Bill C-12

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

An Act respecting certain measures relating to the security of Canada's borders and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system and respecting other related security measures

Part 1 amends the Customs Act to provide the Canada Border Services Agency with facilities free of charge for carrying out any purpose related to the administration or enforcement of that Act and other Acts of Parliament and to provide officers of that Agency with access at certain locations to goods destined for export. It also includes transitional provisions.
Part 2 amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to create a new temporary accelerated scheduling pathway that allows the Minister of Health to add precursor chemicals to Schedule V to that Act. It also makes related amendments to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Police Enforcement) Regulations and the Precursor Control Regulations .
Part 3 amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and the Cannabis Act to confirm that the Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, make regulations exempting members of law enforcement from the application of any provision of the Criminal Code that creates drug-related inchoate offences when they are undertaking lawful investigations.
Part 4 amends the Oceans Act to provide that coast guard services include activities related to security and to authorize the responsible minister to collect, analyze and disclose information and intelligence.
Part 5 amends the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act to authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to disclose, for certain purposes and subject to any regulations, personal information under the control of the Department within the Department and to certain other federal and provincial government entities.
It also amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to authorize the making of regulations relating to the disclosure of information collected for the purposes of that Act to federal departments and agencies.
Part 6 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) eliminate the designated countries of origin regime;
(b) authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to specify the information and documents that are required in support of a claim for refugee protection;
(c) authorize the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board to determine that claims for refugee protection that have not yet been referred to the Refugee Protection Division have been abandoned in certain circumstances;
(d) provide the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration with the power to determine that claims for refugee protection that have not yet been referred to the Refugee Protection Division have been withdrawn in certain circumstances;
(e) require the Refugee Protection Division and the Refugee Appeal Division to suspend certain proceedings respecting a claim for refugee protection if the claimant is not present in Canada;
(f) clarify that decisions of the Immigration and Refugee Board must be rendered, and reasons for those decisions must be given, in the manner specified by its Chairperson; and
(g) authorize regulations to be made setting out the circumstances in which the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration or the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness must designate, in relation to certain proceedings or applications, a representative for persons who are under 18 years of age or who are unable to appreciate the nature of the proceeding or application.
It also includes transitional provisions.
Part 7 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) authorize the Governor in Council to make an order specifying that certain applications made under that Act are not to be accepted for processing, or that the processing of those applications is to be suspended or terminated, when the Governor in Council is of the opinion that it is in the public interest to do so;
(b) authorize the Governor in Council to make an order to cancel, suspend or vary certain documents issued under that Act, or to impose or vary conditions, when the Governor in Council is of the opinion that it is in the public interest to do so;
(c) for the application of an order referred to in paragraph (b), require a person to appear for an examination, answer questions truthfully and produce all relevant documents or evidence that an officer requires; and
(d) authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations prescribing circumstances in which a document issued under that Act can be cancelled, suspended or varied, and in which officers may terminate the processing of certain applications made under that Act.
Part 8 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to add two new grounds of ineligibility for claims for refugee protection as well as powers to make regulations respecting exceptions to those new grounds. It also includes a transitional provision respecting the retroactive application of those new grounds.
Part 9 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to, among other things,
(a) increase the maximum administrative monetary penalties that may be imposed for certain violations and the maximum punishments that may be imposed for certain criminal offences under that Act;
(b) replace the existing optional compliance agreement regime with a new mandatory compliance agreement regime that, among other things,
(i) requires every person or entity that receives an administrative monetary penalty for a prescribed violation to enter into a compliance agreement with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (the Centre),
(ii) requires the Director of the Centre to make a compliance order if the person or entity refuses to enter into a compliance agreement or fails to comply with such an agreement, and
(iii) designates the contravention of a compliance order as a new violation under that Act;
(c) require persons or entities referred to in section 5 of that Act, other than those already required to register, to enroll with the Centre; and
(d) authorize the Centre to disclose certain information to the Commissioner of Canada Elections, subject to certain conditions.
It also makes consequential and related amendments to the Retail Payment Activities Act and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Administrative Monetary Penalties Regulations and includes transitional provisions.
Part 10 amends the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act to make the Director of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada a member of the committee established under subsection 18(1) of that Act. It also amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to enable the Director to exchange information with the other members of that committee.
Part 11 amends the Sex Offender Information Registration Act to, among other things,
(a) make certain changes to a sex offender’s reporting obligations, including the circumstances in which they are required to report, the information that must be provided and the time within which it is to be provided;
(b) provide that any of a sex offender’s physical characteristics that may assist in their identification may be recorded when they report to a registration centre;
(c) clarify what may constitute a reasonable excuse for a sex offender’s non-compliance with the requirement to give at least 14 days’ notice prior to a departure from their residence for seven or more consecutive days;
(d) authorize the Canada Border Services Agency to disclose certain information relating to a sex offender’s arrival in and departure from Canada to law enforcement agencies for the purposes of the administration and enforcement of that Act;
(e) authorize, in certain circumstances, the disclosure of information collected under that Act if there are reasonable grounds to believe that it will assist in the prevention or investigation of a crime of a sexual nature; and
(f) clarify that a person who discloses information under section 16 of that Act with the belief that they are acting in accordance with that section is not guilty of an offence under section 17 of that Act.
It also makes a related amendment to the Customs Act .

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

The hon. member for Markham—Unionville has the floor.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague just asked a question that is irrelevant to what I just talked about.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola.

If we want to talk about relevance, I would remind the member for Winnipeg North that yesterday, when I introduced a bill on intimate partner violence, a bill that has been widely accepted by so many and is about as non-partisan a bill as we can get, he talked about its being “American-style” politics and performative. I question the member's talking about other people doing such things, when he did that very thing.

My colleague, on the other hand, outlined what he called half measures, areas we need to improve. I wonder whether he could expand on that.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the half measures are not addressing the issues—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Order. Let us end the side conversation.

The hon. member for Markham—Unionville can resume his answer, briefly.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the half-measures in Bill C-12 would not address anything apart from what we already have. It would just be patching up bills that should have been repealed, Bill C-5 and Bill C-75, to truly attack the roots of the problems.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Scarborough—Woburn, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to re-approach the question asked by one of the members on this side.

We think the first line of defence for mitigating crime in this country is building a relationship with law enforcement. The Leader of the Opposition clearly showed huge disrespect towards some of the top RCMP and police officials in this country.

Does the member opposite think that in order for us to move forward as a country, as a government and as members we need to have a respectful relationship with our top law enforcement?

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the root of the problem is at the bill level and the policy level. The execution of bills is dependent on the proper set of policies that the government will have to table in order to fix all our issues. Right now, Bill C-12 is not addressing them.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the bill is being brought forward at a time when the Liberals are trying to address a lot of failures that are a result of their 10 years in government.

I am wondering whether the member wants to speak more to the Liberal failure to address crime and to the policies they brought forward that have made crime worse.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the bill, as I said earlier, would do only half the job. It should be addressing the fundamentals of fixing up the borders, fixing up the Criminal Code and repealing Bill C-75 and Bill C-5 to really discourage criminal acts. We need to fix all these issues fundamentally, not just do a half-assed job.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I will just caution members about language in this place. Certain words would be considered unparliamentary.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Niagara South.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to participate in the debate on this split border bill, Bill C-12.

My riding of Niagara South is a border riding. The town of Fort Erie borders the city of Buffalo. The connection between Canada and the United States in my riding runs deep in our DNA. Everyone I know in every part of my riding has ties to western New York. Crossing the Peace Bridge was like simply crossing the street. Relationships and, indeed, every aspect of our region are, or were, tied to something or someone in the Buffalo or Niagara Falls, New York area. We cheered for the Sabres, of course, unless the Leafs were in town, in which case the KeyBank Center in Buffalo was often filled with a majority of Canadians. We were part of the Bills Mafia and lined up to cross the bridge to tailgate with our American friends.

We do not so much anymore. I am incredibly saddened by the current issues we are facing: trade disputes, tariffs and the strain and stress those are placing on literally thousands of people employed in my riding because we are a border community. Our cross-border business ties have become part of the very bone structure of Niagara South. Niagara South is a great example of what can be built with strong trade links and binational and international commerce.

I spent a lifetime in the local business community helping people grow their enterprises, commercialize their products and find markets in and outside Canada. We have struggled over the past 10 years with the brain drain of ideas flowing south to where capital is more readily available. Recent market machinations mean that our already-weakened innovation sector is at even greater risk. We are in a kind of economic purgatory right now. We have caved to Donald Trump after a decade of missed opportunities, failed industrial and innovation policy and declining productivity. We are now watching the Stellantis deal literally implode before our eyes, losing a long-term key investment and 3,000 jobs. This is a massive failure. There are repercussions to our trade failure, which the Prime Minister said is a rupture. It is an interesting case study in economic impotence.

Canadians want solutions, but the government has proposed none. The silence on the file, outside of platitudes and bold but meaningless political hyperbole, tells me that the guy who said he could deal with Trump is appeasing him or simply hoping to wait him out. The guy who said he would engage in nation-building projects simply announced old ones.

In my riding, the Peace Bridge is one of the most critical border crossings in Canada, facilitating over $50 billion in trade every year. Tourism from our American friends also drove our local economy.

An issue that came up during the election relates again, to the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie. Transport Canada invested $5 million, and the Peace Bridge authority also invested $5 million, to build new infrastructure to scan commercial vehicles leaving Canada. This is called the Peace Bridge pre-arrival readiness evaluation project, or PARE.

Multi-energy portal technology exists to scan the contents of trailers, containers and vehicles while the vehicle continues to move at around 10 kilometres an hour through the scanning lanes. It identifies what is actually inside these vehicles. We know that only a small percentage of containers in the major ports in Canada are actually inspected. This is why thousands of stolen cars are being exported to distant criminal markets.

This MEP technology is universally used in southern U.S. ports of entry and exit and can provide a full inventory of contents within a minute or two. This technology is not new, but for some reason Canada has dropped the ball on this in the most egregious way. Canada and taxpayers invested $10 million to build the infrastructure for this scanning equipment at the base of the Peace Bridge on the Canadian side two years ago. Guess what. The United States government invested $30 million, literally giving us this technology here in Canada. All we had to do was build the infrastructure, and we did.

Unfortunately, Canadian bureaucracy has held this project up because we cannot seem to get the Canadian nuclear regulatory authority to green-light the technology, a technology already safely and widely deployed around the world.

For over a year now, this infrastructure has lain unused at the base of the Peace Bridge and the scanning equipment has sat in storage somewhere in Baltimore, waiting for the Canadian government to live up to its end of the bargain. This technology is pretty amazing. Using state-of-the-art scanning, we can get a full history of the trucks that cross the border, such as driving records, the track record of the company crossing, e-manifest verifications and facial recognition for matching driver identity. We get a complete data package on the vehicle in minutes. This expedites trade and safety. It lowers emissions and commercial congestion. It expedites the identification of contraband and stolen goods.

Last week, I heard a minister across say something about scanning equipment being put into the budget, but I am not sure who it was. If this technology is being considered, my question is this: What took the government so long?

The government is talking big about beefing up our security at borders. This bill is supposed to have a major role in this, but we have been standing on the shoreline of this project and missed the proverbial boat to solve one of the most pressing problems plaguing Canadians right now: the theft and export of stolen vehicles. Even ministers of the Crown are not immune to this, one having had his vehicle stolen twice. The anxiety Canadians feel over the lack of response to this epidemic is palpable. We no longer feel safe in our safe zones and neighbourhoods.

The Prime Minister was in Niagara last week reannouncing old announcements. I would bet a dollar or two that he had no idea this technology was sitting at the base of the Peace Bridge. If he really wanted to look at game-changing opportunities, he would have stood there and fixed the bureaucratic logjam. Instead, he regurgitated old announcements and called it news.

I wrote to the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources and the Minister of Transport in July urging them to get involved and fast-track this technology out of the bureaucratic logjam. Four months later, it is crickets. Is it any wonder Trump is taking advantage of us? We cannot even launch a project that is already built.

What about those 1,000 new jobs at the border? We have been hearing about these extra 1,000 border officers, a high-profile announcement with zero action. I have qualified constituents who have been waiting for months after applying with no response and no callback. No one at the CBSA has an idea of how this can be done. There is simply not enough training capacity.

There are other issues facing the CBSA that need to be fixed. Suicide rates in the organization have rocked its members. We need to pay attention to the entire cultural structure before making absurd political announcements.

Finally, I need to talk about one very serious issue related to this bill. Proposed section 6 requires operators of international border crossings, like the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie and the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, to provide existing, new or significantly expanded assets free of charge to the CBSA upon a simple request.

The Peace Bridge, unlike others in Canada, is owned by and operated through a binational authority, with no taxpayer or public funding. The operations of the bridge are managed through independent revenue streams or, in simple terms, tolls. This legislation imposes a blanket requirement on the Government of Canada to demand investment in new infrastructure without a financial contribution. This is an open-ended and serious flaw in the legislation. What it means directly is that, for non-federally owned or controlled border bridges, the only way to pay for capital expansion for federal freebies is through tolls.

There are federally owned bridges, such as Blue Water Bridge, Thousand Islands Bridge and Seaway International Bridge. Under proposed section 6, the costs would be borne by the government because it owns these border crossings, which is not the case with the Peace Bridge. This is a classic government download on the consumer and a lack of organizational understanding. Worse, it manifestly disregards the interests of local residents. The government needs to look at this unfair provision and make changes to ensure there is a level playing field. The legislation imposes a double standard.

There is so much more I could talk about regarding this bill, but time does not permit. There are serious issues to fix here. I hope the government will pay attention to the points I have raised. My riding's economy, people, businesses and jobs are inextricably linked to Canada and U.S. trade. Please let there be no absurd reannouncements of old projects. We have real problems to fix.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Scarborough—Woburn, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government takes our borders quite seriously, especially strategic borders like Niagara and others in Ontario. There is the largest infrastructure project to build a great bridge out in Windsor. There is investment in these regions because we know it is part of our economic trade and development, and it connects us to our largest trade partner.

However, I want to talk about a serious issue: the Leader of the Opposition and his comments around law enforcement. Recently, he made a comment that really broke down the trust between law enforcement and, I believe, legislators, especially the Conservative opposition.

I want to know if the member believes that a strong relationship with our top law enforcement personnel across this country is essential for building a stronger border. It is yes or no?

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the interesting components of the member's question is that it has nothing to do with this bill.

Let us talk about law enforcement. With respect to the CBSA, we hear about the 1,000 jobs being created. I have talked to people at the CBSA and people who have applied for the jobs. There has just been no response. The people who run the CBSA just point out the actual annual turnover of officers, either through resignation or retirement. Unfortunately, lately, there has also been a series of suicides. That has impacted the ability of the CBSA to operate effectively. There is a personnel issue here.

The CBSA would hire 1,000 new employees every year, given the opportunity. That is the importance of law enforcement at our—