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

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

moved 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.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate you on your election.

It is a great privilege for me to rise in the House today with respect to the sponsorship of Bill C-4, the preventing human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system act.

Over the last few months, all of us have heard a great deal about the importance of the legislation before us today, which our government first introduced October 2, 2010, as part of an overall strategy to help put an end of human smuggling.

We have heard from ordinary Canadians that they want our borders to stay open to newcomers who play by the rules when they come to our country, but firmly shut against those who would abuse our generosity, threaten the integrity of our immigration system and pose a risk to our safety and security.

They have told us they want Canada to remain the welcoming country it has always been for newcomers. However, they have also told us that human smuggling operations must be stopped.

The arrival of two migrant vessels from Southeast Asia over the past two years, the MV Ocean Lady and the MV Sun Sea, have proved the reach and determination of organized human smuggling networks in their efforts to target Canada.

We have heard from experts in the field that Canada is the destination of choice for human smugglers and that criminal networks are evolving and adapting to utilize more sophisticated ways of moving their cargo.

Canada, therefore, needs to be ever more vigilant and more aggressive in cracking down on the ringleaders of this worldwide criminal operation, not less, as some have suggested.

The truth is that human smugglers are not at all interested in helping individuals in need. They do not care about individuals. They do not care about families. They make victims of their passengers, who must pay dearly, and risk their lives to undertake perilous journeys. Human smugglers only care about money and are working every day to increase the profits from their illegal activities.

Most of all, Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to continue building on our track record of making our streets and communities safer for everyone by cracking down on criminals and organized crime groups however they may operate and from wherever they may operate.

One way our government intends to do that is by passing legislation this fall to, among other things, tackle organized drug crimes and establish tougher sentences and mandatory jail terms for child molesters and those who use the Internet for this purpose.

We will end house arrest for serious and violent offenders. We will bring measures to ensure pardons can be refused in cases involving serious crimes against children. We will equip our police with new investigative powers designed for the computer age.

Our government was quite clear in our 2011 platform that such legislation would be passed within 100 sitting days of the return of the House, and ours is a government that delivers on its commitments.

We were equally clear in our platform that another way our government would continue to stand on guard for Canada and protect the safety and security of Canadians would be by cracking down on human smuggling. That is why we are here today. Bill C-4 is all about that. It is about delivering on our commitments to Canadians. It is about standing on guard for Canada and taking action to keep our streets, communities and borders safe.

Bill C-4 would, first and foremost, crack down on those criminals who would abuse our generous immigration system and endanger the safety and security of our Canadian communities.

We are providing a strong deterrent to those who are organizing human smuggling operations to jump the queue into Canada and we are ensuring the integrity and fairness of Canada's immigration system for years to come.

Under this act, our government would enable the Minister of Public Safety to designate the arrival of a group of persons as an irregular arrival and make those involved subject to the act's measures. It would make it easier to prosecute human smugglers. It would impose mandatory minimum prison sentences on convicted human smugglers. It would hold shipowners and operators to account for the use of their ships in human smuggling operations.

As part of the legislation, designated arrivals would face mandatory detention for up to one year to allow Canadian authorities to determine admissibility and illegal activity. In short, the detention period would provide more time to identify those who had arrived in our country and whether they posed a threat to our national security. Canadians deserve nothing less.

That provision is no different than the provision that occurs on a regular basis inside our criminal court system. Many of us who have been involved either as prosecutors or defence lawyers in the court system understand that if an accused person refuses to identify themselves, or if the court is not sure of the identity of the accused, the accused remains in custody until that determination can be made. The problem is it is so much more difficult when strangers arrive at our shores without any identification and we have no idea from where they are coming or who in fact they are.

Under the act, our government is also reducing the attraction of coming to Canada by way of illegal human smuggling operations. This includes measures like preventing those who come to Canada as part of an irregular arrival, including those who subsequently obtain refugee status, from applying for permanent resident status for a period of five years.

The act would ensure that the health benefits participants receive would not be more generous than those received by other members of the Canadian public. It would enhance the ability to terminate refugee applications of those who would return to their country of origin for a vacation or would demonstrate in other ways that they were not legitimately in need of Canada's protection. It would also prevent individuals who participate in human smuggling events from sponsoring family members for a period of five years.

Bill C-4 is virtually identical to the legislation our government introduced in the House of Commons last year. There are minor revisions, most notably one which puts the responsibility for designating an irregular arrival event in the exclusive purview of the minister rather than delegating it.

As hon. members know, the legislation which our government introduced in the fall proposed that the Minister of Public Safety would be allowed to designate those who land on our shores, in a way similar to those aboard the MV Sun Sea or the MV Ocean Lady, as an irregular arrival. The minister would make such a designation when he or she had reasonable grounds to believe that establishing the identity or admissibility of the individuals coming to Canada as part of such an arrival could not be carried out in a timely manner or if he or she had reasonable grounds to suspect that the arrival of the group involved organized human smuggling activity.

The legislation before us today retains those provisions and adds another stipulating that the designation must be made by the Minister of Public Safety personally and cannot be delegated.

The measures which our government is proposing are tough, but they are fair. They are fair to those who legitimately and legally wait, or have waited in line for a better life in Canada. It is fair for all Canadians who rightfully expect that our borders and shores are protected and secure and our generous social systems are protected from abuse.

For those who want to jump the queue or target Canada for criminal gain, these measures are a message, clear and direct: Canada will not tolerate human smuggling and if one wants to come here there are fair, legal and legitimate means to do so.

These measures will enhance our ability to crack down on those who engage in human smuggling and try to exploit Canada's generous immigration system. They will strengthen our ability to protect Canada from criminal or terrorist threats and they respect our international obligations to provide assistance for those legitimate refugees who need our protection and help to start a new and better life.

Every year Canada welcomes nearly 14,000 refugees to our country. As a share of our population, that number represents more than any country in the world. Nothing in Bill C-4 changes this. Nor are there any provisions in the bill that would result in Canada returning someone to face torture or risk to their life in their native country.

From coast to coast to coast, Canadians want to help those in need or those who genuinely need our protection, but that does not make us naive and it does not make us pushovers. Canada and Canadians want tough measures to stop those who would abuse our generosity from becoming part of Canadian society.

We know that threats exist and that we must remain vigilant. That is why our government is taking action. That is what our government is doing today, and this is what we will continue to do in the future.

I would therefore urge all hon. members to support the legislation before us today and work with our government to ensure its speedy passage.

I would like to propose a motion to the House dealing with the bill. We are approaching an adjournment, and as you know, Madam Speaker, during the adjournment, we could be faced with another crisis like we faced with the MV Sun Sea.

Therefore, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House for the following: That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of this House, 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 deemed to have been read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Does the hon. minister have the consent of the House to propose this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am quite disappointed that the New Democrats and the Liberals would refuse consent. It certainly is a matter of urgency. However, this is fairly typical of both of those parties. They are more concerned about furthering criminal operations as opposed to actually stopping criminals from gaining access to our country.

The motion was a very reasonable one in moving the bill forward so our law enforcement agencies, our immigration, CBSA and others would be in a position to help secure our borders and determine identity in a timely fashion so human smugglers could not take advantage of our country.

It is unfortunate the New Democrats and the Liberals would oppose that unanimous motion, but this is a democracy and that is the rule of the House.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, a 12-year-old child with her mother, flying in from Haiti tomorrow, could be designated by the minister as coming in irregularly because the child and the mother may not have any documents. The child and her mother could be jailed for at least a year and she would be prevented from becoming a landed immigrant and/or from helping to bring the brothers and sisters over from Haiti, or from Syria or from whatever country for at least five years.

I have several questions for the minister. What criteria would he use to designate irregular arrival? Would flying in be termed as irregular arrival? Does it have to come from boats?

The minister also talked about a group of people. Two persons, in my dictionary, is not a group of people, but under this law, he would have the right to designate two persons coming by air, which is the majority of the people coming across the border. How would he justify this kind of designation?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, let me deal with some of the preamble. The criteria the minister must consider to designate are set out in the act. If those criteria are utilized in unreasonable fashion, having consideration for all of the circumstances, then that is obviously reviewable in the superior court by way of judicial review. Therefore, the minister has to address his or her mind to all of the circumstances and look at the criteria in the act. I would commend those criteria to the member's attention.

In respect of a 12-year-old child, there is a specific exemption in terms of vulnerable individuals in these groups who can be released earlier. The purpose of the detention is in order to determine identity, which takes some time to determine when individuals have, for example, arrived in our country without any identification documents at all.

Many times individuals get on to planes, for example in that circumstance, with identity documents and, assuming those circumstances, they get off the plane without identity documents. That, in my opinion, raises a suspicion that something is wrong. Whether that is irregular arrival or not is something else.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think I distinctly heard the minister say that those people who were opposed to passing this bill in all stages as quickly as possible were in fact in favour of, or were interested in furthering criminal activity.

I wonder if the minister would reconsider those words and consider what in fact he is saying about members of Parliament who have a different point of view from him, and apologize to all of us and to the House.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, let me clarify my remarks. I certainly did not mean any intention to commit a criminal offence by this member or any other member. However, it is a consistent pattern by both those parties that they put the rights of criminals ahead of the interests of victims or law-abiding Canadian citizens.

In fact, in 1971, I assume that was in the Trudeau cabinet, one of the predecessors to this office, Solicitor General Goyer, said in effect that in this country we have considered the interests of public safety far too long and we will now consider the rehabilitation of criminals as paramount, at that point standing the entire criminal justice system on its head.

What our government does in marked contrast to Liberals and New Democrats is put the justice system back onto--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order please. On a point of order, the hon. member for Toronto Centre.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I distinctly asked the minister whether he would withdraw language which is not only unparliamentary, but if he said it outside it would be the subject of a lawsuit.

I would like to ask the minister, is he prepared, yes or no, to withdraw the absolutely unfair and disgraceful accusation that somehow members of the opposition, who disagree with him, are in favour of furthering criminal activity. Will you withdraw those words, yes or no?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I understand that he directed that to you, whether you would withdraw the words.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, on the same point of order. Let the minister play around as much as he wants. He and members on his side claim they want to be civil, they want to be decent and they want to respect decorum, yet each and every day he comes into this House and says things which are preposterous. Now he has gone too far.

I would like to ask the Speaker, will you rule clearly, Madam Speaker, when somebody accuses other members of participating in criminal activity, is that something the Speaker of this House is going to allow or not?

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I thank the hon. member for raising the issue. Indeed, if a member or members are accused directly of criminal activity that would constitute unparliamentary language.

What I will suggest is that I will review the script. I did not hear the exact word. I will review the script and, if necessary, come back with a ruling on this issue.

On a point of order, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, on a point of order. The Minister of Public Safety misspoke. I want to make sure the record is clear that the Green Party stands with the NDP and the Liberals opposing this bill.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Questions and comments. The hon. member from Kitchener—Conestoga.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, I certainly enjoyed the speech by the minister. He certainly did a good job of outlining the parameters of the bill. In my riding people are very supportive of the measures that this bill contains.

Many of us in this House, probably all of us, have had the opportunity of either sponsoring refugees or working with refugees in our own ridings. I certainly have had that privilege and I have also had the honour of attending many citizenship ceremonies where Canadians are taking that oath of citizenship for the first time and it is a really moving experience.

I have found that in relation to this bill it is many of those previous refugees who are now citizens, or new citizens who have just come to this country in the past three to five years, who are in fact some of the most supportive people when it comes to this bill.

I am wondering if the minister could confirm that he has also experienced that kind of support from new Canadians.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I can confirm the concern that many Canadians, including new Canadians, have. Many new Canadians have family members who are waiting in the queue, so to speak, to come to this country.

Canada is a very generous country. Under our government we accept record numbers of immigrants and over 250,000 refugees. On a per capita basis, Canada accepts more refugees than any country in the world. We are very proud of that.

It must be very frustrating to many of the new Canadians when they see criminal organizations bringing individuals here who jump that waiting time.That is disappointing for many Canadians who say that they are playing by the rules and are carrying out what they are required to do. They want to know why this is being allowed to happen.

This is a response to keep the integrity of the immigration system and target criminal activity.

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

Madam Speaker, the Canadian Council for Refugees has expressed its deep disappointment at the reintroduction of Bill C-4 because it violates the rights of refugees. The government says the bill is aimed solely at smugglers, but it is the people who are fleeing persecution—including children—who will be punished if this bill passes. There is therefore little or no deterrent effect on smugglers.

Can the minister tell me when the government will decide to go after just the criminals, and not the migrants?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, the difficulty is that when a ship arrives at the border of our country at a port and there are 100, 200, or 300 people without identification. There is no way of determining who is the criminal, who is the legitimate refugee and who is an economic immigrant.

That determination has to take place over a period of time. These measures are designed in order to ensure that Canadian authorities can determine who these individuals are. That is what Canadians expect, that those who arrive at our borders, if they do not have appropriate documentation for one reason or another, that in fact there is a mechanism for ensuring that those who come to our country do not come with evil intent.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is one word to describe Bill C-4 and that word is cruel. The dictionary defines cruel as inflicting pain or suffering, and that is exactly what the bill would do. It is designed to punish refugees. If passed, the bill would inflict pain and suffering on the most vulnerable people trying to get to our shores.

Why do I say that? I say that because the bill would not punish smugglers. Under our present legislation, a smuggler would be jailed for life. We have the most severe punishment for people convicted of smuggling. What could be more severe than putting them away for life? We cannot get more severe. The bill is not really about the smugglers. It is about the refugees.

This legislation would require the mandatory detention of all people arriving in Canada, including women and children, whether they arrive by foot, by boat or by air. A mom and a two year old child, a five year old child, or a baby, would be jailed a minimum of 12 months. After they serve that 12 months they might receive some consideration. They would also be denied permanent residence or family reunification for at least five years.

Let me use as an example a dad who leaves a troubled country and his wife and children are left behind in a refugee camp. He arrives in Canada by himself and gets designated by the minister. The minister could not even explain a few minutes ago what criteria he is going to use. He mentioned those individuals who do not have documentation. Most refugees who come to Canada do not have documentation. How can we expect people who live through an earthquake or arrive from a war-torn country to have identification? A lot of refugees arrive at our shores without identification. They could be designated. More than two refugees who arrive on our shores could be designated as a group.

Let me revert to my example of the dad who arrived in Canada after fleeing from a war-torn country. Under this rule he would be sent to jail for at least a year. Let us say that he goes through the process and is determined to be a genuine refugee. For five years he would not be able to sponsor his wife and children from a refugee camp. What does that mean? It means that he will be separated from his family for at least seven years. These refugees will have to determine whether or not they want to leave their loved ones behind because they will not see them for at least seven years. Do they want to come to this country alone or do they want to make a dangerous journey together? That is why I say the bill is cruel. But that is just the beginning.

If these people do become refugees they have no chance to go to the United Nations to speak in a criminal court against a dictator who inflicted war crimes against them. For example, a woman who has been raped by the militia could not go to the UN to explain to the court what happened to her. Even though she is determined a genuine refugee, she will not be able to travel anywhere for at least five years. This means that she would not be able to go to the UN to bring war criminals to justice.

Why would the Conservatives bring forward a bill like that? The minister nailed it right on the head. He wants immigrants to think that there are all kinds of queue jumpers. There is in fact a huge amount of frustration from the immigrant communities. They are frustrated because they are waiting at least 6 to 10 or 13 years before they can bring their loved ones to Canada. When they try to sponsor their fathers and mothers, they are told that it will take 5 or 10 years. They wait and wait.

I will give some statistics. The backlog for parents who are waiting to come to Canada is in the hundreds of thousands. Why? It is because the number of visas for parents and grandparents issued this year has been reduced to close to 44%. It is getting longer and longer. This year there are only 11,000 parents who can come to Canada, which is a reduction of 9,000 because the 2005 and 2006 targets were 20,000. It is now only 11,000.

Immigrants are resentful because they are waiting longer and longer to bring their loved ones to Canada. Then they are told that there are people jumping the queue. These people are not jumping the queue because they are refugees and there is no queue for them to line up in. If they are in danger, they have to leave, unlike their parents, which is a completely different class of applications.

On top of that, the Conservative government claims to have cut the backlog of skilled workers. I do not know whether members will recall that a few years ago Bill C-50 got stuffed into a budget bill that was passed in the House of Commons with the help of Liberals supporting them. That bill was called fast, fair and efficient in cutting the backlog. Actually, the backlog for skilled workers grew. In 2005, it was 487,000 and now it is 508,000. It has grown by 173,000.

This so-called clearing the backlog is not working for skilled workers and it is not working for parents and grandparents. There are hundreds of thousands of people waiting patiently, some not so patiently, to come to Canada. It is under this failed immigration policy that the Conservatives try to find a scapegoat. Immigrants are really upset that they have to wait so long. The Conservatives try to find a scapegoat and say that it is not their fault. They say that it is not due to the Conservatives, that it is really the refugees' fault, which is why this bill was introduced, to my mind.

Let us look at the details in this bill. The mandatory detention for people arriving in Canada without any chance of review is at least 12 months, children or not. By the way, I do not know whether members of Parliament have read psychological studies of children being detained but studies done in the U.K. show that, even in just a few months of detention, what happens to a child is tragic. They wet their beds, some become mute, others stop learning, they become withdrawn, they are not able to go to school because they cannot focus, some lose a lot of weight and some eat much less. Psychological scars are inflicted on children who are being jailed for not just a few weeks or months, but we are jailing them for at least a year. It is totally unjustifiable.

There is mandatory detention for 12 months. There is a denial of the right to apply for permanent resident status until five years have passed, and that is after a favourable determination of their protection claim. These are genuine refugees. I am not talking about the bogus ones. If there are those who are determined to be bogus, deport them, that is fine. I am talking about genuine refugees. They are not even allowed to assimilate to Canada because they cannot become landed immigrants.

They also would be denied access to relief based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. They cannot get temporary resident permits or refugee travel documents for five years or longer. They are not given the right to appeal to the refugee appeal division, which is unfair. On top of that, the minister has the discretion to designate foreign nationals. It is not limited to mass arrivals. It could be two, three or four people and it could be applied retroactively to March 2009. This bill could be passed in 2012 but it could be retroactively applied to a few years before. I do not know how that could be called fair.

As I said earlier, the arrival or two or more persons by irregular means could attract designation.

Much has been said about the denial of detention reviews, because it is mandatory that they be jailed for at least a year, which breaches sections 9 and 10 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because these rights are supposed to protect people against arbitrary detention and the right to prompt review of detention.

If we look carefully, why is it that we need to protect them? Why are we jailing them? Normally a person is jailed because they are a danger to the public or that person is a flight risk and could disappear.

In these circumstances, when we jail a child, a refugee or these people, the government does not have to prove that the person is a flight risk or endangering anyone. A person would be detained even though they are not endangering anyone in this country or not trying to fly anywhere and disappear. They would still be jailed for at least a year without access to any appeal whatsoever.

We know that this kind of behaviour not only breaches sections 9 and 10 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but it is also in conflict with our obligations under the convention relating to the status of refugees and the international covenant on civil and political rights.

It is interesting that this bill makes no reference to the human smuggling issues. Just a few months ago, the immigration committee dealt with several bills. It dealt with Bill C-35, which cracked down on crooked consultants. At that time, on behalf of the New Democratic Party of Canada, I expanded the amount of time that we could go after people who are smuggling from 6 months to at least 10 years.

We already closed the loopholes, because it used to be that we could only go after them for six months. If we could not catch them and prove that they had committed an offence, then we could not go after them after six months. We expanded it for a long period of time.

As I said earlier, if convicted it means life imprisonment, so this has nothing to do with going after smuggling.

The amendments in this punishing refugees bill would affect permanent residents and foreign nationals regardless of how they arrived in Canada. What it does is it expands the grounds on which the port of entry officers can detain permanent residents and foreign nationals, it would expand the grounds on which permanent residents can be kept in detention while the minister takes “responsible steps” to inquire if they are suspicious.

Lastly, it would remove the appeal rights from the Refugee Protection Division. This would apply to permanent residents also, not just refugees. Therefore, this bill is not just punishing refugees, it is punishing permanent residents as well.

Another problem with the bill, and the minister, by not answering my question, alluded to it, is that it would give tremendous power to the minister to designate people coming into this country. Anyone coming into the port of entry by any mode of travel could be called an “irregular arrival”. Actually, most refugees arrive in Canada irregularly.

In the 1930s, the S.S. St. Louis carried a large number of refugees fleeing Nazi Germany to Halifax. They came without a lot of documentation and arrived on the shore of Halifax and Canada sent them away. Some of them died at the hands of the Nazis.

With this bill, we are not sending a ship away. We could assume that if a ship like the S.S. St. Louis arrived on the shore of Victoria instead of Halifax, the women, children and the entire family would be detained in jail for a year. They would then be subjected to a search of their documentation to ensure they were really from Germany. They would then go through the process. Assuming that all of them would be declared refugees, they would not be able to bring any of their loved ones to Canada safely for five years. This is the kind of treatment we would be putting refugees through in coming to our shores.

I want to point out that most refugee claimants coming to Canada obtain documents from agents and sometimes these documents are not necessarily their real identity. For some of the genuine refugees this is the only way they can leave their country and come to safety. It is because there is no other way they can get on commercial carriers. With this bill, any group of two or more claimants leaving a country that is homophobic, for example, or they are being pursued, when they arrive here they could be designated as an irregular arrival and be subjected to that kind of treatment.

There are other aspects of this bill that are extremely draconian. For example, after the 12 months of detention, refugees are then allowed some kind of hearing every few months. However, that would also be very difficult. It means that they could face an indefinite detention.

In summary, this bill is not designed to prevent human smuggling because we already have laws that do that. It is designed to distract the public and put the blame for the long wait list that immigrants now have to endure in order to bring their loved ones to Canada on people who are desperately trying to leave a dangerous situation. It is unfair, cruel and not worthy of our support.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member. She made reference to the St. Louis, which made its way from Hamburg, Germany in 1939. She claimed that the people on-board the St. Louis had no documentation. Does she know that as historical fact, or was that just conjecture on her part?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I said “if” they do not. I do know that if the people on the boats who arrive have documentation, we will know where they are from, which makes the situation even more tragic. The fact that the House of Commons at the time rejected them indicated that we knew very clearly where they were from. However, because they arrived en masse, in a group in an irregular way, they too will be subject to irregular arrival, so they will be designated under this law, if the law applies at the time. All of them will be put in jail for at least a year.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, there are some serious issues in regard to Bill C-4. We in the Liberal Party do not support Bill C-4. I think it is very important for us to recognize that what is really happening here is the establishment of a second tier or second class of refugee. We should all be very concerned why the government has chosen to push for that second class by establishing an irregular classification. It causes a great deal of concern.

The emphasis of the government should be to try to speed up the process of how we are processing refugees. It was not that many years ago, prior to this party being in government, that we had a 20,000-plus waiting list. Now we have backlogs of 60,000, virtually three times the number.

I wonder if the member could comment on the ways we should be improving this system, not necessarily bringing down the system and Canada's reputation as a country that has had an excellent way of dealing with refugees and a wonderful history. What should the government have been doing to try to improve our reputation worldwide and improve the current system we have today?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

There are actually two streams of refugees. There are the ones that have applied outside Canada and then get sponsored by churches or by the government to bring them to Canada. There are about 4,000 or 5,000 like that. Then there are about 9,000 who have already landed in Canada and have applied for refugee status here.

The 4,000 or 5,000 who have applied outside Canada now have to wait about four or five years in refugee camps before they can make it into Canada. Therefore, the first thing the government should do is to shorten the wait times and ensure that these refugees in war-torn countries can come to Canada quickly. That is not the case right now.

Second, the wait list for those who are in Canada and are applying for refugee status in Canada has dramatically increased because the backlog has increased. Why? It is because the government, from 2006 to 2010, was not filling the vacant spots on the refugee board. As a result, the refugee board had no members to determine whether or not these were real refugees. Therefore, the backlog grew and the wait times became one or two or three years. It has become intolerable.

Therefore, last year the New Democratic Party of Canada worked with the government to approve Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, to make the refugee-determination process faster and fairer. That bill got fast-tracked and was approved. All the government has to do is to implement its own law.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, in the spirit of reciprocity, I want to point out that at the beginning of her speech, the member said that this bill was designed to be cruel and she then went on to say that meant an intent to inflict pain upon innocent people.

Is she saying that the minister is cruel and wants to inflict pain upon innocent people?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, cruelty is defined as inflicting pain and suffering on others knowingly.

In my book, jailing a child for more than a year is cruel because the pain and the suffering the child would go through, not just immediately but all of her life, would be dramatic and the scars would not heal. So in my book, this bill is cruel. Whoever designed it is cruel because pain and suffering will be inflicted.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her intervention on this bill.

The minister stood a while ago and said this bill would prevent queue jumping. However, the only way people can jump the queue is if they are smuggled into Canada, yet the bill does nothing about the smuggling of immigrants.

I would like the hon. member to tell me why the minister would say something that does not exist in the bill.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, in order not to look at our own failings, it is good to distract the public. Under the current government, the number of backlogged refugees has increased, the number of loved ones trying to come to Canada to be united with Canadians has increased dramatically, the number of skilled workers and entrepreneurs trying to come into Canada has increased dramatically. In fact, all wait times have increased dramatically. Also, the settlement services were recently cut this year by $53 million.

For the Conservative government not to catch flak from the immigrant communities, I guess blaming the refugees coming to our shores is a very convenient way to deflect its failings.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Madam Speaker, the first point is that there has actually been an increase in funding for settlement services across the provinces. So the member, I am certain, would like to retract that comment.

I would also think the member would want to retract her comments with regard to the boatload of Jewish refugees who came to Canada. She distinctly said that those refugees did not have documentation. These refugees had documentation. They had passports, Nazi German passports, with a j stamped on them.

Now is not the time to revise history for the sake of one's political argument.

I wonder if the member would stand in this House, retract her comments and apologize to the people who would be offended by the comments she has made?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, $53 million was cut from the 2011 budget for support and integration services for new immigrants. It was a 10% cut. In Ontario, there was a $43 million cut. On top of that, funding for these services in British Columbia was slashed by 8% or $8.5 million, and Nova Scotia has been cut as well.

The Conservatives also held back more than $200 million in promised settlement funding for Ontario during the last five years before the cuts were made.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. Is the hon. member rising on a point of order?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I know the member did want to stand and apologize for her remarks with regard to the St. Louis.

I wonder if you would allow the member the opportunity to apologize to those people who would be offended by her comments with regard to revising history.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I appreciate the hon. member's comment. I believe this is a question of debate, so we will move on.

Does the hon. member for Peace River have another point of order?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I know the member was actually preparing to stand to apologize when I stood, and I wonder if you would give her the opportunity to apologize to the House.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have nothing to apologize for because when that ship left India and brought Sikhs to Canada, they arrived irregularly. They would be decimated under this bill and there is—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

There seems to be a question of debate.

The hon. member for Peace River rising on another point of order or the same one?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Madam Speaker, with regard to what the member just said—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I believe this is a question of debate and at the appropriate time, the hon. members may continue their debate.

Resuming debate with the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise on this important piece of legislation which was introduced in the last Parliament but did not proceed much further because of the election.

There is an observable pattern of behaviour with the Conservative government in terms of how it approaches complex and important issues, like the issue of human smuggling. When the government approaches issues like this, it seems to approach them without sufficient forethought, without focusing on the core of the problem, and without focusing on the substance of the issue.

In other words, the government focuses on sloganeering and photo-ops, sometimes to the detriment of the core of the issue. We have seen this with the issue of human smuggling and with other issues, like sentencing reform. The government does not address the issue. It only addresses the issue once it gets media attention that then attracts public concern.

For example, about a year before the government introduced Bill C-49, the government introduced Bill C-11. That bill was a source of much attention because the government made a compromise with the opposition parties to fast-track the legislation. With all the resources at the government's disposal, one would think it would have dealt with the issue of human smuggling in that bill, but it did not.

The government did not react to the issue of human smuggling until the Sun Sea arrived and received much media attention. It did not react until the issue of human smuggling became a sensational visual on the evening news.

The government does not do its homework when it presents legislation in the first place. It does not act on behalf of Canadians in a timely manner.

Let me be absolutely clear. We have no issue with the fact that we have to protect the security of Canadians. We do not want criminals and terrorists living in this country. We cannot put Canadians at risk. Liberal members have absolutely no quarrel with respect to the objective of the bill, which is to ensure that refugees who are accepted into Canada are legitimate refugees and do not pose a threat to the safety of Canadians.

It is also important that we adhere to certain principles when we vote on legislation. It is important that we do not vote for bills that offend the principles of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for example. In other words, as parliamentarians it is our duty to not support legislation that could be deemed unconstitutional.

There is a practical reason for saying this. It is not just an academic statement to say that we have a duty to uphold charter principles or constitutional principles. There is a practical element to what I am saying. If we adopt legislation that is not charter-proof and winds up in the courts, then that legislation will be struck down by the courts.

Then Canadians are left without the protection that they need, without the protection that was intended to be in the particular piece of legislation that has been deemed unconstitutional. It is a very practical concern that we get it right the first time, or we are going to run into problems in the long-run.

As I said before, either we will be voting for a bill that does not properly deal with all aspects of an issue, only to have to rush back later and pass legislation at the last minute to resolve a problem or to correct a lacuna in that previous legislation, or we will wind up with a bill or with legislation that has been struck down.

There seems to be an attitude on the part of the government that it does not matter whether a bill meets the charter test, that we will just pass it now, and if someone challenges it in the future, then we will let the courts deal with that. I call that a “so, sue me” attitude. In other words, someone may be telling me that my bill or legislation is not charter-proof, but I do not care, sue me later. I think that is a very inappropriate way to approach public policy.

Before I proceed to a detailed discussion of Liberal Party reservations about this bill, there are three points I would like to make.

One of them has been made already today. It is that refugees are not queue jumpers. There is a misconception among the public that refugees are queue jumpers. Canadians obviously react badly to the notion that someone's rightful place has been taken by another person whose claim in the queue is not legitimate.

I know many fine Canadians, who believe in charter principles and in human rights, who react negatively when they are told that refugees are queue jumpers. That pains me a great deal, to see them misled by the confusion that has been allowed to stand on this issue. That is the first point. Refugees are not queue jumpers.

The second point I would like to make, for the benefit of those watching or listening at home or who will be reading these debates, is that there is a system in this country for determining—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member will be able to continue the next time this item is called for debate.

I t being 6:30 p.m., the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:30 p.m.)

The House resumed from June 21 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.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

We are resuming debate. When this matter was last before the House, the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis was speaking. He has 12 minutes remaining in his presentation, which will be followed by 10 minutes of questions and answers.

The hon. member for Lac—Saint-Louis.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to pick up where things left off in June. Right before the long debate on back-to-work legislation I had the opportunity to speak to this bill for eight minutes. At that point I was making three general observations.

The first is that refugees are not queue jumpers. There is a misconception across the land that when refugees come to Canada and claim refugee status, they are depriving others who would like to come to Canada of their right to do so. I say sadly that it is the government that has actually fostered this notion. Do not take my word for it; I will quote from an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen which stated the following:

Back in 2010, [the] Public Safety Minister...said the government needed to crack down on human smuggling because “we know that jumping the immigration queue is fundamentally unfair to those who follow the rules and wait their turns to come to Canada.”

This is the opposite of what is true about refugees.

Of course, no one likes queue jumpers. We all have a natural aversion to the idea of someone cutting into line. However, refugees are not queue jumpers. By letting a refugee into Canada, we are not slowing down or otherwise causing a regular immigration application to be sidelined. It is very important to make that point.

The second point I would like to make is related to the first point. There is a process for determining who is a legitimate refugee and who is a person whose claim is without proper merit. That process goes back at least 20 years, if I am not mistaken, or maybe a little less than 20 years. We know that that process is embodied in an institution of government that we call the Immigration and Refugee Board.

The third point I would like to make is related to the first two. The reason there is a refugee crisis in this country, the reason there is a backlog of refugee claimants, has a lot to do with the way the government, unfortunately, has undermined the refugee determination process that is embodied in the Immigration and Refugee Board.

We all know that the government failed to fill vacancies on the Immigration and Refugee Board for quite a long time, to the extent that the lack of desire to move in terms of appointing new members to the IRB was having and impact and creating the backlog in refugee claims. In fact, the Auditor General in 2009 expressed her concerns about timely and efficient appointments and reappointments to the IRB when she looked at the matter of the refugee backlog.

What has happened is the government has politicized the process of appointing people to the IRB which has made the backlog even worse.

It is very important that the government own up to this. First, it must admit that refugees are not queue jumpers. Second, it must admit that it has made the problem of the refugee backlog slightly worse because it failed previously to act quickly in terms of appointing members to the board.

There are problems with this bill. It creates two classes of refugees. One class would be the regular refugee stream. The second class would be denoted by the minister as designated arrivals, which, upon being designated accordingly, would be treated differently. They could be held in detention for up to 12 months.

What is really happening is the government is categorizing refugees. It is creating classes of refugees for different treatment based on, if we really look at it and read between the lines, the mode of transport the refugee claimants have used to get here. Refugees who come by plane typically would not come in big groups and would not receive the ministerial designation of designated foreign nationals and would not receive the different treatment that is being reserved for designated foreign nationals in this bill. Refugees who come in groups who will be designated as designated foreign nationals under the act typically will come by ship in squalid conditions. If they come by plane, they are not considered to be designated foreign nationals under the law.

The government is creating different classes of refugees based on how the refugees come to Canada. Following that logic, there should be a class of refugees for those arriving by minivan. It is very unhealthy when we start to distinguish and create categories of people from what is essentially a group of people with the same characteristics, people who are fleeing persecution or misery for a better life.

This brings me to another point. Back in June when I first spoke to this bill, I said that the government seems to make legislation based on the latest headlines. Instead of analyzing a situation over the long term and coming up with a solution that has some merit, it will react very quickly to news, especially before an election. It will bring in rushed legislation which obviously will have flaws because any legislation that is rushed will have flaws. It will bring in legislation to try to show the public that it is acting quickly to solve a problem, which sometimes is very complex and requires more reflection than it is receiving.

When the government introduced Bill C-49, which is now Bill C-4, it had already brought in Bill C-11 about a year before. Bill C-11 was meant to attack the problem of the growing refugee backlog the government itself had contributed to making worse. Under Bill C-11, the government implemented something that had been created by a Liberal government. It brought in a refugee appeal division to speed up the process whereby when a claimant is refused by the IRB, he or she may appeal to the Federal Court. The government said it would implement something that a Liberal government came up with, which was the refugee appeals division.

I should mention that has not yet been implemented, as far as I know. Bill C-11 tried to remedy this situation but there have been more delays in terms of creating the refugee appeal division. In any event, Bill C-11 was attempting to deal with the problem. We still do not know if Bill C-11 would deal effectively with the problem because the appeals division has not been created. Why did the government not let things be and allow Bill C-11 to work its way through to implementation to see if it was able to resolve the matter before introducing Bill C-4? That is quite indicative of the fact that the government prefers to rush into things, sometimes with measures that are half-baked or not called for.

A major problem with Bill C-4 is that it probably violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is what happens when legislation is rushed: we get legislation that is not thought through and is not properly put together. It means the legislation could be challenged and if it is challenged, it may be struck down. That would create more problems down the line. A government should really do things properly or it may find itself with problems down the line.

Bill C-4 possibly could violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because of the fact that a person may be kept in detention for up to 12 months. We have seen jurisprudence by the Supreme Court find that time far too long and in violation of at least two sections of the charter.

I will stop on that point and take the opportunity to move an amendment. I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

'this House declines to give 2nd 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.'

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It is my understanding that the amendment is in order.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis has moved an excellent amendment.

I wish to share that over the course of the summer holidays I had a brief conversation with the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism at the Calgary Stampede. I pointed out the same failing: the illogical focus on ships when most refugee claimants come to Canada by airplane. He said that he could, in his discretion as minister, designate it as an unusual entry by plane, bus, car, or any means. In other words, we could see this bill creep in and expose all refugee claimants, whether men, women or children, to a year of imprisonment.

I wonder if the member for Lac-Saint-Louis has any comments on that statement.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the fundamental problem with this bill is that it would make victims of people who in many cases are already victims in other countries.

We all get a little frustrated in traffic and do not like to be held up in it. When arriving home after a long trip from work or wherever we say that it was a hellish drive because we were stuck in traffic for an hour and a half. We should think about the person who agrees to pay a large sum of money to board an over-crowded boat to cross whatever sea or ocean to attempt to make a new life in a country like Canada. We should think how desperate they must be to go through all of those steps and all of that suffering. I do not think we should be targeting them as designated foreign arrivals and putting them in detention for 12 months.

Again, we are punishing the victim. I do not think it is very good public policy and I do not think that Canadians agree with that kind of public policy.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was rather intrigued by my friend's comments that somehow this bill creates categories of refugees.

I wonder if the member is aware that many of the boats that bring refugees are inherently unsafe. Does the member think that we should try to discourage unsafe passage to Canada?

I wonder if the member is aware that there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people around the world, real legitimate refugees who have been waiting in very poor conditions in refugee camps and following the procedures that we set out with the UN to get them into Canada, who get pushed back to second place when we have unexpected arrivals and mass arrivals of large boatloads of people?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed these boats are unsafe. This is really the point I was trying to make. Despite the fact that these are dangerous journeys, people are so desperate that they are willing to risk everything and risk their lives to make that journey.

The question is, why are they treated like criminals when they get here? These refugees are not the ringleaders. They are not the ones promising that they will be admitted to Canada if they pay a certain sum of money. These refugees are desperate and are willing to do anything.

What about someone being brought over who has no knowledge of the fact that the person who is organizing the trip is doing something illegal? For example, what about the dozens of Polish and Ukrainian welders allegedly spirited into Canada by the Alberta priest recently accused of running an immigration scam?

According to the media, if those charges are proven in court, by the minister's logic the welders should be detained and punished as part of a human smuggling scheme.

The wrong people are being targeted.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member on a fine speech that sets out the myriad significant and profound problems with the bill before us.

We have heard that the bill is likely unconstitutional, not in one way but in a number of ways. We have heard that the bill, without any doubt whatsoever, violates international conventions and treaties to which Canada is signatory.

Perhaps most striking of all is what the Canadian public and groups that actually work with refugees have identified very clearly: that the bill will prove absolutely ineffective in targeting the real problem that we all agree is necessary to be targeted, the human smuggling. That is because the bill targets the attention on the refugees, not on the human smugglers.

I wonder if my hon. colleague would expand a little bit on whether or not he feels the bill is misdirected and misguided in targeting the penalties and myriad discriminatory practices on the refugees and not the smugglers themselves.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really do think that is the problem.

The bill is responding sensationalistic images in the media of large numbers of people falling off the sides of a boat off the coast of British Columbia. That is what the bill is responding to.

The bill is trying to respond to an image that has been communicated through the media. The image itself is not reflective of what is going on. It is not reflective of the complexity of the situation.

I am just astounded by how the government, knowing the Supreme Court decision in the Charkaoui case, could go about creating such an arbitrary detention.

I will read from the legislative summary of the Library of Parliament for Bill C-4. This is not Liberal researchers writing this. This is from neutral, professional public servants. Page 8 of the legislative summary says:

The mandatory waiting periods before first and subsequent reviews of reasons for continued detention set out in Bill C-4 for “designated foreign nationals” could raise some Charter concerns. They mark a significant departure from the timelines in the existing detention review regimes applicable to other persons detained under the IRPA.

It goes on and on.

The Supreme Court says:

Whether through habeas corpus or statutory mechanisms, foreign nationals, like others, have a right to prompt review to ensure that their detention complies with the law.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one rather surprising aspect of the bill is the powers that would potentially be granted to the minister. One of the goals we set when introducing a bill is to make one clear rule that applies to everyone.

I want to thank my colleague for his speech because it illustrated to what extent this could become a problem. Can the hon. member elaborate on the discretionary power the minister would have?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right to raise this aspect of the bill. In a democracy we have to set parameters to ensure that no party, no government, no minister has unlimited power. That is the principle behind democracy. A democracy is more than just elections and votes, which are obviously necessary. It also takes parameters and structure to protect the public from excessive and absolute power. Accordingly, this aspect of the bill is problematic and just another reason we want to prevent this bill from moving forward.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand and give a speech on what is a highly symbolic piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that will illustrate to Canadians the very clear differences in the approach to governing between the government and the official opposition.

Bill C-4 purports to deal with preventing human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system, but in reality it is directed almost solely at refugee claimants who arrive in Canada utilizing whatever means are at their disposal. It is fair to say that it reflects a style of government that reacts quickly to exploit fear in our society, to take people's misery and exploit it for political purposes and to proceed with knee-jerk legislation that is not based on fact, not based on law, not based on reason and not based on fairness.

I am going to go through some of the major aspects of the bill so that Canadians can see exactly what the essence of the bill really is.

Bill C-4 would give the Minister of Immigration the power to designate, in his sole discretion, a group of refugees as “irregular arrivals”. He could do that based on mere suspicion and based on the definition of a group that is not specified in the act, but presumably means any gathering of two or more people.

Once designated claimants receive that title, they are then subject to all kinds of special rules and, as we will hear during debate on the bill, discriminatory rules. I will start with some of them.

Once designated as irregular arrivals, designated claimants, including children, will be mandatorily detained on arrival or upon designation for up to one year. There will be no review of their detention by the Immigration and Refugee Board for one year. Release will only be possible if they are found to be refugees, if the IRB orders their release at the expiry of a year, or if the minister decides that there are exceptional circumstances. Mandatory conditions set out in the regulations will be imposed on all designated claimants released from detention, subjecting these people to special conditions that do not apply to any other refugee claimant.

Designated arrivals will have their right to apply for permanent residency suspended. Under this legislation a designated claimant will be prohibited from applying for permanent residency for five years. If the person fails to comply with any of the conditions or reporting requirements, that five-year suspension can be extended to six years.

To show how arbitrary and ill thought out the legislation is, the five-year ban on applying for permanent residency applies even to someone who is found to be a legitimate refugee. Someone who comes here could be designated, satisfy the IRB within a year or two that he or she is a bona fide legitimate refugee, and still be prohibited from applying for permanent residency for five years.

A designated person cannot make a humanitarian and compassionate application or apply for a temporary resident permit for five years.

In terms of refugee travel documents, a designated person cannot receive travel documents. This means that designated refugees cannot travel outside of Canada for at least five years after they have been accepted as a refugee.

If we take these three things together, they mean that a designated refugee claimant, even if he or she is a legitimate, bona fide legal refugee, will be separated from his or her family for at least five years. He or she cannot travel to see family for at least five years. That is how Canada, under the Conservative government's legislation, is purporting to treat a bona fide refugee.

The legislation contains retroactive provisions so that the minister can make a retroactive designation for arrivals in Canada since March 31, 2009. Again, it has not been common in Canadian legislatures or in this Parliament to reach back in time and render illegal something that was legal at the time, but the Conservative government wants to do that in this case.

Bill C-4 is deeply unfair to refugees. It fails to honour obligations under Canadian and international law. It deprives individual cases from the independent review that justice requires. It would involve huge costs and unnecessary detention. Perhaps most pressing of all, Bill C-4 would do nothing to prevent human smuggling. The bill is unclear, arbitrary, discriminatory and ineffective.

More laws directed at refugees will not catch human smugglers who are overseas. Mandatory minimum sentences will not deter human smugglers who are overseas. Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, smuggling is already punishable by life imprisonment and mandatory minimums have been shown not to work as deterrents. Refugees know little or nothing about the laws before they arrive in the country of asylum and, even if they know, desperate fear for their lives often forces them to do whatever they must to flee persecution.

Australia recently tried a very similar regime to punish refugees to try to deter them. It did not work there and there is no reason to think it would work here.

I will go through f some of the major problems with the bill. Bill C-4 punishes refugees. The bill has been presented as legislation targeting smugglers but most of the provisions punish not smugglers, but the refugees themselves. I have already said that refugees, including children, would be mandatorily detained for a year without the possibility of an independent review. Under Bill C-4, refugees would be victimized three times: first, by their persecutors; second, by their smugglers; and finally, by Canada.

Bill C-4 violates the charter and our international human rights obligations, including the convention related to the status of refugees, commonly known as the Refugee Convention, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Bill C-4 is discriminatory and it would create two classes of refugees with one class, those designated based on their mode of arrival, treated worse than the other. This again is discriminatory and contrary to the charter.

Once again, the measures imposing arbitrary detention are not only likely to be unconstitutional, they have already been found to be unconstitutional. In security certificate cases, the Supreme Court of Canada has already found that mandatory detention without review violates numerous sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Bill C-4 denies the right to equal access to justice. The bill denies designated persons the right to appeal a negative refugee decision to the Immigration and Refugee Board's Refugee Appeal Division. An appeal is a fundamental safeguard in refugee decision making where a person's life and liberty may be at stake. By eliminating the opportunity to correct errors at the first level, the bill would put Canada at risk of violating its most fundamental obligation toward refugees, which is not to send them back to persecution.

I have talked about how Bill C-4 blocks family reunification, which has been described by the government as its key objective. The bill deprives some refugees of the right for five years to apply for permanent residence and, therefore, reunification of families, including their children. This is a violation of the right to family life guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The bill also prevents consideration of the best interests of the child. The bill denies designated persons, including children, the opportunity for five years to make an application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. This application is often the only avenue for consideration of best interests of the child under refugee law. Under the terms of the bill, however, children could be deported from Canada without consideration of their best interests, again in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I would like to focus on Australia's example because it is instructive to the House. Australia had policies to lock up refugee claimants long-term and to deny them permanent status even when granted refugee status in an attempt to stop refugees coming to that country by boat. It is exactly what is happening here. The policies resulted in refugees, including many children, being traumatized by their experiences in detention.

The Australian Human Rights Commission, an organization created by the Australian parliament, conducted a national inquiry into children in immigration detention and found that children in Australian immigration detention centres had suffered numerous and repeated breaches of their human rights.

Far from deterring people, depriving refugees of the right to family reunification appears to have caused some people to arrive by boat, later bringing the wives and children of refugees in Australia who were unable to bring their families through legal channels. This was a deeply divisive policy, with many people in Australia unclear as to what was the best approach. However, we do know that in the past three years Australia has moved away from its policies of detention and temporary status for refugees.

I want to chat a bit about history because there is the old adage that those of us who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Canada's history with respect to immigration and refugees is not perfect. The Chinese head tax and the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War are both relative and old discredited philosophies, sadly, of our past. Another event from our undistinguished past is the Canadian government's refusal to admit a boat load of Jewish people fleeing Hitler's Germany, a refusal that forced the MS St. Louis back to Europe where many of the passengers perished in the Holocaust.

The individuals on that boat were not Canadian citizens or even permanent residents. However, many Canadians feel, and the Minister of Immigration himself has expressed, a sense of responsibility for the passengers on the St. Louis and a fundamental ethical obligation to help people in desperate situations fleeing for their lives.

In the minister's words at the unveiling of the monument to commemorate the MS St. Louis just this year, the monument was described as a “concrete perpetual expression of regret”. The minister went on to remind us that we must learn from the lessons of history in order to apply them in the future, and said:

Canada will never close its doors to legitimate refugees who need our protection and who are fleeing persecution.

The official opposition agrees with that sentiment. That is the reason we will profoundly oppose this bill until the many problems are cleared. Otherwise, history will continue to judge Canada on the way we treat victims of international crisis. It is a bill that creates two tiers of refugees, violates our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and violates Canada's obligations under international law.

I will read a section from the UN convention relating to the status of refugees, which Canada has signed. 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 bill does exactly that. It violates that section because it is imposing penalties on account of people's illegal entry or presence on refugees who are directly fleeing persecution.

Last summer and the summer before, we saw two boats come to this country containing refugees fleeing what is agreed by every state in this world to be a terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. There were approximately 478 people on one boat and there were approximately 80 people on another boat. These were people who risked their lives to come to a country where they could be safe.

I would ask all Canadians what they would do if the country in which they found themselves threatened their lives and the lives of their husbands, wives and children; if armed people were coming to get them and draft their children into child armies; if armed thugs were coming to sexually assault wives and young girls or boys; if armed men were coming to kill them, what they would do. I dare say that all Canadians would answer that question the same way. They would do whatever they had to do in order to save the lives of their loved ones and to escape to safety. That may even include paying someone.

Another big problem with the bill is that confuses human smuggling, criminal organizations engaged in inappropriate criminal acts, with the irregular movement of refugees, which often involves the payment of money in order to have an organized subversive way to escape a country.

I also want to spend a moment talking about the nonsense of a queue. There is no queue when it comes to refugees. The government should be ashamed of itself for going out in public and confusing Canadians that these are queue jumpers.

There are two ways refugees come to this country. The first way is under the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. There are refugee camps where they are safe and they can make quarterly applications. The second way is refugees who are directly fleeing a well-founded fear of persecution. Those people fleeing a war zone cannot stop and make an application. Those people do not present themselves to the nearest authorities and queue up. Can anyone imagine the Jewish people in Nazi Germany showing up at German authorities and saying that they want to make an application to claim refugee status? That is absurd, and international law recognizes that.

The idea that refugees are coming here and some are jumping in front of others is absolutely false. People who are trying to muddy the waters for political purposes by confusing those two concepts ought to be ashamed of themselves. At its fundamental base, Canada has an obligation. We have signed treaties to be a mature country on the world stage and we have agreed to accept our obligations, and one of those is to do our fair share to accept refugees.

The definition of a refugee is clear. Refugees must show our country that they have a well-founded fear of persecution. By definition, we are talking about a profoundly serious situation where someone risks death, injury, torture or some unacceptable conduct or treatment that violates the common norms of civilized society. Those people need our help and Canada needs to have fair rules to adjudicate such claims.

Canadians of course do not agree with human smuggling. We want to do our fair share to ensure that criminal organizations that are trafficking in people or who are involved in the international sex trade are punished and stopped. Those are criminals. That is very different from refugees fleeing persecution and the whole network that has surrounded that activity of people who help them.

This act would criminalize the whole process. It would even criminalize those people who help refugees. Church groups, faith groups and refugee organizations all risk being deemed to be in violation of this act and being deemed criminals because they help and assist refugees. That has to be misguided. That has to be wrong. That has to be bad legislation.

Under the government, since 2006 there has been a concerted drop in the number of family-class visas that have been issued. There has been a dramatic drop in the number of refugee visas issued by the government. These are not New Democrat official opposition numbers. These are numbers published on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website that just came out in June.

The government needs to restore Canada's reputation on the world stage by not only treating the refugee claimants who come to this country but by improving our system so that we allow more refugees to get to Canada and be settled, and so that we let more of those millions of people who are in refugee camps and in dangerous situations all over the world get to places of safe haven and safety.

I have seen members of this House from every party show up at commemorations of the Komagata Maru or the MS St. Louis, as I just pointed out. We all bow our heads and remember those days when Canada sent away boatloads of people who came to our shores seeking freedom and safety, only decades later to find out that we were sending those people back to their deaths.

Canada deserves fair and balanced refugee legislation. This legislation is not fair and balanced and the official opposition will work hard to amend this until it is or defeat it.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I always listen, often with amazement, to some of the things my friends across the way say. I want to begin by saying as emphatically as possible that the suggestion that this legislation will result in any boat being sent away from Canada's shores is complete poppycock. That is the most polite word I can think of for that. The suggestion that any church group would be found criminally responsible for helping a refugee is again poppycock.

The fact of the matter is that recently Canada let some 35,000 refugee applicants into our country in a single year. No one can suggest that Canada is not doing its fair share around the world.

I am interested in my friend's old adage. However, there is another adage, that being that the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Canadians want us to do something different.

Canada cannot possibly solve all of the refugee problems of the world on its own. Would my friend join me in calling on the United Nations to get its act together and properly deal with the worldwide refugee crisis?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the official opposition will always call on the United Nations to do its share and improve its ability to assist refugees around the world with finding places of safe haven.

The world is a very dangerous place. There are terrible situations occurring in many countries of the world wherein people awaken every morning potentially facing the end of their lives or the lives of their loved ones. Generally, that is not something we deal with in Canada, so of course I would join my friend in calling for that.

My hon. colleague points out that this legislation will not result in any boat being turned away. However, it is worse than that. It purports to result in boats never actually getting here. Specifically, that is what it aims to do. The minister has said that. Through the use of draconian rules, he hopes to dissuade anyone from actually attempting to get on a boat or plane to get to Canada. That will result in the ultimate price to be paid, that being more refugees facing persecution if they are unable to attempt to escape to a safe haven like Canada.

I want to say one last thing. When refugees are fleeing a place, they will go wherever they can. Canada is not immune to that. We expect countries around Sri Lanka to accept refugees. We should be no different in this country.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway whether he had a chance, as I did, to meet with members of the Tamil community after the arrival of the refugees to the west coast shores to hear of the shock, trauma and vulnerability experienced by the families in detention.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have in fact met on many occasions with representatives from the Tamil community.

While watching the final days of the civil war in Sri Lanka, we saw the Sri Lankan government prohibit international journalists as well as the Red Cross from entering the country. We heard stories of war crimes and atrocities, including the use of phosphorus bombs and the bombing of hospitals. We heard of extrajudicial killings. In fact, recently there has been some authenticated film footage showing summary executions of Tamils taking place on the side of the road by regular Sri Lankan army officials. It was a bit of a glimpse into the seriousness of the problems that had happened in that country.

Then we had the two boats which came carrying refugees from that war-torn country. We have to put this in perspective. We had slightly over 500 people come to these shores. It is a country of 34 million people, the second largest country in the world by land mass. There is no reason for people to jump to knee-jerk reactions because we had 500 people come to our shores from a civil war. That represented less than 2% of the entire refugee claimants of that year.

Earlier my friend from the government side said that we had let in 34,000 refugees last year. That is 10,000 visas fewer than were issued five years ago. Therefore, the trend is getting worse, not better.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway for highlighting some of the draconian provisions in this bill. One of the things I am really concerned about is the detention of children. As a father of two children, one 5 and the other 15, I cannot imagine kids being brought up in a war-torn country, then travelling a month or two on a very crowded boat, and on top of that being detained for over a year in Canada. That is not acceptable.

Is my colleague aware of the long-lasting impacts it can have on children being detained for a year in Canada?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, from the Australian experience there is data on that very question. In particular, there was a government-mandated commission that looked into the effects upon children being detained. We must remember the context by which these people arrive in Canada. Most have suffered intense trauma. We need not be psychologists to know that those who have escaped brutal civil wars and/or witnessed episodes of unspeakable violence have been traumatized. It would be traumatic for any of us and is particularly traumatic for children.

When people come to this country and are then locked up for a year without having their cases reviewed on a regular basis, it adds to that trauma. This bill would be draconian and unfair to anyone and is particularly unjustifiable when we think of the effects it will have on children, especially those fleeing places of unspeakable violence and horror.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Vancouver Kingsway made a point earlier in his excellent presentation that the statement frequently made by government members that somehow refugees are jumping the queue has no reality. I certainly agree with that. However, I put that very question to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and his response was that there is a queue for refugees, that they should go to an international refugee facility run by the United Nations and wait there.

We have heard a government member say that the UN should get its act together. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is entirely funded by voluntary donations from governments. It is already stretched beyond its limits and was not created as a holding room for political refugees. It responds to crisis situations. Therefore, the notion that refugees should first find their way to a camp run by the UNHCR shows a complete absence of understanding of the political refugee situation.

I wonder if the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway would comment on this misapprehension of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism on how refugees arrive in this country.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. It is easy to be generous when asking someone else to pay the freight and carry the load. The statement by the minister presumes that it is other countries that must have the UNHCR refugee camps, not us. Canada does not have one. For instance, if people are fleeing Sri Lanka by boat, I guess we expect Sri Lanka's neighbouring countries, such as Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, to welcome and support those people in international refugee camps. However, we do not have one. Internationally, what kind of position is that?

It is worse to think that, unlike Canada, many of the countries surrounding Sri Lanka have not signed international covenants on the treatment of refugees. It is even worse to think that a first world and wealthy country such as Canada has far more resources for settling refugees. Perhaps Canada should open some UNHCR camps in Canada. If members opposite think that the UN should be doing its share and picking up the slack, maybe Canada could lead the way by offering to do more in that regard.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this issue this morning and have the chance to listen to my hon. colleague. I congratulate him as a critic at our committee. I look forward to working with him and his party as we work through a number of issues at citizenship and immigration, including this bill dealing with public safety.

I am very grateful for the chance to rise and support Bill C-4 and its legislation therein. It will allow Canada to crack down on dangerous and illegal human smuggling operations while still maintaining our long and proud tradition of providing a safe haven for refugees.

As several of my hon. colleagues have noted, Canada is a compassionate country that welcomes immigrants and refugees from all over the world. In fact, every year we welcome about 250,000 newcomers to our country, which includes granting asylum to more than 10,000 persecuted persons each year and resettling another 12,000 refugees from abroad. In 2010, we welcomed close to 280,000 new immigrants to our country, one of the highest numbers in post-war history.

Let me point out, when we passed the refugee reform legislation in the last Parliament, Bill C-11, contingent upon the passing of that legislation was that we as a country would accept on a yearly basis an additional 2,500 refugees to our country. It speaks to the compassion, care and concern this government has for refugees across the world. Quite honestly, that bill passed with unanimous consent. My congratulations to everyone in the House who chose to do what was right for our country, what was right for refugees and to ensure that we passed a piece of legislation that is good for Canada as well as those refugees who see Canada as their new home. In helping refugees begin a new life Canadians are helping to ensure that we maintain our international obligations and at the same time build stronger and safe communities and fulfill the promise of Canada, the most welcoming nation in the world.

Our government is committed not only to preserving but also strengthening this already impressive track record. As I noted, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which received royal assent on June 29, 2010, will allow us to help more people and do it faster. We have committed significant dollars to ensure that this process and program is implemented to the best of our ability as a government and the best of our ability as a civil service. We have set aside that funding and the person power in order to implement the changes to the asylum system as well as to resettle an additional 2,500 refugees on top of what we already accept as a nation.

The government and many Canadians believe that Canada's generosity should not be extended to criminal smuggling. There is a significant difference when one talks about human compassion and treatment of refugees and the sick and utterly despised human smuggling system on which the government is prepared to take action to ensure it is lowered and lessened. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to get rid of it entirely. However, we strive to lower and lessen the opportunity for human smugglers to make money off the backs of other people in this world.

One of the strongest commitments our government made to Canadians when we were first elected in 2006 was that we would take action to make our streets, our homes and our communities safer for everyone. We delivered on that commitment in a number of ways. Again, when it relates to illegal smuggling operations of all kinds that are of concern to law enforcement officers, as well as all Canadians, the government has taken action to crack down on such increasingly dangerous and violent operations.

Shutting down these organized criminal networks is vitally important to both protecting the health of Canadians, as well as their safety and security. Our message in dealing with illegal smuggling operations has been crystal clear. Canada will take decisive action to protect our borders, as well as the safety and security of the law-abiding citizens who are proud to call this great country home.

Human smuggling poses significant risks to our borders and to all Canadians. It is a criminal activity that calls out for action both domestically, which we will implement with C-4, and internationally. That is what Canadians want. It is what they have asked for and that is what our government will do.

The bottom line is that human smuggling undermines Canada's security. Large-scale arrivals make it difficult to properly identify those who arrive, including the smugglers. They hide on these ships. They dress themselves exactly the same way as the potential refugees. It is almost impossible, and it takes a tremendous amount of work of both the CBSA, Canada Border Services Agency, and our RCMP officers to try to determine who will apply for refugee status and who is a smuggler.

Human smuggling is not just a profitable business; it is also dangerous and it puts the lives of those being smuggled in jeopardy.

I was in Vancouver, British Columbia to see the ship that brought those poor individuals to our country. It is one thing the opposition may not like to talk about, but the fact is these ships are not cruise ships, they are literally containers to stuff human life into. The ships are put out to sea in the hope that it shows up on the shore of a country that will accept it. This trip is probably the most dangerous trip that these individuals will have to face.

To do that to individuals, including children, is abhorrent, unacceptable and the government will ensure that it stops in our country. Under the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, our government is cracking down on human smugglers in a number of different ways.

The proposed legislation will enable the Minister of Public Safety to declare the existence of a human smuggling event, making those involved subject to the act's measures. It will make it easier to prosecute human smugglers. It will impose mandatory minimum prison sentences on convicted smugglers. It will also hold the shipowners and operators to account for the use of their ships in human smuggling operations.

These are proposed reforms which our government is proposing. They will help the safety and security of our streets and our communities by providing for the mandatory detention of participants for up to one year or until a positive decision by the immigration and refugee board regarding their refugee claims, or whichever comes sooner, in order to allow for the determination of identity, the identity admissibility and illegal activity.

It is unfair, unwarranted and unacceptable that in this day and age ships like these come into port and the individuals on those ships are simply allowed to move into the general population of our country. We cannot have that happen. We do not know who is on those ships. We have no idea whether there are serious criminals, smugglers or shipowners on them.

The process to determine the history of the individuals, the potential criminal activity of some of those individuals and the fairness upon which some of those individuals will receive refugee status in our country has to be done properly and right to ensure the safety of all individuals on the ship and all of the 34 million Canadians in our country.

Under the proposed act, our government is also reducing the attraction of coming to Canada by way of illegal human smuggling operations. We will prevent those who come to Canada as part of human smuggling events from applying for permanent residence status for a period of five years, should they successfully obtain refugee status, and prevent such individuals from sponsoring family members for a period of at least five years. These are not easy decisions to make. They are difficult ones to make in terms of how we will process individuals and families ending up on these ships.

Whether it is the United Nations, or international bodies or governments in our country, we have to stop the smugglers from doing this. It is not enough just to try to attempt to go after them internationally. We have to let smugglers know that it will be difficult for them to fill those ships, because individuals will not want to risk what may happen to them in the process of coming over.

Furthermore, after the passage of the act, our government will also make administrative changes to ensure that participants in a human smuggling events do not receive health care benefits that are any more generous than those that Canadians receive now. From my perspective, having gone across the country holding town hall meetings with a number of my colleagues, this is one of the principle parts of what it is to be Canadian, and we exude that with the principle of fairness.

Canadians accept and understand our role from an international perspective to help those who need it most. We have shown that during tragic incidents, such as what happened in Haiti. We have shown that in our acceptance and our obligation, punching above our weight in terms of the number of refugees that we accept from the United Nations to come to our country each and every year.

What we cannot do, and what Canadians do not want us to do, is to move beyond the principle of fairness. If those who come to our country receive health care benefits that exceed the benefits Canadians receive, then we need to act, and Canadians have asked us to act. We are doing just that in this legislation.

As the minister has noted, the reforms that our government is proposing are tough. We are not saying anything else about that. They are tough, but they are fair.

While Canada has a proud history and a tradition of welcoming immigrants who wish to start a new life here, Canada's generous immigration system has become a target for human smuggling operations. We must take action to end the abuse of Canada's immigration system by human smugglers because it is not acceptable. The majority of Canadians do not accept it and the majority of people in the House of Commons do not accept it. However, to do so we must have laws and measures in place that will deter and prevent these operations.

Canada's refugee resettlement program is one of the most generous in the developed world. As I mentioned, there is no country, on a per capita basis, that accepts more refugees than Canada. We continually punch above our weight when it comes to showing care and compassion for those who need it the most. Canada is one of the most generous countries in the developed world. On average, we take one out of every ten refugees from around the world who wants to resettle here, and it is a big world.

That speaks to the acceptance that we have as Canadians and it speaks to what we as a government believe must be maintained and be continued in the future. However, we must do so under some principles, issues, laws and measures that make sense to us as a government, but also meet the common sense rule and the principle of fairness rule that Canadians have asked us to do.

The critic for the NDP mentioned the issue of a queue not existing. Individuals in refugee camps have lived in squalor and have done so for the last five to ten years. They have been determined by the UN to be refugees. We as a country have an obligation to accept our fair and higher percentage than that which has been slated for us.

We are shutting the doors on individuals and potential families coming here when a boat with 500 individuals on it comes in. It may slightly open the door for the opportunity for a new life for those individuals who have been smuggled here, but it shuts the door on those who are already refugees who have been waiting for that same opportunity to begin a new life.

I beg to differ with my hon. friend. We have a process when these ships come here. It sets in place what we have determined is an acute problem with queue-jumping. When those ships cannot rest in any port across our country, then we do not have queue-jumping. Instead we have a fair process that has been determined by the United Nations to be an extremely good one.

All sides of the House of Commons determined that reform was necessary in our refugee legislation, and that was passed unanimously. We are now coming close to the end of the implementation point where this process, the new refugee act, will now begin. It has been hailed across the world as a system that will improve what has already been considered by many to be one of the best systems in the world.

It is unfair to those who have patiently waited, through legitimate means, to come to our country to have human smugglers illegally bring people into our country. It is that simple and the Canadian public understands this. In every town hall meeting, whether they were in total support of the legislation or had some difficulty with parts of it, one point individuals did not argue with was the fact that Canada had a principle of fairness that it acted upon when it came to all of its international obligations, specifically in dealing with refugee reform.

Queue jumping is not fair. It is not fair to people in our country and it is not fair to those who have been determined to be refugees to come here. That principle upon which fairness exists has to start and this legislation would help do that. When this happens, Canada's immigration system becomes less fair. More than that, our safety is actually threatened by criminal or terrorist organizations that can and often do use proceeds from human smuggling operations to fund other more violent activities, which pose a significant threat to our way of life.

No one in the House can tell me that these individuals who pay $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 and sometimes upwards of $50,000 for a place on what is deemed to be a boat have it in their pocket to do so. There is an obligation, in fact a price, that is on each one of those individuals to repay the exorbitant fee, the rip-off. The human smugglers could care less whether these individuals survive, only that the demanded payment is made in order to get these people from their country of origin. Those individuals spend their lifetime trying to repay that loan and they live in fear doing so. They have no idea what recriminations will be put upon them if they are unable to do so.

This circle of human smuggling has to stop. We have to find a way to erase the circle and not have it exist in the fashion that it has with Canada being a haven for these ships. Human smugglers cram individuals onto a ship and let it sail into a Canadian port. We will not let that happen in a way that Canada is seen across the world as the place to do this, or that Canada is a place for them to take a chance with hundreds or thousands of lives. It will not happen anymore. We are determined as a government to put a stop to it.

Canadians have told us en mass across the country. We just fought an election over a number of issues and this was one of them. Canadians sent us back to govern. They sent us here to implement this bill because they believe it is right legislation and it is timely. Perhaps it should have been implemented decades ago.

Under the legislation, the very ship that my hon. colleague from the NDP spoke about would not have been turned away. It would have had an opportunity. There would be a process in place with legislation and regulations that would work.

I look forward to getting the bill to committee. I look forward to getting this bill back for second reading and implementing the legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, my question has to do with the concept of queue-jumping.

I wonder how the parliamentary secretary thinks that people who have fled for their lives, who have been victims of violence, who have lost all of their property, their homes and with no ability to communicate, would know about Canadian regulations. How do they know there is a queue in Canada? It presumes a kind of world that does not exist out there for refugees who have fled for their lives.

They are not shopping for a country; they are fleeing to safety. The kind of penalties that the bill would place on these refugees would doubly victimize them. For those who have been victims of violence, who have lost everything, a year of detention would be imposed on them. They would be given an extra penalty for arriving in Canada.

How does the parliamentary secretary think refugees shop for countries to go to when they are in the business of fleeing for their lives?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly see the differences that we have on this side of the House, based on the question that is being asked.

First and foremost, these individuals who want to flee their countries do not shop. They are forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get on a ship. It is the human smugglers who do the shopping.

We are going to stop that. No longer are they going to take advantage of individuals who have basic human rights taken away from them by individuals who demand huge sums of money, who take those hundreds of individuals and stuff them on a boat, push it out of port, and hope it lands somewhere. Not only do these smugglers not have the nerve to show themselves, but they also actually dress themselves as potential refugees who are coming to this country to try to hide within them, to try to get the same kind of treatment that the individuals who are trying to flee their country are attempting to get from Canada.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, if I were to canvass my constituents and Canadians today, I am sure they would be somewhat surprised that here we are on the first day of the session talking about the number one priority bill for this particular Parliament when the number one issue for Canadians is the issue of the economy, jobs, and so forth.

Having said that, as the critic for this particular bill I am very much concerned in terms of the direction that the government continues to want to push on this particular issue. I think it is very telling that in one of the newspaper articles I have received, we have a picture of the Ocean Lady and what appears to be the Prime Minister and the Minister of Immigration. For the Conservative government, that is what this has all been about. It is a wedge issue the government is using to try to demonize immigration, immigrants, and refugees and leave a bad taste for Canadians, when it should in fact be promoting tolerance, education, and so forth.

The government, the minister and the parliamentary secretary say we are after the human smugglers. The parliamentary secretary should recognize that, and I would ask him to acknowledge that going after these human smugglers means the people who are really going to be paying the price are the individuals who need and who are looking for asylum. Will the government not recognize that at least indirectly, if not directly, it is making a victim of the individuals who are seeking asylum?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are two points I want to make very quickly.

The first point is that those individuals who seek asylum in this country and who deserve asylum as refugees will receive it. There is absolutely no question. This legislation would not change any of that from happening. It will not, it cannot and it shall not.

The second point is this. I know the member was elected in a byelection in the previous Parliament, so he was here for part of it. We introduced this legislation in the last Parliament. We literally begged the opposition to support it, at least at second reading, so that we could get this legislation to a legislative committee to study it and try to work with them. I can explain to members that on two occasions both Bill C-35, the crooked consultants act, and Bill C-11, the refugee reform legislation, ended up coming back to the House and after negotiation and work passed unanimously. Every member sitting on the opposite side who was here in the last Parliament said no to that opportunity.

We are not going to say no to Canadians. It is back in the House. It is a priority. We said it was a priority. Those on this side of the House keep their word.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the parliamentary secretary's comments. I am sure most of us in this House, if not all of us, have had opportunity to work with refugees. In my situation, our church has sponsored refugees, and many of these people have become close friends.

Through the last number of months, the parliamentary secretary went on a tour and actually came to my area and conducted a round table there. The interesting thing I am finding is that it is not just the long-standing Canadians who want us to move on this issue; it is actually some of the most recent immigrants to this country who are the strongest supporters of the measures in this piece of legislation.

I wonder if the parliamentary secretary would care to comment about that, because I think it is somewhat counterintuitive to our way of thinking. We think that maybe the most recent refugees do not want us to close these loopholes. However, I think we would find that they want us to follow the rules.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for hosting the event. Two of my colleagues also attended the event held in the member's riding. It was well attended. It was a very fascinating and interesting discussion. We were there for a good part of the evening and made many notes.

The member makes a perfect point that in the last federal election those who believe we are moving in the right direction include all Canadians, whether they be Canadians who sought and received permanent residency and citizenship in the last 12 months, the last 12 years or the last 80 years.

Across the board this legislation speaks to what Canadians have said is the right thing to do. I come back to the point that the member refers to, which is the principle of fairness. The principle of fairness suggests that when we have achieved it, a vast majority of Canadians, regardless of how long they have had the honour to be Canadians, agree with the direction we are moving.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary gave a passionate defence of the people coming on these boats as victims, saying they were forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to come here and that they are victims.

If that is the case, I would like the parliamentary secretary to explain how depriving those people of the ability to sponsor their families for five years, depriving those people of being able to apply for permanent residency for five years and preventing those people from getting travel documents issued by the Canadian government for five years helps them. If those people are truly victims, why is the government re-victimizing them and punishing them again?

In terms of who is supporting the bill, I have a list of about 100 different groups across the country that oppose the bill, including Amnesty International, the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of B.C., the Centre for Refugee Studies, Christian Reform World Relief Committee, Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, the Jesuit Refugee and Migrant Service, the Quaker Committee for Refugees, and so on.

The vast majority, if not the unanimous community, of groups that work with refugees in this country are diametrically opposed to the bill.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have tried. I have repeated time and time again, whether in Vancouver, Kitchener, Halifax, or the House of Commons, that the bill is everything about ensuring that we assist victims and that we go after smugglers.

While I appreciate what the member is saying in making large assumptions about an individual who eventually is qualified for refugee status, I do not think true refugees fleeing for their lives from their countries of origin come to this country and are concerned.

What they are concerned about is their ability to achieve refugee status and to start a new life. The five-year period to ensure that we are doing this properly still allows us to keep our arms as wide open as we ever have as a country in welcoming those who need our assistance, but at least it is telling human smugglers that they are not going to take advantage of our country anymore.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-4, the Conservative government's bill to address human smuggling.

We in the official opposition and key stakeholders from across Canada from all walks of life are very concerned about the approach the Conservative government is taking with the bill.

The Conservatives claim that the bill cracks down on human smuggling, but in reality, as the bill has been written, it will concentrate too much power in the hands of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and unfairly penalize the would-be refugees.

New Democrats would rather attack the criminals, the smugglers and the traffickers. Instead of doing that, the bill will hurt legitimate refugees and people who try to help them. The proposed process is unclear. It is arbitrary and it is very unfairly discriminatory.

The House approved a strong and balanced refugee law in the last sitting. Instead of the new, flawed approach proposed by the bill, we need to have better enforcement of the old bill that was passed in the last Parliament.

Conservatives should be less focused on photo ops and more focused on enforcing the laws that we already have against human smuggling. The government's approach to human trafficking and human smuggling should be focused on providing law enforcement agencies and the Immigration and Refugee Board with the resources they need to get the job done instead of playing politics with refugees.

Bill C-4 takes the wrong approach in a number of ways. I would like to highlight some of the concerns of the official opposition today.

First, regarding designated claimants, the bill allows the minister to designate a group of refugees as irregular arrivals in a fashion that creates two classes of refugee claimants. This poses a possible violation of charter equality rights and the refugee convention.

Second, designated claimants, including children, will be mandatorily detained for a year on arrival or designation, without even a review by the Immigration and Refugee Board. This is an even more clear violation of the charter, as the Supreme Court of Canada has already struck down mandatory detention without review on security certificates. It seems that this could imply that indefinite detention is on the basis of identity, with no possible release until the minister decides that identity is established.

As I am sure members are aware, arbitrary detention is also a violation of a number of international treaties to which we are signatories.

There is also a concern with the release conditions imposed by Bill C-4, as the mandatory conditions set out in regulations will be imposed on all designated claimants released from detention. It is very troubling that the conditions are not specified, making this very unclear. On principle, though, mandatory conditions would be unfair, as they are unable to take into account individual cases.

The problem also extends to the appeal process, since under Bill C-4 decisions on claims by designated persons could not be appealed to the refugee appeal division. This is discriminatory and again risks violating provisions and the refugee convention.

The government has tried this approach before, and all parties opposed the previous bill that was introduced in the last Parliament, Bill C-49 when it was brought to Parliament because there were concerns about the undue amount of power it handed to the minister and because it would likely contravene Canadian and international law. Those concerns are still part of the new Bill C-4.

We can look at other international examples. My colleague from Vancouver Kingsway pointed this out earlier, and I will highlight it again.

When we look at what has happened elsewhere in the world, similar laws have been met with opposition by Amnesty International, which has started a campaign to tackle the same misinformation surrounding refugees who arrive by boat. The campaign highlights the fact that it is legal under international law to arrive by boat and that the vast majority of those who go to another country by boat are in fact legitimate claimants. This bill ignores this information.

There was a high court ruling in November 2010 in Australia that ruled in favour of two Sri Lankan refugees who claimed that laws barring them from appealing in Australian courts were unfair. The approach taken by the Conservative government in this bill makes it very possible that the same situation could arise in Canada if the bill is passed.

What is really happening is that the Conservatives are playing politics with refugees. That is the real optic of this bill. They are claiming this is a public safety issue and the bill was introduced by the public safety minister, but the issue is clearly one that primarily deals with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This is an immigration and refugee issue, not a public safety issue.

The official opposition recognizes and respects responsibility for refugees, unlike the Conservatives who have taken an approach that would damage Canada's standing in the international community and violates its commitment under the conventions relating to the status of refugees and the rights of the child. The process proposed by Bill C-4 is unclear, arbitrary and, ultimately, very discriminatory. Even more telling is that research and studies from other countries have shown that the bill would not curb human smuggling at all.

It is not just the official opposition that has concerns about this bill. There are many key stakeholders across our country with questions and concerns on this issue. They are outright worried about the approach that the government is taking to tackle this problem. The Canadian Council for Refugees has called for this bill to be scrapped entirely. Amnesty International Canada says that Bill C-4 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. A program director with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has issued a very scathing attack on the Conservative government's attitude toward refugees generally and Bill C-4 in particular stating that there was no need for this draconian measure contemplated by the Conservative government.

Another organization that has spoken out against this particular bill and the one previous to this, the Canadian Bar Association, stated that it did not support the legislation in its previous form as it violates charter protection against arbitrary detention and prompt review of detention, as well as Canada's international obligations respecting the treatment of persons seeking protection. An expert panel at the Centre for Refugee Studies has called this proposed bill draconian.

As we can see, many organizations that come from various walks of life have spoken against this bill being proposed by the Conservative government.

It is clear that the bill takes the wrong approach. I will speak more specifically to why the bill is a wrong approach for Canada to take. First, current legislation already allows for a life sentence for human smuggling. Bill C-4 may be contrary to section 15 of the charter regarding equality under the law. Bill C-4 would create new second-class refugees who are denied permanent residency, temporary resident permits, denied on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and denied applications for permanent residence.

Many legal scholars and constitutional experts argue that this would create inequality under the law simply because the minister has designated immigrants due to their mode of arrival.

Bill C-4 may be contrary to section 9 of the charter, “arbitrary detention”. Bill C-4 would also impose a mandatory detention on designated foreign nationals for up to 12 months.

Bill C-4 is contrary to the UN convention relating to the status of refugees. In particular, 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.

In summary, given all the information, the official opposition, key stakeholders and many concerned Canadians across this country are asking why the Conservatives are taking this approach. What answers does the government have for questions about the unconstitutionality of this bill, in particular the arbitrary detention measures? Even more concerning is how the government can justify the mandatory detention of children.

My friend across the aisle talked about how Canadians have been compassionate about our immigration and refugee policies over the years. I would have to agree with that because I am an immigrant myself. I came here 31 years ago and it was this country's generosity that allowed me to migrate here.

However, I would ask my colleagues across the aisle if they are changing the definition of “compassion”. How can they justify putting children in detention? In my dictionary, the dictionary that Canadians have, compassion is not defined by putting children in detention centres. That is very troubling to me. Surely the Conservatives cannot justify putting children in detention.

This summer, I had an opportunity to attend a soccer tournament in my riding. I saw a program where new immigrant students were playing soccer matches with one another. The program was helping youth integrate into society. That is the kind of Canada that I envision. I do not envision a Canada where we put children in detention centres before we allow them to prosper in this country. Canada's compassion is why I am proud to be a Canadian. We need to ensure that children who come here from different countries where they were persecuted are treated with compassion and not put into detention centres.

I cannot understand how the government can justify the detention of children for over a year without any review at all. Refugees often arrive by plane. Does the government have any explanation as to why it is targeting the refugees on board boats? It is totally unclear what criteria the government would use to designate irregular travellers. Is arriving by plane possibly irregular or is it only by boat? It is even more unclear what would be defined as a group. Could two or more people be considered a group? This would mean that nearly all refugees would be designated simply because they do not travel alone. Is that fair?

The bill would block family reunification. As we heard previously, it would take five years after refugees have come here for them to be reunited with their family. That is not acceptable. It prevents some refugees from applying for permanent residency for up to five years. Why prevent family reunification? That is the question I have for my colleagues opposite in this House.

Bill C-4 would give the government the power to arrest and detain any non-citizens, including permanent residents, based on mere suspicion of criminality. Why is the government attacking the rights of newcomers?

The final question I have for the government side is as follows. In view of all the information, the concerns from key stakeholders, refugee groups and so many Canadians from all walks of life, would the minister tell us why the government did not decide to go after just the criminals and not the legitimate refugees?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I come from a riding that is one of the most diverse in the entire country. In fact, some of the individuals who, unfortunately, were on one of those ships actually ended up in my riding. Many have remained in hiding. They are in fear of the people who smuggled them here. They have a huge debt that they have to somehow try to pay off. These individuals are not enjoying their Canadian experience because of the way in which they came to this country.

When talking about compassion, it would be compassionate to have a refugee reform process that was changed unanimously by the House. It would be compassionate to change the immigration system so that a million people are not waiting to come to this country by cutting it in half. It would be compassionate to increase settlement services for immigrants, including those in my riding, and in my community, which is one of the fastest growing communities in the country, so they can have access to local services to help them find jobs, help them learn English and help them improve and be like my parents who came to this country in the 1960s and who worked very hard.

Unfortunately, the Liberals do not understand that when the immigration system and the refugee system are improved, we are actually looking after the economy because immigrants, people who come to this country, are an important part of helping make this country as great as it is and as great as it will be.

I have a question for the hon. member. Why, when we see the devastation that these people coming over on these boats have suffered, will the member not simply join with us in attacking the people who deserve to be attacked, the people who force these poor people onto ships and force them into a life of debt, the criminals, the smugglers? The member should work with us to pass this legislation so we can get the smugglers out of the system and have a better refugee system so people who come here can enjoy their Canadian experience and will not need to live in hiding across this country.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is all smoke and mirrors. I have seen this double-speak from the Conservatives over and over again.

Can the Conservatives look Canadians in the eye and tell them that people who are smuggling refugees into Canada are on those ship? The smugglers will not be on the ships. Only the refugees will be on the ships. Smugglers will not knowingly jump on these ships to come to Canada along with the refugees.

In talking about compassion and how we have evolved over the years, I migrated to Canada 31 years ago and it took two years for our family reunification application to pass at that time. Under the Conservative government, we have seen family reunification times grow every year.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative member recognized that immigrants do contribute to the economy. I want to kind of twist that comment around to this particular bill.

Would the hon. member agree with me that the longer legitimate refugees are held in settlements the longer they are prevented from being able to become active in the Canadian economy and that not allowing for a faster process does have a negative impact on those who are here legitimately and who are not allowed to participate but are locked up for greater periods of time under this administration? Would that not make some economic sense as well?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member. The best way to help our refugees is to integrate them into our economy and into our country as soon as possible. The way to do that is through the process we have in place. We have the Immigration and Refugee Board that deals with refugees. We have a system that works.

However, we do need to provide more resources to our law enforcement agencies and to the Immigration and Refugee Board so these individuals can be processed quickly and become productive citizens of this country and contribute to the economy.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, foreigners accepted as refugees cannot become permanent residents for five years, so they are not able to study. Earlier, members were talking about the economy. If these refugees have to wait five years to receive recognition of their education equivalency or to have access to university for those who already have a degree, this means that we lose out. We cannot retrain these newcomers and they end up trapped in poverty or being economically dependent.

Does my colleague not think that there is a contradiction when we say that we must stand up for the Canadian economy, yet we are closing the door on these people for five years, not allowing them to retrain or to contribute their professional skills to Canadian society? Is that not a contradiction?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has asked a wonderful, very sensitive question.

The Conservatives always talk about one thing and then do another. If they were really concerned about helping immigrants and refugees integrate into our communities in this wonderful country and to help our economy, they would be putting procedures in place to do just that. They would be helping the Immigration and Refugee Board to process them faster so we could get them into our system and become productive citizens. However, the way the Conservatives have this set up it will take five years.

My colleague is absolutely right. The people that are coming here may want to go to university or college to upgrade their education so they can integrate into our society and get the jobs that will help them and their families. Certainly that does not seem to be where the Conservatives want to go on this.

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

Mr. Speaker, we heard just moments ago the question from the Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage in which he referred to this bill as assisting refugees in “enjoying their Canadian experience”. I wonder, how is jailing refugees--men, women and children--in Canada for a year somehow an enjoyable Canadian experience?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I talked about this earlier in the House and I will repeat it. I am the father of two children and I cannot imagine my children being subjected to this sort of Draconian measure that is being brought in by the Conservatives.

Children and their parents are persecuted in the countries from which they come. They are persecuted by the smugglers on their journey to a safe country. And the Conservative government wants to put in place a Draconian law that would detain these young people for over a year.

The Conservatives are redefining compassion. Their definition of compassion is to put children in detention centres in this country.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the comments about the number of groups that are opposed to this measure. What our colleague fails to understand is that this was a clear part of our last campaign. It was one of our platform measures. It had been discussed prior to the House rising. Canadians knew what they were voting for when they supported this measure.

I would like to ask my colleague, why is he not willing to accept a strong mandate for this reasonable and fair approach that deals with this? Would he actually want those who have been sitting in the queue for years to take a back seat to those who are now jumping the queue by getting on boats that are operated by illegal smugglers?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is a consistent way the Conservatives ask questions. They keep reinforcing that. My colleague said that we have already talked about queue jumping. When a person is being persecuted in a country where, for example, there is a war going on, there is no queue. The person gets on a plane or some other mode of transport and goes to whichever country will provide a safe haven. There are no queues. We should get that straight.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in support of Bill C-4, a bill which would prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system.

Human smuggling is a nefarious industry, one that exists around the world. Unfortunately, thousands of people die each year because of illegal migration and the smugglers who facilitate this migration.

Parliament needs to take action to put an end to the activities of human smugglers who have chosen Canada as a destination for their business, which is the dreadful exploitation of human beings.

Every year thousands of people around the world die in illegal smuggling operations organized by human smugglers. These people are not humanitarians. They do not assist people to become bona fide refugees and protect them from persecution. They are profiteers.

In the particular context with which we are dealing, namely those smuggling syndicates that are targeting Canada and which managed to bring two large shiploads of illegal migrants to our west coast in the past two years, our intelligence agencies and security and police partners in Southeast Asia all told us that these syndicates of human smugglers are essentially the gunrunners, the smugglers who helped to fuel the civil war in Sri Lanka by illicitly bringing contraband arms, bombs and guns into a theatre of conflict leading to the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Since the end of the hostilities in Sri Lanka, these smuggling syndicates have been looking for a new business model, and instead of moving guns and bombs, they have switched to moving people for a very high price.

We know that those who have enlisted these smuggling syndicates to try to come illegally to Canada in violation of our immigration laws, in violation of our marine laws, in violation of international law, in violation of every principle of safe migration, have been willing to commit to pay up to $50,000 to the illegal smuggling syndicates. Typically, they pay about 10% of the fixed price as a down payment. A typical down payment to the smuggling syndicate is in the range of $5,000. The balance is typically payable over the course of time after arrival in Canada and very often through coerced participation in criminal activity.

As I mentioned, every year around the world thousands of people die in smuggling operations, whether they were migrants who suffocated in shipping containers crossing the English Channel or whether they were people who paid smugglers to go to Australia in dangerous shipping boats that crashed up against the shore.

We must act to send a very clear message that Canada is the most open developed country in the world to immigration, to newcomers, to refugees who need our protection and seek new opportunities. In order to maintain that remarkable openness, which by the way represents in Canada the highest level of immigration per capita in the developed world wherein we add .8% of our population per year through legal immigrants, and the highest level of refugee resettlement in the developed world through the 20% increase in our targets for refugee resettlement, by next year we will be accepting some 14,000 resettled refugees. Last year we welcomed 280,000 new permanent residents and we are increasing our program for refugee resettlement.

In order to maintain that generosity, that openness, and the public support which is necessary to maintain that attitude of openness, we must demonstrate to Canadians that our system is characterized by fairness and the rule of law.

One of the reasons that Canadians are so understandably upset when they see large scale smuggling operations is that it violates their sense of fairness and their belief that our immigration system is characterized by the application of fair rules.

Millions of people have come to Canada through our fair and generous immigration or refugee resettlement programs. In my experience they are those who most profoundly resent those who would pay illegal criminal networks to be smuggled to Canada illegally, avoiding the legal system.

My friend opposite and others have said that there is no so-called queue for refugees. First, I do not know how he knows that all or most of those who pay smuggling syndicates are refugees. We constantly hear from the critics that when we talk about our efforts to stop smugglers from targeting Canada we are talking about refugees. How do they know that? We know that many of the people in the two vessels who came to Canada most recently were coming from India transiting through Thailand, both democracies, both with the rule of law and protection for human rights. Perhaps colleagues opposite did not see the CBC report from Chennai in Tamil Nadu in India. Tamil Nadu is a region of southeastern India where tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of Sri Lankan Tamils migrated during the conflict in Sri Lanka, where they sought temporary protection or new opportunities.

The CBC interviewed a group of several young Sri Lankan Tamil migrants in Tamil Nadu, India who said they had made down payments of up to $5,000 to these syndicates to be transported to Canada. They were not in a war zone. They were not subject to persecution. They said they wanted to come to Canada because they had heard about our “free monthly salaries”. We have to be very careful. We cannot and should not prejudge newly arrived migrants as to their prospective refugee claims. Some may be refugees; some may not. Many may just be seeking economic opportunity and heard that Canada is a soft target and therefore they are willing to pay smuggling syndicates.

What this bill seeks to do is maintain Canada's commitment to our domestic and international legal obligations with respect to refugee protection and to respect our humanitarian obligation to protect bona fide refugees fleeing persecution while at the same time changing the business model of the criminal smuggling syndicates. That is the objective of this bill.

We seek, first, to increase in the bill penalties for smugglers so that there will be a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 10 years for those who are found to participate in a human smuggling event which involves at least 50 individuals or in which there are exacerbating circumstances such as loss of life. We also massively increase the monetary fines for the owners of ships involved in these voyages. It is typically ships, but I should point out that the bill could address non-marine human smuggling events which have occurred in Canada.

That is an important message, but let us be realistic. I have studied this issue very closely. In fact, just last month I was in New Zealand and Bangkok, Thailand meeting with international partners and our own security agencies, as well as international police forces. I was trying to get a better understanding of the nature of these smuggling enterprises. It is very clear that we cannot impose Canadian law in terms of these sanctions on smugglers who operate overseas. The kingpins of these syndicates very rarely come to Canada. They are most typically jumping around between transit countries in Southeast Asia beyond our legal reach.

Having said that, there is an important dimension of our fight against human smuggling which is not formally in the legislation. It is an operational dimension whereby our government, through the good leadership of my colleague, the hon. Minister of Public Safety and the security and police agencies under his ministry, have dispatched additional resources for investigation and co-operation with the governments, police and intelligence agencies in the transit countries. Thanks to the additional resources that we have put into the region, we have managed successfully to prevent any of the planned voyages that were to target Canada. We know, without getting into operational or confidential details, that several voyages were planned for Canada that have been successfully interrupted, thanks in part to the co-operation of Canadian security forces in the region.

Having said that, let us be clear. In any black market there will always be someone willing to provide the contraband good or service if there is sufficient demand at a sufficiently high price point, because we are talking about profiteers. If they are able to get commitments of up to $50,000 to come to Canada, they will continue to try to find the vessels and put together the complex logistics to bring people from Southeast Asia to Canada. Therefore, in this legislation we must reduce the price point that people are willing to pay to be illegally smuggled to Canada through these criminal syndicates. That is the objective of the bill.

I think some opposition members have not studied the issue in all of its subtlety, or perhaps they do not understand how we are trying to disincentivize people from being willing to pay up to $50,000 to the smuggling syndicates. That is what the bill seeks to do.

For example, by reducing some of the privileges that normally exist for asylum claimants in Canada, should someone who has arrived in a designated smuggling event under this bill be found by our legal system to be a bona fide refugee in need of our protection, we will not send them back to their country of origin. We will therefore respect and conform with our international and domestic legal obligations. However, there is no obligation on Canada to grant such persons immediate permanent residency, which is normally the case for successful asylum claimants.

What the bill would do would be to say that we would grant people who are deemed to be bona fide refugees who have arrived in a designated smuggling event a temporary residency status in Canada for up to five years, after which we would then reassess the conditions in their country of origin to determine whether the country conditions have improved and whether the risk that was determined at their refugee hearing still continues.

If at that point there is a determination that conditions have improved significantly in that country, that they would no longer face risk if removed, they could then face removal back to their country of origin. However, should conditions in that country not have improved after five years, they would then have access to permanent residency in Canada as a further reflection of our humanitarian instinct.

During those initial five years, here is the key disincentive. Such individuals would not be entitled to the privilege of sponsoring family members to Canada because here is the key aspect of the bill. We know that people are prepared to commit to up to $50,000 based on a calculation that they subsequently will be able to sponsor family members, so the $50,000 price point is really not associated with just the migration of one individual, the smuggled individual, but indeed all subsequent family members who may follow that successful claimant. There is a commercial calculation being made here that the $40,000 to $50,000 price point may lead to permanent residency for the primary migrant and then subsequently permanent residency for members of the family who in turn could help to pay off the debt to the smuggling syndicate.

In the bill we are seeking to create a doubt, a question mark in the minds of those who constitute the market for the smuggling gangs. Will they be able to get permanent residency in Canada? That would no longer be a certainty. Will they be able to sponsor family members and help pay off the debt? It would no longer be a certainty. We are very strongly persuaded that this is a balanced approach.

Thirteen months ago, when the last large vessel arrived off the west coast with some 500 illegal migrants, Canadians were understandably disturbed with this large scale violation of the integrity of our immigration law and with this mass human smuggling voyage. At that time public opinion polls consistently said that about two-thirds of Canadians thought the government should prevent such vessels from even entering Canadian territorial waters. About 55% of Canadians, and an even higher percentage of new Canadians, immigrants to this country, said that if people who arrive in such a vessel get access to our refugee system and are deemed to be bona fide refugees, they should be immediately returned. That is what the majority of Canadians said.

As a government, we do not believe that approach would respect our legal or humanitarian obligations. Let me be clear. Contrary to some of the demagoguery we hear from critics of the bill, we would continue, notwithstanding that public opinion environment, to allow illegally smuggled migrants who file the refugee claim access to our asylum system, which is the fairest asylum system in the world, bar none. They would continue to have access to that system. We would not send back a single person who is deemed by our legal system likely to face danger of persecution or risk to their lives in their country of origin.

This bill exceeds our international and domestic legal obligations with respect to non-refoulement of refugees. The opposition says that this is like refusing to allow Jewish refugees to come here during the second world war. Nonsense. This approach would allow any refugee, or even a false refugee claimant, access to our asylum system. It would simply reduce some of the privileges that normally are provided to asylum claimants in order to reduce their willingness to pay tens of thousands of dollars to a smuggling syndicate.

One of the contentious aspects of the bill is the enhanced detention provisions. I would invite members of the opposition, perhaps at committee, to ask members of our Canada Border Services Agency and lawyers from my ministry about the difficulty of processing hundreds of smuggled asylum claimants who are seeking release from detention, because we have to do detention reviews under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act every two, seven and then subsequent 30 days. This means that with several hundred people we have a non-stop revolving door of detention reviews which is massively inefficient.

I would also point out there has been a red herring created by the opposition about mandatory detention for up to a year of all smuggled migrants. The minister, under the bill, would have the authority to release people in exceptional circumstances, such as children. Under the new asylum system adopted by Parliament last year in Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, bona fide asylum claimants will receive a positive protection decision and therefore permanent residency within about three months of making their claim. Such smuggled migrants in the asylum system who are bona fide refugees would be automatically released from immigration detention when they receive a positive asylum decision, and permanent residency in about 90 days.

Let me point out by way of comparison, because there is a lack of perspective in context here, that most of our peer democracies, most other liberal democracies, including those governed by social democratic parties such as the Labour government in Australia, have mandatory detention for all or almost all asylum claimants, not just illegally smuggled asylum claimants, but all or almost all asylum claimants.

That was the law adopted by the United Kingdom under the previous social democratic Labour government. That is the law in Australia under the social democratic Labour government.

I remember Prime Minister Gillard of Australia congratulating the NDP on its 50th anniversary. She actually defends a policy that puts under permanent detention all asylum claimants until their status is resolved. This is, by comparison, a radically more modest approach which only addresses illegally smuggled migrants for a limited period of time until they receive status, which under the new system would be three months.

In closing, the bill constitutes a balanced and humane approach to combatting the scourge of human smuggling. It would allow access to our refugee protection system for bona fide victims of persecution. It would reduce the massive pressure on our system when we face hundreds of people arriving at the same time. It would provide disincentives for people to pay tens of thousands of dollars to criminal networks to be smuggled illegally to Canada, and it would encourage them rather to seek regional resettlement opportunities or protection, if they are indeed refugees.

This is a bill that Canadians expect and demand. We must stand up for our tradition of protection of refugees and our legal and generous immigration system by combatting those who would abuse our country's generosity.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Questions and comments for the minister will have to wait until the House returns to this matter.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-4, Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Minister of Immigration provided his comments on this particular bill and I do have questions that I want to pose to him. The tradition in the chamber has been to allow opposition members to question a minister on legislation right after he or she has spoken. The Minister of Immigration has spoken and I do have questions. When will I get the opportunity to pose the questions to the minister?

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Unfortunately, since the minister is not available to be here for the question and comment portion of his speech, the tradition of the House is to move on to the next speaker. I will give the floor now to the hon. member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-4, first, because of its severe impact on legitimate refugees who come to Canada; second, because of its direct conflict with Canada's international obligations; and third, because it takes Canada once again down the wrong-headed road of trying to use incarceration as a solution for social problems.

Looking at the title, Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, one might wonder why anyone would be concerned. We all share a common concern about the financial exploitation of desperate refugees. We all share concerns about the unsafe transportation of refugees to Canada. However, the title of the act is clearly more about spin than about information. It is designed to provoke a, “well who could disagree with that”, kind of response. Unfortunately, it is something we have seen all too often on Conservative bills.

Early in the debate, the parliamentary secretary for immigration said that Canadians clearly voted for this measure. In fact, if they had read the title and if this were a vote determining measure, then it was certainly with the expectation that this bill would contain significant measures targeting human smugglers.

However, when we actually look at the bill, what do we find? We find only two significant measures targeting those smugglers. These two measures might perhaps be helpful. One makes the endangerment of life and safety for those being transported an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing. This is something for which we might find support from all sides of the House.

Second, there is a measure that would extend the time for initiating proceedings against smugglers from six months to five years. As we all know, human smuggling cases can be quite complicated. Again, this is a measure that might find a degree of support from all sides of the House and might pass quickly.

The other measures directed at smugglers are of questionable use. They once again stem from the Conservative's approach of trying to deter crime through mandatory minimum sentences and large fines even though all the literature in all kinds of criminal activity and behaviour show that these do not serve as deterrents. I think the problem for the government was that there was not much to do in the area of targeting human smugglers because the maximum penalties are already life in prison and up to $1 million in fines.

Why the dramatic title? Unfortunately, the government either believes in its own rhetoric, which is based on fear, or the government is attempting simply to enhance its tough guy image at the expense of legitimate refugees.

How large is this problem? Of the 30,000 refugee claimants who might arrive in any given year, less than 2% are estimated to have arrived at the hands of smugglers or in the famous cases of the two ships that came. That is less than 2% or 300-500 people out of more than 33,000 claimants. We are taking a sledge hammer to what is a very real but very small problem.

Still, if we were under siege by human smugglers, there are solutions that would quickly address this problem without draconian attacks on refugee rights and without incurring enormous long-term costs of incarceration. These are quite simple. They are enhanced enforcement and the expeditious determination of refugee claims. Both of those measures require annual adequate funding to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and to law enforcement agencies. However, when we have a government that is now obsessed with cuts to public agencies, we cannot expect them to be able to do the enforcement work and do the determinations of refugee claims in an expeditious manner, which would actually take away the problem of smugglers and abuse of the system.

I will outline the main content of the bill because it is this content that gives rise to my concern. It is this content that I do not really understand. Bill C-4 is an attack on legitimate refugees who happen to arrive in a different manner than other refugees. I find the following seven things to be major concerns.

Bill C-4 creates a discriminatory category of designated refugee claimants based on their mode of arrival. It would impose penalties and disadvantages on legitimate refugees who have been forced to use the services of human smugglers to escape with their lives. It would impose penalties and disadvantages that would not be placed on other legitimate refugees who happen to arrive under their own steam, by air or crossing land boundaries.

Second, it provides for the detention of legitimate refugee claimants for up to one year with no review, including children. These are people who have perhaps suffered violence themselves, who have perhaps lost members of their family, who have certainly lost almost everything they had to their name. What will we do in Canada? We will further punish them by keeping them in detention for up to one year with no review.

Third, Bill C-4 proposes a ban on humanitarian and compassionate applications for five years. This would arbitrarily deny a right to those who have already been victims twice over. They were victims in their home country and victims of human smugglers. Now, in Canada, we would deny them a right to make their case on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, which all others have the right to do in this country.

The fourth thing of concern for me in Bill C-4 is that it would suspend the right to apply for permanent residency for five years. I cannot imagine what we think we would accomplish by doing this. It can only delay family reunification cases where families have been split up abroad and it can only delay the integration of refugees into Canadian society.

My fifth concern is that it would deny refugees travel documents that they would otherwise be entitled to if they were designated claimants. Once again, I cannot imagine what the problem is we are solving here, but the problem we are creating, once again, is with families who may have been separated abroad and who may need these travel documents to travel to help reunify their families.

My sixth concern is that it would allow the retroactive designation of claimants as possibly coming under this act. It is a fundamental principle of British common law which we use that we do not apply retroactive measures in criminal law. To me, the same thing should apply in the case of immigration law dealing with refugee claimants.

Finally and perhaps most egregious, Bill C-4 would exclude designated claimants from the appeal process, something which I believe the Supreme Court would find very hard to uphold in the long run.

Before I say a little more about my specific concerns, I want to talk a little about my own experience with refugees. As some in the House will know, I am the co-founder of the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society. It is a society that was set up in the 1980s to employ refugees and immigrants to help other refugees and immigrants with their settlement services in the community of Victoria. I am very proud of my long association with the Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society and the very high quality of work it has done in my community.

In the 1980s, I worked with Latin American refugees who came from Central America. Many of them stayed in my home as their first base of arrival in Canada. I visited refugee camps in both Indonesia and Afghanistan and helped on international projects trying to get the safe return home of refugees. First and foremost, I can tell the House that refugees are looking for a safe place for their families. They are not examining the comparative refugee regulations in countries around the world. They are simply looking for a place to go where they can be safe.

I will tell you a short story about the Campos family who came from El Salvador in the mid 1980s. They had two sons. One of their sons was taken from their house and shot in the street by security forces. They left that night without any documents, taking their younger son and fleeing the country. They ended up at my house in Victoria. I do not know how they got there but I have some suspicions that it was not an altogether pleasant journey, and they may have used the services of human smugglers. They felt they had no choice but to try and save the life of their only surviving son. The Campos family, Arnaldo, Virgina and José are still friends of mine today and they are alive because we gave them refuge in Canada. They did not shop for a place to go. They fled for their lives.

In the late 1980s, I served as an expert witness at refugee board hearings on behalf of Indo-Fijians who fled the military coup in Fiji, as I was working at that time for an international non-government organization. Again, when the Canadian minister of foreign affairs at the time, Joe Clark, said that we would accept refugees from the coups, there was great surprise in Canada when tens of thousands of Indo-Fijians got on the next plane and arrived in Vancouver. If we had had this kind of bill in place, those who had organized the flights would have been defined as human smugglers. Those who raised money to help them come to Canada would have been caught in the web of this bill. These are very productive and proud Canadians today, still living and working in Vancouver.

When we ask about the definition of human smuggling, I should add that as my eighth concern. I feel the definition is so broad that we will inadvertently catch those who are helping legitimate refugees out of humanitarian concerns in the web of the bill. I bought tickets for people to come illegally into Canada in the 1980s who were fleeing for their lives. Would I have been defined as a human smuggler? I am afraid under the bill I might have been.

Earlier in this debate the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism used a bizarre market analogy about trying to affect the price charged by human smugglers. This is nothing out of the real world of refugees who are living in camps day-to-day, trying to find a way to reach safety.

On the other side, we heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration talk about queue-jumping, which implies that there is some kind of organized system for dealing with refugees around the world. This is a system that does not exist and cannot exist when people are fleeing for their lives. Again, there are undoubtedly a few who will attempt to exploit our refugee determination system. The solution for those few is enforcement and swift refugee determinations. This will eliminate the problem of those smugglers who try to target Canada.

My concerns are with legitimate refugees, people who have lost everything, people who have been victims of violence. My concern is how we will treat them when they arrive in Canada. If they arrive by boat, will we deny them the same treatment as other legitimate refugees? The discriminatory category of designated claimants is a clear violation of charter rights and I think the courts, again, would find it hard to uphold such a measure.

The provision of detention without review has already been ruled unconstitutional by the Canadian Supreme Court when dealing with security certificates. Plus we have a provision that says mandatory conditions will be placed on designated claimants who are released and those will be set by regulation. Again, I doubt the Supreme Court of Canada would uphold any such vague determination of conditions for release of detainees.

The bar on humanitarian and compassionate applications for five years and the suspension of the right to apply for permanent residence for five years clearly violate both our obligations under the international convention on refugees and also under the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. This convention requires that in all cases the best interests of the child be taken into consideration and I cannot see how that can be met with bans on humanitarian and compassionate applications and with suspensions on the right to apply for permanent residence, which would allow the reunification of families.

I would like to ask the House to listen to the voice of refugees and to those who have actually worked with refugees in the field. Listen to those like the Canadian Council for Refugees that have called for the abandonment of this draconian legislation. Listen to Amnesty International that works every day with those who live in fear of their lives and often tries to help them find safe places to go. Listen to the Canadian Bar Association and its severe reservations about the legislation. Listen to the many other community organizations that work trying to help those who have suffered severe traumas to integrate into Canadian society.

Listen to those voices when it comes time to vote on the bill. Can it be amended? Can it be fixed? My concerns are very severe and I have seen no inclination on the government side to listen to these arguments about humanitarianism, compassion, human rights and treating fairly those who have already been victimized by becoming refugees from their country and by having to resort to the service of human smugglers.

I know many of these people and I know many other members of the House know those who have come to Canada as refugees. The bill would have made that much more difficult for many people who are an important part of our communities now. Let us not deny ourselves the future potential of those people who choose not to come here, but make a wonderful addition to our society.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before questions and comments, 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 Nanaimo—Cowichan, Poverty; the hon. member for London—Fanshawe, Seniors; the hon. member for Windsor West, Canada-U.S. Border.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of the hon. member and thoughtful reflection on issues involving not only our immigration system but those of refugee claimants and the treatment of refugee claimants in very particular dire circumstances. It has captured the House for some time.

The rule of law is an essential component of our society. The rule of law is something that the House, this Parliament, needs to ascribe to and needs to hold as its witness. However, the rule of law as stated within this bill is twofold. The rule of law states that not only is the government prescribing a certain method dealing with refugees, a particular variety of refugees, but what is not stated within the bill is that there is a right to due process. That right to due process allows for a consideration of appeal. No single decision can be taken without review. No government can impose a standard without having it adjudicated for its fairness.

Within the context of this legislation, does the hon. member feel this bill and the prevention of any right to review for certain claimants would be constitutional and be upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, as I said, I think there are very clear examples, in particular, Supreme Court cases involving security certificates, where the Supreme Court has upheld the right to due process. I would like to stress that in none of the cases we are talking about of refugee claimants, even those who came on the boats, have we found anyone who is a threat to Canadian security at this time. Therefore, even in those more severe cases that did involve questions of national security the Supreme Court would not uphold taking away the rights to due process.

As well, in the 1985 Singh case, the Supreme Court very clearly said that refugees could not be denied due process rights because of their new status in Canada.

Therefore, I do not believe that many parts of the bill would stand up to a court challenge.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to listen to his debate and I found it interesting. I have one community in my riding, Brooks, Alberta, which is probably one of the most diverse communities around. There are some 110 languages spoken. There are people from probably any five countries and some of these have been refugees. They have told me that we are on the right track. They have said that people who come here, like those who came on the Sun Sea, should not be able to jump the queue, that they should not be able to take advantage of our good Canadian hospitality, particularly with all of the funding that they get for health care and everything else.

From my point of view, from my constituents who are have been refugees and who are supporting us, why is the NDP not supporting us in this position?

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

Mr. Speaker, in this case the government has been part of the problem rather than part of the solution. In seeking to dramatize the ship arrivals and in seeking to increase fears, it has caused many Canadians to turn away from the generosity with which they have normally received immigrants and refugees in our country.

I believe when Canadians are asked to look at the real facts, the very small numbers involved and the very real situation of human rights abuse they were fleeing in Sri Lanka, then the boats from Sri Lanka no longer look like such a horrible queue-jumping problem. They look like people who were doing exactly what refugees do, and that is fleeing for their lives and fleeing to a place of safety.

I believe Canadians are generous-hearted and understand that refugees need to be welcomed here when they have no other place to go.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the comments of the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca were very cogent and thoughtful. I enjoy having him as part of my caucus.

The member spoke of the issue, as a number of my colleagues have, about concerns on how the proposed legislation strays from already binding commitments by this nation to international law.

First, there seems to be a pattern under the current government to move away from international obligations commitments. There was a comment earlier today from the other side about why the UN did not do the job. Part of the actions with the UN is stepping up to the plate and signing and ratifying international conventions. When we sign and ratify, we are committing that we will abide by those. Could the member speak to that?

The second issue is that this is the second step taken in substantially altering our immigration and refugee system long policy in Canada. The first measure was to massively open the doors to serve certain sectors and bring in tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers and then say that if they came in as a temporary foreign worker, they should not bother applying for their permanent citizenship or bring their families to contribute to society in the long term.

Could the member speak to those issues and the implications of this proposed law?

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

Mr. Speaker, when people point the finger at who should be responsible, I like to point this out. Who takes responsibility for dealing with refugees? Yes, the UN does for some international refugees, but it does this on the basis of voluntary contributions by nations, so there is only so much it can do.

Far more of the work of trying to care for refugees falls to the international non-governmental organizations and humanitarian organizations that, through donors, out of the generosity of their hearts, help finance the attempts to make refugees safe. I worked for two of those international non-governmental organizations in trying to get refugees safely back to their homes.

It is easy for governments to point the finger at each other, but what we see is ordinary people around the world stepping up and recognizing the problem that refugees have and stepping up to the plate to help them out in those dire times.

As to the other questions, the turning away from our international commitments, the government cannot simply ignore those. They are a part of Canadian law. We have committed ourselves to them and I believe that, again, should this legislation pass in its present form, those commitments will be tested in the courts. As well, they will be tested in the court of world opinion, where Canada's reputation is on the line for being one that not only encourages others to adhere to international law and covenants and their responsibilities, but sets an example in doing so.

It is a very negative trend if we turn away from those obligations. How then can we call on other nations to uphold their obligations when have done so?

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, those who come to Canada illegally should expect to be subject to our laws. I believe the bill sends a strong message to those looking to circumvent the immigration system that this will not be tolerated.

The NDP has said that the bill needlessly violates the rights of illegal immigrants by detaining them in order to determine their identity. Does it maintain that we should allow illegal immigrants to roam free without consequence and without knowing whether they are a threat to public safety?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member's question in particular shines a light on the problem on the other side of the House.

The member has done two things in the phrasing of his question, which I think illustrates the problems with the bill. One is that he has switched from talking about refugees to immigrants. The problem with refugees is that they are not choosing to go anywhere. They are not immigrants. They are refugees.

Second, the member refers to them as illegal entrants, but under the international conventions on refugees, they are not illegal entrants. They have the right to enter Canada and seek refuge here under international agreements which we have signed and ratified.

They may enter illegally if they were immigrants and, as I said, we should use enforcement and quick determination to remove those people who try to use the refugee system as a way around the immigration system. I totally agree with the member on that.

The problem is that if he switches his discussion to refugees, then they have legal status. They have the right to seek that refuge in Canada and we have the responsibility to treat them fairly.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a number of thoughts to share with members regarding this particular bill. I will give a bit of an overview.

We look at Canada as a great country that has all sorts of hope and opportunity and that is fairly well established around the world. Today, we have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 0.8% in terms of our overall immigrant population, which is roughly 260,000-plus immigrants every year, and a portion of those immigrants come to Canada as refugees. We had higher percentages during the 1990s when more immigrants came to our country on a per capita basis. However, all in all, Canada has provided opportunity and hope for citizens from around the world to come here and call Canada their new home.

“Refugees” is not a bad word. The government has done a disservice to refugees as a whole because of the way it is branding refugees as being dirty and not really contributing to the Canadian economy. That is what Canadians are picking up on because of the manner in which the government continues to talk about refugees.

What is even worse is that we often hear people use “refugee” and “immigrant” as one and the same. I can say that there is a great deal of concern with regard to trying to fix the system we have, but, all in all, the vast majority of Canadians are quite happy with the contributions of immigration policies from the past that have seen a good balance of immigrants and refugees come to our country.

Dealing with Bill C-4 and why it exists today causes a great deal of concern for many stakeholders who have worked with refugees over the years. I have had opportunities to have discussions with a number of refugees over the years. I believe I have an excellent appreciation of what it is that many refugees have to go through in order to arrive in Canada, ultimately settle and become contributing members of our society. We sell refugees short when we do not better educate the population as a whole in terms of the valuable contributions that refugees make to our nation. Instead, I have found that the government has made the decision to try to come across as talking tough on the crime and safety elements. It has kind of roped in the whole refugee aspect of it, which is most unfortunate.

There are ads that say that the Prime Minister has a plan to crack down on human smugglers and bogus claimants. There is an interesting picture, to which I have made reference, showing the Prime Minister and, what appears to be, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism standing on the back of the Ocean Lady. Members will be familiar with the Ocean Lady, the vessel that had 76 refugees on board.

It is interesting that the government seems to be determined to make refugees look as if they are bad. When we look at the number of refugees who have come in via boats, it is a small percentage of the overall number of immigrants, let alone the number of refugees that come to Canada. To try to put everyone in the same group and demonize refugees is just wrong.

I do not believe this is good legislation. I believe it establishes a second tier of refugee that is not healthy, that promotes and encourages some of the negative thinking and attitudes toward refugees that is out there. I believe the government has a role to encourage more tolerance and better education regarding issues surrounding refugees and so forth.

I was hoping to ask a couple of questions earlier when the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism spoke to Bill C-4. Usually members are afforded the opportunity to ask questions. However, the one question I was hoping to get an answer to concerns the boat on which he was standing side-by-side with the Prime Minister, the Ocean Lady. There were 76 individuals who claimed to be refugees. How many of those individuals are, in fact, settled today? It would have been wonderful to have heard a response from the minister. My understanding is that all of them had qualified for asylum here in Canada. That was a photo-op that the government used to tell Canadians that refugees are bad.

The feedback I get from the average person, because of the way in which the government has persistently attempted to make refugees look bad, is starting to have an impact, and it is not a pleasant impact. There is a percentage of Canadians who have very little tolerance toward refugees and, to a certain degree, immigrants. The government is feeding into that anger by taking the types of stands it is taking. It is a hatred.

I would caution the government in terms of the way in which it continues to move forward on this issue. If the government really wants to make a difference, if it really wants to have a more positive impact it should be focusing on how to bring refugees in and process them in a more timely fashion so that those who are legitimate can become a part of the Canadian economy. That would be something that would be wonderful to see from the government.

What was the minister talking about in his comments? He stated that the reason we have Bill C-4 is because of the profiteers, the profiteers being the human smugglers. That is the reason we have this bill. That is what the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism said just a few hours ago.

To what degree would this legislation penalizing the smugglers? The smugglers, generally speaking, are, as far as I am concerned, unethical individuals who base a dollar value on humans. They exploit tragedy. I and members of the Liberal Party have very little sympathy for these profiteers or human smugglers.

Having said that, the impact of Bill C-4 would be far more profound on the refugees, not the smugglers, not the profiteers who the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism says that he is trying to hit and hurt with this particular legislation.

If the minister does not change the legislation, the real victim here will be the refugees because he has established that second tier. He says that we will now be able to hold off in recognizing someone. It could be four, five years before they would ultimately be able to sponsor a family member.

As a member of Parliament, I am sure all offices have communications with immigrants who are trying to sponsor family members from abroad, especially if it is a parent, but also brothers, sisters, siblings, nephews, nieces, and so forth. Do members know what the processing times for those today?

What we are saying is that based on the assumption, and it is a fair assumption, 99% of those who are arriving on the boats are in fact legitimate refugees who need asylum. It would have been nice if the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism were here to provide an answer himself.

The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism wants the power and the authority, which he would get through this legislation, to tell refugees that they cannot land in Canada for five years. We can just imagine leaving a country where we were being shot at, we were receiving death threats and so on, landing in Canada considering ourselves fortunate because we survived and then being told that our life was on hold. Yes, we made it to Canada but our life is on hold for maybe five years. After five years we may be able to sponsor our family. That would mean anywhere from nine months to twelve years. Considering the direction in which the government is going it would probably get closer to the latter.

Canada has a moral and legal obligation to accept refugees. We can imagine a 23-year-old man wondering when he would be able to see his wife and 6-year-old child.

I always thought that families were important here in Canada, that Canadians recognized the value of family. Do we see that value in this legislation? I would say no. The minister of immigration does not recognize the value of family and he wants to put it into law and wants us to pass it. Members need to look at what the minister is asking us to do. If the purpose is to target profiteers, then let us change the focus.

The minister himself, in addressing the legislation, said that the government was doing some other things in the background, working with other levels of government and that it has been very successful. He made reference to other boats that were prevented from leaving. Maybe the minister should invest more resources in that as opposed to bringing in legislation that is questionable at best. That would be a good direction for the minister to take.

I would suggest to all members, in particular, government members, that they hold their ministers accountable for the legislation they bring forward. Just because a minister brings in legislation does not mean that it is good legislation. If a minister brings in something and a little red flag, blue flag or orange flag goes up, we have a responsibility to look into it and hold that person accountable, just like I would have welcomed the opportunity to pose some specific questions to the minister of immigration on this legislation.

We do have an immigration standing committee. Even though I am somewhat new to the House of Commons, I am not overly impressed with the immigration standing committee because it does not allow for ongoing questions relating to the accountability of the individual who I believe is most important, and that is the minister of immigration.

There are so many issues facing immigration today and yet the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism would have us address a seriously flawed piece of legislation that would likely get defeated if it were brought to the Supreme Court. That is what he has us debating today. I can tell the House that there is a list of at least a dozen issues, maybe 20, that need to be addressed by the minister in his portfolio.

The minister made reference to the bill going to the immigration standing committee, which is great because that is part of the process. I still think we can strengthen the process by allowing critics and other members of Parliament to ask more specific questions of the minister, because. ultimately, we have the responsibility to think outside a political agenda. I have witnessed a political agenda in this particular bill and the agenda has more to do with hatred I would suggest, although I do not want to over-react. There was a bit of hesitation when I used the word “hatred”, so I will just rephrase it.

I am sure every member in this chamber would recognize that refugees contribute a great deal to our economy and they will continue to do that into the future. Overall, refugees have made a significant impact in our economy, our social fabric and who we are today as Canadians, as a country. I will acknowledge the fact that there is a small percentage of refugees that do create some problems and there are some individuals who will take advantage of potential refugees. Those ones upset me and many members all the time, and quite significantly.

The image and the message that the government sends out to the public are not positive when it comes to refugees, and I cited two specific examples. When we have the Prime Minister standing on the back of a boat saying that we are after the human smugglers and brings in legislation of this nature, many Canadians, and members can go and canvass their own constituents, are of the opinion that people who came in on that boat should be shipped back to the country of origin, whether they are legitimate or not. That is because the government of the day has fuelled that sentiment and given that impression either directly or indirectly. Tell me how that is a healthy thing for government to be doing.

I would suggest that there are things we can do, that we have to recognize the importance of the rule of law, that we have to ensure that individual refugees are provided the opportunity to appear and allow for a judge or appeal board to provide a decision in as quick a fashion as possible.

The reason I talk a lot about the process is because if we want to move forward and continue to be a country that can provide hope and opportunities, we need to recognize there are things that government can do to improve the system. We are spending too much time on things that I believe are hurtful. If we want to spend time on improving the system, the biggest recommendation I can give on the whole refugee file is to provide the resources necessary to ensure we have a process that is more timely and that is fair. Whether they are children or adults, whatever gender and whatever part of the world they are coming from, we need to ensure there is a sense of fairness to the process and it is done in a timely way. The quicker it is done, the sooner legitimate refugees will be able to settle and contribute to our communities and for those who are not legitimate, then the sooner they are out of Canada.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard some pretty outlandish statements by the member opposite. In the member's presentation, he has made Canada appear as somewhat of a pariah on the international stage for this bill and what we plan to do, throwing innocent refugees at the mercy of preventative detention. I would contest those statements.

Would the member like to comment on the fact that this legislation brings us in line with the UN protocol against smuggling of immigrants by land, sea and air which, among other things, requires states to criminalize migrant smuggling?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe when the Minister of Immigration gave indication as to the primary reason for the bill, it was all about smugglers and the profiteers. In trying to address the legislation, my emphasis was more so on the refugees and the way in which the legislation would have a negative impact on legitimate refugees to the degree in which it would make the refugees the victims, not the profiteers. I do not understand how members believe that the bill would have that desired impact that the government talks about with regard to the profiteers.

There are other ways of doing it so that we do not have to penalize legitimate refugees who are fleeing countries where, if they remained, they might lose their lives.

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

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the hon. member for Winnipeg North. We are really struggling here with the notion that there is a queue for refugees.

I used to practise in immigration law. I had a lot of refugee claimants. In fact, they mostly were ship-jumpers in Halifax. They would take their one chance to get away from a repressive regime.

I say with some humour, in the hopes of waking up other members around the House, that at one point my colleagues in my law firm said I knew how to say “Hi, sailor” in 27 languages.

However, there is no queue for refugees. Refugees show up with the clothes on their backs. They are trying to get away from a repressive regime. When I have raised this point with the Minister of Immigration, and I have heard it from government members today, it has been said that there is a queue and they just go to a United Nations refugee camp and wait there.

I would like to ask the hon. member for Winnipeg North this question. The claim by the government that there is such a thing as a queue for refugees will be at the heart of the public relations campaign to defend an indefensible bill. We have to really explain to people that the UN High Commission for Refugees is a voluntarily-funded branch of the United Nations. It does not have the capacity to provide places for people, like waiting rooms around the world, in refugee camps. That is not the route refugees take. They show up here, they ask to be assessed and they ask for their rights to be respected.

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.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member for Winnipeg North with his response.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is very important that we recognize that international law guarantees that people who fear persecution have the right to seek asylum in another country. That is in international law. I do not think anything should change on that.

To talk about jumping the queue, again, is just to try to politicize the issue so the government can try to give the impression that people will be done wrong by if it allows boats to come to Canada, whether they have legitimate refugee claims or not. When the government says that they are jumping the queue and when we know full well that in the vast majority of the cases these are legitimate refugees who are seeking asylum is just wrong. Again, when we take a look at international law, there is no queue-jumping. When the lives of people are at risk, people will take the opportunity when the opportunity comes forward. We all need to, and should, appreciate that.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would assert that Vancouver Kingsway is one of the most multicultural ridings in the country. We have a very vibrant and growing Vietnamese community. I dare say that one would be hard pressed to find a Vietnamese family that did not have a family member or knew someone who escaped Vietnam when South Vietnam fell after a long and protracted civil war.

In talking to people in my community, I noted that many of those people left Vietnam by boat and in fact paid people to assist them to leave. Had this legislation been in force in any of the surrounding countries to Vietnam, they would have been treated as criminals as would the people who aided them. They would all have been considered to be in violation of legislation.

The proposed act, section 117, says:

No person shall organize, induce, aid or abet the coming into Canada of one or more persons knowing that, or being reckless as to whether, their coming into Canada is or would be in contravention of this Act.

It is this proposed section that has many church groups and refugee organizations nervous that if they organize or aid someone to come to Canada, they may be in violation of the act. It could simply be by not having valid travel documents to be put in violation of the act and they may be subject to being in violation.

Could my hon. colleague comment on the advisability of such a section in the legislation?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is why I make the reference to try to personalize this. If people understand and have an appreciation of why we have refugees coming to Canada on an annual basis or if they talk to people who came to Canada under that classification, whether it was 1 year or 30 years ago, they would get a better appreciation as to the actual situation.

I believe the vast majority, maybe even all the stakeholders, the people who are having to deal with the issue of refugees, would not support this legislation. If it were good legislation, one would think it would get support from stakeholders. I look to the Minister of Immigration to provide us with the list of stakeholders. I would be interested in knowing those stakeholders that say this is good legislation and bring it forward. In terms of numbers, we know a lot do not support it.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this question is more for clarification.

I think I heard my hon. colleague say that 99% of those who came on the Sun Sea were legitimate refugees. I may be misinformed, but my understanding is that there have not been any hearings yet. How can he say that 99% of those have actually been proven to be legitimate refugees? If I misunderstood him, I would like him to clarify this with the House.

The other thing I find unfortunate in his comments is the implication that on this side of the House there is somehow a lack of compassion. I can say without any question that many of my colleagues in this room have personally cared for refugees in their homes and are part of churches who sponsor refugees regularly. I would ask him to be careful in his insinuation about the lack of compassion.

We are simply trying to ensure that we have a fair process that does not penalize those who really deserve to be treated as refugees.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will address the member's latter comments first.

I do not question that many members in the Conservative caucus have a caring heart and attitude toward refugees. That is why I said one should not make the assumption that when a minister introduces a bill that it is a good bill. Even backbenchers have a role to play in ensuring that legislation is good. However, I suggest this legislation is not good. On the stakeholders, Conservatives may talk about it in caucus and so forth to better debate that particular issue.

However, I was referring to the Ocean Lady. My understanding is that of the 76 refugees none of them have been detained. This was one of the questions I wanted to ask the minister about and that was what I made reference to. I was referring to the Ocean Lady. I am not too sure about the other one.

I have to be careful in terms of what I say, but it was implied to me that it was at least 99%. As there were 76 refugees, I am assuming they were all released from the Ocean Lady. I look forward to the Minister of Immigration actually providing the information in regard to that.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am profoundly sad that Canadians must once again stand to oppose this morally repugnant bill. Immediately I would like to remind the House that the people who stand to be criminalized by this bill, indeed the people who are already victimized as they languish in Canadian detention centres under inhumane conditions for excessive lengths of time, are children, women, victims of torture, abuse and rape, and victims of the kind of poverty that entirely eradicates an individual's inalienable right to self-determination and autonomy.

Already at any given point in time, Canada is holding around 450 non-status migrants in detention centres and maximum security prisons. Dozens of these people at any given time are children. Charges have never been laid against them and they have no idea when they will be released or if they will be deported.

Canada does not jail children unless they are seeking asylum. We do not jail people for years when they have never been charged with a crime, unless they are seeking asylum. We do not jail people without providing access to legal counsel, unless they are seeking asylum. We do not categorically bar prisoners from seeking bail, unless of course they are seeking asylum. We do no jail the traumatized victims of political conflict, abuse, and poverty, unless they are seeking asylum.

Canada is guilty of doing all of this already. The use and misuse of maximum security detention centres to imprison those seeking refugee status is a blight on this nation's integrity. The bill before us today will make this travesty infinitely worse. Among its many problems, Bill C-4 states that anyone arbitrarily labelled as a designated claimant, for reasons left to the discretion of the minister, will be mandatorily detained on arrival in a detention centre or prison and will not have their case reviewed for one full year. Once again, a remind the House that this does include children.

It is incumbent upon the House to consider the health and safety of individuals when we look at a bill that commits people to imprisonment. Health is rarely considered in immigration policy, but study after study from around the globe is proving that immigration detention strategies are creating significant health concerns. A study from the Centre for Population Mental Health Research that was published in the Public Library of Science journal finds that the rate of mental disorder among populations held in detention centres are substantially higher than those of people held in community settings. Not surprisingly, children in particular show evidence of severe mental health impairment. Rates of suicide and self-harm are at a level comparable to or higher than that among prison populations.

There is a strong correlation between the mental health of refugees and the length of time spent in detention. When finally released from detention they will almost always suffer from prolonged mental health impairment due to the trauma suffered while they were detained. These detention centres, like the centre for the prevention of immigration in Laval, where upwards of a hundred individuals, including children, are being held at any given time, or like the maximum security prison in Rivière-des-Prairies where refugee claimants make up one-third of the prison population while they have not been charged with any crime or convicted of any crime, are very often the site of human rights violations and abuse. The migrants held at these detention centres are routinely denied access to any health services, especially mental health services.

Are members here today prepared to assume responsibility for endangering the lives of these people by neglecting their health? When they are eventually assessed, so many of their claims are proved to be legitimate. The government is punishing innocent people. The Conservative members of the House wish to punish more innocent people with harsher mandatory imprisonment for longer periods of time.

According to his own discretion, this bill will allow the minister to retroactively wrench a whole family or part of a family out of their community where they are waiting to hear about their refugee status. In other cases, they may already have refugee status. They will be taken under this law and thrown into detention. Family members would be forceably separated. Children would be forceably removed from their parents despite the fact that their parents have not been accused of being unfit, if their case has never come to court or if they have been flagged by child protection agents. The lasting anguish inflicted by separating a parent from a child or a child from a parent would be, and already is, guilt on the head of the government.

The Canada Border Services Agency jailed 14,362 people from 2008 to 2009 for immigration reasons at the cost of $45 million of taxpayers' money. Under Bill C-4, with the minister's new power to arbitrarily define any migrant as a human smuggler, these numbers are sure to increase.

The government must make the definition of “designated claimant” clear and transparent. At this point, according to this bill, the minister would have the absolute power to label any group of refugees as designated claimants for largely arbitrary reasons that he will not disclose. Once labelled, a refugee would be subject to the litany of unfair regulations set out by this bill. The discriminatory nature of this arbitrary designation would create two classes of refugees in Canada. This is a clear violation of section 15 of the charter that states that every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination, even refugees and migrants. It is crucial to the integrity of our charter that all persons are afforded the protection of basic human rights under our law, including those without status.

It is the obligation of the House to not pass legislation that is in violation of our charter. Not only is this bill in violation of our charter, it is also in violation of the United Nations' protocol relating to the status of refugees and our own Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

We have to recognize that jailing people on Canadian soil in an effort to stop them from fleeing persecution and poverty from wherever they come is completely nonsensical. The bill intentionally and maliciously refuses to draw a distinction between those who are committing the crime of human smuggling and those who are victims of the crime of human smuggling themselves. It is true that people are trafficked to this country under false pretenses and are abused, raped and kidnapped as a result of the human trafficking industry. However, enforcing the same punitive measures against the victims and the criminals themselves is the very definition of the word “insanity”.

Earlier today, the member for St. Catharines excused this exact lapse of logic by saying that the human smugglers of the ships disguise themselves as those who are being smuggled. That is absurd. If a criminal wears a disguise while committing a crime, it does not give us reason to change our laws to erase the distinction between the criminals and the victims. Under any circumstance, that proposition is laughable. However, for some reason that line of thinking is tolerated when we speak of the plight of refugees in Canada.

The member for St. Catharines also pointed out that Canadians do not wish to share their health care services with those seeking asylum and who do not yet have status. I would like to state that I am one woman who would be perfectly happy to share the privilege of public health care with those who are most needy and vulnerable.

In December 2009, Jan Szamko died in an immigration centre in Canada after being denied medical aid. In December 1995, Mike Akhinen died from medical neglect at the detention centre in Mississauga known as Celebrity Inn. These are just two cases of neglect that resulted in death. Instances of non-status Canadians being denied medical attention is extremely common and this bill would make it 100% legal.

Refugees come to Canada with legitimate claims, fleeing the worst conditions imaginable. We have a moral obligation to help them. Would the Conservative members of the House be willing to look individuals in the face when they are desperate and ill and deny them a doctor? That is inhumane and I refuse to believe that Canadians are inhumane. I refuse to believe that we are as illogical as this bill. When my colleagues from the government speak endlessly on behalf of what Canadians want them to do, I would like to remind them that the majority of Canadians did not vote for them and they do not necessarily share the same values. I am proud to represent some of the many Canadians who did not vote for them and who do not support this bill.

This bill reduces smuggled human refugees to goods being illegally brought into this country. The government thinks that by raising the duty or the tariffs on the commodity will discourage this trade out of existence. Refugees are not cattle. They are not softwood lumber. They are human beings and human smuggling is not a commodity trade. Maybe we could compare it to a service. Even if we were to follow this line of logic through to its conclusion, we could assume that if this bill were to come into effect it would force human smugglers to raise the price of the service that they provide to refugees in response to the increased tariffs we are now imposing on them. Clearly, it does not make any sense.

Some of the members of the opposition have already spoken about history and historical precedent. I believe it is important to look to history before we act as a nation. Let us look to another time when human beings were treated like commodities to be levied. Imagine how history would regard us if we jailed the refugees coming through the Underground Railroad into Canada during the time of American slavery. I guarantee this bill would bring the same kind of shame on Canada. We would live to regret it.

Beyond the fact that the bill is morally repugnant for all of the reasons I have enumerated in this speech, it is not what it purports to be. How would the news that Canada has new tough-on-smuggling laws ever reach those who are actually fleeing to Canada by these means? How will the victims of poverty and persecution who come to Canada seeking asylum get the news that we just passed some tough new inhumane refugee laws?

The only way this legislation will ever be effective is if the government delivers leaflets around the world explaining our new laws. The bill clearly is not aimed at reducing human smuggling. It is targeting Canadian voters by making them feel like the threat of illegal immigration is greater than it actually is.

I join members of the opposition in opposing the bill. It not only creates an arbitrary process but indeed is discriminatory against the most vulnerable citizens of this world.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is with regard to the doors being open to legitimate refugees while safeguarding the integrity of our borders. Bill C-4 ensures that criminals looking to play our system and those looking to jump the queue are sent a strong message. Canadians will not tolerate this abuse of our generosity.

I call on the NDP to support the bill and stand with real victims of human smuggling and law-abiding Canadians.

I am curious to know what the definition of "maximum security" is in the hon. member's mind because to me it means something like Millhaven or Kingston Penitentiary. Could the hon. member please give us her definition of what "maximum security" really is?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is not the point. It is that we would be jailing people who have come here looking for safety. The government is not making a distinction between those who are committing acts of human smuggling and those who desperately need to leave their countries in order to be safe. That will not be a deterrent to those looking for safety. Rather, it will cause mass amounts of physical and mental health issues. That makes no sense if we look at the situations of the people who are coming to this country looking for help.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on her speech. A lot of the conversation taking place is centred around the idea of queue jumping, whether or not it is a myth. The other issue pertains to the two-tiered system that would be created by Bill C-4 carried over from the last session. Could the member comment on that?

Also, has she had any experience regarding how refugees in the system are dealing with the fact that the bill does not go to the crux of the issue and does not really fix the problem in the sense that there is no great incentive out there not to be involved in this type of work?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the question of queue jumping speaks to the idea that the members across the way do not understand what a refugee is. It is someone who is in a desperate situation, whose security is at risk, whose health is at risk due to the situation in his or her home country. Refugees do not get in line, they flee, otherwise they could be killed or raped.

Members opposite do not seem to understand that fleeing is fleeing and is not getting in line and waiting. Whether people are in camps or on a boat to come to Canada is just not the point.

As a member of the global community, Canada has a moral obligation to help these people.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

In the summary, at letter (f), it says the following:

(f) provide for detention rules and a review procedure...

That means that more prisons will have to be built for these people and these families. Who will build them? Will it be the government, the private sector or a public-private partnership? Will there be classrooms for the children? Will special staff be hired to manage the review procedure in these detention centres? Will children be separated from their parents? What are we really talking about here? Is this not just a way of criminalizing these people?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question and comments.

It makes absolutely no sense that the government is talking about being economically responsible and yet wants to build bigger prisons. It makes no sense.

What is going on is just illogical. I cannot understand what the bill is supposed to be doing. It does not make any sense. It will not do any of the things the Conservatives claim it will do. It does not follow any of the things that are their priorities such as the economy and fairness. It is blatantly opposed to all those things.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a little confused by the member's comments. Could she distinguish for me between jail and detention?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when someone is put away for absolutely no reason and the person did not commit a crime other than to flee for his or her security, I do not care what term is used, the result is that a punishment is being inflicted on the person for something the person has not done. That is the problem.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on her speech. I believe she has gone to the heart of human nature and sensibility. She has touched on a very important point: the separation of children from their parents. When we study 20th century history, we find examples of the separation of children from parents.

I would like her to tell us how she thinks the international community, in light of the horrible things that happened in the second half of the 20th century, will view the image that Canada is projecting.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Jean for his very good question. We do not seem to have learned a great deal from history. Children have been traumatized by being separated from their parents.

It creates risks in our society among generations. It causes many other concerns in terms of social understanding. It absolutely does not make any sense. It is not economically viable. It does not make sense in terms of our collectivity in Canada to be doing this to families when five years from now we will say to them that they can come in now. The damage has been done. It creates traumatic experiences and it puts a burden on our society that we do not need.

We should be welcoming these people with open arms and trying to help them instead of making their situation worse.

That does not make sense. We have learned nothing from history.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to add my strongest opposition and objection to the bill at hand, Bill C-4, , the “Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act”. I put quotations around the title not because it is the short title of the bill, but because that is not really what the bill is about. It was presented by the Minister of Public Safety earlier as a bill that would protect Canadians and others from human smugglers. In reality, it is a bill that attacks refugees and the Canadian immigration system.

Let us be frank. This bill is not at all about human smuggling. Canada currently has the harshest punishment possible, according to Canadian law, if convicted of human smuggling. Under Canadian law smugglers are imprisoned for life. There is nothing stronger and no more severe form of punishment than life in prison in Canada.

Let us talk about what this bill is really about: playing politics with refugees and instilling a sense of fear in Canadians about refugees. We have seen this bill before. This bill was and is remarkably similar to Bill C-49 presented in the last Parliament. It was opposed by all members of the opposition parties and by so many Canadians across the country from coast to coast to coast.

Let me speak to the false claims and the areas of ambiguity this bill presents.

First, the bill positions refugees as “queue jumpers”. This is a falsehood. Refugees and asylum seekers must still follow the same processes and procedures of all claimants. It also creates a two-tier immigration system. It creates two different levels of refugees, and a new classification of refugee, a “designated claimant”. These are refugees who have an “irregular arrival”. That means anybody who shows up by boat. Of course the terms in quotations I am borrowing from the bill.

This bill essentially says that someone who arrives in an irregular fashion, such as by boat, is not a refugee but rather is a criminal. This bill says that people who wish to flee war or conflict zones or persecution but do not have the means to purchase an airplane ticket are queue jumpers. Instead, because they cannot buy a plane ticket, they risk their lives. They throw themselves on a rickety cargo boat, spend two months crossing the ocean, any ocean, but no, they are not real refugees. That is what this bill is telling us.

The bill is telling us that they are not real asylum seekers; they are not really fleeing a horrible situation, leaving their families behind, leaving their livelihoods, leaving their homes, leaving a horrible situation. This bill tells us that these people are liars, that they are not real asylum seekers, that they are not risking their lives to come to Canada hoping for a better life. This bill tells us that these people are criminals. This is what the bill and the government are telling us, unfortunately.

When we look at the history of this great country, it is very clear that Canada was built on the backs of immigrants. Historically, boatloads of immigrants arrived at Canada's ports for centuries. Canada saw an immense number of Irish refugees arriving at Canada's sea ports during the famine in Ireland. At that time, Canadians were strongly in opposition to these refugees staying in Canada, yet they were permitted to stay. Today we see that they contribute so much, and that they contribute positively to Canadian society. Now, we see people of Irish heritage all over Canada, including in this House. Many members of Parliament are of Irish descent.

Refugees are people who contribute positively to the land they go to. So how do we as a nation deal with boats carrying refugees that enter Canadian waters? Do we turn them away, forcing them to return to their country of origin? Or rather, as we saw recently, do we have other countries do our dirty work and intercept these boats in international waters so they do not make it here and we do not need to do anything?

Time and again we have seen the consequences of this course of action. In 1914, the Komagata Maru, which was carrying 376 passengers from Punjab, India, was forced to return. In the 1930s, the refugees on board the SS St. Louis were fleeing Nazi Germany, but were forced to return and were killed by the Nazis. There are many others. Forcing people to return to their country of origin is not the answer.

While this bill specifically attacks refugees who arrive by boat, it will have detrimental effects on all claimants regardless of whether they enter Canada by boat, by air or on foot. This legislation would require the mandatory detention of all designate people arriving in Canada, whether they arrive on foot, by boat or by air. This includes women, children, babies, the sick, the elderly. Anyone who arrives in Canada by any method would be required to be detained for a minimum of 12 months, an entire year. After those 12 months were served, they might receive some consideration, but they could also be held for up to five years. They would also be denied permanent residence or family reunification for at least five years after that. This is a clear violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In the past, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down mandatory detention without review. This is detention based on identity with no possibility of release until the minister arbitrarily decides that identity has been established. This breaches sections 9 and 10 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protect people against arbitrary detention and allow the right to prompt review of that same detention. Arbitrary detention is also a violation of a number of international treaties to which Canada is a signatory.

Why are we detaining these people to begin with? People are usually detained because they are a danger to others or they are a flight risk and could disappear before their questioning or trial happens. Should this bill pass, the government would have the right to jail or detain all refugees without proving that they are a danger to society or that they are a flight risk, for a minimum of one year without an appeal process. How is that just?

Do members know the psychological effects detention and imprisonment have on children? Some British researchers have shown that even in a few months of detention the psychological effects on children are tragic. They wet their beds. Some become mute. Others stop learning. They become withdrawn. They are not able to go to school because they cannot focus. Some lose weight. Some do not eat. These psychological and physiological effects have been seen in children who have been jailed for just a few weeks or months. Think of the psychological scars that we would be inflicting on these children who come to our country and are placed in detention centres. Some may call them jails but we call them detention centres. That is where children would be put for at least a year. It is totally unjustifiable.

Furthermore, these people are being detained until they can prove their identity through some form of documentation. Most refugees who come to Canada do not have documentation, regardless of which process they use to enter the country. When people flee their nation, they leave behind everything. When they leave their country due to a natural disaster, this documentation may not exist. How can we realistically expect people who have lived through an earthquake or tsunami and are fleeing their country to have appropriate documentation proving their identity? How can we expect people who have left a war-torn country to carry valid identification? A lot of refugees arrive at our shores without identification. These are people who could be classified as designated.

Some of the refugee claimants who arrived in Canada by the MV Sun Sea now live in my constituency. I have spoken with many of them. They have told me the stories of their trip to Canada and their arrival in B.C. and how so many of them were borderline holding on to their lives. We all know that one man perished on the journey across the Pacific. Many of them had United Nations identity cards. They had UNHCR refugee cards. Upon their arrival, the people who greeted them gathered all of their identity cards and then, when there were not the same number of identity cards, as individuals they were told that they did not have adequate identification onboard. Regardless of whether or not they had a refugee card, they were all detained. Thankfully, many of these people have been released because our great service men and women at the Canada Border Services Agency took the time to sort out the identity cards. Unfortunately, many of them are still being detained today.

Under Bill C-4, decisions on claims by designated persons cannot be appealed to the refugee appeal division. Eliminating the right to appeal can have tremendous consequences for these so-called designated persons.

I am sure that most of us have heard stories from our constituents about failed refugee applications, about a person who has left his or her country only to face a heavily bureaucratic process. The person does not have the right kind of supporting documentation to present at a hearing and his or her application is unfortunately rejected. Sadly, some of us have heard about the horrific consequences of these failed refugees and what awaits them when they are deported to their country of origin. Unfortunately, mistakes can happen, which is why we have the appeals process. That is why refugees deserve to be able to appeal to the refugee appeal division.

My personal story is like that of many immigrants to Canada. My father came to Canada as a refugee claimant from Sri Lanka. He was fleeing the civil war during the early parts of the war. Once he was granted permanent residency, he sponsored my mother and my sisters to join us. We were reunited in Canada. I am proud to say that the child of a refugee claimant in Canada is now a member of Parliament.

It is difficult for me to imagine in the middle of this violent conflict my father having the time to ensure that he had all of his documentation aligned, ready to go, everybody's identification ready to go, supporting documents ready to go, when he was running away from being shot or his country being bombed. How can we expect people fleeing persecution, fleeing a war, to have all their identification in order? Fortunately, his application was approved and my family was able to join him here in Canada.

It is absolutely unreasonable to expect people to collect all the necessary documents and to have them available upon arrival. My father was lucky that he left at the early stages of the war, but the people who left later, the people fleeing from other countries because they were being bombed, this is absolutely unfair.

That is why there are checks and balances in our refugee process and why they are so integral. This absolutely goes against the compassionate nature that Canadians are known for, Canada's values. Canada's values lie in being compassionate, being concerned for human rights and being concerned for human beings.

When I first saw the bill, I asked myself why the government would propose such legislation and why it would put forward a bill that attacked refugees.

I am taken aback by the idea of queue-jumpers. The government is trying to paint refugees as jumping the immigration queue. When people are fleeing persecution, fleeing a war or an area that is attacked by a natural disaster, they cannot be called queue-jumpers.

With a large immigrant population in Scarborough—Rouge River, I can easily say that the number one form of casework in my constituency is immigration-related. In my immigration casework, there is an unbelievable amount of family reunification cases. People in my area are frustrated that they are waiting 5 to 10 to 15 years in the process. They are stuck in the process waiting to have their families, their loved ones, join them here in Canada. When they begin the process of bringing their parent or sibling over to Canada, they are told that it will take 5 to 10 years. They apply and they wait and wait and continue to wait. The backlog for parents who are waiting to come to Canada is in the hundreds of thousands. Why? It is because the number of visas for parents and grandparents issued this year has been reduced by close to 44% of what it was. The wait times are getting longer and longer. This year, there are only 11,000 parents who can come to Canada. In 2005 and in 2006, the target was 20,000. Now it is only 11,000. This is a reduction of 9,000 people in this current year. This is not the only backlog that exists, unfortunately.

The government claims that it is clearing the backlog for skilled workers when, in actuality, the backlog for skilled workers grew. In 2005, there was a backlog of 487,000. Now, it is 508,000. In the past six years, this backlog has grown by 173,000 applications.

This so-called clearing the backlog is, unfortunately, not working. It is not working for skilled workers and it is not working for families trying to reunify. Immigrants are getting resentful because they are waiting longer and longer to bring their loved ones to Canada. They are being told by the government that there are people who are jumping the queue. There are hundreds of thousands of people waiting patiently, some not so patiently, to come to Canada. This is not due to nothing other than failed immigration policy. People are really upset that they have to wait so long.

However, rather than amending immigration policy to actually deal with the backlogs and the time constraints, the Conservative government is trying to find a scapegoat: the new refugees who are coming. This is not the government's fault or the fault of the failed immigration policies, but the refugees' fault. They are jumping the queue and taking the spots of all those other people who have been patiently waiting.

What the government has failed to mention is that for some refugees there is no queue to jump. There is no lineup for people who are in serious danger, for people who are living through a civil war, for people who are being persecuted because of their gender, their religion, their sexual orientation, et cetera. When their lives or the lives of their family is called into question, there is no line. Once they are safely in Canada, they must then join the exact same queue as everyone else and wait their turn to get their status in our country.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is so eager to paint Canada in tarnished light for doing what ordinary Canadians see as the right thing, which is protecting the safety of our borders, the integrity of our immigration system and the security of our streets and communities. This response is measured, it is firm and it meets all of Canada's international obligations.

Would the member comment on why her party is so determined to allow human smugglers to keep on taking advantage of Canada's immigration?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the bill does not really mention human smugglers very much, except in the title. When we actually look at the bill piece by piece, it mentions refugees a lot more than it mentions people who are smuggling people into this country.

Unfortunately, the Conservatives, the government and the bill do not actually talk about or attack human smugglers in the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about the effect that a long waiting list can have on someone applying for permanent residency. She also stated that there is a very large backlog in the system.

Can my colleague comment on the effect that waiting an additional five years, as proposed by this bill, will have on the constituents in her riding?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, people are waiting for their parents or grandparents to join them here.

I will talk about my grandparents. My grandmother is 93 years old right now and I am lucky to have her here with me. If I were waiting another 5, 10 or 15 years for my grandmother to join us, I would not be able to meet my grandmother. The last time I would have seen her was when I was five years old.

Unfortunately, that is the reality of so many people living in Scarborough—Rouge River, but I know it is the same reality for many Canadians living across the country from coast to coast to coast. They are not able to reunite with their family members. We are forcing families to be apart and children to live without their parents.

Just recently I got a letter from a constituent. The mother and child are here but the father is stuck back home. The child came here when she was two. She is now nine and does not know her own father.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I sympathize with the hon. member and her personal experiences. My mom was in a forced labour camp in Nazi Germany and my father survived the Soviet gulag, so I understand what it means to find a safe haven in a country with freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

However, I am perplexed why the hon. member thinks that smugglers are actually benevolent in some way because they are exploiting asylum seekers trying to come to Canada.

Although there may be examples aboard those ships of legitimate individuals, I would like to know why the hon. member thinks that there is absolutely no risk to Canadian security and safety. Would the hon. member be prepared to put her own personal guarantee against anybody stepping off one of those ships?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not an expert in identifying individuals. That is why we have those people in the RCMP and at the Canada Border Services Agency who are trained to do these things.

I will not provide a personal guarantee to anybody about anything to do with people coming off a boat. However, I have a problem when the member opposite and the bill only talks about individuals who are risking their lives by throwing themselves on a cargo boat and coming across an ocean. These are the people who are being targeted by the bill.

Unfortunately, there are agents who are smugglers and who send people by airplane, but those people are not being targeted by the bill, unfortunately, and only the people who are the poorest of the poor and who are risking their lives are being attacked by the bill.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her wonderful speech, which allowed us to see the human side of the situation of refugees and immigrants. It is important to understand the possible consequences of implementing the arbitrary measures proposed in Bill C-4. This can have human, economic and social impacts since a traumatic experience can take a very long time to get over.

Since the government is always going on about security, does the hon. member believe that this bill, as proposed, will somehow improve national security?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I really do not see any difference in an increase to the level of our national security. Our forces do a really good job. This bill is attacking refugees who are coming to Canada seeking a safe haven, like the member for Etobicoke Centre earlier mentioned. I do not think people who are coming to find a home that would welcome them, that would allow them opportunities and provide their children a life are risking the security of our country.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of talk about what is and is not in the bill. The hon. member referenced two ships that were infamously turned away. I am not sure where in this legislation it contemplates turning any ships away.

She also seems to want to have it both ways. On the one hand, she talks about the professionalism of our security services, the Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP. On the other hand, she suggests that the people who have been detained, specifically the individuals who came off these two ships last summer, were been treated unfairly, that the officials in British Columbia and the people who took care of their health, education and endeavoured to find out who they were and under what circumstances they came somehow treated these people so poorly that they have been left traumatized by the experience of being in Canada. I suggest that is absolutely not the case and they were treated properly.

Would she agree with me that it is the responsibility of a government to protect sovereignty and to ensure anybody who seeks to come to this country is the person he or she says? That would include, since she is not willing to give a personal guarantee, that the RCMP and the security services of our country endeavour to make sure that everybody who wants to come here actually comes here for the right reason.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the one ship I spoke about was the MV Sun Sea. When the people were kept in detention, there was only one member of Parliament, as far as I know, who visited them in the detention centre and that was the New Democrat member of Parliament for Burnaby—New Westminster. I was actually providing some translation services and working with local community members on the ground who were visiting individuals in the detention centre on a regular basis.

As I mentioned earlier, people who came out of the detention centre are now living in my constituency. They have said that the individuals treated the adults well, but when children are separated from families and kept in detention centres for long periods of time, it has psychological and physiological effects on children. The member probably missed that in my speech.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask for withdrawal of the bill unless it can prove itself to be different and unless we can make some serious amendments to it because the unintended consequences of the bill will have disastrous affects.

No one here thinks human smuggling and human trafficking is good. We know it exploits people, whether it is because they are poor, or they are seeking work in another country, or they are fleeing persecution and fear for their lives. Exploitation of that kind is in fact egregious and all of us agree on that. We all want to do something to target the actual people who do that exploitation.

At the same time, it is not a simple black and white issue. Many people are seeking to come to this country because they fear for their lives and that of their families. Many of them are women who fear they will be raped. We know in certain parts of the world, because of their different caste or religion, or whether they are journalists, or no matter what they are, many people are in danger. History has shown us that people who are afraid, who are in danger and fear for their lives and that of their families will do absolutely anything to survive and to save their families. So many of them sell what little they have and they find ways of even buying passage onboard a ship to come here.

Let us separate the victim from the smuggler. If the bill had new amendments that would deal with those people who exploit, I think we could talk about that. However, the bill has muddied the waters. It seeks to take the victims, the people who are genuine refugees, who are afraid and who seek asylum in our country, and creates a sense that these people are wrong-doers, that they are criminals, that they have no valid reason to seek asylum at all in our country. It creates a sense of xenophobia and fear among Canadians because it muddies the waters and it creates a sort of broad and generic term that does not clearly define what the problem is.

In 2005 the Liberal government and the minister of justice brought in a bill on this issue. It was a bill that tried to deal with the complexity of human smuggling and human trafficking. It talked about preventing the trafficking itself, which is dealing with some of the failed states that we talk about, helping them with democratic institutions and playing a role abroad. It talked about preventing poverty in other parts of the world where people might seek refuge because of lack of poverty and the ability to feed their families.

Prevention was a huge piece. Prosecution of the actual smuggler, the person committing the crime, was a huge part. There were very heavy sentences in prosecution put down. It also talked about protecting the victim, the person who was being smuggled, or trafficked, or exploited. There was a real balance in the bill. It also talked about building partnerships with other nations, with international organizations, with international humanitarian groups, with police around the world, like Interpol, to try to find ways to deal with the criminal element of traffickers.

It was a solid bill and I would have thought that if the government wanted to add to that bill, there were lots of amendments it could have made that would have dealt with it from that kind of balanced perspective. However, what we see here is that this bill catches in its net, and I want to be kind and not say it targets, but inadvertently catches in its net genuine refugees and it creates significant barriers to those who are seeking asylum. In fact, it re-victimizes them if we look at the bill clearly.

I want to back up a bit and look at the history of many of the so-called illegal refugees who have come to our shores over the history of Canada. There were those people who we called the Vietnamese boat people, many of whom are here. They came in boats. We opened our arms so that many of them now are really strong citizens of this country. We saw other groups. In the history of the second world war the St. Louis came here with Jews aboard it. No one knew what was going on in Europe at the time, so everyone thought it was a scam and sent these people back to certain death in the camps in Germany. We know there were about 80 Estonians in World War II who came to these shores on a tiny little boat that was supposed to take 40 people.

We have made mistakes in the past in our country, turning away people who were genuinely seeking help. We do not want to repeat those mistakes. The Prime Minister himself called that the black history of Canada. We have made apologies to these groups. We have given them redress. We have done everything to try to right some of those wrongs we did when we took a sledgehammer to a delicate issue and problem.

We recognize that even now. Many of the so-called refugees that we say are the United Nations convention refugees live in camps, in a sort of free zone between countries that are in conflict. We also know that in the days of Nazi Germany, we did not know what was going on at the time. We were not aware of the full extent of what was happening in Vietnam .

Historically we have not known what is going on in some states, with the quiet pogrom against various people, the quiet disappearance of people in many countries that are supposed to be bona fide countries that we trade with and talk to.

We need to know that people are fleeing for their lives. We need to apply a level of humanitarian empathy toward what is happening to these people. In fact, a very famous illegal migrant to our country came with her family, stowed away illegally aboard a ship coming to our shores. It turns out it was one of very great governors general of the country, the Right Hon. Adrienne Clarkson.

We cannot just throw a piece of jello at the wall and see if it slides or sticks. This is about people's lives. We have to deal with it very differently.

What we would create with this is a two-tiered system of refugees in the country. First and foremost, these refugees would be detained for 12 months without a review. This violates section 10 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In fact, the current provisions within the charter and within law demand some kind of review after 48 hours. The government now suggests this should be 12 months. Children will be detained for 12 months in a camp. This is unconscionable. That violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Do we not care about the international conventions and treaties on to which we have signed?

In fact, under the United Nations convention on the status of refugees, denying asylum to arrivals who come seeking asylum to the shores of any nation, even if those arrivals are illegal, violates section 31 of the United Nations convention on the status of refugees. Therefore, we are already denying and violating our own laws, our own constitution and international treaties that we have signed.

When we put people away after they have been found out to be valid refugees, they are being denied liberty for five years, taking away the ability to get any documents in those five years. For those five years they are stateless, neither permanent residents or temporary residents or citizens. They are nothing. The police can ask them to come and report at any time, asking them whatever questions they wish to and the refugees must produce documents. What is happening in the country, when it has been proven they are genuine refugees and they are still treated in that way.

There is ample legislation in the country dealing with and detaining individuals who are criminals when there is in fact reason for Canadians to fear for their safety or who we think are a flight risk. There are things that we can use. We have instruments to use right now.

Let us imagine the economic loss of opportunity that will be created. For five years someone is unable to work or do anything. These people may come with skills or trades and may be able to contribute to the country, to the productivity and the economic benefit of this nation.

We heard the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism say that today, that immigrants and refugees have come to this country and contributed to nation-building and growth. We are denying five years of a person's ability to do that. During that time people lose their skills, their certification and are unable to work at that because they have lost all the skills and training they had.

To take away the value of these refugees to Canada and to Canada's economic growth and prosperity does not make any sense to me at all. Therefore, for most of us, it is an issue of fully re-victimizing people, not just for 12 months but for 12 months and then for 5 years after, 6 full years. It does not make any sense. It certainly does not give Canada's reputation a boost. It makes us look as if we have become a mean-spirited nation over this period of time.

There is a growing notion among people that an illegal refugee is automatically a danger to our society. I gave some examples of people who have not damaged this country, who have come here and helped to build a strong nation and are strong contributors to our country.

I know that the Prime Minister apologized for all of the bad things that we used to do. He called it the dark history of Canada. We need to think this thing through very carefully. We see an arbitrary attitude: “Who cares. Let them eat cake. There are always going to be bad people and if we find two bad people in a group of 100, then let us slam the two and throw away the other 98. We are going to sledgehammer legislation to catch two people who may or may not be violating the law”.

Let us criminalize the ones who are exploiting. Let us criminalize the smugglers. Let us find ways to work with others to chase them down and to deal with that issue, but let us not victimize people any more. That kind of doublespeak does not help. It creates among Canadians a deep sense of xenophobia. Everyone is afraid of that other, that is going to harm them, when most of us have been part of that other at some point in time in the history of this country.

I would ask the government to look at the bill carefully. I would ask the government to do one of three things. One choice would be to withdraw the bill because it is the same bill we had prior to the election in the last Parliament. Everyone said it was a bad bill. The government could accept amendments. We could have a generous length of time to look at the bill at committee and present amendments. That would take political will. It would take goodwill. It is a majority government and there is no need to use a fist to ram everything through. The government could actually listen to parliamentarians and people who say there are ways in which the bill could be made better. At the least, the bill should be sent as a reference on certain questions of legality and constitutionality to the Supreme Court of Canada so the court could decide whether the bill is legal and constitutional. Most scholars have told us it is not. Most of us in the House know it is not. I would suggest that the government knows it is not.

The bill plays on emotions. It tells half-truths to Canadians. It confuses them. It muddies the waters. What we are creating is a fear about people who may need Canada to help them find new lives and save their families just as we would if we were fleeing persecution here in Canada. Let us hope that none of us ever has to do that, but let us remember that history has taught us otherwise. Let us remember that there are many people who came here as illegal migrants and are contributing to Canadian society in major ways. They are hard-working people who are helping to build this great nation of ours.

Let us withdraw the bill, or at least send it to the Supreme Court on questions of constitutionality and legality.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to set the record straight. The member suggested there is no opportunity for those seeking refugee status, but the bill does allow for that. It does allow for those arriving on vessels to have access to Canada's asylum system and are deemed eligible to make a refugee claim. They will receive a hearing on the merits of their claim before the independent Immigration and Refugee Board.

The member led those who are watching the debate to believe there will be no opportunity but there will be an opportunity. The bill does allow for that. It introduces measures to deter the criminal activity of human smuggling and to create enough disincentive so that in the future, people do not place themselves at risk by taking part in the smuggling operations.

To say that these people have no way of claiming refugee status is not true.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are United Nations convention refugees, as I said in my speech earlier. They are people who go into the lineup and sit in camps for years and years until a country will take them. They are called convention refugees. Then there are those who cannot stay because they are afraid. There are no no-fight zones for them to stay in. They have to run and hide. They will do anything to save their lives. Saying that these people do not have to take part in this does not sound reasonable or rational to me. If a person is going to die or be killed tomorrow, if a person is fleeing and hiding with members of his or her family, the person would do anything to save them.

To say that they have access is not true. When they came they would be forced to be detained for 12 months without review. The current law states that within 48 hours they have to have some sort of review to check their refugee status. The hon. member is leading us astray when she says that they have recourse. They do not. Children would be detained for a whole year. Then for five years they would be stateless persons with no documents and they would be subject to recall at any time by police. That is a denial of human rights and civil liberties.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I have noticed that this debate has dwelled a lot on the frame of mind of people who are refugees or in a situation of complete and utter distress. It is a situation I have never seen and I hope I never will. I am willing to bet that the vast majority of us if not all of us in the House have never been in that position. We have to juxtapose that with what is best for the nation and what is best for them. In saying that, there are several issues at play.

One is we are creating a two-tiered element. In the past we talked about country of origin and now we are talking about a two-tiered element. These are classifications put on human beings under an extreme amount of stress. This has to be a thorough debate simply because they cannot participate in it and I am glad it is happening in this way.

Shifting to the more domestic side of things, this is a question on what is contained within the amendment we put forward this morning. It is about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and protecting against arbitrary detention and prompt review of detention because Bill C-4's provisions violate international obligations relating to refugees and respecting the treatment of persons seeking protection.

I would like my colleague to comment on those who are seeking protecting juxtaposed against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, earlier I talked about the fact that this bill is in violation of many treaties that we have signed.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a national piece of legislation. In fact, to arbitrarily detain people without any recourse or review for up to 12 months would violate section 10 of our charter. The current legislation says only 48 hours,

Canada was one of the first nations to sign proudly the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, we would see children being detained for up to 12 months. Even if the country said that it would not detain children, what would we do with them? Where would we send them? Would we take them away from their parents? Would we put them on a boat somewhere out in the ocean? Would we leave them in no man's land?

This is a ridiculous piece of legislation in that it does not even pay attention to the basic, logical, legal human rights of people.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise in the House, but I wish I did not have to speak on this issue.

I look back to what we did recently in Parliament. We passed a piece of legislation that addressed refugee issues in a very comprehensive way.

It really puzzles me that the bill before us came under public safety. Since when have we started to look at immigration and citizenship issues as issues of public safety? The legislation refers most of the time to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I believe that the wrong minister has presented this bill. It needs to be addressed under immigration.

My colleagues have made some wonderful points about the five years that a person would have to wait to get any papers before being able to travel. A person could wait up to a year to see what kind of designation he or she was going to get. That is a long time. After that it could be another five years. If the person does not report on the right date, it could actually be lengthened to six years. We would be looking at seven years before the person could apply for residency.

I want us to look at the human element. We all value our families and our safety and security. I want us to look at what we are proposing for families who are going to be moving here under refugee status from very difficult circumstances. We are saying that it will be not one, five or six years, but possibly seven years before they could apply for permanent residence. It means many years of having no travel documents and no status.

It also brings to my mind a young woman with whom I have been dealing. She is a refugee from Somalia. She moved to Canada about four and a half years ago. She brought three of her children with her. She left one of her children behind with her mother because the child was still a toddler, two years old. When she got to Canada she wanted to be able to work and she did not know who would look after the two year old. The mother is elderly and she has applied for the child to join her. The child is eight years old. She left that child behind at the age of two.

Under the new proposal, people cannot even apply for five, six or seven years, depending on their luck or the arbitrary decision of someone. Then when applying after that many years, they could wait another three, four, five, six, seven or eight years. That same two year old could be 14 or 15 years old.

Surely when the United Nations came up with a convention regarding people seeking asylum under the refugee status, it did not have in mind that families would be separated for that length of time. I want members to imagine the impact on that mother who lives in my community, even under our current rules. She comes to my office two or three times a week looking for some magic to speed things up.

I want us to always remember that when we sit in this very august House and pass legislation, it has a real impact on families and it will have an impact on those families and individuals moving to this country. What message are we sending around the world?

There was a time in my youth when I travelled around Europe and people used to want to wear the Canadian flag. Americans travelled wearing the Canadian flag. I asked them why they carried a Canadian flag when they were American. I had not moved to Canada at that time and I was interested. They said that it was because Canada was held in such high esteem. If we start taking these kinds of steps in which we create two levels of refugee status and we are seen as separating families for 5, 10, 12 years, very soon Canada's image internationally will be tarnished.

We see ourselves as and we are a compassionate and caring nation. We give a great deal of attention and forethought to humanitarian needs. I would say that the essence of this bill is not humanitarian. It has very little compassion built into it.

This morning I heard my colleague from across the aisle speak very eloquently to the need to punish smugglers. I absolutely agree but I believe we have legislation that exists now that gives the highest sentence possible that any Canadian court can give, which is a life sentence. We do not have punishment beyond a life sentence in Canada, which I am happy about. For me, that punishment already exists.

At this time, we should not punish people who are already victims, because that is what refugees are. They have already been victimized. They have had to leave their homes. They are running away. They have left their belongings behind and some have left their family members behind. They find asylum across the border and eventually hope to get into countries like Canada. When they come here, they make contributions and become wonderful members of society.

Let us not make further victims of those refugees now by making them go through all these unnecessary hoops, which are not going to deter the smugglers or agents who might be involved in wrongdoing. If we are worried about smugglers using the refugee status to bring people into this country illegally, then let Parliament and the government provide funding to the RCMP and other enforcement agencies. Let there be more oversight over the laws that we already have.

As I said previously, we already have a law in place that gives human smugglers the highest possible punishment. Now it is about enforcing that legislation and finding the smugglers. We will not find the smugglers sitting on a boat that is bringing refugees to Canada. I always say that, for all we know, they are wearing Armani suits and sitting in a New York or Toronto cafe drinking cappuccinos. If we are really after the people who are breaking our laws and abusing the refugee laws we have right now, let us dedicate resources and tackle that issue so that we are actually tackling the issue, instead of now, with this legislation, making things more difficult for a very victimized group already.

I have to be honest. I stayed up to go through some of this legislation and kept asking what the purpose of this was. What are we are hoping to achieve? We are a nation of immigrants. We have refugees who come here from all over the world and I would say that we have not had any more than a handful who have been anything but legitimate.

If that is the case, why are we doing this? Why are we instilling some kind of fear in everyday Canadians that there is a gargantuan problem out there and that this is the magic pill. This is not a magic formula to address those who break our laws. All this does is divide families for a longer period and humiliate, and I use that word deliberately, people who have suffered.

I have had the privilege of working with refugee families as a volunteer in the evenings and on weekends while I was a teacher , and I have had the privilege of teaching young people who have come from refugee camps. I remember a young man I reached out to and what his reaction was. He came from a very violent background and what he needed was security and assistance. Those are the kinds of families that may be in limbo for up to 12 months and then, if they are designated into this category, it could be another five or six years.

Let us, as Canadians, remember our humanity and our compassion.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I am pleased to tell the member for Newton—North Delta that she will have up to eight minutes remaining for her remarks, and then there will be a period of 10 minutes for questions and comments when this motion is up for debate again in the House.

The House resumed from September 19 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.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The last time the bill was before the House, the hon. member for Newton—North Delta had eight minutes left in debate.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to continue with the points I was making yesterday. Once again I want to express my concern that this piece of legislation is being presented under public safety when the bill actually deals with immigration and citizenship. This is a real issue. Since when have we as Canadians seen the arrival of immigrants in this country as a public safety issue? I urge the government to send this bill to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration as it goes through its committee stage.

Yesterday I mentioned very briefly the impact this legislation would have on families. We as Canadians pride ourselves on being compassionate and caring. The world looks to Canada to be compassionate and caring. People across the world choose to make Canada their home. I am a first generation immigrant. I came from England. I chose Canada to be my home. One of the reasons I chose Canada is its inclusivity and acceptance of people from around the world.

This legislation is going in the wrong direction. The legislation sends the wrong message to refugees. There are people who have spent years in war-torn territories running for their lives, separated from their families, not knowing where they will get their next meal. Some people do not even know where they are going to sleep the next night, whether they will wake up in the morning, or how many of their loved ones they will lose.

The legislation tells refugees that when they arrive in Canada it will take up to a year to examine their designations. During that time they will be in isolation and given a special designation for which the criteria are not clear at all. A lot of power seems to be vested in the minister and there seems to be a lot of smoke and mirrors in that we do not know the criteria. Once they have been designated they will not get to apply for permanent residence for five or six years.

This means the individuals who arrive here, who have already been torn from their families and have suffered enough, would not get travel documents. They would be able to work, but they would not have any rights. They would not have permanent residence. We would throw their lives into further turmoil and uncertainty for five or six years. They would not know if the families they left behind would ever be able to join them. They would not have the needed mental relief in knowing they have arrived in a safe haven. We must think about what that must feel like.

Imagine, for example, a young woman with two children who arrives here but her husband and two other kids are still back in Somalia. For six or seven years she cannot apply for permanent residence or for her family to join her. What are we saying to her? We are saying that we are going to provide her with this vacuum for five or six years, but she does not have any of the rights. She cannot apply for permanent residence. By the way, permanent residence does not take place the day someone applies for it. It takes time as well. Imagine the amount of time she will have to wait until the rest of her family can join her. It could take 10 to 15 years, depending on how we do the math.

Surely that is not the kind of image of Canada that we want to project to the world. We want the rest of the world to see us as compassionate and caring.

By creating two levels of refugees and denying appeals in that first year we are saying that we are prepared to break conventions governing the rights of refugees and the rights of children. That concerns me as a Canadian. I know Canadians right across this country will be concerned about that.

We pride ourselves on our family values. We pride ourselves on being a welcoming nation. I urge this House not to support this bill because we would be sending a message to the world that we are becoming a much colder, less caring nation when we see legislation such as this bill going through.

Let us see who is opposed to this legislation. There is the Canadian Council for Refugees. I talked to some of my constituents. When I phoned them they said, “This is ridiculous. It is not a problem.” If we are worrying about smugglers, we already have a life sentence for smugglers. In Canada that is the highest penalty that can be given.

This is actually more punishment for people who have already suffered atrocities and difficulties that most of us in this chamber cannot even imagine.

As a counsellor I had the privilege of working with children who arrived here as refugees after spending years in detention camps or in very unsafe and volatile living conditions. Dealing with those children is extremely challenging. Now we are leaving those same children in a vacuum for five, six or seven years, maybe even longer.

The Canadian Council for Refugees is opposed to this legislation, as is Amnesty International. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has taken a position, as have the Canadian Bar Association and the Centre for Refugee Studies. What keeps coming up over and over again is that this bill is a draconian piece of legislation.

I urge all members to look at what it is we are trying to address. If we are trying to address the smugglers, let us focus on enforcement, provide extra resources and go after the smugglers. Let us not punish people who have already been victimized.

Let us all put ourselves in the position of a refugee. Let us imagine how we would feel reaching a safe haven called Canada and then being faced with detention and uncertainty.

I ask members to please defeat this bill.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising some of the very serious concerns that we in the NDP have about this bill.

I would like to ask the hon. member about another issue we have heard a lot about from people. Certainly as members of Parliament we deal with the process of appeals for humanitarian and compassionate applications. This is something we all are quite familiar with. It is an underpinning of the fairness of Canada's immigration and citizenship system.

Under this bill we know that designated persons would not be able to make such an application for five years. It is certainly removing a provision that normally has been part of the system, and has been there as a safeguard to ensure that legitimate applications based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds can come forward.

I would ask the member to comment on that. Also, does she think this bill is removing an element that has been very much a part of our system of evaluating applications and that compassionate and humanitarian grounds are very legitimate?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, as Canadians we pride ourselves on fair, open and transparent processes. However, this legislation would establish a process whereby those who are designated would not have access to the appeal process. That is absolutely wrong. It goes against the very fabric of who we are as Canadians. It violates some international conventions on the rights of refugees. To detain refugees for a year as they await designation without access to an appeal process is disturbing and very un-Canadian. Is the first lesson we want to teach those who arrive here from volatile and dangerous conditions or war-torn countries that a world-respected country like Canada will not offer them an appeal process?

The fundamental problem with this legislation which purports to address human smuggling is that it does not address human smuggling. Human smuggling will continue. The only way to stop it is not by punishing the victims who have already suffered enough, but by providing funding and additional resources to enforcement agencies to allow enforcement officers to do their job.

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

Madam Speaker, I checked yesterday's information because I am baffled by the government saying that as a developed, industrialized country we have provided more support for refugees than any other industrialized country. According to the minister, we will be accepting 14,000 refugees next year. However, according to Amnesty International's website, Germany and the United States each provides support for one-quarter of a million refugees.

I am baffled by this claim and I wonder if the member has any further information about it.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will certainly be examining those figures more closely. This legislation is not about how many refugees will come to this country. Rather, it is about how we will treat those who land on our soil. Once again I want to focus on who we are as Canadians and how we wish to treat those people who have suffered through war, persecution and very difficult environments. We can all use numbers to confuse, but as parliamentarians we have a responsibility to ask ourselves from a humanitarian point of view what the bill is attempting to address.

Smugglers do not live on the boats or planes that transport refugees here. They are probably living very comfortable lives. This bill would not reduce the amount of money they charge people for transportation. Rather, it would lead to further persecution of victims. Let us enforce the excellent legislation and laws presently in place to target smugglers. We do not need this law against smugglers.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Madam Speaker, we all know where our hearts are on many of these issues and I share many of the thoughts and comments of the hon. member.

Coming back to what the bill should do, which is to deal with those involved in human smuggling, I would like to hear the member's suggestions and comments on what is required in order to discourage human smuggling and, most importantly, what kind of actions we should be taking.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, what is key is the existing legislation. Rather than looking for a new kind of photo op and public safety issue where there is none, let us look at the existing law and enforce it. We have heard in the past that the enforcement agencies do not have enough staffing. Therefore, let us put additional resources in place to target those who are engaged in human smuggling instead of victims.

I absolutely believe that those who are engaged in these illegal activities need to be brought to justice by way of our judicial system. It is a good system with appropriate laws in place. The maximum sentence for human smuggling is life imprisonment, the highest punishment conferred in Canada. In that context, let us concentrate on enforcement by targeting where smugglers live and how they operate. To detain refugees once they arrive in Canada is draconian.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Newton—North Delta for her excellent and very relevant speech.

My question has to do with the provisions of the bill that prevent refugees from appealing to the appropriate authorities. We know what happened. Yesterday, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism made reference to Australia. But in Australia, the supreme court intervened and invalidated the provisions that prevented refugees from appealing.

What does my colleague think about these provisions in Canada? Does she think that they could also be invalidated by the Supreme Court of Canada?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, in Australia the appeal process was overruled. If this bill passes as is, I expect that it will be overturned here as well.

As Canadians, we respect international law and have signed many United Nations conventions. Therefore, it makes no sense to attempt to put legislation in place that we know will be overturned. It would be akin to giving oneself a black eye, which makes no sense.

I question the purpose of the bill and why it comes under public safety. This is an immigration and citizenship issue. However, the government is putting it forward as a public safety issue. Let us look at it for what it is rather than tarnish our reputation in the eyes of the international community.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-4 today. However, as this is my first time rising in the House since the election in May, I would like to take one moment to thank the voters of Burlington for sending me back here with 54% of the vote. It was a very nice election.

I want to congratulate all members, whether new or returning to the House. As well, I believe it is important to welcome the pages who are just starting out this week. Remembering everyone's names and idiosyncrasies is a tough job. They do a great job and I thank them. I hope they have a great year.

I am pleased to stand in the House today to speak in support of the bill. It will go a long way to making our nation safer by cracking down on the illegal and dangerous activity of human smuggling. The Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act is a critical piece of legislation that responds to a critical need.

The smuggling of people is not a new crime. In fact, it has been happening around the world for many decades. I am sure all hon. members have heard stories of people paying a fee to bypass legal and proper immigration processes to sneak across the Mexico-United States border.

My riding of Burlington is not that far from the U.S. border, and on a weekly basis a number of people come to see me regarding the issue of crossing the border illegally.

When I was first elected, I was amazed that individuals in discussing with me how they came to Canada eventually would admit that they got here illegally. They did not follow the legal process. They claimed refugee status when they arrived at the border. Then they would come to my office because they wanted me as their MP to help them continue the illegal process they had started.

Out of respect for the office I hold as a member of Parliament, I told those individuals that I would not interfere in any illegal activity that they had undertaken. I instructed them to follow the legal and appropriate processes to immigrate to Canada, under the refugee system and the immigration system. Often we would call those people a few weeks later to determine what they had decided to do, but they would be hard to find and in some cases we could not find them at all. It does happen. It happens in Burlington. It happens across this country and has been happening for many years.

It may come as a surprise to some that this problem is not new to Canada. Every year thousands of people seeking asylum try to enter Canada illegally by air or by land through the help of organized criminal smuggling networks.

As well, illegal immigration by sea is not new to Canada. In 1999, close to 600 immigrants from China's Fujian province arrived on Canada's west coast in four different vessels. What has changed is that Canadians are aware now of the direct impact this criminal activity is having on our nation. Canadians have received a wake-up call that Canada is being increasingly targeted by organized human smugglers based out of Southeast Asia who view our immigration system as a very generous system to be exploited for profit.

Two events in recent years have served to raise the profile of this issue in the minds of Canadians. One is the ship that recently came to British Columbia. My constituents have been asking what we will do to stop this from happening in the future.

Last August, 492 Sri Lankan Tamils arrived in British Columbia aboard the vessel the MV Sun Sea. This occurred less than one year after the arrival of the MV Ocean Lady, which carried 76 Sri Lankan Tamils.

These two events are an issue in my riding. Although we are in Burlington, thousands of miles away from where the activities took place, Burlingtonians and all Canadians are concerned about how we could allow those events to happen.

While these two vessels landed on the west coast, this is an issue that, as I said, extends across the country. In the past, Canadian border authorities have also dealt with cases of human smuggling in eastern Canada, including at the Port of Montreal.

This is a growing transnational issue that threatens our national security. It also raises significant concerns regarding human rights and the rule of law here in Canada.

These human smugglers are making huge profits by promoting illegal immigration. They are not immigration consultants. They are not helping people with the actual process. They are taking thousands of dollars from individuals and putting them on inappropriate ships and sending them to countries, including Canada, where they think they can get away with bypassing the immigration system. They are charging individuals large sums of money to transport them to a country and advising them to claim asylum, refugee status, when they arrive. This unlawful activity has implications for our country. Ultimately, it affects our system and all Canadians across this country.

I am sure that hon. members can well imagine how conducting identity and admissibility examinations of over 500 individuals arriving on a single boat can significantly tax our immigration and border security systems. Let us be frank about it: we are not set up for mass immigration or mass asylum seekers in that format.

Sadly, the costs of human smuggling to society are more than can be measured on balance sheets. Often this illegal transport means great misery, illness and even death for many of the individuals involved, who are transported thousands of miles in very unsafe conditions.

This was clearly seen in the terrible events that occurred off the coast of Australia's Christmas Island in December of last year. Thirty people lost their lives when a wooden boat operated by suspected human smugglers was destroyed in stormy weather. The Christmas Island example in Australia is just one of many incidents that have happened around the world.

Further, human smuggling is fundamentally unfair to those who follow the rules and wait their turn to come to Canada, which we all see in our offices. We all sympathize with those who are following the rules and are trying to become Canadian immigrants by following the legal procedure.

I am a sixth or seventh generation Canadian, but my in-laws came here from Italy. They came through the legal route. They had to wait their turn to get here. They followed the process. They did not come on a boat and claim refugee status after paying a smuggler thousands of dollars to escape from Italy. They followed the rules. They expect everyone else to follow the rules. They welcome immigrants, obviously. In my family, particularly through marriage; people in my in-laws' family are almost all immigrants. They have been very successful. Canada has been good to them. Canada is the better for their arrival and their contribution, but they did it the legal way, and that is what this bill is about.

Canada welcomes thousands of new immigrants and refugees every year through one of the most generous and fair refugee systems in the world, but when Canada is forced to deal with the arrival of a vessel filled with hundreds of illegal migrants, the resulting backlog of work means that those who go through the proper immigration channels get pushed back in line. This is not fair to them, their children or their spouses.

We will not stand idly by while criminal organizations target our country and our generosity. That is why our government took action in October of last year and first introduced this legislation to send a clear message to human smugglers that Canada will not tolerate them. That is why we have reintroduced this legislation in this session. We believe that the passing of this bill cannot come soon enough.

This issue is not going to go away. We must act now. We must be responsible parliamentarians.

With this legislation we are taking firm and reasonable action to defend the integrity of our borders. We are determined to protect our immigration and refugee system from abuse and to prosecute human smugglers to the full extent of the law.

While Canadians are, by and large, supportive of a generous and open immigration and refugee system, we also understand that every sovereign country has a responsibility to protect its citizens and the integrity of its borders. This bill clearly shows that we will not tolerate abuse of our immigration system, either by human smugglers or by those unwilling to abide by the rules. At the same time, it will allow us to continue offering protection to legitimate refugees.

The new legislation will enable the Minister of Public Safety to declare the arrival of a group of persons as an “irregular arrival” and make those involved subject to the bill's measures. The bill recognizes the gravity of this decision by stating in clear terms that only the Minister of Public Safety can make this decision and that it cannot be delegated to another official.

The legislation will also make it easier to prosecute human smugglers, establish mandatory minimum prison sentences for those who are convicted of human smuggling, and hold shipowners and operators to account for the use of their ships in human smuggling operations. This bill reduces the attraction of coming to Canada by way of an illegal smuggling operation.

The legislation contains measures to prevent those who come to Canada as part of an irregular arrival, including those who subsequently obtain refugee status, from applying for permanent resident status for a period of at least five years, including those who obtain that refugee status.

We want to enhance the opportunity to rescind the refugee status and remove from Canada those who return to their country of origin for a vacation or who demonstrate in any other way that they are not legitimately in need of Canada's protection. We must prevent individuals who come to Canada as part of a designated human smuggling operation from sponsoring family members for a period of up to five years.

Many of Canada's global allies and partners have found themselves the target of organized human smuggling ventures. This is an international problem, and it must have an international solution. No nation can solve illegal smuggling by acting purely on its own. That is why we have appointed a special adviser on human smuggling and illegal migration, Mr. Ward Alcock, to coordinate a whole-of-government approach to this issue. Mr. Alcock's role allows us to engage other international partners with a common voice to find ways to prevent these vessels from departing from their home country in the first place.

Since his appointment in October of 2010, Mr. Alcock has met with officials in Australia and a number of other states in southeast Asia, as well as with representatives at the United Nations, to discuss approaches to managing irregular immigration that is happening around the world. He has also attended several meetings of the Bali process, which is a regional forum that brings together more than 50 countries and international organizations that are developing practical measures to combat human smuggling and related crimes in the South Pacific region.

Adding weight to this international discussion, the Prime Minister has urged leaders from the APAC nations to work together to find concrete solutions to the problem of human smuggling. Last fall, the Prime Minister met with international allies at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum highlighting the critical need for stronger and more effective laws to crack down on this global problem. This ongoing collaboration is critical to shutting down human smuggling operations and will send a very strong message to would-be smugglers that their illegal activities will no longer be tolerated.

The measures we are introducing today will substantially improve our ability to crack down on those who engage in the illegal activity of human smuggling. These measures respect our international obligations and commitments that provide assistance and sanctuary for those who are legitimate refugees and who need our protection. Canada opens its doors to make sure they have the quality of life and opportunity that they all deserve so that they are able to start a new and better life here.

We call on all hon. members to support this legislation and help us pass this act as soon as possible.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would ask the hon. member for Burlington how the bill would address the human smugglers' criminal activities and how it would prosecute them.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question and I congratulate her on her election to the House.

I will use an analogy that will make the point.

Those who are active in illegal activity, whether human smuggling or other illegal activity, need customers to be able to provide this illegal activity. In this case, the human smugglers look at Canada as a place where they can bypass all the rules. They look at Canada as a place where they can get people in to claim asylum; Canada will treat them like gold, and there will be no issue. Therefore, if they pay the $10,000 or whatever it is, the smuggler will get them here, and they will be fine. Of course, the smugglers do not live here. They live in their own countries.

With this legislation we would make Canada's borders less like a doormat. We would let the global community know that we have a system that gives fair treatment to true refugees who come through a legitimate process but that we will not tolerate boatloads of illegal, illegitimate refugees coming from human smugglers. This would take away the opportunity for the human smugglers to use Canada as a doormat. It would discourage them from putting together boats of people to come to Canada. That is what this legislation does. That is how it would tackle human smugglers who are the core of the problem.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not think that the hon. member opposite answered the previous question from the NDP member, who asked what, exactly, the government was doing about the criminals who exploit these immigrants to bring them here.

In my opinion, this bill still goes after the victims instead of those who traffic these immigrants. The bill requires some major amendments. In addition, I believe that the entire bill still focuses more on criminals than on victims. The government wants to invest money in prisons and give additional penalties, but what will it do for victims in terms of support, follow-up and assistance?

I wonder whether the member would agree to split this bill into several parts, so that we can examine the many provisions that it contains. I think most of us would agree on half of the measures in this bill. There are some very good measures, but some are unacceptable, especially those that affect Quebec's traditional values and that go completely against what the Government of Quebec and Quebec society have always advocated.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member on his re-election. I believe he is the longest-serving member in the House.

The answer is, no, I do not think we are interested in splitting up the bill. It is a package and it works better as a package to discourage human smugglers from using Canada as a place to deploy illegitimate refugees.

The last point was about the values of Quebeckers. I believe the values of Quebeckers are the same values as all other Canadians, whether they live in British Columbia, Burlington or Nova Scotia, and their values are about fairness. A fundamental piece of our immigration and refugee system is fairness and appropriateness for those who are coming here through the legitimate system that exists. We have a generous and well-respected immigration and refugee process that is recognized around the world and it is fair. What is happening is that human smugglers are trying to take advantage of the system and circumvent it. Whether one is a Quebecker, an Ontarian or a British Columbian, people think it is fair. This legislation puts fairness first and foremost in our immigration and refugee system.

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

Madam Speaker, the member opposite suggested that this bill was somehow fair. If I were a refugee, it would not matter to me how I got here but it matters to the government how a person gets here. If the government decides that refugees got here by a method it did not like, such as having to pay somebody to travel, a method that has been used for centuries to come to North America, how does it decide that it is fair to treat refugees who it deems to be illegal different from refugees it decides are legal? How is it fair that there are two classes of refugees, both of whom are equally refugees?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, in his question he answered his own question. Do most Canadians not think it is fair that the legal process that is available in that country is followed? That is what fairness is. It is taking the legal route. Is it fair that we put criminals in jail if they do something illegal? Just because they do it illegally, do we not treat them fairly?

We have a system that treats legal refugee claimants fairly. Why would we bend the rules of our legal system for those who come here illegally and turn a blind eye to it? Do we say, “They got here illegally. So what?” That is not fair to the thousands and thousands of immigrants who come here through legal channels and the legal refugee process. That is what fairness is. That is why this legislation brings fairness to our system, continues to treat refugees fairly and goes after human smugglers who are trying to use Canada as a doormat.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, the vast majority of Canadians, I am sure we all agree, believe very strongly in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in this country. The issue of arbitrary detention for very long periods of time is extremely troubling. We do not subscribe to that approach as it is being proposed in Bill C-4 and as the member for Burlington has talked about.

I would like to ask a very practical question. What happens if somebody is detained for an extremely long period of time because he or she is suspected of being a smuggler and it turns out that the person is a perfectly legitimate refugee? Is there any kind of compensation accorded to that person?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, the answer is, no. Those who are coming here are detained for up to a year or until there is a determination that they are legitimate refugees, which could happen sooner than a year. The process is simple.

The vast majority of calls from people in my riding wanted us to ensure that these people were legitimate refugees. This legislation addresses that issue by having a detention process where these refugees are not travelling across the country where we do not know where they are, but that we keep them in place until we determine whether they are legitimate refugees. It is the appropriate thing to do. It is the fair thing to do. This is the right legislation for this kind of human smuggling.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Resuming debate. Speeches will now be 10 minutes each and will be followed by five minutes of questions.

The hon. member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would first congratulate the member for Burlington on his election victory. I am glad his leader finally allowed him to speak his mind six months after his victory. I hope to hear from him sooner rather than later but I guess that is for his leader to decide.

I will speak to this bill, first, to express my concerns with its shortcomings and then, to suggest to the members opposite some of the ways the government may be able to improve it.

Chief among my concerns are the effects this bill will have on children and their families. My second concern is with the effect that this bill will result in wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on a non-existent problem and the negative effects this bill will have on our economy.

I am a family man. My daughter is a priority for me. One of the reasons I serve in this House is so she may grow up in a better world and have a better life. It is something I wish for all children, not just for my own and not just for Canadian children. I am sure there are many members in this House who have similar wishes and who wish for the well-being of children.

As members know, our country is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This month, we celebrated the 21st anniversary of its ratification. It is an important document because it outlines the international consensus of basic rights of children. So, it is with great worry that I see that Bill C-4 may jeopardize our commitment to this important convention.

I do not want to believe that the government would detain children for up to a year just because the children were trying to flee the most dire circumstances, whether it be war, famine or persecution. Unfortunately, Bill C-4 would result in the detention of children. I think many Canadians will feel shameful when they learn that our government intends to detain children, regardless of their country of origin. Perhaps the government intends to build detention centres so Canadians will not be able to see its actions in this respect. Simply put, the detention of children that would result from this bill is not acceptable and runs contrary to Canadian values.

I will outline how the government would be in violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I would like to explain a bit about this convention to the members opposite and to whom it applies.

Article 1 of the convention states:

For the purposes of the present Convention, a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.

The Conservative government often likes to speak of the age of consent in its care for children. This convention applies to all people aged zero to eighteen.

Bill C-4 would put us in contravention of Article 2 of the convention, which states:

States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child's or his or her parent's or legal guardian's race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.

Subsection (2) states:

States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members.

Bill C-4 would create two classes of refugee claimants with a different set of rights. In effect, the bill would discriminate against children who will fall under the category of “designated claimants”. This is in clear violation of Article 2 of the convention.

Bill C-4 would put us in contravention of Article 3 of the convention, which states:

In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.

I think it is quite clear and obvious to the members opposite that this implies that refugee children must be treated in the same way we would treat our own children. I think members would also agree that they would not accept the detention of their own children, especially if their children were fleeing a war-torn area.

Bill C-4 would violate article 7(2) of the convention that states:

States Parties shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.

Even if Bill C-4 had provisions for children to be detained, it would be difficult for the government to fulfill its obligations to the convention with its detention centres because of article 31, the right to play, and article 39, the right to psychological and physical recovery of child victims, which states:

States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of: any form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts. Such recovery and reintegration shall take place in an environment which fosters the health, self-respect and dignity of the child.

It would mean that children would need to be provided with acceptable play areas, areas for cultural expression, access to psychological and counselling services and services that cater to the child's development. It is fine for the Prime Minister to use the UN to justify things like going to war, for his international position and beliefs on foreign affairs, yet reject a convention made by the same body to which we were signatory.

It is all fine and dandy to promote child and maternal health, except when the child and mother are refugees. We will have to build state-of-the-art facilities with play areas, educational opportunities, office spaces for the teams of psychologists and educators and medical staff.

This brings me to my second point, which is the costs incurred as a result of this ideologically piece of legislation.

Has the government factored in how much new detention facilities would cost? Did the government just think it could detain children, without fulfilling its obligations to the convention? Let us remind the government of its duties and obligations in this matter. Article 22(1) reads as follows:

States Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure that a child who is seeking refugee status or who is considered a refugee in accordance with applicable international or domestic law and procedures shall, whether unaccompanied or accompanied by his or her parents or by any other person, receive appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance in the enjoyment of applicable rights set forth in the present Convention and in other international human rights or humanitarian instruments to which the said States are Parties.

Article 22(2) states:

For this purpose, States Parties shall provide, as they consider appropriate, co-operation in any efforts by the United Nations and other competent intergovernmental organizations or non-governmental organizations co-operating with the United Nations to protect and assist such a child and to trace the parents or other members of the family of any refugee child in order to obtain information necessary for reunification with his or her family. In cases where no parents or other members of the family can be found, the child shall be accorded the same protection as any other child permanently or temporarily deprived of his or her family environment for any reason, as set forth in the present Convention.

Rather than punish the victims, we should show compassion and help them integrate into our society. I remind members across to look at what happened in 1979 and 1980 when over 50,000 Vietnamese people arrived on our shores by boat. These refugees came from a war-torn nation that was considered an enemy of our neighbours. From listening to media reports of the day not everyone was happy with their arrival, yet the progressive government of that day showed leadership in helping the refugees integrate. The Vietnamese Canadian community have been vibrant players in Canada's economy. We have two members within our caucus who come from this community, the member for Brossard—La Prairie and the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry.

I pause to think how low we have sunk with this terrible legislation.

The bill only drives home the fact that the Conservatives have given up the “progressive” label and that they fail when it comes to progressive leadership. Instead of integrating, they are saying that people have to wait five years. Instead of welcoming these people, they are detaining them and children.

We should actually love our neighbours, not fear them. We should provide, within this legislation, a part where children and their families will be able to apply for humanitarian and compassionate exceptions.

The legislation, as it is written, is not acceptable. It should be referred back to committee to be altered.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I should inform the hon. member that there was an error in calculation. He did have the full 20 minutes for his intervention. I regret that he may have felt rushed. If he has any additional comments that he wishes to make, he officially still has eight minutes left.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

That is okay, Madam Speaker.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Questions and comment, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, this issue of having a Canadian law that will require jailing children of potential refugee claimants in Canada, the entire family, man, woman and child to be kept in detention for a full year, with only one review by the minister, is one of the most egregious parts of this so-called human smuggling legislation, which I now refer to as the “anti-refugee law”.

As long as we keep calling it human smuggling legislation, we allow it to continue under disguise. It is actually anti-refugee legislation.

I want put for the hon. member the scenario of the MV St. Louis in 1939 in Halifax Harbour. Under our current laws, Captain Gustav Schroeder, who bravely took money and brought Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to our shores, would be jailed for life. That is already Canadian law; that is not in this bill. Further, all 937 German Jewish refugees would be kept in internment for a year in Canada.

I accept that the hon. members from the government benches said yesterday that this would be far preferable to being sent back to death camps in Nazi Germany, but I really do not think that is how Canadians want to treat refugees who come to our shores, putting men, women and children in jail for a year.

Could the hon. member expand on how he sees the bill affecting the children of refugee families?

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, we can see that the effect of detaining children and families would be terrible.

Imagine something happening in Canada where all of a sudden we had a natural disaster or some form of persecution causing Canadians to flee to another country. Then when they arrived at that country, they were not welcomed and integrated. Rather they were protected from the people of that country through detention because the public opinion there had been turned against all outsiders.

I imagine the feeling of those families would be terrible. It would terribly psychologically damaging on those families, especially on their children. There are documented medical and physiological effects of child refugees who are not integrated or welcomed. There are serious physiological effects and psychological repercussions, PTSD, and all sorts of things that make it very difficult on a child's personal development. It is not in the best interests of the child. When that child eventually does integrate into society, extra care will be needed, which will take up resources.

Why do we not start from point zero, helping these families integrate into our society rather than pushing them away?

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Vaudreuil-Soulanges for speaking about detaining children. In addition to subjecting children to completely arbitrary detention, this bill, Bill C-4, would negatively and permanently affect their development. Allow me to elaborate.

I have here a 2004 study from the Australian Human Rights Commission. It states that detaining children and adolescents has negative effects on their development and that the repercussions worsen with longer detention. Effects include anxiety, suicidal thoughts, self-harming behaviour—including self-mutilation—and lifelong post-traumatic stress. These are but a few examples of the major effects and problems that children can experience.

As my colleague said, my parents arrived as refugees with the boat people in 1979. If Bill C-4 had been in effect then, my two brothers, then one and three, would likely have been detained for an indefinite period—at least a year if not more—and these catastrophic effects would have permanently affected their development.

In addition, Bill C-4 is unfair. I would like my colleague to explain why arriving by boat is different. That is what the Conservatives are condemning. They want to penalize, for a second or third time, people who arrive here, legitimately seeking refugee protection. Yet we are putting extra pressure on them and they are being slapped with an inappropriate label. How does the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges think this discrimination could affect these refugees?

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, the member is completely within reason. The fact is this legislation would have the effect of institutionalizing racism in our refugee system.

When I listened to the media reports during the 1979-80 arrival of the boat people from Vietnam, people on call-in shows said that those people did not belong here, that they were not Canadian, that they should wait their turn and that they were jumping the queue. The government of Joe Clark showed courage and compassion. It showed great values of welcoming these refugees. It even put resources overseas in Vietnam to process people coming here within a two-week period, not a five-year period or a one-year period. We are talking about 50,000 people who were processed in a period of two years and the government of the day processed them within two weeks, with limited resources and staff. Yet the current government says that it cannot do it and that it will not let queue-jumpers come here.

In effect, what it is doing is institutionalizing racism in our country, and I find that extremely disserving.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

At this point, the time for 20 minute speeches has elapsed and we will revert to 10 minute speeches and 5 minutes for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Westlock—St. Paul.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be back in the House and to see you in the chair once again.

Before I start my comments, I want to say that it has always been a Conservative government, whenever in power, that has led the way in welcoming immigrants and helping bring them into our society and country, and breaking colour barriers when it has come to the first members of Parliament of different origins. We in this Conservative government are proud of our history when it comes to this, and we stand by that history.

It is my great pleasure to stand in the House today in support of this important piece of legislation. I have listened with great interest to the debate in the House today over the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act.

However, the conversation has not been confined to the House, and nor should it be. This is an issue that has sparked much interest and discussion among Canadians and our global allies and partners. Last summer, it was one of the predominant issues in my riding.

Hon. members have heard much about this legislation over the course of these debates and they have had much to say about it. But it is important to take a step back, get past the rhetoric and fear-mongering and remind ourselves of the seriousness of this crime and why we must take measures to address it.

The United Nations defines human smuggling, or migrant smuggling, in the following way:

The procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident.

Simply put, it is the act of bringing people illegally from one nation to another for profit, often in the holds of ships or cramped containers.

Most disturbing is the fact that no one fully knows accurately the number of people who are smuggled each and every year. The data are scattered and incomplete. There are some things, however, that we do know.

We know there are intricate networks of human smugglers around the globe willing and able to help migrants evade national border controls, migration regulations and visa requirements. They do not do this out of the kindness of their hearts or out of a desire to help these individuals; human smugglers do their work in the name of profit and greed.

We know that human smuggling is a highly profitable business with a fairly low risk of detection and punishment. That makes it increasingly attractive to organized criminal syndicates that work transnationally, across borders and regions.

One of the great attractions to this type of crime is its low overhead costs, with no regulations or safeguards necessary to ensure the safety of the migrants who are smuggled. The more profit these smugglers make, the more brazen they become and the more risks they are willing to take with the lives of their passengers.

We also know that human smugglers are very opportunistic and flexible. They constantly change their routes and their methods to avoid capture.

Most important, we know that this problem can only be addressed with a coordinated, multifaceted approach among our global allies and partners. This is why Canada, along with more than 100 other countries, is signatory to various international conventions and protocols that condemn human smuggling and aim to protect legitimate asylum seekers.

Human smuggling is a problem that affects virtually every nation in the world, either as a country of origin, transit or destination.

Until a few years ago, most Canadians were either unaware of this criminal activity or perhaps believed that it was a crime that happened far away from our borders. That was until we received a sobering wake-up call when two vessels arrived on our west coast within a year of each other. The MV Ocean Lady arrived in 2009 carrying 76 immigrants. The MV Sun Sea arrived less than a year later carrying almost 500 migrants.

The reaction of most Canadians was swift. In an Angus Reid poll shortly after the MV Sun Sea arrived, almost half of the Canadians surveyed said they believed that all passengers and crew should be deported, even if they were found to have no links to terrorism. That is a telling number and, quite frankly, one we cannot ignore.

Does this mean that Canadians have suddenly become intolerant or hateful toward immigrants? Not at all. Canadians are proud of our welcoming and diverse multicultural society. What Canadians are telling us, however, is that they are outraged that human smuggling syndicates are exploiting Canada's fair and generous immigration system to make a quick profit. They share our government's grave concerns that Canada will continue to be a magnet for these irregular arrivals unless we do something now. These concerns are not unfounded.

We continue to hear stories of possible ships headed to Canada. As recently as July, we learned that Indonesian authorities had stopped a ship filled with migrants that may have been destined for our shores.

There is no time to waste. We must send a clear message to these human smugglers that Canada will not tolerate their abusing our immigration system. Furthermore, we will not tolerate the threat that human smuggling poses to our national security. It can be very difficult to establish the identities of smuggled migrants, many of whom come with no documentation whatsoever.

When faced with facts, it is clear that the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act cannot come soon enough. With this legislation we are taking firm, reasonable actions to defend the integrity of our borders, protect our immigration and refugee system from abuse, and prosecute human smugglers to the fullest extent of the law.

This legislation will strengthen our legal response to irregular arrivals in several crucial respects. It will give our immigration and law enforcement officials more time to identify and investigate individuals who are part of an irregular arrival. We believe that mandatory detention for up to one year is necessary and reasonable to allow for a thorough investigation of individuals who decide to arrive en masse.

This legislation will also enhance the ability of law enforcement officials to identify and engage human smuggling ventures. This includes establishing minimum jail sentences for convicted smugglers and extending the time period under which these offenders can and will be prosecuted. It will allow us to hit smugglers where they feel it most, in their pocketbooks. For example, it would amend the Marine Transportation Security Act to increase the penalties for owners and operators of vessels who fail to provide passenger information before entering Canadian waters; who refuse to comply with a ministerial direction to leave or not enter Canadian waters; or who provide false or misleading information to Canadian officials. Stiffer consequences, stiffer fines and stiffer sentences will send a message to human smugglers that we will not sit idly while they target our borders and our country, whether by sea, land, or air.

In fact, our work does not begin and end with our own borders. We are working closely with our international partners to prevent these criminal ventures from departing for Canada.

This legislation sends a clear message, that Canada is a fair and generous and welcoming country for those who want to work for a better life, but there are legal and legitimate ways that must be followed to do so. These measures will substantially enhance our ability to crack down on those who engage in human smuggling, and these respect our international obligations and commitments to provide assistance and sanctuary for those refugees who need our protection and help to start a better life.

Our government will continue to push ahead with our goal of passing this important bill to ensure the security and safety of Canadians, and to protect the rights of refugees who are following the proper legal steps to make Canada their home.

I call on all hon. members to support swift passage of this legislation.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, does the member opposite actually believe that human smugglers will read Hansard and Canadian legislation before collecting money from desperate people who are fleeing strife and war-torn countries and persecution? What measures does this legislation take to prevent the actual smugglers working overseas? What can Canada do to get the smugglers who are overseas collecting the money in other countries?

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Madam Speaker, as I said in my speech, this is about profit, this is about greed, this is about the selfishness of these human smugglers. Of course, they are going to go to places where they have the best chance of abusing the system.

This legislation is about fairness, it is about reasonableness, it is about making sure that Canada is not used as a doormat and a target for these human smugglers.

Of course, they are going to go to where it is most profitable for themselves, and this legislation helps make Canada not one of those targeted countries.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Madam Speaker, as a former immigration minister, I look at my colleagues across the way and I feel like the Tea Party is a watered-down version of them, considering what they are trying to pass here today. It is appalling that anyone would try to label people who are already victims.

First of all, the extraterritoriality of this bill cannot even be enforced. If the goal is prevention, we should enter into an international treaty, which would allow all countries to attack the vultures directly and would avoid labelling these would-be refugees.

My question is very, very simple. Can the member tell me if the government sought a legal opinion that confirms that this bill is not unconstitutional?

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Madam Speaker, in fact, Canada is working with over 100 other countries to ensure not only that Canada is not a target but also that certain other countries are not destination points, and to help other countries that are origin points. It is important that we take a global, holistic approach to this to make sure that we do the right thing.

My hon. colleague across the way was the Liberal Party's lieutenant in Quebec during that party's decline in the last several years in the province. I am surprised that he does not realize the position of the people of Quebec and the people Canada when it comes to this reasonable and fair approach to refugees and asylum seekers.

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

Madam Speaker, could the government member opposite provide any empirical evidence for the repeated claim that Canada is being targeted? Most refugees around the world seek asylum in other countries of the developing world and Canada receives a very small proportion of the world's refugees.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am disappointed that her question was so brief.

I do not know about empirical evidence, but I have seen the pictures and can point to the ships that we have confiscated and that are sitting in Canadian harbours and show that Canada is in fact a target for those in other countries.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to quickly come back to a comment made by my colleague across the floor. He said that human trafficking presents a minimal risk. This raises the question as to why they are introducing even more arbitrary and draconian bills, when instead we could be enforcing existing measures better to end human trafficking, without penalizing refugees.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Madam Speaker, I can assure everyone that I did not say that human smuggling was minimal, nor did I in any way mitigate the importance of this piece of legislation.

I understand that the hon. member may not have been in the chamber representing constituents last summer when this was such a huge issue across the country.

I believe the approach that the Government of Canada is taking is a fair, reasonable and tough action to prevent abuse of Canada's immigration system by human smugglers.

We had a strong mandate given to us in May of this year to take action such as this, and I can say that constituents in my riding were appalled at the games that the NDP and Liberal Party played in the last Parliament on this legislation. It is time to take real steps to get something done on this.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be part of the debate on Bill C-4, for which, in the spirit of my colleague for Saanich—Gulf Islands, I propose the short title to be “the refugee punishment act”.

I would start by posing the context for the bill. It is not coming forward from the Conservative government in isolation. It is part of a larger movement that the Conservative government is promoting to create a more punitive society in Canada. It is this movement that so many Canadians are unhappy with, and the reason the vast majority of Canadians did not vote for the Conservative government.

To put it in perspective, Canada has a long and proud history of making itself a better country and of governments being in the lead. We had governments that were committed to Canada having a just society, a society in which people had equal opportunity and where human rights and individual rights were respected no matter what corner of Canada a person came from.

We have also had a movement towards an inclusive society, one whereby Canada was part of the international family of nations and a country that would welcome people from other countries who wanted to come to Canada to build their lives and succeed and contribute to Canada. The idea of an inclusive society also incorporated Canada's acceptance of a share of the most vulnerable refugees from other countries.

The Liberals have a movement towards a sustainable society. That is one through which we leave Canada in as good a shape as it was, or better, environmentally as well as socially and economically.

These are important movements that government provides leadership on. They create the character of Canada, the nation we are so proud of and a nation the rest of the world respects.

I see a Conservative government across the aisle moving towards a punitive society, a society based on raising fears, anger and resentment among its people. It is one based on pitting one group against another in fear or resentment. We have seen any number of initiatives that are slowly building the platform for a more punitive society, and I am sad about that. I regret that Canada is going backwards with this movement towards a more punitive society, and that is what the bill is all about.

Yesterday the immigration minister summed up what the bill was about. He said it was about a disincentive for smuggling. What does a disincentive for smuggling mean with the way the bill is laid out?

It does not mean working with the international community to prevent smuggling. It does not mean identifying who is profiting from it and working to stop them from exploiting refugees. No, the disincentive would be punishing the victims so harshly that refugees would think twice about Canada being a safe harbour in their time of greatest need. That is not the Canada we want to create.

We recognize the mistakes that Canada has made in the past. One example was the horrible breach of humanity in turning away the St. Louis and its German-Jewish refugees. That is a recognition that we are a Canada that has a humanitarian responsibility towards refugees. However, this bill is about punishing refugees as a disincentive to smugglers, and I take great exception to that approach to public policy in our country.

I join the Liberal Party and other members in wanting a government that would hit hard against those who profit from human misery, terrorism, exploitation and those who would take the most vulnerable in their time of need and make money from it.

Of course we want to crack down on that. Of course we want to protect Canadians from unscrupulous smugglers. However, this bill is not one that does that.

Already provisions exist against smugglers, and no further resources are provided by the bill to actually put into effect the provisions we have in our laws to impose life imprisonment or huge fines on those who are caught smuggling.

The bill is not an effective way to accomplish the objective of cracking down on smuggling. The bill is about punishing refugees. Unfortunately, in its process and content, it feeds cynicism, it is sowing conflict and it undermines compassion for human beings at the most vulnerable times in their lives.

The Liberals support pragmatic evidence-based solutions to human smuggling. We certainly do not support this re-victimization of the refugees by punishing the most vulnerable.

I want to talk about my assertion that the bill feeds cynicism. Several members have quoted polls showing that Canadians would just as soon turn back boats like the Sun Sea and the ones that came to the shores of British Columbia a year ago or two years ago. They would just as soon turn them back.

How cynical, because it is the government's own comments that stoked the fears, the anger and the resentment that were then reflected in the polls. The comments of the Prime Minister and the immigration minister linked refugees fleeing for their lives to terrorism and to illegitimacy. It was those kinds of comments that the polls were reflecting. To stoke those fears, then poll the public, and then use the results to justify this bill to punish refugees is just the highest political cynicism that one can imagine.

The bill did not see a public consultation. Were the various parties involved in thinking about how we can actually crack down on smuggling? There was no consultation, because this is a bill to gain political advantage by stoking fear, anger and resentment among Canadians. That is what the bill is all about, so why would the government consult on it? Making people afraid, coming up with a supposed solution, and then garnering some votes is the height of cynicism, and the Conservative government specializes in it.

Because of the absence of public consultation, the bill is unlikely to survive the charter challenge. That is because it creates two classes of refugees and because it likely flouts international law, but that is not an impediment to the members opposite, because they will use this as part of that larger platform toward a punishment agenda, a punitive society based on fear.

Canadians deserve better than that. They deserve thoughtful public policy that really goes to the root of the problem and genuinely attempts to improve Canadians' lives through public policy that shows leadership, not just petty partisanship.

The bill also sows conflict, and I think we saw that in a number of the speeches in which the members of the Conservative Party talked about illegitimate refugees. What is an illegitimate refugee? A refugee is a refugee, and when refugees come to Canada's shores, we have mechanisms to determine whether they are here to exploit Canada or whether they are people fleeing for their lives. We have mechanisms for that, so to brand all of the refugees that come on a boat as illegitimate is just part of the landscape of the punitive agenda. It stokes resentment among Canadians and creates two classes of refugees, which is completely unacceptable.

The bill refuses to consider the application of the second class of refugees for permanent residence. It has greater political interference in considering the applications. In the bill men, women and children would all be sent to mandatory detention for no reason for 12 months. They would have to wait five years before even applying for permanent residency status. They are restricted from leaving Canada during that time. Worst of all, after five years they would risk being sent away because someone might assess their country as not being sufficiently dangerous.

We have seen tragic--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please.

Questions and comments.

The hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's comments. What she is not realizing is that the reason that Canadians elected a strong, stable Conservative government is because we talked about fighting organized crime and terrorism, either within or outside our own borders. This is one of the measures that we talked about, and now we are putting it into force.

Members incorrectly state that we are punishing refugees. They know that is not true, but they need to have some sort of a basis to talk about. They do not want to talk about punishing the criminals, as we are going to do.

I want the member opposite to please explain why her party and the NDP are dead set on allowing criminal organizations to abuse Canadian generosity for financial gain. Would she answer that question, please?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, before I answer that, I would like to ask the member opposite whether he has met a Tamil refugee and looked in the face of a mother with children who was part of a group being discriminated against in their own country for years, a country where 10,000 citizens of their community were murdered just before the end of the civil war and whose community may have been among those where two and a half million of their citizens were displaced during the tsunami of 2004 and forced to fend for themselves in a hostile political climate. Has the member met one of those Tamils, looked the person in the face and said that by punishing you refugees, we think we will be able to prevent smuggling?

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member if she would elaborate on how this legislation would violate our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, just as the Conservative government has tried to propose changes to our citizenship in Canada that would create two classes of Canadian citizens, it is now proposing measures that would create two classes of permanent residents in Canada.

Some of the most vulnerable people, as I have mentioned, are incredibly strong at heart to survive reversals that we cannot even imagine, including the loss of family members, disasters and crimes against humanity, but they would be subject to being a different class of permanent resident because of the Conservative government's attempt to penalize and punish refugees as a way to pretend to make Canada's citizens safer.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Madam Speaker, we were in office at the time of the September 11 attacks, and we always tried to strike a balance between openness and vigilance. We must fulfill our responsibilities to protect citizens and fight crime, but at the same time, we do not want to build a wall around our country.

Can my colleague tell us just how dangerous it would be, under this bill, to ignore the fact that, when it comes to immigration, each refugee case is specific, and to start discriminating against certain countries, certain groups and certain people, which would put a black mark on them and prevent them from entering Canada?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

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

This Conservative government is seeking to politicize everything that has to do with immigration. It has given the minister decision-making power that once was in the hands of the proper authorities. It is very dangerous for Canada to have an immigration system that is so politicized that immigrants will not speak up about things they do not like for fear that the minister will punish them for decisions made by their home country and the migrants from their country.

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise in this House today to oppose this bill, which has been described as draconian by a number of experts, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. This bill is discriminatory and gives too much power to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.

This bill authorizes the minister to designate as an irregular arrival the arrival in Canada of a group of persons. Those persons can thereby become designated foreign nationals. Their fate is left in the hands of the minister. In fact, if the minister deems that examinations could not be done in a timely manner, if he suspects that the persons were smuggled in exchange for money or that a criminal organization or terrorist group is involved in the smuggling, these refugees become designated claimants.

These designated claimants are then subjected to a host of abusive and discriminatory rules. Such measures would be inconsistent with the rights granted under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and would violate section 31 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees by imposing penalties on refugees for illegal entry or presence.

Furthermore, this bill clearly violates the charter. The designated claimants—and that also includes children—must be detained upon their arrival or when they are designated. Their detention will only be reviewed after one year, or longer if the minister deems that their identity has not been established. These designated claimants may only be released when it has been established that they are refugees or when there are exceptional circumstances.

This bill obviously gives the minister too much power. This bill is arbitrary and gives the minister a great deal of discretion regarding the status of these people. These people have just arrived in Canada and are immediately treated as criminals, placed under suspicion, and, in the case of designated claimants, detained.

The Supreme Court has already abolished mandatory detention without review of security certificates. The court was clear: detention without valid reasons cannot be allowed in Canada. And yet this bill seems to ignore the Supreme Court decision.

This detention provision would allow indefinite detentions based on identity issues. There would be no possibility of release until the minister deems that the identity of the designated applicant has been fully established.

Canada has ratified many international treaties that prohibit arbitrary detention. Why does this government wish to pass a bill that would allow officers to go ahead with arbitrary detentions? Furthermore, the conditions for release are not specified. It might be a complex administrative task to establish conditions without considering individual cases.

What concerns me is that the decisions made by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism regarding applications by designated persons cannot be appealed to the refugee appeal division. This fuels my fear that this bill advances a process based on arbitrary decisions. I wonder about the recourse open to these designated applicants.

This provision could seriously contravene the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which protects refugees from such laws. My NDP colleagues also reminded the government of the provisions of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees when the government attempted to prevent refugees from certain countries from appealing decisions.

This bill unfairly attacks refugees and does not resolve the underlying problem. It is based on arbitrary decisions by the minister, decisions that cannot be appealed.

The bill does not stop there. It even limits claims on humanitarian grounds. Once people become designated claimants, they can not make a claim on humanitarian grounds or apply for a temporary resident permit for five years. This provision is just one more obstacle. The bill goes much too far.

Despite the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, designated claimants cannot receive a passport. Article 28 of the convention, which requires States to issue travel documents, would not apply to designated claimants.

That means that the government is suspending some of the rights of designated claimants. What is the government trying to do? Alienate all refugees? Criminalize them as soon as they arrive?

This bill not only has a significant effect on the rights of refugees, but it also applies to previous cases. Under a retroactive designation provision, the government can consider anyone who has arrived in Canada since March 2009 as a designated claimant.

We see here the scope of the power that this bill grants to the minister. He can go back to 2009, decide that a refugee is a designated claimant and impose all the provisions that accompany that status on the person in question.

This bill attacks refugees rather than the real culprits: traffickers and smugglers. There is already a serious sentence for those who are found guilty of human trafficking: life in prison. This bill unfairly punishes those who are trying to seek refuge in Canada and encourages discriminatory practices.

What worries me is the significant amount of power that would be granted to the minister if this bill were passed. The bill is based on the minister's decisions.

We must ask ourselves what the Conservatives hope to gain with such a bill. They claim that they want to fight the spread of human trafficking. Their solution is to give the minister the power to make important decisions on the status of refugees without giving them the ability to appeal that decision. The Conservatives' solution is to detain children for as long as it takes to determine their identity.

The NDP recognizes that human trafficking is a problem but it is proposing real solutions that address the real problem. The criminals—traffickers and smugglers—are the ones who must be punished.

Several months ago, the House passed a bill regarding refugees. It was strong but also balanced and fair. I believe that we should focus on improving the enforcement of that law.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Montcalm, for her speech.

This bill is a little odd, in light of the fact that changes were recently made to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I would like my colleague to tell us why she thinks we have this new bill. Why has it come to this? What is the current legislation lacking for us to have a fair and equitable system?

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I will use my time to mention that there is already legislation to punish traffickers. We already have a system to welcome refugees. Yes, I said "welcome". We welcome refugees, mostly people who have suffered and who are coming to Canada in search of a better life. With this bill, Canada no longer intends to welcome these people. It would instead allow immigration officers to detain children. Do we want our country known for that?

This is a draconian bill. A number of experts have spoken out against it. It goes too far, and the best example of that is the mandatory detention of children. I am talking about children—young people who do not know what is happening to them. They have travelled very far to come to Canada. Their parents promised them a safer and better life, new friends and welcoming neighbours. I have a hard time imagining a smooth transition for these children. In fact, it is the complete opposite. Their arrival starts with mandatory detention. I cannot understand how the government can defend such a position or how it can think that it is necessary to detain children. I have a hard time understanding that someone could detain a frightened child who does not understand what is happening.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, how can we attempt to work on Bill C-4 without first understanding the problem?

The bill is based on false premises. For instance, we cannot compare ourselves to countries like Italy, where the African coast is 350 kilometres from the island of Lampedusa. Some tens of thousands of refugees arrive there every year. The island has become overpopulated, with people there living practically elbow to elbow.

It is a serious problem. The European Union has worked on finding humanitarian solutions to this problem. Here, we are not at all in the same situation. We have the Arctic Ocean on one side and no one will enter the country through there. Our context is not remotely similar and we are not dealing with the arrival of a large number of boats full of refugees. Even if we were dealing with that kind of situation, we would have to respond to it in a humane way. Putting everyone in prison will not change anything. It will only require more prisons.

I would call this bill the “restricting access to refugee status act“. We cannot expect Sri Lankan refugees to arrive in business class on Japan Airlines with their lawyers. For the most part, they are farmers or small business owners who have left a war zone, who were caught in the crossfire of the conflict. They left their country with whatever means they had. They pooled their money together, bought a rusty old boat and set sail to try to seek refuge somewhere. If they were a group of Saudi millionaires, they would have bought a brand new Airbus and arrived at Pearson airport or Trudeau airport with their passports and cash.

Let us be reasonable. The worst thing about this bill is the social tension it creates; it fuels the animosity of one part of the population towards a targeted group. Then, as soon as the public begins to demand action, measures are taken. That is not a vision; it is a refusal to see the facts.

It is important to look at our history. In the past, Canada has made some unfortunate decisions. Remember what happened to Japanese Canadians during the last war; remember the Chinese head tax. We have had to apologize for those decisions. Before we make another unfortunate decision, we need to reflect and not do something that we will need to apologize for later.

We have also done good things in the past. We welcomed those fleeing the Bolshevik revolution in eastern Europe.

We saw how critical people were of these refugees when they arrived. Many people said that there were too many Ukrainians, Germans, and so on. But we have had Ukrainian premiers and there are people from all backgrounds who have become some of the most productive members of our society. If we had pointed fingers, lumped them together and set up barriers in their path, we would not be where we are today. And what a shame that would be.

We now have a chance to make a dignified and generous choice, and I believe we have the means to do just that. It costs less to send a young person to university than to prison. We cannot be swayed by xenophobia and poor instincts. People having a morning chat in a restaurant are allowed to make extreme comments and pass judgment without much thought, but not those of us paid $160,000 a year to be here. We are supposed to think and act intelligently.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently as my friend opposite made his presentation.

We have heard a lot of opposition members complain that Bill C-4 discriminates, that it puts children in detention and that it denies asylum seekers due process, but when we drill down into the bill, that is not the case at all. It currently takes 48 hours to review someone's detention, and there would be reviews in 7 days, 30 days and 30 days after that. In Bill C-4 there is an advantage for people seeking asylum. There is ongoing review. As soon as people can establish they are legitimate refugees, they are released from detention, from wherever they are held. That is an advantage in this bill.

Does the member opposite not see that as an advantage? Why does the NDP focus on the hyperbole instead of looking at the facts and advantages in this bill?

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives seem to think that everything happens in a perfect world. Bureaucracy is working well and there are regular channels that refugees can go through. However, I have before me a letter from one of my constituents who wrote to me from West Sussex, in the UK. He said he wants to sponsor his two daughters and bring them to Canada, but his efforts have been unsuccessful since 2010. He tried calling the immigration department office in Sydney, but the only response he got was on a broken answering machine and no one returned his call. He also wrote several letters, but received no response.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of comments I would like to make in response to everything I am hearing here today. First of all, I would like to pick up on my colleague's idea.

Bill C-4 is supposed to punish traffickers with a view to discouraging them. However, this bill punishes refugees more than traffickers. It punishes victims, people in distress who simply want to escape a miserable, atrocious psychological, physical, family-related or interpersonal situation. These people are in danger and simply want to get away from all that.

What is happening, however, is that out of fear, the Conservatives are trying to create a climate of distrust. I am talking about xenophobia. Then it becomes very difficult for immigrants, and I know what I am talking about. My parents had a very hard time integrating on a cultural level, because people do not trust one another.

I would like to ask my colleague if he has thought about how we could improve this bill by targeting the traffickers instead of legitimate refugees.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle must have sufficient time to answer.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, naturally, human beings do have unfortunate tendencies, such as not trusting other groups. We have even heard important people, here in Ottawa, say that there are too many French Canadians in the public service. We must be very careful because if we go down that slippery slope we are going to create mistrust. Of course, imprisoning children does not punish human traffickers. However, the idea of incarcerating our own children and sending them to adult prison is going a bit far.

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

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 is profoundly unfair to refugees. This bill, as presented by the government, is vague, arbitrary and discriminatory.

How can the Conservatives justify the arbitrary detention of young children? It is simply bizarre for a political party in a country like Canada to present this kind of bill in this House.

I would like to know more about the process by which these designated persons are going to be designated. I see this as a flagrant lack of transparency. What powers will the minister have in all this?

The power to designate enables the minister to discriminate between two classes of refugee protection claimants based on the method by which they arrived in Canada. That means that a person who arrives by air would not be designated or affected by this legislation, but a person who arrives by boat would be. Equality before the law is a fundamental principle in Canada, enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

How can they be proposing a bill that imposes a set of penalties on “designated” persons in direct contravention of article 31 of the refugee convention, which Canada has signed and which expressly prohibits states from imposing penalties on refugees on account of their illegal entry or presence in the territory of a state, particularly where their life, their freedom or their security is threatened.

The government is giving itself the power to arrest and detain any non-citizen, even including residents, based on a mere suspicion of criminality. We are talking about mere suspicion. How can mere suspicion justify detaining people, including children? This is arbitrary detention, and I would remind this government that as such it is a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I do not know whether this government thinks it can place itself above the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but, as if that were not enough, the Conservatives are not limiting themselves to designated persons or refugee protection claimants. This applies to all non-citizens.

This is an unbelievable assault on the rights of newcomers. Not only will we designate refugees arbitrarily, but we will also put them in detention with no independent review for a year. In addition, these persons will be designated arbitrarily without knowing the reasons why they are to be detained for a year. I would remind this government that the highest court in Canada has clearly held that detention without review for a long period of time is contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

One Commonwealth country already tried to enact a bill like the one the government wants to introduce today. Not only do the Conservatives want to put children in prison—or in detention, the word means the same thing—but their bill does not address the real issue in any event, which is to punish the traffickers, not the refugees. The title of the bill is perfectly clear, but when we read the bill, we realize that the content does not, in any way, address the objective of punishing traffickers. What is happening here is that the refugees are being punished.

On that point, the Canadian Council for Refugees points out, “Mandatory minimum sentences will not deter: under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act smuggling is already punishable by life imprisonment and mandatory minimums have been shown not to work as deterrents.” It also reminds us that Australia has tried punishing refugees in an effort to deter them, but it did not work.

I would also like to stress this fact, “The Australian public was deeply divided, with many previously unengaged citizens joining a grass-roots network to protest at their country’s inhumane treatment of refugees.” Why does this government want to push ahead when we know very well that the Canadian Council of Refugees is telling us this type of legislation is ineffective?

The Australian Human Rights Commission conducted a national inquiry into children in immigration detention and its finding, unsurprisingly, was that children had suffered numerous breaches of their human rights. We are calling for Bill C-4 to be withdrawn. The government should review the bill and tackle the real problem.

As my colleague, the hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, said yesterday, between 2008 and 2009, the government had already spent $45 million. I know we have to talk about economics when we talk to the Conservatives, because it seems that human rights and social justice do not mean much to them.

To detain children and detain refugees, we are going to have to build detention centres. What money is going to be used to build them? Taxpayers’ money. Is this going to help us build our economy? No, unfortunately; it is only going to make us look like a country that does not respect human rights.

Let us talk about children now. It is impossible to read this bill without being outraged by the provisions that affect children. Detaining and deporting children—are these things really possible in a free and democratic country like ours? Unless they are accepted as refugees or released on discretionary grounds by the minister in exceptional circumstances, children will stay in detention for at least a year. How can that be justified?

I would also like to remind the Conservatives that the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance. That is being completely disregarded by this government, which would deprive designated persons, including children, of the opportunity to make an application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds for five years, and I would repeat, with no right of appeal, which is a right instituted in our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is a fundamental right.

The conventions on refugees and the rights of children lay down specific requirements to protect the children’s freedom. Detaining children must be a last resort, and must be for as short a time as possible. A child may not be illegally or arbitrarily detained, and has the right to challenge the legality of such detention before a court or other independent authority.

Do the Conservatives really care about the family, the fundamental unit of our society? When I read this bill, I do not think so. Do the Conservatives recognize Canada’s past commitments on the international stage, or do they intend to enact an unfair, undemocratic and discriminatory law?

Let us talk about family reunification. As I said, designated persons may not make an application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds or apply for permanent residence for five years. This means that their family members, who may be in danger in their country, will not have the opportunity to come to Canada until five years have passed. That provision is an unwarranted barrier to making an application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and is in direct contravention of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. In addition to blithely disregarding the rights of children, the bill deprives certain refugees of the security and stability they need in order to integrate into Canadian society.

I would also like to remind this government that Canada is among the countries that have signed these two conventions. Today, in the House, we see Canada completely flouting its international obligations. The United Nations General Assembly has affirmed the principle that human beings must be treated “without any discrimination” and are entitled to enjoy all of the fundamental rights and freedoms recognized.

In closing, I would like to remind this government, which makes it a point to tell us over and over how Canadians have given it a strong mandate to defend them, that only 40% of the public voted for this government, and 60% disagree with the policies it is trying to adopt today in the House.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the new member of the New Democratic Party for the passion in which she delivered her speech. However, I was a little discouraged in the fact that I found it short on facts and short, in some cases, on truth.

I have sat here this morning and I have listened to the New Democratic Party bring forward the misconception that bona fide refugees are being punished and that this denies international obligations. I heard the gentleman across the way, the past speaker, say that we were violating international United Nations conventions.

I would remind that party and that member that until these individuals are deemed refugees they are not refugees. They are asylum seekers until the IRB deems them to be refugees. Even if they are deemed to be refugees, they still may be inadmissible to Canada if they are found to have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity or many of those other things.

I urge the member to be cautious in her blanket statement that we are treating refugees wrong. Canada is warm and open to refugees, but many of the people who come here are deemed to be asylum seekers who do not meet the criteria for refugees. For that, I would ask her to be cautious.

Why do NDP members needlessly impugn Canada's reputation in the world when they state that we are not living up to the obligations under United Nations conventions?

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

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to remind the hon. members that the NDP does not need to impugn Canada's reputation on the world stage because this government has been doing so since 2006. The Conservatives have done a good job in that regard and continue to do so.

Second, refugees may not be allowed into Canada but that is not the issue. Does this really give the government the right to detain children illegally and arbitrarily? Does it give the government the right to treat refugees like criminals when they have committed no crime? My answer is no. It is illegal. It violates both international and Canadian law. It violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give the hon. member for La Pointe-de-l'Île a moment to catch her breath. I can feel her passion. She had a good vacation.

I agree with most of what she is saying but I would like to ask her a question. In a legislative process, we also have to propose amendments and give our opinions on the bill as a whole. How would she define the role of the immigration minister? Does the minister have the right to use flexible tools in some cases or must he simply be subject to a law?

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill gives the minister power without granting those affected by his decisions any right to appeal. They cannot be sure that the minister's decision will be impartial. Under this bill, the minister has all the power and is not subject to any sort of monitoring. The minister can basically do whatever he wants. That is exactly what is being given to the minister.

In a democratic society, a minister should never be given the power to make such important decisions that affect people's lives, safety and stability without the assurance that he will be monitored by someone. As it stands, the minister can do whatever he wants. We know this government's record. The Conservatives have a tendency to put the paperwork into the shredder and then there is no evidence. Right now, the minister can do whatever he wants and no one is able to monitor him.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île who gave, not only a passionate discussion of the issue, but also a very thoughtful one. I congratulate my colleague from Vancouver Quadra for her statements this morning, as well as the member for Laurentides—Labelle and the speech from the member for Scarborough—Rouge River which I had a chance to listen to yesterday.

I have also had a chance to listen to the interventions from the minister who took some exception to some of the statements made in the House and insisted that what Canada was doing was in the finest traditions of Canadian respect for the law. I want to take some time to ask how the minister can actually say that in good conscience.

He said that after the arrival of the boat from Sri Lanka, polls showed that the Canadian public wanted to refuse people all right of entry and that this measure was very modest in comparison to what the public were demanding.

I have the advantage of having been around for quite a while and I was present in the House during the debate on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I was present in the House when we voted in favour of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I think I am correct in saying that I am the only member here who can point to that. That debate focused on the question of what we should do to protect to minorities even when it is unpopular, because at that moment we were reflecting on our history as a country.

We were reflecting on the fact that if a poll were taken on the decision of the government of the day, which was a Liberal government, supported strongly by the official opposition, the Conservative Party at the time, to intern Japanese Canadians without trial, without right of appeal, simply on the basis of their race and on the basis of the minister having designated someone as a person of Japanese origin and who, therefore, would be incarcerated. If we had taken a poll that would have been very popular.

Is this something where we hold a finger in our mouth and hold up the finger to see which way the wind is blowing? That is not the issue here. This is an issue about the substance of Canadian law, the process that we must follow as a country in order to uphold our obligations to ourselves under the charter and our obligations to other countries. I will go back to the basics. i will use the words of my good friend from Crowfoot, the former chair of the House foreign affairs committee, with whom I had the great pleasure of working for a period of time. He said that everybody was an asylum seeker, that they are not necessarily a refugee. That is correct.

However, this law would give the minister the power, in effect, the obligation, to designate someone in a particular category so that person would be treated differently than another asylum seeker who is also claiming refugee status. The minister uses his power to designate an individual and, as a result of that power, that person is put in detention. That separates out different kinds of refugees depending on the circumstances under which he or she comes to Canada.

Let us be clear: the popularity of the bill is not the issue here. The Conservatives are telling us that they are concerned about the economy, but that is not evident in the debate. They are addressing the issue of refugees and introducing crime bills. The Reform Party is still there; it has not disappeared. The name of the party has changed, but the Conservatives have not changed their stripes. They are not concerned about the economy. They are concerned about something else.

For us, the issue is very clear: is it legal for the government to treat people who are trying to obtain refugee status differently, based on the way in which they arrive in Canada? I do not think that that is in line with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter clearly states that everyone has the same rights and must be treated the same way. People cannot be treated differently based on the way in which they arrived in Canada, because this can be unfair to an individual.

Let us take our responsibility as members seriously. If the government were serious about this, it would refer the legislation to the Supreme Court of Canada. It would say that reasonable people, and that includes about every law professor and a former chair of the Immigration Appeal Board who I spoken to, have said that they do not consider this goes outside the framework of the law.

However, the government has chosen not to do that. It has not changed the legislation. It is the same bill it produced the last time the House would not have passed in its formation at that time, because the government did not have a majority. Now that it has a majority, it has said that it will go ahead and push the law forward.

For the members opposite, let me clearly make the position of the Liberal Party. We do not care whether the legislation is popular or not. The question is whether it is legal, constitutional and, therefore, the right thing to do.

I probably have spent as much time as anyone, with very few exceptions, particularly my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River who has lived with this issue, looking at the situation in Sri Lanka. If the government were to say that it wants to get tough on the people who are smuggling, we would say that smuggling is already illegal, that it is already against the law. It is not as if we have no legal structure in our country to deal with people trafficking in persons. It is not as if we have no laws to deal with this question. It is not as if we do not have the ability, if we can get the proof, to actually arrest people, charge people and have a trial. However, the purpose of the legislation, and the minister said it yesterday, is to ensure that people who might consider trying to come to Canada under these circumstances think long and hard before they do it.

Therefore, contrary to what the Conservative member from Musquodoboit said earlier, this is not about treating people who come by this means more fairly, which was an absurd argument, This is about actually discriminating against people who were coming in this circumstance.

The government may win all kinds of kudos from people who say that this is right on, that we should lock those people up and throw away the key. Frankly, it is important for a political party to say that this is not the issue here. The issue here is the law of Canada, which includes the charter, which is the Constitution of Canada, and that is the weakness of this bill. I can take members hammer and tongs through every piece of sentence in this law and say that, in its most simple form, it creates two classes of refugees. If people come by plane, they are one class. If they come by car, they are in another class. However, if they come in a boat, we do not want to have anything to do with them. That is wrong. Like cases, people who are applying for refugee status, should be treated fairly and squarely, according to the fundamental principles of Canadian justice.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have two very simple questions for the member for Toronto Centre.

First, would the member not agree that by again calling for the House to refer an important matter, a matter that is of urgent importance to Canadians, to the Supreme Court rather than legislating on it here that the Liberal Party is again abdicating its responsibility to address the concerns of Canadians?

The Liberals are all assembled in the House. Are they not abdicating their responsibility as legislators to take the steps to ensure that a legal vacuum does not exist?

Second, would the member for Toronto Centre not agree that Canada has been targeted by human smuggling groups, criminal groups, organizing boatloads of human beings to come to our shores because of the negligence of the Liberal Party over the years to legislate and to ensure that the rules were followed in this area?

Would the member not agree with those two points?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would not agree with a single sentence that the member has spoken.

I am really astounded that somebody of his experience would make that kind of a comment. It is proof that the red Tories are gone. I do not know where they once were, but they certainly are not over on the other side anymore. He has become a Reformer, just like the others.

The member says that there is a legal vacuum. There is no legal vacuum. This is a myth which is perpetrated by the other side. There is no crisis. People are not sitting on the edge of their chairs because of this issue. It is astonishing to me. What the Conservatives are doing is trying to whip something up and are responding in that way.

No, I do not agree with his point of view that we are abdicating responsibility. We are taking our responsibilities as members, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Toronto Centre for his very thoughtful speech. I also thank him for his very touching words yesterday during the tribute to our leader, whom we miss very much.

There is one thing I find very interesting regarding the creation of classes of refugees, classes of asylum seekers, and it has to do specifically with the issue in Bill C-4, which prevents foreign nationals designated by the Minister of Immigration from appealing a decision of the Refugee Appeal Division.

Yesterday, the Minister of Immigration gave an example: Australia's supreme court invalidated the provisions that prevent these claimants from appealing.

I would like to hear what the member for Toronto Centre has to say about this and about the Supreme Court of Canada.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government will obviously not be referring this to the Supreme Court. And if it does not refer it, there will be years of persistent appeals.

I have no doubt that the Supreme Court would clearly state that asylum seekers must be treated fairly and that they cannot be told that they have no right to appeal. That clearly goes against every fundamental trial opportunity in our justice system.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, given the experience of the member for Toronto Centre in Sri Lanka and his exposure to the issue, I would like to hear the member respond to the declarations by the Conservative government that this will be a deterrent, that punitive measures on refugees will be enough to keep people from fleeing for their lives and seeking asylum in other countries.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish we had more time to discuss that.

The question of the member for Papineau is a sign of the health of our caucus that these questions and answers are quite unrehearsed.

If we look at the pattern around the world, what creates a demand for refugee asylum are desperate circumstances in the countries in question. We can see a pattern in many parts of the world of profound hardship and deep problems, political oppression and other challenges.

The number of people who will claim asylum and get there in the most desperate of circumstances will grow all the time. That is what makes it important for us as a country to be clear on what we are about. As a country, we are about treating people fairly. The whole refugee structure is all about that.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking today because Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act contains a number of elements that truly bother me.

One of those elements is the clause allowing for the detention of a permanent resident or foreign national simply on the basis of reasonable grounds to suspect—and I would like to emphasize the word “suspect”—that the person is inadmissible because of their involvement in serious or organized crime. That could lead to major problems and to various abuses of the system.

First, any refugees arriving here without having been granted status from Citizenship and Immigration Canada—and goodness knows there are plenty of delays—will mandatorily be detained when they arrive. That flies in the face of numerous international conventions signed by Canada, including the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which states the following in subsection 31(1):

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.

Bill C-4 directly contravenes this article of the convention signed by Canada.

Second, these changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act will give too much discretionary power to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. These changes will allow the minister to proceed with arbitrary detentions. As I mentioned earlier, the government will be able to detain refugees on the simple pretext that they are suspected, but not accused, of criminal activities. There is an important distinction between the two. The government could detain, without valid proof, any refugee who looks suspicious to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. This could obviously lead to serious abuses.

Arbitrary detention also runs counter to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, according to the Supreme Court of Canada which struck down arbitrary mandatory detention without review of security certificates. Once again, this amendment directly contravenes many international treaties signed by Canada.

The government says that this bill will reduce human trafficking. That is a noble cause and no one opposes the principle. However, the NDP opposes Bill C-4 because these changes concentrate far too much power in the hands of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. Furthermore, the bill penalizes all refugees who arrive in Canada, but takes no action against the traffickers.

What the NDP would like to do is directly punish the criminals, the traffickers, also called human smugglers. Bill C-4, as currently worded, punishes legitimate refugees and the people who try to help them. The process set out in this bill is vague, arbitrary and clearly discriminatory.

In closing, the current government is actively destroying Canada's fine international reputation, which includes being a country that welcomes immigrants. This must stop.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government has talked a lot about the fact that boatloads of refugees come to Canada, and it describes this as a problem that needs to be solved right away. What the Conservative government has failed to mention, however, is that in 2010, when the boat carrying Sri Lankan refugees arrived in the port of Vancouver, the number of claimants from that boat amounted to only 2% of all asylum seekers in Canada.

Does this proportion of refugee boat people really justify a bill that strikes such a blow to refugees who are leaving their country because they are victims of persecution or human rights violations?

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

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

Whether it is the number of refugees or anything else, nothing justifies such a bill. All it does is punish refugees, people who are already suffering. This bill does nothing constructive. It should target the smugglers, not the refugees.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are considering a bill that amends other legislation. At this point, one of the questions we have to ask ourselves is: do we really need this new legislation, and how does it improve things as compared to the existing law? We have to start by looking at the problem from that standpoint.

If we believe the title of the bill, its purpose is to prevent human smugglers from abusing the immigration system. However, when we look at the clauses of the bill and peel back its layers, we realize that there are a lot more clauses dealing with a new designation, a new category, referred to as “designated foreign national”, which comes with conditions and penalties that may be very harsh for the people concerned, than there are clauses dealing with human smugglers. So we may wonder what the real objective of the bill is.

I wonder about something else when it comes to how the bill is presented. It gives an impression—and impressions given to the public are important—of a presumption of guilt when people arrive by boat. It is as if all these people are presumed at the outset to be guilty, or presumed to have engaged in some criminal activity or other. Honestly, I am uncomfortable with this impression of matters.

Something else that bothers me a bit is that the minister is given a power that might be described as arbitrary, the power to decide whether a person is a designated foreign national. On what basis will that be done? What guarantee do we have of the integrity of the process, and that it is not just a matter of whim? There does have to be something to base this kind of decision on. If we examine the consequences that flow from this designation, it is a very important decision. We have to have assurances that a minister will be relying on very reasonable grounds to be in a position to apply this. We do not see this kind of guarantee in the bill. Similarly, the minister has no accountability for his decisions. The whole purpose of this House is precisely to hold the government accountable. I see nothing in this bill where the minister can be held accountable for this kind of decision, which has major consequences for people. It is important to remember this. We are not talking about inanimate objects; we are talking about human beings.

I am also concerned about the consequences of designation. Many other people will be speaking more eloquently than I about suspended rights, potential detention, the fact that children are going to be detained in some cases, temporary exclusions and all sorts of things. What strikes me is that people are being labelled, as if they were being indelibly tattooed. For years afterwards, their lives will be affected by decisions like this. I have a problem with this. I think we already have everything we need right now to deal with these cases.

Another thing that worries me a lot is retroactive designation. I do not understand the purpose of retroactive designation. Where are we going with this? Why have retroactive designation? I have not heard anyone on the government side explain the reason for this retroactive designation. Are they simply wanting another kick at the can for a bill that failed earlier, a few years ago?

I hope not. That being said, that is something that has no place here.

Are all these refugees fundamentally dishonest? Think about that for a minute. Do all these people want to slip through the cracks in the system and cut to the front of the line? I am not so sure about that.

People here in Canada have a hard time keeping their own laws straight, so just imagine what people from the other side of the world know about our immigration laws. They can be taken for a ride. I agree that we have to look at trafficking and address the traffickers, but I have a hard time with the trafficking victims being attacked. It is rather ironic to see that the victims are not being protected in this bill.

When it comes to victim protection, I would like to see something in the legislation that gives the authorities—our officials, our police, the coast guard—the means to enforce the law. It seems like there are fewer and fewer means to enforce the law and more and more constraints on the authorities who have deal with a larger volume of cases.

As far as I can tell in my riding, from talking to my constituents, processing times are increasing. So if other procedures are added again and resources are not provided to process those files, all we are going to accomplish is that more people will stay in detention, not necessarily because they deserve it, but because we do not have the means to process the files. But the government is not tackling that issue.

I have talked about a lot of things so far, but not much about smugglers. Why? Well, there is little about them in the bill. Basically, there are only two things: the scope of the definition of a smuggler is slightly broader so as to include those who incite people to use smugglers or traffickers; and there are additional penalties for aggravating circumstances. How many smugglers are going to be intercepted with this bill? How many traffickers are going to be stopped under this bill? I have a feeling that the number is close to zero because the real problem is not being addressed.

I feel that the issue has been blown out of proportion; an immigration issue that has to do with lack of resources when people arrive in large numbers has become a public safety issue, although it is not one at all. We must avoid anything arbitrary or decisions that appear arbitrary. It is important for the reputation of our country that our minister does not give the impression of making arbitrary decisions. It is important for our parliamentary system.

We have an immigration act. Why not give the department the means to enforce it properly, even when there are extra costs on occasion?

To conclude, the bill should definitely be split in order to tackle the issue of smugglers on its own. I believe that the government would then have the support of this side of the House.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened quite carefully to what the member was saying and I am concerned. It seems to me the member is advocating that people who claim refugee status in this country should not need to have proper documentation so that we can verify who they are, where they are from, and that they are bona fide refugees. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act requires that an applicant establish his or her identity and the Canadian courts have upheld this.

Is the member really saying that anyone who arrives in Canada should simply be released to walk around freely when we do not know who the person is or what the person has done in his or her country of origin, or whether the person has committed crimes in other lands? How would this ensure the safety and security of Canadian families?

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what I said during my speech is very simple. I said that we currently have an Immigration Act that I believe does the job and does not require amendments, such as the ones proposed in this bill. Simply put, we should enforce the existing legislation and give departmental officials the means and the resources to do so. We do not need to go further than that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Louis-Hébert and officially congratulate him on his election.

This morning, the member for Laurentides—Labelle raised a point that was also touched upon by the member for Toronto Centre. They made it clear that an immigrant is an immigrant, that there are a number of ways to immigrate, whether it is by sea, air or land, and that a smuggler is a smuggler. We have legislation in Canada to imprison these smugglers for life. There is no punishment greater than that, other than death. A refugee is a refugee. When we talk about refugees who arrive by boat, as has happened in the past, they do not arrive with their papers and their passports. We have to understand that they are refugees. So perhaps people should look at the definition of the word “refugee,” because a refugee is a refugee.

I have a question for my colleague. Does he not get the impression that the current government is not in a position to enforce the laws that it has proposed itself?

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question, as it gets to the very heart of my speech—the resources given to the public administration to enforce the law. There is a supposed problem and instead of allocating resources to fix it, they are creating a new law. Why? Maybe because it makes for a good press conference or photo shoot. It is not as sexy to provide departments with the resources needed to implement measures. At this point in time, I think we need to start by providing the means to enforce existing laws.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism introduced and spoke to the bill, he made reference to the primary purpose of the bill being to get at the profiteers or smugglers.

We have argued that the bill will not have any impact on that. In the hon. member's comments, he made reference to the number of smugglers this particular bill will actually catch. I believe he said it would catch zero.

I wonder if he would just expand on that particular point. We believe it will have minimal, if any, impact whatsoever. Would the member add a comment on that?

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

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

I do not believe that the legislation we have before us will allow us to take action against traffickers. All that is happening, and we have heard it from the other side of the House, is that we are moving the problem to another country. I think that we should be using international agreements to resolve this type of issue, but that is not what the government is currently doing.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-4, following many of my colleagues from the NDP who have pointed out the serious flaws and problems with the bill. Of course, we all remember the bill that was presented in the previous Parliament, Bill C-49.

I want to begin my remarks today by registering my concern about what I have seen over the years from the government. It seems to me that refugees have become scapegoats; they have become political footballs to target and, in many ways, to tarnish. The bill before us today, a continuation of Bill C-49, seeks to do that.

I have been listening to the debate today in the House and have heard Conservative members say that smugglers should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and that this bill is about going after smugglers. However, as my colleagues have pointed out, in actual fact the bill really does not speak to that issue.

In reality, Parliament did pass a bill a few months ago dealing with refugees. The laws that we already have in place contain provisions ensuring a life sentence for human smuggling. This raises the serious question of why this legislation is coming forward and what its purpose is.

When the bill was originally introduced in the previous Parliament, many organizations, such as the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International Canada, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Centre for Refugee Studies, examined the bill and in a thoughtful way pointed out its serious problems.

These organizations studied the issue, not from a partisan point of view but a neutral point of view, as to whether or not the proposed legislation would be harmful to our refugee process or would assist that process. All members of the House, and certainly the government, should be aware that the response to the bill was resoundingly negative by the organizations that work closely on the issue.

We in the NDP have significant concerns. We are concerned that the bill would basically allow two classes of refugee claimants. It would allow designated claimants to be detained mandatorily, including their children. I think it is very powerful that many members today have spoken of their feelings about this aspect alone. What would it mean to incarcerate and detain children or not allow family reunification? This is a serious problem with the bill.

I remember a few years ago, when another boat arrived off the coast of B.C. from Fujian province in China, dozens of claimants were detained. I remember visiting them in jail in Burnaby, British Columbia. I remember the incredible issues and concerns they had in terms of not having access to lawyers, not being able to make proper phone calls, not having culturally sensitive provisions and food, and being separated from their families. That was a few years ago, and this bill was not even in effect at that time. I remember delivering a series of letters by the detained women from Fujian province to the minister, imploring the minister to address their grievances and the situation they were facing in staying in jail for many months.

If the bill goes through, we will see a system set in place that would give enormous power to the minister. Notwithstanding any other provisions in the bill, this is something that we should be very worried about. We have seen so much legislation from the government that centralizes authority and power and decision-making and discretion with the minister. Why on earth would we undermine our system overall and confer such extraordinary powers on the minister to designate claimants and then, as a result, place them in detention? That alone is a serious problem with the bill.

Canada has had a reputation of being a fair and reasonable country in protecting refugees and their rights, providing settlement in this country and upholding international law. Yet many of us today, in expressing our thoughts and concerns about this bill, point to the fact that this bill itself may end up facing a charter challenge and that it may be in contravention of international treaties. This leads me to wonder why this bill has come forward.

Why are we targeting human smuggling in this fashion when we already have provisions in the law that deal with such smuggling? We already have provisions in a new refugee bill that produced a more balanced result. Why is this particular bill coming forward?

I have come to the conclusion, as I think have many others, that it is more about a political line or optic that the Conservative government wants to lay down. It is like their get tough on crime approach. It has nothing to do with dealing with real issues and complex situations; it has everything to do with laying down a very simplistic approach that gives more power to the minister and actually strips away the rights we have had for refugees in this country.

Another very problematic provision in the bill is the fact that designated claimants would be denied access to appeal. They could not make an application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. These are all hallmarks of the system we have in place. They are actually provisions that we members of Parliament use. We hear from constituents who are often in very difficult situations, who have come from another country and are going through the process and who may end up making an application on humanitarian and compassion grounds to the minister. Yet here we have this bill that, all of a sudden, would not allow that to happen.

So it seems to me that this is a very serious step being taken. Here I would note that in the previous Parliament, the three opposition parties adamantly opposed the bill, and in fact the government did not bring it forward because it knew that the bill would likely be defeated by a majority in Parliament. Now we have a majority Conservative government, but that does not deter us from raising these significant points and alerting the public that, while the government might be fear-mongering and putting a political spin on this, the reality is that this is very bad legislation.

I want to thank the organizations that have taken the time to examine the bill thoroughly to give us their analysis to help us see the reality that this bill is very bad.

In today's global world, it seems very ironic to me that we have a government hell-bent on allowing capital to move wherever it wants with no restraints. We have a government that has, at the top of its agenda, trade agreements that have virtually no restraints. So there is this idea of freedom of movement in the globalized world. Yet when it comes to people, the real resource in our world, humans and their capacity to produce and to live productive lives, we see this draconian legislation aimed at slamming people who may make very legitimate refugee claims in this country, who may be fleeing persecution and may have been taken advantage of and exploited.

There is no question that we need to focus on the problems that exist with human smuggling, but as I have pointed out, there are already very stiff provisions dealing with that aspect. This bill does not speak to that; this bill is targeted at the refugee claimants themselves. It is targeted at the people who are in that situation, if they arrive by boat. So this is bad legislation.

I am very proud that New Democrats are standing up against this legislation and pointing out the problems with it. I hope that if it does go to committee, we will have an opportunity to go through this bill in great detail, to make substantive changes and come to some recognition that the bill as is cannot go forward.

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

Mr. Speaker, this has been a very enlightening debate. One of the references I have heard during the course of this debate was the misnomer in the title of this particular bill. This bill has been referred to by one of my colleagues as a refugee punishment pact, as opposed to the title the government has for it.

My friend from Vancouver East comes from an area of this country that has been very welcoming to new Canadians over the years and, certainly, the broader community around them.

The picture the government is trying to paint to justify the changes in this legislation is that of an outright rash of illegal refugees coming to the borders, and certainly through B.C.

Is that the member's experience? Is that what she knows to be true in this particular issue?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Cape Breton—Canso is entirely correct. We have had isolated cases where people have arrived by boat and the government has really stoked fear in people. I can remember some situations where that has occurred. However, there are probably more people who arrive by plane, for example, or over the border. Very little attention is paid to that in terms of specific legislation.

It really demonstrates for us that this legislation has been targeted to a very specific group that is way beyond what is actually taking place. We already have stiff provisions around human smuggling. We already have other laws that deal with our refugee system. This legislation is way over the top, it is bad legislation and it is clear that we need to change it.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her eloquent words, as well as for her help in the past during my wife's immigration process to this country.

Does my colleague agree that the government is dangerously trying to sow cultural intolerance and division among Canadians and could she elaborate on the effect this fearmongering and targeting of refugees and immigrants will have on the very fabric of Canadian society?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very thoughtful question and one that the government does not want to answer. It wants to run for cover.

The fact is that when we look at this legislation and the agenda as a whole, it is about division, scapegoating and targeting people. It is about using optics in the media and playing on people's fears. I cannot think of a worse kind of public policy agenda. I think most Canadians would be abhorrent to that kind of agenda and yet this legislation is clearly targeted to meet a political end for the government. That is something we cannot tolerate.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have an opportunity to participate in this extremely important debate. For all of us who have spent some time in the House, issues of refugees and immigration continue to be an important part of the work we do here in Parliament.

For those who are watching, here is a bit of history.

On June 16, 2011, the Minister of Public Safety introduced Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act. The short title, if we can call it that, is, “Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act”, which is quite a ridiculous title actually.

As a former minister of citizenship and immigration, I understand the difficult legal and political pressures that are faced by any minister of citizenship and immigration. I also know how hard it is to establish the balancing act between the rights of individuals and their need for a safe, secure and legal immigration system. However, as someone who represents one of the most culturally diverse areas in Canada, I am concerned that Bill C-4 casts too wide a net. This new net would catch some of those who hope to abuse our system but, at the same time, it would make many honest and decent people legitimately seeking a new life pay a hefty price.

I want to be clear as I go forward. I am now and have always been a strong supporter of measures that will help make Canada and Canadians safer. However, I am not prepared to support measures that will make Canadians feel safe while offering no actual safety enhancements. It is very similar to the crime bill and all the other things that make people feel better but, in reality, are very ineffective and simply cost a lot more money. Many of the provisions in Bill C-4 are exactly that. They are knee-jerk and miss the mark when it comes to real safety for all of the people who are trying to get to our shores.

Bill C-4 would allow the minister, or an officer, which is an important point, to refuse to consider an application for permanent residence. It would change the legal definition of a criminal organization. It would provide that the immigration division must impose conditions on the release of certain designated foreign groups. Clearly, that is another form of discrimination. It also would extend the time for instituting summary conviction proceedings from six months to a draconian five years.

For example, Bill C-4 would allow the government to arbitrarily label groups of people arriving on our shores with a specific designation. This may sound simple to some of those watching who may not understand how complex our immigration laws are. Let us take a closer and more practical look at what this might mean if it were applied to a real situation.

In 2010, the ship Sun Sea approached our west coast with some 500 men, women and children aboard. It had been determined that the affair involved criminal human smuggling and even terrorist implications. Those who were involved in any of that should be severely punished. However, it was also determined that several of the passengers were innocent victims of circumstance, particularly the children.

One could imagine if the government were to designate the entire passenger list as criminal or terrorist. I think Canadians and all of us in the House would be shocked if we started throwing innocent men, women and children in jail simply because of the manner in which they arrived. Had they arrived by plane or car it would not be an issue, but because they were arriving by boat it was an issue. Most of these people did nothing wrong and a hard-line one-size-fits-all approach is not prudent nor is it appropriate.

Another example of Bill C-4 is that it would provide for a minimum punishment for the offence of human smuggling. Most Canadians, myself included, want human smugglers to be punished severely. However, there is legislation on the books and if that part needs to be reinforced, then that should be reinforced, but we do not punish the innocent people who were struggling to escape from abuse, the severity of which many of us have no idea.

Bill C-4 has been designed to promote a feeling of safety rather than overhauling the system in a way that would create and shape an effective system that offers actual safety to Canadians and fairness to those who are trying to come to Canada for the right reasons.

We can do better than what is offered in Bill C-4. I hope all parliamentarians have a true opportunity to work on this legislation to ensure it accomplishes what it is meant to accomplish, which is to ensure that our country is protected from terrorists and does not become an open door policy for people who try to get here to abuse our system, but that it also ensures that we are punishing those who need to be punished and not punishing innocent people who are trying to come to our country.

Most of us understand that our world from the perspective of terrorism, security and the related legal frameworks changed dramatically forever on September 11, 2001. Bill C-4 responds to the politics of September 11, but it fails to truthfully and adequately address the realities also associated with 9/11.

Bill C-4 is setting the tone for a relationship between the government and all new Canadians. The government has made a great deal out of its emerging relationships with Canada's minority communities but these actions speak much louder than the words. Politics of division should not be shaping changes to Canada's immigration and refugee systems. I believe that is not the intent but clearly that is how it appears to everyone. Unorthodox does not equal bad. Just because people arrive in an unusual manner does not mean they have nothing to offer to Canada, nor does it mean that they are a threat.

Canada's former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson was a refugee claimant to Canada, as are many other people in this country. She and her family fled to Canada from Hong Kong using, again, less than conventional means. It might not have been a boat but it was unconventional. Ms. Clarkson's family fled to Canada in the wake of war in the Pacific in 1942. It is only through her father's government connections that the Poy family gained the opportunity to flee to Canada as part of the repatriating of Canadian government staff. She had that opportunity. Not everyone is quite as lucky.

The Chinese Immigration Act 1923 prevented the Clarkson family, the Poys, as they were known then, immediate entry into the country until the Department of External Affairs intervened and smoothed away the barriers that were preventing her from coming here. It would seem that Adrienne Clarkson, a refugee who came to Canada through all the wrong channels and then worked hard to raise her family and to contribute to our society, eventually becoming the Queen's representative, was worth the benefit of the doubt.

We can just imagine what would have been lost if Adrienne Clarkson had been turned away because she had failed to apply correctly. She was desperate to get out of the country.

We can do better than the version of Bill C-4 that is on the table today. As I indicated earlier, I hope all parliamentarians will have an honest opportunity to work together on this issue. It is such an important one because it tells the world what Canada is all about. Canada is not about taking boatloads of people, putting them all in jail and treating them all as if they were terrorists, when we clearly know that is not the case.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for York West and I have known each other for many years. I know she was a former minister of citizenship and immigration and she will appreciate how from time to time there are very difficult situations the governments of the day and the minister of the day must deal with when situations present themselves.

Canada certainly is not encouraging boatloads of refugees through smugglers to come to Canada, but it does happen from time to time. I am surprised to hear the member speak against the bill recognizing the fact that she was in the minister's shoes at one point in time and perhaps may have wanted to exercise some of the powers under the bill.

Could she explain why things are different today than when she was the minister previously?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, clearly we were a government that did not react on a knee-jerk basis every time by announcing we would put people who did this or that in jail. We were much more compassionate. I do understand very well, as do several of my colleagues on this side of the House who have been ministers.

It is a balancing act between doing what is constitutionally right and what is legally right by respecting the rights of people who are being terrorized and endure tremendous hardships when they are fleeing from their countries.

We are lucky in this country because we have a roof over our head and food on the table. We have no idea how tough or difficult life is for the many people who are desperate to escape from war-ravaged countries. Until we attempt to walk in their shoes, we have no understanding of how terror and starvation can lead them to pursue such desperate and illegal measures as paying $50,000 to get on a boat to come here. They are desperate and it is that desperation that ministers need to take into consideration in the balancing act of the choices they must make.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for York West.

Is that not the crux of the issue? We are talking about immigration, which is a topic she is familiar with as she was the minister. This morning the member for Burlington spoke about security. Is the crux of the issue not that the current government is mixing up security and immigration? Refugees are not necessarily people we worry are going to jeopardize Canada's security. The majority of them are not dangerous; they are simply poor and need asylum.

Another department deals with security.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is there are thousands of people abroad who are desperate to escape their war-ravaged countries to come to Canada. More money needs to be put into a process that would deal with the backlog of applications that every country has. Last I heard, Canada was obligated to take in 20,000 refugees. We took in 14,000. More money is required for a system to process legitimate refugees from refugee camps so that they can come to Canada.

People are frustrated with the system and how long it takes. They are desperate people. If they had any other choice, they would not pay all of that money to get on one of those boats and be subjected to the conditions we have seen.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has brought to our attention the method used by the current government when dealing with issues, whether they be justice, immigration or whatever issues they might be, which is to scare the heck out of the Canadian public first.

My hon. colleague was the minister of citizenship and immigration and brought forward some very relative changes in that department while there. Could she list the names of all boats that brought in illegal refugees during her term? Were there any at all during her term as minister?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there were none at that time. That is not something that is encouraged in this country and people know that abroad. That is the result of people trying to steal money from those who are desperate and provide them that opportunity.

As a government and a country, the message we need to send is that is not an acceptable way to come here. What I would hope to hear from the government is that it will commit to more resources.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 concerns me in a very particular way and I think it should be rejected for many reasons, but mainly for humanitarian and social justice reasons.

I am able to stand before you here today in part because my parents were granted refugee status in 1980, thanks to the Canadian government's openness and its profound understanding of the precarious situation they found themselves in at the time. That extremely positive move allowed thousands of Vietnamese people to escape the miserable conditions in which they lived and to regain their dignity in Canada.

I do not dare even think about the additional consequences my parents would have suffered if Bill C-4 had been in force when they arrived in this country. Through their story, I will explain my position and demonstrate why I think this bill is clearly unfair and, more importantly, misses the target.

In 1979, after the Vietnam war, my parents decided to flee their country because of the horrible living conditions imposed by the new political regime and in the hopes of finding a better quality of life elsewhere. They could no longer endure the restrictions, the violence and the injustices that happened after the war. They jumped at the first opportunity to flee in the middle of the night, in secret, with my two brothers, who were one and three at the time. They made their way to a port and paid the smugglers with the last of their belongings, that is, whatever they could carry, such as clothing and jewellery. They got on a boat, with the direction indicated by a compass, in other words, anywhere, without knowing if the smugglers would take them to a safe harbour, take them somewhere dangerous or simply abandon them along the way. They risked their entire lives and those of their children.

Why did they decide to come by boat? The answer is simple: they had no other choice. Some 400 other people were also on the boat with them.

This bill creates two categories of refugees, including those who are designated because of their method of arrival, namely, by boat. These refugees are at a higher risk of detention than those who arrive by plane. This provision violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees equality before the law, as well as the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which prohibits States from imposing sanctions on refugees because of their illegal entry. What is meant by illegal entry? This term has not been defined and remains unclear.

In addition, few refugees think to bring proof of identity. Their only concern is to save themselves, to disappear as quickly and quietly as possible. These people who do not have any identification are automatically suspected of not being real refugees. As a result, the minister could deem them to be “designated foreign nationals” and they could be detained. The burden of proof is being reversed here. Refugee claimants arriving in Canada are no longer free while they wait for their claims to be processed. They are detained and considered “designated foreign nationals” until proven otherwise. This arbitrary detention is contrary to the charter and international law.

As my parents can attest, the journey made by refugees is long and difficult. Their ultimate goal is to survive the many dangers and threats they face: a lack of hygiene, food and water, as well as the many attacks by pirates who may rape the women, steal the refugees' belongings or commit gratuitous acts of violence against them just to scare them. That is exactly why most countries in the world, including Canada, signed the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951.

The convention's preamble states that human beings shall enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms without discrimination. It seems that the members of the Conservative government forgot this principle when they drafted this odious bill.

At the time, my parents were able to choose a host country since they were recognized as refugees on humanitarian grounds. Clearly, they were questioned, photographed and made to take an oath. Canada provided them with identification documents since they did not have any.

Under Bill C-4, my parents and my brothers likely would have been deemed “designated claimants” and would have all been mandatorily detained upon their arrival for a period of one year or possibly more. Since my parents did not have any documents, it was very difficult to establish their identity. Such imprisonment is completely arbitrary and discriminatory, is it not?

Before arriving in Canada, they were already scarred from their painful escape: recurring nightmares, irrational fear of thieves, no trust or great difficulty developing trust in people, and constant suspicion of everyone.

They saw danger everywhere at all times. They have also suffered greatly from being uprooted from their country and their family. They never talk about that experience because it was too atrocious, too harsh and the memories are unbearable. Nonetheless, in order to help put things into context, yesterday my parents agreed to retell their story to me.

It is hard to live in a refugee camp and go through the trials of being on the boat; it is also hard to adapt to the way of life in the new country, to culture shock, to social integration, to the temperature, to social isolation caused mostly by the language barrier and because they were potentially dangerous foreigners. At the time, my parents spoke rudimentary French.

Sending them to prison to boot under the pretext that they represented a potential threat would have been completely ludicrous in their case and in the case of thousands of other Vietnamese refugees.

Why not attack the traffickers more effectively in this case and dig deeper into what they are doing here and abroad instead of attacking the refugees?

Fortunately at the time, Canada opened the door to my parents and all those people in distress who were fleeing their country. My parents were gradually able to integrate into Canadian society. They learned French and worked very hard. When they arrived, they had to cope with underpaid exhausting work, frustration and discrimination. However, they managed to integrate. They went to school, they took care of us and they both became nurses. Today my parents take care of sick people and they do so with the same compassion they were shown by Canadians when they first arrived here in need of refuge.

My parents would have had an entirely different experience if the bill the Conservatives are proposing today had been in effect. They might have been detained with their two young children for a year or more. They would have been denied the right to social integration and dignity. Canadian society as a whole would miss out, because to send refugee claimants to prison is to deny Canada many courageous and intelligent people who want to contribute to the country's growth.

If Canadian authorities had made a mistake and had denied my parents refugee status, they would have been able to appeal. But this bill takes that right away from refugees because rulings on claims by designated persons cannot be appealed to the Refugee Appeal Division. This violates the provisions of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

The Conservatives are saying that this bill will reduce the amount of human trafficking. But in reality, the bill, in its current form, puts too much power in the hands of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and unjustly penalizes refugees.

I agree that we should punish criminals, traffickers and smugglers directly. However, the bill, as it stands, punishes legitimate refugees and the people trying to help them.

If Canada had not accepted my parents, we would not be who we are today. My brothers, sisters and I inherited this desire to serve our country from our parents and the Canadians who welcomed them. For other stories like this to have a happy ending, we need to recognize the rights of those coming after us.

I am asking the members here to put themselves in the shoes of a refugee. Imagine the desperate conditions these people endure in war-torn countries: fear, hunger, suffering and torture. Would they not try to flee, risking their lives and carrying only the bare essentials? After fleeing the violence and persecution, they would be imprisoned upon their arrival in Canada. Does that make any sense? Detaining a person who is claiming refugee status without providing an independent review is both discriminatory and shocking.

This bill also strips certain refugees of the opportunity to apply for permanent residence. Refugee claimants are not allowed to sponsor their wife or children for five years. That is another clear violation of family rights.

As well, as we said earlier, children are imprisoned, with all of the negative consequences that can have on a child's development.

I would like to conclude by asking the government and this House that this bill be withdrawn and reworked so that it actually tackles the issue of traffickers and smugglers, not the rights and freedoms of refugees.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for sharing this story with us. I would like her to comment on the economic impact of the bill. As I mentioned previously, this bill will lead to the construction of prisons and detention centres. And, as my hon. colleague explained, people will have psychological problems and, if they are accepted as refugees or permanent residents, they will probably have to go to the hospital, which will cost taxpayers even more money. Above all, an individual may not seek permanent residence, work or attend school for five years.

For the benefit of the government, I would like her to speak about the economic impact of this bill.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my colleague for raising this very relevant aspect of the bill. Economically, there are a lot of negative consequences. This bill is also very repressive with regard to the treatment of human beings. As my colleague said, it would result in a lot of detentions and would be very costly. The individuals detained would suffer considerable harm—especially the children—and they would not even have the means to cover the cost of a psychologist or mental health professional to help them.

As for the children who would be detained, according to a number of studies, their detention is more detrimental before age 5 or 6 and is the most detrimental before age 3 because it is during the first three years of life that children develop their physical, mental and social capabilities.

These children would be detained for close to a year. Other studies show that being removed from the school environment causes setbacks, which leads to a phenomenon of regression in children.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International Canada, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Bar Association and the Centre for Refugee Studies are all opposed to this bill. I would like to ask the hon. member if she thinks that the Conservative government is stubbornly committed to passing this bill for ideological reasons.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member. I really think that, with this bill, the government wants to show that it is fighting terrorism and crime. This is totally the wrong approach to the matter, because its way of showing people that it is attacking terrorism and crime is really inappropriate. Instead, it is attacking refugees, people who need help, people who urgently need support in order to get back to a normal, healthy life.

I can go on: many decisions are completely vague and arbitrary, contravening a number of charters and conventions. It is totally unjustified; bill C-4absolutely must be withdrawn so that it can be revised and reworked.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank the hon. member for her touching, first-hand account of how some refugees who come here by boat can make very positive contributions to this country.

I would like to ask the hon. member the following question. In her speech, she made a distinction between traffickers, smugglers and those who help refugees. Perhaps she could tell us more about this distinction so that we can fully grasp what happens to those people.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member.

Traffickers are those who bring migrants, refugees and so on to the country in order to make a profit. Smugglers are just those who do so without necessarily profiting from it. There are also those who welcome people once they are here. For example, the Red Cross provided my parents with very specific help when they fled from their country.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, it seems like the Conservative members are extremely confused about the difference between immigrants and refugees. This morning, we heard the hon. member for Burlington refer to his Italian in-laws. By no means do I wish to say anything negative about in-laws—I have wonderful in-laws, one of whom is from the Philippines and also immigrated here—but I am convinced that, in their home country, the member for Burlington's in-laws were not subject to persecution, violation of their human rights, danger of torture or risk to their lives. There is a big difference.

We are talking here about refugees who face grave danger and flee their country to escape these threats to their safety and their integrity. I also heard the government side say that we are facing an invasion of refugees and that we must put a stop to it immediately. The Conservatives are referring to a particular case that occurred in 2010, where Sri Lankan refugees, who had indeed done business with traffickers and smugglers, were arriving by boat and requesting asylum. However, it is important to realize that there were approximately 500 people on that boat requesting asylum. Were these requests to be processed, they would represent 2% of all cases processed by the Immigration and Refugee Board.

In response to another Conservative member who stated that we do not want them to conduct any investigations at all, I would like to say that we simply want all refugee claimants, whoever they may be, to have access to the same system, which would not be the case if Bill C-10 were to be passed.

Bill C-10 also shows the government's contempt for the international conventions and treaties that Canada has signed, for example, the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child, not to mention the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which I will come back to later.

Bill C-4 has four problems and should therefore be defeated or at least heavily revised. The first problem has been mentioned several times. The bill separates refugees into two separate categories: refugees whose claims are processed in the regular manner and refugee claimants who could be deemed to be designated foreign nationals. If one person arrives by plane or by boat, he or she is considered a refugee claimant who can request the regular process. If a group of people arrives by boat, under the bill, they must be deemed to be designated foreign nationals.

There are two separate processes for two separate classes, which was a completely arbitrary decision on the immigration minister's part. This particular provision contravenes article 31 of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which specifically says that the Contracting States shall not impose penalties on account of their illegal entry or presence in Canada. But that is exactly what the government wants to do. It wants to be able to detain them for a year. That is a violation of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. And it is definitely a violation of section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which deals with the rights of every individual, whether Canadian or a refugee, to equality before and under the law. But we are going to have two separate classes that will be subject to two separate processes.

The second problem is the mandatory detention of designated foreign nationals for 12 months. For one thing, that is a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, under which every individual has a right to legal counsel and the guarantee of habeas corpus. So it is also a violation of article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which requires the same thing.

The third problem is that refugee claimants cannot apply for permanent residence for at least five years. That is specifically a violation of article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child because the best interests of the child are not looked after in that decision. It seems the government is looking more after the best interests, the political ones in particular, of the Minister of Immigration. This also poses a problem when it comes to a very current issue, family reunification. After all the nice things the Conservatives had to say about it, now that the time has come to put something on paper to make the reunification process easier, they are putting up barriers blocking it.

That is the case with Bill C-4.

The fourth problem, and I mentioned it a number of times this morning, is the fact that the government is preventing refugees from appealing to the Refugee Appeal Division. For refugees who arrive via airplane, their case will be examined by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. These people have the right to appeal a decision that they deem to be unfair. For refugees who arrive via boat and who are declared “designated foreign nationals,” they do not have that opportunity. That clearly violates article 16 of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Article 16 specifically states that a refugee shall have free access to the courts of law on the territory of all contracting states. In addition, it states that a refugee shall enjoy in the contracting state in which he has his habitual residence the same treatment as a national in matters pertaining to access to the courts, including legal assistance and exemption from cautio judicatum solvi.

It is clear that this bill creates two classes of asylum seekers, which completely goes against the principle of equality that should guide the legislators in this House.

I would like to raise one last point regarding the issue of appeals. Yesterday, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism held Australia as an example to follow.

The immigration minister failed to mention that in November 2010, the Australian supreme court issued a ruling in the case of a Sri Lankan refugee, in which it was deemed unconstitutional, under the Australian Constitution, that he did not have access to the appeal courts. Thus, the Australian supreme court invalidated these provisions. The same thing will happen in Canada, for the same reasons.

I think it is clear that the government has no respect for its international obligations—obligations that Canada agreed to and signed off on. It is clear that the government is trying to politicize the issue of refugees for its own purposes by using sheer populism to attack victims of persecution who are trying to seek asylum in Canada. By refusing equal treatment to all asylum seekers, it is clear that the government has no respect for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

For all of these reasons, I am unable to support Bill C-4, a bill that I believe is unfair, that punishes people who are already victims and that will certainly have very few consequences for human traffickers.

I would remind the House that under current Canadian legislation, human traffickers, or smugglers, already face the maximum sentence they can be subjected to, that is, life imprisonment. This bill includes a few additional factors that would have absolutely no deterrent effect.

This bill's intention is clear. Taking a closer look, we can see that nearly half of the bill simply discriminates more and creates different classes of asylum seekers. Thus, the bill is misnamed. This bill does not address human trafficking. This bill does not tackle the main problem, that is, smugglers who abuse the situation and take advantage of the desperation of people facing persecution, human rights violations, or even torture or death. The bill simply aims to discriminate against various groups of asylum seekers and allow the Canadian government to treat people differently in a very serious situation. This will reflect poorly on us internationally.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when the minister introduced Bill C-4, he said the primary purpose of it was to target the profiteers and to go after the smugglers. It is interesting that the member talked about punishing the victims. That is a point we really need to pick up on.

In the bill the government is zeroing in on the profiteers, and the number of profiteers who are going to be penalized by this bill is zero. On the other hand, I want to pick up on the point of who is actually being punished. Individuals are landing on our shores, whether by plane or boat, and for the most part are seeking asylum because if they stay in the countries they originate from, their lives could be shortened. There are threats of torture and all sorts of other horrendous acts.

Would he not concur with me that they are already victims, and now they will be victims a second time because of the government's action? Would he concur with that?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Winnipeg North for his very pertinent question.

Indeed, that would be the case. Clearly, this bill does nothing more to address the issue of smugglers. The current Criminal Code already sets out a maximum sentence. As for the other aspect of the bill, concerning asylum seekers, they are persecuted and the victims of human rights violations. They often have to risk their lives and flee their country in order to ask for protection. This bill would have them treated like second-class asylum seekers, compared to today's asylum seekers. This bill completely flies in the face of the Canadian spirit that led to the signing of international conventions to protect the rights of refugees. With this bill, the Conservative government seems to be making a mockery of those rights.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He made several references to our international obligations with respect to this problem. I would like my colleague to speak more about the measures that the House could adopt to deal with the problem of trafficking while meeting our international commitments.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question is very pertinent, and the answer quite simple. We must provide the people responsible for law enforcement—the coast guard, the police, the courts—with the means to do their job, together with our international partners, in order to get rid of smugglers, the vultures who take advantage of people's despair to turn a profit.

A bill such as this one will not solve the problem. With regard to the other part of the bill, which deals with handling asylum seekers, the solution is simple. The necessary resources must be allocated to the existing body, the Immigration and Refugee Board. This body takes into account many elements when deciding whether or not to grant refugee status, and the process should be available to all asylum seekers, whether they arrive by boat or other means.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again today we have misinformation being given by both parties on the other side. Yesterday, one of the members indicated that 99% of the refugee claimants, asylum seekers from the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea, had been processed. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Again today members opposite are implying that on this side of the House there is a lack of compassion. We have increased the number of refugees who can access Canada by 2,500 a year.

Is it not reasonable that our border and security officials have access to know whom they are dealing with and to determine whether these people are simply fleeing persecution or could, in some cases, be fleeing prosecution?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative member does not seem to have heard my presentation. The Immigration and Refugee Board already has a process for investigating smugglers and examining claims for asylum. We are asking that all refugees, no matter how they arrive here, have access to the same process, not that the government create two separate processes because that is how it has decided to score political points.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, 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, Conservative, 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.

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

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

In terms of the economic aspect and potential deterrence, I do not think there is an impact at all. Refugees who pay smugglers a fortune to come here are fleeing their homelands because they have very good reasons and they are fighting for their lives. They do not leave because of a mere economic need. In my view, it has to do with survival, not only economic considerations.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, could the hon. member explain how this bill will actually penalize the kingpins of human smuggling networks? I took a close look at every clause of this bill, and I could not find anything guaranteeing that those people would be arrested and punished.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. As I mentioned in my speech, it is the refugees, the asylum seekers, who are essentially being targeted. This bill has no impact at all on the smugglers, who are the criminals. This bill changes the status of refugees to that of criminals, but the smugglers are not going to be terribly concerned about this new bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am shocked that there is an assumption that the bill would somehow affect family reunification. I came to this country by plane, not by boat, and I did not have to use smugglers to be reunited with my family. We have a great system here, a system that works and is legal. I do not know of a single case in which a person who has arrived in Canada and has been granted status has had to use smugglers to be reunited with his or her family.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for his question. We are not questioning the refugee status. There are conventions and they must be applied, since they are international. In addition to the fact that a refugee is imprisoned for anywhere from one to five years, he or she is not allowed to apply for permanent residence, thus removing any possibility to submit a request for family reunification.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today after the passionate speeches of my dear colleagues on this side of the House, especially the members for Scarborough—Rouge River and La Pointe-de-l'Île. I am certain that my fellow Canadians thank them as well.

I am also a member for Scarborough, and I can say that half of my constituents were born somewhere other than Canada. If this kind of legislation had existed in the past, there would be a lot of people missing from my riding, as well as some members missing from the House, for example, the member for York South—Weston. The government is lacking a little common sense in introducing this bill.

I am saddened to see our Conservative colleagues from Scarborough also supporting this legislation that will negatively affect the families of their constituents. We would encourage them to join the rest of Scarborough in opposing this bad bill.

The bill is deeply unfair to refugees. It fails to honour the obligations under both Canadian and international law. It deprives individual cases of the independent review that justice requires. Furthermore, it will create massive costs in unnecessary detention. If it passes, this bill would prove to be unsuccessful in preventing human smuggling. We have seen time and again that more laws do little to prevent crimes like this from happening. We cannot solve a problem merely by addressing the effect and ignoring the cause. This bill ignores the underlying problem that we face a global refugee crisis.

I would like to draw attention to the fact that the title of this bill is gravely misleading, as it would do more to punish refugees than to punish smugglers. It is wildly unfair to label the refugee crisis as a threat to the safety of Canadians. Canadians are being asked to trade the liberties of people seeking refuge in exchange for the protection of Canadian safety from a perceived threat that has no basis.

We must act within our power to stop illegal human smuggling. Yes, profiting from human trafficking of vulnerable refugees is exceptionally immoral and we want to do everything we can to deter that from happening, but let us find ways of targeting those who are committing the crime rather than the victims. Refugees do not pose a threat to Canadian public safety. This is just another example of the Conservatives' scare tactics and fearmongering.

The Conservatives are trying to sell this bill as if accepting and aiding refugees is a threat to Canadians. It's that “with us or against us”, that “us or them” mentality. These tactics are hostile, irresponsible and dangerous. They have no place in the government of Canada, but we know it is how the Harper government works.

Bill C-4 requires mandatory detention of designated persons without independent review--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

As a reminder, the member may know that the use of the surname or name of other hon. members in the House is to be avoided in the course of our speeches.

The hon. member for Scarborough Southwest.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

My apologies, Mr. Speaker. I will say the Prime Minister's government.

Bill C-4 would require the mandatory detention of designated persons without independent review. This is arbitrary detention, which is contrary to the charter and international law. Mandatory minimum sentences and harsher penalties will not deter smugglers. As of this time, under the Immigration and Refugee Act, smuggling can already be punishable by life imprisonment. This is just another blow to our independent judiciary and its discretion.

Furthermore, refugees know little or nothing about this country other than its reputation for acceptance and generosity. They are fleeing for their lives and the lives and safety of their families. They know nothing of our laws and we want to punish them for that. Among those detained will be children. It is 2011 and we here in Canada are talking about detaining children. There is something absolutely reprehensible and wrong about that fact.

This bill would also provide for mandatory conditions to be imposed on release for persons indefinitely detained beyond 12 months without the possibility of release if the minister is of the opinion that their identities have not been established. Both of those additional measures would deprive persons of liberty without the opportunity for an independent tribunal to review whether they are necessary in the individual case or not, again contrary to the charter and international law.

We heard members speak earlier about Australia, which has had similar policies to lock up refugee claimants in the past at length and to deny them permanent status even when granted refugee status in an effort to stop refugees coming by boat. These policies resulted in refugees, including many children, being traumatized by their experiences in detention. The Australian Human Rights Commission, an organization created by parliament, conducted a national inquiry into children in immigration detention and found that children in Australian immigration detention centres had suffered numerous and repeated breaches of their human rights.

Far from deterring people, depriving refugees of the right to family reunification caused a situation where people arrived by boat and then later their families, spouses and children arrived by more boats. This, in fact, created a market for more human smuggling, and this is the path that the government is taking.

The Australian public was deeply divided, with many previously unengaged citizens joining grassroots networks to protest their country's inhumane treatment of refugees. Luckily, in the past three years Australia has been moving away from the policies of detention and temporary status for refugees. However, here in Canada we apparently like to repeat others' mistakes.

Arbitrary detention is also prohibited by international law, notably by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Furthermore, this bill would deny designated persons the right to appeal a negative refugee decision to the Immigration and Refugee Board's Refugee Appeal Division. An appeal is a fundamental right and safeguard in refugee decision making, where a person's life and liberty may be at stake. By eliminating the opportunity to correct errors at this first level, the bill would put Canada at risk of violating its most fundamental obligation toward refugees, which is not to send them back to persecution.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I was interested to hear the hon. member mention the term “fearmongering”. I have been listening intently all afternoon to the comments from the opposition side and I have heard nothing, frankly, but fearmongering, allegations of breaches of the Constitution, the charter of rights and international treaties. Every law, of course, is subject to interpretation. It is clear what the interpretation of the opposition is.

On this side of the House, our interpretation is that this law respects in every sense the charter of rights. It is within the democratic society that we know and the democratic society that we know is the very reason so many immigrants want to come to Canada, as our forefathers all did.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I heard a question but it brings a question to my mind. We have a great country that has been very accepting of immigrants and refugees over many years. Why is the government seeking to change that?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I found the prior question interesting. The member made reference to the whole idea of fearmongering. I would look to my colleague from the New Democrats to provide a comment.

When the Prime Minister of Canada stands on the back of a boat called Ocean Lady to try to raise the profile and then label refugees as being questionable in terms of arriving in Canada, potentially implying that there are terrorists and others on board that boat, would the member who has spoken to the bill acknowledge that as being a part of fearmongering?

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would say that makes part of the government's plan with respect to fearmongering.

With that ship and with others, it has affected several constituents in my riding as it is a riding with one of the largest Tamil populations in Canada.

Just des inquiétudes that has been created by the previous incarnation of this bill in that community has led to people being afraid as to whether their families will eventually be able to come here. It has led to a situation where some are now going to the ministry. Tamils from Sri Lanka are being told by the minister and by the minister's office that it is actually safe to go back to Sri Lanka even though we still have no international eyes on the ground. This is just part of a bigger plan to lower immigration to Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the people in Scarborough Southwest, the people in Ajax—Pickering and the people in many ridings across this country would be surprised and disappointed to know that human smugglers have an advocate in the member for Scarborough Southwest.

There is no question that immigrants to this country, including recent immigrants, want our immigration policy to be based on rules. They want us to legislate for a modern age. We take exception to the member's claim that these issues cannot be resolved, that the situation cannot be improved by legislation. It can.

I would like the member to simply acknowledge a single fact. Will he acknowledge that, under this Prime Minister's government, immigration levels to Canada and the arrival of refugees in Canada have achieved historic highs?

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

What I definitely do not appreciate, Mr. Speaker, is being accused of being a booster for human smuggling.

What I would like to throw back at the government concerns why people in my riding are waiting two and three years right now to be reunified with loved ones when they did arrive legally. Why are they not receiving the immigration and settlement services that they deserve? Why are organizations like the South Asian Women's Rights Organization running immigration settlement services out of an apartment because it cannot get funding from the government?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the bill today and to participate in this very important and serious debate.

I am new to this chamber, like many of my colleagues, but I am not new to the notion of justice and fairness. I do not see much of that in the bill. The bill is yet another clear indication that the government does not make public policy based on facts and evidence but instead on ideology, an ideology that is regressive in the case of the bill, public policy that is punitive and unnecessarily so.

I read the bill line by line, section by section. It comprises 37 sections, 23 of which are directed at persons seeking asylum and the limitation of their rights. How can it fairly be said that this is about human smugglers? The bill is not so much about seeking to punish human smugglers, but rather it is about denying rights to refugee claimants and treating them, not as criminals, but as worse than criminals, which I will expand upon later in my remarks.

How did we arrive at the point where the government is putting through such an ill-considered law? In August 2010, as we have heard, a cargo ship landed on our shores with close to 500 Tamils. It was a shocking situation to many of us. Were they safe? Were they hungry? Did they suffer ill effects from the journey and the conditions in which they were travelling? These people were seeking a better life. I believe they thought Canada was a place of peace, a place of hope, a place where they could make a better life and a place where they could escape whatever injustice and persecution they had encountered earlier in their life. They had the hope that Canada would be a place of refuge.

I agree with those who say that we should be very vigilant about our security. None of us want a system where people who pose a threat are seeking an opportunity to do harm to Canada. I think we all agree on that. With respect to refugee claimants, we all know that there are some who come here who are not legitimate. However, the government seems incapable of acknowledging that there is a rigorous process, that those who do not meet the standards that are required under the law are sent back.

I would also suggest that, like any law, we need to periodically review and assess current legislation to see if it still works and to make improvements where necessary. That is our job as parliamentarians.

However, one would think, by listening to the Conservatives, that the country is being overrun by illegals. In the case of the Tamil refugees two summers ago, it seems that the Conservatives could hardly wait to gain some political advantage from the situation. It was a human tragedy made into political theatre, a race to the bottom.

I reject the idea that because we hold a different opinion on the bill it automatically means that we are soft on crime or we somehow do not care about public security. That is nonsense. As was so aptly stated in this chamber on an earlier occasion, when the only implement we have in our toolbox is a sledgehammer, everything starts to look like a rock.

There was no nuance, no compromise, no dialogue, no amendments, no costing and no acknowledgement that the issue was complex, nothing. Solutions are easy and simple. For the Conservatives it is all or nothing, the world is in black and white. That is not the reality. That is not the world in which we live.

The vast majority of refugee claims are legitimate. Men, women and children come here hoping for a life that is better than the one they had, so much so that they are prepared to risk all, and yes, even to pay smugglers for the opportunity for a better life. Why? For many people around the world, Canada is a place of hope and peace, but that will change under the Conservative government.

Smugglers should be confronted with the full force of the law, and we on this side are prepared to support legislation that does that. Again, the first nine and one-half pages of this bill only speak to denial of the rights of refugees. It only speaks to denial of the rights of victims. This bill is not so much about smugglers; at its core it is about punishing individuals who seek refugee status.

International law is clear: it is not a crime to seek asylum. It seems the Conservatives wish to send the message that even if an individual has a legitimate claim, he or she cannot expect to be treated with the human dignity that should be afforded to all people but instead are treated as a criminal first, in fact worse than a criminal.

In this country suspected criminals have a right to appeal. Suspected criminals have a right to be protected from arbitrary detention. Suspected criminals are assessed on the basis of reasonable and probable grounds based on belief. The lower threshold that is being applied to asylum seekers in this bill is reasonable and probable grounds based on suspicion. The refugees are treated as less than suspected criminals.

It also gives rise as to whether this bill is constitutional, which is what I will focus on. I do not believe, nor does anyone on this side believe, that this bill will withstand a charter challenge. Certainly the Canadian Bar Association does not believe it. Certainly the former chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board does not believe it. I believe that the Supreme Court of Canada, as soon as it gets the chance, will strike this bill down.

This bill calls for mandatory detention for a year. In 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a law that called for mandatory detention of 120 days under a security certificate. This is three times worse than a law that has already been found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada and yet the Conservatives plow on.

Canadians should know that the Conservative government has already decided that amendments will not be considered. Let us think about that. Let us consider the obvious problems this punitive measure has when judged against the charter. Does this proposal from the Conservatives in any way sound like the Canada we know? Is there not anyone over there on the Conservative benches who can see the clear violation of sections 9 and 10 of the charter?

Let me close by saying that I have no doubt the government will get its way and that this bill will be rammed through the House. That does not make it right. That is regrettable.

We who believe in the charter, we who believe that people should be treated fairly cannot support this legislation. It fails the test of the charter. It fails the test of fairness. It fails the test of justice. It fails Canadians. We will not support this bill.

[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, Conservative, 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.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the members opposite today, we are talking about irregular migrants. We are not talking about the refugee system. Canada has the most generous refugee system in the world. Nearly one in ten of global refugees resettle in Canada. Nothing is going to change that with this legislation. We are dealing with irregular migrants and we are putting a system in place to try to deal with that issue.

Members opposite are trying to tarnish Canada's reputation internationally by saying we have become cold-hearted. They are playing the politics of fear and smear and I really wish they would stop.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member opposite and struggled to find a question, but I will answer a question that I think he might have asked.

Concern for Canada's international reputation has already been sullied by the reputation of the government. Canada has always stood for a compassionate ethos with regard to refugees. I am sorry, but we in the NDP do not see that reflected in the bill.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to ask a question because I have been following this debate as well.

In my hand I have a list of organizations that are opposed to Bill C-4. Some 80 civil society organizations dealing with immigration and refugee issues across the country, legal groups, church groups and a wide variety people have all come out opposed to the legislation.

Is the member familiar with any list that the Conservatives might have that would show some support from civil society, from the people who work in this field, on this legislation, so we could have a balance where we could see that the Conservative government is reaching out to society to try to determine what society thinks of its legislation?

Here is the list of the organizations that do not support it. Has the member heard of another list that shows civil society support?

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we cannot find civil society groups that back this legislation. In fact, in Toronto there are advocates and advocacy groups for those who are refugees and victims of human trafficking. None of them have been consulted in the crafting of this legislation. I would ask the government this. How come?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I can tell members opposite who supports the bill. It is average ordinary Canadians who have asked us to take action against human smuggling. The bill is about that. It is not about the overall refugee program, which, under the minister and this government, has accepted more refugees than in the history of our country.

I have listened for a couple of days and there does not seem to be a focus on human smuggling. There is talk about children and families. These people are being thrown into the holds of rusty boats by profiteers. We want to discourage them from using those services and crack down on human smugglers. Why will the opposition not join us?

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the reason we will not join the member is because the bill does not actually crack down on human smuggling. The legislation does nothing to dissuade human traffickers from plying their trade.

Also, the refugee of today is the average Canadian of tomorrow and that is who we should be thinking about here. The legislation does not support those people.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak today to voice my outright opposition to Bill C-4, as introduced by the Conservative Party.

I echo my colleagues who, during debate yesterday, so rigorously exposed the major gaps and grey areas in this bill.

Without restating all of the points that were brought up yesterday, I want to say that it is clear that in the eyes of the House and the eyes of Canadians, Bill C-4 directly violates a number of international agreements that Canada has so proudly ratified, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. In addition, it contravenes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Let us remember that Canada committed to the rights of child refugees and migrants in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Canada's third and fourth reports highlighted the main measures passed from January 1998 to December 2007 to encourage implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child concerning the involvement of children in armed conflict.

With regard to this report, the Government of Canada should also remember that it is accountable to many Canadian NGOs and to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who were asked to comment on the issues to be dealt with in the report.

Canada will have to justify any act that is illegal or violates ratified international agreements.

With regard to the protection of minor refugees, separated minors and unaccompanied minors requesting asylum, we should remember that, in August 2006, the Overseas Processing Manual used by Canadian immigration officers for resettling refugees was updated to include a new policy on guardianship.

The Guardianship Protocol established procedures for processing children who are dependents of the principal applicant and minors who are blood relatives, that is, separated minors with a blood relative in Canada who is not their father or mother.

This protocol recognizes that children are particularly vulnerable and encourages de facto guardians or blood relations to obtain legal guardianship. It ensures that the appropriate authorities closely monitor the well-being of these children.

This protocol also ensures that refugee children resettled in Canada receive the care and protection necessary to their well-being.

All recommendations for minor blood relatives made by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees must reflect the child's best interests, and all the decisions made under the protocol must take into account the child's best interests.

In addition, the protocol provides a child with the opportunity to comment on the decision made in his or her regard. In April 2008, the Government of Canada updated its manual for protected persons, Processing Claims for Refugee Protection, to include guidelines taking into account the age and sex of the child.

The objective of these guidelines is to support the priority processing of the claims of vulnerable people, including children. These new guidelines respond to recommendations made by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that Canada should give priority to vulnerable people.

We avoid placing children in detention as much as possible, whether or not they are accompanied. We always try to find another solution that is in the child's best interests.

I would also like to reiterate the response of the Government of Canada to the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights:

Both the Canada Border Services Agency and Citizenship and Immigration Canada have programs and policies in place to assist and protect vulnerable migrant children within their respective mandates....

Within this context, reuniting families as quickly as possible is a priority for the Government of Canada and a key part of the mandate of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. In overseas family reunification, Citizenship and Immigration Canada works to fulfill its commitment to process most of these cases within 6 months. In the case of overseas refugee children, concurrent processing of refugee family members who are residing in different locations is facilitated. In the case of resettlement of eligible separated minors from overseas, a Guardianship Protocol adopted in 2006 provides visa and settlement officers with instructions on how to facilitate the resettlement of [these] children...

When unaccompanied, separated or otherwise possibly vulnerable children arrive at a port of entry, or if they are encountered anywhere within Canada, border service officials are trained to pay extra attention to all children and to refer a child to the appropriate provincial or territorial child protection agency, when there is a concern that the child may be at risk. Border officials are instructed and trained to be aware of factors such as age, gender, cultural background, and the child's general circumstances [whether or not they are a refugee]...A child may only be detained as a measure of last resort, and a school-aged child in detention must be provided with educational and recreational opportunities as well as counselling after having been detained for seven days....

Returning an unaccompanied child to his or her country of origin, or nationality, however, is a complex process and is based on the requirements of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Canada Border Services Agency works closely with [these] agencies...

I would also like to remind members of the commitment as part of the way forward that the Government of Canada made to the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights.

The government appreciates the care and concern that the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights has shown for children in its report. It has provided guidance on the way forward, and has encouraged a continued commitment to collaborative efforts to meet Canada's obligations under the convention.

The very process of answering the committee's report required extensive discussions and collaboration throughout the federal government, ensuring that policies and programs were again considered through the lens of the best interests of the child principle and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child... The government acknowledges that meeting the needs of children is an on-going process, requiring commitment and diligence.

The government will not waver from its goal of making Canada a better place for children and their families. So, with Bill C-4, can we be assured that children will be the greatest beneficiaries? Can we be assured that the government is still working towards the goal of making Canada a better place for children and their families? Can we be assured that Canadian laws and international conventions ratified in solidarity are being respected?

By trying to pass bills that violate human rights, the government is making a laughing stock of Canada. Many countries and international organizations are watching us and will be aware of the decisions made here. We must be careful not to fuel old prejudices that involve projecting onto foreigners all the evils and all the problems that might exist in a country, all in the name of gaining popularity among certain groups of voters.

Canada will need international allies to support its economy and ensure its growth. These are the same allies who scrutinize what we say and do, and how we treat our communities. To illustrate my remarks, here are a few excerpts from some Amnesty International recommendations. It is worth noting that Bill C-4 is a reincarnation of Bill C-49, which was introduced here and rejected by this House.

There have been serious human rights concerns with respect to the government’s response to the arrival of two boatloads of Sri Lankan migrants off the coast of British Columbia—the Ocean Lady in October 2009 and the Sun Sea in August 2010. Government ministers made inflammatory remarks about those on board, before the boats had even arrived in Canada—particularly with respect to the Sun Sea. They were described as illegal migrants, queue jumpers, human traffickers and security threats; and were accused of links to terrorism. Rarely was there any acknowledgement they might be refugee claimants. Notably all 76 individuals who arrived on the Ocean Lady were found to be eligible to make refugee claims and have done so.

...Federal political parties need to commit to: not reintroducing Bill C-49 after the election [this is what Amnesty International was calling for]; ensuring that any efforts to tackle human smuggling or human trafficking conform to Canada’s obligations under international human rights and refugee law.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, during her presentation the member talked a lot about vulnerable persons. As we know, thousands of people die each year using human smuggling services, so anyone using human smuggling services is basically a vulnerable person.

This legislation would not only increase punishment for human smuggling, it would discourage those who would use human smugglers to get to Canada. In essence, this legislation would protect vulnerable people by discouraging them from coming to Canada in an unsafe manner. Why will the NDP not support that?

[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.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles for giving us such a good example of detailed research. Could she give us the names of some of the organizations that took part in the third and fourth reports of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and that worked with the government?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. UNICEF Canada, with which we are all familiar, is one of the organizations that took part in these reports, along with the Adoption Council of Canada, the National Alliance for Children and Youth, the Canadian Council for Health and Active Living at Work and a number of others.

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

Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciated my colleague's comments. Earlier, we saw how the Conservatives understand this bill. A Conservative member said that it will discourage people who are in situations of human rights violations and situations of war. This bill will discourage these people who are trying to save their lives and the lives of their children and family. They will not come; they will not escape a situation where they risk being killed, because the Conservatives have introduced this bill.

Is this debate not absurd, just like the comments from the Conservative members who do not even seem to understand the scope of this bill that they have introduced in the House?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster. It really seems that the people who introduced the bill do not understand it. Detention centres are currently being built. In Canada, there are three centres where refugees who are waiting are already incarcerated. The children and mothers are separated from the fathers. That is already happening. There is a social cost. How much will it all add up to? How many centres like that are going to be built?

In the past, immigrants used to come to Grosse Île, near Quebec City. Putting all immigrants and refugees into camps while waiting to be able to integrate them into society because they do not have identification papers and passports is a completely outdated way of doing things. It was a complete failure during Canada's waves of immigration. That is what happened on Grosse Île and near New York City, in the United States. Putting people into such camps is not a good way of doing things.

[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.

[An hon. member]

Yes you should.

[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, Conservative, 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.

[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.

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

Madam Speaker, I believe the bill is part of a concerted effort to continue to shrink the number of immigrants and refugees coming to this country. Could he comment on whether he believes this is a bill to punish smugglers or to actually try to put the brakes on people coming to Canada in a concerted way by punishing them for trying to come here?

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

Madam Speaker, when we look at the websites of the Conservatives, in which they talk about closing the door and about having reduced by 24% the number of refugees accepted over five years, it is very clear that this is their intent.

As my colleague knows, this is part of the overall drive that the government has taken. Conservatives campaigned with a sweater vest, but they have come out with a biker vest since they received a majority in May.

We have seen very clearly a switch in our immigration system away from family reunification, away from accepting refugees and more geared toward accepting temporary foreign workers who have no rights in Canada, who are often subject to abuses and who are shipped home once their contract has been completed. This is not the immigration system that we on this side of the House want to see.

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

Madam Speaker, the member opposite went on several detours, but one was Sri Lanka. He seemed to imply that the bill had something to do with this government's policy there. There are many responses, many of them already taken by this government to the very worrying situation there, particularly the situation of Tamil refugees who have suffered from the conflict over years and even decades.

Will the member opposite not agree that being soft on the human smugglers who brought two ships to the shores of British Columbia is not going to do anything to ameliorate the situation of Tamils in Sri Lanka or in other countries where they have taken refuge and that on the contrary, Tamils like other would-be refugees seeking a place in Canada want us to be generous by a system that respects and enforces the rules?

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

Madam Speaker, the member knows that the bill does not crack down on human smuggling. The member knows that the Conservative government already has a whole range of measures to crack down on human smuggling. That is not the point or the intent of the bill.

Perhaps the member could speak to this when, hopefully, he will rise in the House and defend the bill around the issue of what the Conservative government has not done when it comes to the systematic human rights violations taking place at this very moment in Sri Lanka. The government has not said that the Sri Lankan government has a responsibility to allow in human rights observers so we can see first-hand what is happening on the ground.

The Conservative government has not taken the initiative to press the Sri Lankan government to stop the human rights abuses that are taking place. Anecdotally we are getting evidence from across northern Sri Lanka that this is taking place by the Sri Lankan military. The government has not taken action at all and that is a disservice both to Canadian values on human rights. It is also a disservice to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians of Tamil origin who want the government to take action and Canadians of all origins who believe that Canada should be a voice for human rights around the world.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, as I have heard the debate over the past two days, it seems the crux of the issue is that when is a deterrence to be an effective one without sideswiping those who are most vulnerable. I commend my colleague for bringing some of that out. I commend other colleagues as well for trying to bringing out that argument.

I worry and fear that in some of the arguments being used there is a subtext, which is we will keep most everybody out. Unfortunately that may include the most vulnerable. Could the member comment on that?

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

Madam Speaker, this is where we have hopefully set debate in the House that will allow the government to understand to what extent Canadians are concerned about this.

We have seen the Conservative government, systematically over five years, close the door to refugees. This bill seems to close the door even further, and that is a fundamental repudiation of Canadian values.

[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--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order. The hon. member's time has elapsed. He may be able to elaborate during questions and comments.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the enthusiasm of my colleagues to get me on my feet. I also want to commend my colleague who sits in front of me for all the work he has done on immigration and certainly in his riding.

In the debate that has been going on here a term that has been bandied about is “queue jumping”, which applies to the immigration system. When it comes to the issue of refugees, it is a concept that is not as tangible. I would like him to comment on that. Could he also make reference to what the Supreme Court decision would impose in this particular situation from this pending legislation?

[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.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciated the speech from my colleague. He did point out the danger inherent in other aspects of how the government approaches the human rights violations that continue to go on in Sri Lanka. What does he think the Canadian government should be doing to stop what are significant systemic and ongoing human rights violations taking place in northern Sri Lanka?

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

Madam Speaker, before this bill was presented, the responsibility of a sound government, the responsibility of this government, was to reach out to the Tamil community and say, “Let us work with you”, to reach out to the stakeholders.

Just this afternoon I was on the phone with the Canadian Tamil Congress, the national congress of Canadian Tamils that represents 250,000 Tamils in this country. They do not know which person called them. No, I am sorry, the Conservative government has lost their phone number and their coordinates. The Conservatives have not called them. They should be ashamed of themselves.

If the government is going to bring in any bill, any legislation, it has to go to the stakeholders. No stakeholders were consulted.

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that my speech today will stress a fundamentally philosophical tone. Thus, I do not intend to debate the form and the letter of the bill we have before us. My analysis is going to essentially look at background, culture and history. I will still refer to some of the concepts and terms used in the bill, but not more than that.

Although the purpose of the proposed legislative measures is officially to prevent smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system, we can easily see that a number of the elements that are tackled in the bill actually deal with immigration principles in the wider sense. Given the intrusive nature of those measures and the delegation of power that allows decisions to be made arbitrarily, we cannot avoid feeling that this draconian trend is a harbinger of the initiatives that this government is going to introduce in the coming years. This is not the first issue to show this shift to the right.

Although the wording recognizes the social issue underlying the need for such a bill, it seems that it is no more than a pretext for imposing restrictive measures intended to reposition the Canadian government in immigration matters. If we study the bill before us, we can easily see that far too little effort is made to crack down on crime, that is, criminal wrongdoing or human trafficking. Rather it is a roundabout attempt to regulate immigration and the arrival of newcomers in Canada.

My thoughts are thus informed by the historical background of immigration to Canada. I was born in the community of Uashat, an Innu community 700 kilometres north of Quebec City, and so my remarks will also be influenced by that concept.

If the rules the Conservatives want to establish had been in place in centuries past, Canada as we know it today would simply not exist.

The country and the society we live in today are the heirs of the “irregular arrival”—I am using the terms used in the bill—of immigrants to the continent. In short, a good number of Canadians, if not almost all Canadians, are themselves descended from sometimes massive, uncontrolled, disorderly and even self-interested immigration. When I say that I come from Uashat it is important to understand—and this is what history teaches us—that Jacques Cartier very likely landed close to the current location of my community of Uashat. History also tells us that the Innu displayed boundless tolerance and acceptance. They even lavished the new arrivals with care, and the existence of so many Canadians today serves only to support this undeniable fact.

Let us simply imagine that in the 16th century, when Jacques Cartier arrived, new arrivals suffering from advanced malnutrition had been put into preventive detention—so that their files could be reviewed—or that the authorities refused to consider the cases of immigrants suspected of the slightest criminal activity. There was no bureaucracy or those kinds of procedures at the time, but it serves to highlight a number of truths. It is unthinkable, is it not? We also understand that Canada was very likely populated by people who simply wanted to leave Europe or who had every reason to do so.

And yet this is what we are witnessing today: measures that run counter to the generous and open character of Canada, where traditionally we have not had immigration policies designed to circumscribe the admission of newcomers to the land. Traditionally, the Innu had a somewhat broad, somewhat vague vision of the concept of land ownership, which is still true today. So when the newcomers showed up, they simply shared the land, which was huge in any event, as well as the resources. They exhibited unbounded openness. This is the approach that should be taken in measures to regulate immigration to Canada, in keeping with that traditional intent and the interaction that took place several centuries ago.

That said, it is important to consider the social aspect that underlies the enactment of legislation of this nature. My eyes stopped on certain provisions that even provide for an inference of criminal activity or criminal organizations in the group. So there is very little guidance here, to my mind, and without a lengthy preamble, there is no definition of certain concepts in this new bill.

Without a lengthy preamble, there is no definition of certain concepts in this new bill.

Given the coercive nature of the proposed legislation and its excessive delegation of discretionary powers to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, it stifles much of the immigration we see in Canada. The door has been opened too wide. The definition and the discretion are too broad. Everything is subject to interpretation and there is nothing objective about any of it.

When taken as a whole, and in its present form, the bill contravenes Canada’s obligations in relation to human rights and the rights of refugees, and breaks with a Canadian policy, we might even say a Canadian tradition, that is firmly entrenched and that takes a positive view of immigration and the admission of refugees, a century-old tradition.

As I understand the text of the bill, we would be well advised to reassess a number of the proposed parameters for the methods of punishing human trafficking that it contains and transfer authority to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which already has skilled investigators among its members, and allocate it a budget proportionate to the workload associated with managing human trafficking cases within Canada.

The legislation, which has gone off track, should therefore have certain provisions removed, at the very least, and this authority should be transferred to an organization that has already demonstrated its investigative prowess in the past.

The bill clearly will not reduce the extent of human trafficking within Canada; rather, it will bring with it a lot of stigma that will ultimately be borne by all immigrants and legitimate refugees in the country.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Manicouagan for his excellent presentation and philosophical approach.

A number of years ago, when Preston Manning led a previous iteration of the Conservative party, he said that Canada had too many immigrants. A caricature appeared in the Globe and Mail of an aboriginal grand chief with his arms crossed saying, “My words exactly”.

I would say to the member for Manicouagan that this is not an accurate portrayal of Aboriginals today. The generosity shown by Aboriginals to those who first came here still underpins the philosophy of the First Nations and has long been the philosophy of our party, the NDP, on this side of the House.

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. It is true, the community I come from makes it a point of honour to ensure that these traditional philosophies remain the basis for our values and what the people in my riding have access to. So, yes, it is still true in 2011. The Innus from Uashat make it a point of honour to show great openness to others, which also benefits us.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech which, although rather philosophical, was a reminder of just how truly generous aboriginal people are.

Can my colleague explain why, in his opinion, this bill is completely unconstitutional?

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is perhaps the lawyer in me speaking, but upon reading the proposed legislation I came across a number of areas that could be challenged, and I can tell you that right now this bill will certainly cause more problems than it will provide solutions, and that it is well outside the current scope of the legislation.

As a lawyer, it is clear to me that this legislation could be challenged, and I am probably not the only person in Canada to feel this way. From a constitutional standpoint—and again this goes beyond the scope of my current remarks—you can believe me when I say that the constitutionality of this legislation is questionable.

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

Madam Speaker, I have before me the short title of the act, which is "Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act". Yet, my colleague's speech was quite relevant and did not cover smugglers so much as how refugees are accepted in our country. I would have been proud if my colleague had said that this act would enable us to welcome settlers as we did many years ago, but that was not quite the scope of his speech.

I would like my colleague to share with us his reaction to the difference or the gap between the title of the act and how refugees are welcomed.

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

Simply reading the title of the bill or its subtitle, we might consider that someone wants to get tough on crime, but at the end of the day, when we look at it, we can easily see that there is too little focus on smugglers and the problem they represent. Misappropriation takes place and can be seen on the ground, but too much effort is put into repressing and strictly controlling new arrivals to Canada. This can be distorted and deserves a full re-evaluation.

[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?

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard for another fine speech in the House.

I know that her riding, like mine, is quite diverse. I would like to know what she thinks of the immigration system as it is presently managed by the Conservative government. In my riding, we receive many complaints about the fact that it is a poorly managed system and that it penalizes new Canadians. We are now seeing bills along the same lines. I would like to know what she thinks of how this government is managing the immigration system.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for asking me this question as it gives me another opportunity to highlight the concerns of the people of my riding.

Wait times are horrible. People who are refused rarely understand why, and cannot speak to anyone about the reason for the refusal or what steps to take next.

People are unable to have their credentials recognized and it is shameful every time a fellow citizen tells me about this problem. In fact, we seek out skilled people. We go to their country and tell them to come to Canada where they will have an incredible quality of life as well as work. When they get here, after leaving behind everything and trusting our representatives abroad, they are unable to find work and their credentials are not recognized. They are intelligent people who have been trained at no cost to our country, and they are not allowed to work.

These are just a few examples of the frustrations of citizens in my riding as well as in other ridings. I hope we will be able to address this soon.

[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, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

If this bill were simply about smugglers, we would not be having this debate today. Since so many of us are raising our concerns about the treatment of refugees, there is obviously something wrong with the bill and we are not ready to support it.

I would like to add something here. Yesterday, I spoke to a 10-year-old. He told me that we adopted the British criminal law system in Canada because we felt it was more fair and allowed for a person to be considered innocent until proven guilty. We even read a page from his history book. It was wonderful. When we finished reading, I kept myself from saying that it could all change soon. I hope that we will still be proud in the future to read our history books that we are innocent until proven otherwise. This bill, which would lead to detaining people on suspicion or because they arrived by boat, does not convince me that I will still be proud to read a history book with a child in a few years.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Windsor West may begin his intervention but I will have to interrupt him at 6:30.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I guess I will wind down this debate here today. A lot of facts in the bill are still out there in terms of specifics that the minister could do to really ramp up his powers. However, I would like to talk more about the personal aspect of this.

I used to work at the Multicultural Council of Windsor and Essex County and I dealt with not just new Canadians but sometimes people who came through the refugee system. It is important that we talk a little about the people who would be affected because, at the end of the day, some of them may be our neighbours, friends and family. They are not just soulless people looking to sponge off Canada, which is often the perception presented by those who are for this bill indirectly. It is there. I can feel it in the House here that they understand people have a certain advantage to take from Canada versus a contribution.

We must remember that refugees come here because they or their families are under physical threat of rape, torture or a series of different things. They often give up every cent they have for the chance at a better life. Sometimes they do not know the language. Sometimes they do not trust the people in whom they are putting their families' lives but they know it is a better chance for them and their survival at that moment in time than the alternative in their own home country.

We can just imagine that the place where we grew up, where we had our family and where we wanted to have a future becomes too dangerous for us to stay. People decide to risk everything to go to a country like Canada which has been a beacon in many respects for the globe and here we are out to punish them.

I cannot think of a single refugee, be it a man or a woman, who walked into the doors of that agency who would have benefited from jail time. I cannot think of a single instance when that would have been necessary for the people I served. I can only imagine the horror situations that we will face when we lock up families up to a year or even for a few months.

There is mental, physical and emotional grief and stress of not knowing one's future not only on the streets of the country where one may be dependent upon social services and other not for profits that remarkably help people every single day, but if the refugees go through our system they become Canadian citizens, taxpayers and contributors. Many have come through this system and have left a mark on our country.

If these people are deemed not to be valid through our system, I do not want them going back worse. I do not want them going back with more trauma. I am willing to face the consequences that we live in a world that we cannot turn our backs on. There are evil people out there who take advantage of people on a regular basis, but those victims do not need to be turned away. They need to be supported. We are on one planet here.

We seem to forget that. We think it is a free ride to come over here and people will have a great ticket and never contribute. That is not what is happening on the streets and that is not what is happening with our immigration policies. We know that when people come here they often work harder, take less social assistance and often contribute more. They are like anybody else. They have their chances and once they get here they take those chances and put them to good use.

In the youth programs I used to run, we had eight youth who were born in Canada and making bad decisions. We put them with eight youth who were new to Canada and could not figure things out. We mixed them together and our program had over a 90% success rate where they either went back to school or found a job. The reason was that there was a thirst from the new people who were coming here to have a better opportunity. They remembered some of the war-torn countries they came from and the people they left behind who they missed so dearly, but they had to move on with their lives and, in moving on with their lives, they were grateful to a country that had taken them in.

We are a multicultural country, so when we see these issues and the connections to families that are being broken, that is wrong because we have asked people to come here.

We cannot sustain our society without immigration and without refugees coming here. We cannot sustain the lifestyle that we enjoy right now. That is a fact. We cannot afford our pension system. We cannot afford the trading deficits we have. We cannot afford any of those things. Therefore, we need a workable system. The refugees coming through this system are good people who contribute to our society.

To intern people for up to a year is wrong. What would happen if parents and families are broken up and some are released and others are not?

Let us think of refugees as contributing to and not taking away from our society.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I regret to interrupt the hon. member. He will have four minutes when the bill comes back for debate.

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.

[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?

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill deprives some refugees of the right for five years to apply for permanent residence and therefore reunification with their families. This includes children.

I would like to ask the hon. member why he thinks the government is interested in blocking family reunification.

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

Mr. Speaker, it baffles me because Canada used to always welcome families. When families came ashore, we did not ask if it was economical. Is it economical to bring people here to let them work? I do not know what it is. It just does not make sense.

I have an example in my riding where we have, not refugees, but doctors who have come to Cape Breton and are working in our hospitals. They sometimes have to wait two, three or four years before their families can join them. It is ludicrous.

How are we going to get the brightest and the best people or refugees to come to this country if they are going to be split up from their families? It is just not fair. It is really against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for us to have those systems in place.

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

Mr. Speaker, similar to the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, I also have concerns. We have a lot of legal opinion that this bill would violate the charter and be struck down by the courts.

However, we also have, pertinent to the last question, obligations under the right to family, which is enshrined under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. Even when someone has been designated, under this very difficult act, as legally entitled to remain in Canada, they must wait five years before being able to get the legal status to reunite with their family.

I wonder if the hon. member for Sydney—Victoria has any further thoughts on the way the act would actually violate our legal obligations to the right to the family.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is a great friend of Cape Breton and we always welcome her when she comes to visit.

Why do we need to go to the courts to settle these things? Why did the Tabaj family have to go to court? Why cannot we in the House during committee come up with very positive, very good legislation so that we do not need to go to the international courts? Why do we not, as a committee, look at what Australia and other countries are doing with refugees and immigrants to see how we can streamline this and make it more suitable to families.

We hear cases time and time again about how families are being split up. It makes them non-productive. The sooner they integrate into Canadian society as young families the better. They learn our culture and our languages. It is terrible that we are in a situation now where legislation comes from the government that is against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and needs to go to the court system. That is why we have committees here to deal with that and move things forward.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the issue of fairness.

Members will recall that when the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism introduced the bill, he said that the primary purpose of the bill would be to target the smuggler or the profiteer. When the member makes reference to the need to see bills that are fair, when we look at this particular bill, even though the minister talked about getting the profiteer, in reality, it would not do anything for getting the profiteer. The real victim here seems to be the refugees.

I appreciate the story the member made reference to in terms of the Tabaj family that came back to Canada. Here we have refugees who are victims in a country where they come in hopes of getting asylum, and now we have a government, through this legislation, making the family a victim once again.

I wonder if the member would comment as to the fairness of that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have been watching the debate and we have talked about the smuggler and the profiteer. We need to get to the source. We should not wait until they come to our shores. We need to get to them in the countries where they are pulling off these stunts. We should be working with international police systems. That is where we should be going to stop these characters from doing this to these refugees.

[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.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member would comment on why the New Democrats think Canada is still being chosen as a target for these ships.

The Sun Sea was a vessel, if we could call it that, that departed from Thailand, travelled halfway around the world and passed within miles of many other destinations that could have provided safe shelter. Instead, it headed for Canada, not only because it was the safest destination, I would argue it was because the smugglers knew we have a very generous immigration system.

Why would the member want to see Canada exploited for that purpose?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are approaching this issue on the basis that everyone is evil. They believe that people who arrive on our shores looking for a better life for themselves and their families do not deserve to be here and should go to some place else. The Conservatives are saying that Canadians do not want to help them.

To answer the hon. member's question, the current legislation allows for a life sentence for human smuggling. We have existing laws on the books that do that.

I reiterate that this is not a public safety issue. It should be a refugee issue.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's presentation. I heard him say that there is a possible charter violation in this legislation. He made reference to the 2007 Supreme Court of Canada decision in the Charkaoui case where the 120 day mandatory detention was struck down. The Canadian Bar Association and many legal commentators have been unequivocal in their criticism of this legislation because of charter violations.

In view of the comments made by the Supreme Court of Canada and the legal commentators on the case, is it not the case that this is more than a possible charter violation? I would suggest that it is virtually certain the bill runs afoul of the charter.

[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.

[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.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is continuing the rhetoric we keep hearing from the NDP members, proving once again they are really not ready to govern this nation.

Public safety is at the heart of these measures. If Canada cannot maintain the integrity of our borders, if we cannot control who shows up, who wanders our streets or who has access to our health care and benefits, then we have a serious problem. This is why the bill is so important.

Why is the hon. member so quick to dismiss the expectations of law-abiding Canadian families that their government will stand up for them and keep our borders, streets and communities safe?

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

Mr. Speaker, this has nothing to do with the expectations of Canadians. Canadians expect the government to uphold our Constitution, to uphold our law and to respect the international covenants that we have signed.

In regard to this law, we have all kinds of laws and legislation to protect Canadians against smugglers. Smugglers are supposed to get life sentences if they are caught. The government harps constantly that deterrents are the solution to all. If deterrents are the solution to all, we have the deterrents now.

We do not need to jeopardize the men, women and children who are dependent on our civility and on our sense of human dignity.

In terms of ability to govern, I do not see it over there. This opposition is ready to offer the compassion, security and intelligent, practical kinds of laws Canadians want.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's passionate defence of civil liberties and the rights that we have taken on internationally to protect the rights of refugees who come to our shores.

Has she examined the claim by government members that there is some kind of queue for refugees and that these people are jumping the queue? I find that the strangest part of the propaganda for this bill, the notion that there is a queue for refugees. Clearly, in my view, there is not.

I would like to hear the comments of the member for London—Fanshawe.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question is very insightful.

The reality is, and I encounter this from time to time when I meet with my constituents, there is this notion that there is a back door and somehow people come in through that door. The truth is there is no back door. There is no front door. We have been rejecting people. We have been sending them away for years, since the government came into power.

A case in point is this. My community has a significant number of Colombian refugees. They are fleeing a draconian government. They are fleeing death sentences. They were labour leaders and business people. In fact, a family in my community right now faces being deported. Family members were told point blank by the FARC that they would be executed, so they ran to Canada, yet they are going to be deported.

My rationalization for this rejection of virtually all Colombians is that onerous and ridiculous free trade agreement that the government signed between Canada and Colombia, an agreement that never should have been signed.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government is framing this bill as an attack on trafficking, smuggling and public safety.

Could the hon. member tell us who the bill really targets?

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

Mr. Speaker, the bill is targeting the vulnerable, those who are seeking asylum, because the government somehow thinks that it is going to gain points with its base if it appears to be tough on those people who it agreed to bring in to Canada under UN agreements.

In terms of smuggling, as I said in my remarks, in 2007 the committee on the status of women did a study of human smuggling. We have found absolutely that not only were people coming into this country because they were impoverished, but they were being further taken advantage of by the lack of supports here.

There is much to do, and the government refuses to do any of it.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a personal connection to Bill C-4, since my parents are Vietnamese. I know a lot of people who are real refugees and who are commonly known as boat people. I grew up in Brossard, a wonderful, multi-ethnic city where four out of ten people are immigrants, which makes for a dynamic and very diverse multi-ethnic population.

In my riding of Brossard—La Prairie, immigration is important. Twenty-four per cent of the population has ties to immigration. I know from a personal perspective what it is like to be an immigrant, even though I was born in Canada. I know a lot of people and have friends who went through extraordinary ordeals to be able to come to Canada. There are a lot of challenges and difficulties related to that, and that does not just go for the Vietnamese community. There are the Chinese communities, the Jewish communities and the Italian communities. I know it is not easy to be an immigrant, and it is even more difficult to be a refugee.

A large number of families choose to live in Canada for its quality of life. We are an appealing host country, but people do not choose to come here just because they want live here. It is also often because they must flee their country. They do not really have the choice. They decided to leave a country where there is discrimination and where their rights are affected. International law guarantees anyone fleeing persecution the right to go to another country and seek asylum. That is why we have a refugee system. The system exists. The laws are there. It works.

A number of newcomers are fleeing their countries for political or economic reasons. Once again, the Vietnamese community is familiar with that. Starting in 1975, thousands of Vietnamese tried to leave their country by sea to come live in Canada, an open and democratic country that respects human rights.

Canada must offer protection to refugees and to people who fear persecution if they return to their country of origin. So why did the number of asylum seekers in Canada decrease drastically between 2009 and 2010? We are talking about 10,000 fewer people.

The repressive measures in this bill are being criticized by many civil society organizations such as the Canadian Council for Refugees and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Amnesty International is saying that Bill C-4 does not respect Canada's obligations in terms of human rights and the protection of refugees and immigrants.

This government's draconian measures are being rejected by all of the opposition parties and denounced as illegal and punitive by a number of community, religious, union and human rights groups.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the coming into force of the UN Geneva convention relating to the status of refugees. Sixty years. Bill C-4 strikes me as an odd anniversary gift from the Conservatives.

I know that many Canadians want to be tough on smugglers and illegal immigrants, but this bill punishes the refugees and not the criminals. It does not target the smugglers. It does not target the criminals. Individuals and families are the ones being targeted.

I also know that the majority of Canadians do not want to see refugees, including women and children, imprisoned for having sought asylum in Canada. Think about it: a welcoming gift of having children and parents put in prison.

The bill, as it stands, sets out detention rules and a review procedure for the detention of certain types of foreigners. This is yet another policy that divides. Can you imagine a young mother coming to Canada—a place she thinks is free, safe and known the world over to be tolerant and open—only to find herself in prison in Vancouver? Is that really how Canadians wants to welcome political refugees?

The Conservatives are saying that this bill will cut down on human trafficking. But in reality, this bill, as it stands, concentrates too much power in the hands of the Minister of Immigration and penalizes refugees.

The NDP is proposing that the criminals—the traffickers and smugglers—be punished directly.

As currently drafted, Bill C-4 punishes legitimate refugees and the people who try to help them. The proposed process is neither clear nor transparent and, in addition to being arbitrary, it is ultimately quite discriminatory.

Just a few months ago, Parliament passed a new law concerning refugees. What we really need now is better enforcement of that law, not new legislation. We must help equip the RCMP with the tools required to go after criminals. The Conservatives should spend less time on photo ops and more time on proper enforcement of existing legislation dealing with human trafficking. They should also provide the RCMP with the resources they need to do their work effectively, rather than playing political games.

The government wants to satisfy its right wing by using the refugee issue for political purposes. The Conservatives are making this out to be a matter of public safety, but that is not the case. Even though the bill was introduced by the Minister of Public Safety, it primarily concerns the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act . This is about immigration and refugees. Make no mistake. It is not about public safety.

With Bill C-4, there is a total violation of refugees' rights. The Canadian Bar Association, which did not support Bill C-49, the former version of this bill, said that the bill “violates Charter protections against arbitrary detention and prompt review of detention, as well as Canada’s international obligations respecting the treatment of persons seeking protection.”

The NDP cannot support this bill because it could violate section 15 of the charter, which concerns equality before the law. It also creates a second class of refugees who are refused permanent residence. They are also refused a temporary resident permit, the right to apply for permanent residence on any humanitarian grounds and access to travel documents for refugees. This creates inequality before the law simply because the minister has designated these people based on the means of transportation they used to enter the country.

My parents are Vietnamese and I know many people who have fled Vietnam by boat. They crossed the seas and risked their lives for a better future for their children here in Canada. They are not criminals. Under this legislation they could have started their new Canadian life here in jail.

The Conservative government has a blurred understanding of human trafficking, mixing up human trafficking, human smuggling with the irregular movement of refugees. Those are very distinct notions. The government must be aware of that.

Most refugees are themselves fleeing from very difficult and oftentimes very dangerous circumstances, hoping to arrive in Canada, a more tolerant and free country, but they could end up in jail for up to a year. Imagine a mother of three children ending up in jail in Montreal because she has been deemed irregular by the government. The government is once again playing on people's fear. Is it really the way the Conservatives want to rule this country? The opposition cannot support this kind of governance.

The Conservative government is using Bill C-4 as a marketing tool, while on the other hand saying it will protect Canada from human smuggling. What the government really wants is to discourage immigration. It also wants to satisfy its base.

I strongly stand against Bill C-4.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech. Certainly, I acknowledge how Canada has been enriched by the addition of so many immigrants from a wide variety of countries and, certainly, I applaud that, and I welcome him. I also welcome his presence here in the House.

However, there are a couple of things that have come out in the last two speeches that I think need to be corrected on the record. There is an implication that somehow Canada is losing its spot in the world as a compassionate country.

I need to remind all hon. members of the action of our Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which actually increased our refugee numbers by 2,500 per year. We are now well over 14,000 per year, the highest per capita in the world. Obviously, all of us would like to do more and we are, as I said, increasing by 2,500 per year.

However, we need to remind ourselves that this bill is an effort to bring balance and fairness into the system.

I would just ask my colleague, is it not fair that border officials and our security officials should have the tools to determine whether, in fact, the persons who are seeking asylum is who they say they are and whether or not they are simply facing persecution or, in some cases, possibly actually fleeing prosecution?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let us not forget, here in Canada, when we talk about the respect for refugees and having refugees coming to Canada, Amnesty International Canada says that Bill C-4 falls far short of Canada's international human rights and refugee protection obligations, and will result in a serious violation of the rights of refugees and immigrants.

We are saying, yes, we need to have stricter application of the laws, but they already exist. We need to also support the RCMP, giving them the tools to apply the laws, but not to create a new bill that would actually affect the rights of refugees.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

There will be two and a half minutes left for questions and comments after question period, but now we will move on to statements by members.

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.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

When we were debating this before statements by members, the hon. member for Brossard—La Prairie had two and a half minutes left for questions and comments.

I will recognize the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his election. I suspect he is going to have a long and very productive career as a member of Parliament representing his riding.

The member's parents immigrated to this country and so did I. We want to make sure that all people who seek refuge or opportunities in Canada have an equal and fair opportunity to help build the mosaic of this country that we love so much.

Could he please elaborate ever so slightly on some of the pitfalls of Bill C-4 and where some legitimate refugees may not ever have that opportunity to call Canada home?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his question and for his wise guidance since I came to this House.

The effect for refugees is humongous. Refugees come to Canada in order to seek a new life. They want to flee from persecution. When they come here we put them in a category where they almost have to go to jail. That is how we welcome those refugees. It is not acceptable. It goes against what Canada stands for in terms of opening the door to people who want to come here.

We have seen in the past how immigrants have helped Canada move forward. My parents came from Vietnam. I have friends and family members who have come to Canada by boat. They would be directly attacked by this bill. It really goes against what Canada stands for.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, since Confederation and leading up to it, Canada has served as a land of opportunity and hope for generations of immigrants who, from every corner of the globe, seek a better life for themselves and have even greater aspirations for their children.

Together, new Canadians and long-time citizens have worked co-operatively to build communities and to build a country that is second to none, and is a model for the world. Canada's distinction, uniqueness, strength and success are drawn in part from the cultural wealth arising from the diversity of all of its citizens.

It is from that strength we have built a country that is indeed immeasurably greater than any particular region, province, culture or group within it. Just as the measure of a person is how he or she treats others around him or her, stranger or not, fundamentally the measure of a country is how it deals with those men and women who seek refuge from poverty and violence, persecution and oppression, who arrive on its shores.

As parliamentarians it falls on us to make the rules that determine how these men, women and children are received. As a parliamentarian, it does well to be reminded that there are episodes in our past where we approached those seeking refuge in a manner that was misguided and wrong.

Incidents like the Komagata Maru in 1914 and the SS St. Louis during the Second World War resulted in refugees being forced to return to an almost certain persecution, and in far too many cases, death. Generations before them, we dealt poorly with the Chinese, imposing a head tax and then an outright ban on immigration, which was only lifted in 1947.

It is incumbent upon us to not make the same mistakes that generations of lawmakers before us made. That is why the legislation before us demands serious reconsideration.

The bill, despite its stated intention to cut down on human smugglers, fails to do so, and instead targets legitimate refugee claimants. The mechanism exists already under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to penalize an individual found to be engaged in human smuggling. As it stands, a human smuggler faces up to $1 million in fines and a maximum of life imprisonment for smuggling more than 10 people into Canada. Yet earlier this week, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism characterized the bill as a disincentive for human smugglers. I fail to see how the bill accomplishes that goal if the prospect of life imprisonment and a $1 million fine does not.

By granting the Minister of Public Safety the all-too-broad discretion to designate the arrival of a certain group of refugees as a “human smuggling event” or an irregular arrival subject to a mandatory one year detention, the government opens up any arrival of two refugees or more to be a potential crisis.

Once again, experts decry the move toward mandatory detention as not only ineffective, but also likely illegal. The government insists that it requires the time to determine the identity and admissibility and investigate illegal activity. However, existing statutes provide ample time for immigration officials to make these determinations.

Yet again this is an example of a government that refuses to deal with the complexities of a given situation, of a government that refuses to see an issue any other way than in black or white. Much like its misguided mandatory minimum provisions in the omnibus justice bill, it is attempting to force through the House, the solution the government has arrived at is to detain and then incarcerate that which it cannot understand.

Further to mandatory detention, the bill will restrict designated refugee claimants from making an appeal on humanitarian or compassionate grounds for five years, or from appealing to the new refugee appeal division. This legislation will surely be challenged.

The appeal process exists for a reason. Humanitarian and compassionate applications are meant to catch those cases that fall through the cracks of our legal system.

Yet if a refugee claim is found to be legitimate, the government still intends to produce more hoops to jump through, including a provision that bans a refugee from applying for permanent residency for five years after arriving.

Not only is this provision a clear violation of the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees as it refuses the right to assimilation and naturalization, but it is the cruel act of a government saying to someone who has already endured significant hardship, “You can stay and work to support yourself and your family and pay taxes and contribute to society, but at any moment we can decide to send you home if we feel like it. Also, by the way, you cannot leave, or you have to stay out”.

That does not perpetuate loyalty; it perpetuates resentment. This is from the same government that cut $53 million in funding to immigration settlement services across Ontario just before Christmas last year.

Guelph is a gateway community in Canada and 21% of its residents consider themselves immigrants.

Last week I attended the annual general meeting of the Guelph settlement services centre. This organization provides numerous programs to facilitate speedy integration of new immigrants into our community. Fifteen per cent of its budget was needlessly cut by a government that really does not understand the new face of Canada.

This year we watched as 492 Sri Lankan Tamil refugee claimants landed off our west coast. Barely a year before that, Canadians watched as a civil war tore apart that country. We watched incidents of terrorism and saw the squalor of poverty brought on by massive instability. Some 492 men, women and children packed themselves into a boat that was little more than a floating cargo hold and set out across the Pacific Ocean. There was little better about their accommodations for those months on the boat than the country they left for a better life. There was illness and death, but they came anyway.

Many of those refugees are still in detention, but there is no doubt that even the past year in prison here in Canada has been better than the wreckage of Sri Lanka. If members do not believe me, I would refer them to the comments of the Minister of Public Safety yesterday when he spoke during the debate on the justice omnibus bill. The minister said that often foreign prisoners would much prefer incarceration in Canadian jails than in their home countries, and by extension, would prefer detention in Canada to any refugee camp in the world. Really there is no disincentive in the bill for those who are seeking refuge here in Canada and even less for the real criminals in this situation, the human smugglers.

In the face of an uncertain world with increasing costs of food causing global unrest and climate change creating even larger displacements of people from African and other countries, refugee claims will only increase. Already we need measures much more creative than what is in the bill. Instead of trying to satisfy a small though vocal base by ideological legislation that looks tough but accomplishes nothing, Canada needs to begin looking to bigger and longer term solutions. We need to engage internationally in programs to deal with immigration and refugees.

Human smuggling is a scourge that will only get worse if we do not actually combat human smugglers instead of penalizing refugees. As a maritime country, we are a natural destination for boatloads of displaced immigrants. Efforts at the UN with maritime and non-maritime countries will need to be undertaken to ensure that all nations assume their responsibility to help refugee claimants.

Just as we need to be smarter on crime, we especially need to be smarter on immigration. Canada is a beacon of light for people around the world. We cannot shut our doors and turn our backs on men and women, families, seeking a better life. But we also cannot allow criminals to take advantage of the system and make money off of refugees who are only looking to escape persecution, violence and oppression.

Bill C-4 is not the right answer to what will be a defining issue for many years to come.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, looking at this bill, which attempts to legislate against smugglers and human traffickers, we see potential for some worthwhile legislation against this type of trafficking. However, this bill is far from what it claims to be. It is a direct attack against this category of refugees who arrive in Canada seeking asylum. I would like the hon. member to comment on the fact that there are no real measures in this bill that truly address human trafficking.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. There are already penalties for human smugglers; there is a $1 million fine and up to life imprisonment. What do the Conservatives do? They demonize and vilify people who are trying to escape circumstances which are a direct threat to their health, safety and their very lives.

As I said, those people may be willing to spend a year in detention rather than face those circumstances. In fact this legislation is not really meant to deter people from coming here. It is meant to provide cosmetic window dressing to the Conservatives' base so that Canadians and particularly the Conservatives' base think the government is doing something about this problem.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on a very good speech. I have a couple of questions.

First, the government brought in Bill C-11 about a year and a half ago. The features of that legislation have not yet been fully implemented. The point of that legislation was to reduce the refugee backlog. I would ask the member why he thinks the government is not waiting to see if it is successful before introducing this bill.

Second, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism said in the House that there are people overseas who believe that if they come to Canada as refugees they will get a monthly income forever. That is obviously false. It is a misconception.

In a world where no information is perfect, I would ask the member what he thinks leads the minister to believe that these people who misinterpret or get false information will actually understand the provisions of the bill. They will certainly not hear about the tough new rules from the smugglers. How will these people know about these tough new provisions?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in answer to the first question, the fact is the government refuses to apply the proper resources to deal with immigration matters and frankly to deal with refugee claims.

Up to a million people are trying to get into this country. The number was about 700,000 several years ago. The government is clearly not interested in helping immigrants get to this country.

In answer to the second question, it is like the government's crime bill. Those who are about to commit an offence do not look at the Criminal Code because they think they might have to spend some time in jail if they commit a crime. People do not think that way.

Similarly, people who are trying to escape life-threatening circumstances do not look at our immigration laws to see how they will be treated when they get here. They will escape to a country that is considered to have a welcoming and inviting reputation, one that presents them with a future for themselves and their children.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the point is the Supreme Court struck down a security certificate's detention aspect because it was unjust. Here is the government proposing another piece of legislation that does very similar things.

Does the member not believe that would be justification for striking it down?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree with the premise of the question. It is in violation of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is in violation of the Supreme Court decision. It is in violation of the United Nations declaration on the rights of refugees.

I have no doubt that this legislation will be successfully challenged once it is passed by the government.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-4, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act. Unfortunately, the title is an unworthy message for the government to convey to the rest of the world.

My riding of Parkdale--High Park is in downtown Toronto. It is a very mixed income community. For many newcomers to Canada it is a first stopping-off point. Over the years, waves of immigrants have put down roots and created institutions in our community.

Earlier today, I spoke about the 100th anniversary of the Knesseth Israel Shul in my riding. It is the oldest original synagogue in Toronto that is still in use today. Many of the original congregants of this shul came to Canada to escape the persecution that the Jewish community was facing in Europe and other parts of the world, while others came for economic reasons. In many cases, they came with little more than the ability to work hard, their ingenuity and their creativity. Although small, this magnificent institution is so beautiful. It adds glimmer to the heart of a community that was formed 100 years ago in our neighbourhood in the Junction. That is typical of many newcomer communities in Canada.

My community is home to many who have fled Soviet bloc countries: Poles, Ukrainians, people from a variety of backgrounds. We have many Vietnamese, Tamils, Latin Americans, and most recently, Tibetans. We now have the largest Tibetan community in Canada. Also, many of the Roma from Hungary are coming to our community. A number of these community members came here as refugees because they feared for their safety and well-being in their countries of origin.

For example, the repression of Tibetans is well known. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is an honorary Canadian citizen and has come to this Parliament. We were all thrilled to meet with him. He so elegantly and generously described the struggle of Tibetans not only in modern day Tibet as it presently exists within China but also in refugee camps in India and Nepal.

Many people around the world are living with instability, war or repression. Refugees are seeking shelter from these conditions.

As part of out citizenry in the international community, Canada has signed international agreements to receive not all refugees, but our share of refugees, and to roll up our sleeves and contribute with the rest of the world to helping those in need.

In fact, I would argue that many other countries do so much more. Some of the poorest countries in the world, countries in Africa for example, have some of the largest numbers of refugees who have fled wars, famine or other kinds of hardships from nearby countries.

Canada's history is one of living up to the international treaties we have signed, as well as living up to our responsibility as a strong member of the international community.

My colleague from the Montreal area spoke earlier about how his family came to Canada as Vietnamese refugees.

We have a large Vietnamese community in Toronto, people who fled with not much more than what they could carry. They have made an enormous contribution to our country.

Again, I look at my own community and the institutions people have built and the tremendous creativity of people, the jobs they have created, the businesses they have opened, the art they have created, and what they offer to our country.

It is a wrong notion that somehow Canadians are paying something when refugees come here. I think we gain a tremendous amount. Canada is built on waves of immigrants, but many refugees as well, and they have made an enormously valuable contribution to our country.

When it comes to this bill, I have to ask myself why we would want to target or demonize refugees. That is what the bill is doing. It is somehow tarnishing refugees and putting all of them under suspicion as potential smugglers and potential abusers of Canada's immigration system.

The bill claims it would crack down on human smuggling, but as the bill currently stands, it concentrates too much power in the hands of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and unfairly penalizes refugees. It sets up different tiers of status for refugees.

Our party would rather deal with criminals, the people who are abusing the system, the people who are indeed trafficking or smuggling. Yes, let us deal with them through our judicial system. However, as it stands, this bill is more likely to hurt legitimate refugees and the people who are trying to help them, people who are seeking safety and solace here in Canada.

As many of my colleagues have described, this process is unclear. It is arbitrary and ultimately very discriminatory. We have to ask ourselves why this bill is even before us when we just approved a refugee law a few months ago. What we need now is full implementation and better enforcement of that law.

The government should be less focused on photo ops and demonizing people who come here seeking legitimate refugee status and more focused on enforcing the laws against human smuggling that we already have and giving the RCMP, who are tasked with this job, the resources they need to get the job done.

Our concern is that the bill is more about politics, very divisive and dangerous politics, and less about ensuring an effective and fair refugee and immigration system.

We are not just saying that. We are backed up by the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Bar Association, an expert panel at the Centre for Refugee Studies. Those who are experts in international law, in our charter rights here in Canada and in international covenants share our deep concern about the flaws of the bill and the damage it could do certainly to our country's reputation, but much more importantly to individual lives. We are talking about people who are at their most desperate, who are fleeing for their lives.

We think this is an unnecessary bill, a bad bill, a bill that is going to tarnish Canada's reputation and endanger those who need shelter most.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I support the emphasis the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park is placing on the importance of refugees here in Canada.

I have had the privilege of working in her area as a law student and had the great opportunity to understand some of the communities that she represents.

In terms of refugees, I am given to understand that Canada receives a higher proportion of refugees than any other country in the world in terms of our population. People around the world put great stock in our refugee policy. In fact, I was just in Iraq and met people who were concerned about coming to Canada. It is only because we can protect the integrity of our refugee system that we can open our doors as we do. I ask the member to respond to that.

Without the abuses that have happened, does she understand that we can therefore protect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of true refugees who would come to our shores?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what abuses the member is talking about, but I do know that if we look at some of the poorest countries in the world, their number of refugees is far greater than that of Canada. While we may have a smaller population, we certainly have the resources and land mass to be able to accommodate refugees.

I would ask the member, in response to his question, for someone who understands my community and understands the importance of the refugee and immigration system, how can he justify the mandatory detention of children? How can he justify violating international treaties with the bill? These are treaties that we have signed onto and are part of our international commitment.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I share many of the concerns of this flawed piece of legislation with the member for Parkdale—High Park.

Earlier in the debate, the member for Toronto Centre suggested that, given the concerns that have been expressed by the Canadian Bar Association, the former chair of the Immigration Refugee Board, and many other legal commentators on this matter, it would be appropriate to have the bill referenced to the Supreme Court of Canada.

I wonder if the member for Parkdale—High Park and her party would support that suggestion from the Liberal Party.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in analyzing the bill I look to the expertise of those who work in the field of immigration and refugee law: the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Centre for Refugee Studies. All of these organizations have said that the bill is draconian, that it could violate the charter, that it could violate our international commitments, and it is legislation that is not needed given the recent adoption of the refugee bill earlier this year.

I think it would be of great value to the House to have opinion from outside experts to analyze whether this bill would likely be a contravention to the laws that govern our land and international treaties that we have signed.

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

Mr. Speaker, of the 492 men, women and children who came to Canada on the MV Sun Sea, a significant number were indeed children. Ten of those children came to live in London, Ontario. They are sponsored and supported by the Tamil community there. Last Christmas they put on a concert with singing, music, and a nativity scene. Some of them were as young as two and a half years old.

I come back to the member. Why on earth would we ever support a bill that would allow for the incarceration of children?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what the Conservatives have against children.

I think it goes down to our essential humanity. If we support families and the value of refugee processes, then we have to understand that these are very draconian measures that could be very harmful to children.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 has a very clear short title: Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act. That sounds right, pertinent and unequivocal. We expect a well thought-out bill that would help our law enforcement agencies catch criminals who are involved in human trafficking, a very serious crime that is punishable by life in prison.

Except for in this title, there is no other mention of smugglers. They vanish just as quickly as they came. There is not another word about them, and the emphasis shifts immediately to refugees, the very victims of the smugglers mentioned in the title. And how are these refugees treated in this bill? They are described as potential terrorists, fleeing criminals or people abusing Canada's goodwill and the hospitality of its institutions.

In fact, the bill seems to be suggesting to Canadians that the current refugee processing legislation is naive. It needs to be updated and reflect the current focus on international terrorism. We quickly realize that the real short title of this bill is something along the lines of “the arbitrary radicalization of the legal treatment of refugees act”.

We should not think that we do not already have a law that targets smugglers. This phenomenon was not discovered last week. This criminal act is already punishable by a very severe sentence, the most severe sentence in fact: life in prison.

Why does this bill focus on refugees? Why does it want to make them guilty of other people's crimes?

What is a refugee? Must I remind the House? From the outset, we are talking about almost unbearable situations. We are talking about men, women and children who have only one simple hope left. They have just spent several weeks at sea in unsanitary conditions. They are put on unsafe boats with no guarantee of safety. When they finally reach land, they often do not have passports or any money. They have basically been denied their human dignity and who has done this? The smugglers that this bill supposedly wants to bring to justice. However, these smugglers cannot be found. They are still abroad where they continue to engage in illegal practices. In return for large amounts of money, these smugglers lead less fortunate, persecuted people who do not feel safe in their own country to believe that they will have a better life in a developed country. Those people are victims and nothing more. They are in the most vulnerable state possible.

What is the Conservative government proposing we do to lighten the load for these victims whose courage and determination brought them to Canada? The Conservatives are proposing that we persecute them even further by treating them like criminals and looking for terrorists among children. Who will be given the right to do this? A government institution that is well-equipped with experts? The RCMP? No. To our great surprise, it is the Minister of Immigration who would have this right. I would like to ask why.

Why would a minister be granted such power? It is completely unjustified. It would be a backward move, a legal anomaly that would be fundamentally unCanadian. In this country, we do not place such a heavy responsibility on the shoulders of a minister.

From a strictly legal point of view, this could violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bill C-4 could be contrary to section 9 of the charter, which pertains to arbitrary detention. By creating two categories of refugees, Bill C-4 could violate section 15 of the Charter, which pertains to equality before the law. The NDP is of the opinion that Canadians do not feel there is any justification for questioning such things. The charter is a building block of our state. If we circumvent the charter, we are circumventing democracy.

If I may, I would like to give an example to show just how weak the government's argument in favour of Bill C-4 is. I hope I have the Conservatives' attention. I repeat, the NDP takes its legislative responsibilities very seriously, especially when it comes to the safety of Canadians. That is our duty. Consider the case of a refugee who has been detained as a designated foreign national under Bill C-4, but decides to exercise his rights and take the government to court over these violations of his basic charter rights. It must be understood that this person was incarcerated without any valid reason whatsoever. Well, there is a provision, in section 1, that allows reasonable limits on Canada's basic rights and freedoms. That said, the burden of proof lies with the government, which must prove that a rule of law that it is adopting can override the charter.

Such exceptions are justifiable only within reasonable and demonstrable limits in the context of a free and democratic society. As proof, in R. v. Oakes in 1986, a judge described very clearly what has since become known as the Oakes test, to determine whether such limitations on basic rights are justifiable in the context of a free and democratic society.

How does the Conservative government plan to prove that 12-month, arbitrary detentions imposed by a ministerial decision will satisfy those criteria? I am referring to the minimal impairment criteria. Will the new legislation the government wants to use to achieve its objective repudiate a charter right in the smallest possible way? Will the limitations on basic rights be proportional to the objective of this new legislation? No. From a legal perspective, that is all untenable. This government cannot justify limiting basic rights like that.

The problem lies in the fact that the smugglers are the real criminals in this matter. And where are they? Are they in the makeshift boats that land on our shores? Do they accompany their victims? No, they are long gone and untouchable. And the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism cannot do anything about it, regardless of the powers he gives himself.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is the only organization capable of cracking down on human smugglers. The RCMP's expertise is a precious and available resource. Its legal role has already been established and there is no risk of abuse. The NDP believes that our police force should be provided with the resources required to go after these criminals. The NDP does not understand what future immigration ministers would accomplish by incarcerating these refugees.

There is no justification for this bill. It does nothing to improve the security of Canada and its population. It punishes people who need us. And, above all, it does not provide the RCMP with the necessary resources and wastes its expertise. The measures are arbitrary. Yes, the problem does need to be resolved. We must pass legislation against smugglers. Unfortunately, the Conservative government is taking the wrong approach. It is proposing to indiscriminately put all refugees through the wringer. It is trying to kill a fly with sledgehammer. What criteria will be used to determine who is a designated foreign national? Why is the bill not clear in this regard? It is unacceptable to introduce such vague legislation.

Canada was not built by giving such absolute discretion to a minister. We realistically expect that laws be rational and predictable. That is not at all the case with Bill C-4, and I am disappointed.

In closing, who are the biggest abusers of the immigration system? It is the Conservatives. Taking their cue from a vague feeling of xenophobia, they are claiming to deal with a scourge, yet they are doing nothing more than playing politics, and rather shamelessly at that. They are trying to appropriate abusive powers, nothing less. They are trying to tarnish Canada's good name. That is unwarranted. Our country is a symbol of justice throughout the world. For millions of people living precariously, Canada is a symbol of hope and humanity.

Does the Conservative government, which incessantly proclaims its patriotism, truly want to diminish our greatest achievement just for a shameful power grab? There are not many countries like Canada, and it is our duty to maintain its generosity, which is legendary and the reason why Canada is held in high regard throughout the world. More powerful nations would give anything for such an illustrious reputation.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to my colleague across the way. We do take our duty as legislators very seriously. As a matter of fact, during the last campaign we let Canadians know exactly what our intentions were with regard to this type of legislation.

Not only that, but the response I have received is that we want to maintain Canada's great reputation as a country that takes in more refugees than any other developed country and provides for them every opportunity.

I have heard from members opposite that the asylum seekers are detained for 12 months before receiving a trial, but I would like to point out that those who are detained have access to legal counsel throughout the process, something that does not occur in every country in the world. As soon as these asylum seekers are determined to be refugees, they are released. If the minister thinks there is a humanitarian concern; for example, people with children or an illness, he has the discretion to make exceptions.

Therefore, can the member opposite explain why the opposition is consistently ignoring these facts when talking about the minister and the level of his discretion within the bill?

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

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

When refugees arrive in Canada without papers or anything else because they have fled a war-torn country or an absolutely horrific situation, we cannot then put them in preventive detention and tell them that they have the right to legal counsel. Imagine. These people are completely impoverished and have no way of defending themselves against this type of illegal action.

The government likes to brag about welcoming refugees, so why is it that the Canadian Council for Refugees is opposed to this bill? Why are Amnesty International and the Canadian Bar Association both saying the same thing: that this makes no sense?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, listened to a number of presentations this morning. I have a question for the member as well.

I will quickly set the question up in terms of content. In the 40th Parliament, we introduced this bill, almost identical to the way the bill is today. The opposition parties were very clear that they would not support this at second reading and would not allow it to go to committee so we could have had the exact discussions that the member spoke about where some recommendations from them could have been brought forward.

We have reintroduced pretty much the same bill. I am listening to all these speeches. I am hearing opposition members complain about what the government is trying to do, even though most Canadians support what we are trying to accomplish. I hear nothing in the way of recommendations or suggestions as to how they would make the bill stronger. I would ask them to please give me one or two suggestions.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I said in my speech that it is important to try and do something about human trafficking. The bill, as it stands, only serves to punish refugees who arrive here under the worst possible conditions. If the bill at least contained something about human trafficking and smuggling, of course we could get on board and see what was there. But right now I see absolutely nothing worthwhile in this bill.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her very relevant comments. Why does she think that the government has decided to go after refugees instead of focusing on criminals?

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the current context, it is clearly simpler and easier to pretend to crack down on human trafficking by targeting the most vulnerable people, who have very little means to defend themselves and assert their rights.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-4. However, I wish it were a bill that would enhance our place and our policies as a forward-looking country. Instead, the bill is the direct opposite. It would move our policies and our place in the world backward, showing a kind of intolerance that we might have seen half a century ago.

The bill is a policy that is built on fear, intolerance, ideology and an avoidance of the serious facts. Laws should be improved, in my view, based on facts and on knowledge of what works.

Bill C-4 is a bill that almost gives the minister dictatorial powers. I will name three particular areas. I am especially concerned about that particular minister.

The bill would authorize the minister 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. It would authorize an officer or the minister to refuse to consider an application for permanent residence. It would 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.

I outline those points just to show how the bill would basically give the minister almost dictatorial powers. He or she would have a lot of say and a lot of authority over the lives of people who perhaps are thinking of moving to the promised land.

It is a bill that almost certainly, I believe, will be found to violate our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

My colleague, the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, summed it up best. I will restate for the record his comments because they cut to the heart of the serious issues in the bill. The member for Lac-Saint-Louis stated:

It [the bill] creates two classes of refugees. One class would be the regular refugee stream. The second class would be denoted by the minister as designated arrivals, which, upon being designated accordingly, would be treated differently. They could be held in detention for up to 12 months.

What is really happening is that the government is categorizing refugees. It is creating classes of refugees for different treatment based on, if we really look at it and read between the lines, the mode of transport the refugee claimants have used to get here. Refugees who come by plane typically would not come in big groups and would not receive the ministerial designation of designated foreign nationals and would not receive the different treatment that is being reserved for designated foreign nationals in this bill.

He concluded by saying:

Refugees who come in groups who will be designated as designated foreign nationals under the act typically will come by ship in squalid conditions. If they come by plane, they are not considered to be designated foreign nationals under the law.

I think that sums up one of the greatest concerns in the bill.

The long and short of the bill is that, in many cases, Bill C-4 would make victims of the very people that Canada traditionally and historically has tried to help. I find it amazing that the government, which is always talking about the protection of victims, is, in this instance, using ministerial authority and attacking the very victims themselves through Bill C-4. It goes against the kind of traditions and history we have as a country. We are losing our respect around the world by the actions of the bill and the government almost on a daily basis.

For a government that often goes to great lengths to talk about victims, then Bill C-4 exploits victims who are so often victims as a result of human smugglers themselves.

The people who get on these ships get fed a line in their home country. They may be fleeing persecution or war. They are, as I said, fed a line, told a story. They sometimes very innocently get involved and believe they are going to a welcoming country because Canada traditionally was a welcoming country until some of the activities of the current government.

We are a country that is historically seen as a country with the balance of law, protection of rights and freedoms, not a country that makes victims of people who are fleeing persecution or war, or being abused in other ways, but that is what the bill could possibly do. The bill could in fact leave those who come here further exploited by a law and actions perpetuated by the government itself.

Canada has a long deserved reputation as a safe haven for those so deserving of a haven in the world. We are a country of immigrants and a country, to a certain extent, of refugees. The ancestors of many of us in the House came from foreign lands. Mine came from England and Scotland. They came to this country and built a great country that was open to all.

In attempting to deal with a small criminal element, the federal government should be extremely careful and must take the necessary time to ensure that legislation, such as Bill C-4, accomplishes what it intends while respecting both our international obligations and domestic laws. I believe the bill seriously fails to do that.

As the parliamentary secretary said a moment ago, the bill was introduced in the last Parliament. It was opposed in the last Parliament by the opposition and opposed strenuously. We would think that a reasonable government would have taken that as a message that there were some problems with the bill, would have taken it back and met with other groups across the country and tried to change it and recognize some of the concerns. We cannot throw out everything the opposition says. We have some reasoned opinion too, and the government should have listened to that, been concerned about it and changed the bill accordingly.

In response to the bill, the Liberal Party has raised a number of concerns that we believe need to be addressed. My colleague, the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, outlined those concerns and they are on the record. We are committed as a party to finding pragmatic and evidence-based solutions to human smuggling. We reject this draconian and backward piece of legislation that targets legitimate refugee claimants and not the real criminals, the human smugglers themselves.

As I said earlier, the bill is really nothing more than crass fearmongering and we cannot support the bill as currently constituted.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the record. I appreciate the fact that the member is making his presentation and speech on how he feels about Bill C-4 but he does need to ensure he is delivering what is factually in the bill.

He indicated that it would create two streams of refugees. In fact, that is not the case. The individuals who are on these ships are not refugees. They are not refugees until they have actually gone through the process and have either qualified or not qualified through the process. Therefore, in no way, shape or form are there two sets of refugees based on the bill. It is a very factual bill and the member needs to ensure he is correct on it.

I do want to ask him one question. He indicated that the government was not prepared to listen in the 40th Parliament with respect to the bill. I would say to him that if he looks at Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, and looks at Bill C-35, the crooked consultant act, he will find that we listened to all the parties on the opposite side of the House and came back to the House with both those bills passed unanimously.

Why will he not try to help us get the bill passed at second reading and get it into committee so we can talk about it?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary can try to allege in the detail certain things, but the fact is the net result at the end of the day, because of the actions in the bill, is there will be two classes of refugees.

As I have said in my remarks, the Liberal Party believes very seriously that there has to be a serious discussion on the bill. The bill is based on fearmongering, mainly, and the reaction to what happened in one ship and needs to be more seriously thought out before it becomes law.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question regarding his comments about the fact that the bill would create two classes of refugees.

What does the member believe the effect would be on refugees and also on Canada's image around the world?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the impact or effect on refugees is very clear. As I outlined in my speech, with one class of refugees, the bill, as sponsored by the Government of Canada, would be made victims of the very people that Canada has traditionally welcomed as a safe haven.

It is kind of guided on the possibility that we would be going after human smugglers. That is not necessarily so. The human smugglers may be getting off the hook, but the people who have been encouraged either to get on a boat or whatever by these human smugglers and abused in that way, in terms of their financial and human resources, are themselves, rather than us helping them as a country, going to be made the victims. That is the bottom line. That is the long and the short of it.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, in his presentation, the member mentioned that some of the people on these ships are fleeing prosecution.

Is Canada the destination and is Canada a country that should providing safe haven for those people fleeing prosecution in their country? Is that the kind of immigration we want to establish?

The member said that people on these ships are fleeing prosecution. Is Canada, in his mind, supposed to be the kind of country that is providing a safe haven for criminals and criminal organizations trying to escape justice in their own countries?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I would think that Hansard would have that word correct. It is really “persecution”. However, with my Island accent, it might have sounded different for the member for Yukon, who is so far away up there in the chamber.

Certainly we want to help people who are fleeing persecution or wars in other countries. That has been our tradition. We have always been an open haven and a welcoming country and operated on good laws. This, as I said in my remarks, would move us back to a different time, to a less open haven as a country—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have before us a bill that is rather questionable in several respects. It is also a bill that, unfortunately, demonstrates some very worrying trends we see in this government.

This bill was criticized in its previous, but similar, incarnation by a number of experts and organizations for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons that often came up was the fact that this bill does not respect our international obligations. Amnesty International is now saying that Bill C-4 does not respect Canada's obligations in terms of human rights and refugee protection, and that it would lead to serious violations of the rights of refugees and migrants.

This illustrates some trends. It is very clear that this government is not always strong when it comes to respecting its international obligations and commitments. Take, for example, the Kyoto protocol or the treatment of Omar Khadr, to name just two. Then we wonder why Canada's reputation is suffering in the world. These issues play a big part in that.

In this particular case, both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees are being violated. And we are not the only ones saying that. Experts such as the Canadian Bar Association agree. I would like to read a quote from a Canadian Bar Association report about Bill C-49 that also applies to Bill C-4:

The denial of detention reviews breaches the section 9 and section 10 Charter protections against arbitrary detention and right to prompt review of detention. The provisions for mandatory unreviewable detention and for denial of access to permanent resident status or travel documents conflict with Canada’s obligations [and I would like to emphasize “Canada's obligations”] under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Association goes even further, and I quote:

The Bill C-49 mandatory detention provisions (and other punitive measures) would also violate Article 31 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The Convention, ratified by Canada and more than 180 countries, sets out obligations for the treatment of refugees seeking protection within their borders. Article 31 prohibits the imposition of penalties against refugees on account of their illegal entry or presence without authorization.

Yet that is exactly what this bill would do.

We know that this government does not always have the utmost respect for experts, but I think it is important to continue quoting the experts from the Canadian Bar Association. They also point out that this bill violates Article 28 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees concerning the right to a travel document.

Finally, and to finish quoting this report, the bill also violates the obligation under Article 34 of the United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees, which states, “The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees. They shall in particular make every effort to expedite naturalization proceedings and to reduce as far as possible the charges and costs of such proceedings”, and the duration of such proceedings.

What is more, in this bill we see the government's very typical tendency to arbitrariness. The minister gives himself power, as my hon. colleague was saying earlier, that is arbitrary and lacks transparency. The proposed detentions are essentially arbitrary detentions.

The third tendency we see in this bill is the refusal to listen to expert opinion. I believe there are 80 different agencies that had something to say about the previous bill, which was identical to this one. Every one of them, in one way or another, indicated their dissatisfaction, their problems and their serious concerns with the bill, but the government is not taking that into consideration.

One last problem with this bill is the fact that it claims to be about punishing smugglers. It does not punish smugglers; it punishes refugees. It creates two categories of refugees because a refugee arriving by plane is not the same as a refugee arriving by boat.

We know that people who fish have developed nets with which they can catch tuna and let dolphins go free. In this bill, we get the impression that if the smugglers are the dolphins and the refugees are the tuna in this analogy, then the government is casting a large net to catch refugees and let the smugglers go free.

From the simple standpoint of respecting international conventions—let alone the other problems with this bill—this legislative measure is a disaster. Canada's image has suffered greatly over the past few years and this is certainly not going to help. Far from it.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly understand that under parliamentary procedure and the fact that we have three parties in the House of Commons we will not to see eye to eye on every issue, but when members speak to an issue, it should be from the perspective of clarity. I am hearing continuously both from the member and those who have spoken before her this image they want to portray that there are two streams of refugees. She is making assumptions that are completely unjustified.

The fact is that individuals who come on those ships are not refugees. They do not land and immediately have refugee status. They must go through a process like every other individual who lands in this country and claims refugee status has to go through.

People who have been declared refugees by the United Nations, who are not in this country but are waiting in other countries, deserve and have earned the right for a new life. We offer that in Canada. Those are the people who come here to live and lead a better life.

Why do the member and her party continue to try to misinterpret what the bill means? Please clarify for me why she misinterprets what the bill means?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting to note that the answers given by my colleague across the floor all presume that these are not legitimate refugees, but rather bogus refugees. The organization Rethink Refugees reminds us that under international law, arriving by boat is completely legal. Individuals cannot be charged simply because they arrived by boat. It also reminds us that the vast majority of passengers are legitimate asylum seekers. But instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt and treating them like people who are suffering, which is what they are, the government is reversing the burden of proof.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is clearly a public safety measure. Invoking Omar Khadr as a method of trying to communicate on this issue is questionable judgment at best. I have a question for the hon. member opposite.

What does the hon. member have to say to Canadians who want to keep their families, their streets and their communities safe?

A simple question.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what I would like to tell Canadians, including myself, people I know and my family who want to keep our streets safe, is that the source of crime in Canada is not boatloads of refugees armed to the teeth who are coming here to attack us. That is just not the reality. I find it rather odd that some people automatically think it is a criminal matter when refugees come to seek assistance from Canada.

I would also point out that Canada is but one country in the world. Its security comes from global security. Helping refugees and showing compassion for other countries will only benefit Canada's security in the long run.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

There is enough time for a short question and a brief answer.

The hon. member for d'Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in her speech, my colleague emphasized the fact that expert reports state that the bill does not comply with the law, for example. I would like to know if there is a reason why the Conservative government, before introducing this bill, did not pay heed to what the experts said?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues for their questions, something I did not do before.

This is indeed rather disturbing. However, as I said in my presentation, this government seems to have a tendency to pay little attention to expert opinion. In this case, I quoted at length from the Canadian Bar Association report, because I thought it was important. I do not think the Association can be accused of being biased and its comments should have been taken into account.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I listen to the debate in this House on Bill C-4, there are some very obvious themes that are arising. One of the central themes that we keep coming back to is the issue of fundamental human rights and freedoms. I think that the Canadian public and we ourselves in this chamber can reasonably expect some disagreements between members of different parties. Sometimes those disagreements can be profound disagreements.

However, it saddens me that we disagree on these very issues of fundamental human rights and freedoms. It seems to me that we in this chamber should not have to be debating whether or not everything we do, every bill we consider, should be based on, or consistent with, principles that human beings are entitled to fundamental rights and freedoms. One would have thought, or at least hoped, that we were past that.

We have, after all, a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that forms part of the Constitution of this country. It recognizes, as I hope we all do, that certain rights and freedoms are not conferred just by way of Canadian citizenship but are universal. In the words of the charter, they belong to everyone.

Long before our charter, we were signatories to the charter of the United Nations. As that charter says, we became signatories as a result of our determination:

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war [...], and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

What follows, of course, is our signature on a number of United Nations conventions and declarations that are intended to put these beliefs into practice. So profoundly certain are we of the legitimacy of such fundamental human rights and freedoms that we are even prepared from time to time to send Canadian men and women around the world and into war to protect people, not just Canadians but people of all citizenship, who are denied such rights and suffer as a result.

We all know there are many places around the world where people are denied such rights and freedoms, and are subject to discrimination, persecution, violence and even wrongful prosecution. From time to time, people end up on our shores, seeking safe haven or asylum from more persecution, understanding that this is a country known to the world as a place where one can enjoy such rights and freedoms in peace.

One would hope that we respond to such people in a manner consistent with our explicit commitments to respect fundamental rights and freedoms, the most obvious of these commitments being our own charter of course but also, most relevant to Bill C-4, the commitments we have made to the international community about the appropriate treatment of refugees and, indeed, children.

However, Bill C-4 strays from those commitments, some of which have governed or guided us for 60 years. I would like to point today to a few parts of this bill where I think this is the case.

Bill C-4 places into the hands of the minister the power to create a second or, in the terms of the bill, a designated class of refugee claimants. There are very few criteria or parameters made explicit in the bill for making such a designation, leaving very broad discretion to the minister and therefore little accountability for the decision. This is of great importance because of the profound implications of being placed into the designated group. Mandatory detention follows such designation.

Section 7 of our charter says:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

Which is to say, if we are going to deprive someone of life, liberty or security, we better have a really good reason for doing so and a really sound process for doing so, a reason and process that enjoys the consensus of all Canadians.

The good reason and the sound process do not exist under Bill C-4. One of the few explicit reasons the minister can invoke the designation is out of suspicion that those claiming refugee status have already been victimized by a smuggler.

Further, the detentions are group detentions, which is to say that the bill does not require an assessment of the threat that any individual refugee claimant may pose. Absent such an assessment, the detention of everybody means, at a minimum, the arbitrary detention of somebody. Such arbitrary detention raises the violation of section 9 of our charter; that is, the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.

The fact that there is no review of the detention for at least 12 months raises further issues. Section 10 of the charter requires that everyone arrested or detained has the right to: be informed promptly of the reasons therefore; retain and instruct counsel and to be informed of that right; and to have the validity of the detention determined within 48 hours and to be released if the detention is not lawful.

To return to an earlier point, the detention for in fact seeking asylum, and that we need to keep in mind just what triggers this detention, simply a claim for refugee status, seems also to run afoul of the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, which says:

The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who...present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.

Article 31 of the refugee convention further states:

The Contracting States shall not apply to the movements of such refugees restrictions other than those which are necessary--

Of course, as previously discussed, the designation process does not provide for an assessment of necessary restrictions of movement for individuals as the movement of everybody in the designated group is restricted simply as a matter of being so designated.

Sadly, the denial of rights and freedoms to those in designated groups extends beyond their recognition as a refugee by this country.

First, Bill C-4 would prevent designated refugees from applying for temporary or permanent resident status for five years and further, prevents them from obtaining refugee travel documents for five years. Again, this would seem to breach the refugee convention to which we are a signatory, which provides that the contracting states shall issue to refugees lawfully staying in their territory travel documents for the purpose of travel outside their territory unless compelling reasons of national security or public order otherwise require.

Second, Bill C-4 would impose on refugees from a designated group a continuing obligation to report to an officer to answer questions and provide information or documents as so requested. This kind of surveillance outside of the criminal justice system is unheard of in Canada. Further, it must be remembered that this kind of surveillance under Bill C-4 flows from the very arbitrary designation in the first place.

The sum total of the foregoing analysis of Bill C-4, albeit cursory and partial as it is, goes to my final point.

Bill C-4, if we are to believe its title, is intended to counter human smuggling. Throughout this entire debate I cannot recall any member of the House making the claim that human smuggling is not a serious offence, that it is not a practice that should be defeated, and that offenders should not be subject to very serious punishment. Human smuggling is after all the exploitation for profit and/or other nefarious advantage of people who are most vulnerable, and in most need of protection.

The perversity of this legislation is that it heaps punishment on those very same people that the human smugglers are exploiting. A further twist to that perversity is that not only does the bill promise harsh treatment for those seeking asylum in this country, a country where they come in the hopes of being able to enjoy the rights and freedoms that they could not access at home, but it proposes to deny these asylum seekers the very rights and freedoms that define this country for ourselves and in the international community, and make us so proud to be citizens of it.

Somebody gave the bill a very fine and aspirational title, and then things went very seriously wrong. If it is the belief of the government that provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are insufficient to deal with human smuggling, then I would urge the government to bring back before the House a bill that punishes human smugglers, not those that they exploit.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member continues to misrepresent the purpose of detention. We have heard time and again that detention is for one purpose, and that is to identify who these individuals are if they turn up without documents, as is almost always the case on these vessels. The authorities must have the time to properly identify these people and the bill provides that time.

I wonder why the member seems to be saying that we should let anyone turn up on our shores to roam our streets and communities without first knowing who they are and what kind of threat they may pose to Canada. Could he please answer that question?

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague seems to understate the limitations that the detention imposes on people. In this country, we take very seriously the right of everyone to liberty, life and security, but the bill would not respect those rights. Holding people, including children, the elderly, the disabled and those who so obviously pose no threat to this country, in detention for a minimum of a year is a breach of fundamental human rights and freedoms and entirely unnecessary.

I would suggest that the government put forward a bill that would find a way to manage and administer large groups of refugee claimants who come to this country in a way that respects rights and freedoms.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was a little surprised in terms of the Conservative member's question. I was under the understanding, based on what the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism said, that the primary reason for this particular bill is to target the profiteers, the smugglers.

Having said that, I ask the member if, in his opinion, he believes that Bill C-4 would have more of an impact on the profiteers and smugglers, or would he agree with the Liberal Party in saying that the real impact would be in making victims of the refugees.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as reluctant as I am to agree with the Liberal Party, I think I do in this case and I will have to admit so.

The reasons for the detention are, frankly, quite elusive. They are not there in the bill and they are at the minister's discretion. It seems entirely arbitrary and vague at best.

I think it is most certainly the case that what is happening here under the bill is that we would end up mistreating refugee claimants to this country, presumably, if I am to follow the logic of the title, in an effort to somehow get at the human smugglers. However, I see nothing in the bill that in fact provides a means for dealing with the smuggling itself.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are mobilizing our troops to go to Libya, to teach the world about democracy and supposedly to bring in better practices. What will we fight in countries with a dictatorship? We will fight everything that is arbitrary, all the random acts of people who grab power.

Are we not heading down a very slippery slope?

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in my speech, I tried to point out that this is a country that is, in fact, putting our forces into war zones around the world, presumably for the purpose of protecting the fundamental human rights and freedoms that we are speaking of here today. There is a very profound fundamental inconsistency between that language and those actions that the Conservatives are talking about and their consideration of human rights and freedoms in the bill.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, gives new latitude to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism when it comes to refugees and newcomers. The bill gives the minister new discretionary powers over the legal system as it applies to refugees and it limits the rights of newcomers.

According to the bill, the minister has the power to designate as an “irregular arrival” the arrival in Canada of a group of persons, and then to identify some members of that group as “designated foreign nationals”. The bill restricts the rights of these foreign nationals who want to receive permanent resident status in Canada by means of the following measures: first, the right of an officer or the minister to reject an application for permanent residence from a designated foreign national; second, the power to detain a permanent resident or a foreign national because there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the person concerned is inadmissible on grounds of serious criminality or organized criminality; third, detention rules and a review procedure that are specific to the detention of certain designated foreign nationals; fourth, the provision stating that a person cannot become a permanent resident as long as an application by the minister for cessation of that person's refugee protection is pending; fifth, for the purposes of determining the penalty for certain offences, the addition to the list of aggravating factors of the fact that, as a result of the offence committed, the life or safety of any person was endangered; and, lastly, the extension of the time for instituting proceedings by way of summary conviction from six months to five years.

In addition to arbitrarily and inadequately amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, this bill also amends the Marine Transportation Security Act by imposing more severe sentences on people who fail to provide the required information before a vessel enters Canadian waters, people who fail to comply with ministerial orders, and people who provide erroneous or misleading information. The bill also creates a new offence related to vessels that fail to comply with ministerial orders. It also amends the existing act by authorizing the enforcement of rules governing the disclosure of certain information in order to ensure the safety or security of Canada and Canadians.

I would like to express my concern about the concepts of “regular arrival” and “designated foreign nationals”. The minister can deem the arrival of a group of refugees to be an “irregular arrival” if he believes that examinations cannot be done in a timely manner, if he suspects that the people were smuggled in exchange for money, or if he suspects that a criminal organization or terrorist group is involved in the smuggling. The people in the group that the minster deems to be “designated foreign nationals” will be subject to a legally questionable system of justice. First, we must consider whether this concept violates section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which pertains to equal rights, or article 31 of the UN convention relating to the status of refugees, which prohibits states from imposing penalties on refugees for their illegal entry or presence in the country.

Article 31(1) 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.”

Bill C-4 may also be contrary to section 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which pertains to arbitrary detention.

This section states, “Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.” In contrast, the bill allows for the arbitrary detention of designated foreign nationals for a period of 12 months. Furthermore, in terms of procedure, decisions related to claims made by designated foreign nationals cannot be appealed to the refugee appeal division. This provision is discriminatory and may even contravene the UN convention relating to the status of refugees.

Lastly, it is worth noting that the minister can retroactively confer the legal status of designated foreign national on anyone who has arrived in Canada since March 31, 2009, which means that the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea passengers could be subject to this precarious legal status.

This bill, which is supposed to punish individuals who engage in human trafficking, is completely inappropriate in that we already have legislation that imposes a life sentence for people convicted of such activities. This bill creates a second class of refugees who are denied permanent residence, temporary residence permits, the right to apply for permanent residence based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, and, finally, refugee travel documents. It creates inequality before the law, simply because the minister has identified these people as designated foreign nationals based solely on the mode of transportation they used to enter Canada.

Bill C-4 to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which was introduced not by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism but by the Minister of Public Safety, shows the government's willingness to pursue an ideological security policy that is detrimental to refugees and newcomers.

Under the guise of working to combat human smuggling, this bill penalizes refugees who are already in difficult situations and who have chosen to come to Canada simply to improve their living conditions. NDP members rejected this bill when it was introduced in the previous Parliament as Bill C-49 and they will do so again in this Parliament because the bill is inadequate, it violates international law and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it tarnishes Canada's international image as a welcoming country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate on this bill and there are some facts that should be addressed.

First, Canada has a very generous immigration and refugee system. The majority of the people arriving in this country arrive as accepted applicants for permanent residency. There are a lot of refugees from different parts of the world who come under a UN program.

This legislation is aimed at people who use smugglers and at smugglers whose business is bringing people to this country illegally. There is a lot of discussion around the rights of people.

I have question for the hon. member. Do the citizens of this country have a right to protection? Does the government and Parliament not have an obligation to protect the country's borders and to protect our citizens?

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. Canada has the right to be protected from smugglers, from the real criminals. Canada has the right to invest in the RCMP to give police the means to conduct investigations and arrest smugglers. However, Canadians also have the right to hear from the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Centre for Refugee Studies and the Canadian Bar Association, so that the laws and regulations respect the rights of Canadians.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, many organizations have said that the bill contravenes the charter. Our party leader has suggested that we seek the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada as to the constitutionality of this bill.

Does the member agree with this idea?

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

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

In response to what I have heard from the other side of the House, all scenarios are on the table. It is important that the government listen to the opposition and especially to organizations such as the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International, the Canadian Bar Association, the Centre for Refugee Studies, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which give advice on how to improve laws and regulations. It is very important that the proposed bill be improved.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his presentation.

He mentioned problems related to the fact that this bill is not consistent with certain international conventions, particularly United Nations conventions. I would like my colleague to talk about the impact that could have on Canada's image on the world stage.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his question.

Canada has always been perceived by other countries as a welcoming nation, as a very democratic country that gives new arrivals a chance to make their way. If we fail to respect all the laws, charters and advice from the agencies mentioned earlier, I think our reputation as a welcoming nation will be seriously and profoundly tarnished.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a little bit last minute but I will try to put a couple of thoughts together. I do not think I will take too much time but I will try to resume what has been spoken about.

We have been talking about two classes of refugees, basically the type of bill this is, and we are obviously hearing rhetoric from both sides of the House. However, when members listen to what we have to say, it is normal that we are the ones who are right in this area because the Liberal Party brought in the charter and believe in giving people the rights to which they are entitled.

It is astounding what we hear from the Conservative government. I have a piece of paper with the background of what brought all this to light.

In August, 2010, a total of 492 Tamils arrived on a boat. The time before that, in 2009, 76 Tamils arrived here on a boat. In the last couple of years, we have had about a thousand people who have come on a boat claiming refugee status. Now, all of a sudden it requires a new bill. Every person who has ever come in a boat, any person who has come from Sri Lanka, any person of Tamil background is considered a terrorist. Anybody who has ever been an immigrant, anybody who has ever made a refugee request is considered a criminal. Where is the end in all this?

All this does is create controversy and division, which is typical of what the government does, but most of all, it is supposed to be a cost-conscious type of government and this costs money. All this amount of paper for what? Because the government is saying that criminals are in the boats? Those are not the criminals.

The bill does not address the criminals, the smugglers. So, what are we looking at? There are criminals on the boat, criminals arriving on the boat and criminals sending the boat. The criminals who are sending the boat from wherever the place of departure is, are not being addressed. However, all of a sudden, anybody who has ever set foot in a boat now becomes a criminal, according to the other side, and anybody associated with wanting to help those people is considered a criminal.

What does that mean? That means that we will need to pay consultants, lawyers and all kinds of people to ensure those supposed criminals, however many there are, will be put in a detention centre and supervised. They will go be uneducated, not being fully utilized for any of the services, and then again it will cost money.

I have examples in my office, representing a riding in an urban centre rampant with immigrants and refugees, of people who come for help. The majority of the refugees who come to my constituency office, and sometimes do pass by my house, come with some of the best family values we could ever imagine. Their kids go to school. They are not out of line. They get great grades. The parents are working at not one job, but two jobs and sometimes three. They are working around the clock because they have come here to make a better life. The life that they have left behind is not the life they wanted, not only for themselves, but for their families. The people across the chamber should realize that those are the people we are talking about.

Canada brings in 300,000 people every year and 40,000 or 50,000 of those are refugees. Is the bill, by trying to penalize the people on the boats, like we said, creating a separate class, worth the cost?

There would be additional cost involved afterward when we consider the logistics of trying to accommodate these people. We would be putting them in a detention centre for up to a year, and some people are saying up to five years. I am not the expert so I would not be able to say how much that would cost, but we have had numbers up to a couple of billion dollars, which is a thousand million, in case somebody is wondering how much that is.

Hearing the rhetoric from all sides of the House, eventually someone will dispute the bill in a court of law, which will cost money. The Conservative lawyers will get rich and probably pay independent contractors $90,000 a day. Again, this will create controversy and division and for what? We still have not arrested or incarcerated a single smuggler.

There are different ways to address this. I am told that the immigration minister has nothing to do with the bill, but the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is defending it. The government is tossing the bill around, saying it is a question of security, but the parliamentary secretary is defending the bill. I feel sorry for him because he is a good guy and a good parliamentarian too. It is very difficult to address the validity of the bill.

I am a big promoter of sending a bill to committee to try to make it better, but there does not seem to be a willingness to make the bill better because it is a failure from the start. As my leader and our critic have said in previous discussions, the bill is totally against the Charter of Freedoms and Rights. As an accountant, that tells me it will cost dollars, so again the Conservative government does nothing better than to spend money on professionals, contractors and independent people.

My assessment is that the bill is flawed from the outset. I know there was an attempt to amend it. I know the bill fails to achieve its stated principle of cracking down on human smugglers and I am not sure if the government has made any attempts to make that amendment before it goes to committee. It targets legitimate refugee claimants and does not give a chance to the poor people who arrive on a boat to apply for temporary or permanent residency or acquire any benefits. It is a total make-work type of project. It is exploratory to try to see how much we can abuse the people coming here.

I am not sure how we can fix the bill before it is sent to committee, but I would like to stop it in its tracks so it does not go to committee. Again, I am apprehensive as to the costs. In my constituency the number of refugee board judges who have not been named and Conservatives can use that money to appoint more refugee board judges and maybe speed up the process of refugee claimants, so if there are illegal or illegitimate refugees we could process them quite quickly.

We see examples across the world where countries have tried to use a system where they are not open to welcoming refugees. Instead, they will go get their own refugees. We saw that in some of the Nordic countries where it did not worked. Again, I do not see how that will help. Canada has always been a welcoming country. Looking around the chamber, we are people from different backgrounds and different nationalities.

I do not see how the bill will change or better Canada in the future. If we are scared of a couple of people who will come here by boat as opposed to illegal refugees who cannot come by plane, train, or walk through the border, I am not so sure that via the boat is much more of a threat than any other mode of transportation.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has a wonderful reputation internationally for welcoming refugees. My parents are immigrants. In fact, my father was a refugee in 1956 during the revolution when he stood against Soviet tanks.

The hon. members on the opposite side do not want to understand that perhaps smugglers are what we are trying to target, not refugees. We continue to welcome refugees and we continue to have a wonderful international reputation doing so.

Perhaps the hon. member might be aware that the folks who come here with smugglers are working two, three or four jobs in order to pay off their smuggling fees and the only people benefiting or profiting are the smugglers. They are the ones who are demeaning people who are trying to come to our country. They are the ones who are robbing them of their dignity.

I would encourage members opposite to join with us to help folks who are coming to Canada and genuinely seeking refugee status. Does the hon. member have some comments on that?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member stated that it was her father who came across. Had he come on a boat, he would not be a refugee, based on the legislation. He would not be able to make a refugee claim, based on the fact that he arrived by boat.

With respect to smuggling, all we are introducing is minimum sentencing and passing a bill to increase the legal sanctions against smuggling immigrants. That is all we need.

Do we need a separate piece of legislation? I am not so sure we need that.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague was here when Jean Chrétien took the Clarity Act to the Supreme Court to get clarification that it was constitutional. NDP members are saying quite clearly to the government that if it firmly believes that the bill is appropriate and constitutionally valid, it should take the bill to the Supreme Court before the bill comes to committee and get the Supreme Court decision.

I can only assume it does not want to do that because it may not like the answer.

In fairness to the government, this is rather sweeping legislation. I remember quite clearly that just prior to the war we turned away an entire shipload of Jewish people fleeing Nazism because they did not have the proper documents. There was anti-Semitism in the world, and we turned them away.

I am an immigrant myself. I was born in Holland, and my parents were welcomed by the Canadian family. Many people in this House, in this Senate and in this country who work for the government come from other countries, and we want to make sure that people who are legitimate have the opportunity.

I understand the government's concerns, when a ship does arrives, about the costs and the burdens it places on many of the provinces. In Halifax we get a fair number of immigrants smuggling in on the container ships and so forth.

However, my two quick questions are these: does the member support the bill going to the Supreme Court, and why is the government targeting the most innocent in the world of today?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not as old as the member is, so I was not here for the Clarity Act, but I want to thank the member for having thought that I was here for such a long time.

Basically I do not understand why the government would not refer the bill to the Supreme Court. It would cost less, but we are trying to make other people rich, I suppose, and that is the only way the government does business.

Second, in terms of why the government is targeting the most vulnerable, it is because they are not the people who vote for the Conservatives. That is the only thing I can think of.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to pack five little points into my brief question.

First, my colleague asked where it will end. I think it will end if he reads the bill, because he misstates significant provisions of it. Yes, the captains of the boats would be penalized. Yes, those who launch the boats would be penalized.

Second, he misses the point completely. We are trying to protect the reputation of Canada as a safe haven for refugees. It is only when we take these steps can we continue to do so.

I have met with people in Iraq and Pakistan and Afghan refugees who laud our reputation. Viktor Frankl said freedom without responsibility is dangerous to the Auschwitz survivor. We need to take these measures to protect our country as a safe haven.

I ask my friend to please read the bill.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if there is a question in there. I will read the bill again on the weekend, and I will get back to the member.

However, I want to make one thing very clear: just the fact that the bill exists would not prevent this country from having any criminals. This is not about criminals. It is about making new criminals out of people who are not criminals. That is the point.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It being 2:30 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday next at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 2:30 p.m.)

The House resumed from September 23 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.

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was asked to speak this morning regarding Bill C-4, which would prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system. I am pleased to rise this morning to say how much I strongly oppose this bill.

I will start by saying that this bill makes it even more clear that we have a repressive, backwards and irresponsible government that is severely lacking in humanity. I must say that this is not very surprising to me, as this bill is simply one more example, among many others. Once again, the government wants to make a disadvantaged segment of the population suffer, for unknown reasons, instead of lending these people a hand at a time when they need it most.

I am strongly opposed to this bill because every day, in my riding, refugees and immigrants come to us for help. They ask for only one thing: to live in this country with dignity; to have a second chance. With this bill, they will not get that second chance. This bill authorizes an officer or the minister to refuse to consider applications for permanent residence. How can we grant this power to an individual when the applicant may be in danger? What criteria will the officer or the minister use? Will they refuse applications based on how they are feeling that day? This bill would give them the power to do so.

I do not think that the government understands that being in power means making decisions for the well-being of the entire population, by consulting the people and listening to their needs and by avoiding randomly and unfairly punishing people who are simply seeking refuge. Being in power does not mean authorizing oneself to single-handedly make a decision that could have a huge impact on the lives of several people or even several families. This bill would require some individuals to report to an immigration officer and to respond to all of his questions for no real reason. That is discrimination, pure and simple.

How can we convince people to establish themselves here if we treat them as detainees as soon as they arrive, without knowing the full story, and without even knowing why they chose Canada? Under this bill, claimants, including children, will automatically be detained when they arrive or at the moment they are designated. How can the government violate international rules that were created for the well-being of all communities? This would leave the door open for indefinite or arbitrary detentions. Where are we headed? Where is our country headed? It is a great place to live, a place where immigrants are welcome and where we extend a helping hand to refugees so that they can see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

Under this bill, a designated person cannot apply for permanent residency for five years. Five years. Then, if the person breaches any of the conditions imposed, this period can be extended by five or six years. A person could wait more than five years to see their family members who remained overseas. In addition, designated persons are prohibited from leaving the country until they receive permanent resident status. Not only are they kept from bringing their families to Canada, but they are also prohibited from going to visit them. What has happened to the family values that we have always defended here? Can someone tell me? Does the government have this little respect for the family unit, the first community where a human being grows and flourishes? The minister must not know what it is like to be separated from loved ones for five years; otherwise, he would not be trying to impose such rules.

This bill would punish refugees or those trying to help them instead of punishing the criminals—the smugglers and traffickers. This proposed refugee process is arbitrary and completely discriminatory.

A few months ago, Parliament passed balanced legislation concerning refugees. It would make a lot more sense to simply enforce that legislation better, instead of treating these people like criminals, when they simply need a helping hand. Furthermore, in Australia, similar laws met with opposition from Amnesty International, which started a campaign to condemn the misinformation surrounding refugees who arrive by boat. This government is alienating the international community and severely damaging our reputation. We have a responsibility towards refugees. We do not have the right to treat them this way.

We in the NDP recognize this responsibility, unlike the Conservatives, who want to evade it. This approach flies in the face of our country's commitments under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is not the right legislation to put an end to human trafficking.

Do we want to be recognized as the country where refugees are discriminated against? Where no one wants to go and settle for fear of being detained and treated like a criminal? Where people, if they choose to live here, risk having to go without seeing their loved ones for over five years?

We are losing our values of openness, tolerance, giving, social justice and equality. Many groups strongly oppose this bill. The Canadian Council for Refugees completely rejects this bill. Amnesty International Canada said the bill would lead to serious violations of the rights of refugees. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says these measures are simply not necessary. Why would we apply measures that are not necessary? The Canadian Bar Association says that this bill violates Canada's international obligations regarding the treatment of persons seeking protection. As I was saying earlier, we have a responsibility to refugees and the government is refusing to treat refugees fairly.

A group of experts from the Centre for Refugee Studies has described this bill as draconian. I think these groups know what they are talking about. Earlier I was saying that we need to listen to the concerns of the people. Here we have flagrant examples of a government doing exactly the opposite. This bill could violate a number of legal provisions, including those pertaining to equality before the law and arbitrary detention. Bill C-4 is contrary to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

As I was saying earlier, we are tarnishing our international reputation and that is serious.

I will say again: I am strongly opposed to this bill because we have a responsibility to refugees. The government does not have all the rights. No. It would be a serious mistake to ignore these responsibilities in the name of security, especially when we consider that this bill will not in any way—not in any way—stop human trafficking.

I welcome any questions my colleagues might have.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for her very passionate and clear speech on the issues in this bill.

My colleague mentioned that a number of organizations are opposed to the bill because it infringes on the rights of refugees. It is well known that my parents came from Vietnam, and many Vietnamese people have arrived by boat. Could my colleague talk about the repercussions of this bill for refugees who seek asylum in Canada?

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

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

Some refugees who arrive by boat already need someone to lend a hand, they need help, and they need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. These people will arrive here and be detained, even the children.

It is very traumatic psychologically for a child to be detained for no real reason upon his arrival. I also believe that refugees who arrive here will not be guilty of any crimes. They will not have done any human trafficking or anything wrong. They are certainly not smugglers. They will arrive here looking for help and hoping for a second chance, but they will not get it. I believe they will want to go elsewhere, and with just cause.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite described the government members in the House as repressive and deeply lacking in humanity.

Rather than hurl insults at hon. members in the House, perhaps she could tell us what she would say to the families across the country who want to keep their streets, families and communities safe and free from danger.

I remind the member that the bill is called the “Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act”.

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I thank my colleague for the question.

As I was saying, my aim was not to insult members of the government party or anyone else. I merely wanted to present the facts, as these are the facts. I do not believe that we can jeopardize the rights of refugees in the name of security. As I was saying as well, this bill will in no way prevent human trafficking, and thus does not provide a solution to that problem. The solution is to enforce the existing law on human trafficking. That is the solution we need here.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot just explained very clearly, Bill C-4 is very restrictive, particularly when it comes to privileges and to the image that Canada has traditionally portrayed to other countries of the world.

I am somewhat troubled when I try to understand why the Conservative members want to once again introduce this bill and ignore the amendments that we, the members of the NDP and the members of the Liberal Party, are proposing. It is important to note the direct impacts of passing such a bill, such as the violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the violation of international treaties. I have difficulty imagining how anyone would want to pass this omnibus bill, which was already debated in the previous parliament as Bill C-49, if I am not mistaken. Many debates were held, many witnesses were heard and many facts were put on the table in this regard. The bill was not passed. However, the Conservatives are once again trying to pass this odious bill.

This is even more surprising since Canada will find itself in a difficult position with regard to international treaties if, in the end, this bill is passed as is. The government just wants to do what Australia did and it is very difficult to understand those objectives.

On top of all this, it is very worrisome to see that there will be fairly serious consequences if immigration officers are given more power. Many rights and liberties will be violated. One major problem involves the discrimination that people who are deemed to be designated claimants will face. They will not have any rights. What is even more worrisome is that these people will basically be put in prison for at least a year. This completely violates the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

The New Democratic caucus therefore has serious concerns about passing this bill, as introduced by the Conservatives. We stand firm. We want this bill to be amended and we want it to give some reprieve to ensure that everyone in need—everyone who is a true refugee—is treated equally. It is important to remember that our proposals are in no way meant to be weak or condescending toward criminals or those who, for political purposes, use certain methods of transportation to transport refugees. In my opinion, immigration officers are trained and are capable of determining and knowing who the real bad guys are. The problem with this bill is that, in reality, we are lumping everyone into the same category.

And that is not acceptable.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his speech on the problems that exist in Bill C-4. He said that certain aspects of the bill are contrary to the law. This bill flies in the face of international conventions and the rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I would like to hear my colleague's comments on this, and I would also like him to explain the consequences this bill would have on Canada's international reputation.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

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

Everyone here has heard all about these unacceptable violations, specifically the violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. When the charter was created, Canada gained respect in the eyes of the world and all the nations around the globe. Canada set an example and many countries have drawn inspiration from it. But everyone should be questioning the true objectives of this bill, as it now stands, because it violates every international convention, specifically those related to children. Putting children in jail is unbelievable; it is unheard of, the world over. Even countries ruled by dictators would not be able to propose a similar bill.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his response.

Could he also explain the impact this bill might have on Canada's reputation? He spoke about the fact that this bill is an attack on children's rights. The government says that this bill targets smugglers—that is what is written in the title—but the hon. member raised the point that it will also attack the rights of refugees. Could the hon. member speak about the impact this bill will have on the rights of refugees and on Canada's international reputation?

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

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

The topic of children is one that affects us all. Long ago, the ancestors of our wonderful nation of Canada built a reasonable immigration system, able to support the productive force and workers. The children of some immigrants integrate better than their parents. If the bill is implemented as it stands now, there will be some serious and unfortunately very restrictive consequences for the intellectual and physical development of the children.

The hon. members from the Conservative Party should agree to the amendments proposed by the Liberal and NDP caucuses, to ensure that we are treating children humanely and that the bill targets human smugglers more directly.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 attacks refugees. It has no place in Canada because it proposes measures that are completely unacceptable. Some provisions of the bill respect neither the charter nor Canada's international human rights obligations. It is a discriminatory bill because it penalizes refugees for their method of arrival. It reintroduces provisions from Bill C-49 from the previous parliament, which was widely condemned by the community across the country.

This bill was previously rejected by all the opposition parties in Parliament. Many legal experts have said that it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international law. The government is telling us that it wants to target the smugglers, but is it really necessary to risk our reputation within the international community? Is it really necessary to violate the constitutional and international rights of refugees? We deplore the reintroduction of the anti-refugee legislation.

This bill allows the minister to order the detention not only of the asylum seekers, but also of their children, even if our security is not at risk and the detainees are not a threat. The bill allows the minister to order the detention and imprisonment of persons seeking refugee status.

It is a government's duty to take responsible measures to deter human trafficking. It is Canada's duty to take clear and transparent measures to put an end to dangerous and abusive behaviour. We must take measures to end the behaviour of criminals, in other words, smugglers, who violate the rights of refugees and the vulnerable. We agree with putting an end to all that, but Bill C-4 targets the refugees and not the smugglers.

Canada is committed to protecting refugees and implementing measures that respect the rights of refugees and immigrants. But now we are increasing the burdens on our refugees. With regard to the former version of this bill, Alex Neve, of Amnesty International, recently said:

Bill C-49 does not get it right in drawing the line between tackling crime and upholding rights. It goes after smugglers, in large part, by punishing the individuals who turn to them--in desperation--for assistance. Those provisions of the Bill that are discriminatory and will lead to human rights violations must be withdrawn.

I believe Mr. Neve is still right.

The bill creates a second class of refugees. Even people whose refugee status has been confirmed cannot obtain travel documents or file an application for permanent residence for five years. These provisions also violate the international convention, which requires countries to issue travel documents.

The bill will result in indefinite detentions, and a designated person will not be able to submit an application for permanent residence until five years have elapsed. Why such a long time? This measure applies even if the person's refugee status in Canada is confirmed. This bill will prevent refugees who have been duly accepted from being reunited with their families and spouses. It will certainly not help the integration of refugees into our society. This bill seems very difficult to justify.

In addition, as long as designated claimants do not have permanent resident status, they will be deprived of the right to travel outside the country. This provision of the bill appears to violate article 28 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The bill contains discriminatory provisions. Designated claimants cannot appeal decisions regarding their claims to the Refugee Appeal Division. Since when does Canada fail to abide by its international commitments? Since when does Canada deny the right of appeal?

We have to wonder. Why do the provisions of this bill appear to violate the provisions of refugee conventions and even those of the charter? The bill imposes mandatory imprisonment on groups of refugee claimants, including children, despite the fact that these same individuals have not given us any reason to believe that they represent any sort of danger or threat. The minister will even have the power to decide to imprison any refugee claimant upon arrival if there is even the slightest suspicion of smuggling. The minister will also have the right to imprison refugee claimants simply because their identity cannot established in a timely manner.

As hon. members know, refugees are often fleeing a war zone, a place where circumstances are less than ideal. It is difficult to justify placing additional burdens on these people. It seems as though the legislation even violates the international Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which prohibits the imposition of penalties on refugees fleeing persecution on account of their illegal entry. Human smuggling is a serious problem. Resources and co-operation with foreign governments are required to deal with smugglers. However, human smuggling does not justify the violation of constitutional and international rights.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association wrote to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism to express its concerns about this bill. The president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, Wanda Yamamoto, has said, “We are celebrating this year the 60th anniversary of the refugee convention, but instead of honouring this treaty, the government is proposing to violate it.” She went on to say, “Let us not forget that the convention was adopted because many countries, including Canada, had closed their doors on Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis, and we said 'Never again!'”.

I completely agree with her. After the second world war, the international community went through a period of reflection. Together, we decided that we never wanted to violate refugees' rights ever again. The ship filled with Jewish refugees that had travelled around the world was denied entry to Canada and many other countries. They were forced to return to Germany and in the end, suffered the same fate as so many of their fellow Jewish citizens under the Nazi regime: they were killed.

The measures being proposed here today will mean that people who want to come to Canada, which has been an internationally-recognized safe haven, will no longer believe that to be true. Where will these people go? Will they be forced to stay in their country? Passing this legislation could lead them to their deaths. Is that not disturbing? It seems very clear that the bill currently before us does very little to deter smugglers. One has to wonder why the government is so intent on attacking refugees and their children. The government must know that we already have legislation to deal with smugglers and traffickers. They already face life imprisonment and fines up to $1 million.

If the Conservatives want to discuss the existing deterrent effect, let us talk about it. Why are they so intent on attacking refugees? Our commitments mean that we cannot harm them gratuitously. Bill C-4 punishes refugees.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with some interest to several speeches by our NDP colleagues today. A few moments ago, one of them said this bill was repressive, backward and oppressive, referring to the government that way. This member now claims that we would be oppressing refugees by this bill. He brought up the issue of the St. Louis and the tragedy of the Jewish refugees fleeing Hamburg who came to our coast and were turned back.

I have actually met some of those survivors, there were a few. I can assure members that none of them would be seeking to go back for a vacation in the land they had supposedly fled. Refugees are not refugees because a smuggler says they are. We have the ability to determine genuine refugee status in this country.

This bill would crack down on the smugglers. It would actually bring some accountability and increase our ability to prosecute smugglers, mandatory minimum prison sentences for convicted smugglers, and it would hold the shipowners to account. It would provide for a maximum of one year of detention, so that legitimate refugee status could be determined by our very generous provisions in our country. Refugees are very well looked after in this country. It would prevent abuse of our system and, frankly, it would ensure that health benefits of refugees do not exceed those of Canadians themselves who support these--

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the health of our newcomers is certainly topmost in our interest. We certainly want to ensure that all people who come to Canada are welcomed. In large measure I agree with him that when somebody comes to this country, we need to treat them well. We need to give them access to health care. We certainly do not need to imprison them. I do not think that sending the refugee to prison would in any way stop the smuggler from trying to make a profit off of people's misery.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I see the government lacking vision and even effort.

Being a father myself, I do not understand what I am supposed to tell my son when I see this happen. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is supposed to be for everybody in this land. Yet, again, with a lack of effort, the legislation that is being brought forward is very broad and does not attach itself to specifics. There is exclusion.

The roots of this country have touched the soil of every nation on the planet and everyone should be welcome here. We should not be resorting to repression. The charter is far-reaching, and we send our military around the world to say that this charter must exist. We encourage democracy and yet, here at home, we are starting to exclude people.

Perhaps the hon. member has a comment to add about this.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member.

The rights bestowed on us by the Canadian charter are clearly rights that we value. They are upheld by the Supreme Court and they belong to us all. We cannot deny the rights of refugees just because we think that we will control smugglers by targeting refugees. That is backwards. It is the opposite of what we should be doing.

To get to the root of Canada's smuggling problem, we need to target smugglers. The bill before us does not seem to do that. Instead, it targets refugees who already bear a heavy burden. Constitutional rights exist in Canada. I have a hard time seeing how the bill before us today could do anything to help control smuggling, which is a real problem. If the government wants to table a bill that actually deals with smugglers, I am completely open to discussing it. However, the fact that we are talking about targeting refugees is something quite surprising and, I feel, something that goes against our international law agreements.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to rise and speak to Bill C-4 because we need evidence-based solutions to address human smuggling. Unfortunately, this backward legislation targets legitimate refugee claimants and not the real criminals: human smugglers.

It was 60 years ago that the government expressed its solidarity with refugees by signing the 1951 refugee convention, and 2011 is a special commemorative year. The UN refugee agency is calling on the public to reaffirm its support for refugees. It is calling on governments to show humanity and respect for human rights and refugee rights.

The UN has developed the “1 is too many” campaign to strengthen global protection in this anniversary year. The “1 is too many” campaign concentrates on the central tag line: one refugee without hope is too many.

There is a portfolio of other tag lines such as: one family forced to flee is too many; one refugee without hope is too many; one refugee returned to danger is too many; one refugee longing for home is too many; one child without a nationality is too many; one family without shelter is too many; one refugee denied a safe haven is too many; one child growing up in a camp is too many; one family torn apart by war is too many; one girl raped at gun point is too many; and it goes on.

As legislators we must all ask ourselves, if our family was in danger, our lives threatened by the government that is supposed to protect us, what would we do and how would we want the world to respond?

Each one of us should remember how many of us are children or descendants of immigrants. Each one of us should consider the economic, cultural and social benefits Canada has gained by accepting immigrants and refugees to our country. We must all remember our long-standing dedication to humanitarian values and human rights.

Instead of the government reaffirming Canada's commitment to protect refugees in this anniversary year, the government is fearmongering, demonizing, and punishing refugees through its treatment of asylum seekers and through its proposed legislation.

I have the honour of representing Etobicoke North, which is one of the most diverse ridings in the country. Each week we hear from desperate families, such as: a sister trying to bring family from Africa because her brother is hiding in a bush afraid of political persecution; an uncle giving up his job and leaving family in Toronto to rescue three orphan nieces in India.

During the humanitarian disaster in Sri Lanka, I heard daily from my Tamil community. One man came into my constituency office and wrote down the names of 100 family members who were missing and he did not know whether they were alive or dead. Each weekend during the humanitarian crisis I met with my Tamil community for four months.

Bill C-4 was originally introduced in Parliament by the government in October 2010 as Bill C-49 and it was reintroduced in June 2011 in the new parliamentary session. If the bill is approved by Parliament, it will make significant changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, affecting the way refugee claimants are treated in Canada.

The government claims that the bill is about stopping smugglers who are bringing people illegally into Canada. However, the bill focuses on punishing the people they are smuggling, including refugees who need to get to Canada to save their lives.

All of Canada's laws must respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees basic rights. Several aspects of Bill C-4 likely do not respect the charter. For example, Bill C-4 says that designated persons are detained for one year without review.

The Supreme Court of Canada has recently clearly stated that detention without review for long periods is contrary to the charter. If Bill C-4 is approved by Parliament, it could be challenged in the courts and the courts would probably decide that some parts of the bill are illegal because they do not respect the charter. Unfortunately, while the courts are deciding the case, refugees would suffer in detention.

Canadian laws must also respect international human rights conventions that Canada has signed. These include the convention relating to the status of refugees and the convention on the rights of the child. Many parts of Bill C-4 do not respect one or more international conventions. If Bill C-4 is passed, Canada would therefore be failing in some of its international obligations.

The following are examples of the ways in which Bill C-4 violates human rights protected by international law.

Punishing refugees for illegal entry. The refugees convention says in article 31 that governments must not impose penalties on refugees for illegal entry. However, Bill C-4 does exactly this by punishing designated persons in various ways, including by detaining them.

With regard to arbitrary detention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says that governments must not detain anyone arbitrarily. Arbitrary detention is detention without the proper legal protections; for example, detaining people without giving them the possibility of having a review of their detention by an independent judge. Bill C-4 does exactly this by saying that designated persons must be detained without possibility of review for one year.

With regard to separation of families, various international conventions say that governments must protect the rights of families to be united but Bill C-4 does the opposite by denying designated refugees the right, for five years, to apply to reunite with their children overseas.

With regard to the best interests of the child, the Convention on the Rights of the Child says in article 3 that governments must take into consideration the best interests of any child affected by a decision. However, under Bill C-4, some children could be deported from Canada without any consideration of their best interests and application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Bill C-4 is deeply unfair to refugees. It fails to honour obligations under Canadian and international law. It deprives individual cases from the independent review that justice requires. It would involve huge costs in unnecessary detention. Australia tried punishing refugees to deter them. It did not work.

At the same time, Bill C-4 would do nothing to prevent human smuggling. More laws would not catch the smugglers who are overseas. Mandatory minimum sentences have been shown not to work as deterrents. Smuggling, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, is already punishable. The reality is that under Bill C-4 refugees would be victimized three times: first by their persecutors; second by the smugglers; and finally by Canada.

The reality is that most refugees want to go home but simply cannot return safely. We should admire and honour their courage and determination as they strive to pick up the pieces and start over, and we should recognize the richness and diversity they bring to Canada.

I would like to close by reminding us all that many refugees have made a difference and distinguished themselves on the world stage: actress and singer Marlene Dietrich; physicist Albert Einstein; and our own Michaëlle Jean. Finally, one refugee without schooling is too many. One refugee child behind bars is too many.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her presentation. I have a couple of questions.

Basically, the bill says it is preventing human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system act. We have a member of the government saying that this will make streets safer. What is the member's opinion regarding whether the bill will make streets safer and who will be affected by it? Is it the smugglers or the refugees?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, It is important for people to understand that the bill has been harshly criticized because of what it would do to refugees. Refugee advocates denounce the bill as an attack on refugee rights. In particular, critics say that the bill contravenes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canada's obligation under the UN Convention on Refugees.

Janet Dench, the executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, says:

It is difficult to understand why the government would be proposing to bring this legislation back without change when it has been so widely condemned by legal experts, is clearly a violation of our charter and clearly in violation of international standards of human rights. There is no ambiguity about this. It does not conform to our international legal obligations.

She goes on to say:

—refugees...would be detained for up to a year, and even those accepted as refugees would be held in suspended animation for five years without any right to travel, to reunify with family or get on with their lives.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member agree that one of the prime responsibilities of any government is to ensure that its borders are protected and when its sovereignty is challenged, that its various agencies have the ability to protect its sovereignty?

However, for those who seek asylum in Canada, when they arrive in the fashion that the bill would seek to address, our authorities need the ability to not only take care of the health and welfare of those people on the boats, but they also need the ability to ensure they are who they say they are, that we can check on who they are and can use our international partners to ensure that nobody who should not be in Canada does not arrive here. Surely the hon. member can appreciate the need to do that.

I keep hearing the Liberals and the members of the NDP say how the bill would seek to jail asylum seekers. They seem to want it both ways. Often they talk about how great our forces are. Many of the people who came to Canada on the boat in the last round now live in my riding. They are living in hiding, in fear of the people to whom they owe money.

Is that the type of system that member wants to continue to support, or would she support a system that goes after the people who illegally bring these people to Canada and force them into a life of hiding in Canada?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that our sovereignty is not under attack.

It is important for people to understand that refugees are often classified unfairly. Refugees flee their country, not for economic gain but to escape persecution, the threat of imprisonment and even threats to their lives. They need a safe haven where they can recover from mental and physical trauma and rebuild their hopes for a better future.

Intolerance is often at the root of internal displacement and it is also present in some of the countries to which refugees flee.

It is also important to point out that the minister can designate a group as an irregular arrival, which happened , for example, with the MV Sun Sea that arrived in British Columbia.

However, the bill does not say that the refugee claimants must have arrived by boat in order to be designated. A group could be designated even if there were no smuggling involved. Once a group is designated, everyone in the group is punished. The bill creates two classes of refugees, with one class treated worse than the other.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to join so many voices in opposition to Bill C-4.

It is a bit of a déjà vu, having been part of the team in the last parliamentary session that stood against Bill C-49. It is interesting to note that, while all opposition parties joined to oppose that bill, we are in the new Parliament assuming, yet again, that Canadians want this kind of legislation.

As we have heard, Bill C-4 is deeply flawed. Not only is it deeply flawed, but it also goes against the very image of Canada that we have built over decades, an image that Canada is welcoming, that it is inclusive, that it is open to not only the diversity of people from around the world, but also to the diversity of people who must often escape difficult situations, whether they come from backgrounds of poverty, or racial persecution or discrimination in their countries.

Many of these trends are ones that we, as Canadians, have responded to over the years.

I see my time is up. I look forward to standing once again in opposition to Bill C-4 at a later time.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member will have eight and a half minutes left to conclude her remarks when the bill is next debated, but right now we will move on to statements by members.

The House resumed from September 30 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

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to participate in the debate on Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act.

Coming from a riding with a large number of immigrants and refugees, I certainly concur that there are many reforms that need to be made to our immigration and refugee system. I will give a few examples.

We need to increase resources to reduce the backlog in immigration applications, establish targets for on-time completion of family-class and spousal sponsorships, implement the NDP's once in a lifetime bill to expedite sponsorship of one family member, eliminate landing fees for new immigrants and processing fees for refugees, develop appeal processes for potential visitors to Canada, establish a refugee appeal division and streamline and accelerate the recognition of foreign credentials.

However, sadly, none of those essential reforms are found in the bill that is before us today. In fact, the bill would not even achieve what it purports it would, according to its short title, which is, “preventing human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system”.

I am certain that no one in this House, or indeed in this country, would be opposed to preventing human smuggling and human trafficking. I certainly would not be. However, the bill would target the people who pay money to human smugglers to gain entry into Canada and would be completely ineffective in dealing with the smugglers themselves. It is not the smugglers who make the voyage by boat. They simply collect the money and put those who pay on the ship.

The same is true for human traffickers and others involved in organized crime. The bill barely mentions them. Why is that? It is because the bill has nothing to do with its stated intent of preventing human smuggling and everything to do with covering up for the government's mishandling of some recent high profile cases where a large number of people arrived in Canada by boat to claim refugee status. One example was the arrival of the Ocean Lady in 2009, and the more recent example was the arrival of the Sun Sea in August 2010. In both cases, the government was caught completely flat-footed. It simply failed to marshal the necessary resources to deal appropriately with the arrival of an influx of refugee claimants.

What was the government's response? Instead of dealing with the real issues at hand and instead of implementing evidence-based policies to deal fairly and responsibly with refugee claimants, the Conservatives have introduced legislation that would simply throw everyone in jail, and I do mean everyone. The bill clearly spells out that even children would be jailed for a year with no chance of being reunified with their families in the interim.

This is unconscionable. Detaining children, many of whom have escaped horrific conditions in their countries, is nothing short of immoral.

Studies from the U.K. show us what happens to incarcerated children. After just a few weeks of detention, profound behavioural changes are evident. Children begin to wet their beds, some become mute and many stop learning. They become withdrawn, undernourished and they lose weight. The psychological scars are real, lasting and well-documented.

However, the bill before us ignores all of that and would impose mandatory detention for an entire year and, perhaps most shamefully, the government has the gall to suggest that the bill is necessary to “protect” children. Nothing could be further from the truth. This legislation would further victimize children who have already suffered more dreadfully than most of us could even imagine.

Once again, it is clear that this is a government that thinks “evidence” is a dirty word. In fact, the government's dogged determination to renounce facts and evidence in favour of ideological posturing and wedge politics has become its hallmark. We saw it with the elimination of the long form census and we saw it again with the omnibus crime legislation that clearly flies in the face of all evidence and basic common sense.

The legislation before us today, too, underlines the government's complete disregard for reasoned, sensible, fact-based policy making.

The government is cynically playing to Canadians' fears, instead of acknowledging that the vast majority of Canadians are fair-minded people who want Canada to live up to its international obligations.

When Canadians see television coverage of United Nations' refugee camps around the world, they open up their hearts and often their wallets to assist children who are victims of civil wars, women who are raped and beaten in war-torn countries, and men who are escaping death threats and political persecution.

We are a compassionate society and we want to reach out to provide humanitarian assistance to the best of our abilities. We expect our government to do the same. In fact, the government is bound to do so, not just a representative of its citizenry, but because Canada is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees.

Article 31 of that convention 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.

Instead of living up to the letter or the spirit of that convention, the Conservative government is now proposing to do the exact opposite. It imposes penalties on refugees who are fleeing persecution. What is worse, it is doing so simply on the basis of the mode of transportation with which they arrive in Canada. Specifically targeted are people who arrive by boat. Why? Are people who arrive by boat any more dangerous to our national security than people who arrive by plane? Of course not. However, the government is not interested in creating well thought-out, evidence-based public policy. It is simply looking for a band-aid to paper over a public relations disaster of its own making when 478 people arrived by boat in Vancouver last summer to seek refuge from the civil war in Sri Lanka. Refugees will pay the price.

I am not saying that the government does not need to do due diligence, of course it does, but let us not demonize everyone who arrives in Canada by boat. In fact, we need to remind ourselves of the outpouring of support in our country for the 50,000-60,000 Vietnamese refugees who came to Canada in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We called them “the boat people”. Support for them crossed all party lines and, yes, in an economic downturn. Here in Ottawa, it was Marion Dewar, the former mayor, member of Parliament and mother of the current member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre, who took a leadership role in assisting Vietnamese refugees to settle in our country. In my hometown of Hamilton, it was the former Conservative MPP and cabinet minister, John Smith, who championed their cause.

Studies have since been done to track the success of those members of the Vietnamese community who arrived in 1979. The studies found that within 10 years the unemployment rate among the Vietnamese boat people was 2.3% lower than the average unemployment rate in Canada. One in five had started businesses and 99% of them had successfully applied to become Canadian citizens. This is the kind of success that compassion brings. This is the kind of success on which our nation is built.

We also know what happens when we fail to act with compassion. An event from our less distinguished past is the Canadian government's refusal to admit a boat carrying Jewish people fleeing Hitler's Germany, a refusal that forced the MS St. Louis back to Europe where many of its passengers perished in the Holocaust.

The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism himself has expressed a sense of our country's responsibility for those passengers and spoke of a fundamental ethical obligation to help people in desperate situations fleeing for their lives. In the minister's words at the unveiling of the monument to commemorate the MS St. Louis, the monument was described as a “concrete perpetual expression of regret”. The minister concluded by saying that “Canada will never close its doors to legitimate refugees who need our protection and who are fleeing persecution”.

That is precisely the position that I wish were reflected in the bill that is before us today. The definition of a refugee is clear. Refugees must demonstrate that there is a well-founded fear of persecution, that there is a risk of death, injury, torture or some other unacceptable conduct or treatment that violates the common norms of civilized society. Such people need our help and we must establish fair rules to adjudicate such claims.

However, fairness is not what we find in the bill that is before us today. On the contrary, Bill C-4 very likely violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and both the UN's refugee convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It discriminates by creating two classes of refugees based on their mode of arrival. It imposes arbitrary detention without review. It denies the right to equal access to justice and it denies consideration of the best interests of a child.

The bill would not crack down on human smugglers. Rather, it would target legitimate refugees and the people who try to help them. It would punish vulnerable women, men and children. It would establish processes that are unclear, arbitrary, discriminatory and inhumane.

This legislation is neither fair nor balanced. Therefore, it is legislation that I simply cannot support.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague speak about Bill C-4. It is unfortunate that at different times throughout her speech she mixed various aspects of history in an attempt to equate this with the turning back of the St. Louis. We are not talking about turning ships back. We are talking about implementing a fair and transparent system that will allow our public safety officials to ensure that these people are fleeing persecution, not prosecution.

Another difficulty I have is the innuendo that somehow the Conservatives are not compassionate. I assure the member that many of us on this side of the House have been personally involved in helping "the boat people", as she has referred to them. Many of us have had refugees stay in our homes. We have walked with them through those early days, weeks and months as they have adjusted to life here in Canada. There is no intention on our part to minimize the needs of legitimate refugees. Our intent is to ensure there is a fair and transparent system.

Does the hon. member not think it is important that our public safety officials have the tools at their disposal to ensure that these people are legitimate refugees and are not taking the place of legitimate refugees and would otherwise be kept out?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree. I want to see a fair and transparent system for dealing with refugees. However, we have neither in the bill before us. It is not fair nor transparent.

First, we are talking about detention without any kind of mechanism for appeal. I spoke to that at length in my speech. How is that fair or transparent?

Second, the bill actually allows the minister to designate people retroactive to 2009. How is that fair and transparent?

I was delighted to hear the member for Kitchener—Conestoga say it is imperative that we allow public servants to do their job. Therefore, I hope the member would agree that what is required for a fair and transparent refugee system to effectively deal with refugee claimants is adequate human resources. Otherwise, we will find more situations, as has often been the case for some in my riding of Hamilton Mountain, where the government has been unable to investigate some people's claims until they have been in the country for eight or nine years and this is the only home their children have ever known.

I agree that we need more resources. We must treat refugees with fairness using a system that is transparent and accountable.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was struck by the point the hon. member made that Canadians are compassionate and have a history of reaching out and wanting to help those who are less fortunate around the world. She also commented on the fact that she finds it strange that we would single out a class of people arriving as refugees by a certain mode of transportation, people who represent only a small fraction of the total number of refugees.

I ask the hon. member to comment on whether she thinks that is fair.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I obviously do not think that is fair. To suggest that a person's mode of transportation to Canada determines whether he or she is a legitimate refugee claimant is mind-boggling. This bill does not go quite as far as suggesting that, but it comes close. It primarily targets those people who would be arriving by boat. That clearly sets out two classes of refugees. That is not a fair nor a transparent system.

As I stated at the outset, the bill purports to help put an end to human smuggling. However, it is very light on dealing with human smugglers, human traffickers or people involved in organized crime. Rather, it puts the onus almost entirely on those who are seeking refugee status.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak 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.

I have listened with great interest to the debate on Bill C-4. The Conservatives claim that the bill will crack down on human smugglers. Unfortunately, Bill C-4 will not do anything to deter human smugglers. Rather, it will unfairly target legitimate refugees desperately seeking asylum.

The true Conservative agenda to crassly capitalize on the worst stereotypes related to immigrants and refugees through this bill has been constantly displayed in this debate.

The bill before the House fails to achieve its intended goal of stopping human smuggling. However, it will succeed in violating international law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Audrey Macklin, professor at the Faculty of Law and Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto, and Sean Rehaag, professor at York University, Osgoode Hall Law School and Centre for Refugee Studies have said that provisions such as those contained within the bill:

...flagrantly violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Canada's international legal obligations.

[...]

It is inconceivable that the government was not advised that key elements...were unlawful. It is more likely that the government did not care.

The Conservative government claims that Bill C-4 will entrust the Minister of Public Safety with the power to designate the arrival of a group of individuals as a “human smuggling event” if the manner in which they enter the country is deemed contrary to Canada's immigration laws.

However, nothing in this legislation actually addresses a human smuggling event. Rather, the legislation deals with a designation of an “irregular arrival”. Under this particular designation, all groups of two or more people could be designated under either of the two very broad criteria, which could in fact apply to the vast majority of refugee claimants.

Under the provisions of Bill C-4, individuals arbitrarily designated by the Minister of Public Safety would be prevented from appealing to the new refugee appeal division that was agreed to last spring. This process would provide all refugee claimants the opportunity to appeal for status.

Furthermore, legitimate refugees travelling aboard a vessel that is arbitrarily designated by the government as an irregular arrival will be prohibited for five years from applying for other forms of residence such as those on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.This measure unfairly and punitively punishes the victim.

Canada has an international obligation to protect legitimate refugees. However, because of the manner by which they arrive, the legislation unfairly targets legitimate refugees through its punitive and broad punishments in an effort to keep them from obtaining residency and protection.

How does the government expect those refugees who have suffered persecution and risked their lives to get to Canada? Not everyone can travel like the Minister of National Defence on Challenger jets and search and rescue helicopters.

Additionally, this legislation allows for individuals who are deemed legitimate refugees to be shipped back to their country of origin five years after their refugee status has been granted if the government decides they no longer need protection. Not only does this measure violate international law, it is cruel and seeks to disrupt any semblance of life they have made in Canada after fleeing persecution and could also put them back in danger.

The right to assimilation and naturalization are rights that are given to refugees under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Article 43 states:

The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees. They shall in particular make every effort to expedite naturalization proceedings and to reduce as far as possible the charges and costs of such proceedings.

This bill not only ignores Canada's international obligations to protect legitimate refugees seeking asylum but also seeks to further victimize their already difficult experiences. Bill C-4 would not hold human smugglers responsible for their illegal and heinous abuse of refugees. This draconian and backward piece of legislation is dangerous and attempts to criminalize the refugee instead of the smuggler. Once again the blind partnership of the Conservatives is masked in the name of public safety.

I would hope that if a bully beat up a victim the government would have the sense to understand that further punishing the victim would not dissuade the bully from abusing other victims. Similarly, when the government declares that human smugglers must be stopped and then goes on to introduce legislation that only inhumanely punishes refugees, human smugglers will not be dissuaded from smuggling more refugees. Unlike the government, Liberals are interested in pragmatic and evidence-based solutions to human smuggling that target the real criminals.

In this debate I have repeatedly heard Conservative members refer to refugees seeking asylum as “queue jumpers”. Let me make it clear that refugees are not queue jumpers. They are not economic immigrants. There is already a system to distinguish economic immigrants from legitimate refugees.

Last, they are not criminals. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees states, it is “important to recognize that...refugees are a distinct group with critical protection needs...It is not a crime to seek asylum”.

Central to any debate concerning refugees is a clear understanding of what it means to be a refugee. In 1967, Canada ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees to the 1967 protocol. International legal protection revolves around the convention's important, clear and concise criteria for who constitutes a refugee. Unfortunately, it has become obvious while listening to this debate that many on the government side have not read this convention.

Article 1A(2) of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees defines a refugee as anyone who:

As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

In the case of a person who has more than one nationality, the term “the country of his nationality” shall mean each of the countries of which he is a national, and a person shall not be deemed to be lacking the protection of the country of his nationality if, without any valid reason based on well-founded fear, he has not availed himself of the protection of one of the countries of which he is a national.

The government continues to ignore logic and evidence. Instead, it proclaims prison to be the cure for any activity it does not support. Does the government seriously think that threatening legitimate refugees with illegal detention will prevent refugees who are fleeing persecution and often death in their countries of origin from escaping to Canada?

Not only does this bill violate international law, it likely violates Canadian law. In the 1985 Supreme Court decision in Singh, the highest Canadian court ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies not only to Canadians but to anyone who steps foot in Canada whether or not the person arrives legally. In Bill C-4 are provisions that enable the government to arbitrarily name refugee groups as designated foreign nationals and permit the illegal and unjust detention of said groups for up to 12 months regardless of whether they are legitimate refugees or not.

Section 9 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, under the heading of “Legal Rights”, ensures that everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. Section 11, under the same heading, states that any person charged with an offence has a right to be tried within a reasonable time.

We know from the Supreme Court that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to everyone on Canadian soil, whether here legally or not.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her very clear and articulate expression of the major concerns with this legislation.

The bill purports to address human trafficking and human smuggling, yet we know that in Canada we already have the highest penalty that our courts could possibly give to those who engage in human trafficking and human smuggling, and that is a life sentence.

The question to my colleague is this: how does she feel this bill would address the legitimate needs of those who are fleeing from very dangerous grounds to seek refuge in a country like Canada?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, clearly Bill C-4 would do nothing to help those who are seeking refuge. That is my concern with the bill.

There are legitimate concerns. People are being persecuted, and they need to look to a country like Canada to deal with their concerns and to be there when they are looking for a place of refuge and safety.

I am concerned that the bill would take that avenue away from them. It would take away the opportunity to find a place of refuge in a country where people understand that they are being persecuted and know only too well how important it is to respond to the needs of people around the world who understand that Canada is a good place to live.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this very much seems like an issue of ideology and punishment, despite the government's statements that it is interested in targeting the human smugglers who are clearly exploiting very vulnerable people. I would like to hear some comments from my hon. colleague on that.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague is absolutely right with respect to this piece of legislation. It is very much in keeping with the ideology that has been put forward by the government on other pieces of legislation.

We are talking about not treating people with respect. We are talking about sending people back to a country where we know they will be persecuted further. We are talking about not reaching out and making sure that we are doing everything we can as a country to help people in these situations, knowing full well that if they are returned to their country, they may even risk death.

My concern here is that we are going down the same path as we are with the crime legislation, through which everyone would be thrown in jail, no matter how small the crime or whether it is a first-time mistake. We would build megaprisons to accommodate Canadians when instead we should be looking at prevention. We should be trying to help Canadians avoid going to prison.

We are going down the same path with Bill C-4. We are not looking out for the best interests of Canadians in the case of the megaprisons and the crime legislation, nor of those who are looking to us to help in terms of their safety and who want to come to Canada.

They are reaching out to us. We should be open and receptive to them instead of looking at them and sending them back and treating them like victims.

This bill would do nothing to help deal with human smuggling and human smugglers. Instead, we would be making victims again of those coming to us looking for refuge.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to congratulate and thank the hon. Liberal member who just spoke about Bill C-4. A large part of what she said is similar to what I wish to say.

To continue along that route, I would like to say that since May 2—the day I was elected to Parliament—and since we started sitting, I have been saddened by the fact that the legislation tabled by those on the other side sometimes contains good things, but more often than not, unfortunately, it simply divides those here. We can all support a bill that protects refugees against human trafficking; we can all work together to ensure that a pedophile never touches another child; we can all agree that someone who has committed a very serious crime should spend a long time in jail and should not easily receive a pardon, and so on.

However, all of these bills before us simply divide us: we are either for or against human trafficking, for or against the government. And we must not try to make any changes. I call this government the “photo-op government”—splashy headlines in the paper, big in-your-face news to show that the government is working for us. But, really, none of this is going to have the desired effect.

We must not forget that a similar bill, Bill C-49, was introduced during the last parliament. And that is one issue I have with us as politicians—it seems that things only get moving once an event is picked up by the media. If it is not in the news, we do not talk about it or deal with it. This bill was drafted following a media event.

I just got out of a meeting that I had to cut short with women who are part of the Sisters In Spirit, which has lost its funding. These are mothers who have lost a child, whose children have disappeared, and we are not taking care of them. They are not asking for the moon. They are asking for peanuts so that they can continue their searches. But unfortunately, that does not make the headlines in the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star. However, big ships like the MV Ocean Lady and the MV Sun Sea that arrived on the shores of British Columbia in 2009 and 2010 made the news. It was in our face. Everyone said that something had to be done and that a bill needed to be introduced, but they did not take the consequences into consideration, nor did they ensure that the bill would achieve the desired effect.

That is the problem in general with this government. Of course it was shocking to watch the news and see 500 Tamils arriving, as well as the MV Ocean Lady, which had 76 on board. I had a television show and I remember people talking to us about it. It was terrible. Rumours were swirling all around. It is incredible, but I am still responding to people who ask me how it is possible that, in Canada, a refugee makes more money than a retired Canadian. I wonder how they come up with that. Then I realize that people have been misled for years and years. In fact, some people in Canada honestly believe that every refugee arriving here in Canada receives around $1,900 a month. Come on. A person would receive $1,900 just for arriving in Canada as a refugee? We would give refugees that much while our seniors and many other people are having a hard time making ends meet? It almost makes you want to go to another country just to come back as a refugee.

That is not the reality for refugees. Refugees are people who leave their countries because their lives are in danger. These are not people who decide to come to Canada on vacation. They come here for their safety and because we have a reputation—poor us—as a supposedly welcoming, fair and open country that encourages differences and wants people to have more. Canada is a country that ensures that the people who come here are not starving, although I sometimes have doubts about this when I see the number of children living below the poverty line and the number of seniors who are abused or who cannot make ends meet.

As a legislator and with my background as a lawyer, I wonder about the purpose of this bill. The government wants to wipe out human trafficking and we all agree with that. Let them stop claiming otherwise. No one is in favour of human trafficking. I do not think any of my colleagues would support human trafficking. Would anyone in the House support it? If so, I would ask them to please raise their hands. Why? Because we definitely disagree. Do we want someone who is not a real refugee, someone whose life is not in danger, who does not meet the criteria of the existing legislation, to come to Canada to take advantage of our extremely generous system? We do not want that either. I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to ask those in favour of that to raise their hands. No one wants that.

The government said that it was concerned that many of these people had ties to the Tamil Tigers, a group on the list of terrorist organizations. I said to myself that our friends opposite were introducing their next buzzword: terrorist. This word scares everyone. Anyone who reads the bill will think that the government is protecting their safety, ensuring that people with ties to terrorists do not sneak into our country under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Why is nothing done when people arrive in great numbers at airports? Is there anything more dramatic than watching refugees arriving by boat on television? But that is not the case for refugees who arrive at an airport chock full of passengers from all over. Someone told me that thousands of refugees arrive at Canadian airports. The number of refugees who arrive by boat is smaller. This bill, once again, attempts to mask the reality and give a false impression. It gives even great powers to the Minister of Immigration under the guise of public safety.

What struck me when they introduced Bill C-4, the former Bill C-49—this is not the first time that our Conservative friends have tried to introduce such a bill—is that it was introduced by the Minister of Public Safety. Why? Because they are trying to send a message that our security is at stake, that terrorists are streaming into Canada. I do not say this flippantly, as though I could not care less about terrorism.That is not at all the case. But let us call a spade a spade, and identify the true terrorists. The trouble is that, in real life, when you cry wolf too often, people stop believing and will not pay attention when there is a real terrorist threat. That worries me. They are trying to portray all refugees as potential terrorists. Unfortunately, that is more or less the general impression.

I hosted a public affairs show on television and radio before I came here. In my practice as a lawyer, I still have frequent contact with the general public, at least in my region, the national capital region. I can say that people were automatically making the equation that a refugee is a terrorist. If someone is hiding, it is because they are running from something. People forget to consider that there is more to it.

The bill may contain some clauses that are worthy of being examined, but, as always, the government is using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. As a lawyer, my primary concern is that this will end up before the courts some day. I had the same concern about Bill C-10. If the government wanted to use its bills to make improvements, protect Canadians better, eliminate human trafficking and ensure that criminals receive punishments that suit their crimes, that would be good. The danger is that with bills like this, it is the opposite, and there will be never-ending cases before the courts. In the end, the answer will be that this violates existing treaties and the charter. The government had better not respond that it intends to abolish the charter one day. I do not think so. I think that Canadians are extremely happy with the charter. If a government adopts unconstitutional legislation, it will be contested.

At some point, the House will end up debating this issue again, since we will be back at square one and the problem of human trafficking will not have been resolved.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the point I want to make is that Canada has a very proud history of being welcoming and very inclusive, not only to new immigrants, but to those who arrive here as refugees. As Canadians we value that image the world holds of us as being very compassionate and caring.

One key concern I have with this legislation is this sends a message that Canada is prepared not only to break some of its own laws but to break some UN conventions. How does the member think this legislation is going to impact the image Canada has abroad?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has asked an excellent question.

As I was saying, further to the legal analysis of this bill, my biggest concern is that there will be many court challenges related either to the charter or to the UN's Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Any challenges related to the UN's Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which we have signed, would threaten Canada's image.

Our government speaks on our behalf. The government is not just the Conservatives. The government is all Canadians from coast to coast to coast, not just the small 39% of 61% of the vote in the last election represented by the Conservatives.

It is clear that the image of Canada will suffer.

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

Mr. Speaker, it strikes me as ironic that the Conservative government seems to care a lot about finances, but it does not seem to want to talk about the cost of its legislation. It seems to me this legislation, being unconstitutional, would just result in a lot of court challenges and a lot of work at the Supreme Court, and at the end of the day a lot of very smart people working a long time with the end result of no change.

I wonder if the member would care to comment about that.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I love my colleague's lawyers, but they will not love what I am going to say right now. I wish they would not have that much work, but my sneaking suspicion is that because of the government, they will have so much work, especially those constitutionalists and all those specialists on international conventions. Definitely, they cannot just lie there and do absolutely nothing when we see so many inequities that are created through this piece of legislation. I am sad.

When I was a labour lawyer, I often joked with the employers that I represented that, if I did my job well when establishing a collective agreement between the two parties, they would never need me again because the terms would be so clear and precise. I can say that the parties involved in all the collective agreements that I helped to draft rarely needed my help to interpret those agreements later because we found the words to say what the parties wanted to say at the negotiating table. However, when we draft bills such as this one, unfortunately, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation and inequality. We are going to find ourselves before the courts more often than not and it will cost the government a fortune.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of times today there has been the innuendo that somehow we are cutting back on the number of asylum seekers and refugees that we accept. I want to remind Canadians who are watching that the Balanced Refugee Reform Act that was passed recently adds 20% or 2,500 refugees per year, so we are up to 14,500 refugees per year that we are accepting.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague would correct the record. In terms of Canada's reputation in the world, it is quite strong. We receive many refugees and the Canadian population needs to be reminded of that.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is so easy, but I will not make fun of the comment because Bill C-4 does not exist yet. So, in a sense it is going to be interesting to see how it unfolds after and what type of challenges it is going to bring on.

The point here is not the number of refugees. What saddens me is that there are such problems in some countries, where people fear for their lives and need to find a host country like Canada.

My concern about Bill C-4 does not have to do with the number of refugees. If someone is a legitimate refugee, I would hope that we would not prevent them from entering our country.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my strong opposition to Bill C-4. The bill violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as Canada's international obligations, such as the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

The Conservatives are well aware that the bill is unlikely to stand up to a legal challenge if it is enacted.

However, the government feels the need to push the bill through the House of Commons, wasting the opportunity to ensure that Canada's immigration system really protects refugees and ensures fairness, and taking up time on the parliamentary calendar while Canada's economy stalls.

The bill would concentrate far too much power in the hands of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. He would be able to designate refugees as irregular arrivals, which would subject them to new rules, creating a second, lower class of refugees. These irregular arrivals would then be subject to mandatory detention, with no review for a year, except for at the discretion of the minister.

In effect, the minister would become judge and jury for any group of refugees which he designates.

Are there problems with human smuggling in Canada? Certainly. However, the problem lies with traffickers and smugglers, those people who profit off of people's suffering.

However, this bill would ignore those people and, instead, would target legitimate refugees, people who, by definition, have left their country of residence for fear of persecution, people who have given up everything because they fear for their lives, people who believe Canada has not only a legal obligation but a moral obligation to protect. Are these the people who the government really wants to victimize?

As I said, there are problems with human smuggling and trafficking in Canada. However, the major problem that we have with human smuggling has nothing to do with inadequate legislation, but with support and funding of the RCMP. If the government wants to address the issue of human smuggling, we should ensure that people on the front lines have all the resources they need to do their job.

Current legislation already allows for life sentences for individuals convicted of human smuggling. New legislation is not needed. What we need are the tools for better implementation of existing laws, not additional draconian legislation.

Perhaps the most disturbing provision of the bill would be the ability to arrest and detain any permanent resident or foreign national on suspicion of serious crime, criminality or organized crime.

Think carefully about what this would mean. This provision would mean that any person in Canada who is not a citizen can become detained on the mere suspicion of criminality, with no need for proof or evidence. Simple suspicion would become enough to not only arrest but to also indefinitely detain people.

The rule of law in a democracy is founded on the principle that the police's powers of arrest and detention are only legitimate if there are reasonable grounds for arrest; specifically, the notion of reasonable grounds means that there must be an objective component to the notion of suspicion. This objective component is met by evidence. Suspicion alone is subjective. There would be no way to prove whether that suspicion is warranted or not, and this would leave the system open to abuse.

While Canadian citizens would not be affected by this provision, this would set a worrying precedent. I am reminded of the famous quote by Martin Niemoller, which ends:

--they came for me--

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Once we accept that arrest and detention without an objective reason is justified for foreign nationals and permanent residents, what is to stop the same government extending the provisions to include Canadian citizens?

We cannot turn a blind eye now and hope that these disturbing changes are never applied to us. If we believe that arrest and detention without objective evidence is unacceptable when applied to ourselves, our friends and our families, then surely it is unacceptable when applied to people who immigrated, either permanently or temporarily, to Canada.

How would our government react to news that a Canadian citizen was arrested and detained abroad simply on the suspicion of criminality?

I believe that the government, rightly, would be outraged and would call on the foreign government to provide evidence of any wrongdoing or release the person in question immediately. Canada should be a world leader in human rights and freedom, not a laggard whose legislation we could criticize in other states.

The NDP is not alone in opposing this legislation. Amnesty International has said that the 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 Bar Association, the voice of the legal profession in Canada, has stated that the previous version of this bill, introduced in the previous Parliament:

--violates Charter protections against arbitrary detention and prompt review of detention, as well as Canada's international obligations respecting the treatment of persons seeking protection.

The bill is opposed to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees which 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.

It is clear that the government is on the wrong side, both on its legal obligations to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and various international treaties, as well as its moral obligations to the people fleeing persecution.

Should this law pass, the government would undoubtedly face years and years of expensive legal battles in the Supreme Court. Now is the time for the government to realize that this bill is flawed and to invest in the policing resources which will crack down on human smugglers and protect vulnerable refugees.

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

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech.

My question for him has to do with the international consequences this bill would have for our country, particularly with respect to its unconstitutional nature.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are many things that could come to play with this type of legislation out there already. We could look at some of the organizations that are already commenting on this legislation. For example, the Canadian Council for Refugees has called for this bill to be scrapped entirely. Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, the equality program director with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, has issued a scathing attack on the government's attitude toward refugees generally, and on Bill C-4, in particular, stating that there is no need for the draconian measures contemplated.

As mentioned earlier in my speech, the Canadian Bar Association stated that it did not support this legislation in its previous form in Bill C-49 as it violated the charter protections against arbitrary detention and prompt review of detention as well as Canada's international obligations respecting the treatment of persons seeking protection. So there are many organizations out there that are talking about the impact this would have on Canada's reputation.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one could wonder why the government would have brought in Bill C-4 in the first place. I go back to the ship, the Ocean Lady. It comes to port and then on the back of the ship we see the Prime Minister of Canada saying that we are upset at these profiteers and smugglers.

I have had the opportunity to read the bill as I am sure the member has, and I am convinced that the number of profiteers who will be penalized and become victims of this bill is probably pretty close to zero, if not at zero, and that the real victims here will be the individuals who are genuine refugees seeking asylum in order to protect their lives and continue to live. They look to Canada as a caring, compassionate country, and even the government member himself tried to say that there is value to refugees. There is more than just value to refugees. They are a part of what has made Canada what it is today.

I would look to my colleague and ask him how many profiteers he feels will actually get persecuted or be a victim of this particular legislation. I do not see any profiteers. Does he see who will be the victims? Will it be the profiteers or will it be the refugees themselves?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raised a very good point as to who would be affected the most by this legislation. I believe it would be the refugees who would be detained for a year. What would happen if there were children involved? What if the refugees came here in a plane rather than a boat? Would they be fine?

There are many things we can talk about in relation to this, but the member also brought up the point that we already have legislation in place. A smuggler who is caught will go to jail for life. What are we doing? We are not giving the RCMP the necessary resources to go after and capture the smugglers. The RCMP officers are fantastic. They can do their job phenomenally if we actually give them the resources to do their job. However, this legislation makes sure that when refugees come here they will be detained for a year and will be treated like criminals, when they were probably fleeing a situation that was very similar to that.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, last summer, a small cargo ship entered Canadian waters off the coast of British Columbia, where it was intercepted by the RCMP. There were 492 Tamils crammed on board, including women and children. This is the particular case the government is talking about, since no other cases apply to its Bill C-4. The government claims to be concerned about the origin of the passengers seeking asylum when arriving by boat. It is worried that among these legitimate refugees are Tamil Tigers, members of a terrorist organization that has been banned in Canada.

The summer before that, a ship carrying 66 Tamils was intercepted on the shores of Vancouver. The government arrested them all and detained them for months, alleging that a third of them were Tamil Tigers sent to infiltrate Canada. Unfortunately for the Conservatives, their concerns were unfounded and they had to release the refugees. This is the example the government is using to justify its bill. This bill is based on unfounded concerns. Bill C-4 is based on a prejudice that has been refuted.

The public is not sympathetic to the reality facing refugees. Surveys show that 46% of Canadians believe that immigration has a negative effect on the country. When asked specifically about Tamils, closer to 50% of people want them deported back to Sri Lanka. The Conservative government knows these statistics. And this populist bill proves that the government is not afraid to divide the public on the basis of false perceptions. It also demonstrates that it prefers to increase fear among those who are afraid of the unknown instead of informing and educating the public and ensuring that Canadians live in harmony with one another.

This attitude is surprising for Canada. More than 20% of Canadians are immigrants. There are countless descendants of immigrants. Approximately 20,000 Sri Lankans have immigrated to Canada because of the devastation of a 25-year civil war and the 2004 tsunami. Last year, more than 280,000 immigrants received their permanent resident status in Canada. Bill C-4 is aimed at the 492 Tamils who arrived by boat, simply because the government believes that two of them had ties to a terrorist organization. We are talking about two people out of 280,000 immigrants that year. And the government thinks that justifies its ideological laws.

The saddest part is that this is all it takes for the public to continue fearing all other immigrants. Because their government is so afraid of refugees that it locks them up, Canadians have every reason not to trust newcomers. Bill C-4 does not fix anything, but it is still important because it is a very powerful symbol. It widens the gap between Canadians and certain classes of immigrants. It contradicts the open-mindedness of the majority of Canadians by siding with their more radical compatriots. Those 492 refugees suffered through exile and a horrific voyage, and then they were imprisoned because two of them posed a threat. Because they were cheated by a smuggler, they were treated as criminals. And if that were not enough, the government is forcing dishonour upon more than 6 million Canadian immigrants by reinforcing this idea that it is reasonable to have doubts when it comes to immigrants.

An article published in The Walrus magazine, which we all received in our offices in June 2011, reminds the government that this anti-immigration trend is similar to other sad initiatives like the Chinese head tax during the construction of the railway and the internment of Germans, Turks, Bulgarians and Japanese Canadians during the two world wars in the 20th century. The government's new approach recalls two other particularly ugly moments in Canadian history. In 1914, a Japanese plane carrying 400 passengers from India landed in Vancouver, but the refugees were denied entry to Canada and were deported to India. Twenty of them were killed upon their return.

Twenty-five years later, a ship carrying over 900 Jews fleeing the Nazis was turned away, forcing the refugees back to Europe, where over a third of them would die in the Holocaust.

These communities, whether South Asian or Jewish, which are now considered pillars of Canadian society, have experienced their share of discrimination and stigmatization. It is inconceivable in 2011, when Canada is not at war or threatened by mass immigration, that the government would propose new measures that amount to profiling and discrimination. It is even less conceivable that these initiatives would be considered urgent, in contrast to Canada's values and commitments when it comes to respecting and promoting every individual's rights and freedoms.

Such abuses seem to come about every time Canadian society is threatened by a crisis. Immigrants become scapegoats. The popular belief, which is unfortunately confirmed by this government's unjustifiable actions, is that immigrants steal jobs and ruin the standard of living in our neighbourhoods.

Nearly half the population believes the common perception that immigration increases the crime rate. Although many Canadians realize that immigration is a powerful tool for developing our society, the government chooses to fuel fear and pit classes of people against one another. Instead of promoting openness and education, the government chooses to fuel division and isolation.

In fact, every known indicator paints an entirely different picture. In fact, the mass arrival of Europeans since the 1970s has been accompanied with a notable decline in the crime rate. In Toronto, immigrants make up more than half the population and the crime rate has dropped by 50% since 1991. The crime rates in that city are also lower than the national average. A study conducted by the University of Toronto over a period of more than 30 years found that with increased immigration comes a decrease in the crime rate. These observations were made in every immigrant group, regardless of where they came from.

But the Conservative government prefers to govern based on public opinion polls rather than on facts. It prefers to spread prejudice by discriminating against certain immigrant groups, in this case the Sri Lankans who arrived by boat, over championing truth and fairness among Canadian citizens.

The Conservative government is trying to present certain groups of immigrants as acceptable and others as a threat. Such is the nature of Bill C-4, legislation that makes misinformation the norm and stigmatization a rule.

Studies by Statistics Canada go even further. They show that in the Montreal and Toronto regions, the crime rates are inversely proportional to the immigration rates. In other words, immigration acts as a safety net against crime. Researchers have all been encouraged by these observations that refute old perceptions. However, these same researchers question the government's attempts to perpetuate these myths about immigration. Immigrants are motivated by a great determination to integrate into Canadian society and by their desire to understand their host society.

The Conservative government claims that it must take this action to denounce the abuses committed by these smugglers, the real criminals behind all this. It is not by putting the only witnesses behind bars and acting as a torturer that the government will ensure fairness in the immigration process and it is certainly no way to ensure the safety of Canadians.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, the member talks about targeting smugglers. We are targeting smugglers because of the abuse of Canada's immigration system and how it has been undermined by human smugglers. Her statistics do not tell how generous our program for the refugee resettlement is and she distorts our policies.

Our resettlement program is one of the most generous ones in the developed world. Each year we resettle 10,000-12,000 refugees through government assisted privately sponsored refugee programs. Globally, countries with resettlement programs resettle about 100,000 refugees, which means we take one out of every ten refugees resettled. These refugees often spend many years, sometimes decades, in squalid refugee camps or urban slums.

To suggest that we are not being generous with our immigration and our refugee system is false and very misleading. We are trying to ensure there are no queue jumpers. I would like the member to be more generous in how our refugee system is one of the best in the world.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, we must continue on that course: we must be generous in welcoming those who suffer and not criminalize those who suffer even more. We must punish those who take advantage of the suffering of others. I therefore agree with my dear colleague who spoke earlier. We must be even more generous because people are suffering in other parts of the world, and when they come to live here they will contribute to our society and enrich it.

I am an immigrant, as are several of my colleagues in this House. What we are saying is that the seeds of prejudice are sown when there is a crisis that affects the country. Scapegoats are sought and, instead of the smugglers being punished, it is the people they have smuggled who are punished—the ones who were living in miserable conditions and left their country in distress.

This bill does not attack the real offenders.

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

Mr. Speaker, it strikes me that Bill C-4 is an example of legislation by news headline. I wonder if the government would really want to bother to go through the work of introducing the bill only to have it struck down by a court challenge if they did not get to have any photo ops on the beach in front of ships. It reminds me how the news tends to focus on airplane crashes when on an average day probably more people starve to death in this world than die from airplane crashes.

Would the member care to comment on that?

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand what my colleague is saying. We are talking about the suffering of people who will take very serious risks. They leave on a ship in conditions that none of us would be able to tolerate. They even bring their children because there is too much suffering.

Canada has signed certain international conventions on human rights and we have the ability to accept these people and to give them a chance in life. That is our role as a country. We are a model country and we should not tarnish our reputation. It is part of our history. We must protect and develop our reputation.

I do not believe that any thought has been put into this bill. I put myself in the place of someone who has faith. How can those who have faith support this type of bill when we are morally bound to accept those who suffer and to have compassion for others? It is a complete contradiction. It does not correspond to our views on life, love for our neighbours and so forth. That proves that we must attack this type of bill that lacks compassion.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

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 Chambly—Borduas, Flooding in Montérégie; the hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, Child Care; the hon. member for Halifax West, G8 Summit.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak about Bill C-4, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act. My explanation will show Canadians that there are very clear differences in the approach to governance taken by the Conservative government and that taken by the official opposition.

First, Bill C-4 purports to prevent human smugglers from taking advantage of the Canadian immigration system. How ironic. In reality, the bill almost exclusively targets refugee claimants arriving in Canada. This bill clearly shows this government's approach, which is designed to create fear in our society and exploit the misery of certain foreign nationals for political gain. The government is introducing knee-jerk legislation that is not based on fact, law or reason.

The incredible number of organizations working to assist refugees that are denouncing this bill provides indisputable evidence that the bill is not at all logical. I would like to mention a few of these organizations.

First, the Canadian Council for Refugees asked that this bill be withdrawn. Amnesty International—these are very prestigious organizations involved in the protection of people and refugees—has stated that Bill C-4 falls far short of Canada's international human rights and refugee and immigrant protection obligations. A program director for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association severely criticized the Conservative government's attitude with regard to refugees in general and Bill C-4 in particular, stating that this bill is draconian. He clearly said “draconian”. I am not the one who said it, but I agree.

All these objections would be sufficient to change the mind of any person of good faith. However, that is not all. There are still other groups that oppose the negative impact that this bill would have.

The Canadian Bar Association has also spoken out against this bill and the previous one, stating that it did not support the legislation in its previous form because it violated the charter protection against arbitrary detention and denied the prompt review of detention. We cannot just imprison people without reasonable grounds, without incontrovertible evidence. The bill also violates Canada's international obligations respecting the treatment of persons seeking protection. In addition, a group of experts from the Centre for Refugee Studies has described this bill as draconian. Yes, that word again.

As we can see, many organizations that come from various walks of life have spoken out against the measure being proposed by the Conservative government.

I would like to take a look at some of the key aspects of the bill so that Canadians can see for themselves the negative side of Bill C-4. This bill would give the Minister of Immigration the power to designate, at his sole discretion—imagine that, his sole discretion—a group of refugees in Canada as irregular arrivals. What is more, he could do that based on mere suspicion, as I said earlier, and based on a definition of “group” that is not specified in the bill.

Does this not give far too much power to just one individual? This measure presents a serious risk of abuse. If this bill passes, such discretionary power could lead to abuses for which the Conservative government would be solely responsible.

Once designated foreign nationals receive that title, they are then subject to all kinds of special rules, some of which are discriminatory. To begin, I will focus on a few such rules.

Once designated as irregular arrivals, all designated foreign nationals, including children—everyone heard me correctly, including children—will be mandatorily detained on arrival or upon designation for up to one year. Is that any way to treat the victims of smugglers? The real criminals here are the smugglers. Again, is that any way to treat victims—to throw the entire family, including children, in jail for a year? How shameful. What a black mark on our international reputation as a humane, welcoming society.

In addition, the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board would not even review their detention for one year. Designated foreign nationals cannot be released during that time.

And that is not all. When they are released, designated foreign nationals will still have their right to apply for permanent residence suspended.

Also, designated foreign nationals cannot file a humanitarian and compassionate application or apply for a temporary resident permit for five years. Furthermore, designated foreign nationals cannot receive refugee travel documents, which means that they cannot travel outside of Canada for at least five years after being accepted as a refugee. And that is very serious.

To sum up, this means that all designated refugee claimants will be separated from their families and unable to travel to see them for at least five years. It is unbelievable. Six years is even worse. Is that how important family is to this Conservative government? Is this any way to demonstrate our family values? I do not think so.

The Conservative government seems to have a troubling tendency to diminish the importance of the family values that Canadians hold dear. Let me give an example. Since this government came to power in 2006, we have seen a marked decrease in the number of family-class visas that have been issued. There has also been a dramatic drop in the number of refugee visas issued by the government.

To conclude, I will go over some of the main problems with Bill C-4. It penalizes refugees. It was presented as legislation to target smugglers, but most of these provisions punish refugees instead of smugglers. I already said that refugees, including children, would be detained for one year without any possibility of an independent review. Under Bill C-4, refugees would be victims three times over: first, when they are persecuted in their home country, second, by the smugglers, and lastly, by Canada. That makes no sense.

I also spoke about the fact that Bill C-4 creates challenges for family reunification, which is the main objective announced by the government. It denies refugees the right to apply for permanent residence for five years, thus preventing them from reuniting with their families, including their children. This is a violation of the right to family guaranteed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The government must restore Canada's international reputation, not only by ensuring the proper treatment of refugees who come to this country, but also by improving its system to allow a greater number of refugees to settle in Canada. There are millions of people in refugee camps and in dangerous situations around the world. We must help more of them by giving them shelter and providing security.

Canada needs fair and balanced refugee legislation. This legislation is neither fair nor balanced, and the official opposition will work hard to amend or defeat it. The Conservatives should focus on enforcing Canada's already existing legislation against human smuggling. The government should give law enforcement agencies and the Immigration and Refugee Board the resources they need to address human trafficking and human smuggling. That is what we need. We should be focusing on enforcing the existing legislation.

Those are the solutions proposed by the New Democrats: fair and balanced solutions that attack the real problems, the real criminals—the smugglers—and not the victims.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, our government received a strong mandate from Canadians to take fair, reasonable and tough action to prevent the abuse of Canada's immigration system by human smugglers.

Canada always opens its doors to those who work hard and play by the rules. However, we must crack down on those who seek to take advantage of our generosity and often for financial gain. The preventing human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system act would send a clear message to individuals overseas thinking about smuggling people that they should not to do it.

I encourage the NDP to listen to Canadians and support this important legislation.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her question and comments. Under current legislation, human smuggling is already punishable by life in prison. That is what needs to be worked on. Resources need to be given to existing agencies to enforce the legislation properly.

What is more, Bill C-4 might violate section 15 of the charter on equality before the law. Bill C-4 would create a new category of second-class refugees who would be denied permanent resident status and a temporary resident permit and would not be accepted on humanitarian grounds or have the right to apply for permanent residence.

We must focus our energy on existing legislation, under which human smuggling is already punishable by life in prison.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I find it amazing that a Conservative member of Parliament would stand, read a statement and then sit down and it is supposed to be a question. It is the Conservative line. The Conservatives know what it is they want to say. They know what it is they want to tell Canadians in terms of the props. I would suggest what they are really doing is promoting prejudiced attitudes to the detriment of our society as a whole especially going forward.

There is nothing wrong with refugees. The message the government is trying to give to a selected percentage of the population is that Canadians should have this fear factor about refugees. If this bill had been in place three or four years ago, would it have made a difference? This legislation would not have made one ounce of difference. What it does is it plays upon people's fear.

The member spoke so well with regard to Bill C-4. Would he agree that the legislation fuels prejudice more than it attacks the profiteers and human smugglers?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his very astute comments and his question. Unfortunately, all this bill does is attack the wrong people. Obviously there are problems, as hon. members have already mentioned. In addition to being exploited by smugglers, the refugees are already victims in their own countries, where they suffer persecution. As a result of this legislation, when they arrive in Canada they will suffer again because of the mistreatment and categorization by the Conservative government. That is very bad.

Refugees need to be seen as victims and they need to be helped. We have to stop seeing them as criminals, which they are not. They are victims. Many agencies and groups agree with the NDP that this bill makes no sense. Allow me to name a few: the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International Canada, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Bar Association. I find it hard to believe that all those people do not know what they are talking about.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, in standing to speak to the bill, once again I come up against a problem that we have in Parliament. I find it difficult to understand the motivation of the government moving forward with legislation. The parroted answers government members give to questions and their very carefully controlled speeches do not provide us with much of their motivation. In many cases we end up trying to find the motivation of the government in this endeavour.

We have good legislation that could be applied to human smugglers. We know how to deal with them. What is it that the government is trying to accomplish with Bill C-4?

I have a list of 80 organizations that deal with immigrants in Canada and they are all opposed to the bill. I have not seen the government come up with a list of organizations that support it in its efforts. Why not?

[Scott Armstrong]

Every poll supports it.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

They say that millions of Canadians are supporting them. Millions of Canadians do not understand the Conservatives' motivation either, and the people who attempt to understand their motivation tend to understand that the bill is not a good idea and it should not be supported. Why is that?

Canada has a great reputation with regard to immigration. We bring in lots of people, but we have a point system that very clearly sets certain standards for people who come into this country. We have decided that we want the best the world has to offer in terms of the people who come to this country.

Lately we have not received many refugees. Refugees do not come under the point system in the same sense that immigrants do. We have a system which in the past has allowed quite a number of refugees into Canada. Canada has been a haven for refugees from around the world. This is good, but what will happen with this legislation that has been put forward by the Conservatives?

When the world's population understands what this new legislation that governs how refugees are treated in Canada, what will that do for the perception of individuals in a war-torn country who have to make a choice about where they should apply for refugee status? What will that do? It will send a message to those refugees that they had better watch out if they come to Canada, because if they do anything wrong to get here, anything we can interpret as illegal, they will be under severe distress. There will be no recourse. They will be in trouble.

I am the son of a refugee. My mother was brought to Canada by my grandmother from Russia, after the Russian revolution. All the family my grandmother had in Russia was wiped out. She escaped. After her death I found a birth certificate. We think it was forged. She used a forged birth certificate to come to Canada because she had no alternative. She had to get through what was a very difficult time in this world.

If that had happened today and my mother was a child of that refugee who came to Canada with papers that were forged, under illegal circumstances, they would be put into detention.

What did happen under the old system is that they settled in western Canada and became great members of our society, pillars of the community, good people with a grandson in Parliament who is able to speak up for that type of person, who is able to stand here and talk about that kind of person.

What are we doing here? We are going to limit refugees coming to our country by their understanding of our laws passed here in Bill C-4. This is going to change the way refugees view Canada in a serious way. We will turn our backs on many people in the years to come.

We will continue to bring in the immigrants we want, the ones who meet our classification, the ones who are the cream of the crop, the ones we think will do well for our economy and our society, and that is great. That is wonderful.

However, for those who are escaping from war-torn countries and have to do whatever it is they have to do to get into another country are going to be under some duress. If they are poor and if they have to rely on others to assist them in doing this, if they have to get on a boat with 50 other people, they will be putting themselves in distress by Canadian law. That is a pity.

It is shocking that Canada is going to turn in this direction under the Conservative government. Eighty groups say not to do this. Where is the support of learned Canadian society for what the Conservatives are doing here? It does not exist because Canadians by and large are compassionate and understanding. The learned ones are that way, too. We have a situation where the learned are not on side. The Conservatives say that Canadians are on side but there is no evidence of this at all, none at all; it is simply made up.

Operating by emotion alone, the Conservatives are making decisions about the future of this country and how we deal with issues. That is the wrong way to govern. We have seen this two or three times already since Parliament reassembled with the new majority. We do not have the ability that we did in the last Parliament to stop some of this stuff. We will have to rely on public opinion to change it.

[An hon. member]

Public opinion is on side with exactly what we are doing.

[An hon. member]

The poll was on May 2.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives say that we are going to lose this one. No, we will not. The Conservatives will lose one four years from now because of the things they are doing. The things they are doing now will come home to roost in four years. It will all add up and Canadians will understand what is going on here with this type of government action.

I do not have much more to say about this bill. My colleagues have laid out the conditions of this bill in good fashion. The Conservatives should think hard about what they are doing to the nature of this country, the country in which my grandmother and mother found refuge. Unfortunately, that refuge will not be as available for others.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in this speech from the NDP opposition again we heard the innuendo that somehow Canada is losing its place of respect on the international stage in how it deals with refugees.

The member asked what message we are sending and what is going to happen now. I remind the member and indeed all Canadians that the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which a previous colleague of his implied has not come into law, came into law in June. It received royal assent on June 29 at 5 p.m. That act actually increases the number of refugees Canada receives each year by 2,500.

This is the kind of message the international scene is receiving. This government is standing up for refugees. We want refugees to be welcomed into this country, but we want to be sure that the refugees, the asylum seekers we are accepting are actually refugees.

What is so wrong with having public safety officials determine that the people who are seeking refugee here are in fact legitimate refugees?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, in response to that I would like to quote from the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees:

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 is 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.

There is what an international body, the United Nations, has said should be the case for refugees. This bill is contrary to that sentiment and that law. By that nature, it will cause refugees to take a hard look at Canada when they are looking at where they can go for refuge.

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

Mr. Speaker, in my short time in this chamber, I have heard many times the Conservative government, in response to a question about an important issue, make the statement that it has done a little thing, which turns out to be a little band-aid and it usually starts out with, “We thank the Auditor General for her report”, and then continues.

It seems to me that this is another example of that where we take a small part of the overall refugee system, which is under some strain, and then the government proposes to deal with it in a kind of a sledgehammer way, not really thinking about the lack of resources that seems to be the real source of the problem.

I wonder if the member would care to comment about the fact that the number of people arriving in boats where there is a nice opportunity for a photo opportunity is actually a small percentage of the overall number of refugees coming into this country.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry but I cannot give my colleague a precise answer.

However, I do feel that, yes, this problem is a minor problem. We have the laws in place to deal with human smuggling, so that is not the issue.

As I said before, my desire is to understand the government's motivation in putting forward this kind of draconian legislation to deal with a problem that is not of significance to a country as grand and powerful as Canada. It just does not make sense to me and I cannot make sense of it.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by acknowledging the work of the member for Trinity—Spadina. In fact, when I speak 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, I will quote from the speech that the member for Trinity—Spadina gave in response to this legislation.

In her summary she said:

...this bill is not designed to prevent human smuggling because we already have laws that do that. It is designed to distract the public and put the blame for the long wait list that immigrants now have to endure in order to bring their loved ones to Canada on people who are desperately trying to leave a dangerous situation.

I think that sums up very adequately the NDP opposition to the bill. We know that many potential immigrants are currently facing very long delays in having their applications considered.

I will turn to the legislative summary of Bill C-4. I will not read every aspect of the act but there are a couple of pieces I want to touch on. Under the background piece, it states:

Specifically, the bill:

creates the new category of “designated foreign national” for any member of a group which the Minister has designated as an “irregular arrival” to Canada, with the resultant creation of a mandatory detention regime; mandatory conditions on release from detention; restrictions on the issuance of refugee travel documents; and restrictions on certain immigration applications, applicable only to “designated foreign national”;

does not allow “designated foreign nationals” any right to appeal to the Refugee Appeal Division...;

amends the MTSA to increase the penalties for individuals and corporations who contravene existing laws, and creates new penalities to be imposed specifically on vessels involved in contraventions of the MTSA.

For people who are listening, the MTSA is the Marine Transportation Security Act.

I want to touch briefly on the Marine Transportation Security Act and members will see why in a minute. There are increased penalties for contravening ministerial direction. Section 16 of the MTSA provides the Minister of Transport with the discretion to direct any vessel not to enter Canada, to leave Canada or to travel to another area in Canadian waters in accordance with any instructions the minister may give regarding the route or manner of proceeding. Ministerial directions to vessels may be made where there are reasonable grounds to believe the vessel is a threat to the security of any person or thing, including any goods, vessel or marine facility.

Clause 27 of Bill C-4 would amend section 17 of the MTSA which sets out the penalties imposed on operators of vessels that contravene ministerial directions and significantly increases the maximum fines for individuals or corporations and the maximum period of incarceration for individuals. In addition, clause 27 would create a new distinction between a first contravention and subsequent contraventions imposing higher penalties for second or subsequent contraventions of ministerial discretion.

I have a reason for mentioning that particular clause of Bill C-4. On Friday, September 30, a headline in the Nanaimo Daily News read, “Derelict Ship Will Stay in Nanaimo for Six Months”. It goes on to state:

The MV Sun Sea, a derelict ship used to transport ethnic Tamil migrants to Canada, will remain tied up at the Nanaimo Shipyard for at least another six-month term.

...that has been tied up at the shipyard for almost a year, stay in Nanaimo until at least March 2012.

The rusting 193-foot ship was intercepted by federal authorities on Aug. 13, 2010, off B.C.'s coast after three months at sea.

There are a couple of pieces to this.

First, there are smugglers and, as the member for Trinity—Spadina pointed out, there is already adequate legislation in place to deal with the smugglers. Therefore, why are we using Bill C-4 to punish the refugees? These smugglers put refugees at high risk in dangerous transport. We really need a refugee system that is more able to deal with people who are in fairly desperate situations and want to come to our country.

The other piece, as we see with the MV Sun Sea, is that once these vessels arrive in Canada and become derelict, it remains to the community to attempt to deal with them. Although the Nanaimo Shipyard is monitoring the vessel daily to ensure there is no environmental danger to local waters, we now have a derelict vessel sitting in a Nanaimo Shipyard. In fact, the taxpayers are actually footing the bill for this. What we really need is meaningful legislation to deal with derelict vessels, which is a little aside to this. Once again, I call up on the government to support Bill C-231.

When it comes to people arriving by sea, other countries have tried similar laws. I have a note here that states that similar laws in Australia have met with opposition from Amnesty International, which has started a campaign to tackle the same misinformation surrounding refugees who arrive by boat. The rethink refugees campaign highlights the fact that it is legal under international law to arrive by boat and that the vast majority of those who do are in fact legitimate claimants.

We have heard the New Democrats speak in the House about the Canadian experience with the Vietnamese refugees, the boat people. We know that the Vietnamese people were accepted as refugees and became a very important part of many of our communities.

In the time I have left I will talk about a couple of other problems with the bill. In analyzing Bill C-4, one of the problems is designated claimants. The minister would be able to designate a group of refugees as an irregular arrival if he or she believes that an examination cannot be conducted in a timely manner, or if it is suspected that people are being smuggled for profit or a criminal organization or terrorist groups are involved in the smuggling. Designated claimants would then subject to all kinds of special rules. One of the concerns with that particular aspect of the bill is that it would create two classes of refugee claimants.

With regard to detention, designated claimants, including children, would be mandatorily detained on arrival or on designation. There would be no review by the Immigration and Refugee Board on their detention for a year. Release would only be possible if they are found to be a refugee, if the IRB orders their release or he minister decides that there are exceptional circumstances. However, I have a note indicating that the IRB cannot release a person if the government says that the person's identity has not been established. Even then, the IRB cannot intervene.

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

There are a number of other clauses but I want to touch on the appeal aspect. Decisions on claims by designated persons could not be appealed to the Refugee Appeal Division. This is a discriminatory practice and risks violating provisions in the refugee convention, similar to the government's attempt to exclude nationals from designated countries from the appeal in previous legislation.

The next concern is the humanitarian compassion applications. Designated persons could not make humanitarian compassion applications or apply for temporary resident permits for five years. The concern with this particular aspect is that this would be an undue barrier for humanitarian and compassionate claims. It may be a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child since there would be no opportunity to consider the best interests of the child.

Another concern is the retroactive designations. The minister has been able to make retroactive designations for arrivals in Canada since March 31, 2009. For example, people on the Sun Sea, which I mentioned, could be designated. It makes no sense that someone can go back retroactively and impose that kind of penalty on people.

The New Democrats are not alone in raising concerns around this legislation. A news article in Embassy highlights a group of lawyers and others who have come together to highlight the problems with this legislation. This article in Embassy states:

The group wants to act “as a strong counter balance” to “current policy trends seeking to limit refugee rights in Canada,”... “More than ever, lawyers and academics across Canada must coordinate their efforts to protect human rights, preserve the Charter, and defend asylum seekers,”....

The article goes on to talk about the definitions around human smuggling and the fact that human smuggling has already been covered in other parts of the legislation.

I urge members of the House to vote against this bill and take a serious look at the real problems with our immigration system.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her comments, although I would like to point out that most, if not all, of what she said is inaccurate.

I will point out a couple of examples. She spoke about the Vietnamese boat people as somehow being analogous to smuggled illegal migrants coming to Canada. That is an insult to the Vietnamese boat people, who fled Communist persecution in Vietnam, went to regional processing centres established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Southeast Asia, submitted their claims for assessment, were determined to be convention refugees by the UNHCR and were then referred for resettlement by the UNHCR to countries like Canada, which invited them to come here in an orderly fashion.

That is how the international refugee protection system is supposed to work. It does not work by paying smugglers up to $50,000 to bypass the system, in this case often going from Tamil Nadu in India to Thailand or Malaysia and then to Canada, bypassing 24 other countries and multiple regional protection opportunities--and by the way, where is the persecution in Thailand?

She also mentions the charter. All it requires is that an oral hearing on credibility be granted before a decision-maker by the asylum claimant, which in the bill is a right that would be afforded to all, even to smuggled migrants.

Finally, it does nothing to violate the refugee convention because it fully respects our obligations of non-refoulement under the convention. We would not return anyone who has been deemed by our legal system to face danger or persecution.