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

[An hon. member]

You should be very understanding.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

First, this bill is illegal. Second, this bill is ineffective. Third, this bill—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. I am sure that members will be interested to hear what the member for Papineau has to say.

The hon. member for Papineau.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, this bill is illegal, is ineffective and fundamentally is ideologically driven.

Why is this bill illegal? Under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms we have the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. In a Supreme Court judgment that came down a few years ago, 120 days was put as the outside limit beyond which someone could not be imprisoned without recourse to justice. This bill proposes one year as a mandatory detention. Whether or not the Conservatives like it, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to everyone on Canadian territory, not just Canadian citizens.

This bill is also in violation of our United Nations obligations as a signatory to the UN convention on refugees, which demands that countries that are signatories to the convention on refugees expedite the integration of refugees into citizenship and life within those countries as much as possible.

To stipulate an arbitrary limit of five years before someone can seek permanent residency is in direct violation of both the spirit and letter of our responsibilities under the UN convention.

This bill will not pass legal muster. If it does not pass that, the question then becomes, what does it try to do? The Conservatives have made a lot of hay about how this would be a deterrent. It will prevent vulnerable people from taking the risks that we all recognize are associated with travelling across the oceans on leaky ships.

The problem with that thought process is that the deterrents we are proposing, a potential year of imprisonment or five years without permanent residency, are enough of a disincentive to deter legitimate refugees from coming over.

I remind the House that to be considered a legitimate refugee, the person must be fleeing from a state or country that offers no protection from persecution, torture and death. The refugee and his or her family must be in danger of their very lives and existence with no community or infrastructure to protect them from death or torture.

Refugees are willing to risk spending a little more time in prison in Canada where they will not be persecuted, killed or tortured. As well, although it is against Canadian law and principles, the possibility that they may not be able to bring their families over for five years is not a particularly powerful disincentive.

The bill does not work. It will not prevent people who are legitimate refugees from taking risks to come to Canada.

On the other side of the equation, imposing mandatory minimums of 10 years and harsher penalties on the smugglers who already face life imprisonment and millions of dollars in fines will not make a big difference to what is a multi-billion dollar industry.

If the bill is illegal and ineffective, the issue then becomes why is it in place and why is it being brought forward?

The minister likes to speak of Tamil refugee claimants living in the south of India who have heard they can get a monthly income in Canada and think it is wonderful.

The fact is this bill does not apply to economic migrants. If refugees come here trying to improve their lot in life they are not considered to be refugees. There is an evaluation process and they will be returned home. They do not get to jump any immigration queue by using the refugee process.

Perhaps it will deter economic migrants from boarding leaky ships to cross the ocean. That is fine, but we already have a process. A couple of years ago all parties agreed to pass Bill C-11 to improve the way we process refugees and expedite the return of failed refugee claimants. That is a much more effective deterrent.

What this bill does is punish people who, because they are recognized as actual refugees, are by definition among the most vulnerable people on the planet.

So why do we have a bill that is both illegal and ineffective? It is about ideology. It is about torquing up anti-immigration sentiment. It is about making people feel, every time the term “queue jumpers” is used, that the reason a family of new Canadians cannot sponsor a husband or wife or parents to come over in less than 10 or 12 years these days is that there are ships of queue jumpers showing up. That is a clever and insidious piece of misinformation the government is putting out.

There is no queue for refugees. We have a refugee process. Everyone who arrives here, whether by ship, bicycle, plane or somehow by sneaking across the border, gets evaluated within a process. The idea that the process of evaluation of 500 migrants who have arrived in two ships over the past few years is somehow bogging down our entire system overlooks the fact that we accepted 280,000 immigrants through our immigration process last year. Every year we accept about 250,000 to 260,000 immigrants on average. Every year we accept somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 refugees. There is an order of magnitude of difference between those two numbers. So to say we are bogging down our system with these boats coming here and getting in our way and costing us lots of money is disingenuous to say the least, but dangerous to the sense of what Canada is and what it is around the world.

We are a country that has made mistakes in the past, in turning around ships like the St. Louis and the Komagata Maru. We are a country that has made mistakes by bowing to popular opinion and interring Japanese Canadian citizens and Italians and others in World War II.

We are supposed to have learned from our processes and errors. We are supposed to be able to say that we will not do this again, that we will not make these mistakes. Yet this piece of legislation falls into demagogic pandering to people's fears of refugees and others, and is actually a denial of the kind of Canada that we have fought to build over decades and generations.

Canada is a country governed by law and justice, seeking to be a safe haven of possibilities for everyone around the globe. As soon as we start closing our doors and turning our backs on the world's most vulnerable people, this is no longer the Canada we all believe in.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, could the member please enlighten us? Why is it that he believes that human smugglers are somehow integral to or a legitimate part of our refugee process?

His speech failed to mention his idea of effective for tackling this problem, which did not exist at the time of the arrival of boat people from Vietnam in the late 1970s. This problem did not exist at the time of the mistakes made by Liberal governments during World War II with regard to Jewish refugees. It exists today.

Why is it that the member and his party have voted for measures to deter terrorists and to crack down on drug smugglers and other branches of international organized crime but not on human smugglers, who are not a legitimate part of the refugee process for this country and whose involvement in this process this bill would deter and, eventually, if successfully implemented, would end? Could he please answer that question?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the parliamentary secretary to look through the bill again to see that there is very little in it to address human smugglers. We would love to be able to crack down on human smugglers; we would love it if this bill were able to go after human smugglers.

If the parliamentary secretary wants to know how, I will give him three ways to do that.

First, we should work with transit countries like Thailand to crack down on and arrest the gangs responsible for human smuggling. The fact is that when the minister announced at one point that 100 arrests had been made in Thailand, those were not arrests of human smugglers but of asylum seekers. So the government's emphasis is again on refugees.

We should also work with transit countries to accept refugees.

Moreover, we should work with originating countries to ensure that their situations improve.

That is not what this bill is doing.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate the hon. member for Papineau on his speech

I wonder if he could expand on the notion that this bill is based on ideology, and what effect this kind of ideology can have on our society.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her question.

This is part of the Conservative tough on crime ideology, as even Mr. Duceppe used to call it.

The Conservatives are trying to find ways to convince people that they are really tough on crime, as we saw today with their omnibus crime bill that imposes obviously harsh measures, even though it will have no positive effect on a country in which the crime rate is already going down. It is their ideology that makes them say they are being tough on traffickers, yet they introduce a bill that does not target traffickers and instead targets refugees.

That is the triumph of ideology and image over substance.

[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]

This country was built on people seeking better lives for themselves and their families, trying to build their futures. Our ancestors, if they are not first nations, came from all around the world trying to build a better life here in this country. To tell someone once that he or she has been accepted as a refugee, or come from a failed state no longer able to protect them from persecution or death and that they can stay in Canada and start building a life, but that we may send him or her back in a few years if things get better, that uncertainty is not the way we build a strong country. It is yet another failing of the bill.

[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.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague rightly mentions that one of the reasons the bill would not dissuade people from trying to get to Canada is because of the greatness of this country. It is also because our world, in many parts, is disfigured by war, by poverty, by violence, by corruption and by a lack of protection for the most vulnerable in our world. That is another reason that people want to come to this country and another reason that the bill would not prevent that from happening.

Could my hon. colleague speak to the issue of family reunification and whether the bill would actually create a climate in this country where the reunification of children and their parents can be smoother, quicker and more efficient?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his very relevant question.

I think this would be one of the problems. It was noted earlier in the debate that this will be one of the fundamental problems with this bill. Not obstructing family reunification is an absolutely essential factor that must reflect the generosity of this country. Let us stop being afraid of immigrants, let us stop being afraid of the others. We know that people are always afraid of the others. Canadian citizens are even afraid of certain other Canadian citizens if they see photographs of them, on Facebook for example, with a leader of a party other than their own.

This trend is disturbing. We really have to start getting away from this kind of approach in this country we call Canada, since it does not deserve that reputation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

There are things we wonder about on this side of the House. We now have a situation where someone who is very wealthy can apply under a process that the Conservatives brought in that is supposedly for the entrepreneur class. So someone who is wealthy can come to Canada, but someone who is poor, who experiences human rights violations, who suffers enormous problems, cannot. I wanted to check with my colleague whether he thinks that the way this Conservative government sees the entire immigration system and the issue of refugees is fair.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague very much for his question.

One of the things that they do not seem to realize on the other side of the House is the fact that we already have democratic institutions in this country that deal with the situations they are currently concerned about. There are institutions that respond to their concerns, so why are they attacking the poor and vulnerable victims in this bill? This is what is most disturbing.

There is a concept in this country called the rule of law and this bill seems to be taking us away even from that. Canada’s international obligations are very clear of course. As a result of signing the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Canada’s obligations are clear. The Charter of the United Nations, and last time I checked Canada was a signatory to the Charter of the United Nations, calls on Canada to respect all human rights, the rights of every person. Again, this bill is taking us away from that great principle of international law.