting States—

—that is us—

—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.

We should not be violating our commitments to the United Nations. Whether commitments to Libya or to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, we must not do that. We must give a strong and convincing signal to the world and Canadians that Canada is an accepting place, that Canada is a place where there are not two statuses of citizens, citizens who came by boat, as my ancestors all did, and citizens who came by plane.

Now that Air Canada is back, they will be able to come by plane in greater numbers. However, we should not be restricting refugees. The legislation is wrong-headed if its intent is to stop the flow of refugees coming to Canada.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the opposition does not have a monopoly on friends and family who came to Canada under extremely difficult circumstances. My mother also came to Canada by boat after her family had escaped Germany, dodging dogs and bullets all the way.

The opposition knows that we Conservatives do not maliciously intend to target innocent refugees. This bill is designed to protect these refugees from being duped into the most dire and dangerous of circumstances.

We ask the opposition to call a spade a spade and recognize that Conservatives are not cold-hearted people who hate refugees and want to throw them away into worse circumstances. When refugees first arrive, they are certainly held in better conditions than on the boat they arrived in. It is just a matter of finding out who is who and making sure that the good guys get in and the bad guys do not.

Could the hon. member comment on that?

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that we do not have a monopoly on immigration in this country. Everyone here, with the exception of a handful of native North Americans who are here, is an immigrant to this country in some way.

I would just ask the member to consider how he and his mother would have felt if, upon her arrival in Canada on that boat, she had immediately been put in prison as the result of arriving by boat, which is what this Conservative document would do. For people arriving by boat, particularly a lot of people arriving at the same time and who have paid a lot of money to come, it quite likely means prison

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

Mr. Speaker, the bill under consideration is in violation of article 31 of the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees that our country has signed. It is something that good members of the global community would want to pay attention to.

Could the hon. member tell us how passing this bill will affect the status of Canada in the world community?

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, when we are a signatory to a declaration at the UN, the other signatory countries expect Canada to live up to its obligations. They expect Canada to live up to what it has signed.

If we pass a law that flies in the face of that law, we will not have the same image to the rest of the world. We will lose credence. We will lose respectability and, when it comes to future declarations, we will lose the trust of those other countries.

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

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on his speech.

I would like him to comment on the fact that the Conservatives are trying to bypass the impartial and democratic processes that Canada has previously put in place. There is a refugee board and a commission to hear these kinds of applications. Those institutions are democratic and impartial. The fact that the government is trying to put all the power into the hands of the minister is a grave affront to the impartiality and the democratic nature of the institutions already in place in Canada. I would like him to comment on that.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, how true that is. When there are laws in place that do exactly what the Conservative government says is needed, then one has to ask the question, why this? What is the purpose of this law? Is it really to do something about smugglers?

No, it is about preventing refugees from coming to Canada. That is what this law is ultimately to do, and the minister has admitted it. There are plenty of laws and regulations on the books determining what a refugee really is, and to determine whether the person has arrived here with documentation or not and whether or not they should remain in Canada.

Those laws are already there. This legislation goes way beyond that.

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

Mr. Speaker, the time that I have just spent in my riding of Saint-Lambert has allowed me to gauge the extent to which the legislation that we pass in this assembly and the regulations made by the governments, may, for some groups of people, have devastating consequences that we had not thought of at the outset. I have met fathers and mothers who have to live apart from their children and their spouse forever because of one section in the regulations to the Immigration Act that creates a category of family members who cannot be sponsored. These tragic situations have allowed me to become more aware of the heavy responsibilities we have when we pass legislation. The future for hundreds, maybe thousands, of people may be irrevocably affected.

Canadians expect us to enact legislation that protects them and everyone living in Canada, whatever their status, and that does not violate their rights and freedoms. We must always keep in mind that our duty is to put in place laws that are just and fair for all. Laws that reflect, not only our most sacred values, but also the obligations that we have undertaken through the treaties we have signed.

In reaction to the illegal arrival of many foreign nationals who used the services of corrupt smugglers to abuse our immigration system, the government has introduced in Parliament new legislative measures meant to prevent other smugglers from facilitating such arrivals. The objective behind the government's initiative is definitely legitimate. Indeed, large-scale, random arrivals of individuals could dangerously compromise the safety of Canadians and could give rise to illegal human trafficking.

Unfortunately, the fact is that while the safety of Canadians remains a great priority, the government did not choose the right way to achieve that goal. Regarding our international obligations under human rights conventions signed by Canada, specifically, the Geneva convention of July 28, 1951, relating to the status of refugees, Bill C-4 is nothing short of disastrous because it completely misses the mark. Instead of targeting smugglers, the bill targets mainly asylum seekers, whether legitimate or not, as pointed out by the Canadian Bar Association.

The real challenge facing our democracy as a result of these large-scale and unpredictable arrivals “calls for...an effective response...in a way that appropriately recognizes the fundamental values of the rule of law” as stated by the Supreme Court, and the values that Canadians hold dear. The Supreme Court reminds us once again that, “In a democracy, not every response is available to meet the challenge of terrorism” or that, in relation to the bill before us today, the illegal arrival of foreign nationals does not give us the right to create discriminatory laws that destroy freedom and go against our international obligations.

Bill C-4 violates the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. It unduly penalizes refugees, asylum seekers and children. Our main concern has to do with the especially repressive slant the government is trying to introduce in a bill whose ultimate goal should be protection. Presented as an effective legislative measure against potential smugglers who might try to engage in human trafficking, Bill C-4 unfortunately contains very little to target smugglers directly. Most of the provisions in this bill punish not smugglers, but rather asylum seekers and refugees.

This bill disregards many of the rights that are guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and by international conventions that Canada signed, in particular, the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which was signed on July 28, 1951. With regard to this Convention, the bill creates two categories of refugees: refugees who are designated by their method of arrival and other refugees. The first category of refugees will not be treated as well as the others. In this regard, the bill introduces a double standard for victims of persecution who are seeking protection in Canada.

In other words, Bill C-4 is discriminatory in that it treats victims of persecution differently. And yet, according to the spirit of the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, we should not question how refugees escaped the persecution they faced in their home country. In the face of persecution, there is no good or bad way to escape.

The right to equal access to justice is a fundamental right. Unfortunately, the government is in the process of destroying this principle through Bill C-4, which it introduced to the House on the pretext of preventing smugglers from abusing our immigration system when its unspoken objective is actually to go after refugees and asylum seekers.

“Designated foreign nationals” cannot even appeal an unfavourable decision to the Refugee Appeal Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. The most serious criminals have full recourse but not the victims of persecution who are seeking to escape their tormentors.

If parliamentarians are asked to accept unfair laws, it will destroy the basis of our democracy.

Similarly, we cannot understand why designated foreign nationals must be deprived of the right to apply for permanent residence, why they must be automatically detained and why the government needs to add more reasons for detaining refugees.

I would like to end my speech by drawing the House's attention to the negative effects that Bill C-4 will have on the rights of the child.

In all cultures, the family is considered to be the mother cell of society. That is why one of the objectives that this Parliament assigned to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is that of facilitating family reunification.

By depriving some refugees of the right to apply for permanent residence for five years, Bill C-4 makes family reunification more difficult.

In particular it makes it harder for children to be reunited with their parents when they are designated foreign nationals; that is a clear infringement of the right to a family environment that is guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Canada is a signatory.

Finally, Bill C-4 deprives designated foreign nationals, including children, of the possibility of applying for permanent residence for five years, even after the designated foreign nationals have been granted refugee status. But an application for permanent residence is the only way in which the best interests of the child can be evaluated.

If Bill C-4 is passed, it will give the government a tool that it will use to expel children from Canada with no due consideration of their interests. That is contrary to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which our country is a signatory.

In a word, the bill targets refugees and refugee claimants instead of smugglers. It should be withdrawn because it is unfair.

The NDP is not alone in opposing it. When 88 major organizations all across Canada come out against a bill, when our legal experts in the Canadian Bar Association are opposed to a bill and lay out the grounds for their opposition, the government should pay attention rather than claim that everyone else is wrong. The objections that are ringing out all over Canada should be taken into consideration.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her very eloquent speech, which was obviously fueled by a great deal of passion on this topic.

I wonder if she could say a bit more about her views on this bill's effects on family reunification and the impacts it would have on refugees who are settled in Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question.

The repercussions are enormous and truly dramatic. Husbands and wives who come here as refugees will not be able to reunite their families. That is something completely inhumane and contrary to our conventions. The repercussions really go beyond what this kind of legislation can impose.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what the hon. member thinks about what the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism was saying yesterday. He said that the purpose of this bill was to influence the economic decision of prospective refugees abroad.