This bill is from the 41st Parliament, 1st session, which ended in September 2013.
Vic Toews Conservative
Second reading (House), as of Oct. 3, 2011
(This bill did not become law.)
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-4s:
Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System ActGovernment Orders
Some hon. members
Oh,oh!
Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System ActGovernment Orders
The Acting Speaker Bruce Stanton
Order, please. There is a lot of noise in the House. Hon. members are arriving for the upcoming vote. I ask them to take their seats.
The hon. member for Shefford.
Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System ActGovernment Orders
NDP
Réjean Genest NDP Shefford, QC
Mr. Speaker, these newcomers make an important contribution in my community. There are professionals, agricultural workers and students. They have high hopes for their future, and that future is bright.
Why is this government trying so hard to change our Canadian identity? Our identity has been established. We are happy to live together and we want to continue building together. Why is this government trying so hard to have us believe that immigration is a threat? Why does this government not know how to appreciate this human wealth?
I am lucky to have an excellent doctor who immigrated to Canada. His expertise has been extraordinarily beneficial to me in these past few weeks.
I invite my colleagues to think back to January 2010, when Haiti was struck by an earthquake. The government had announced that it would facilitate the arrival of Haitians in Canada, including through the family reunification program. While family reunification claims can take up to three years to be processed under normal circumstances, the fast-tracked files could be settled within weeks, or in two or three months at most.
Remember that the Immigration Canada offices in Haiti were inaccessible; the Canadian Embassy building in Port-au-Prince had been evacuated for safety reasons.
“Accepting of any kind of additional applications or actual coordination on the ground in Haiti at the moment is extremely difficult,” said the Prime Minister during a press conference.
“It is impossible to recover the files that are in Port-au-Prince,” added the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.
“We think it will take a couple weeks before we can start processing immigration applications from Haiti again,” explained the minister. “Some of the paperwork can be filled out and processed here in Canada,” he added.
Two facts should have been taken into account at the time: the entire world was tuned into this sad event and the government was in a minority position. Is this government acting out of partisanship or for the sake of democracy?
In closing, how do university professors define Canadian identity? In two words: multiculturalism and bilingualism. This is our identity and we want to preserve it.
I am asking this government to stop insisting on changing our perception of ourselves. We live and want to continue living in trust, not in mistrust.