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

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member that the world is not black and white.

Most refugees are innocent, but not all. Would the member agree that we need to know who is who before we let them out on the streets? We all want to give relief to those who endure the atrocious situations that smuggled humans endure, but is it not more compassionate to create legislation that would prevent them from getting into those atrocious situations in the first place?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my friend that that is a laudable objective, but the legislation misses the mark.

The legislation, instead of offering a hand of compassion to refugees, says to them, “Welcome to Canada. Now we are going lock you up. We may or may not be back in 12 months.”

That is what this legislation does. It is unconstitutional. It shows a level of compassion that Canadians are not comfortable with. There is no way the legislation can be supported. It targets the victims.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one thing is being overlooked in some respects, although it has been raised in the dialogue, and it is an important issue. More Canadians are going to ask who will pay for this. Where are the economic resources going to come from to lock people up and warehouse them potentially for a year? We saw the situation with the Tamil refugees and it was hundreds of people. That cost is borne by the taxpayer.

Instead of putting our heads in the sand what we should be doing is processing people expeditiously to find out whether or not they can be immigrants to this country. The sooner we do that the sooner they will be contributing to the Canadian economy, paying into the pension system, the tax system, and being successful members of society.

I ask the member to think about those economic consequences.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, it struck me in the course of preparing my remarks that when people come through the door of my constituency office in Charlottetown, they want to talk about jobs. They want to talk about the fact that the economic situation on Prince Edward Island and in Canada is such that they cannot find work. They want to talk about the fact that the EI claims processing centre in Prince Edward Island is closing and we will be the only one without one. They want to talk about economic issues, and yet we have a government that is focused on expending our scarce resources on minimum mandatory sentencing and on locking up people who seek asylum. It is misguided.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the member has read the bill very carefully. We have been assuming in much of this that the bill is only directed to people arriving by ship. That seems to be an assumption. However, it has also been the case that we have heard the minister of immigration suggest that, if he so chooses, he will be able to designate other refugees arriving by other means as an irregular arrival of a group. We do not know what a group is. We do not know if it is a family, a couple, or 10 people. It is very uncertain. However, it does appear to be the case that other modes of arrival can be treated as irregular, at the discretion of the minister.

I wonder if the hon. member has any comments on that aspect of the uncertainty created by the bill.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's reading of the bill is the same as mine. There are provisions within the bill which allow for the arrest of a ship, but irregular entrants to Canada are not defined solely on their mode of arrival. They are defined on the basis of the number. Two people or more could be found to be irregular entrants by any means.

That is another problem with the bill. As I have said, if all one has in one's toolbox is a sledgehammer, everything looks like a rock. It is over-reaching.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government is very proud of the gains it made in the May election. It says that it received a clear mandate from Canadians to fight crimes like trafficking in refugees. In fact, I feel that they sent Canadians a message of deceit. In Quebec, they decided to mount a campaign of fear in order to convince voters that refugees are a threat to our country's security. I was very sad when I saw a number of advertisements that tried to make Canadians afraid of refugees.

Today, I am trying to make it clear who these refugees are. This government is too wrapped up in its success to understand the refugees' real story. They are women, children, the elderly, victims of civil war, rape and natural disasters. These refugees are not criminals and it is a disgrace that this government is making them out to be criminals.

The real criminals did not appear in the Conservatives' advertisements and they are not among those who will be detained under this bill. This government is deceiving Canadians in order to get an unfair bill passed. Bill C-4 will create problems, it will not put a stop to the problem of smuggling. The greatest problem with this bill is that it was introduced to solve the problem of smuggling, but it will really do little to solve it.

Instead, this bill attacks the victims. It will allow the authorities to detain refugees for up to a year. That means that all refugees who arrive in Canada by irregular means, be they children, women, victims of rape or civil war, will automatically be detained. It should also be added that the definition of the term “irregular arrival“ is too vague.

I repeat: this government wants to detain children who have probably already undergone horrific experiences to an extent I cannot even imagine. Does this government understand the effect that a year in a detention centre could have on a child? Is the government ready to take responsibility for that? It appears so.

Based on the speeches I heard yesterday, the government is claiming it wants to protect refugees from things like leaky boats and immigration fees that are too high. If it really wanted to protect refugees, it would never pass a bill that would put children in prison and discourage refugees from escaping to a safe country like ours.

So I find it ironic that the government is ready to invest resources and money to help people in war-torn countries, yet it is not ready to accept and help refugees from those very same countries. I have already pointed out some of the problems with the bill, but there are also others.

This bill is going to divide refugees into two categories: “normal” refugees and refugees with an “irregular arrival”. This division contravenes section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, since the two refugee categories are not going to be equal before and under the law. We have a government that introduces unconstitutional bills, without due consideration. What a disgrace.

Another measure that not only attacks smuggling victims, but also all refugees, provides that all refugees have to wait five years before they can apply for permanent residence. Instead of penalizing the smugglers, this government is going to take away the rights of refugees to bring their families here or even to have their families visit. Picture a two-year-old who will not be seeing his or her parents for five years. It seems that that is what the government would like to see with this bill.

The Minister of Immigration explained yesterday that the government is trying to address the smuggling issue with this bill. He said that it is wrong that victims of conflict in unsafe countries have to pay thousands of dollars to escape.

If this government truly wanted to correct the situation, it would consider other options such as improving the bill previously passed in the House or focusing its efforts on attacking those who are creating the problem, namely the smugglers themselves and not the victims. But this bill could potentially increase the number of illegal refugees, since refugees will no longer have the right to bring their family here in a legal manner. It should be noted that this is what happened in Australia.

I have underscored the many negative aspects of this bill, as my colleagues have over the past couple of days. It is time for the government to stop playing political games with this bill and start considering alternatives that will provide real solutions to the problem of smugglers without penalizing the victims.

We are lucky to live in a democratic country where we do not live in fear. What sort of example will we be setting for the international community if our country welcomes refugees by taking away their fundamental rights and freedoms? Our welcome should not cost them a year in a detention centre.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad my colleague finished with an interesting point with regard to the detainment for a year. I would like to get her perspective on something I have been thinking about during this process. In the detainments we have seen with Sri Lanka, we will have the families that are detained.

Those detained families are going to have experiences that are not going to be very positive. If they are going to be pushed back into Canadian society or later become immigrants, or if they are sent back abroad, what are the government's responsibilities going to be? Then there are the costs of meeting those responsibilities, as people are potentially going to be locked up for a year. We are not talking about a couple of nights here and there.

We are talking about legislation that identifies that the government would have the right to keep large numbers of people in place for a full year. There is going to be a processing time for that, but obviously the government has decided it is more important to have large numbers of people locked up than it is to try to process refugees more quickly so that they could either move on to their Canadian citizenship application or, alternatively, be sent back home.

I would ask for my colleague's comments on that aspect.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question.

It is true that staying in a detention centre for a year can have a very negative impact. Detainment can cause psychological problems. I hope the government will be prepared to take responsibility for that. When these people get permanent resident status, they will come back into our society. We want them to be happy with our society, to prosper and to contribute to the economy. Staying in a detention centre for a year is going to hurt the refugees' ability to integrate into our society when they obtain permanent resident status.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, victims of conflicts or natural disasters are helped by international relief organizations such as the United Nations. Canada is fulfilling its obligations as a member of the international community and accepts a high number of refugees every year.

Does the hon. member suggest that our country should have no limits on the number of refugees coming here every year?

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question. That being said, that is not the point. It is not a question of numbers. We live in a democratic country. If people are prepared to flee by ship—and perhaps not the safest one in the world—to come to Canada, then they should be given a chance. They should not be held in a detention centre. That is the crux of the debate here.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to our colleague's speech. On this side of the House, we can see that the Conservatives keep playing the division game. With this bill, we see that the minister has all of the authority, all of the control to determine who is telling the truth and who is not.

Is the member worried about the minister's expanded powers, given that this government has played so many political games in this area?

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would once again like to thank my colleague for his question.

I find this arbitrary government power troubling, especially because we have issues in Canada, although they are not across the board. Where is the oversight process? A mechanism has not really been implemented to watch the government and oversee what it is doing. That is very troubling, and I appreciate the question.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate on the question, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, National Defence; the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway, Citizenship and Immigration; and the hon. member for Halifax, the Oil and Gas Industry.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Davenport.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our party, as many of my colleagues have eloquently said, does not believe that Bill C-4, as it stands right now, would come close to dealing with the issue of human trafficking.

We have many refugees living in my riding of Davenport. We have advocates on their behalf. I have met with these people, with these refugees' advocates, and they tell me we are dealing with very vulnerable people who are themselves victims of crime.

I have also sat down with members of the business community. These are self-employed small business people, such as roofers and people in the building trades. They follow the letter of the law, and yet they are competing with unscrupulous criminals who are running other kinds of construction and roofing companies and employing groups of individuals who may or may not be themselves victims of human trafficking, although we cannot determine that, and their ability to compete on a level playing field is thus severely compromised.

They come to my office and speak both of frustration about their own business and about a severe and intense concern for these groups of people they see working in very unregulated work environments with no oversight, with no rights, with no recourse, but with fear for themselves and fear for their families. There is nothing in this bill that would address these very serious issues in communities right across the country.

In fact, the incidence of prosecution for human trafficking is very low. In Ontario, up to 2010 there have only been a handful of prosecutions. In fact, in Toronto itself there have been no prosecutions. There are reasons for that, but those reasons are not addressed in this bill.

Many of our good people in law enforcement and in prosecution see evidence of human trafficking, but it blurs with other kinds of crimes that they are unfortunately much more used to seeing and much more able to prosecute, such as living off the avails of prostitution.

We are saying that the bill does not address the issues of the actual criminals in this situation, but would in fact punish the victims. This seems bizarre to us.

The bill came up in the last Parliament and was roundly rejected by the majority of parliamentarians and the majority of Canadians. The majority of Canadians did not vote for the current government, and the majority of Canadians still reject the bill as it stands today.

I want to remind the House that there was a time many years ago, in an economic downturn, when we accepted a staggering number of refugees. In fact, the largest single group of refugees in our history was accepted in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1979 to 1980 we welcomed, as we should, 50,000 to 60,000 Vietnamese refugees, whom we then called “boat people”.

My eldest son's best friend in grade school was the son of a Vietnamese boat person who, when he finally got off that boat, arrived in Canada with absolutely nothing. Today he has a successful small business, owns a home, has a full-time job and has children who no doubt are going to contribute in staggeringly positive ways to our country.

This is the great Canadian legacy of which we should be proud. This is what Canadians expect from their federal government and the kind of leadership that Canadians expect Canada to display to the world. Instead, we see a draconian measure that does not give law enforcement agencies the tools they need to adequately prosecute human traffickers, the criminals in this case.

My riding has refugees and children of refugees. I have no doubt that those families, if given the right kind of attention and support, will become exemplary members of the Canadian family. There is nothing at all in the bill that addresses this issue.

On the issue of the Vietnamese boat people, studies were done which tracked our friends in the Vietnamese community who came in 1979. They found that within 10 years the unemployment rate among the Vietnamese boat people was 2.3% lower than the average unemployment rate at the time for Canada. One in five had started businesses and 99% of them had successfully applied to become Canadian citizens and, by and large, a much lower than average number had to avail themselves of Canada's social safety net. This is the kind of success that compassion brings. This is the kind of success on which Canada has been built. This is the kind of success that we on this side of the aisle believe we should proudly trumpet to the world.

As I said, Canada has a very low rate of conviction for human smuggling. This low conviction rate is due to many factors. The police and RCMP need the tools to deal with this issue effectively. We do not see this in the bill. The bill does not deal with the issue. These are immigration issues, but the government seems to think they are public safety issues. The Conservatives are playing politics with refugees.

We can talk about refugees in sort of a general way, but my riding has refugees who want to contribute to Canadian society. They are here because where they were was a place that they could no longer be, a place they had to flee. Canada has always been a country that welcomed and provided support to those in our world who were terrorized, brutalized and abandoned. That is the kind of Canada the party on this side of the aisle believes in and that is why we in the NDP are very opposed to the bill.